Chapter 27: People in the Wrong Places

It was time for dinner. Sherry ended up staying with them at Lens’s insistence.

Page thanked Lens for cooking for them with a hug, which Lens fidgeted a little bit over. “Y-you were never this touchy!”

It became obvious to everyone what No Inhibitions implied. It was … very literal.

“You never thought of dating me?” Page asked—failing to raise any eyebrows. She’d been asking this for a while, already.

Kalender looked around for help, but they all quietly continued eating, and tacitly agreeing to use Kalender as the ranging shot to gauge any changes in Page.

He sighed. “I mean, what do I get out of dating you that I don’t already?”

Page was about to speak, but—wait, he’s right. Even so, she still replied with things she knew would be easily shot down.

“You get to see me every day?”

“Done.”

“We get to go out, just the two of us?”

“Done.”

“You get to kiss me?”

Kalender went quiet. Everyone slowly looked to him. He’s actually considering it.

“So you’re a man, after all,” Jyn remarked with a smirk.

“I-it’s not like that,” Kalender timidly explained. “I’m not hot over it, alright? A kiss can mean a lot of things. I was just trying to figure out what it would mean to me.” He looked to Page. “Besides, there’s also what it would mean to you.”

“It … doesn’t have to mean anything?” she replied.

Kalender shook his head. “Now that’s just hurting my feelings.” He theatrically clutched his chest.

“W-wait!”

“A girl who means a lot to me, and the me who doesn’t mean anything—oh, the tragedy!”

“C’mon, that’s not what I meant!” Page flung a potato slice at Kalender. He deftly impaled it in mid-air it with his fork and ate it.

“Hey! Don’t play with my hard work!” Lens chided.

Page deflated. “Fiine…” She looked to Kalender. “Hmm. So, can I kiss you?”

“Why?” Kalender asked.

“Why not?” she replied. She had very little motive other than trying it out.

Kalender smirked. He flipped out a cookie from his pocket. Page’s eyes locked onto it.

“Prove thyself affectionate and worthy of affection,” he decreed in a mock, booming voice, “and be rewarded!”

Page’s brain buffered for a second. “So I can kiss you? And you’ll even give me a cookie?!” T’was a good deal.

Kalender sighed. “Just to be clear, I can tell if you’re being affectionate or just doing things for the sake of it, okay?”

What a difficult guy! “C’moon, just let me kiss you!”

“Cookie revoked.”

“Wha—” Page was in despair.

“And go kiss Lens or something. I’m sure you’ll get a nice reaction out of her.”

“Huh?! Don’t foist her off on me!” Lens desperately searched for a counterattack. Ah! Wait, I’ve got ammunition! “Besides! You haven’t said anything about what kissing her would mean to you!”

All eyes went back to Kalender—an expert deflection by Lens. She pushed up her glasses and continued chewing with a smug look.

Page’s expression had little stars twinkling around her. Her hands were balled up in front of her, waiting for Kalender’s answer.

“Ah, well, this is embarrassing… I’d totally go for a kiss on the cheek at most. I think that’s the most exact way I can express what Page means to me? Or how I’d like her to mean to me, anyway.” We haven’t even hugged, after all.

“A cheek kiss? Good enough!” Page pumped a fist in the air. She really just wanted to try things out.

Kalender glared at her. “So what’s your kiss going to mean to you?”

“A-ah.” Even if she’d said that it didn’t have to mean anything, she didn’t say that it meant nothing. “I—well, um…”

You can do it. Everyone had that thought.

“… ‘Thank you,’ I guess?”

“I know what you mean,” Jyn added. “If I had your character, I would definitely reward Kalender with a momentary ‘thank you’ such as that.”

“Oh geez, guys…” Kalender scratched his cheek, looking away. He looked to Jyn. “I could thank you, too, maybe?”

Jyn had to parse that for a moment. Do … you want to kiss me? She turned bashful for a split second, twirling the pasta on her plate around.

“Me, too!” Page cut into the developing pink atmosphere. “Jyn, let me kiss you!”

Kalender and Jyn shared a look, acknowledging each other as equals—in carrying the burden of coralling the creature they have unleashed, the one known as Page.

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Lens would have to carry that burden for tomorrow, however, as reinforcements from the Temple of Minimine were due to arrive. Most likely, they would launch the expedition within the same day.

After an intense weapons manufacturing session, Kalender ended up re-inventing cleaning magic in a hurry, and he got into Page’s bed with Jyn. He tossed Page into Lens’s bedroom; despite the latter’s complaints, they ended up falling asleep together, anyway.

As for the Maid … Don't ask.

***

Dawn broke together with the rumble of far-off lightning. Even the window panes rattled a bit.

A little bit of a foreboding start for the day, but I guess I’ll roll with it.

Kalender and Jyn managed to convince Page to stay in town, and Lens to keep Page under control. Attaching “the fate of the expedition depends on it” at the end of everything somehow worked.

The two went to the plaza, where a larger-than-usual complement of town guard had formed up together with a more loose collection of Priestesses and Clerics. Tak was at the head of them all.

The two went up to her, setting down several bags of goodies, all together weighing fifty kilos. The weapons manufacturing went pretty well the other night. They held off on distributing the weapons out in the open like this, though. It wouldn’t do to get the town guard jealous, not to mention painting a huge target on Kalender’s back.

Tak approached them and greeted them with a smile. “M’lord, Knight Jyn, twenty-one servants of Minimine stand ready.”

“Won’t they be tired? They just arrived today, didn’t they?” Kalender asked.

“Not to worry. They arrived late last night, and are well-rested,” Tak assured him. “Rather than that, I bring news from Luceria.”

“Luceria?” Jyn raised an eyebrow. “Where is she?”

“She has been stalking the forest west for the last two days. It seems the undead have increased in number. She will meet us at the mouth of the forest once we depart.”

“Increased enough to warrant the participation of the town guard?” Jyn asked.

“They will not be accompanying us into the forest. Still, Commander Tana saw to it to start mobilizing more reservists. The undead will eventually push monsters out of the forest and into the path of this town, after all.”

Jyn nodded. She looked to Kalender. “Right,” he said. “Priestess Tak, the results are in. It’s looking generally good, but let’s talk about the details on the way.” He looked back to the bags of guns. The by-standing Clerics were already eyeing them with some excitement. “And maybe we can distribute these somewhere?”

“Ah, the new equipment. We can use the magic practice field. It’s been reserved together with the general training field for the entire day for the reservists, but Commander Tana extended her hospitality for our expedition to use it this early morning.”

Several Clerics volunteered to carry the weapons bags. These ones wore much plainer coats than the elites that Kalender and Page had met the day before, but they weren’t any less armed. Halberds and other short polearms were common, and each one had with them a travel pack.

“They’ll be carrying all of that with them?” Kalender asked. He walked together with Jyn and Tak, tailing the ant line of Clerics.

“Blades, ropes, utilities, and rations are all very much necessary,” Tak explained. “Being cornered by the undead is relatively uncommon, but we would not be caught unprepared in such a case.”

They passed through the training field, where Lens and Page waved hello from the shack. Page jogged over to them, running into Kalender’s side and wrapping her arms around him.

“Hello!” she greeted. Delight spread across Kalender’s face as they twirled around somewhat. The only thing missing was him hugging her back—he couldn’t, not with Page collaring his arms together. Lens finally caught up to her, standing behind Page with crossed arms and a smirk.

“Yes, yes, hello both of you,” Kalender greeted back. He managed to free one hand and lightly ruffled her hair. “We’ve got no time to have fun or chat, sadly.”

“Aww!”

Oh my god, stop being cute—or not? Kalender pried himself out of her arms and turned her around, grabbing her arms, and making her hug Lens, instead.

After sobbingly saying goodbye, they were finally in the magic practice field.

The Clerics lined up to watch Kalender’s demonstration of the handgun. They all jerked back in sync when he fired his first shot, but otherwise, they quickly figured out what was going on.

The instruction was as straightforward as “Drop bullets into the handle, close it, point, aim, put 0.25 MP.” The Clerics had an MP capacity of between 5 and 31, which made the weapon practical for all of them.

Once the demonstration finished, some of them started discussing among themselves—like how the normal earth bullet spell was quieter, but the handgun had a higher fire rate and slightly lower MP consumption. Kalender decided to be hands-free in this regard. He wasn’t a fighter, after all.

Of course, he also supplied the four elites with their weapons. The scout received a more refined version of the suppressed sniper airgun—now equipped with a magic scope!—while the archer received a bundle of explosive arrows. He gifted the leader a fancy-looking pair of handguns and a laser pointer—and she was a lot happier with the laser pointer. The simple things in life, I guess.

The blade dancer gave him her longsword, arming sword, and short sword—a sword for all occasions. She apologized profusely, but it was fine. All Kalender really needed to do was slap a piece of paper on each one and dump 1 MP into it, and it’d self-engrave onto whatever surface it was on—and bam, instant electric sword.

Each paper had two magic circles: the one being engraved, and a smaller one, tucked away in the corner, doing the engraving. The paper had to be flush against the surface being engraved, since the magic amounted to invisible chisels cutting into the pattern on the paper. This also effectively shredded the paper itself—by design, because infinite-use magic circles which could be easily misplaced were just too terrifying for this world. Jyn convinced him of this after Lens nearly turned her wood stove into an induction cooker just last night.

While he was sitting on a log and slapping on those fancy magic stickers, he was explaining Page’s options to Tak.

“Comparing with Jyn’s options, I think there’s a good chance that at least one of the options has something to do with negating some aspect of the curse,” Kalender suggested. “Not guaranteeing anything with just a sample size of two, though.”

Tak nodded. “I see. We will proceed with your proposal, then.”

Luceria had reminded her that the Insane Minimine would most likely get stronger as her Affection progressed deeper, potentially overpowering the Pebble. She had to gamble on fate that Kalender’s intervention would provide a more palatable option.

“How, though?” Kalender asked. “It just occurred to me that we’re sort of going to the temple for no particular reason. I just need to meet Minimine, right? So we don’t really need to go there, right?”

“There is a reason, m’lord,” Tak replied. “Temples to my goddess, and other gods and goddesses, besides, are not just divine sanctuaries that impede the patron goddess’s enemies, but also act as locuses of power for them.”

“Why … do we need that?”

“My goddess must manage the River of Souls, which she cannot do with a turbulent mind. If both of her halves merge, she may be … ‘tame,’ by human standards, but it is best for her to be in the temple as a crutch so that the River of Souls may continue flowing, lest her heart remain conflicted and the flow wavers.”

Guess we’re going there after all, huh?

The party finished their preparations, and they cut across town—sallying forth from the western gate, where passing adventurers gawked at the Clerics, and thereafter deciding to take the day off today.

They, no doubt, concluded that a very serious event was about to transpire, and they wanted nothing to do with it.