Chapter 62: Chapter 62 – Hugh: Amy the Archer

I woke up in my bed in my own dorm room again the next day, Thursday, feeling guilty for a couple of reasons. One, I was worried about Nat’s schoolwork. She’d wanted a distraction free evening, but, when I left her after escorting her up to a more populated floor of the library, she seemed so turned on from people noticing her braless state that I didn’t know how well she’d be able to study. I thought about it after I left and texted a suggestion to add another point to mental and specifically focus on her need to be able to concentrate. She’d sent back a blushing smiley face and told me she really wanted to try endurance.

Yeah, her chances of achieving a calm, unaroused mental state didn’t seem good.

The second reason I felt guilty was that I’d sloughed off my system responsibilities last night by not talking about my new skill with Nat. Literally every morning I felt like there was this pressure building, that things were about to come to a head and that I wasn’t prepared.

That feeling sucked.

It did, however, greatly motivate me to get my butt out of bed and go to the gym, where I made it to the thirty six minute mark on the bicycle. I felt like I was making real progress. After all, I wasn’t trying to train my endurance as much as I was trying to make myself push past the hurt when I was tired, and, when I started, thirty three seemed like a hard limit.

Classes went as normal. Due to privacy concerns, I didn’t appraise any girls. I did, however, pick out a random guy to test it on, and, as I expected, he was not a valid subject. I was very happy to be right.

The highlight of my day, prior to my evening plans with Nat, was going to Larry’s house. This time I had an open invitation to go directly to the backyard.

“Larry,” I said, “thanks again for doing this.”

“No problem. You’re a great story to tell at the LARPer meetups.”

I laughed. “Great. Now everyone is going to think I’m crazy.”

“I’m just impressed that you made it back for a second lesson.”

He led me through a routine that was very similar to the last one, practicing thrusts, strikes, and parries with particular attention paid to form and footwork. I thought I’d been attentive the first time around, but I was almost more of a perfectionist today than Larry. I wanted every move to be absolutely correct.

In the middle of our workout, Amy showed up, Without a word to either of us, she went off to the side and began shooting arrows at two targets, one near and one far.

I didn’t think much of it at the time as I was focused on the blade work, and, after a while, Larry called a break.

“Wow,” Larry said. “You’re putting in the work today. Good job.”

“I still feel like I’m not getting it, though.”

“It’s your second lesson. You’ll get there. Just give it time.”

That was the problem. My gut was telling me that time was one thing I didn’t have extra to give.

I wasn’t about to get into that discussion with him, though, so I just nodded. He went inside to grab us water, and, when he returned, I was looking in Amy’s direction and frowning.

“What?” Larry asked.

“When I met Amy and asked if she knew anyone into HEMA, she mentioned you, and I got the distinct impression that it wasn’t her thing. But there she is.”

“Ahh. She has zero interest in HEMA, but she’s into archery. One of the few memories that she has of her dad was him buying her one of those little toy bows with the arrows with the suction cups on the end.”

I kind of wanted to ask about what happened to her father, but it seemed like it would be a rude question.

“Anyway, she lives with her grandmother nearby, but they don’t have any room in their backyard for a range. When I set all this up, she asked if we could add the targets, and she’s been coming over three or four days a week since.”

I watched her for a few minutes. I wasn’t any judge of archers, but she definitely seemed to know what she was doing. All her arrows hit near dead center on the close target and nearly all in the center ring on the far one.

“So you knew her before LARPing?” I asked.

“Yeah. Grew up together.”

That was right. I think he said something last time about them going way back. It was hard to recall.

“You got her into LARPing, then?” I asked.

“The other way around, actually. I was always into outdoors stuff like hiking and camping and all that. She liked gaming, tabletop, boardgames, MMORPGs, all that. LARPing was kind of like a compromise that kept us hanging out.”

“Yeah. Gaming outside. Perfect.”

“Anyway, I eventually got big into the weapons part of it, and she found that she had a knack for the costumes. We’re not quite a tight as we used to be, but it’s nice that we still see each other regularly. A lot of people I used to be close to in high school, I literally never see anymore.”

The obvious did not escape me. Amy was a) a girl, b) a gamer, and c) already an accomplished archer. Talk about checking all the boxes.

The big issue for me, though, was that she’d done me a solid by connecting me to Larry, and I was going to pay her back by having her potentially risk her life? And that wasn’t even talking about all the sexual stuff that came into play.

I pondered the issue as Larry and I finished my lesson. My final conclusion was that I couldn’t just pass up this opportunity. I had to at least talk to her. So, instead of leaving right away, I wandered over to watch her shoot.

She finished up emptying a quiver before turning to me. “Glad you and Larry were able to work something out.”

“Yeah. He’s great. I really wanted to thank you for telling me about him.”

“You’re welcome. He’s a bit of a loner. I worry about him. New friends are good, even crazy ones.”

“He told you about that, huh?”

She laughed. “He can’t tell if you’re totally pulling his leg or if you’re dead serious.”

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “If you knew a litrpg apocalypse was coming, would you want access to a system or would you rather remain oblivious?”

“I get it.”

“Get what?”

“You’re writing a book,” she said. “That’s why you’re doing the HEMA stuff, why you’re asking these questions.”

I saw no need to deny that. Better to let her think what she wanted.

“So, the answer?” I asked.

“I’d definitely want the system.”

Interesting.

“Even if that put you on the front line?” I asked. “Maybe if you don’t get it, others can do the fighting. Maybe it doesn’t even impact you all that much.”

“No way would I pass it up. Nothing cool has ever happened to me. I’d take it.”

“It’s not all fun and games.” Well, it kind of had been for me up to that point. “There will likely be danger.”

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“We’re still talking hypotheticals, right?”

Oh. Yeah. Needed to watch my tone and verb tense.

“Sure. It’s important research, though.”

“I am positive that I’d take it. The chance to actually level up? Increase stats? Do magic? Yeah. No question.”

That was an awesome sign that she’d be very receptive to an invite. I had an even better way to tell, though, Too bad it felt so sleazy.

“Great answer. Thanks.” I paused. “One more question right quick. Let’s say that the protagonist had an appraisal skill that let him determine if a person would be a good match for the system, but that skill revealed a lot of really personal information about the person being appraised.”

She nodded. “Interesting moral quandary. By invading people’s privacy, you’re saving the world, but it’s still seems like a bad thing to do.”

“Seems?”

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, the one,” she said.

Wow! Great Star Trek reference. I think I liked this girl.

“I’m still worried about the privacy violation, though,” I said. “I know that I would hate someone finding out my innermost secrets like that, so I think the protagonist’s solution would be to ask the people permission to appraise them.”

“I see. He’s trying to absolve himself of wrongdoing, but does asking their permission actually do that?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, it depends on if they actually believe that he can really appraise them. It’s easy to give you my permission to, I don’t know, jump over the moon because I know you can’t actually do that. Is this protagonist going around saying he has a system? Does he have proof?”

“Maybe he claims he’s writing a book.”

She burst out laughing. “You are too funny. Larry’s going to die when I tell him about this conversation.”

“Would I be able to get your permission?”

“What kind of personal information?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“And it’s the only way for me to get access to the system?” she asked.

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Okay. I’m in. You can appraise me.”

“Thanks!”

I kind of got what she was saying about her permission being granted under false pretenses, but, honestly, it was good enough for me. I didn’t hesitate, quickly navigating screens to get the appraisal done.

Wow. I didn’t think I was going to be able to find a better match than that.

“Are you pretending to look at system screen?” she asked.

Oops.

“Have you ever heard of a link memory system? It’s a way of using visualization to commit facts to memory.”

That was a real thing I’d read about a long time ago, and I wasn’t lying. I was misdirecting.

Ugh. What kind of person was I turning into?

“Yeah. I actually have heard of that,” she said.

I shrugged. “Sorry if I was being rude.”

“It’s okay.”

I needed to introduce Nat to this girl because there was no way I was going to add another user without getting that crucial input.

“Hey, on a totally different topic, Larry told me you were really into costume design.”

“Yeah. It’s a good side hustle. Why?”

“My girlfriend and I have been thinking of doing up some outfits for her.”

“Oh. You’re going to do LARP? Is she already in the club? Do I know her?”

Oops. Again, I’d got her excited thinking I was interested in her hobby. I was an idiot.

“Sorry. We were thinking of a different kind of costume.”

“Oh,” Amy said. “Halloween. Yeah, that less than two months away. Best get started early.”

“Kind of.”

She looked puzzled, and I didn’t feel the need to enlighten her. I felt fine letting her retain her innocence a little longer.

“Anyway, are you working tonight?”

“Yeah. Night shift.”

“Would it be a huge imposition if I brought Natalie by the store?”

“That would be fine. I look forward to meeting her.”

What a nice girl! I hoped that Nat liked her. Then again, if we did add Amy to the party, that almost certainly at this point meant risking her life. Man, I hated that. Still, she seemed to relish the thought of having a system and she would be making a much more informed choice than Nat or Julia.

I hoped it would all turn out fine.

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