Chương 21: Book 1, Chapter 21: Helping Hands

John was still fuming as he followed the cart back to town, his eyes burning a hole in the back of Rin's head between checking the surrounding forest for threats. Strangely, the woman who had threatened to cut him down a mere hour ago was… surprisingly pliant after he exploded at her, although he still wasn't sure if she actually felt guilty or if there was something else beyond his understanding at work. It was almost creepy how quiet Rin was; she had hardly said a word since they had left the noodle shop.

His head twinged, and he grimaced. It had been a few years since he got so mad he got a tension headache, but it seemed Rin really knew how to bring out the worst in him. Well, at least the extra muscle helped. John wouldn't have wanted to haul that cart full of planks, tools, and whatnot, especially since it would probably expose his lack of superstrength that seemed typical amongst the magical here, and he'd feel awful about getting someone else to do it.

Part of him still felt weirded out by Rin knowing where he lived, but given that she knew about his most recent encounters with the local tax collectors, she could just locate one of them to press for where he lived. While he would have preferred to keep the location of his home entirely secret, fate had other plans. Besides, if it was some unfindable cave in the woods somewhere, not only would he have probably lost it himself, but Yuki would have likely never found it.

She might have remembered the rough location, but given how much could change in however many years she was imprisoned… He hated to admit it, but despite all the pains her presence had caused him, he wasn't fool enough to deny that her arrival gave him a chance to improve his lot. What's done was done, in any case. Some small part of John was worried about how Rin spat up blood when Yuki struck her, but both seemed relatively unbothered, so he put it out of his mind.

It was probably some bullshit Unbound durability thing, much like how Yuki could walk around with a good chunk of her leg gone.

"So, that's what you're like when you're angry," Yuki trilled.

"I never would have thought it."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, tearing his gaze away from their attacker to the disguised kitsune by his side.

"Your voice. I expected cold fury from you, but that? You nail 'angry but mostly disappointed father' rather well," Yuki teased, a grin spreading across her face.

"I guess… that's just how it is now," John replied with a frown.

"Back home, I used to just get screaming mad and then shut down." Several years of late-night gaming binges of the most infuriating PvP games on the market proved that… and might have caused it, now that he thought of it. Hmm.

"Maybe a few years in the woods made me more reasonable, as crazy as it seems." She laughed, light and airy, without that characteristic vulpine gekker thanks to her disguise.

"Well, perhaps in a few months, the village-folk will know who to go to if they need a gaggle of children brought into line."" Please, no," he groaned, shaking his head.

"I'm awful with kids. If anyone is stupid enough to leave their child with me, I'm caffeinating them to the gills and teaching them to swear in both languages I know." She narrowed her eyes at him.

"I haven't taught you any swears yet."

"I have time to study up from the local bars or gambling dens before you find any random local children to dump on me," he flatly stated. Yuki laughed.

"What is caffeinating, anyhow? You slipped into your native tongue there," she asked. John tensed and his eyes immediately snapped to Rin, but the dragon woman was still pulling the cart without giving any indication she was listening in. He supposed that, even if she was, it wasn't exactly a grand revelation that he was foreign; you just had to look at him.

"It's the verb related caffeine, a noun," John explained, but he took a moment to figure out how best to describe it without leaning on other English words.

"You know how some teas made with certain plants can energize you?" At her nod, he continued." Caffeine is what does it. What precisely it does is hard to explain and not my specialty, but I think plants have it in them to keep insects away. It's just a happy coincidence that it gives nice bursts of energy." Yuki's head tilted a bit, looking thoughtful.

"And it melts in water like sugar," she slowly responded, "which is why boiling the right leaves causes it to take on those properties, yes?" John gave her a thumbs up, and after a moment of the kitsune staring at the unfamiliar gesture, he awkwardly realized that the gesture didn't exist here, and his hand slowly dropped back down to his side.

"Something like that. Caffeine is water- soluble, meaning it dissolves in water, but I never really gave it too much thought beyond it working. I practically lived off the stuff at one point."

"Really now?" Yuki asked, although it felt more rhetorical than anything.

"Perhaps I should be asking you for some tea tips."" Nah." He huffed in English, looking off into the woods for any threats.

"I was more of a coffee guy. The caffeine withdrawals sucked something fierce when I first got ported here. Before you ask, it's a bit like tea, but you make it with a device that slowly pours water over these roasted and ground-up beans in a filter, and then it drips into a weird pot you pour from. I think it tends to be stronger than most teas, caffeine -wise. Bit bitter, but you can solve that easily."

"I see. If I happen across any coffee beans, would you do me the favour of preparing some?" Yuki asked, turning to look him in the eyes. Hesitantly, John turned her look and nodded.

"Sure. I make no promises it'll be good even if you find some, though. Back home, most of the work is done for you by the time you buy it, and even then, the device does about nine-tenths of the rest. You get them out of small bright red fruit, and the beans have two lobes and are coloured light tan." She clicked her tongue, looking off into the distance.

"It doesn't sound familiar," she admitted after a moment of silence.

"I'll keep an eye out, though, and if I see these mystical beans, I'll let you know." The conversation lost steam, and they drifted into companionable silence. John only noticed afterwards how less angry he was than a few minutes prior and sighed deeply. Well played, Yuki. He turned his gaze back to the dragon woman out front, keeping a careful eye on her as they walked back into town. The atmosphere was tenser than before.

Sure, before, people cleared out of their way, but now they were hurried about it, getting out of the way of their group like they were a speeding car. Was it directed at Rin? Him? Yuki? All of them? Did it even matter? They still quieted in their wake, like insects caught in the shadow of some great predator. He knew that if he was just some random person living his life and heard about a brawl between three superpowered strangers who showed up a few days ago, he wouldn't care too much about who started it.

It was just a miracle that nobody was hurt during that brawl. It felt like whatever little progress he made in ingratiating himself was instantly eroded, and his face fell into a sullen frown. There would be other chances, he hoped, once things stabilized a bit and the Nameless were dealt with. Of course, assuming the town was still here.

He hated to admit it, but if they pressed the Nameless population too hard without having a killing blow at the ready, they might decide to strike out against the town itself for an influx of wealth to counter, and they'd go through the place like a hot knife through butter. That was unacceptable. John didn't doubt that Yuki would have reached the same conclusion before him, though, and she would have likely raised the issue with his starvation plan if she thought it might cause such an event.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Before he could muse much further, they returned to the ruined diner, guilt eating at the bottom of his stomach once more.

"Right. Please put the cart out front, Rin. Rear end pointed to the entrance, please," he ordered. Despite everything, it still smelled much like it did before, even if there was a faint hint of sawdust.

"So it shall be!" she loudly declared, speaking up for the first time since her defeat, but there was still some brittleness to her voice, like she might crack at any moment. She quickly obeyed, eagerly maneuvering the cart into position before laying it down. What was with that woman? Whatever, at least she had her energy back because this would take a while. Granny Porridge—he really had to learn her real name, referring to her as that even internally felt awkward to him—hobbled out of the back.

She eyed the three of them up, before giving a positively withering glare to Rin, who wilted slightly under the attention.

"It's nice to see the two of you again," she said, smiling sweetly.

"Again, we're so sorry about this," John replies, wincing as one of the damaged tables collapsed in two halves, seemingly taking their presence as a signal to finally give up the ghost. It was a small mercy that neither of them went wild, throwing magical effects everywhere. Otherwise, the damage would have been more extensive.

As bad as it looked, most of these boards would be easily replaced, and many of the things that weren't were still intact enough for him to weld together, using a bit of filler material if needed. It was a small mercy that the damage to the walls seemed to be far away from anything load-bearing.

"I'm just happy you're helping fix things!" she exclaimed.

"Most Unbound wouldn't do that, you know? Most of the 'righteous' ones that wouldn't just write it off as part of justice getting done would just send some coin over and be done with it. Do you need anything?"

"No. Thank you, though," John affirmed, and the old lady wandered away into the back, out of sight. John flipped the tailgate down on the trailer, reached in, grabbed one of the crowbars he packed, and held it out.

"Rin? Please use this to tear the damaged floorboards and wall panels out," he requested. The woman in question quickly walked over with a surprising spring in her step, snagging the tool from his hand before jogging over to the place where Yuki punched her into the floor and started to pry the boards free. Seriously, what the hell was wrong with her? It probably wasn't his problem, and at least she was helpful, but it still bugged the hell out of him.

Still, she went to work enthusiastically, tearing out the damaged boards with ease that he honestly should have expected. Damned Unbound strength. Crouching down by a cleaved table, he maneuvered the two halves into place, starting to weld it. Still, it was awkward, and he had to keep shifting it to keep it from slipping. While the hardening process was fast, it wasn't instant, and John had to pick up various bits of shrapnel to fill the empty spaces from lost material. It was slow and steady work.

A presence settled beside him, and he glanced at Yuki's smiling disguise.

"And how might I help, Lord Hall?" There was a mild bite in how she pronounced his name, but—Oh. Ohhhhh. He was in trouble, wasn't he? Her "Yumi" disguise was kind of going around calling him by his first name, wasn't it? That was probably a pretty big breach of decorum. Still, why now? She had plenty of time to bring it up on the way over or when they were inside gathering stuff up—Obviously, Rin waited outside for that, at least.

"Ah," he started, sheepishly smiling.

"Would you mind holding this?" John gestured to the flipped-over table he was awkwardly handling, and she nodded, crouching down to help. A second set of hands made the job much easier, and the first table was fixed quickly. From there, all he had to do was scrape the excess material off, but that was easy with the vaguely magical chisel he brought along. Before he invented this tool, he would have expected this to take days, but as it was, they were blazing along.

The work of hours took minutes, and although they didn't look exactly like prior, the furniture was certainly functional at a bare minimum. Maybe Granny Porridge could use it as a marketing gimmick, claiming she had unique Unbound-made furniture with techniques impossible to replicate by mortal hands. At least, that was what he'd do, and he knew if he was a carpenter back home, he'd be positively boggled looking at the alien things the grains were doing here, so it might even work.

Soon enough, they were done with the furniture. The room still looked like the inside of a washing machine after someone tossed a brick in it, granted… not that John would know from experience.

"Lord Hall, I'm done!" loudly proclaimed a voice, and when he looked over, sure enough, Rin was standing by a rather large stack of boards. Most might as well have been halfway to pulp, and he was sure that most of them were more intact than that when he last checked. He guessed that would teach him to give someone with superstrength a crowbar and tell them to remove something without further instructions.

Now that he looked at those boards, though, very few nails were in them, held in place previously by rather impressive joinery… which he definitely did not have the skill to properly emulate. A bucket of screws it was. Figuring out how to make those sucked, and it certainly wasn't how they were done back home, but it was absolutely worth it.

"Oh, excellent!" John stood up after flipping the last table back into place with Yuki. It was a small mercy that everyone here favoured kneeling on the ground over using chairs. Otherwise, they would have had so much more work to do. Ugh, if they actually hit something load-bearing, he would have had to figure out a way to shim it up while he repaired it, and that would be— Well, there wasn't too much point in dwelling on it.

He grabbed one of the planks, placed it in one of the holes, and, noting it was close enough in size to work like his initial measurements suggested, nodded, measured the length, and marked the extra with a pencil and everywhere it would have to be screwed down underneath.

"Hey, Yuk—I mean, Yumi? Could you use the saw to cut off the last section I've marked at the end?" She wordlessly nodded in agreement, grabbing the saw and plank from the back and going to work. Normally, John would just use the table saw, but if there was anything that would give him away as not actually doing his magic, it'd be that, so he left it at home. At least he had his gauntlet for drilling.

"And for me?" asked Rin, who stood at stiff attention to the side. John handed her the bucket of screws, keeping the screwdriver for himself for a minute as Yuki handed the plank back to him. Curiously, she held one of the meaty screws, marvelling.

"Such craftsmanship…" she trailed off.

"So uniform, too!" She palmed another one, comparing them.

"These must have taken hours to do!" He shrugged. The process was easy when you could turn metal into a gel-like consistency and then run it across a thread-rolling die. Hell, he had the process mostly automated, given the amount he could go through on a big project.

"They're nothing special," John insisted with a shrug as he set the plank down on some debris to keep it level. From there, he put his gauntlet over one of the marked spaces, carefully positioned his fingers to make his drill-like focus very small, and excavated a small pilot hole before putting the wood in place and screwing the fastener in until it was level with the floor.

"Do you think you can manage to do that?" Obviously, she could, but whether she'd manage to not split the board was another matter entirely.

"Yes, my lord!" Rin eagerly replied, taking the screwdriver. Everything went… surprisingly well from there. Rin's long, sinewy tail swayed behind her as she focused on working, putting nearly as much energy and enthusiasm into it as fighting. Yuki did her work quickly and precisely, sawing planks with inhuman precision in seconds and grabbing the next plank as he and Rin worked. He almost forgot what working on a project like this with others was like. Despite the circumstances, it was soothing, in a way.

He lost himself in the drilling and marking, zoning out entirely, even as he took the occasional downtime to weld the edges of the planks that Rin had placed to stop draft—Shit, he could have just welded everything in place. Well, it's too late now, and this would stop warping, anyhow. He probably should be more worried about Rin deciding to attack him… but he doubted, weakened as she was, she could pound through his warding fast enough.

John grimly knew that if she tried, Rin would be a red smear in short order, although Yuki might blow her cover in doing so. To his surprise, the walls were only slightly more difficult than the floor, but he supposed that was what happened when you had two people with superhuman strength and coordination helping out. After all that, he stood back, basking in the glow of a job well done, surveying the room for anything else… but they were done. All that was left was to sweep up.

"Good work," he said, gathering some excess scrap and loading it back into the cart. After all, it wasn't as if he wouldn't find some use for it. Some sections were intact enough to use for small things, and much of the rest would make good fuel for fires. They weren't lacquered boards, just waxed, so they shouldn't throw off a bunch of toxic smoke.

"Thank you for your forgiveness, Lord Hall; I've learned much today!" Rin hurriedly spoke, falling onto her knees and bowing low to the ground enough that her forehead touched it. He blinked in utter bafflement.

"Really now?"

"Yes; your beneficence knows no bounds!" She really didn't have an off switch, huh?

"First, your harsh—but true—lesson about my carelessness, then your raw care for regular mortals, then the little ways you used magic… I was paying attention." John looked at Yuki, entirely baffled by this absurd cryptid who had, unfortunately, stumbled into his life. Her face was quirked up, her expression somewhere between realizing she had stepped in something filthy and someone realizing a report was due on Monday after a weekend of trying to forget about work.

Thankfully, Rin was too busy bowing and scraping to notice.

"The way you use your ki is absolutely inspiring!" Rin continued praising him.

"Where a lesser person would use a bonfire, you use a candle to accomplish the same." Oh, shit, she was watching him closely while he was drilling the holes, wasn't she?

"It would bring this humble Nagahama Rin great joy if you were to teach her! I'd be your sword and do whatever you wish!" …What? He could feel his headache coming back.