Chương 106: A perfectly reasonable course of action

Apparently, Sydney's specialty was closing the dungeons. Like, specifically, that was what she did in NLA. She was the woman people called when an angry concept of trigonometry blocked the road and tried to eat everyone trigonometrically. Just went into those things–solo, no less–reached the core and tore it into pieces. She had one hundred percent success rate, which made sense since she was still alive. People usually died when they didn't return from a dungeon.

That made her a top expert on all things dungeon, which was mighty convenient since Dennis needed to get his hands on one for hobo-saving purposes. Explaining his plan to the woman took only a few minutes. It wasn't a hard plan, after all – find a dungeon, make a portal, go in, get out, maybe grab a snack on the way back. To her credit, she listened to him patiently and without interrupting, which was a weird thing that happened to him more often than not lately.

"Nope," she said casually while rummaging through the bookshelf in the library room.

"That's not going to work. Hold this one, please." She handed him a heavy book. From a glance at the cover, it was a general encyclopedia. There was no way he was going to read it. Watching the wall dry would be less torturous. Thankfully, it was probably intended for El'el. Sucked to be her.

"That's totally gonna work," he muttered, taking the tome. Somehow, despite his conviction on how boring it probably was, his hands opened it to a random page almost on their own. He saw a picture of a plane, with a neat diagram of the flow of air currents.

"Huh."

"I'm not just trying to shut you down," Sydney continued while searching for another one.

"Damn, their system is a mess– it's not even a system, did they just put the books randomly on the shelves? What I'm trying to say is that there are multiple problems that need to be addressed with this plan of yours."

"I do need to save him," Dennis said quietly, but it was impossible not to notice his conviction. The sky was blue, the water wet, and Dennis had to save the guy. Damn, the way sonic booms actually worked was fascinating. Dennis thought it was just a thing that happened, but there were diagrams, and explanations, and–"Not stopping you from that," Sydney said.

"Just saying that we need to work on that plan."

"You gonna help?" She grunted noncommittally, holding another book close to her face, squinting. Did she have bad eyesight? Wasn't it supposed to be easily fixable with skills and stuff?

"Maybe," Sydney finally said after a pause.

"It's just a lot of risk and work for a rescue operation. We don't really do them anymore."

"You literally just need to tell me where to find a dungeon. I can do it on my own." She sighed, and put the book back.

"Whoever filled this library thought that Zarathustra is a good read," she muttered, frowning.

"Or they didn't think at all. I'll need to go to an actual library to find something worthwhile." She turned her head, looking at him.

"First, we don't have any active dungeons in the city right now. Not in the safe part of it, anyway. I'm dealing with them as they appear, before they grow too strong, so to get into one you'll have to either wait for a new one or stumble blindly through the old city in hopes of finding one." It was crazy stuff, but apparently fluids and gases worked the same in terms of fluid dynamics. So moving through air and moving through water should theoretically be the same thing from a Dexterity point of view.

Could the stat allow him to run on the ocean floor without water resistance? And if he could run on water, could he run on air? He paused his reading, placing a finger in the middle of the definition for Bernoulli's principle as a bookmark, and looked up.

"They're that rare?" he asked.

"Across the lived territory, we're getting one or two per week," she said, shrugging.

"We know about a few in the old city, but they're either too strong or too far away."

"I can handle too strong."

"If that 'hobo' survived this long, he can survive on his own a little bit more. What is the point of risking it if you can get your hands on a safer and closer dungeon just by waiting a day or two? The one where I can at least accompany you to keep El'el safe? That brings me to my second point – we do need our wonder elf safe and inside the city at least for a few days to write down everything useful she knows. Letting her go with you before that is just… To speak plainly, we won't let you.

Just the knowledge on enchanting could be a game changer if we spread it, and who knows what else she can teach us. She is too valuable." Dennis frowned, feeling the instinctual reaction to argue and fight at the mention that someone wouldn't 'let him' do something, but he could see Sydney's point. Just the knowledge of how to make 'water purification' circles could save countless lives. And if El'el knew magic like 'detect monster'? Communication magic? Wards? Portals?

If that stuff could be taught – she was literally the most important person in the world in terms of increasing humanity's chances of surviving the apocalypse. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Okay," he said quietly, fiddling with the book Sydney gave him.

"I guess I can wait for a few days. Just until a better dungeon appears, right? You'll tell me?" She nodded.

"I need time to calm down Christopher and manage the fallout with the Farmer's guild," she said.

"And then I'll have to make preparations in case you'll bring back more than just one survivor from that world. Mary's crew survived there, and it's likely that there are others. Everyone who survived there for that long will be decently strong. The sudden influx of many high-level puppies could be…" She sighed.

"Could be worse than the crisis you've already dropped on us. It could upset the power balance. There's… politics involved, as much as I wouldn't like to admit it. As with everything, preparation is key here. I need time to put the right people in right places, and to make the wrong people look the other way." She looked at him.

"Don't rush. We will do it the right way." The urge to go and save Gareth right now was strong, like all the ideas he got into his head were. But Sydney had a point. Maybe spending some time in the city wouldn't be that bad. He could use it to better study heroism. Find a tailor to make him a heroic costume. Maybe a blacksmith to take a look at Muramasa. Learn magic from El'el along with everyone else, ask her about ways to increase his Soul. Maybe even other stats?

His Strength was still laughably lacking, but that meant that it was possible for him to increase it by working out or something. Pumping some iron. He could start establishing his own brand, or find disasters to help out with. Surely there was a nasty boss monster somewhere, just waiting to be defeated so it could no longer eat people. He could–"Take some time to relax," Sydney said, interrupting his thoughts. The look she was giving him was strict, but not unkind.

It was like she was reading his mind, and didn't like what she saw.

"You're still a puppy. From what I gathered, you've been practically fighting nonstop since the event, and living like that for three months does nothing good for a psyche. Goblin hordes are nearly the worst starting spawn a town could have, and you fought through that. Not to mention that Echo business – that sounds like a literal horror story, not much better than being stuck in a particularly sadistic dungeon. The last thing anyone wants is for you to actually finally snap."

The idea of Dennis being crazy in some way was a particularly popular one, as far as he was aware. He was getting sick of it.

"Look, I'm completely fine–""Didn't you have a nightmare today?"

"I had it specifically because I need to go and save that dude, and– Wait, how did you know?"

"Lily told me." Dennis groaned.

"That doesn't count," he muttered dejectedly.

"Everyone has scary dreams now and then." Except him. He never had nightmares before. He decided to leave that part out.

"You can't claim I'm going crazy just because I had a weird dream. I bet you were dreaming of filing your taxes or something equally unhinged – that has to be worse."

"I wasn't. I dreamt of running through a meadow, happy and unburdened. There were fluffy bees singing songs alongside me."

"You're shitting me."

"I'm not," she said with a perfect poker face. Dennis had absolutely no idea if she was serious or not. She looked serious.

"I can at least help with clearing up some monsters or–""Please," she said, looking him straight in the eyes.

"Just allow yourself to stop. It will help." In the end, Dennis didn't know why he agreed. / - / Rest. How the fuck did people rest? Why the fuck did people rest? Dennis understood recovering from physical fatigue. Not that he used to work out or anything–well, his physical regimen had certainly improved since the end of the world–but he understood the idea. Muscles get tired so you wait for a bit, and then they're not tired and stronger than before. But 'mental' rest? Mental fatigue? He just didn't have it.

Presumably. With everything centered around a single goal, life was easy. Everything he did was the right thing. It was like breathing. It didn't take effort to pursue his goal. He didn't get tired. He didn't get distracted. Resting was for things like sleep. Body maintenance, basically. Sure, he could get bored or annoyed with the thing he did, like when he worked in retail to get Muramasa – but the idea of stopping or doing something else because he was mentally 'tired' just didn't exist.

After all, when all you had was one path, you never veered. Dennis didn't need to rest. Like, never. It was a foreign concept. He just lived his life, doing the things he wanted, and he never stopped. The thought of going back to the endless saving spree filled him with dread. The memory of the oppressive void in the world of nothingness made his skin crawl. Saving Gareth was important, but his intention of doing it as a quick 'in and out' wasn't a joke.

The thought of spending even an extra second in the Echo made him nauseous. Getting stuck in there again was a horror that he just avoided thinking about. It was a thought on the level of 'put it in a box and never ever think it again'. Not much better than thinking that he wasn't saving anyone right now, and he was pretty sure he could. There were a lot of things in the 'do not think' box. Sometimes it felt like the box didn't have enough space. Like it was going to burst.

He was pretty sure it was a Soul thing, somehow. And if it was, he was wary that he was slowly getting introduced to the wonderful world of not being able to do exactly one thing without stopping. Apparently, people dealt with that shit by 'resting'. Somehow. The specifics of the process kind of eluded him. Like, he just couldn't see how it would work. By specifically stopping and not pursuing his goals, he was supposed to somehow get better at pursuing his goals? How did that even look?

Something, something, drink tea, get enlightened while hiking, and now you've got Superman's mental fortitude? Yeah, he was completely lost.

"What are you doing?" Lily asked him as she walked into the main hall, a bowl of ice-cream in hand. He was mostly sitting still and staring at the wall for the last hour or so.

"How do you rest?" he asked absentmindedly, without moving. Lily hummed, spinning the spoon in her hand.

"I like to go somewhere where no one knows me," she said.

"In the mall, for example, but it has to be far away enough from home."

"And do what?" She looked away sheepishly.

"Well…" she said slowly.

"I try out different roles, and scam people for money to buy something sweet for myself. It's fun, talking to new people. They expect nothing from you, besides what you show them. It's like a game." Dennis looked at her thoughtfully.

"What?" she asked, slightly confused. What did it mean, that Lily trusted him enough to admit that she stole money as a hobby? What did it mean, that he decided that that trust was more important to him than accusing her of villainy?

"Let's go find a mall."