You know, besides that whole thing where Gavin Free killed me, and I got shamed in front of an entire room full of people for not having a cool job class (agriculture was important, motherf*cker), this dream wasn't that bad.
For one, I had a companion with a cool job class that let me borrow the edges of the spotlight she was in! That helped!
A companion that had never heard of underwear except as a concept. Or something for other people. So, silver linings.
It isn't what you know, it's who you know. A tale as old as time.
And luckily for me, as a creative, I was used to that. The shame that is. Being shamed for not being an astronaut, or following my true calling as an amateur p*rnstar on OnlyFans, was my curse to bear for the crime of being born a millennial.
And I'd come to terms with that.
I was a grown man with a job doing what I loved.
Yep. Uh huh. Yes sir.
I'd realized my place in the world, and I was content.
For sure.
Aqua, all tuckered out from grappling with her new mortality and drinking herself mostly silly, quietly drooled fresh water (she'd done it on me enough times for me to tell) into her very soggy pillow.
I looked at the ceiling above my head, in the room I'd been given for a week out of pity 'for the dead man' (dicks), all while the dream I was having refusing to move onto the next set piece…and it gave me time to think.
Or the equivalent to thinking that one had when they were asleep. Whatever that was called, I was being given the time to do that.
If that wasn't obvious by now.
I continued to look at the ceiling as Aqua tried to hug the life out of my arm.
... If I'd had a beautiful woman following me around in little more than a tight top, a miniskirt (had I already said that she didn't have underwear?) and some thigh-high boots, my life would have been very different… Probably worse when I think about it.
I hummed.
Aqua mumbled.
When I thought about it…yeah. That wouldn't have helped me at all.
Pulling a bad bitch? In this economy? Please. Might as well ask me if I owned a private jet…or a house.
My lips pursed as Aqua shivered (not going to lie, I knew where she was coming from. It was f*cking cold), whined, and kicked a leg over mine so she could steal my body heat better.
f*ck. A house sounded nice. And I did like the sound of not paying rent… Yeah.
That was the real dream.
Aqua snorted, huffed as she grabbed her pillow, and planted her shockingly cold face into my upper arm with all the grace of a wrecking ball; she didn't stop drooling and I resigned myself to smelling like a mountain stream for as long as this dream lasted.
And being extra cold as my dream continued to insist on emulating reality.
I closed my eyes with a sigh, draping my one free arm over my eyes to emphasize how resigned I was.
Blargh…hopefully, this dream picked up soon. Or it just ended. Not much point in remembering this to use for story fodder when I woke up if nothing was going on from this point forward.
Aqua started chewing on my sleeping shirt as I felt a migraine coming on.
If there was no point to a scene, then there is no point in writing it. Does it add to the story? Have you learned anything about the characters or the setting? No? Then-
==========
"You might need to rethink your approach," I finished my thought out loud, the sudden shift from the bed to me being downstairs in the guildhall was something I almost took in stride…just one thing. "What were we talking about again?"
I forgot…if I'd ever known in the first place.
That had been a good try, brain, but when doing a story you need to try at least to imply a continuation of consciousness. You should know better by now.
What did we do for a living? What do I use you for? Yeah. Thinking. Remembering stuff. Brain things.
What good are you if you can't do that? What good were you if you couldn't be consistent?
Christ help m-
"Hey! No! Shut it! He's not here right now! I am! Because of you!" Aqua instantly stopped sulking over her cup of something fizzy, purple, and very soda-like to climb the table nearly and put a finger in my face, fury clear on hers. "Your worship belongs to me!"
Huh?
Eh?
Give me a second. I'd just got here.
I blinked for good measure and scratched my cheek. "What?" I took that second and thought back to the last thing I said…and that made no sense. This dream had just taken a turn for the nonsensical, hadn't it? … Or had it? "Did you just read my mind?"
Because, if so, this dream had just shown its true self.
This was a nightmare. And a bad one too… I was already embarrassing as is.
I knew who I was. I was embarrassing. Having the hot girl see how much more embarrassing I could be while in the once-safety of my head made me want to shrivel up and die… Just a little.
But not really.
This wasn't real. No hot girl was reading my mind. She couldn't judge me for my surprising and controversial opinions on parrot rights, or for that time I'd honestly wondered what the Mexican word for taco was when I was ten.
She couldn't hurt me more than I could hurt myself.
Aqua continued to hold a finger up to my face, eyes burning with the unthinking rage of the zealot and people too dumb to know better.
So, Aqua.
What a rollercoaster.
"I heard you praying to someone that wasn't me! Idiot!" Aqua still held a finger up to my face as she hissed under her breath, eyes burning with the unthinking rage of the zealot and people too dumb to know better without actually answering my question. "We need to find out how to keep you from croaking before you get me back home!"
Oh. Okay.
That tracks.
That is an essential thing for the protagonist of an isekai to do. Downright reasonable. Not quite enough for my brain to make up for the mistakes of before, but it was a start.
Good job. Good save.
And Aqua had answered my question after all. She was moving the story along. And, so, I had to answer back; Dialogue and interactions were the basis of a story. Character.
She was establishing the relationship.
With all that on the line, with this talk about croaking, I could only make one response.
"Ribbit."
Aqua, still pointing, hovering over the table and ignorant of how she was giving everyone behind her a show, furrowed her brows and squinted at me.
I'm sure someone would find that funny.
"You're not funny."
Again. Someone.
"So you say," I agreed as I put a hand on her shoulder to push her back into her seat while she was trying to figure out what I'd meant by that, much to the visible disappointment of several other tables, "but what is there to do about that?"
"Uh, get stronger? Duh? You could do that." Aqua replied with the obvious as she picked up her cup. "Start making money so you can get more equipment?" Rearing back in her seat, she pounded down the contents of her cup, then returned to the table with a scowl as I picked at my not-chicken… Moist. Moist. "Get good?"
A little something for my fellow millennials. As a treat.
"Scrub."
Aqua's face soured, instantly going from 'cute' to 'almost unattractive' as someone laughed. See? Funny. "Neet."
Now that was just mean.
"Hey. I have a job. And I also finished my schooling. That isn't accurate," I pointed out before putting some of the not-chicken in my mouth, moist or not…and it wasn't bad. Again. Moist. But, somehow, the texture didn't suffer for it. Cheers. "And I'm still not Japanese."
And I'm still arguing with a figment of my imagination about it.
That was a weird sticking point here. The Japanese thing. Something we kept coming back to…and it was important. Or it could be…could it be an internal commentary on how the genre I was working in was oversaturated with bland Japanese losers?
Maybe.
And, man, I was doing terribly at not attributing narratives to everything… Ah well.
Again, this wasn't real. I had to keep that in mind.
This was fine.
"But we have enough money to get more equipment. At least for now. And somewhere to sleep for a while. That was sort of the point of me negotiating that loan," I reminded her while getting back on topic with an effort of will. "That's a start."
And no one had died for it besides me.
Allegedly.
No moms were hurt in the making of this production.
Not bad for an RPG adventure I'd say.
"All we need to do now is, as you said, 'get good'. Which means adventure, I guess. Unless there are other options? I don't know." I took another bite of a meal I didn't remember getting, and still found it good. "If all else fails, at least I can grow food… Hmm." I poked my food with a fork. "What is this anyway?"
That was starting to bother me. More than the imaginary stakes of 'croaking' anyway.
"That's a toad leg steak."
I raised my brows at her, still poking at the remains of what had filled an entire plate at one point.
Aqua, gormlessly, raised her brows back.
She was serious then… I think.
I'd yet to pick up on all her eccentricities outside of sleepy, smug, sober and hating it, and weepy.
"... This is one big toad. Or it was." I shrugged that off, cut another piece off, and ate it with a pleased hum. "And I guess the French had to be right about something."
Amphibian legs. A+.
"They do make good drinks," Aqua agreed in something tangentially related to what I was talking about, her expression brightening as she talked about the thing she loved best in the world. Booze. "And we could go adventuring, get even more money for even more wi- equipment for sure!"
See?
If rampant alcoholism with little personal bodily consequence due to unfair advantages was a character trait, Aqua had it.
Same with clueless narcissism. And the effortless ability to, so far, avoid me disliking her.
… Good god, she was a mary sue. A variant. That explained everything.
How horrifying.
"You were about to say wine," I commented for my own sake as that terrifying realization went through me, darkly amused as she sputtered denials and, unable to look me in the eye, held up her cup and called for another round of neroid juice… What the hell is a neroid? "But, sure. If you're good and I don't end up dying on our first quest, we can spend some of the money on wine."
Aqua's eyes noticeably glazed over at that, her hands going up to her cheeks as she squirmed and giggled to herself an obvious example of an anime standard.
Not even her new cup of juice got her to stop.
She wasn't listening anymore. She was lost in her head and wouldn't be with me for a while yet. And I knew what that meant.
I hurriedly forced my food into my mouth as I felt an ache behind my eyes.
It was time for another-
===========
-scene break.
… And yet again, I had no idea why I was here. Outside. In the woods. Covered in blood…covered in more blood as I came back just when I smacked the lower jaw right off of what might have been a goblin with a flail.
A flail. A wooden flail. Not a weapon of war. A farming implement. And, for once, it felt like I knew something as I held the damn thing. Like it wasn't just a tool but a part of me. Like it was an extension of my body.
It was unnatural how natural it was.
I shook it a little, frowning as only a few drops fell from my improvised weapon. Doing it again as the goblin stopped making horrific choking noises to make a horrific rattle didn't get me that much.
Mostly just brains. And various other assorted organ pieces.
Don't ask me how I knew what those things looked like. Just blame the internet. I know I did.
So, yes, that stuff was gone… But the blood was there to stay, I guess.
"This is never coming out…dang it," I reaffirmed this observation. And I assuage my disappointment with the knowledge that I now had a particularly good death rattle to put down on paper later. Also, wow. You never realized how long a tongue was until there was no mouth to hide it. And that smell. Ew. "So, what now?"
We'd skipped a lot of character development and world-building up to this point, so I thought that was a good thing to ask… It is better to know if I was dreaming of an offshoot of Goblin Slayer before I found out the hard way.
That was important.
Aqua could be annoying, don't get me wrong, but that was a little too much, brain.
Calm down.
"Is it over? It sounds like it's over. But…is it?" After nearly a minute of silence, Aqua asked as I admonished myself, cautiously poking her head out of the greenery of the tree she'd assumedly climbed when the fighting had started… And whatever kept the healer alive, I suppose. "Hit them again? Just to make sure?" Her look of reasonable suspicion became a blindingly fake smile in an instant. "For me?"
I looked around at the many, many, many, many broken green bodies cluttering up the small clearing I'd technically just arrived in. Most of them, at a glance, had had it even worse than the last one I'd hit; there was blood and unattached body parts everywhere…and I could only hope that said nothing about me as I looked back at Aqua, brows raised.
Aqua continued to smile.
I groaned and hefted my flail as her smile refused to budge.
Refused to budge up until the sudden pain I felt in my right asscheek anyway.
It stopped mattering as I felt something go pop.
==========
When the goblin right next to Pidge, the one that had had one of its knees twisted the wrong way around and had a hole in its skull that let Aqua see everything (gross) stabbed Pidge in the butt with a dagger…she didn't know how to feel.
Pidge turned, a rusty knife still lodged in his butt, to make that half-corpse into an all-corpse.
Like, she'd been right. He should have hit the goblins more. Or made sure that one's head had been jelly instead of a teensy bit cracked like an egg from the start.
Being right about stuff was nice. She liked being right about stuff that other people weren't.
N-not that that was rare or anything.
His flail met its skull with a wet crack and a goblinish squeak that spread the entire upper half against a nearby tree.
But, once she'd got over how he'd torn her away from Heaven, and her job, and her snacks, and her chair, and…a lot of other stuff that she missed that she couldn't remember right now and that he was a NEET, she had to admit that she kind of liked him. He was nice.
He was also kind of dumb, forgetful, and stared into space a lot… Okay. He was super dumb, but that probably wasn't his fault, and the system could be sort of hit-and-miss when it was looking for new heroes.
But he was nice. And that knife in his butt looked like it hurt.
Aqua's lips quirked, and she snorted when, as soon as he'd finished beating that goblin to death, for sure this time, he grabbed his butt and started swearing. And calling on gods that weren't her…and swearing at them.
Blasphemy… But, seeing as her name wasn't there, she'd let it slide. And she wouldn't laugh when he'd just been trying to protect her.
And it looked like the goblins were all dead now. Finally.
… She was almost sure they were all dead now anyway.
They weren't the sort of monster that could resist a screaming human with a knife in their butt.
"Good job, Pidge! You did it! As I knew you would! My faith in you was well placed!" Aqua fell out of the tree and on her feet, giving her dress a quick pat down and striking a pose with her staff as the human she was following around glared at her…and, as a most forgiving goddess, she let that slide too. "My champion couldn't possibly lose against such weak creatures!"
With as many buffs as he'd had her put on him this morning before he'd made breakfast? He better not have. And, besides that, he'd only been a hero for four days.
Four days. Not even a week. Four. Days.
Her reputation, and her dignity, would have never recovered from that. So, yay!
"Nice to see you too, Aqua. Just…great," Pidge greeted her back through gritted teeth, his fingers gently touching the handle of the shiv in him before pulling back in a hurry, "f*ck me, why does this hurt?"
"It's a knife," Aqua said, every ounce of her training in comforting the newly deceased going into holding her smile, "knives hurt."
It was a good thing she was around to act as his brain. Because, wow.
How he hadn't fallen into a well by now was amazing, and his guardian angel deserved every bit of praise for getting him this far.
"I know it's a knife, thank you," Pidge respectfully agreed, "but why does it hurt?" He paused, his lips pursing as he continued to bleed. "Does it hurt? Or do I just think it hurts?"
By her name was he stupid.
"It's a knife," Aqua stressed..and she had a thought. An idea, even. "You know what? Let's get this over with."
He blinked at her, hand hovering over that knife as he wondered if he should touch it again. "Wha-"
He blinked again, his mouth falling open in confusion. And probably to start screaming, because, uh knife.
Rusty knife.
Rusty, somewhat chipped knife.
That she'd just pulled out of someone as fast as possible.
Pidge wheezed, his eyes bugging out and bloodshot as he failed to understand what she'd just done and...
Oh well.
"Heal!" Aqua chirped as she tossed that knife and the meat stuck to it over her shoulder, giving him a taste of Heaven's unending mercy and consideration for those in need with a flick of the wrist. What a lucky human he was. "There you go! No more ouchies!"
Pidge, slowly, closed his mouth as the light began to fade. And then he, slowly, began to lose all color as his nose sprung a bright red leak.
Wait. No.
He cupped his face, eyes going blank.
That wasn't right.
"Heal!" Aqua cast the spell again, shoving her hand in his face as he continued to pale. No. No, no, no, no. "Heal! Heal! Heal!"
Poison?! A curse?!
"SACRED HEAL, DAMN YOU!"
Pidge's face scrunched up as the light rivaled that of the sun and his color began to return.
"BE HEALED!"
"Stop that. Please. I appreciate it, whatever it is, but…what? I…" Pidge coughed as he pushed her arm away, his eyes flicking about the clearing before he grabbed his glasses with a shaking hand and started cleaning them with his shirt. The one Aqua had picked out for him yesterday was a nice calming blue and white that she'd cleaned with some magic when he wasn't looking. "The f*ck is this?"
"Goblins?" Aqua tried.
"No." Pidge denied. "Not that. I mean…" He stopped to bite his lip, a twitch in his eye that wasn't there before. "I will break down when we return to the hotel room. And I'm going to be reexamining my entire existence." He looked down at himself. Then, over his shoulder. Then back at her with a look of tired bemusem*nt. "And did you just rip me a new one?"
Aqua narrowed her eyes at him.
Pidge tiredly blinked back at her.
"... No?" Aqua replanted her staff while Pidge returned to cleaning his glasses…the poor thing. But at least he was better now. "The goblins did that too."
Pidge took a long, deep breath.
Aqua took a short, normal one… Damn Neets, trying to be dramatic.
"... Never mind. Let's go." He rubbed his temple before leaning down to pick up his flail. "We've got a quest to turn in, a bed to cry on, and beers to be drunk with."
Now he was speaking her language!
Sort of.
Heaven's language sounded much prettier when she said the same thing.
