by Sarah Lin
He was silent for a long time. The decision seemed inevitable, he just needed to forgive himself for making it. Eventually he took in a ragged breath to speak. "Alright. Unless we find out the competition is more dangerous than it seems, you can come."
"Thank you!" Melissa leapt to hug him, and he embraced her back, but he only felt a cold hope that he hadn't made a mistake.
Chapter 51: Last Second Separations
With only two days remaining, Rick needed to spend them absolutely perfectly. He planned the final day to be pure sleep and meditation to leave him fresh for the fight, which left a single day for hell training. Emily had set out a routine to push him to his absolute limit, a pace that would massively damage his progress if attempted too frequently. Given the stakes and the challenge, he needed it.
A mysterious box with the message "Don't disappoint me" had appeared outside their apartment, left by a courier who knocked and then vanished. According to Emily, the pill inside was designed to help enhance the value of unwise training while limiting the consequences. Exactly what he needed - it was a grim comfort to think that Granny Whitney supported him, but at least she thought he was worth the investment.
His last training day was divided into three brutal workout routines with only short breaks: the first purely physical, the second for lucrim-damaging techniques, and the third for polish and recovery. If all went well, he'd come out of it with the best boost he could manage in a single day without obscene levels of wealth.
If it went poorly, he might not be able to fight at all, but he couldn't let himself even consider the possibility. He had to succeed.
At the moment he stood with his body twisted almost in a spiral, his arms extended and holding up barbells. He'd expected the hell training to be hot irons against his body or running on broken glass, but to his surprise it was something worse: isometric exercises. They pressed his body not against some external force, but against itself. On top of that, he was required to maintain his aura in a highly compressed state and hold it equally still.
Every position had felt absurdly easy at first. Every single one had become miserable after a few minutes, and most went longer than that. For one seated position similar to a lotus stance, Emily had forced him to maintain it for an entire hour. By the end of it he'd collapsed, all kinds of strange muscles in his body screaming in pain, but Emily had just pushed him on to the next one.
With so much time spent needing to distract himself from the pain, Rick thought that he understood. Trying to push himself with an external trial would be very likely to either fall short or injure him seriously. But with these exercises, he pushed his body and his aura to the very limit. Given strong enough motivation, it was excellent conditioning.
Currently Emily sat not far away, meditating. She had taken that day and the contest day off work in order to help, so he shouldn't have been surprised that she was taking it seriously, but he was surprised to see her falling into her trance state. Except it wasn't exactly that, more like she was practicing going deeper each time before she came up again. Presumably she would eventually be able to access the cold, pitiless trance he'd seen her use during the multi-tier tournament.
By some internal method he didn't know, she tracked the time. Without warning she opened her eyes and spoke. "That's time."
Rick instantly collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. He knew it couldn't last, so he forced himself to flop over onto his back so he could eventually sit up. Even that felt like an ordealand he wasn't sure how he could survive the next position. "What's next?"
"You're done." It was strange having Emily regard him with that cold gaze, but he thought he felt just a bit of warmth from her. "You did well. Take a full thirty minute break before we begin the lucrima routine. From now on, don't summon any aura or stress any of your muscles."
"Oh... good..." He lay there for a while, just gasping. It felt like his mind had expanded, but only so that more of him could hurt. Eventually he managed to sit up and looked at her. "Are you okay?"
"I've mistimed my mental cycles and I wouldn't be very good company right now. But I'll be done after you finish the lucrima exercises and we can spend some time together then." With that, she closed her eyes and withdrew entirely within herself.
Normally Rick liked seeing that intense focus of hers, but recently his thoughts had been increasingly troubled. He decided that it was creepy to just stare at her while she meditated, even if they were dating, so he went to get some fresh air. They'd rented one of the more expensive rooms at the Recluse's Retreat that had a balcony, so he headed out onto it.
There was a chair on the side and he dropped straight into it, then just sat for a while. The view of Branton was nothing amazing, but his eyes drank it in. Letting his body relax instead of sitting tense felt strange, and his instincts kept trying to light up an aura, but gradually he readjusted.
Eventually he turned his phone back on to check that nothing terrible had happened. All seemed well, though he had more spam texts from demonic bonds. He sighed and began deleting them mechanically, barely even thinking about his actions, until he tapped one and without warning light blossomed around him.
"Well, hello there." An excessively feminine form emerged from the light until the ghost of a succubus floated in front of him. "You've been a hard man to reach, but in this case I'm permitted to contact you directly. Mmm, you look like you could use a break."
She floated in front and just above him, taking a suggestive pose in the air. Rick was way too tired for any of that and just stared at her numbly. "Hi, Lilith."
"Oh, you remember!" She giggled artificially, then gave him a sarcastic smile. "I won't try to seduce you, then, or make any claims about the values of our demonic bonds. But I do think you'll be interested in taking one with us."
"Nah. Go away."
"If you insist, I'm required by law to leave. But I thought you might be interested to know, you had some demons request you specifically. That's not standard procedure, but..." Her smile widened, the furthest thing from flirtatious. "I don't suppose you know anyone named Bftgage or Ythsil?"
For the first time Rick actually paid attention, sitting up a bit before the muscles in his core complained and sent him back. He eyed the succubus suspiciously. "What do you mean?"
"My job is customer relations, so I have no idea what they were thinking. But there are two very weak demons trying to get a bond with a human for some reason or other. It was odd enough that I figured I would do the ad myself and see what happened."
"Huh." He looked away from her, just staring at nothing. Had Bftgage and Ythsil heard about his situation and wanted to help him? Or had their lives gotten worse and they needed the bond? Either way, it was easy to imagine the two of them struggling to scrape together everything they had, hoping that he would remember them... "Fine."
"You accept the bond?"
"No. Let me see the contract first."
"Oh, this one is positively boring. With such an insignificant amount, there's basically no way a fighter like you could ever do anything but pay it in full." Still, Lilith did disappear for a moment, before reappearing at the same time a new message appeared on his phone.
Rick read through the contract, but it was as straightforward as it seemed. It was classified as a junk bond and there were no benefits, no membership points, no special terms. When he accepted, Lilith reached out and touched his arm. A diamond-shaped tattoo appeared there and he barely felt it. There was some sort of energy flow, but it was subtle and quite small.
"Wait..." He stared at the succubus suspiciously. "Is that really all?"
"Basically. For a proper bond, there's more paperwork and a ritual. The higher level bonds can be elaborate and quite gratifying for both parties. But this?" Lilith shrugged. "I figured I'd save everyone time and just get it done."
"Huh." Rick fumbled for his portfolio, but it blurred together before his eyes. It took some effort for him to focus on the new line:
[Demonic Bond: 250 (Stage I)]
He almost chuckled when he saw that it was worth 250 lucrim. Better than nothing, he supposed. Most likely, that would make more difference to Bftgage and Ythsil than it did for him. After some fiddling, he found a way to relabel the bond with their names so it wasn't so impersonal. Or maybe he just didn't want anyone thinking it was a real demonic bond.
It was only after putting away his phone that he realized that Lilith was still there. She sat nearby, floating on the air as if she had a chair beside his. Rick just stared at her. "What now?"
"Oh, I was just thinking that since you've lost your demonic virginity, you should get a better bond. You've been quite upwardly mobile lately, so we could give you a much stronger one. I won't even play games about bonding with a succubus. I'm offering raw power."
"No." He stared out over the city and decided to ignore her. A trivial bond to help out two demons he knew was one thing, but he wanted nothing to do with the demonic corporations. His time in the demon realm had shown him what greater demons did to lesser ones, so he had absolutely no faith in them.
After pouting for a while, Lilith disappeared. Rick sat back and just focused on recovering without thinking about much.
When his break was over and he devoted himself to the lucrima exercises, his body flinched in anticipation. Yet the course had been well-designed, putting no stress on his body and never requiring him to generate any aura.
Instead, the exercises repeatedly tore into his Lucores and forced him to rebuild them. It was similar to many of his usual routines, just turned up to eleven. Doing them it was obvious how it would be easy to destroy yourself pushing that hard and the pain in his lucrima soul grew rapidly. Eventually it was only trusting that Emily knew what she was doing that kept him going.
Since he was used to such meditation, the time passed much more quickly. Occasionally he had enough time to look at her and he saw that she was coming out of her trance into a more normal state. When he finally finished and she announced the next break, she seemed like her normal self.
"I've been doing a little research about these disturbances to develop a strategy." She gestured for him to follow her onto the balcony. Once he did, he found her standing by the rail, looking out. "I don't think it's reckless to consider letting your sister come."
"Yeah?" Rick wanted to stand beside her but felt too tired, so he just dropped into the chair again.
"She let me see the new aura technique that she's developed. While it's currently unlikely to be effective against humans, what I think it will do is instantly destroy anything that lacks a certain degree of cohesion. So if we face a large number of small entities, she'll be able to handle them and leave us free to handle the larger ones... or other humans."
"Good. Well, I'm not glad she'll be in danger, but I'm glad it could be safe for her to come along." His body wasn't aching so much anymore, but doing so much work on his lucrima portfolio had left him a mess in a different way.
Emily didn't say anything for a while, then turned toward him with a smile. Since there wasn't another chair, she just sat sideways on his lap and leaned against his chest. Normally he would have been happy, but it just felt wrong to sit like that while he was so uncertain. She didn't seem to notice, relaxing there for a while before she finally spoke.
"I think we should kill Jack."
Rick flinched, though his exhausted body barely managed to move. If it had been anyone else, he would have thought she was joking, but she sounded completely serious. Not angry or vengeful, just remarking calmly. "Why? We only need to fight to a draw once, then he won't be able to attack again."
"I understand that you're trying to make all your deals line up, and some of it is clever, but you've made a mistake there." Emily pushed away enough to look him in the eye. "Jack is only limited because he's trying to work for the American Basilisk. If you make him fail, he'll be free to come after you."
"That..." He realized that he'd made a mistake, yet still shook his head. "But killing him?"
"Now is the best time. Given the likely conditions, it will look like an accident, just like he hopes to do to you."
"Emily... this guy started a vendetta against me because I fought his cousin in a normal tournament. His family is probably filled with violent thugs, can you imagine what they'll do if we actually kill one of them?"
To his surprise, Emily shrugged. "You don't get many chances to kill people in the modern world. It would be good to get used to it now."
All he could do was sit there, stunned by what she'd said. Emily seemed to take his silence as acceptance and just settled back against him. If this had been one surprising statement, he might have accepted it, but he'd come to know Emily. This was who she was. Part of him still wanted to grab her and kiss her, but another part of him wanted to push her away.
A cold realization spread through him as he understood that it wouldn't work. There was a gap in between them and it had nothing to do with lucrim.
If he followed her in this, he would grow stronger and colder. He'd become more like Jack, sent on a bloody vendetta by a single slight. Not because of Emily, but because Rick knew the seed of that future lay within him. Emily had already made her choice, but he still stood at the crossroads...
She reached up to play with his collar, then leaned up to kiss him. It hurt him physically in a way that had nothing to do with training, but Rick had to push her away. He got to his feet and separated them, startling her.
"Emily... I'm sorry, but... I don't think I'll be able to keep up with you."
"What?" She stared at him for a moment in shock, then shook her head sharply. "Of course you'll catch up to me. Growth naturally slows at various thresholds, so you just need to-"
"I'm not talking about power." Rick took a deep breath, realizing that he was committing, and just pushed forward. "I understand why you want to do... everything you want to do. But I'm not sure I could fight a private war. It's not who I am... I like to fight, but I want to go home to a family."
"But..." Emily abruptly wiped at one eye and he realized that she was beginning to cry. He'd never seen her cry before. "But I like that about you... you keep me stabilized. After I finally... why are you throwing this at me now?"
If he'd had the ability to take it back, he would have, but he thought that was cowardice. Rick gritted his teeth and forced himself onward. "I figured it was better to be honest now, instead of letting you risk your life for me. I mean... it would have been shitty to break up after the battle, wouldn't it?"
Emily turned away, fiercely rubbing her sleeve across her face. "Shittier."
"I'm sorry, I really am. I like so much about you, and I don't want you to think you scared me off. Even if we're not together, I'm still open to helping you with y-"
"You really think that's what I cared about?" She whirled back to him, eyes blazing. The next moment she turned away again, shutting off all possible response. "You already know the polishing exercises. You can do them alone."
With that, she leapt off the side of the balcony and disappeared in a furious streak of purple aura. Rick stared after her, feeling like he'd fucked up but not sure what to do. In retrospect he could have handled it better, but it was too late for that.
Slowly he sat back down, just staring at nothing. Eventually he would do the last exercises to prepare for the battle, but not yet. The worst part of it all was that he didn't think he'd made the wrong decision. Trying to stay with Emily would have just made them both unhappy in the end, so it was better to be honest with her now.
The worst part of him was only worried that he'd ruined his chances. Without Emily to fight, his ability to react to threats would be significantly less - he hated to think it, but it was true. Since he had his final portfolio nearly prepared, Rick bitterly pulled out his phone.
[Name: Rick Hunter
Ether Tier: 14th
Ether Score: 353
Lucrim Generation: 57,675
Current Lucrim: 0]
Foundation: 3000 (Lv V)
Dark Blood Kettle: 8525 (Lv II)
Offensive Lucore: 9600 (Lv VI)
Defensive Lucore: 26,750 (Lv IX)
Bunyan's Step: 11,050 (Lv VII)
Graham's Stake: 9275 (Lv III)
Demonic Bond (Bftgage & Ythsil): 250 (Stage I)
Demon Mass: 250 (N/A)
Total Lucrim: 57,675]
He just stared at the numbers for a long time, slowly realizing that his cheeks were wet. Everything he'd done had earned him more lucrim than he'd ever had in his life, and given him the best shot he could of making it through the fight against Jack. It wasn't any comfort.
Chapter 52: The Surveying Competition Begins
Despite how Rick had blundered, Melissa never once mocked him about the breakup. She just listened, patted his arm sympathetically, and helped him get comfortable after all the training. Rick slept like a rock. When he woke he didn't feel quite as miserable, but he'd gained no added clarity.
For a day he kept exactly according to the plan, sleeping when needed and focusing on recovery otherwise. Melissa occasionally brought food over, watched their favorite movies, and teasingly called him a mallard head. Emotionally he was still frustrated and mentally he knew that he was facing a serious challenge, yet he slowly found himself feeling somehow better.
By the end of the day, he had no aches and pains at all. His portfolio hadn't improved, but it had recovered from the over-training and so he was ready. The numbers still didn't make sense to him, so he likely didn't have a handle on the Dark Blood Kettle yet, but he'd done the best he could.
As it came time for them to go, Rick found himself fussing around the apartment. There was nothing left to do, so he fiddled. Melissa was doing some kind of final meditation that cast her void aura around her, as they intended to use it in the actual fight. They'd worried that her control wasn't good enough to avoid distracting him, yet her aura always passed over him harmlessly. He actually felt more comfortable with it around, like the void flame was just having her hanging out in the same room.
