On his return, his mind turned back to Kilniara and their growing relationship. Joe found it uncomfortable still, although Kilniara had made herself quite clear on the choices she’d made. This morning reinforced even more that Joe had to make decisions that were his own, or he’d simply be reacting, and he’d truly simply been reacting to Kilniara for the most part. He had to decide and decide quickly for Kilniara certainly wasn’t giving him any time.
His thoughts went wide, seeking where his discomfort arose from, and he could only think of what he’d discussed with Kilniara before. There seemed to be a power imbalance and that caused him a subtle discomfort. But her counters of any relationship always having some form of power imbalance had him confused and willing to accept the current situation.
This morning, however, slammed home his discomfort. He wasn’t sure if it was simply because of the surprise, her slipping into his bed without really asking was a bit overwhelming to him. If things had been a bit different or he’d woken up in a slightly different position, he feared … no… not fear… I know I … I would have been in big trouble. That was…
His anger roused at that, realizing that if she’d intended to seduce him or take his choice away, it would be very easy for her while he was asleep. His anger deflated when he realized she hadn’t, so he calmed but then wrestled with where the discomfort was coming from. He didn’t understand. She was fine, so why wasn’t he? Something nagged at him, a deep ‘in the back of his mind’ scratch of fingernails on a chalk board that, in the quiet moments of the day, became a ringing discordant screech that always dragged his attention back to it. He wasn’t fine. He wasn’t feeling fine. Something…
Joe came to the inn and paused, but his thoughts were still wildly erupting past his normal iron control and he grimaced, stared at the inn door for a moment, then turned and continued on into the city, deciding to walk and think a bit more. He had no destination, but feared getting lost so simply chose the beginners dungeon as an arbitrary location and began walking. His thoughts quickly returned to his discomfort.
As his wrestling continued, he struggled to find purchase in what caused his discomfort by seeking out examples throughout the world. It didn’t take long for him to latch on to what was bugging him. He remembered a friend of his parents describing a mess at work, where a young man had joined the team. His parents’ friend had become enamored with him, and as fate would have it, the young man returned her affections. The struggle for his parents’ friend was whether to pursue the relationship further. She was the team leader, essentially the boss, and while his parents basically pointed out that there wasn’t anything intrinsically wrong with the relationship, such a relationship was likely to be nightmare fuel and utterly fail.
It wasn’t wrong. It was just a very stupid idea. Joe frowned at that. But… she’s ho… ok… yeah. Got it, dad… but… what do I … he didn’t remember much of what his parents said or gave as advice to their friend, but the warning proved prophetic, the entire team exploding to pieces because of the relationship and the company coming down hard upon everyone involved.
Dad… what do I do… this… it’s a dumb idea because… OK? It would destroy all four of us? Our relationship? Our friendship? Joe came to the dungeon and immediately swirled in an about face and marched right back to the inn, his mind roiling even worse. So… right… don’t mix business with pleasure… that saying… right… but… Aunt Jan was…
The memory of his Aunt had him stutter to a pause, deep in thought. His aunt had been rather infamous in her insistence to remain single as she pursued her career and became rather successful as a professor for a university back in the States. She primarily taught in the undergrad program but as the university sought to expand, it opened up a night program specifically for adult learners. Aunt Jan had been chosen to be the director of the program and she leapt at the chance to develop her career. She also began teaching a few classes in the evening and met her future husband there. Didn’t get married… didn’t even date until after … huh… he changed to different classes and even waited until after finishing his schooling. Is that…
His thoughts calmed with that understanding and everything seemed to click into place. He’d taken on a teacher’s role with the other three, even if he was completely uncomfortable with it and chose to predominately express it purely as friendship. It was still … She can’t be my student… That thought quickly firmed to certainty and the roiling upset in his heart calmed. She can’t be my student… and she’s GOT to slow down… like… really slow down! Guess we need to do ‘the talk.’
That thought brought him a peace that unwound the knot of discord deep in his thoughts he hadn’t even realized was there. His agitated pace slowed, then stopped as he drifted off to the side of the road out of everyone’s way and explored the thought deeper. He felt peace twine deeper within and sighed. He had his answer, and a much greater degree of peace then he thought he’d ever had.
Returning to the flowing current of people in the street, he set to with a purpose and headed back to the inn. He made it back to the inn quickly enough, pretty excited about having solved his discomfort. Whistling quietly, he settled in to a table for breakfast, almost calling for a waiter before stopping suddenly and realizing that he’d forgotten to train the other three. Grumbling a bit good naturedly, he stood and waved off the waiter before heading up to the room. When he opened the door, the sound of quiet talking quickly ended and Joe froze in the door way to see Zilnek and Kilniara staring at him with wide eyes.
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Joe felt himself turn a bit red under the scrutiny of a possible future brother-in-law, but kept himself calm as he didn’t notice any anger in his looks. She must have not told him anything! He muted his relief, not wanting to give himself away or what he’d been doing with his sister just that morning… over there, on that bed, her body rubbi… Joe clenched his jaw and fists before quickly stepping up to the wash basin. The water was lukewarm leftovers from the night before, but his red face sought only retreat and he didn’t care, hiding himself in the bathing.
“Where’s Garnedell? We need to go over our forms now”
Zilnek spoke up after a few moments, Kilniara not replying, “He’s in the…”
Suddenly, Kilniara leapt up, “I’ll get him!”
Joe nodded in acknowledgement, grateful for the distraction, and thought nothing of the heavy thump and muffled grunt from Zilnek only a second later. He stayed at the basin until he heard Garnedell grumbling through the doorway. Joe’s nervous focus on Zilnek blinded him from the fact that Garnedell came from a rather strange doorway, and when all three were lined up and ready, Joe’s mind had long forgotten the fact as he dove into training them on their forms.
All three quickly began their forms, and the effort drove the embarrassment from this morning from Joe’s mind as he stepped between all three, offering advice when needed or simply correcting hand, arm, or other posture with a small press from his hands. The loudness of conversation quickly faded and was replaced by the shuffling and grunts of three martial artists hard at work. The training went smoothly and quickly for Joe, although the other three were sweating quite heavily by the time they were done.
When they were almost done, Joe called for some hot water to be brought to the room and the innkeeper sent up a jug of downright hot water. It came in about five minutes before they were done, and Joe gleefully buried himself into the bowl of hot water to clean himself from his morning exercises.
When they all finished, Joe had the two boys clean themselves before all three left Kilniara behind to have the space to clean herself as needed. She’ll probably need it. Hoping he was offering her some help, he led the two boys down and ordered four meals. She should be done before the food shows up, right? Joe’s thoughts were soon disrupted as the two boys began jabbering and interrupting him with questions of their own. Serendipity proved itself and Kilniara joined them even as the food crossed the common room to their table.
With breakfast done, Joe lead the excited trio out to the beginners dungeon, reminding them once again of the plan for their training, with the afternoon mostly dedicated to helping them become better combatants and martial artists. All three excitedly agreed, shouting to Joe that they remembered and their excitement obviously backed up their claim. Joe found himself teasing them as they walked through the streets and the other three began giving as good as he gave by the time they made the dungeon.
Despite the early morning, there still was a pretty significant line, and all four lined up and waited patiently for the ten or twenty minute journey into the dungeon. They soon found themselves spiraling down the first staircase and excitedly pushing across the floor to their corner. It got to the point that Joe even had to slow them down, several of their excited movements coming close to drawing the ire of nearby goblins.
The same as the day before, Joe used the morning to push through getting his current job as high as he could. Since he could make it to level thirty in just a little over half a day while getting a single level after thirty took more than half a day in itself, there was no point to push beyond that, and he could spend the afternoon developing his apprentices. The outrageous increase in the amount of experience he needed was really starting to show itself. Granted, he was getting extra learning for every level and the actual experience needed to grow only increased every five levels, he wasn’t getting near enough to make a difference. A five times increase every five levels required that he had a five times increase in learning every five levels as well. This was not something too difficult at the earliest levels, as gaining just one learning point per level gave him five by the time he hit level five, and thus allowed him to maintain his growth. But just this example proved how pointless it was as when he made it to level ten, he’d need twenty five times the learning to maintain his growth, and he only had ten times by that time. He’d only been able to really excel because of the base bonus from having so many jobs adding their ten percent and he was able to restart again at level one all over again for each job. It looked like that he would need to continually grow every job he could get his hands on to favorably continue his growth for any job as it would require the boost from all those jobs to gain enough learning to keep growing his older jobs just another five levels before he’d be blocked by the insane experience increase and he would have to go back and level up all his old jobs again just to get that minor boost to learning to get his leveling to a meaningful level. Even with the ridiculous number of jobs he had and their base bonus, he was barely up to what he had been back on Earth. Well, I’m a bit above average, but… still. Joe sighed as he reminisced but returned his focus and split the teams up, once again leaving Garnedell to be the other main helper while Kilniara and Zilnek swapped between the two.
He started with Zilnek first, grateful that the boy once again almost able to converse in real time as his answers were only coming just a bit off the rest, about two or three seconds too late to really be meaningful, but certainly much better than his initial difficulties. Joe settled in for a good twenty minute chunk of fighting when Zilnek suddenly whooped in excitement when he killed the first goblin they’d pulled. Joe smiled, certain of the reason for his happiness.
“Leveled?”