Time passed, but Mina didn't want to talk. She eventually fell asleep against him, and he'd sat for a short while pondering his next course of action. He'd reluctantly decided to trust his Dad Sense, which told him that he needed to give her space to work this out on her own. After setting her carefully back into the chair, he pulled the lever and slowly reclined it to give her a more comfortable sleeping posture. Then he tucked her scarf into her hands and once again set her hair tie onto the chair's armrest.

As his thoughts wandered down a familiar path, Carl had an idea. He took the stairs back down, and…

What the actual heck. "Vol?" he whispered loudly—but not too loudly.

The top corner of a stone building crowded the main floor of the workshop. He edged around it until he neared the front of the area, and, predictably, found that it was emerging from a random point in midair. "Vol!"

"What?" A head popped up at a weird angle in…

No, wait, she's at the right angle in the window, but the building is tilted, which means she's standing on a wall? Er, no, that's the floor. This is some real Escher stuff, darn it. "Why'd you take out your building in here?"

"Got bored." She shrugged. "Wanted to see if I could climb into my inventory through the building. Didn't work, by the way, there's an invisible wall."

Carl rolled his eyes. That'd be the dumbest… Alright, maybe not actually the dumbest, but it'd be pretty dumb. "You got any light blankets in there? I wanna tuck Mina in."

"Oh, for Mina? Uh…" Vol walked away from the glass-less window into what he now recognized as a bedroom, scratching her head. "Yeah, probably want something clean for that."

"Probably."

"Let me check this closet." She walked out of sight of the window, and there was a rustling. "Some sheets in here. How about—"

"A sheet is fine."

Vol came back to the window holding a folded white sheet. "Here."

"Thanks." Carl took the sheet from her hands. Wait a minute. "You didn't know there were sheets in the closet?"

"Had to check and see first. This building's so big!"

Carl gave her a suspicious look. "Vol, did you steal this building?"

She gave him a confused look in return. "Is it really stealing if it's in my city?"

He started laughing. I thought I was being clever when I took those chairs, but she took a whole freaking building! Actually, what's to stop everyone from just running around grabbing stuff as they walk by?

Vol climbed out the window and dropped to the ground. "Deposit," she said with one hand on the building. It disappeared back into her inventory.

"You can be a lot quieter with the voice commands, you know," Carl remarked.

"I know, but it's fun."

"Whatever," Carl sighed, shaking his head in amusement. He made for the stairs again and began unfolding the sheet. Nice texture. Yeah, this'll be just the thing. Ah shoot, I had one in my inventory already, didn't I. Oh well.

At the top, he crept over to Mina's chair and carefully draped the sheet over her, tucking it a little over her shoulders. She murmured in her sleep and rolled onto her side, requiring that he re-tuck the sheet, but that was just another task that the best dad was all too willing to undertake, even if she then turned a second time, which necessitated a third tucking.

----------------------------------------

Time passed.

Carl learned a little more about what he thought of as a "straight punch" and a "side kick" as well as a "hook punch".

Vol called them "punch", "kick", and "the other punch I showed you", respectively.

He gained more levels in stupid fighting classes as a result, feeling that Puncher and Kicker were probably not going to be all that useful considering how skill-based combat seemed to be in the game, just from what he'd seen at the races. Vol was lukewarm at best on the classes, though she promised to let him know if he ever got a good class, which was apparently pretty rare.

Sure, she described over the course of several attempts in which she put on display her total inability to effectively articulate anything, he could waste time putting points into Puncher or Kicker. It wouldn't hurt. He'd get skills like Punch and Kick, which would let him punch and kick, respectively. Then he'd get skills which let him punch and kick with more force, and eventually he'd get skills which let him throw multiple punches and kicks simultaneously.

But wasn't it just easier and more reliable to learn how to actually punch and kick instead of wasting the time mindlessly struggling to get class level-ups?

The reasoning made total sense to Carl. The skills and classes were clearly there to provide a raised skill floor to people who lacked the dedication and focus to really master the game.

He was Carl Maximus Weathers, and if there was one thing he had a surplus of, it was focus—especially with the taste of Vol's coffee perking him up.

He still never managed to hit the table that Vol taunted him with, however.

As time wore on, his Dad Sense blipped again, and he checked on Mina again. She refused to speak, but she did at least accept a cup of tea and one of the salads from his inventory, though the food somehow managed to drive her to tears again. His Dad Sense once more informed him that this was a time when a teenage girl needed her space, and he left her with the assurance that he was gonna be right down the stairs in case she needed him.

Mina came down to use the bathroom for an extended period of time, during which the shower was run, but she made no attempt to interact and returned quickly to the second floor. When he peeked a little while later, she was again laying in her recliner, though he couldn't tell from the angle whether she was sleeping.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He'd come back down to find Vol very naked in the shower with the bathroom door open, clearly not caring whether anyone might see. This particular shower, she claimed, was the greatest fucking shower of all time, and she once again joked that she'd have any number of his kids if he'd let her use it regularly.

It was an old joke, but it checked out as far as he could tell, though he did also close the door to the bathroom immediately. She might be comfortable with casual nudity, but he was a happily married man and didn't want to create even the slightest impression of impropriety, regardless of whether anyone else might see.

Further time was spent between the two of them, with Vol having fun by juggling things in and out of her inventory while Carl attempted to use earth magic for the first time—which he knew existed because obviously the magic system was gonna have the four basic elements that all fantasy-ish magic had to have—with middling results. He made a small rock, which Vol immediately corrected as being a small pebble, but that seemed to somehow be his limit. He wasn't sure what the problem was, but he needed some new state of mind for it that he wasn't able to figure out at that time.

"Urgh. I'm, uh… I'm gonna go check something in my building for a little while," Vol said abruptly. "Be right back." She rushed over to the exit door while putting on her bandanna, shutting it firmly behind herself once she'd gone through.

Carl stared after her for a moment. Eh, just Vol being Vol, I guess. Probably can't get at the part she wants with how small it is in here relative to the building. Still can't believe she took a building. Is there a limit? Like, could I just put a city into my inventory since I have unlimited inventory space? Probably not since you can't put people in, which Vol proved earlier. He went back to trying to figure out how the heck he was supposed to be a rock, as Ir'alith had described the state of mind he should be trying to get into for it.

"Well that was weird," Vol said as she strode back in some time later. "Somebody just came by and tried to get you evicted."

"What?"

She plopped down into the recliner she seemed to favor, letting out a brief moan as she reclined. "Yeah," she said after a moment of adjusting to the chair's embrace. "I, uh, was just out there having fun with my building—just normal building things—and he happened to come by. Bought up this whole workshop and started demanding—Well, it was boring, and I'm sure you understand what I'm saying."

"Uh…" Carl blinked.

"Yeah, so then I had to drag him over across the street and persuade him to un-buy it so I could buy it instead. Really just not at all fun or interesting. All this—"

"Wait, wait, go back to the part where you bought…this workshop?" Carl said.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, here." She pulled a stone block out of her inventory and tossed it to him in his recliner. "This is something friends do, right?"

Carl looked at the tablet, which seemed to be engraved with a deed of ownership for the workshop he was sitting in. "Uhh… How much did it cost?"

"Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worried, I'm… Alright, fine. Not worrying. Instead, how about you keep that chair. Now it's a trade." Not entirely sure it's a good trade, but—

"Carl, you sure do know how to get a woman turned on," Vol said with an exaggeratedly sensual moan.

"So now you have two buildings," Carl noted.

"Well…"

"You have more than two buildings."

"I bought the forge too while I was there."

"What? Why?"

"Seemed like the thing to do. Now nobody else can try to buy it."

"Who'd wanna do—Actually, who'd wanna buy this workshop specifically?"

"Urgh, don't worry about it, it's boring."

"You say that about everything."

"I know. Everything here's boring, Carl. Except you."

"Uh, thanks?"

"Question for you: why do people always ruin coffee by putting shit in it?"

"Ugh, don't get me started."

"Why not just drink and appreciate the coffee as it is? Too bitter? Try another coffee. Need it to be sweet? Maybe coffee's not for you."

"It's like you're reading my mind."

"And why do you always get it in such a tiny cup when you buy it somewhere? What, am I not responsible enough to drink my own kettle of coffee?"

"Uh… Yeah. Yeah, actually, that's a good point! Why don't they give it to you by the kettle?"

"So instead of drinking how much coffee I want, now I'm drinking how much coffee someone else wants me to drink? Fuck off."

"Huh, that's a really good point, Vol."

"Then when you start thinking about it like that, why not make the kettle bigger too? Why's that need to be so small."

"Well—"

"If I wanna drink a big bucket of coffee, I should be able to get a fucking bucket of coffee!"

"I'm not sure I'm gonna go that—Hey, wait a minute, you gave me that coffee in a cup today."

"Yeah, but I don't make my coffee in a kettle. And I think you'd probably die if you drank a whole bucket."

"I guess…"

"Good idea though. I should get bigger cups next time."

----------------------------------------

"Whew, I think I might be all kicked and punched out for today."

"So you're saying you wanna learn some grappling next."

"Nah, I think—"

"Ooh, you're right, we did skip elbow and knee strikes."

"Er, no, I meant—"

"Can't believe I didn't think of that! Obviously you'd need to learn basics before anything else. Let's see your ready stance."

"Well, okay, I guess that's kinda different."

"Okay, but now you're just standing there."

"Am I not supposed to be?"

"No, you're supposed to be ready! If someone attacks you now, what're you gonna do?"

"Uh, well, I'm not gonna be attacked right now."

"How do you know?"

"Because you're here, and you're gonna scare everyone away with how famous you are."

"No, um… Definitely not famous. At all."

"Uh-huh. But you can buy buildings."

"That's just money. It's meaningless."

"Then how'd you get the money?"

"W—Uh, I found it."

"You found it."

"Yeah.

"You found enough money to buy buildings and a forge. And to pay for those shoes."

"Yes?"

"Vol."

"Uhhh…"

"My kids can lie better than you."

"Well why'd you teach them to do that?"

"Vol."

"I don't wanna talk about it!"

----------------------------------------

"How's she doing?"

"Still the same. Not sure what's going on yet."

"Want me to try talking to her?"

"Maybe we'll save that as our last option."

"Feeling like you don't want me to talk to her when you say it like that."

"Well—"

"Which is probably good, since I don't know what the fuck I'd say. What? Don't just sigh at me like that! I'm being honest!"