Chapter 29

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With Mia's help the fights turned from easy, to laughably so. Now, they were by no means a good team, they'd only just started after all, but having a person working beside him definitely lightened his burden. Despite a few mishaps that occurred Mia was definitely more of an ally than a detriment, and was growing ever more so with every room they passed. Lock was improving as well, quickly getting used to the rhythm of the earth golems and to his role of, 'me tank, me smash.'

The way it worked was that Lock would go in and basically brawl with the golems, just as he'd suggested earlier, using no skills, expect of course for his Vanguard armour mastery, but that was a passive. Mia meanwhile weaved in and out of the flow of battle, cleanly cutting down golems that he was distracting at the moment with her, he assumed, energized Ninjato, seldomly drawing aggro to herself.

This way they passed one room, two rooms, Harald, who seemed more respectful than angry at being overtaken, three rooms, and four rooms, until they needed to take a short break. Mostly due to Mia being out of breath. This was by no means a bother, since the occasion coincidenced with the encounter of a door with a red cross on it, meaning that they would have had to wait anyway.

“Don't sit down.” Lock gently told Mia as he saw her about to do just that. “Walk around slowly, stand if you can't do that. Sitting down will freeze up your body and heighten the risk of injury.” He explained.

This was how they waited for the next room to become available, Lock simply standing there with crossed arms, and Mia shambling around, the red tinge to her skin slowly disappearing and her breathing evening out again. She also took occasional glances at Lock.

“How are you completely fine?” She asked him curiously, at which he tilted his head. “Your Endurance is higher, but your role is also more intensive and you're lugging around much more weight than I am. Yet I haven't heard your breathing become even slightly laboured since we've begun.” She elaborated.

Lock filed another point of evidence under the assumption that Mia had good senses as he considered his answer.

“Did you know that by smiling, even if you don't feel like it, you will become less stressed and happier?” Lock asked, waving away an answer and continuing immediately. “Well now you do. What I'm getting at, is that the body is a tool. I imagine that I've simply taken more steps in finding out the little tricks to wield it properly than you. For example breathing, it results directly from the condition of the body, but to a certain extent, it also works the other way around. The breathing impacting the state of the body.”

“I knew that,” Mia said with a pout, waving her arms in circles, for some reason, “but the body still affects the breathing, eventually you can't keep it constrained with simple breathing techniques.”

Well, if she knew, then there really was only one answer. Well, two, but naturally he would go with the one that would make him appear more impressive.

“It must be willpower then, I guess.” Lock said with a shrug. “A body is still capable of more, even when it's screaming for release, it’s up to us to shut it up and to make it continue with the task at hand.” Noticing her pout growing even more exaggerated he tried to console her. “Don't worry overly much about it. It comes with age I imagine.”

“How old are you really?” She suddenly asked.

Lock wondered if she had been trying to catch him off guard with that question, if so, the lead-up had been horrible. Although it was nice to know that he wasn't the only one trying to more closely profile the other.

“It's not really pertinent to the situation at hand, therefore I'll abstain from answering that.” He said.

Mia slowly dropped the pouty expression, that had probably been an attempt to manipulate him through his mammalian instincts.

Glancing at the door revealed that the red cross was still present.

They sure were taking their time weren't they, Lock thought to himself. The question of how a group of four was faring so badly re-emerged. Unwilling to simply squalor in boredom while waiting he turned to Mia.

“What do you think about the fact that a party of four considered a seven minute clear time to be impressive, and that they're taking so long now?” He asked, gaining a glance before Mia turned away again and continued her slow march.

One, two, three, four; one, two, thre.

“They must be switching out, holding one in reserve.” She suddenly said with an unexpected confidence. Lock refrained from raising an eyebrow. She wouldn't be able to see it anyway. The helmet kind of got in the way. “What makes you say that?” He asked.

“Nobody can be that incompetent.” Mia said, causing him to let out a chuckle, thereby drawing aggro from the Ninja who fixed him with an imperious stare.

“It's a good answer, but it is one directly abstracted from yourself. If four of you were to fail clearing the first room in three minutes people would indeed have cause to dub you incompetent. They aren't four different looking, yet same versions of you however. They're probably peasants who have picked up a weapon and have never received any actual training.” Lock commented.

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“By that logic I would also be assuming that they are switching out since I am, uh, projecting my own stamina issues onto them.” Mia said quickly.

“Yes, although to be fair, one must abstract the presupposition about life from one's experiences, since those are the only ones you have.”

“What's the point of this discussion?” Mia asked, curious.

“To pass the time.”

“Oh...” She trailed off into silence.

“What do you think is the reason for their slowness?” She eventually asked, at which Lock gave another short laugh.

“Once you've lived as long as me, you will realise that there are only two things in this vast universe that are infinite. The amount of knowledge that I do not possess, and human stupidity.” Lock said, amusement tingeing his tone.

“That's a pretty pessimistic world view, but hey, if the knowledge that you do not have is infinite, then what's mine?” Mia said in a slightly depreciating tone.

“I don't know. Infinity times two?” Lock fired back, gaining an amused smile thrown in his direction.

-/-

Lock glanced at the door, still a red cross. A sigh escaped his mouth, they must have arrived here just as the other party entered. Had they been even a minute faster they probably could have overtaken them. Overtaken...

Now that he thought about it, did he actually want to overtake them? Harald had been seemingly fine with it, but Harald had also only been one person, he couldn't have done much about it either way. Had he simply been making a fist in his pocket?

While he was by no means incompetent in social situations, no one could claim that women were not on average better equipped for reading and manipulating social cues than men. “Mia, about Harald, do you think he was actually fine with us overtaking him, or was he simply hiding his displeasure due to him not being able to do much about it anyway?” He asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t say he was entirely fine with it, but he probably knew it would have been unfair of him to hold us back.” Mia answered fairly quickly.

Lock nodded, so he hadn't misjudged the teen too much, well, as long as he trusted Mia's analysis. About the party in front of them however... They seemed, prideful, they had after all announced to the whole room how long it would take them to clear the first room and sure, while Lock had done so as well, he liked to think that he had an actual reason. Namely derailing any attempts from other parties trying to get close to his, by making it clear how gaping the chasm between them truly was.

The party of four, he tried to think of an ulterior motive that would fit the situation, and that would redeem them in his eyes as something other than simply prideful fools, but he couldn't think of anything. With that attitude, they might object to being passed over, and with the numerical advantage they might even feel like they had the power to do something about it.

Dungeons were hard to police, people died in them occasionally without human intervention, and if one was careful about it the wounds could be indistinguishable from ones inflicted by a golem. Nobody would bother investigating a few iron ranks dying too thoroughly. But the experience that four idiots would offer him was not really worth the risk of an investigation. Lock was here to scout. That was best done as anonymously as possible. The decision was simple, but he would rather get a second opinion first.

He asked Mia about her opinion on the party ahead of them, and she agreed with his deduction. Too prideful to not make some sort of issue out of it.

“I see.” He muttered, took a glance at the door, still a red cross, before continuing. “We'll wait here then, better to just avoid the trouble.” He decided.

“What if the party of four already passed another party though? Maybe the one in front of us is the one that got passed over, and they're just very slow.” Mia interjected.

At which Lock shrugged.

“We still have about five hours, and the possibility of the four passing over anyone is lower than the possibility of them not having done so.” He said, at which Mia grudgingly nodded and continued her pacing.

They waited like this for several more minutes, the red cross still not disappearing. It had already almost been half an hou-

“It's already been almost half an hour, maybe someone is injured, we should go in.” Mia suddenly said, turning towards the door and making a motion of stretching out her hand towards it.

Lock tilted his head at her. “That's... not a reason.” He said, and she aborted the motion, although not before sending him a disquieted look.

“And even so, more likely than anything, they're simply waiting in there to ambush anyone coming in.” He elaborated, silently judging her for her belief in the good of humanity. What a weird Ninja. Was she going to tell him to believe it next?

“For what purpose even?” She, well snarling was a bit of a strong word, but the question she directed at him was expressed in a tone that was harsher than necessary.

Lock tilted his head at her, again. “Kill, steal,” he pause “rape, obviously.” He said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Even if that were the case, we could easily take them,” she said, “are lives that are potentially in danger worth less than the small chance of us being investigated for self-defense?” She finished with a question.

“Yes, several times over in fact.” Lock answered immediately with conviction backing his words. The only thing it got him was a disbelieving glare.

“You can’t actually think that.” Mia said aghast.

Lock shrugged.

“I see, so you’re that type of person,” her glare hardened and she spat on the side, “all that talk about rape and murder, are you sure you're not just projecting?” She bitingly asked him.

He snorted. Funny.

“How about this, we wait here for ten more minutes, after which I can't justify waiting any longer anyway, time limit and all, and then we go in.” Lock said as he languidly stopped leaning against the wall and took a step towards Mia, gesturing slowly in the air. “If you're right, and there is indeed someone injured waiting on us, his party having left him behind while fleeing, whatever, I'll admit you're right and release you from your obligation of having to serve my callous self.” He said as he approached her slowly, non-threateningly.

“But if I'm right.” He sprang forward, his left hand intercepting hers as it went for the ninjato. His right simultaneously locked around her throat. He squeezed ruthlessly, continuing forwards to slam her back against the tunnel wall. She tried to wiggle out through the pain of the impact, but a threatening squeeze of her delicate neck immediately acted as a sedative against that foolishness. “But if I'm right,” he repeated as he gazed into her suddenly fearful eyes, “then you shut your mouth about your altruistic nonsense and don't snark at me like that ever again.” Lock said, still holding onto his calm tone

“Are we understood?” Lock asked, after having lost himself within her fearful eyes for a second or two. She didn't respond. “Are we understood!?” He asked again, more shouting it in her face than really asking, as he violently intensified his grip on her throat.

She finally managed several frantic nods, to which he returned one. Deciding that he'd proven his point, he began to release her from her bondage. He first let go of her arm, which went on to hang limply at her side and then he carelessly threw her aside by the throat, turned his back on her and languidly made his way back to his previous position, where he once again leaned against the wall.

He watched dispassionately as Mia lay on the floor, unmoving, in a position reminiscent of a beaten dog, a dead look in her eyes.

“You should get up and walk around at least, your muscles will freeze up like that.” Lock said.

He thought she hadn't heard him at first, but then she slowly righted herself from her position of lying on the floor, upwards onto her knees, and stood up on shaky legs to return to her pacing. Refusing to meet his gaze all the while.

Good.

Lock wouldn't lie and say he hadn’t enjoyed the small altercation, but it had been done out of necessity. If Mia balked at the order of leaving people who might need help to their probable demise when the chance of it actually being so was miniscule at best, she would more than just balk at the things that he planned on doing in this dungeon in the future.

Better to make it clear now that her morality was subordinate to his orders.

He couldn’t help but ask what was wrong with her moral compass, wasn’t she a member of the Underground? Didn’t that mean she shouldn’t have one in the first place?

That was the moment Harald decided to walk in. He froze upon seeing them. A grin made its way onto Lock’s face, and he filed away the fact that Mia had flinched when Harald had entered the room.

“Harald, good that you’re here, we’ve encountered a problem” Lock said in a serious voice.