Chapter 50: Profit

After a shower, back massage, nap and another back massage, I go to the bank and swap my Sacagaweas out for actual, usable bills. Mercy and I, looking pretty sharp in our business formal best, head over to the Texas De Brazil steakhouse and meat eatery.

The place is fancy, but I have more than enough from the Sacagaweas to cover the meal for the group. “Oh, pay for your own booze though,” I say to them as the waiter comes. “Except for you, of course,” as I turn to Mercy who is wearing a plunging neckline with enough cleavage to make the Grand Canyon jealous. Good gravy, this girl is thick. No wonder I've been in love with her for 6 months. Also, she's pretty funny and I like her soft voice.

“Okay, mister three million,” she says with a wink.

“Actually, it's only two million,” I say. “Before tax. 1.2 after.” She glares at me like I'm an idiot. “What? We renegotiated! Instead of just me getting three million-” the other members of my team are all looking at me because I'm assuming they didn't get the same offer I did. “Everyone on the team gets two million.”

Smiles break out across the table, I get a couple of back slaps. “I knew you enlisted guys would get hosed otherwise.” I wasn't kidding either. I figured Odysseus, Henry and Madeline would probably just get their standard government pay for the excursion. I hadn't felt it was fair to take 3 mil while they made a few hundred for doing the same thing.

Diaz comes over and gives me a hug. “You just paid for my kids' tuition,” she says. Huh. I didn't know she had kids. I thought she was gay, actually. Maybe I should put points into wisdom after all... Nah.

I turn to my best friend and say, “oh yeah, Jose I'm gonna buy that house down the street from you. The brown one.”

He nods and says, “nice. That place has a good backyard. You can finally get a dog.”

“He just got a cat though,” Mercy says. “Biscuits J. Cannonball Jr.! She's just the cutest.”

“Barbatos,” I say.

“Biscuts,” Mercy says. “Barbatos isn't even a red Gundam. At least Sazabi would make sense.”

No one else understands the secret language of Japanese hard sci-fi mecha so I move on. “Anyways, so that house is reasonably big. I could definitely have someone else live with me.” I catch Mercy's eyes and they go wide.

That's when Henry says, “great, I'd love to move off base.”

Odysseus types out, “I would require a room big enough for my work desk, or the ability to use the garage.”

I see my romantic lovey dovey living arrangement slipping away before I've even bought the place. “Guys, I... Uhhh... Sure.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Henry laughs. “Jun, we're messing with you.”

“We are?” comes Odysseus's digi-voice. Everyone laughs.

We have a nice dinner. The meats at Texas De Brazil are indeed several tiers above anything at a grocery store. We eat until we're all stuffed and we drink a little too much. They get me to tell them about what happened after I went on alone. I ask them if anything happened on the way out.

Jose says, “nothing much but I made sure Mercy stepped in to get a class.”

“Wait really?” I say, excited. “What did you get?”

“I'm just a Witch,” she says, looking self conscious. She does a cute ‘it's nothing’ hand gesture along with it. “Nothing incredible like Synthesist or whatever you guys are.”

Grant types out, “I started as an Acolyte. That's a first step class. Witch is at least a second step class.”

We continue to talk about classes and stats. Everyone is pretty happy with the level ups they got in the dungeon. Some of us ended up improving Charisma, so we're all really good looking now. Odysseus's scars look sharp and well healed, but didn't disappear. Jose, Madeline, Henry and I all bumped up Charisma for Ki recovery. Our faces look clean and unblemished. When I pushed my Strength to beyond human, my muscles got really toned. My Asian frame is made for lean muscle not big bulky muscles, so I still fit in my shirts.

When a waitress starts to drop a glass of beer Jose reaches out and saves it with blinding speed. Like me, he had near max Dexterity and Reflexes to start with, and we both got over the superhuman line with those. Even as we drink I notice it's not hitting me as hard as normal. My Constitution got raised when I did those Caller levels and I can basically deal with poisons three times better than the average person.

I look around at us and start realizing that this is the beginning. Some of us, some humans, are going to use the system to become gods. Some will use it to become demons. And me? I don't know what I'll do yet.

I raise one more glass to the team and Mercy pulls something out of her purse. “It's something I sewed while waiting in my car. It's... Just an idea I had. You don't have to use it.” She hands me a hand sewn patch.

It's a military style unit patch, with a shield border. The inside of the patch is a Dragon with a slash across it, like the Ghostbusters symbol. Across the top it says “101st Pathbreakers”

“Pathbreakers,” I mumble. The word echoes in my head somehow.

Mercy nervously says, “yeah because you were playing Pathfinder but you're not finding paths, you're destroying dungeons, breaking them so I just thought-”

Pathbreakers rings like a truth. Like an immutable force. Like something that must be.

I clasp her hands and look her in the eyes. “God, I love you so much.”

She gives out a small yeep. “You... Love me?” I nod seriously. “Okay then,” she says, and kisses me long and slow. I feel her hand on my knee. I feel my own hand slip onto her thigh. I feel-

“Hey, can I see the patch?” Odysseus interrupts us before we get rated R right here in the restaurant. We get flustered, recover, then get embarrassed over the course of about five seconds. I fork over the hand sewn item.

“I like it,” Henry says thoughtfully. “Like there's a right way to go but we make our own way.”

“I wanna fight a dragon,” Madeline says between chewing beef tips.

Gwen says, “this threading is exemplary, miss Mahar.”

Jose looks at it and just nods.

“Alright then,” I raise my nearly empty glass one last time. “To the Pathbreakers!” Everyone gives a hearty Pathbreakers and we start heading home for the night.