Konohora had a lot on her mind. The story from the Restante, the Gaieldr, the danger of the Gem, the lifeforce she had been drawing on and the danger of doing so, and the powers of Happy. All of these things were important even if no real answers could be drawn to them. And then there were the thoughts she had been suppressing, namely her extreme worry for Riary and Tyler. She hoped they were doing well and they could reunite without any issue once they got ahold of the Gem. All of that was important to consider and plan for.

And yet, she currently only one thought on her mind.

“You are a terrible dancer.” Konohora said.

“I told you I couldn’t dance!” Derek replied.

She led him, doing a dance she had long ago learned for balls and parties. Being a C-rank didn’t mean much to those in power but it meant something. That combined with her status as a high priestess with excellent future prospects, briefly the leader of a small church, her status during the war, and her wandering nature, meant she had been invited by more than a few ambitious men wishing to woo her. Learning to dance and somewhat play politics had been essential. Failure to dance meant a failure to play politics. The consequences of that had always been more than aggravating.

She had learned to dance quite quickly after her first failure of a ball.

“Put your left foot half a step to the right, lean forward with your right arm, move your right leg half a step backwards…”

Even as she continued to give instructions and Derek continued to follow them, both of them began to deviate. The music was strong and metaphorically demanded they dance to the beat in a certain way. By the time only a few minutes had passed, they were doing an unfamiliar dance but Derek let out a baffled sound.

“Is this the fucking Salsa…” Derek said.

“You know this dance?” She asked.

Derek had a complicated look on his face.

“Happy has… no… this whole place has some secrets…” He said.

Which wasn’t an answer. She found it both frustrating and understandable. Derek seemed to take to heart not giving her too much information. It went beyond just his own secrets, it seemed. Being left in the dark was unpleasant no matter how understandable it was, however.

Their dancing continued, Konohora feeling the beat of the music but more than just that, the beat of the people. They were not the only people dancing, in fact, she saw no one not dancing. Already the chefs were starting to hand out kebabs with vegetables and meats on them and they continued to move even as they made it.

It was awe inspiring and also deeply concerning. She had seen Happy as a dangerous cult leader but Derek seemed to think he was much more than just that. She had to admit, watching him sway a whole population within moments, even herself to a large degree, made her wariness rise ever higher.

“Happy is a dangerous Cult leader.” she said, mostly speaking out loud.

“Huh? Oh no. I’m pretty sure the whole Cult thing was just something he did for fun in less than a week.” Derek said. Konohora’s eyes snapped to him.

“He became a Cult leader… for fun?”

“Yeah. Pretty sure at least. I can’t see Happy doing any one thing for more than a few days. Definitely not run a whole organization.”

Konohora’s wariness grew more. She put it outside her mind as she continued to dance with Derek. As they twirled and danced through the populace, her mind went back to some… other activities they had done. Enjoyable if influenced, until the latter half. She looked up at Derek, seeing how he looked at her. Part of her had been worried about romantic intentions but… that was not the look Derek had in his eyes. It was more the look of someone simply enjoying the moment. Derek seemed different recently.

He had seemed lost from the moment she had laid eyes on him. Fearful as well, for the longest time. Now he seemed to be… adapting. Their situation was extreme and ridiculous, but that seemed to be all Derek had dealt with in recent times. Something had changed since they’d gotten to this Jungle. The Derek she had traveled with up to the Elven Territory would most likely not have willingly gone with potential Cannibals. He’d have probably run away.

“Derek… are you alright?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

She thought on her words.

“You seem… more calm regarding these developments than I have been.”

“More calm than you? Are you kidding me? You are like a stone or something, letting everything just wash over you without concern.”

She quirked an eyebrow.

“Derek. I have been terrified since we have arrived here. This entire Jungle scares me. The Lost, the ‘Elementals’ as you call them, Happy himself, and especially the snake that ate me. We have been teleported, weakened, and stripped of our weapons and defenses. Nakedly used as jewelry and clothing for beings so Titantic they invoke a natural sense of awe and terror in me. We are also separated from our team members, two young people that is my duty to guide and mentor, without knowing of how they fair. I would not describe myself as ‘without concern’.”

She gave him a deadpan look while he blinked, stunned. It was not often that Konohora shared or said so much as once, a natural consequence of the truth always being on her lips. Fading into the background was satirically a job requirement. The followers of truth who do not, well, they are often loud mouthed and annoying. She does not wish to be like them.

“Well… damn. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. As for me, I guess, it’s just easy? My introduction to this world was chaotic and awful, then more awful but filled with fire, then a long walk of awful, nearly dying twice to a vampire awful, boringly awful, then finally decent. And now we’re here. I’ve just kinda, I don’t know, accepted it? It’s been a month and these Gems… there’s at least eight in total right? You guys want to try and use these to get Tyler back to Earth but… I doubt there’s any overlap here with that. But that black gem… maybe. But even Happy doesn’t seem to have it. Not to mention I have my own goals.”

He twirled her and then twirled her back.

“Basically… this is probably the new normal. A month of crap. Next month will probably be full of crap. And the month after that. The year after that. You’ve felt it too right? We’re just too weak. At least that’s how I’ve felt. The baron and his men, Riary, Vanessa, Happy, The Giantesses, this whole jungle, and that’s all been through pure dumb bad luck. What happens when the four of us actually start trying to fuck with people to get these Gems or I go exploring to find what I’m looking for?

Honestly? We’ll probably end up dead.”

Konohora’s eyes shook as he said that so casually.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“So… stronger. And before and during that… well… might as well enjoy the moment right? This is amazing. A whole underground civilization, an ancient one at that, that used to rule these lands. Doesn’t that excite you? This music… familiar to me but so foreign for it to be here. And a whole race of Giantesses! That’s amazing! Not to mention the very history of how they came to be is amazing, if not tragic. I’ve always wanted to explore, to go on adventures, and this is one hell of an adventure. I just wish I was a little stronger so it’d be less dangerous. So, yeah. Anyway. That’s how I’m coping I guess. I’m just accepting it now. That life… is fucked.”

He laughed and dipped her a bit.

“So let’s dance and leave all our troubles for tomorrow.”

Konohora couldn’t help a smile grow on her face as she leaned forward and kissed Derek. She didn’t know if she agreed with his mindset or feelings on things, but she could agree with his last statement. Leave future troubles for future troubles, at least in this case.

They’d need to find a room.

****

I woke up feeling amazing. I have no idea how Happy started a whole Mexican festival, knew spanish, how this civilization was at all related to the modern spanish language, and a few other dozen things I was sure.

But hey, it was fun.

I got to dance with a beautiful woman.

Got to see all the Happy and exuberant people seem to regain life they had never had.

Got to eat a few kebabs of random meat and vegetables.

And the ending night hadn’t been too bad either.

I rubbed Konohora’s back. Yeah, that definitely couldn’t last. Right now, we were both kinda, living in the moment. The moment being that we were stuck in this Jungle and needed some comfort. Konohora even more than I realized. I laid back on the random bed we had found. No idea whose it was or even where we are. It had all kinda blended together in the heat and passion of the moment.

I stared up at the stone ceiling briefly. Konohora said I had been different. Was I? I had felt… unmoored for a while. Drifting. Like the ground wasn’t solid beneath me. It had felt like it was getting solid… only for us to be teleported across god knows where, to here. To have a whole, I don’t know, mess dumped on my lap. There had to be other powerful things out there, swords that could split mountains or lost super Golems or hell, maybe even Nukes. And yet, Gems were my poison. Even ignoring the eight other gems, the four, I don’t even know what to call them, Super Gems? The four Super Gems (God that’s a horrible name) were definitely all connected somehow. Could I ignore it? I don’t know. I didn’t think so. Purely because Happy wanted the Gems and I had one. No idea how he was going to get it out of me but death probably would do the trick.

But he didn’t want to kill me. For now. So that was a mildly safe bet.

No, I knew exactly what had happened and what was going on. This was a… unignorable problem. Which meant… I was doomed. Not to lose but to deal with this. Maybe I could go a decade ignoring it, only for Happy to show up, seduce and/or kill me, take the Gem, and call down an apocalypse that then killed me. Or worse, made me go back to hell.

Which was depressing and made me feel like the ground was fully gone out from under me again. This was my life now. Constant bullshit. So I had changed. I was getting use to it all. Accepting it. You can only suffer for so long until you just get over it, in a way. Well, kinda. Alright no, that was absolutely not true, but whatever. So, a quick mental run down.

Goals:

1. Escape this Jungle with the Gem.

2. Kill Happy if there’s time, reason, and possibility. (Consider moving to number one.)

3. Find Riary and Tyler.

4. Try and kill Happy again.

5. Succeed or not… start searching for the rest of these things.

6. Try and find and search for that potion while doing so.

7. Murder Happy if he survived the last two times.

Alright. That seemed like a pretty perfect list to me. Should probably fit in ‘training’ at some point though. I have to ramp up those lessons with Tyler.

There was a knock on the door. I didn’t even know this room had a door until it was knocked on.

“Uh…” I looked down at myself. Right. My shitty leaf clothing and Konohora’s had not survived the night. Damn.

The person who knocked came in anyway. I noticed Konohora must have been awake, as she turned to look who had walked in.

It was Happy. But not alone. He had two people, barely dressed and still with messy hair, in his arms. Hiyark… and Terok. Hiyark seemed inordnately pleased while Terok seemed more… uncomfortable? No… not exactly. Embarrassed, shy? No idea. It’s not like I really knew the man besides the fact that he was strong.

Happy began to laugh lightly as he saw us.

“Derek! I’m so glad you had such a good time as well!” I was suddenly extremely unnerved. Had Happy… ever really talked to Konohora? I don’t think he’d ever even mentioned her by name. They had definitely talked but… he definitely seemed to be ignoring her. I squinted at him.

“I see you… three… had a good night as well.”

“Yup!” Happy said, smile on his face.

Hiyark huffed a little bit at that, smile on her own face, while Terok looked away and began scratching his neck slightly. Oh, now that was amusing, sociopathic killer or not around. I resisted the urge to tease the guy though.

“What are you guys doing here anyway?” I asked.

Hiyark scoffed. “You mean in my own bedroom?”

Oh. Ah.

“...So anyway, what do you guys want?”

“Days wasting away. Time for a spar to see you foreigners aren’t just full of hot air.”

I tried something new. My Power Gauge was almost entirely passive, like eyesight. But like eyesight, I could focus. I did, trying to read the waves. Because something didn’t make sense to me. Overall, it was saying Hiyark was slightly stronger than me. But only slightly. Which didn’t make sense, she had to have plenty of experience to pull from. Not only that, but that gap had significantly lessened overnight. I felt like I had somewhere between 90-95% of my original strength. By the time we reached the Gem, Konohora and me would probably be at full power.

So why was a multi-decade warrior not as strong as me? I had no training or experience. I should have been smashed into the ground if she was only half as strong as I was.

Focusing on the waves… I nearly gaped at what I was seeing. New concepts came flooding outwards at me. I had been looking for ‘expertise’, in other words, ‘Skill’ but my power had practically flexed in my eyes and I was seeing more concepts than just that. I saw that Hiyark’s ‘expertise’ was pretty high, miles above my own. Which, that alone, set my mind to spinning. If I could measure individual concepts against each other… that would be otherworldly. My Power Gauge… wasn’t a Power Gauge at all.

Why had I ever used it like one? When had I started using it like one? It was… when I was about to fight the Baron and over a dozen well armed and armored men. I… hadn’t been myself. I had needed… needed to know if I could win. That was what at least part of me had needed to know in that broken state.

And that’s what my Power Gauge had kept trying to tell me. Kept trying to answer.

‘Can I win?’

‘Can I win?’

‘Can I win against these people?’

‘How strong are they?’

‘Can I win?’

I hadn’t even realized it. I had known my Power Gauge was more but… only after now, after having glimpsed the bare edges of the Ability itself and having my brain melt, did I understand what it truly was.

Knowledge. Information.

My Power Gauge… was Analysis.

***

“Uh… is he just going to stare off into space like that?” Hiyark said.

Konohora looked at Derek, who seemed to be fully lost in a daze. She waved a hand in front of him, to no reaction.

“This seems-” Konohora started, only to be cut off.

“Interesting.” Happy said.

Konohora looked over at him… only to shiver. There was a ferocious look on his face and his amber eyes practically seemed to be shining. He seemed… insane at that moment.

And Hungry.

“How very interesting.” Happy said again.