Chapter 66: Brother Card

Milo wasn’t crying, or even really frowning that much.

But in all the time Arthur had known his sparrow-friend, Milo had never once been without a slight smile and looked generally happy. He didn’t even deviate from that expression when he needed to maintain laser-focus on some kind of smithing task. Arthur knew that something had happened.

“Hey, Milo,” Arthur said in greeting.

“Hi, Arthur. Could I get…” He looked up at the sign with unfocused eyes for a few seconds before giving up. “Just make me something.”

“Sure.” Arthur threw together the closest combination he could get to what Empathetic Host was telling him and handed it over. “And whatever it is that’s going on, I’ll help you with it. Doesn’t matter what you need.”

“Eh?” Milo glanced up at Arthur, his eyes finally focusing for the first time since he had walked into the place. “What are you talking about?”

“You have a problem. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t actually need to. Whatever it is, I’m willing to do absolutely anything I can to help. No questions. Just let me know what you need,” Arthur said.

Milo blinked at Arthur a few times.

“Do I look that bad?” Milo asked.

“Not that bad. Just distracted and maybe a bit unhappy. But that’s not normal for you.” Arthur tried to smile, and unfortunately landed on a thin, concerned semi-grin instead. “So, what can I do to help?”

“Echh. Not much, I think,” Milo said.

“Is it Rhodia?” Arthur asked.

Milo started a bit on his stool.

“Rhodia? No. Everything’s fine there, thank the gods. Better than fine.”

“Then what?”

“It’s related to my dad. Which is weird because I don’t think we’ve ever really talked about him much outside of during our camping trip.”

“Right,” Arthur said.

“Well, you probably know he’s out in the wilderness somewhere. Or rather, he was. He got back from the wilderness today,” Milo said.

Arthur arced his eyebrows. “So I can meet him? That’s sort of cool.”

“Well, no. He’s back from the wilderness. But he’s not back here. We just got word from a courier that he hit the outskirts of civilization. But by anything slower than courier travel, that’s a week away. Minimum. And I guess he’s not in the best shape,” Milo said.

“He’s in danger?” Arthur asked.

“He’s safe. The difference between an explorer and a scout is mostly speed. A scout can cover a lot of ground quickly, but they have the same problem staying fed and watered as anyone. Explorers aren’t as fast, but they have foraging skills and the ability to travel over unforgiving terrain that would give most scouts trouble.” Milo finally started working on his tea, which Arthur took as a good sign. “My dad is the longest-distance kind of explorer. He has all the foraging skills, plus he can more or less create a food and fatigue debt to stay out a little longer than he otherwise would. And I guess he did, in a big way, and now he’s laid up for a while.”

“Oh. How does Ella feel about that?”

“Mom? She’s pissed. Beyond pissed, not that she’d say so. And for some reason I don’t really understand, they agreed a long time ago that she won’t go to these outskirts towns unless he’s in some kind of real danger. It’s like a relationship rule.”

“His or hers?”

“I think his. You know mom. She’d drop everything to meet him with cookies. I don’t think he wanted her to have to do that.”

“Gotcha. So… how do you feel about all that?”

“Weird. Weirder than I thought I would.”

“Mad?”

“No, not mad. It’s like… hmm.” Milo took a breath and began to sort through his feelings about the issue of the issue. Arthur could have sworn that his friend was actually figuring all this out for the first time. “I’ve never thought about any of this as something that I could influence. I wanted dad to come home, sure, but he sort of always did when he did. And I was too little to really do anything about that.”

“But now you’re grown up?”

“Sort of. I’m not sure how much I could help, but I’m old enough to make the trip. Plus, a lot of stuff has happened since I saw him last. I just barely had my class when he left, and I couldn’t do anything with it. Now I’m making real things and selling them. And I have a girlfriend, which he’d be excited about.”

Arthur tossed Milo a cookie, which he caught and started eating without actually looking at it.

“This cookie is stale, Arthur.”

“It’s supposed to be like that. Just dunk it.”

“Ah.” Milo dunked the cookie in his drink, took an experimental bite, then got down to munching. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted to tell him about all this until mom started pacing the house with a letter from him, and now I have to wait however long for him to get back on his feet, and…”

“I think I get it. It’s like when you’re expecting something in the mail and then the package gets delayed. Only this matters.”

“I don’t get much mail, but sure. And yeah. It matters more than I thought it would.”

The last customer in the shop waved goodbye rather than interrupt the conversation, and after waving back, Arthur went to the front of the shop to flip his sign to closed. Tossing a drink together for himself, he sat down by his friend and just kept him company while he thought for a bit.

“You know, you could go out there.”

Milo snorted.

“Like you know, Mr. I’m-from-out-of-town. But yeah, I could. I don’t have much in the way of obligations at the moment.”

“And it’s a week away?”

“I might have exaggerated that part. It actually depends a lot on how good of a ride you get. I’ve been getting some pretty good jobs, lately, and haven’t had a lot to spend it on. So I could probably pop for something pretty good, if it came down to that.”

Most things were fairly cheap in the demon world but that mostly applied to lower-to-decent quality stuff. Arthur still wasn’t sure how glassblowing was related to ceramics but he wasn’t going to complain when Rhodia provided him with both glasses and bowls so cheap that they were essentially free. But if he wanted the top-of-the-line glasses that the world had to offer, the price would have been exponentially more. That was especially true for specialty-type products, which Arthur guessed long-distant transport fell under.

“And if you were splitting the fare with someone else? What could you get then?”

Milo’s shoulders stiffened a little. “No. You aren’t doing that, Arthur. You have your own things to take care of.”

“Actually, I really don’t. It was you and your mom that taught me that short vacations are perfectly okay with the customer base. And all of Itela’s crew are out for a week, maybe more. That leaves me with a bit of free time.”

“And you are doing this just to… what? Help me? Make me feel better?”

“Well, there’s the fact that I’ve seen exactly nowhere besides this city and the surrounding countryside. And that I probably should see what I can learn about regional teamaking. And just generally that I should learn more about this world.” Arthur smiled. “But yeah, honestly? Just to help you. Because we are brothers. Or at least I think so.”

Milo tapped his hands on the table for a bit.

“What do you think, Lily?” Milo asked.

“Why me?” Lily looked up from wiping tables.

“Because you will tell the truth,” Milo said.

“Oh, right. Well, as much as I hate to say it, he’s got you beat. He played the brother card.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it. Unless you can pull a double-brother card somehow, he got you. Got you good.”

“Yeah, I think I agree. Good work, Arthur, you got me.”

“Just like that?” Arthur asked.

“Just like that. So how are we doing this?” Milo said.

Arthur poured a few more drinks and distributed the last of the day’s cookies to everyone present.

“Well, as everyone here knows, I don’t know anything about anything. So I think I’ll leave the transportation to you.”

“That’s not going to work,” Milo said.

“No?”

“Think about it, Arthur. You are going on a trip for who knows how long,” Milo gestured at Arthur’s store. “And it’ll me, you, and whoever is driving the wagon. You can’t just leave it to me. You have to meet the guy, make sure it’s someone you want to spend a week with. Plus, it’s half your money, if you were serious about that part. You get a say.”

“I don’t know anything about how transportation works here though. That doesn’t go away just because I think some driver has a nice smile.”

“Yeah, that part I’ll handle. Or mom will. But you still have to be involved.”

“Deal.” Arthur held out his hand, which Milo shook. He was bound and determined to make that element of Earth culture stick if he could, and Milo was possibly the only person in the entire Demon World who understood what Arthur was doing when he stuck his hand out. It was a start.

“Lily, I know you’d probably like to come, but I don’t think it’s the best idea.” Arthur didn’t want to leave her out, but there was no way he’d be able to take care of her out there if anything happened. Wild monsters weren’t as tough as the dungeon versions, but he couldn’t exactly solve every problem they might face by throwing tea at it.

“Oh, no, it’s not like that at all. A week in a wagon? No thanks.” Lily chuckled as she finished wiping down the last of the tables. “I’ll just wait here, where there’s a bathtub and cookies. I can meet Milo’s dad later.”

“You sure?” Arthur found himself almost wanting to convince her to go, despite the very good reasons for her to stay. “I’d take you if I could, you know. I don’t want you to feel like I’m leaving you out of things.”

“I’m sure. There are lots of things I think are fun. But spending weeks on the road going to the smallest towns isn’t one of them,” Lily said confidently.

“Well, okay, then. So just you and me, Milo,” Arthur said.

“Just you and me,” Milo confirmed. “Mom’s going to throw a fit, though.”

“Really? You think?”

“Not out loud, probably. She’ll keep it to herself,” Milo said. “But I guarantee you, she’s going to revenge-feed Lily until she becomes a fluff. Get ready for cake, my owl friend.”

—

Milo walked Lily home while Arthur stayed back to make boba for the next day. This was going to be his first chance to show boba to people who lived outside the city. One of the first things he had learned about classes in this new world was that they often improved faster if more people tried them.

Arthur made a new dough and cut it up at the appropriate points, mixing in flavors to each separate segment. His plan was to stock up on every single kind of pearl he knew how to make and figure out what people liked later. Then, he fed the completed dough into Milo’s machine. Over the last few months, Milo had spent a lot of time and energy working on the machine and at this point, the little balls were falling down a dozen at a time. It was light-years faster than if he rolled them by hand.

Arthur had fruit-flavored, spiced, molasses-infused, and regular pearls made and bagged before he knew it. He’d need more tea and some travel-ready equipment to be fully stocked, but that was it. He was pretty sure that he could get milk and cream almost anywhere people lived.

Now, he could go home. The trip was probably going to be more tiring than it was restful, and he wanted to go into it fresh. Sleep was important, not just for his comfort but because almost everyone believed skills generally progressed faster when you worked on them well rested and in good health. If he wanted to wring all the value out of this trip he could, he needed to spend some time in bed.

But once he got home, he realized that there was still one more thing to do. He needed to take some time to look at his status screen. It was time to assign his stat points.