Chapter 41: Scared

“You get all of this?” Milo said. “That’s mental. Absolutely crazy. Not that you don’t deserve it, but…”

“No, you got it right. I’m not sure if I should take it.”

“Oh, you should take it.” Ella was stooped over examining the shelves built into the back side of the counter. “I was never much for actually running a business myself. But you have a bit of that gift. And the storage space alone, Arthur. You could fit a Triung back here.”

Skipping over the untranslatable word, Arthur had to agree with Ella about the shop. It had apparently been built to be a cigar shop, or at least something enough like cigars that the system chose to translate it that way. The owner had been nice and the products had been good, there was just the unfortunate fact that almost nobody in the city smoked or wanted to.

The front counter was massive, easily big enough to hold all the equipment Arthur would need it to. The sitting area was big enough for at least a half-dozen tables, and Arthur could imagine them, round and wood, with simple padded wood chairs to sit around in.

Lily was running around the space, ducking in and out of the back-of-shop area and running up and down the stairs to the cellar. That was, the mayor had explained, part of why the city wanted him to have the shop. With more space, he could make and store more product, especially once Milo improved the automation for him. Catastrophes in the demon world were rare, but they did happen, and the city wanted him ready for when they did.

“Can I run it, by myself?” Arthur asked. “That’s a lot of hours. Breakfast, lunch rush, dinner… stores on Earth were open all day.”

“Not here. Set some hours, something reasonable. Maybe have two shifts and work a few hours for each shift. Eventually, hire an assistant. But nobody expects you to work every single hour, Arthur. When it’s open, they’ll see that it’s open. If it’s not open, they’ll come back when it is. They know who you are and what you serve. It’s hardly like you’d need to advertise at this point.”

“There’s also the matter of money. I think I have most of the tea-making equipment I’ll need, if not all of it. And I can lean on Milo and Rhodia for what I don’t have, or what breaks. But furniture… I have to think that’s expensive.”

Ella waved her hand dismissively. “Not a problem. I know some people. Some favors are owed. It won’t be expensive, and I’ll cover the cost for now. No, be quiet, Arthur. Just be glad I’m letting you pay me back at all.”

“But…”

“You aren’t going to win, Arthur,” Lily said. “Just save your energy!”

And that was that. Ella led him to the carpenter friend she had mentioned, a large spider who hissed when she talked but was perfectly pleasant otherwise. She went to see the space, where she and Arthur compared notes on what they envisioned. Like most professionals Arthur dealt with here, she knew more than he did and offered several suggestions that not only improved what he had planned, but addressed problems he hadn’t even thought of.

“So eight tables? You’re sure?” Arthur said. “That’s nearly fifty people.”

“Yesss. You don’t have to fill them all. It’sss about having the capasssity when things get busy.”

“And they’d fit? The tables, I mean.”

“I think so, yesss. Worsst case, you might have to hide one or two and only bring them out when you need them. I wouldn’t worry. I build them light.”

Arthur talked to her for almost an hour before she returned to her shop, promising she’d have the furniture ready to go in a week. He then spent the better part of an hour carting over the must-have essentials from his former workspace, arranging them on the counter as he went. It looked great. He could see where he might want a different container here or something to block the view of his heating apparatuses there, but overall, it looked like a tea shop should.

Rhodia found him eventually, showing him prototype glasses that weren’t quite entirely clear yet and nervously asking how long she had before he’d need the real deal. After hearing that he didn’t have plans to open at least until after the furniture was in place, she breathed a sigh of relief.

She planned to level for a week, and then remelt and reblow the glass as needed. The fact that Arthur wanted to pay her for this and use the glasses in an actual shop was enough of a boon that he suspected she’d keep redoing them until they were perfect.

After she left, Arthur stood facing the counter and the workspace behind it, imagining what the wall racks would look like loaded up with boba pearls, tea, and little signs explaining all the options customers could try. With this much space, he could have those options. He could keep some standard items always brewing for people ordering from the street-side counter, but inside, the sky was the limit. And if Ella would teach him how to bake, he could even have snacks. It was a whole new world.

Just as he was almost completely lost in his daydream, the doors burst open.

“Arthur!” A panicked voice came from behind him. It was Onna, Mizu’s lizard friend, standing in the doorway, slightly wide-eyed and out of breath.

“What’s wrong?” Something must have been. Onna had no reason to find him if there wasn’t, and given their only common connection, he thought he knew what was wrong, or at least with whom.

“It’s Mizu. She’s sick. And she’s asking for you.”

—

“Family? Does she have family in town?”

“No.” Onna was, it turned out, a combat class, a year or so ahead of him and significantly better leveled. She was moving as fast as Arthur could keep up with, leaving him only a few spare breaths to understand the situation.

“No. Not that I’ve seen, anyway. And she doesn’t talk about that. She has a sort of guardian, but she’s already there. And the doctor, and a cleric.”

“Then why does she need me? I can’t do anything.”

Onna stopped in her tracks, turned around, and rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be stupid.”

Without waiting for a reply, she turned around and kept running. Arthur followed.

“There you are,” Itela said. “Somehow, I wasn’t even surprised when she said your name after I asked her who she wanted.”

“Is she okay?”

Itela’s face went a bit sterner than Arthur had seen it before.

“Honestly? Not great, Arthur. This isn’t… a broken arm. Or a bad fever. Those things we can almost always heal or cure. This is… harder.”

“And what is it?”

She shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. I’m sure she will. She’s right in there.”

Arthur looked at the door and gulped.

You can do this, Arthur.

“I know it’s hard, but you can do this, Arthur.” Itela mirrored his thoughts. “It’s hard for anyone. We do it anyway. Nobody says it, but no one really wants to visit the sick. It’s… hard. There’s nothing in it for the healthy. That’s why it’s the most important duty.”

“Is it?”

“Tied for it. Visit me at the church sometime and I’ll lay it all out. But for now…” She nodded at the door to Mizu’s room. Arthur nodded as well, and walked to the door without looking back before he lost his nerve, opened it, stepped through, and closed it in one swoop.

“We visited your cities, not in friendship but in open war, paying no heed to the locks on your iron gates.”

“Hi, Mizu.”

“Hello.”

The doctor and the guardian were both already gone. Arthur didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t that Mizu would be fully clothed, sitting up in bed. She didn’t look strong, exactly, but whatever she had hardly seemed life-threatening.

He crossed over to her bed and sat down.

“You said you wanted to see my room.”

“And you panicked and ran away.”

“Yes.” Mizu smiled. “And now I’m making you.”

“It’s a nice room.”

“Thank you.”

Her feet were in socks. He put his hand on one of them, just below the ankle.

“An insect bite.” She held up her arm. “A dangerous insect, one that digs and likes damp things. The wards usually keep them out. This one pushed through.”

“And it’s poisonous?”

“In a slow way. Today will be the best. And then it’ll get worse.”

“Medicine won’t help?”

“It helps. Enough to give a person a chance. Raises vitality and poison resistance. Otherwise, most of my points are in wisdom and intelligence. I am,” she smiled weakly, “not suited for recovering from venom.”

“There’s more to overcoming sickness than that,” Arthur argued. “You’re tough. We didn’t have stat points on Earth. And you couldn’t exactly quantify vitality like you can here. Some people were just fighters. Lived through things by just deciding they would and sticking to it.”

“No stats at all?”

“Some people were stronger because they worked to be. Some people were smarter because they were born that way, or developed it. But sometimes, a mom would lift a car off a child because she had to, whether she was strong enough or not.”

“A car?”

“Sort of a fast wagon that ran on explosions. I think. It’s getting harder to remember Earth these days. I might have dreamed it.”

They sat for a while, quietly.

“Mizu?”

“Yes?”

“You have a doctor, and a cleric.”

“Yes.”

“And a friend. Onna.”

“Yes.”

“What can I do for you? Why do you… need me?”

“Because…”

She sat there for a bit, silently.

“Because I’m scared.”

—

Arthur left not too long after that. He was going to come back the next day. And the next. He had decided that already. Mizu knew that too without any words. After a little while, she said she needed to cut him loose so she could rest.

He didn’t need perception to know that was a lie. Maybe she needed to rest, but she was telling him to leave so he’d feel more comfortable. And so he found himself slumped against the wall outside her room, crying silently enough that he was sure she wouldn’t hear.

“I thought I should probably double back. Looks like I was right. You need me?” Itela asked.

“Probably just for a minute. Until I calm down.”

Itela sat with him, rubbing his back until he could stop the hiccuppy sort of sobbing. He always cried like that when he was trying to hide it. And then, trained cleric that she was, she left before he had a chance to be embarrassed about it.

Standing up and walking home, he considered how crazy it was. If Mizu was his girlfriend, she was just barely his girlfriend. They had talked-not-talked about it once. They had maybe, just maybe, been on a few dates. And she had called him over because she was sure, somehow, that he was the guy who could help her be less afraid. Like he’d drop everything and do whatever it took, no matter how stupid, to figure out a way to let her beat this thing.

And the craziest bit was that she was right. He was already thinking about how to get started.