Chapter 35: Bear Demon

As the sun pulled high in the sky, Lily was puffing away on a crate. The exertion had finally caught up with her and weakened her enough that she had actually listened to Arthur when he forced her to sit, crammed a drink into her hands, and told her to rest.

“I could still work. After I rest.”

“No, you couldn’t. And Ella said you need to come back, remember? She won’t let you come anymore if you don’t listen to her. You know how she is.” Arthur doubted the little girl actually knew how Ella was when she was disobeyed. He wasn’t sure he knew. From what he could see, nobody had ever actually tried it.

“Fine. But what are you going to do?” She looked around at the accumulated throng of rock-chuckers. “To get them the drinks, I mean.”

“Just carry them myself. That’s what I was doing before.”

“No. That’s dumb.” She finished slurping her drink and stood. Arthur’s perception told him she could probably handle at least that much. “Wait here. I’ll fix it.”

Arthur watched with curiosity that turned to horror as she walked up to the commander, who initially tried to shoo her away. She didn’t leave. The conversation became animated, with large, swinging arm gestures from both, before the commander finally stopped, sighed, slumped his shoulders, and nodded. Lily nearly skipped back over, her eyes shining with triumph.

“He says you can have an assistant. For when I’m not here.”

“How… why… What happened over there?”

Off in the distance, a large non-Karbo infernal suddenly yelled. “I’m doing what?”

“I just explained to him how much slower you’d be without help. And that you wouldn’t ask for help.”

“Who says I wouldn’t ask for help?”

Lily shrugged, then bent down to clean her cup out before she left.

“Everyone.”

As Lily left, Arthur bent down to get back to work, only to be suddenly covered in a monstrously large shadow, one that blotted out the very sun.

“Hello.” The infernal stood awkwardly, his hands behind his back. “The commander said I’m reassigned to beverage logistics. Do you… know what that is?”

—

Arthur worked for a little over eight hours before his boba supplies gave out. After cleaning up his gear for the next day, he wandered over to the commander’s desk.

“Done?”

“Out of materials. I’ll have more by tomorrow.” Arthur sat. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes. I did. I heard someone saying those drinks were different from usual. How are they normally?”

“They’re sweeter. And have cream. I stripped down the recipe so I could carry everything.”

“Ah. Well, don’t do that tomorrow. Full recipe. It might not work better, but it’s worth doing these kinds of things right. The cost is low enough anyway.”

“Respectfully, it’s not that cheap. I have some money left, but…”

“Not for you, foolish child. For the city. You thought we’d let you bankrupt yourself over this?”

Arthur considered everything he had seen from the city’s government until then. “No, I suppose not.”

“We wouldn’t. And if what that loud little owl-girl said was true, you don’t even know what’s coming tomorrow.”

“Probably not. I’m… new. Real new.”

“Monster waves come in surges. It’s not easy to see. But they have phases, patterns they generally follow. The first day is always a bit denser. But the last day, which our scouts tell us should be tomorrow, is always the worst. The dungeons release the worst monsters last, and throw out every monster they’ve accumulated in the meantime.”

“Sounds bad. Any idea of why they do that?”

“I’m no scientist. But if we were to lose people over this, tomorrow would be the day. We need any edge we can get. And so, tomorrow, you won’t report here for work. You’ll report to the city center, and will be assigned dedicated runners. You’ve already met two of them. And you will, Arthur Teamaster, supply the entire wall with drinks.”

“Respectfully, sir, this is about all the boba I can make. I mean, I leveled…”

He had. And it wasn’t a small level, as single levels went.

Level 13 Teamaster

Stats:

STR 5

VIT 8

DEX 8

PER 14

WIS 16

INT 5

Primary Skills: Teashop Brewmaster (Level 8) Food Scientist (Level 8) Medicinal Brewer (Level 2)

Achievements: Shop Owner, Mass Prep, Buffer Against the wave

Buffer Against the Wave (Achievement)

You have cut your other-people-augmenting teeth against the iron of war. When buffing individuals who are resisting a monster wave, your buffs are a small fraction more effective.

Arthur continued, “But there’s a limit to how much boba I can make. I run out of majicka.”

“Let us worry about that. Some orders have already been made to help. You’ll find out more about those when you get home. Besides that, we’ll understand if you can’t do more than what your body allows. We just ask for your best.”

Arthur nodded.

“You’ll have it.”

The commander slapped a rectangular piece of paper down on the counter, gesturing for Arthur to take it. He did, finding it was covered with technical language he didn’t have the time or energy to understand.

“It’s a credit voucher. Any shop will sell you almost any product related to food production at no charge to you if you show them that. I regret having to mention this, but these do get audited after the wave. Be careful to use it responsibly.”

“Got it. For ingredients and materials too?”

“Anything you need for tomorrow. And since I probably won’t see you until after the battle, good luck.”

—

Arthur made it down the steps, absurdly happy that the battle was taking place on top of a wall rather than at the bottom of a canyon. His legs were shot from squatting down and making tea all day. He doubted he would have had the energy to get home if it was uphill rather than down.

“We built prisons of wood and metal, and confined you in them.”

“Oh. Hi, Mizu.”

“Hi.” She was getting better at the word. Arthur could tell she had been practicing. “You made a large amount of tea today.”

He really had. After the bustle of the day and the frantic pace of the work, Mizu’s matter-of-fact tone was oddly restful.

“I did. They’re putting me at the city center tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Arthur wasn’t sure, but he thought Mizu looked slightly disappointed.

“I have some time before I go home. Were you… doing anything?”

“Nothing until the wave tomorrow.” She held up her hand and let it drop, limply, to her side. “I’ve used too much Majicka. They told me I need to recover.”

“Walk you home?”

“Please.”

They walked side by side for a while, silently. Arthur was still getting used to that particular dynamic. Mizu never seemed to mind when he talked. She also never seemed to mind when he didn’t talk. Arthur did feel awkward about the silence, at least a little, but it was getting better. And today, when he was so tired he was sure he’d make a fool of himself if he babbled on, it was wonderful.

Eventually, they ran into something that forced him to break his silence.

“That,” he said, “Is the weirdest statue I’ve ever seen.”

In the center of a large market street was a fountain. In the center of that fountain, surrounded by a number of water-spouts, was a foundation holding a statue of a very large, very undignified bear. Instead of standing tall, he was sitting in a way that implied laziness. He was smiling. He was, Arthur would have sworn, designed to look stupid.

“Oh. The bear-demon.” She looked at Arthur’s eyes. “You don’t know of the bear-demon?”

He shook his head. She glanced around and, finding an unoccupied bench, pulled Arthur to it. He sat, and she sat down very close beside him.

“The history of our planet is one of war,” she said. “You know that. And at the worst of the conflict, when things were the hardest, the bear came.”

“From… somewhere else? Or was he native to this world?”

“From another world. Under another system. The histories say he could never explain it well, but he was blown from there to here by some calamity having to do with a disruption in the soil.”

“In the soil?”

“Under the ground. In the dirt. The translations differ. The bear was not… skilled at communications.”

“Got it. And then?”

“Under the powers of two systems, he became strong. Untouchably strong. He was defended himself, until he was too powerful to be attacked at all.”

“And then he took over?”

“No. He now had time to ask questions. And after a short year’s rest, he did. And he found there were no enemies here, as he defined them. That it was just demon killing demon.”

“Huh. You know, on my world, there were only humans. But different nations of humans. We made war.”

“The bear would not have allowed it. He used his power to end the wars.”

“How?”

“The histories don’t say. But they ended. And all agree that it was because of him.”

She looked up at the dumb face of the bear. It looked ready to fall asleep after a big meal and as if it had never, ever read a book. And she looked reverently.

“In a way, all this is his. The peace, the things that peace built. Every demon respects him.”

They sat there for a while, just regarding the bear. Arthur slowly began to come to terms with the fact that this world’s greatest hero looked like he just finished gorging himself into a diabetic lethargy on honey. From what Mizu had said, everything he liked about this world was the bear’s contribution, a function of it seeing war between demons, deciding it didn’t make sense, and then stopping it.

Hip to hip with a beautiful girl in one of the many beautiful streets of the beautiful city that centuries of peace had made possible, he found he liked the bear.

—

“You stay here?”

“Yes.”

“With your family?”

“No. My family is not here. I rent a room.”

“Oh, I’d love to see it sometime.”

Mizu flushed more colors of blue than Arthur had thought possible, surging across her face like an all-blue prism was passing by at the speed of sound.

“Oh, I… didn’t mean… that,” Arthur said.

Mizu opened her mouth to reassure him, looking as calm and collected as always. She wasn’t, though, if the fact that she failed to make words was any indication. Instead, she let out a short squeak, panicked, and fled into the house.

Arthur stood there for a minute, not knowing quite what to do. A large lizard girl he didn’t know poked her head out of the house, scanned the street, spotted Arthur, and came out to meet him.

“Arthur? Mizu says you can go. Something about having to rest for the work tomorrow.” Getting closer, she got a better look at Arthur’s human oddness and stopped. “You two are… friends?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Arthur said. “I like her, anyway.”

“Got it. I think.” The girl eyed Arthur with a kind of amused suspicion. “Anyway, she says she will see you around. What did you do to her, anyway? I could have sworn she was embarrassed. I’ve never seen that from her before.”

“Um…” Arthur considered asking the girl about it, then decided he’d rather not embarrass Mizu any more than he had already. “Ask her about it. If she wants to talk about it, she can.”

“Good answer.”

Arthur shuffled a little, awkwardly. “Well, then. It’s nice to meet you…”

“Onna.”

“Onna. Very nice to meet you. But I have some work to do tonight, so I’ll be going.”

“No problem. Good luck with that. And, Arthur?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s a really nice girl. You know that, right?”

Arthur nodded.

“I do. The nicest I know.”