Chapter 15

I need you to pick someone up from the airport tomorrow. The text said, it’s the woman in the photo. She has been told to wait for you. Take her to the pawn shop and leave. If she tries to make conversation, you can talk to her, but try to be discreet. To her, you are just the driver and bodyguard.

Michael got to the Nashville International Airport pickup area without much trouble, as he was getting used to long drives alone on the road. This time, he was playing a podcast about health and the immune system, trying to learn some new stuff that could be useful to grow his healing skill, although he doubted a podcast could ever be enough. If he ever found a way to boost his mental skills to truly superhuman levels, then he could peruse medical textbooks and all sorts of things to improve his skills, but for now his Uni days had proven that he was not very good at academic things.

Then the woman emerged from the airport, the podcast was paused, and Michael approached her with what he hoped was a confident stride. She was stunning for a middle-aged woman, tanned skin and mediterranean features, impeccably dressed.

“Oh, ciao, are you the guy Old Dave sent? He told me to expect a rather handsome young man,” she said, winking at him.

“I uh…” he stammered, flushing, “yes, it is me.”

The woman giggled. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it, sorry,” she giggled again, “seeing you all imbarazzato like that. Well, a woman has to have fun, the flight was so long and boring! I’m Carmela, by the way.”

He took the offered hand. “I’m Michael.”

“Lovely name.” She said as Michael took her luggage. He started hauling it towards the truck, loading it under a tarp in the back. “Is that our mighty ride?” Carmela asked with another giggle.

“Ah, well,” Michael said, trying not to stammer as he thought something up, “you know Dave, right? He didn’t want to be too conspicuous.”

“Capisco bene,” she said with a knowing smile, as if she knew something that made total sense to her, but to which Michael was completely oblivious. “We do need to be discreet. The old times when we could drive sports cars and bathe in luxury in the open are sort of over. Well, some cretini still do it, then act all surprised when the guardia di finanza knocks at their door.”

He helped her up to the passenger seat, since as she claimed to be unused to the tall American cars, and they drove off. As Old Dave had warned, she was eager to make conversation, and Michael had to struggle not to touch sensitive topics, his interest piqued by the many hints she dropped. At the same time, he also had to steer her away from prying too much about him, having no idea what sort of business Old Dave was having with people such as her, and what sort of image he wanted Michael to project to them.

It was clear, though, that Old Dave was dealing with dangerous people. Italians, it looked like, and not the tourist sort.

Well, as long as I don’t get dragged into this too deep. With my skills, I should be fine skirting at the edges, and this proves that Old Dave does indeed have connections.

“I’ve only been working with Old Dave for a short time, but he takes care of me ma’am.” Michael said, answering a question, “he offered me a hand while I was down on hard times.”

“Oh! So, you are his errand boy now, I see.” She said flippantly, “you look like nu bravo guaglione, I can see why he decided to help you. He’s a softie like that. Well, sometimes. Actually, almost never, but… you know.”

Michael nodded. He didn’t know.

“We’re here,” he said, before getting out of the truck and opening the door for her.

Carmela giggled at that, “you’re spoiling me. Si nu sciupafemmine, eh?”

“I don’t know what you said,” he replied, a bit out of his depth, before helping her with the luggage.

“Nothing offensive, I swear.” She winked at him. “I can take it from here. I’ll put a good word with Old Dave, don’t worry. The service has been,” she looked at him up and down, like a predator eyeing a juicy cut of meat, “magnificent. Perhaps next time I’ll ask for you again.”

With that, she turned around and walked into the pawn shop, her impossibly high heels not hampering her in the slightest. She asked me to help her in and out of the truck but… yeah, I was out of my depth with that woman.

Since there was still time, Michael decided to push it and try to do another dungeon delve, otherwise he would feel like he was wasting the day away. Totally not to distract my mind from this potential mess I could be getting myself into.

His money troubles were taken care of, assuming Old Dave kept giving him jobs, and there wasn’t anything pressing to do, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to do nothing the whole afternoon. Luckily he always packed his hiking gear in the truck, just in case, and he could buy food and water at the diner to refill his stocks before heading to the Trail.

He was at the dungeon entrance by 5PM, drenched in sweat, but not too late as to be forced to use the portable lights to light the way back to the truck after he was done. Every delve seemed to take exactly ten real-world minutes no matter how much time he spent inside, so he would be out at 5:10PM and could walk the three-hour hike back to the truck in daylight and twilight bright enough to see.

Seeing the mana gushing out of the dungeon was always a sight, one he didn’t think he would get bored of any time soon. It has expanded again. Not only that, but there seemed to be a shimmer to the air that he could see with his mana sense, as if wherever the mana from the dungeon touched, something about reality was subtly changed. For a moment, it seemed as if he was seeing double, a reflection of the real world—distorted and strange—superimposed upon the mundane rocks and trees that had always been there for all to see. But then it was gone, and he couldn’t manage to see it again.

Breathing in a deep breath of mana-rich air, he entered the first room of the dungeon, coming face to face with a goblin boss.

Not unexpected, after last time. The dance began anew, and he used the opportunity to train against a stronger foe, electing to only use his fists, [Presence] and [Distortion Field] in bubble form to fight the single enemy. He tried to draw the fight for as long as he could, but injuries were slowly but surely accumulating on the goblin’s body, and it finally succumbed to its many broken bones after a couple hours. Michael’s fists had been largely useless, but that had never been the point. [Distortion Field] could very well be used offensively, and he wanted to train that particular skill.

The rest of the dungeon was cleared as quickly as possible, as to reap as many rewards as Michael could from it, and he ended up with 160 coins in total, and a common skill stone.

Been a while since I saw one of them.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t anything too exciting. It seemed that the dungeon had observed how he wasn’t using a shield anymore, and was offering to reset [Distortion Field] back to level two, retaining the level 4 bonus but losing the bonuses it got from being used together with a shield. All this with the promise that it would be much easier to level it up again, allowing him to go for a different build.

Alright, perhaps it is exciting. The prospect of being able to modify skills was nothing to scoff at. Especially since Michael had an inkling that, much like he managed to learn skills without skill stones, this process could probably also be done without them. At least for common and uncommon skills, with the difficulty increasing exponentially with every rarity tier until it was all but impossible to do without the aid of the dungeon.

Trying it out, the bubble didn’t feel any different than it was before. However, he couldn’t apply it to a shield anymore. Well, I guess that solves my shield problems. It would take a while to adapt his fighting style, but already in the last two delves he had been using only his dagger and fists, and was getting the hang of it.

Now I also need to incorporate the flaming fists I got from [Candle Light]. Next fight, I need to remember to do it.

With the boss room cleared and the loot collected, it was now time to train. He chose to start with the flaming fists, since he always forgot to use them, trying to time them so that they would only activate when the fist was about to strike the target. He went thought some karate forms, some shadow boxing where he fought imaginary enemies, and other exercises he was coming up on the spot, and little by little he got the hang of it. Then he moved onto grapples and holds, which were harder without a real target to test them out on, but also offered the greatest window of time to burn his enemies. They were the riskier moves for sure, a failed grapple would expose him to immense danger, but if he kept the distortion bubble ready in case he messed up, it could be a powerful tool.

The last item on the list was training his healing skill, keeping at it until he was out of food and exhausted. No levels, but he felt like he was getting better at it, and that his heling was a bit faster, and a little cheaper. Perhaps the first level in this skill was not too far away now, and it looked like it would be an upgrade to the speed and efficiency of the healing itself.

Then he decided to train his mana. He knew from his mana sight that he could exert some form of control over the mana in the atmosphere, and here in the dungeon he could make it so that his regeneration was a bit faster. Which reminds me, it’s been a while since I used up all my mana outside of the dungeon and had to use coins to refill myself. I wonder how much my capacity increased after all this training. I know for a fact it’s at least 10 Copper. A solid gain.

Concentrating, he tried to feel the mana in the air, forcing it into his body. Whenever he was too full, he simply fired some random skills to empty his pool by roughly half, and began anew. The cycle repeated for a long time, but if there was something that Michael had learned about himself, was that he could be very stubborn. So stubborn, in fact, that after a few hours the universe was forced to yield.

With this new skill, the rate at which he could absorb mana skyrocketed. He didn’t have hard numbers, but he was quite sure he could increase it up to five times the base rate if he concentrated, although he couldn’t keep it up for long. Disappointingly the mana inside his body was still locked away from him, both from his perception and from his manipulation. His aura wasn’t though. Now that he was used to mana sense, he could see it around him like a thin halo of radiance, and by applying manipulation he could stretch it and compress it at will. Not much, and a thin film of aura surrounded his skin at all times no matter how hard he tried to pull it away, but he could change its shape somewhat.

The limit seemed to be five meters, like the skill said. At that distance, the aura was already frayed and damaged, and trying to push it further away made it unravel and sent back a backlash of pain so strong it made Michael black out for a moment. He woke up seconds later, blood dripping from his nose, and was forced to heal.

Oops. I overdid it.

It was time to leave. Michael left the dungeon, once again ignoring the call of the door leading to the second floor, satisfied with his gains.

Now that his phone could connect to the network again, a message from Old Dave came him, telling him to stop by the pawn shop after his hike. He replied that it might be a bit after dinner, to which the old man replied with a laughing emoji, telling Michael not to worry and to just ring the bell.

An old man using emojis. Forget magic, this is proof the world is truly ending.

A hearty meal at the diner—one that felt rather earned after the long day, and with the money he now had he felt less guilty about spending for his meals—and he was at Old Dave’s.

“You did a good job handling Carmela. She can be… quite something.” Old Dave said.

Michael nodded. “She was nice.”

“Diplomatic answer,” Old Dave said with a laugh, “but it’s the right answer when you do the job I had you do. She was very satisfied with you, so I packed you a little extra as a bonus.” He said, giving the usual envelope to Michael.