Chapter 87

 

The Gnome Warren’s ruins and tunnels;

After a few hours of fun with Asakura I finally got up and got dressed. It took awhile to convince Asakura to wear clothes again still, particularly after having so much fun. She came out of it… at least she came out of wanting to not wear clothes. But she’s still in zombie mode sort of. She’s not attacking anyone but has a blank look still.

Yeah…I’ll just say she hit her head if anyone asks…that will work.

I came close to the fire after leaving the tent, where the others were cooking breakfast. It was a kind of a beef jerky that the dwarves had provided. We roasted it over the flames of the fire to get it going. Rina was now stirring up the coals on the fire.

“Hey Shun, I think some of the dwarves have been working all night,” Rina said finally trying to grab my attention. She does seem to be wizening up and it being more useful lately.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Hmm, yeah I think they have twelve limited air bubble type of helmets so far. Maybe something like that,” she says playfully.

“Good I’d like to get the hell out of here finally,” I said.

“I think that’s probably enough helmets that they’d start moving us across the water tunnel in batches. But can they really hold enough air to get across across that tunnel? It seems like it’s pretty long,” her eyes are clouded with real doubts.

I’m worried about that part too, but it won’t help any to rile up the girls.

She comes to sit by me and hesitates after she’s already sat down, because there’s a low growl coming from Asakura just loud enough for her to hear.

“You can say that again?” She said it as a question but had gotten confused when Asakura doesn’t like her getting too close to me. The intense stare from Asakura is getting worse the longer she lingers there. It finally gets to the point where it looks like she might pounce on her.

“Err…you might want to give us some distance?” I suggested while grabbing Asakura’s hand. That helped a little bit, but she’s still looking a bit too territorial.

Weird…most familiars didn’t do stuff like this did they?

That last blue screen was about familiars and a stun spell. Both of which would give me, huge survival advantages! But, it meant I’d also have to work harder too because having more moves meant I could end up hesitating and using too much time deciding between moves while in different situations.

“She still hasn’t pulled out of weirdo mode has she?” Rina asked with concern.

She moves a bit further away since she’s not sure what will happen. Lately Asakura had been a bit snippy with her after picking up that she was flirting with me too. Right now she had a cat like face with her attention and eyes turned on guarding me from Rina while enjoying being near me and still looking partly lazy at the same time or resting.

Yeah definitely almost looking a bit cat like? Would she stay mostly human though or change further? How far would her outward appearance change? That could be tough and create a lot of problems if we are trying to live in a city…

“Nope…”

“You know I really think she will pull out of…whatever this is soon. She’s a smart person. I know you’ve affected her but someday soon she’ll just wake up. I’m sure of it,” Rina said.

I looked at her. The first thing was trying to tell if this was Rina really thinking that or bringing up some bullshit stay positive nonsense without any real logic to it. Rina was watching the dwarves work more than anything so it’s possible she really thought she’d wake up. The dwarves working I suppose could be giving her the thought that we’d get out of here soon?

I’d reconsider this train of thought more later…

“How can you be so sure?” I wondered. I was hoping she was right. But was it just wishful thinking? I wanted the old Asakura back. This one was fun, but the old one was really with me emotionally and wanted to be with me more than just physically. Still it’s so warm to have a huge pair of …I mean a topless girl holding you all night in the dark.

Thinking about it made it hard for me not to cry. There was this terrible lump in the back of my throat and I didn’t want to bawl in front of Rina.

I have a few advantages.

But I’m under so much stress. The stress of coming to another world, with totally different systems takes time to accept in the mind. And the mountain of stress is even bigger because not only Rina, but Asakura, and the others with us could very well live or die based on what I alone, decide. Others want to say they are players and leaders, like Akira and Saiya; but in truth they are weak.

“I…can’t say why. But I think it’s like women’s intuition,” Rina said finally. She moved her hand to pat me on the back but stopped very suddenly seeing Asakura nearly jump to her knees in reaction.

“I really need her back,” I almost choked.

“Let’s just think about the food now,” Rina said meekly…which was partly a first. I’d never heard her be humble before now really. Usually she was goofing off or doing pranks, but now she seemed better than before.

We both take turns roasting and stirring the jerky and the jerky soup. We made it into a soup, to stretch the meat and so we can get some liquid in our diets too. The water was of course sterilized before being put into the soup.

The dwarves gave us some flour to put into the broth to thicken out the soup too. After cooking it this long its starting to take on a stew like thick gravy feel and the aroma of the potatoes and other vegetables in it are starting to smell good.

The only problem is we can’t make very much at once, both because of rationing our food and because the dwarven travel cooking kits are smaller than we’d like them to be.

They are good allies, we decide. They are definitely better than human allies actually. But I’m afraid that there will be a cost. Everything good comes with a cost it seems. A fleeting thought about the dwarves knowing things were better with them and might want something for it crossed my mind before I resumed thinking about my other thoughts before going off on a tangent.

Of course Asakura doesn’t seem to like any of them staying near our part of the camp. We keep working to calm her down. It means I’m often having to grab her by the hand and pull her back to sit down next to me until she’s calmed down. After that I have to also balance weaning her off the idea that she has to be right next to me every minute of the day and then try to get her used to being around others again.

But what worries me is if she will pull out of ghoul or animal mode, whatever this is, before the dwarves are ready to cross the water tunnel.

Eventually Asakura goes to take a nap.

This is the ideal time to work Rina through getting tougher and sorting anything out with her that I need to. Still, I go through martial exercises with Rina after giving her the treatment. Because I have the runic shielding ability it actually gives a lot of bonus effect to sword and combat weapons training because in reality without something like it in place you have to hold back so much that you don’t get as much of an effect mirroring reality. Plus the risk of breaking someone’s bones when you hit them with a slab of iron isn’t very cool at all and normally slows down martial training considerably with normal people. This cuts that both from the shielding and knowing I can instantly deal with any wounds.

As a result she’s getting quite a bit out of it without having to flinch every time we swing at each other because she already trusts me. She still will flinch when either of us get too close to our heads however.

“When did you learn Kendo?” Rina looks at me suspiciously. She still is swinging more poorly than I’d like. She lacks both strength in her swing, and being able to be nimble but also has no concept of the swings should have a distinct form they are modeled at. It’s a challenge I’ll have to help her overcome. First she has to understand what to emulate.

Do I tell her about the others? This was a Sunghee move that I’d been taught. I didn’t realize I wasn’t so sloppy anymore that others could identify it as an actual form.

The dream state’s special time bubble is giving me twice as much XP as the others!

Nah, it would be hard to swallow on the believability of why I can do this suddenly. It’s better to wait snf not say anything at all. Besides I’m not obligated to anyway.

“Oh, I’ve been working on a lot of skills,” I answered back, which was true. But it’s complicated to say anything else other than that.

“Such as?” Rina asked. She can see I’m being purposefully short. Despite being interested, she’s not being pushy about it but just giving me an earnest truth seeker look if there is one.

We stop after a few minutes to catch our breath and wipe off the sweat. When you train hard then your body tires out quickly.

“I need a break,” I said after getting a bit of sweat on my face. I don’t want to tell her everything just yet.

“Ah, come on. Just a bit more please!” she gave me a pleading look.

“Actually I think it doesn’t matter where I got it, but just that I’m willing to help you if you want to get tougher,” I said to her.

She frowned, “what does that mean?”

“It means life is complicated. Finding out your in a world of monsters makes you desperate,” I answered back.

“That’s…true,” she admitted while I walked away to go rest.

I’ve been constantly worried about what Fox and Sunghee just said…

So I’ve been studying her again. This new perspective of a familiar is very different than before. It means I need to figure out what’s what and where the limits are.

Somehow Asakura has been understanding most of what I’d told her lately. Is that the gist of it? She understands basic commands, but it takes me a minute to take a full account of how much more than that it goes. Anything to do like sit, sleep, eat, follow are instantly understood and she carries them out easily and without question. But could she resist if she didn’t like any of the commands or do the pheromones just make it so everything I want she likes? If I asked her to fall off a cliff would she do it? Of course I’d never actually follow through with something like that. I’d also gotten her to understand any kind of vocabulary that a mid size kid in maybe middle school could understand.

So by comparing what she can and can’t do, I’m thinking she could play video games with me, but probably not do something like teaching since controlling a class of kids would require her brain to be in more than one direction. She probably wouldn’t get stuff like an anatomy or science book, but would get simple talking like what you might say with a second grader. But she would be able to open up a book, and maybe read simpler books?

How much of her brain is there? Is it just asleep or gone forever? It baffles me. Before now I’d had an idea, but I have to be thorough and think through it as if this is brand new and if I’d missed something. Just where is the limit to where her intelligence and tipsy, almost drunk behavior is to start and end.

When I was in Elementary School usually there were one or two students per class that had a few problems. Not big things, but things like mental problems or developmental things. They were nice kids really, but had a hard time. I don’t want Asakura to have a hard time. I have a hard time understanding what those kids could and couldn’t do on their own to this day. With her I feel like she’s there, but not there. I also don’t want her to be like some weird kid that is lost.

That thought is fueling my determination and will power right now.

I tried healing Asakura with the heal spell focused on her brain.

Rina is assisting me. Somehow Asakura knows she’s being cared for, but not exactly what’s up. She also is relaxed and leans into me, liking how I’m touching her.

It doesn’t work on the first heal. I try cure disease and that doesn’t work either.

“What are you trying to do?” Rina asks curiously.

“Experiment…I think?” I said.

I’m not sure either. But if I play with her head a bit with healing tricks maybe something good will happen, is what I’m hoping. I can’t give up on it, even though I’ve already tried this several times.

I continue to probe around. I have to get the real Asakura out.

Maybe I can try spamming like a hundred heals? I’d run out of mana before that would happen of course but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try. I spam about ten more heals on her head. It seems like her brain or thinking is what’s affected. So I’m focusing there. Then I switch to cure diseases spells and spam ten more.

Of course with so much touching over the next half hour, she kept wanting to take her shirt off. I stop that, and shake my head. She kind of resists sloppily and pouts like a grade school kid might but then tries it again. I almost didn’t catch it in time and she’d already had the shirt up to her neck by the time I caught it; fortunately we’ve moved over to my tent so the others don’t see it. This is really bizarre though, because I can’t ever underestimate how powerful these pheromones are. The reaction of how quickly she’d changed and wanted to get into feeding activities is very scary, I realized. I will have to manage it very carefully.

Somehow she’s getting it after I push her shirt back into position of being normal with her heavy lidded eyes half open. That was close, part of the demon DNA is making it hard for me to want to keep her clothes on too. Still, something good was happening…instead of an aggressive zombie she now was acting sort of like a slightly tipsy drunk. Her eyes weren’t staring at nothing either.

So it looks like zombie version Asakura has upgraded to tipsy drunk like Asakura. It’s still an improvement.

Yes! We’d made progress! I couldn’t help but feel excited! The heals had helped somehow, but I’m not sure how. I also don’t know if it was more the cure disease and poison filtration or the normal heal that had done more or if it was both, or a residual buildup of the two together. I can’t discount that both spells being used several times in succession together may have some kind of residual buildup interaction going on, much like how atoms have a tendency to share electrons, and how the electrons want to break off on their own.

I like the smart Asakura, but one that is rough and wild is fun in its own way. Can’t there be like a mix of both of them somehow?

Rina had also covered her eyes when Asakura tries to take off her shirt, but she was very clearly looking between her fingers. It was a dead giveaway when she’s breathing hard too. I decide to try something different. Maybe physical exertion and combat training will help since I’d done a lot of this with her since we’d been to this world.

To help calm down Asakura and get less touchy I need her focused. So we ended up sparring for a bit. I can’t let her get aggressive though, so I have to start it up slowly. If I go to fast, I’m worried she’ll go like a full attack zombie in personality at least, even if she’s not a real zombie. At first I just show her how to hold the weapon again. Then we have extremely slow and controlled swatting each other’s weapons. Since this is a different situation than normal I’m also not using our real weapons but using throwaway salvage goblin clubs.

We go from one hit against each others clubs in ten seconds, to two hits in ten seconds. Then we are very careful about slowly increasing it even more. I show her slowly how we have to not really hit each other, but are working at blocking each others blows.

I think she gets it…her eyes suggest no active anger right now but when we’d first started sparring they looked confused. Because of the runic shielding I can do this well with lower risk as we slowly begin to get more coordinated. I’m hoping activity will help Asakura.

In about fifteen minutes I can see recognition in Asakura’s eyes. So she’s remembering what she used to know? That’s very positive. She doesn’t still act like an adult person, but still seems a bit childlike. But the recognition of sparring was very real. She never was a master at sparring in the first place though, so it will take time for her to still feel like she’s going somewhere with this I think.

In the next hour of sparring training I begin to work harder as my brain works to figure this out. So… Asakura can’t talk, but she remembers fighting at least in some form? Is that a predator instinct? Does that also mean the advanced pheromones can implant suggestions and programs? Or does that have to be upgraded and developed?

Next time I talk to Fox and Sunghee I will have to ask them to help me brainstorm ways of figuring out if the pheromones can implant false memories to grow similar to like a worker bee? Bees have pre-programmed information in their DNA right or some kind of system where certain traits are passed on? It wouldn’t be likely that it would be very fast or powerful, but knowing if there isn’t or is another option could help in making sure what I’m seeing are really her own memories triggering and not something else.

It also makes me think that if I do enough activities that she used to do, then she will definitely come around. The problem is that I don’t know all the things she did on Earth before we got together and that could be a very big list since we are limited to resources of this world, which are entirely different.

It’s very puzzling to me to work through this as best as I can.

We continue like this working for some time. I make the girls stretch and go through a routine, as Rina also ended up coming over to want to join us. Then we go through stances for holding weapons and the weapon sequences of holding the actual weapons and blocking sequences. I’m trying to push them as hard as I can, hoping something will trigger in Asakura.

Sunghee always stressed that the blocking sequences were more important than anything and I can see why when I’m trying to teach them both. We had initially like five positions, but then that increased a few more to like account for how monsters attack differently than humans do, plus the traditional weapon styles in kendo from Earth didn’t account for creatures that could fly through the air like imps, or things that could attack from surfaces of water or minor teleportation skills in battle.

I also remembered that Sunghee had also told me in Earth kendo a lot of instructors tell beginners not to practice blocking and just focus on attack, but the difference is a reality of a world that eats people and the other is a world of sports that don’t kill in a world where humans are the lowest on the totem pole. Of course there would be differences.

But I will have to ask Sunghee more later on. There are a lot of things I don’t understand still. I actually would prefer her teaching Asakura and Rina directly but not sure how that will turn out when the girls find out I have been with other girls in a separate team.

I’m of course hoping the pheromones soaking in their brains with more time will lessen the blow on not telling them that. Will they consider that cheating on them? Without the pheromones it would be a gamble…but with them I wonder…there might not be any negative effect from it, except for Rina but that will more likely come from anger at not having her be one of my women too than anything else.

“One, two, four, six,” I kept counting and testing them by calling out the number of the position I was attacking too first. With this type of system it was trying to help them work through having their brain response quicken and improve with doing random positions and then trying to get them to meet the attack in time. Then after that we were working through repeating it without calling it out with small deviations each time. Sometimes I’d do it against Rina, and then I’d do the same thing with Asakura. They also got the chance to improve from each other.

They both enjoyed it.

“Bro, I don’t understand why I can’t be one of your women too?” Rina asked suddenly.

“What?!” What the fuck?

She’s startled me so badly I trip and fall down.

“It’s a rule by society right? Society is based on rules, but this is a world where rules don’t apply. I also can’t live without medicine and you are the only one that can heal me or provide my treatment. The rule for incest on Earth is based on not taking advantage of family right or being a predator? What if it’s like now where we can’t rely on anyone else? If you are trying to save me and help me have a life isn’t it being cruel to not take me in too?” She hurried on the last part because my eyes were getting big.

“No Rina. That’s not possible,” I said adamantly.

Asakura growls at Rina. Rina stepped away from her just a little bit.

I decide to ignore it for now.

“So uh…yeah, let’s focus on blocking some more,” I sounded really nervous because I was changing the subject really quickly.

“Darn you Rina…always surprising me with weird stuff,” I shook my head.

Asakura growled at that. Asakura did have a reaction to what Rina said. So she does have intelligence. But I just don’t know how much.

“Hey Rina, I need your help with testing Asakura. It’s to help her get better from whatever is bothering her,” I explained.

“We already know what happened Shun. You fucked her so hard it scrambled her brains,” Rina said with her arms crossed.

Awkward silence.

“No. It’s not that... It’s something else.” I just don’t know what. I can’t come up with a good alternative that sounds good yet. Right now it’s hard to make a comeback from that, partly because it keeps bringing up really graphic images in my head, so it’s hard to refute that.

“Are you sure?” she seemed amused.

“Well, …yeah I’m sure. We just need to figure out how you can be happy in your own way,” I coughed and pretended to clear my throat to not let Rina say anything else.

After a little while Rina sighs. “Fine I’ll help, but just remember you owe me, Shun.”

We decide to ask her questions to figure things out. I want to know what’s going on. Testing her makes me really curious. We go step by step.

Asakura can do basic arithmetic still. We used a stick in the sand and gave her the questions, since I’m really curious. Surprisingly nothing I ask her to do she can refuse. It does help in confirming the familiar status to have Rina ask her stuff though. When Rina asked her a simple very low grade math problem she refused her at every turn with her hands folded under her huge boobs in standoff mode and actually looking a bit rebellious. That was even though the problems Rina gave her were simpler than the ones I gave her. So it turns out that she refuses about 99% of anything anyone else asks her to do, even when it benefits her.

That’s not a surprise but it’s interesting to study the extent of everything going on and it’s effects. It does show me that somehow the pheromones are at work all the time even when we’re not pursuing flirting, mating, or sex too. The pheromones are seemingly acting as the control mechanisms for the familiar magic I believe.

We got through basic math facts. She calculates things slower too, but can still do a bit more than just basic addition. Multiplication started to get harder. It also showed me Rina’s math skills weren’t very good and that she was cheating off Yumi for a long time. I was surprised she’d gotten to high school. We got up to basic simple multiplication up to the fives and sixes and she had no trouble. She started to miss multiplication problems of sixes and higher, often writing numbers backwards too. Then we switched over to subtraction and division; the same thing happens.

That’s weird considering she’d had like advanced calculus and some other topics in college. They make math teachers take all kinds of stuff like that to become a teacher. After another hour it’s confirmed in other parts of her former routine’s material. She can’t do algebra anymore either, which she was good at and had been teaching at our school daily. She was supposed to be a math wiz too and not only had just had a lot of math but had been top tier in her classes, though so in some ways it’s also a big setback. She scratches her head a bit, and wants to do some problems and it’s like she can feel that she recognizes it but something is blocking it. She looks frustrated like when you are trying to remember something on the tip of your tongue, and even bit her tongue and lips a few times in frustration, though she’s too cultured to swear or use profanity. She can’t figure out where to even start when we put something in front of her like 2x+7=21, solve for x.

I wanted to test in other areas besides math but it seemed easier to measure when it’s math, because neither of us was good at memorizing history or foreign languages or other things.

“Is that good or bad?” Rina asked finally.

“I don’t know?” I said.

“What do you mean you don’t know? What’s the point if you don’t get anything?” Rina asked.

“It’s good…I think,” I said.

“How? It seems bad to me,” Rina pouted.

“She does remember all her math, but it’s just set back and re-processing from scratch I think. So I think it will come back,” I countered.

“But probably it won’t come back quickly,” Rina grumbled.

“Baka,” I said more than once slapping her on the but. “You need to study harder. No more relying on Yumi the traitor.”

Oops.

I think she liked it too much. At least there was no skin contact. She looks down. “Sorry.” I probably shouldn’t have mentioned Yumi. It’s like a dark cloud is over us when we remembered her.

We then get back to Asakura after Rina had tried to derail the main topic through jealousy.

It’s confirmed though that Asakura’s intelligence right now is probably similar to that of a midsized kid, even though she’s in a very adult body. She does understand most everything then. But why is it she’s the one initiating sex? Is that programmed into her because of the pheromones?

There’s still so much I don’t know yet.

While thinking about it and discussing it Asakura had initiated physical contact with me again. I want her to be smart like before but she still likes to hug now and she didn’t really hug me much before so some of the changes are positive. In fact, she’s doing so now. It feels wonderful. She also has this thing of putting her shin and neck over my own chin and neck and resting there, while pushing her chest up against me.

To signal to go back to work I pat her on the back, say thanks, and then push her away for a bit. At first she looks disappointed. But when I explain it slowly she gets it.

We then went back to practicing skills. Both of them are eager to please and trying hard.

But I have a way out now. If Asakura’s intelligence is still around that of an older kid then she will be able to follow instructions from the water helmet air bubble things that the dwarves are working on. So trying to bring her across the water tunnel won’t drown her! It’s awesome news! It means we can still escape with the dwarves!

The dwarves are nervous about this too but for different reasons on everyone altogether it seems from as much as we can tell without a translator. Later before lunch they call everyone together to explain the devices and how they work.

“Shun, the dwarves look scared,” Rina whispered.

“I guess they hate water that bad huh?” I mused watching their frantic expressions.

She’s right. They look like they are going to their deaths, when facing water and water breathing equipment. But it’s natural that Hrogin and the others wouldn’t want them to go in without any training or experience in the water helmets.

Although we don’t understand anything they said, we can pick up bits and pieces from a series of drawings put together in a numbered sequence that the dwarves have made for us. It looks somewhat like how airports have drawings for children on charts of how to put on life jackets and for the emergency plan of the airplane on how to exit it in times of emergency. Of course it’s not as polished since the drawings have been done on the fly without a chance to revise them and with a shortage of paper; it was still cool that they are working out a way of communicating with us.

We discussed among ourselves how to deal with it.

But then it came down to time to practice it. The dwarves won’t do it without three test runs per person. All of us are forced to line up and take turns. It doesn’t go badly though, since 60 dwarves plus 3 humans and 12 air bubble helmets can get through a pretty good number of those each hour. Each test run requires us to be in the water for as much time as it takes to safely use all the air in the helmet and theoretically have the second and third runs with the helmets simulate the approximate time it takes to cross the tunnel.

We of course don’t like how dirty some of the dwarf beards look, after realizing we have to share helmets with them. The look on our faces when we discover resembles the look on someone’s face who is told they have deadly cancer. So we wash out the helmets before using them after finally getting our turns. It was a long wait since each dwarf went three times in a row and even then a few went extra runs while others had to be brought kicking and screaming and forced into the water by their brethren.

And also because of having to dry off after becoming wet from the unnaturally cold water we had to do our three turns each all at once since it would make people sick to repeatedly get wet and then warm up and then go into deathly cold water all over again.

That meant it was late afternoon before we’d even gotten a chance to practice.

I get Rina in her helmet first. Rina will be a challenge because she’s at risk for having more health problems from the cold. It looks a bit lopsided on her and clumsy. She doesn’t look very sturdy with swimming either.

She doesn’t seem to care about anyone seeing her in underwear. She also parades in front of me a bit too much. I don’t like it, so I turned my back on her. Then I helped Asakura get her own on.

It’s too much though for the dwarves to see two very beautiful asian women that are skinny and toned with good looking bodies. They are giving me terrible fits of silent jealousy and hatred. Of course for this I’ve made sure that Asakura has underwear on for this part, even though she hadn’t had underwear on for most of the day.

Only Hrogin instead gives me a curious look of admiration. He looks at me with more respect from scoring with women than for respecting my abilities as a mage.

How strange…

I pretend not to notice.

At first, Asakura froze up when she realizes what we’re doing. I grab her when she wants to run away. The dwarves laugh, and thankfully don’t get it.

“Don’t worry, we’ve already been over this,” I reminded her and calmed her down. I guess she doesn’t like the icy cold water either.

This is going to be one of the most complicated maneuvers we’ve ever done because the girls will have to be watched constantly. I’m also dealing with both of them at once now too and that will be harder to control. I can only hope that neither of them have a problem at the same time. I have to get them used to it without getting them drowned and this time my spells won’t work, because none of my spells are based on either air or water manipulation.

I have a bad feeling about it.

Finally I get Asakura and Rina both dragged down to the deeper part of the water after some groaning and Rina cussing like a sailor. Normally I’d tell her not to cuss but I feel that way too actually. Shit. It’s ice cold. I can stand orcs, goblins, fire, and poverty. I can even stand bullies and fighting. But more than all of it, cold and the feeling of being cold is the most awful hell imaginable.

If I hadn’t been tempted by seeing Asakura’s huge boobs almost totally spilled out of her bra I would have surrendered immediately. Come to think of it, that bra looks like it will burst soon, it’s probably taken her a lot of work to get it to work. But it’s also positive that she’s wearing underwear without complaint and without trying to ditch it again.

I get my helmet on last, after fighting to get Asakura back into the water. She nearly got away after trying to escape when I was distracted. It seems we’re all ready to go.

This is going to be hard. Neither Rina, nor Asakura want to be in the water. But we can’t win if they don’t do it. And the dwarves will definitely leave us if we don’t go, but I still feel uncomfortable about the length of the water tunnel no matter how many times we simulate and train for it.

We swim around underwater and they stiffen up in fear when I give them a sack of rocks to help them stay underwater. Then we go under.

By the end of the day, they finally figured out how to use the helmets to breathe. Of course I’m now really sore all over from chasing them. I had to spank Rina a few times too for trying to get away.