Chapter 6: Between the Two of Us

The choice was obvious.

“I’m going for it,” Kalender announced. “Stand as Equals.”

He didn’t really need to say it, but for Jyn’s benefit, he did. The system blinked. The only change was that the skill was listed in Jyn’s Companion stats.

He and Jyn locked eyes for a moment of trepidation.

“Did anything change?” he finally asked.

Jyn stared long and hard at him, listening to her own heart, whether or not the way it was beating had changed. Did the way Kalender glow in her eyes change? It didn’t. It seemed as if nothing did. She looked away and checked her status.

***

Age: 21
Occupation: Knight of Lyrica
Lvl. 11 Human
HP: <ERROR>
MP: 52/52

[Skills]

Sword Proficiency (6/10)
Hand-to-Hand Proficiency (4/10)
Leadership (2/10)
Durable (2/10)

[Companions]

Kalender (Leader)
Champion of Reincarnation
Lvl. 1 Human
Skills Received: Stand as Equals.

***

She brought the skill’s description to mind, and it was exactly as Kalender had relayed it. If there were any constant they could rely on, it would be the fact that the System never lied. It only obfuscated, at worst, but obfuscation only really happened for powerful or complex skills. As far as either of them could tell, this one was as straightforward as it could get.

She shouldn’t be experiencing any charm effects. She shouldn’t. But when she looked at Kalender, she felt the very same things she did as before the skill.

Amusement that this guy existed; confidence in his motives; appreciation that it was this man out of all who had charmed her—but above even all of those, she felt respected.

She covered her mouth. She didn’t want to let him see her smile. “Nothing’s changed,” she said.

“Does that mean it didn’t work, or…”

“Figure it out, yourself.”

“Oh come on, I wanna hear it from you!”

Should she? It was sort of embarrassing. A little bit of insistence from Kalender wore her down, eventually.

“I think … I’m happy that what I think of you is true. And I don’t have to second-guess myself.”

Kalender held his breath. There were sure to be some magic words at the end.

“I think you’ll be a good friend to have,” Jyn finally, finally said. “If you’ll have me for the road, please be kind to me. Or else.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll even buy you the whip you’ll use.”

“Wait, are you being serious?”

“Ah, you did say you’d slap me instead—a glove, then? Would that be with or without padding?”

“Continue this farce and I will request a steel gauntlet.”

The inquisitor and guards listening to this in the security room were shaking their heads. Their tea tasted a tad sweeter than it was supposed to.

As far as they were concerned, these two had already won at life. Of course, they also knew of the anti-charm skill specific to Jyn and Kalender; the two had been talking loudly about it.

They knew it was no ruse. The inquisitor’s high-level Appraise skill took care of any doubts.

The fact that he did it through an eyehole in the wall was not to be mentioned. It felt uncivil and intrusive each time.

This is just a job. This is just a job.

The employees of this facility needed therapy. Badly.

At least, the existence of Kalender and Jyn gave them a ray of hope. After long, despairing years of only failures, the male employees had been starting to resign themselves to the theory, quickly-turning-fact, that all men were beasts deep down—that they, themselves, were just beasts masquerading as humans.

But, if Kalender existed, there could be others. They could study what it meant to be a man like Kalender, take those lessons, and they could then raise their boys anew. There would be no more ambiguity between man and beast. They wouldn’t have to be afraid of themselves any longer.

“Could you teach me how to use a sword?” “Gladly.”

They were still jealous watching these two be happy together, though.

***

The days went by, with Kalender teaching Jyn how to read, and Jyn teaching him how to handle a sword. Though, between the thousands of characters that Jyn needed to memorize, and that there wasn’t even a wooden sword to practice with, their progress was abysmal.

Still, Kalender loved teaching, and Jyn—had never really spent time alone with anyone before. She had many siblings, and they took care of each other. When the kingdom decided to employ commoners as professional soldiers, she’d joined up as a page at age 12, and fought her first battle against bandits by age 15.

It was six years of military life thereafter. Her very identity had become defined by her role in the unit—shield bearer, squad leader, taste-tester, and whatever else knights did.

Knights were never alone, not even with just someone else.

“Jyn?” Kalender asked. She’d stopped paying attention. Kalender had showed her all of five characters before he’d noticed her zoning out.

“Ah. Sorry. I was thinking.”

“Anything going on?”

“Nothing important. I just thought, this is the first time I had ever spent time alone with only one other person.”

“It’s been nine days and you just noticed that now?”

“I-it’s been three days for me. In having a clear mind, I mean. I don’t think the first few days of terror count.”

Kalender frowned. Jyn noticed this. “We have already overcome it. Together. Let’s face forward.”

“You’re right.” Kalender shook his head of undeserved pain. He may have been the one to inflict the curse on her, but he also put his will and intent into shooing it away. And they won.

On the other hand, Jyn was oddly fast to recover from this experience, huh?

[+1 Respect]

“I really don’t get what you find respect-worthy.” Kalender chuckled.

“Another notification?” Jyn asked. She thought back to just a few seconds ago. “I like it when you affirm my opinions. I feel listened to.”

“… You don’t happen to have a history of bad superior officers refusing to listen to your completely-reasonable advice, do you?”

Jyn stared at him like she was looking at a mage engaged in illegal mind-hacking operations.

“… Spot-on, huh,” Kalender remarked. “Is it bad to talk about?”

“It’s not particularly, bad, no. Bitter memories, though. Many knights needlessly died.”

Kalender said nothing about it.

“I hope that’s not a silence of pity,” Jyn said.

“I just don’t know what to say.” He shook his head. “I’m not a soldier. I don’t remember anything that might suggest I was one, so I just think—I don’t have much of a right to comment on it. Other than that it’s terrible, of course.”

[+1 Respect]

Jyn met with Kalender’s confused eyes. She chuckled. “I’d hate it if you said something about a soldier if you knew nothing about soldiery. I admire your wisdom in holding your tongue.”

They ate dinner, chatted a bit more, and went to sleep facing each other. Or not. They liked to twist and turn.

***

On the morning of the tenth day, Kalender awoke to a notification.

[Skill learned: Interpersonal Bubble]

“The heck’s this?” He shook his head and sat up. He looked beside him, and the spot was empty. He looked up, and Jyn was there doing stretches. As she raised her arms into an A, she met eyes with him.

“I doubt I would respect you for looking so terrible in the morning. What’s with your look?”

“Already beginning to know the faces I make, huh… Well, I just learned a new skill.”

“Huh.” Jyn lowered her arms and walked to the portlet by the door to receive their meal. She noted the generous helping of fruits for today’s breakfast that they weren’t given in the previous days. “Get up first and eat with me.”

Jyn brought the tray to the dining table and Kalender slogged over like a zombie.

“Stretch a little bit first, would you?” Jyn suggested. Kalender groaned and did as she said.

He sat across her, feeling marginally refreshed. “Wow, that’s a lot of fruit.”

“Isn’t it? Might it be because it’s the last day?”

“Maybe. Say, have you heard of a skill called Interpersonal Bubble?”

Jyn shook her head, snatching a loaf of bread. “Not a conventional skill, I believe. Despite the mildly-difficult wording, I don’t believe it is all that amazing a skill, either.”

“Huh…” Kalender, with bread in one hand, reached for the butter knife with the other. His hand bumped into Jyn’s. The moment it did, he gained a new sense of the world.

It was as if he could sense Jyn’s “territory” and how much he was intruding into it, down to a centimeter of precision. He seemed to be fully inside Jyn’s “bubble,” or so the skill’s name suggested, but he also felt that he had a sort of permission to be here.

The butter knife seemed to be off-limits, however.

“Ah.” He froze. Jyn’s eyes were that of an apex predator—unchallenged in her domain. Thankfully, this predator preyed on healthy servings of butter. “Help yourself.”

Jyn snatched away the knife and brandished it against the half-fist-sized block of butter, expertly cutting it into portions. “Because we are friends, here is your portion.”

She said that, but Kalender’s portion was just a quarter of the whole thing—which was fine, since he wasn’t a butter fanatic.

Well, at least he’d figured out what the skill did. He wasn’t sure if he should announce it right now, especially since they knew they were being monitored. The inquisitor didn’t seem like a totally bad dude, even if he was being a bit cold over the interview, but it was probably still a good idea to feign ignorance in this case.

“By the way,” Jyn remarked while staring at her portion of butter and melting it with her mind, “can’t you read out its description? It might be helpful. Or not.”

“Huh? You can do that?”

“Just will it and it will appear.”

“Huh, alright, let’s see—”

[Interpersonal Bubble] (1/10): Know the distance between you and another person.

Kalender decided to throw operational security out the window and repeated that aloud for Jyn. In the first place, the description sounds pretty useless, nearly on the level of “Know when water is wet.”

“That’s truly unconventional,” Jyn said. “It’s only on its first level, isn’t it? Typically, it will be utterly useless like that until Level 4, and then it suddenly acquires a nearly-imperceptible, but profound, new feature which makes it into something powerful—of course, that is, only in the right hands.”

Kalender was fully aware that he threw operational security out the window just a while ago, but did Jyn really not care about it, either?

“Just throwing this out there, but is it fine that we’re talking about my skills like this out in the open?”

Jyn paused. “Ah.” She set down her bread. “Nearly all inquisitors have a high level Appraise skill. Although none have yet been able to peer into a Cursed One’s Companion System, they will be able to see your basic stats, skills, Blessings, and even descriptions for all of those.”

“Oh. So hiding anything’s pointless, huh.”

Jyn nodded, then paused again. “Ah.”

“Somehow, I feel like I’ll get conditioned to get a mini-heart attack just by you saying ‘Ah’ all the time.”

“N-no, I simply realized that you might think that speaking of skills in the open is considered normal. It is not. Do not speak of them in public.”

“R-right.”

They finished eating breakfast. They figured they’d get released sometime in the afternoon, so they went about their usual business. First came some basic literacy—Jyn knew 15 characters now!—and then some stretches and warmup for swordless sword practice.

Really, the best that Jyn could do was to teach Kalender some footwork and the essence of sword combat. It was enough for them to just pretend to be holding swords—really, Jyn’s figure during their first encounter had been imprinted in Kalender’s mind. She was fast, and she held her sword with such confidence that it looked as if she was moving exactly as she imagined.

For now, she’d been going easy on him, though. Even then, she would always casually slip in at walking speed, and he would find himself with his hands in the air while an imaginary blade was already at his neck.

The two of them noticed something, though.

“… You’re judging distances much better.” Jyn remarked. “Normally, I should be the one calling out hits whereas you would mistake them for near-misses. But you have yet to complain.”

Kalender shrugged. “Must be the skill.”

“Huh. It might be useful in combat, after all.”

She thought for a moment, and grabbed Kalender by the shoulders. “Please stand here for a moment. I will lunge, and you will evade. We need only do this once. Use that skill of yours, somehow.”

They were spaced about 3 meters apart. For an ordinary person with no fighting experience, they wouldn’t consider this to be within “fighting distance,” because duh the other guy’s sword’s just a bit over a meter long, how would they reach me? They would be wrong.

With a lunge and the extension of one’s arms, those 3 meters could be closed very easily. It would momentarily leave the attacker in a vulnerable stance, afterwards, but it closes the gap in a flash for the unprepared, nonetheless.

Not all lunges were the same. Kalender and Jyn stared each other down. Her attack could come from any angle, not just straight. Her attack could target any part of his body, not just his head or torso.

Kalender’s Interpersonal Bubble showed them trapped in an ethereal, tunnel-like bubble. His perception of the space outside of it was a bit blurred, as if it’s become peripheral to whatever was between himself and Jyn.

Though trapped in the same bubble they were, they each had their own territories—spaces which they considered “theirs.” Kalender, on the defensive, extended his territory to only within a foot of himself. Jyn’s, willing to attack, claimed a conical space that intruded into Kalender’s.

As Jyn began to lunge, her territory sharpened into something more defined. There was a bubble that swerved slightly to Kalender’s left, terminating into his heart.

He stepped left, his body shifting away from Jyn’s lightning-fast attack. This wasn’t her “Going easy on a baby” speed. She had gone at it with her all—with an imaginary sword, though.

For a moment, they were frozen still. She was stunned, and a little bit impressed, [+1 Respect], but also, “Your footing ended up all tangled,” she still had the mind to give him some pointers. Still, she’d even thrown in a feint to make it look like she was going for a downwards slash instead of a thrust, and he’d seen through it. As far as results went, this man was impervious to feints.

She played with the hypotheses in her head. Was it a form of precognition? No, the skill didn’t sound so overly powerful as that.

“Does the skill show you anything?” she asked.

“I’m not sure if this’ll make sense…” Kalender talked about all the “territories” appearing in his view.

“A form of empathy skill, then,” Jyn said, making her final deduction. "Empathy skills are common enough, but they are usually focused around reading emotions rather than reading another’s—‘perception of space,’ in a manner of speaking.

“Furthermore, empathy skills normally have limitations as to the number of targets, even in higher levels. We also don’t know if it has to be between yourself and another—could you maybe use that between two other people, excluding yourself?”

“Huh.” Kalender shrugged. “I’ve always been kinda conscious of distances … So it just does what I normally do, but better?”

“Skills are like that, yes.”

Kalender thought for a moment. “This feels too powerful compared to the description, though?” In analogy with ‘Know when water is wet,’ the skill was extending the definition to even measuring the ambient humidity.

“Descriptions are like that, yes.” The most incredible skills also had the most incredible descriptions, in a different sense of the word.

“Also, again, it’s completely okay for the inquisitor to be hearing all of this?”

“The more they know about you, the less of a threat you are to them. Isn’t it also the case that you have acquired an endorsement from Inquisitor Yal? His name carries quite the weight. The more you show you are the man you claim to be, the less of an issue they will find in you.”

An endorsement? Kalender thought back to when he could’ve possibly gotten an endorsement. The only time he’d ever possibly done anything noteworthy was…

“… That was an endorsement?”

He remembered Yal’s odd phrase, “Sixth Station, Fourth Night.” Did it mean something? It was probably some sort of code phrase, or if he wasn’t thinking too deeply about it, just his branch and division.

He shrugged off the topic. “Speaking of knowing more about someone, let’s chat a bit more while waiting for lunch.”

“What else can we do?”

So, they chatted, and Jyn talked about her time in the army, and Kalender, his life on Earth. Besides Jyn’s disbelief that there were more men, though still uncommon, like Kalender in his former world, time passed peacefully, and before they knew it, it was time to go.