Is It Wrong to Crave Love (In A Dungeon?) Chapter 25 - Weakness

Once, I went on a date.

One of my passengers, who became a regular, had complained endlessly of his cousin, whom he stated was high on the hot scale, but equally higher on the crazy scale. Then, as I believed any form of love was better than none at all, I asked if he could put in a word.

“Are you sure?” he asked me. “She’s really crazy. I mean it.”

I told him I was sure.

She agreed to meet at a coffee shop for a coffee date. I had carried hopes that it would blossom into something more. Everything seemed normal, at first. Normal, inasmuch as a date could be. She was beautiful, with long blonde hair and deep blue eyes. She’d come dressed as casually as possible in a blue tank top and slacks with her hair behind a baseball cap, whereas I’d come in my best clothes, that had been pressed and cleaned.

We sat, we talked, we conversed, or rather, I conversed, and she listened, only occasionally returning her attention to her phone, all the while laughing at my jokes, nodding her head at my words. For a moment, I had thought I had met someone for whom there would be a meeting of minds and souls. Someone who could and would let me know what love felt like.

My date assaulted the waiter. 

She splashed the coffee provided to her on the waiter, merely because of a misplaced order.

I did not go on a second date with that woman. Disregarding her beauty, disregarding her allure, and disregarding whatever potential chemistry I had prior found with her, her actions left a sour taste. There had been an acrid, bitter flavor seeping into and overflowing within my mouth at the callousness of the deed, and the lack of remorse she displayed after.

There was a part of me that whispered how she was beautiful, and it was to no fault of hers that the coffee order was wrong, and perhaps she had a bad day, or a bad week, and there were reasons, and that I could, if I really tried, help her. 

I could change her, so she wouldn’t be the kind of person who was rude to waiters and staff, so she would be a better person, a nicer person, a more palatable person—

I thought to myself: I can fix her.

No.

‘I can fix her’ was the anthem of thousands starved for love, but it had never been mine. I was not egotistic enough to embark on a project to transform another adult into an entity worthy of my ideals and deserving of my affections. I was not cruel enough to turn a relationship into a renovation project, to look at a person and declare that I’d perform a Cinderella-esque makeover, and only after the muck and grime and dirt was gone, only after she was wearing the glass slipper I’d placed upon her feet, would she be ‘perfect.’

To declare I could ‘fix’ someone was the greatest insult I would ever render upon them.

Sans strength, sans intelligence, sans wealth, sans charisma, and sans renown, I wanted to be loved. 

So, from whence could I declare that I first needed to change another, to love them?

I cannot fix her.

I will not fix her.

If she needs to be ‘fixed…’ 

She is not the one for me.

“I’m sorry,” I told her, after I dropped her home. “You’re not the type of person I want to be with.”

She had carried within her a level of disbelief, which came forth as laughter which morphed into claims that she only agreed to go out on a date out of pity, she did it as a favor for her cousin, that I was delusional, that I was out of her league, and I should have felt lucky, lucky that she even bothered spending time with me at all.

There were signs, prior, symptoms and clues, earlier, all of which could be dismissed when one was in the thick of it, but they were always there. She had never been laughing at my jokes, just my pathetic attempts at being funny. She had never been paying attention to me; she had only been watching her phone, scrolling through whatever media it was that caught her fancy. She had not cared the least to put in any effort, to wear more than slacks, to maintain the conversation, only replying as shortly and briefly as possible. 

She had not cared, at all, for the time and sentiments of the human being in front of her, desperate for even the tiniest connection.

I simply had overlooked it, then. Mad as I was for love… I overlooked it all.

Verily, I say, no amount of pretence can mask externally what one bears internally, for a wolf garbed in sheep’s clothing cannot bleat.

Even the faintest of an attempt to ‘baa’ would expose to the shepherd that an imposter lay among his flock.

The signs were always there.

They were always there.

It was only that one needed a moment. A moment for them to tell.

An ‘assaulting the waiter for a wrong order’ moment.

That moment occurred to me again here, in Orario.

It occurred the moment Lady Freya kissed my cheek.

It was the moment she did so, walking away with swaying hips meant to tantalize, in an attire meant to mesmerize, in a mien and manner meant to hypnotize. Yet, in and of itself, her goal had failed, because in that single kiss on my cheek, I sensed, as Christ did before me, the intentions of the kisser.

Friend… wherefore art thou come?

It was an action she did not need to perform, but an action she had performed all the same, with thoughtless disregard for any but herself. My senses spoke to me that the nature of the kiss rendered upon my cheeks was anything but chaste and anything but platonic. My senses, sharp, keen, wept with the frustration of an untipped delivery driver that the kiss was an admission of want, a confession of desire, a proclamation of attraction.

My first instinct was denial of the proclamation, rejection. Surely, surely not. The very thought seemed utterly blasphemous to consider. 

But I was beginning to accept that the gods could hold affection for mortals, so the innate doubt faded rapidly and gave way to a different feeling of befuddlement.

Why?

I adjusted my stuffy necktie, grabbed my belongings, and turned to the door. With the back of my sleeve, I wiped away the remnant feeling of Lady Freya’s lips on my cheek. I wiped it away a second time, and a third. My throat burned with the feeling of hard liquor and the discomfort of chronic gastroesophageal reflux.

Why?

Did Lady Freya know my goddess kissed me today? 

No, she couldn’t possibly have.

She was aware that I was a ‘coachman,’ which was information only available on my Adventurer application. But this was supposed to be our first meeting, so why would she know about that?

I had gained some fame in Orario. It was not out of the realm of possibility to have researched me.

But if she did research me— 

Why did she pretend not to know me when she asked for my name?

“Hah.”

The laugh had come, softly. Breathlessly. Escaped from my lips against my will.

“Haha.”

Again, I laughed, from my stomach. I ran my hand through my hair, gripping it by the roots near hard enough to almost rip it free. A churning in my stomach came like abrupt indigestion and the result of a rejection of the ingestion of the non-ingestible. Nausea came, as if sea breeze had airdropped sewage into my olfactory senses, a queasiness followed, that of an inexperienced sailor on his first voyage to the sea. 

I was beset with the desire to strip off these clothes, these vestments. The desire to barge back into the door Lady Freya had escaped from, and fire relentlessly the question, the inkling that lay on my lips.

I was many, many things. A hypocrite. A love-crazed fool. An affection-starved loon. Yes, more times did I think with my heart instead of my head, yes, yes, yes, but even then—

I was not a simpleton.

The sound of squeezing metal hit my ears. I gripped my staff so hard my palm was indented into the steel. Lightly, I released my grip. The staff, which Lord Takemikazuchi had gifted me and told me was strong enough to withstand the strength of a Level Two Adventurer, had contorted like a pretzel under the force of my grip. Wordlessly, breathlessly, shame flooded through me. Damaging a gift. Ingratitude. Then, with it came that liquor-misbegotten scorching sensation in my throat that almost had me spewing expletives.

Anger.

It was a curious emotion, but a necessary emotion. Anger was the “Boundaries Have Been Crossed" alarm. It was the fuel for change, for revolution, for growth. Rarely did I get angry on my own behalf, but now?

Now?

I wanted to strangle someone.

Take a deep breath, Moses.

You’re angry. 

Why are you angry? 

Look inwards, and find the answer. 

Because Lady Freya kissed me.

There’s something more. You know there’s something more. Try again.

Because today was the day my goddess kissed me, and Lady Freya kissing my cheek was infringing on that.

Does being kissed by another goddess somehow diminish the kisses given by your goddess?

My voice of reason, nay, not reason, devotion, asked. I did not need to search for an answer. Not even ten thousand tongue battles with Lady Freya would compare to a single brush of my goddess’s lips.

Search again. Look inwards. Why are you angry? Why are you angry that Lady Freya kissed you?

Self-reflection was a thing one did constantly when one was told they were always the problem, that their inability to earn love, to earn affection, was their fault, and that it was their failings and flaws that were responsible. Self-reflection, looking inwards, and finding answers. Thus, I searched. Yet, a part of me wanted to refuse the answer.

You know.

It was because of the kiss.

Friend, wherefore art thou come?

Because of what she did with it.

Friend, wherefore art thou come?

To mark a person with a kiss was not beyond the realm of authority for a Goddess such as Lady Freya.

Was she aware that I knew she had marked me? No doubt, she was. 

Like Judas before her, with lips pressing softly upon a man, Lady Freya committed an act of betrayal and marked the one kissed for damnation.

Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.

Any deity who saw me would sense Freya’s marking, as would all within her Familia.

They would sense it and know at once—

I was ‘hers.’

With a kiss, she gifted me a deterrent against the cowardly and guaranteed enmity against the bold. With a kiss, she staked her claim on land that was not hers, without care for whosoever owned it.

Where did she get the right?

My goddess would sense the mark as well. She would sense Lady Freya, staking a claim upon me, like a wolf pissing on the bark of a tree and snarling at all those who came to rest under its shade.

WHERE. DID. SHE. GET. THE. RIGHT?

“Hah.”

Friend… wherefore art thou come?

I was now doomed to strut Orario with Freya’s Mark.

WHERE! DID! SHE! GET! THE! RIGHT?!

In her eyes, she must have seen it as a ‘gift.’ She would not rescind it, no, that much was clear, when she spoke of how any talk of returning gifts would earn her wrath. As if she had foreseen my displeasure, she had said those words ahead of time. 

My throat was bubbling with something vile. Overflowing. There was a sickening, nauseating feeling within me.

Why?

This action, this branding, this deed, it was not needed. It was not necessary. Indeed, had she never done this, I would likely have continued to desire her to no small degree, just as had that date of mine, a lifetime ago, not chosen to assault the waiter, I would have continued to labor under the delusion she cared for my clumsy attempts at courting.

Why would she do this?

Why? Why? Why?

There was no way she was unaware this would displease me. Even so, she did it. 

Why?

Why would a person you suspect to be interested in you do something they know would piss you off? My ears whispered, You know why.

I didn’t.

You do.

I didn’t.

You do.

…I did.

She’s playing games.

She’s playing games.

Games.

That was why I loved my goddess. My goddess did not play games. There was no need for her to play games. These were the types of games people played that always sickened me. Games which were said to be necessary for seduction. The pages I’d read from that book came back to me, each word hammering into my skull one after the other.

Create a False Sense of Security. Send Mixed Signals. Stir Anxiety and Discontent. Master the Art of Insinuation. Create Temptation. Keep Them in Suspense. Use the Demonic Power of Words to Sow Confusion—

Stir Up the Transgressive and Taboo, Mix Pleasure with Pain.

Pay Attention to Detail.

Poeticize Your Presence.

Disarm Through Strategic Weakness and Vulnerability.

Isolate the Victim.

Seductive processes. Approaching the task of pursuing a person as though it were a script. As though it were a mechanical process, where input x provided result y. Garbage In, Garbage Out. 

Have you tried negging, bro? My passenger once asked. Trust me, bro, that shit works. Trust! 

Games.

Once you knock them down a peg first, piss them off a little, they become invested, they become hooked—

Games.

You just gotta think of getting a girl like playing a game—

Games.

You have no game, bro. You need game!

Games.

The game is rigged, but you just gotta play it.

Games.

You have no game, bro. I’ll teach you some game!

Games.

Don’t hate the player, bro, hate the game!

Games.

Don't be a bitch, bro! Just play the damned game!

I did not care for games.

That passenger said it made me weak. Because I had no fondness for games, because I refused to play, because I had this knowledge etched into my mind but refused to use it—

I was weak.

He argued that everyone played games. Everyone. I doubted it. I saw it as the viewpoint of the cynical and jaded, and a path that would lead to only misery. Yet, lo, I questioned now whether his words possessed some snippet of truth.

In marking me with her kiss and knowing it would earn my displeasure, Lady Freya was playing me like I was a game. I was on the receiving end of a Pick-Up-Artist’s con, and I could feel it. I could see the script she was following. I could see through the sleight-of-hand, see through the legerdemain, see through the hat with the compartment for hidden rabbits. Yet I was not blinded by the smoke and mirrors.

I could see where this road would lead. I could tell where it would go.

If you manage to get the girl back to your place and hit it, you’ve won! 

Lady Freya wanted to ‘win.’

Doesn’t matter what you do after, man, as long as you hit, you’ve won!

The moment Lady Freya ‘won’, she would lose any and all interest in me.

Cause game is game!

Because to her— 

Game is game.

It was a game.

The door swung open. My body was moving before my mind reacted. My staff, contorted in my hand, swung hard, and swung fast, and it came to a heavy, abrupt stop as if I’d struck a wall of absolute steel. The man in front of me, no, the mountain in front of me, took the impact as though it were no different from a lovetap given by a playful lover. He did not so much as bother to catch the attack, an attack which created an ear-splitting boom within the room.

My gaze went to his. His gaze went to mine. A fraction of recognition came. A tiny flicker to the side of my cheek. There was no reaction, but he knew, just as I did, and just as I knew, that just as he did, the gravity of what Lady Freya had done.

He understood without words.

“Mister?! W-w-what are you—”

“Give me a moment, Lilly,” I said, my voice oddly hoarse, as I tried my best to smile. “I just need to have a conversation with Ottar.”

I lifted my staff again.

“Just a very short conversation.”

=====)+(=====

Mistress… how did you burn a bridge you only just started building?

Ottar could hear every pulsating heartbeat of the adventurer in front of him, the one who had, without so much as an explanatory greeting, launched an attack with his staff. The staff, indented by his grasp and the man’s expression, a twisted, heated, and contorted mess, bore clear to Ottar the nature of what had occurred.

Anyone else would have thought thrice, four times, and perhaps a fifth time for good measure before they ever raised a weapon against him, but Moses Vanderzee did not even think once. The attack, with that steel staff, slammed into his chest with a force that sent a shockwave bursting from the point of impact.

Ottar did not move back. He did not so much as flinch. The attack of a Level Two Adventurer was not something he even needed to defend against. The sheer difference in Status and Falna was such that even if Moses Vanderzee was four times stronger than he currently was, the outcome would be no different.

He did not need to ask why Moses Vanderzee had abruptly attacked him. The moment he felt his Mistress’ power, emblazoned there on the man’s cheek, the answer was clear. His Mistress had never done such a thing before with her power of charm, but there had never been a man like Moses Vanderzee before that necessitated such tactics.

Did she believe doing such a thing would keep him safe?

It was perhaps his Mistress’ belief that by ‘marking’ him, he would be protected, shielded from conflict, as any who saw him would not wish to make an enemy of him and thus earn her ire. 

Mistress… you fundamentally misunderstood the sort of man Moses Vanderzee is.

He would see being marked like that as an affront to his goddess.

Ottar, himself, would never stand for or accept being branded by another goddess in such a manner. Neither would Moses Vanderzee.

Alas, he could not take out his frustrations on a goddess. That was the way Orario was.  No matter how frustrated one felt, how upset one was, no matter how enraged or how they felt they had been done a grave injustice by the Divine—

No mortal in Orario was foolish enough to ever attack a God.

Thus, the only avenue to vent one’s frustrations regarding a Deity was— 

“W-w-wait, Mister! What are you doing?! Why are you attackin—”

By attacking the followers of that Deity. 

The staff came up again. A second slam with enough force that hair was sent whipping back, and dust and the ground beneath their feet showed cracks from where Ottar stood, unflinching as an immovable object.

Ottar’s brows narrowed a minuscule fraction.

He’s already stronger than he was when he fought in the elevator…?

His strength… feels closer to a Level Three.

That also means…

The staff lunged towards his throat in a forward thrust. It connected with an ear-numbing bang, before the steel, solid, hard, clearly well-seasoned steel staff flattened and squashed against itself, shrinking until it was barely half its original length.

From start to finish, Ottar did not move, and Ottar did not defend himself. Yet, Moses Vanderzee’s steel staff, with that third attack, was damaged beyond repair.

Both of them stood in deadlocked silence.

Ottar opened his lips, “...Are you done?”

Moses Vanderzee slowly pulled the flattened, misshapen staff back towards himself. He stared at it, at the damage done to it, before he turned back to look at him with broiling, stormy eyes.

“Why?”

Why?

Ottar could sense what he was asking. Why would Lady Freya do this?

There was no shortage of answers; the easiest and simplest was: because she wishes to have you. Yet, that answer would not be enough. Because she is a Goddess, was another answer, but that answer, though true, would only stoke within Moses Vanderzee a sense of helplessness. That was not the answer Ottar would give.

“It’s because you’re weak.”

If you were strong enough, my mistress would not need to bestow her protection, went unsaid. It was the truth. If Moses Vanderzee was stronger, a Level 5, or Level 6… There would be few enemies to oppose him, and thus, no reason to worry about him or believe he needed protecting.

“I see.”

Moses Vanderzee fell silent for several long seconds. 

“Even here… even now… despite everything that has changed about me…”

He stared at the staff in his hand. A bittersweet smile fell on his lips.

“It still boils down to being weak.”

Something about his words gave Ottar pause. Something in the man’s eyes seemed different. Odder. Older. Moses Vanderzee turned to the side, grabbing the hand of the prum girl.

“Come, Lilly. Our goddess is waiting.”