As we walked back to the inn, Tiesa leaned into me once more. "We really do need to get you someone though. Not sure about Jasna – she had zero idea you asked her out and still doesn't – but my friend, I think you at least need to get laid."

I rolled my eyes. That was one of the farthest things from my mind. "I basically killed a man today— okay, I watched a man die, is that better?" I asked, having changed my wording before she could interrupt. "I'm not really in the mood for anything, ya know?"

"I know, I know, I just want to make sure Steve grows up in a home with a mommy and a daddy. Or a daddy and a daddy. Or, I'm not sure what to call someone non-binary. Person-y? Anyway, I ruined my joke."

"There's also the whole 'this body is the same as a famous escort' thing so…"

She giggled. "Yeah, that is a lot of pressure. Pretty sure his Innate Capability is related to seduction or orgasms or something. Never really thought about that…"

"I did."

Tiesa slapped me on the shoulder, laughing.

As we reached the inn, she said, "I took over Pavel and Inara's room so I'm right next door. I've got a setting on my AAI that if I lose the ability to communicate with yours, I'll know. Can't have a repeat of your last Pitola visit. You need to change your settings so my messages are on silent as it will ping yours every <minute>. They are just down the hall now."

She pointed and I went to collect Steve from my teammates.

I realized Tiesa hadn't really interacted with him since he'd upgraded his intelligence so we spent a few minutes in my room, Tiesa talking to Steve while playing catch with his favored ball.

I considered trying to update my AAI priorities list, realizing everything was a bit different now, but I was too tired for the night.

As she left, Tiesa hung back in the doorway. "Big day tomorrow. I wish you had a day off, you deserve and need it. But you've got two tough conversations." I cocked my head at her. "Your team drama for lunch—" I nodded as it was necessary after yet more craziness, she finished, "—and Vesna for breakfast." She disappeared before I could respond.

You absolute dick.

Still, it was probably time to sit down with the woman who'd pledged a life debt to me. We needed to talk about our relationship and just what the hell she'd done.

***

The vibe was… strange.

Vesna's hug was far more aggressive than I was expecting. I had been, at least inadvertently, avoiding her for a while so I was surprised at the energy radiating off her.

She seemed at once extremely excited to see me and also very nervous.

Tiesa had told me a bit about life debts but really, the whole thing had slipped my mind. Mostly because I was hoping it would all go away.

I don't want people owing me things simply because they believe they do. That feels weirdly transactional.

"You look great!" Vesna said, which was awkward given I used [Transform Self] that morning. "Oh, I didn't mean. Uh. Shoot. Yeah."

I tried to laugh to ease the tension but it was already off to a rocky start. "Don't worry about it. So, uh, how've you been?"

She excitedly rambled for a few minutes about her recent delving adventures and how great it felt to be helping things return to normal before stopping mid-sentence. "Yeah, so I wanted to thank you. Again I guess. I was a bit aimless there and then you gave me this gift, the ability to cleanse the rifts. To contribute. To help. It's just great. That's the reason I made the life debt. Well, even before you did that but yeah. I knew there was something between…" She cut herself off before finishing quietly, "Yeah, just… thanks."

Shit, do I tell her the truth? That I didn't pick her, that someone else did? Is that going to put her back into a downward spiral? Isn't far better to hear it from me rather than someone else?

I chickened out, pushing that topic off for later.

"So… I wanted to talk to you about this life debt thing. I don't really get it. I know it means you owe me, or think you owe me, but… I guess let's start with why you did it?" It was a statement but my inflection made it a question. Consoling people was never one of my strong suits.

Vesna didn't notice my hesitation. "Isn't it so cool? I know people can't normally do them, it's something only military people have access to. My uncle, he served and helped me. Well, I didn't tell him what it was for and he was mad when he found out I actually went through with it but still, so cool!"

Glad they are at least restricted.

"Let's start with what they are. As in, what does it mean that you've got a life debt to me?"

She nodded excitedly. "You get to choose what it means. Well, I got to. It's supposed to symbolize what someone did to save you, usually on the battlefield. Yeah, and you saved me. You gave me my life back. I was lost. And you could've had me barred from delving so I wouldn't have anything – I didn't do my job, to protect my teammates. I could've gone back. I could've—"

I cut her off. "I don't know where you think I could have barred you from anything. You were innocent. Utterly. The videos proved that. I just confirmed what they would have concluded anyway."

She went to reply but I stopped her again. "And you probably would've died if you tried to fight. I saw the footage. You didn't even have your arrows. Throwing your life away for what you thought you should do, because it was 'the right thing', would've been foolish. Keeping yourself alive was necessary. A wise man once said, 'Do what's necessary. Focus on doing what's right, but always default to necessary.'"

She nodded as though I'd just said the most incredibly insightful thing of all time. But she did that to everything I said. It felt a bit arrogant quoting myself but it was good advice.

Advice I needed to take more often myself.

Bringing her back to the topic, I said, "Okay, so you chose what the life debt means. What does your life debt – our life debt? – mean? Please, get specific."

"Oh, there are all kinds, like—" She cut herself off. "Right. So the most common one is to pay the person back for the value of their life. I took a quiz and it said my life was 'worth' 183 gold. So I put seven times that since it's my lucky number. They generally recommend twice your life value – you pay someone back twice over – but that didn't seem right. Before my debt is complete, I owe you 1,281 gold."

I groaned.

She continued unabated, "Also, I'm required to serve as your liege and will stand in for you in most criminal proceedings. For any that mean a death sentence, that's not allowed. Sorry. But if you have to serve for five years for doing something – of course that would only happen on trumped up charges, you'd never do anything—"

She stopped again before going too far off track. "So yeah, repayment of my life's worth, liege – though I'm not sure exactly what that means – and the prison thing. I could only pick three options. Oh, I tried to add something to it about obeying your commands, whatever you'd have of me, I am yours! But that was apparently only for military chain of command stuff and I don't officially report to you so it failed."

I rubbed my eyes as it was… not great.

God, did she basically try to make herself my servant? Slave? She knew me for a few hours. It was one cart ride and about ten minutes in a police station. How do I handle this?

I wish Tiesa was here. How do I let her down gently?

My decision, to talk straight with her, was not a good one in retrospect.

"Vesna, I don't want any of that. I don't want your money and I certainly don't want you following my commands. All of my work here, on Putijama, is to gain and maintain my freedom, why would I want to control someone else's? That's just… not good. I don't know how to fix this. Can we break the contract?"

"But, you picked me for the essence affinity procedure. Why would you do that if you didn't…" Her eyes couldn't meet mine, tears starting to slowly roll down her cheeks.

Before I could think I blurted out, "But I didn't." She looked up in horror. I panicked and kept going, digging myself deeper. "I'm so glad you've seen purpose in delving the null rifts, that's amazing. But it wasn't me. The Velez Council picked you. I was already a Tier 1 option so I didn't think we'd need anyone else… Please… don't cry."

It was absolutely the second worst thing I could say.

At least I didn't say calm down?

We sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes, Vesna softly crying over a table in the inn's common room as people filtered by, giving me dirty looks.

I tried to make things at least a bit better. "How about we get to know each other a bit better? I get that you put a lot of faith in me, I'm really glad you see me that way, and you seem great. I just… I don't want anyone to be my master so the idea of being that to someone else… it's just not something I want for myself, you know? Maybe when we do our upcoming delves near here, we can go together?" I wasn't even sure if that was possible but it seemed like the best idea I could think of, something that might cheer her up a bit.

She looked slightly mollified and nodded. "I'm sorry. I was… so lost and the idea… it gave me purpose and excitement again. But I see why it's upset you. You…" She trailed off again.

"I know I've fucked this conversation up pretty bad so I'm going to try one more thing. I'm sorry I upset you. I didn't handle this well and that's on me. I just wanted to tell you the truth but… I didn't do it well. My reaction had nothing to do with you. You honestly seem great and exactly like the kind of person I want to work with. It's… we don't know each other well yet. Does that make sense?"

Her tears greatly increased in pace, falling freely.

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #70: STOP OVEREXPLAINING HOW YOU MESSED UP DICKHEAD! JUST SAY SORRY!

"Let me try that one more time?" I said, though I wasn't sure if she was listening. "I'm sorry. Let's get to know each other but also try to fix this life debt thing so you're free to do what you want."

She looked up, suddenly anger in her eyes. "I did what I want. Why can't you see that?"

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Shit, she's right…

I sat there stunned for a bit before acquiescing. "You are 100% correct. Let's try working together and see where it goes from there?"

She gave a firm nod like everything was settled and stood though tears still rolled down her cheeks. "I'll prove this was the right thing. We'll make The Kingdom better together." She turned on her heel and walked out.

***

Before my lunch with Inara went off the tracks too, I told her about my disastrous breakfast with Vesna.

"Inara, I think my words today, they are the suck, you am knowing?" I said with a chuckle.

Our team leader cocked her head to the side. "Either your brain is fried or— nope, got it. Okay, so I'll pretend when you say dumb things, it isn't dumb?"

"Don't you usually do that?" I tried, keeping things light.

"Nah, I usually roast you. And speaking of roast, I hear they have some crazy good Tier 2 drake meat here. Gonna splurge. Somehow, I am charging this to Inga. Norbert gave me a team-building budget. Why, I have no clue." She was bouncing at the idea of it.

"Probably because our team is kinda falling apart?" It was blunt but came at the heart of it.

"Yup, and that's mostly your fault."

I winced. "Look, I'm sorry these things keep happening, it's—"

"It's not what's happening, it's that you keep expecting us to dump you over it. Yeah, Vidas is pressing for more hazard pay because it's proving so dangerous. Pitola and Struva are chipping in a bit. It means another half gold a week for us. Not a ton but still, combined across the four of us, that means every two weeks with you, we can get a delve in one of the better Tier 2 rifts."

"Wow, that's not bad."

"Right, but it's also not the point. This isn't a transaction for us, stop treating it like one."

Instead of trying to 'fix it' like with Vesna, I just nodded for her to continue.

"If you think we're in it for the money, we really should part ways. We've told you before, this, what we're doing together, feels good. We get to make our home better. We make the lives of these people—" she pointed around, "better. But you keep showing how little faith you have in us. I get you want to offer an out. You feel guilty. We know it's there if we want it dude. Stop pushing it in our faces."

"Well, shit," I said.

What I thought was polite, to say they didn't have to keep working with me, when I looked at it from their angle, really could feel a bit shitty. Like the intent to be nice was clearly there but it still did reek of thinking I knew better. Instead of asking if they were still in it, I kept saying I thought they should consider leaving.

They had even told me about times they left shitty contracts, costing them a lot of money. They knew when to bail. But I kept pushing them away.

"Inara, I'm going to ask an awkward question here," I said.

"No. I talked to Pavel and he said no. I've gotta respect that." She winked about twelve times in a row.

I rolled my eyes but couldn't help but chuckle. "Okay, I'll ask a different question then," I said, leaning into her joke. "Are we friends?"

She looked a bit confused. "I mean, yeah, I guess. Why are you being weird?"

I nodded. "Told you it was awkward. Now who's not believing who?" I smirked at her annoyed scoff. "Honestly, I've been treating this like a work arrangement. That we get along but are colleagues, not truly friends. You're under a contract to work with me, not be my friend, so I put up some stupid barriers to our relationship."

"Ah, don't we all. Like Pavel." She winked for literally over a minute straight. I timed it.

"Inara, you're my third favorite dipshit," I said.

"Hey! Who beats me? Well, Steve of course, no duh. Then Gabor. Yup, nope, that's pretty good placing I think. At least ahead of Pavel."

It was meant to be a friendly insult without a true answer but she was actually pretty spot on so we devolved into laughter over it.

I said, "So I take it that means we're still going forward together?"

"Yup. I check in with my team after literally every delve. Kind of shitty to think I don't do that as a leader."

"You haven't been checking in with me."

"Well shit, way to make me look bad." She laughed, then focused on me. "I guess I should treat you as one of the team a bit more too. Maybe I'm not perfect." She made a few fake thinking noises. "Nope, I was wrong, totally perfect."

We both enjoyed our food and small talk for a bit.

Eventually, we moved onto things important to the team. Inara asked, "Hey, did you get your shield working again?"

"I'm out on mana from that skill market, can't power the self-repair enchantment to check. Even asked Steve to shove some mana in and the little guy did help a bit but he wasn't efficient. Drained his whole pool and it did almost nothing."

She made a gimme motion so I pulled it out of my storage sack. The jagged rent was still horrible, over a foot long.

As she started to concentrate, clearly pushing mana in, the slash began to close. But just barely. It still looked like it would split to a good hit. "Damn, that was half my pool! And I'm 40% to magical core, that's so much!"

"Crap. I guess I need a new one?"

She shook her head. "The good news is it's savable. Probably. Almost certainly. The bad is it's gonna cost some money to fix. Otherwise, all your enchantments are going to be incredibly expensive mana-wise. Still, way less than a new enchanted shield that's any good."

I sent off a message to multiple people asking for their top three choices for best enchanter in Pitola, explaining the situation. After some interesting experiments on Earth with team lunches, I found ranked list-style votes made most people happy and got the best outcomes.

I said, "Okay, I did run something by Vesna. Yes, I should have gotten your input first but… crying woman. You get the idea."

She nodded in sympathy. "Shoot."

My idea to delve with Vesna's team seemed to be a hit with our leader. "I was just thinking it would be nice to get out and be a bit more under-the-radar. Maybe that's what we need."

She took a few minutes to process. "If they're good, you can do a few delves with her team too. Yeah, that would give us a bit of break from each other. Again, we like you, but you've made our lives far more exciting. And that excitement isn't always great, you know?"

"Yup, I feel you."

"Pavel said no, remember?" she said, sticking out her tongue.

"That joke is going to get old."

"Not for me!" she said jovially.

***

We joined up with Pavel, Romie, and Steve, who was still pestering away at Romie's shoulders before I transferred him to mine. It was comical to see him in his teddy bear costume, trying to move around a lot. Tiesa kept an eye on us from a distance, as did our contracted bodyguard Sasa Sati.

Our team-building day, on the dime of the city of Pitola, started with a game with wands that were essentially paintball guns. They used a small amount of mana to propel balls of magical paint at each other, though the pellets were thankfully much softer than the paintballs I was used to.

Steve was insistent he be included so we had to take him out of the costume first. I had to tell him, multiple times of course, that he couldn't take off the goggles.

He was a comical sight.

Our white suits, making us look like workers in a semiconductor factory, were slightly magical. Each had targets that moved as we did, showing off various synthetic weak points.

The game was one of survival. Each 'hit' was magically marked and everyone had 100 hit points before they were out.

Normal hits only did one damage, permanent weak points – butt, crotch, upper chest, knees, and, oddly, shoulder blades as they wanted another back target – were three points, and then the moving weak points had a target with concentric circles of three, six, and ten points.

Headshots were minus one hit point to whoever fired the shot. The paint couldn't actually hurt anyone if they wore the goggles but it was an interesting twist. And people's goggles did get paint that 'stuck' for a few seconds before fading away, so it was apparently a common strategy to still shoot at people's head to blind them.

For every two hit points you took off someone else, you got one score point. There was a bonus of ten score points for most damage done in the first 'section', which was about five minutes. Finally, the last player received either score points equal to half their remaining hit points or fifteen score points, whichever was higher.

The course reminded me of some fun birthday parties growing up playing laser tag, a mishmash of themes with strange obstacles strewn about to use for cover.

I was never that good at laser tag but my new body meant I would be far less awkward. Tripping and falling, being shot repeatedly while trying to get up, was not my favorite part of those mostly-fond memories.

Unfortunately, I was also in a body I wasn't that used to moving in, the [Transform Self] spell still active. Also, the targets were proportional to someone's size, meaning mine and Pavel's were the largest – though the transformed body wasn't my regular hulking form – while Inara's were much smaller. We tried to protest but the young woman running the arena shrugged at Pavel and I, showing she didn't care.

The first minute of the first round was mostly cat and mouse before Inara flashed across the center, leading Romie, Pavel, and I to start shooting, giving away our positions for only a few points each.

Steve didn't seem to understand what was going on so he just started running after her, firing merrily at her back.

I hesitated.

I don't want to… but he's a valid opponent. And he started pushing feelings of wanting to fight in rifts over the last few days. I think this is the right call, he needs to learn.

After lying to myself to justify it, I peppered the small running beast, quickly followed by Pavel doing the same. Romie didn't participate. Once we knocked off his 100 hit points, Steve's wand stopped working.

He sent me feelings of confusion and dissatisfaction.

He wasn't distressed, just displeased.

My bond was supposed to leave the arena after being eliminated but didn't.

I decided the best way to help him would be win quickly to get to Round 2 so he could play again. Through our link, I let him know he'd get treats if he found the others.

With my team-seeking glider, I was able to both locate and distract my targets – Steve was still making grumpy noises. Romie was the most susceptible and I was glad – they were the ranged specialist. They got some good hits in on me but I wore them down enough that Pavel eventually eliminated them.

Inara was next, though she escaped only for me to find her again. Pavel figured out my dastardly plan but moving away from an already grumpy Steve genuinely caused him to start wailing, which had the man pause.

Maybe I'm the villain here? Tiesa would be proud at least.

I took Pavel out and quickly scooped Steve up to run out and get some refreshments. They were incredibly expensive for the garbage they were, but I paid the price all the same.

Overall, Steve seemed happy with the events on the whole so I didn't feel too bad.

However, my other teammates were none-too-pleased. All three tried to complain to the young woman who didn't even have the fucks left to shrug.

Round 1: Terry.

My 74 points barely secured my victory. I only had twelve hit points left but last man netted me fifteen points to just squeak past Romie on 71 points, who took the most early damage bonus and barely beat me on damage points.

We had booked the place for an entire bell so, as we calmed Steve down – and I tried to explain the game to him – we prepared for Round 2.

While it was available, none of us had grabbed a shield, partly by simple unspoken agreement. It was only a small buckler for the wrist anyway, hardly of help to any of us. Any of us humans that is. A little monster running around firing from behind one almost his full height, only exposing his head, was almost impossible to hit and not lose points. It was barely worth it to try rather than get away.

Fucking Oddjob!

Steve's incredibly well-trained spiritual sense meant it was almost impossible to sneak up on him. But Steve, he easily tracked us all, sneaking up soundlessly and almost impossible to detect spiritually too.

Once it was clear my bond would continue to take out anyone hiding, it became a crazy free-for-all, just trying to rack up points to take second place, though all three targeted me first in retaliation for Round 1.

Yeah, that's fair.

Romie and Inara tied, both hitting 52 points but Steve had a huge 97. My little bond took ten points from the initial most early damage bonus and added a huge 35 score points from having 70 health remaining. My 28 points was in last place though Pavel was only a bit above at 32.

I told Steve he was the winner, tossing him in the air in celebration. Then I dropped eight silver tenpieces in the bored woman's hands. "Give him all the snacks he wants and tell him he won frequently. We're going back in."

There was zero chance we were letting him in again.

Apparently, I was still everyone's priority target.

I went out in a blaze of glory though, definitely taking the most early damage dealt title. I hit three moving weak points on Inara and two on Romie.

My pathetic showing still netted me 42 points, which I thought was at least respectable given everyone was out to get me. The total points available were lower with Steve out but I still beat my Round 2 score handily.

Inara and Romie were ruthless, both seeing the other as their main opponent. That left Pavel to slowly pick up points and wait it out, hoping for last man standing.

The last few minutes were intense as I watched on the monitor with Steve. He didn't seem to care and continued to happily gobble up the salty snacks but I was enraptured.

Inara found Romie, sneaking from behind, taking the chance to down our archer with two shots to the butt. But she hadn't been watching her own butt. Her husband fired and hit the tiny center circle on a moving weak point, taking her from eight hit points to zero instantly. Pavel's own hit points were only at four but he still secured a massive fifteen points for last man standing. That meant he won 61 points to Romie and Inara's 60 each.

Overall, the standings were… chaotic. Of all of us, Romie won zero rounds but was second every time. Everyone but Inara was able to claim victory in one way or another.

I won a round and had the second highest point total of any round.

Steve demolished us all in one round, blowing away any other top score.

Pavel won the last round by the skin of his teeth while Romie had both the highest average points and highest average percentage of points by round.

Inara at least tried to claim second place on the total points but it ignored that Steve only had two games. She was distraught at losing to the little monster who didn't seem to care a bit.

We asked the woman running the paintball arena to decide so she picked Steve first, Romie second, and 'the rest of you are all joint fifth place'.

Not even joint third.

Despite what was probably a resounding defeat if I actually looked at the math, it was a great win and a fun way to rebuild the team trust.

I said, "Isn't it crazy, how I won the only fair fight. Steve wasn't even in the last one."

That set off another round of arguments as we headed off for the rest of a day of rest, relaxation, and team building on Pitola's dime.

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