The morning sun hit the iron plate of the door, heating the metal until the air inside the pump house grew stuffy.
Maria returned from the street shortly after nine. She entered through the knee-high gap, pushing a yellow plastic bag inside containing two squashed salted rolls, a pet bottle of tap water, and an old button-down shirt belonging to her brother, faded by the sun and smelling of cheap laundry detergent.
Dante was sitting on the edge of the concrete platform. He had managed to place his feet on the ground, but his back remained curved forward to avoid stretching the skin around his waist.
The silver screen above his head showed a slight improvement.
[Target: Dante Miller.]
[Hit Points: 3/12.]
[Status: Recovering. Risk of shock eliminated.]
"I brought food." Maria tossed the bag into the space between his legs without ceremony. "And my brother's shirt. Your old t-shirt turned into a floor rag after I cut it up to get the blood out."
Dante grabbed the plastic bottle with both hands. His fingers still shook slightly as he unscrewed the cap, but he drank half the water in long, desperate gulps, letting some spill down his chin before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"You took your time." He spoke, his voice less raspy than earlier. "I was calculating the return patrol timing. If we want to organize a safe transit schedule between the coordinates of hell and the city, the first thing you need to do is map this entire block. I am going to need you to buy a notebook, a tape measure, and..."
Maria stopped halfway to the dry corner of the platform, slowly turned her torso, and stared at the boy from top to bottom with a look strangely dangerous for such a small child.
"Who do you think you are talking to?"
Dante frowned, holding the piece of salted roll between his teeth. "To you. We need an operation plan if we want to..."
"Listen here, smoke boy." Maria took two steps toward him, stopping half a meter away with her hands planted on her waist and her sharp elbows flared out. "I am not your secretary, I am not your maid, and I do not take orders from a brat who can barely lift a two-liter bottle without wheezing."
"It is not an order, it is strategy." Dante tried to adjust himself on the concrete, but a twinge in his rib forced him to stop halfway through the movement. "I have the Summoner class. I understand the structure of this interface much better than you do. If you follow my planning..."
"My mission says protect." She cut him off, jabbing a hard finger against his shoulder with enough force to make him recoil two centimeters. "Protecting means not letting you turn into a corpse in the gutter while this health bar up there is empty. It does not mean saluting your stupid ideas."
She let out a huff, sitting on the concrete beside him and picking up the other salted roll from the plastic bag. She took a large bite, chewed calmly, and looked at the moisture-stained wall.
"If you tell me to do anything else with that tone of someone who rules the world, I am leaving you here with this cardboard box and going home to have coffee with my mother. Then you can figure out how to carry your broken ribs all the way to your building."
Dante swallowed the piece of dry bread.
Unbearable girl.
He clenched his teeth, shifting his eyes to the water bottle. His natural arrogance wanted to explode, but the logical side of his pre-programmed mind calculated the reality of the situation in less than three seconds.
She was right about the basics. She did not depend on him for anything. Her mission had been imposed by that guy in the white jacket, and the bond uniting them was purely functional: she needed him to live to unlock her own class, and she needed someone who could walk in broad daylight without raising suspicion to buy food, bring clean rags, and watch the door.
He slowly exhaled through his nostrils.
"Fine." He grumbled, not looking at her. "Understood."
"Great." Maria swallowed the rest of the bread and brushed the crumbs off her dress skirt. "Now open up that screen of yours and show me how to read the numbers properly. That guy talked about a support class, but this piece of junk only shows me your name and that annoying yellow bar."
Dante glanced at her sideways. He raised his left hand, pointing the tip of his index finger at the space between them.
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"You have to visualize the word Menu or Status." He explained, returning to the analytical tone that came naturally to him. "It is no use trying to touch the air with your finger if your intention is not focused on the core of your soul. Close your eyes and pull the window image forward."
Maria did exactly what he said. She shut her eyelids tight, furrowed her brow until a fine wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows, and drew a breath through her nose.
Three seconds later, the air before her vibrated with a silver hue.
[Linked User Profile:]
[Name: Maria]
[Level: 1 (0/100 EXP)]
[Pending Class: Rearguard Sentinel (Active Support Aptitude)]
[Hit Points: 22/22]
[Mana Points: 10/10]
[Primary Attributes:]
[Strength: 11]
[Dexterity: 12]
[Constitution: 13]
[Intelligence: 08]
[Wisdom: 09]
[Charisma: 07]
Dante nearly choked on the sip of water he had just taken.
He leaned his body forward, ignoring the sharp pain in his waist, to read the lines of text on her interface. The numbers were right there, perfectly legible to anyone sharing the system matrix.
Twenty-two hit points?
Strength eleven? Constitution thirteen?
He looked at the nine-year-old girl sitting beside him, with her thin arms, braids falling over narrow shoulders, and muddy shoes.
This little brat has almost triple my physical constitution without having trained a single day in her life.
His Summoner class had given him sixteen Intelligence and forty-five Mana points, but in terms of pure endurance, Maria was a concrete wall compared to his papier-mâché structure. His congenital weakness looked even more glaring when placed side by side with her attributes.
"Is this good or bad?" Maria asked, missing the astonishment on his face. "Sixteen is more than eleven, your main number is bigger."
"It is not the same thing." Dante ran a hand through his soot-stained hair, feeling a pinch of technical envy burn deep in his throat. "Your support class is not about magical healing. You are not going to conjure lights to close cuts or grant blessings with a wand."
"And what am I going to do?"
"You are going to hit the things that try to get close to me." He pointed at her attributes. "Strength eleven and Constitution thirteen at nine years old means that, once this class of yours consolidates, you will be able to break an adult's arm without much effort. Your reflexes are double mine. That is your function of protecting the light."
Maria looked at her own small hands, turning her palms upward and slowly closing her fists. Her knuckles popped.
"Break an adult's arm?"
"In time, yes." Dante adjusted her brother's oversized shirt over his shoulders, carefully fastening the plastic buttons so as not to tighten the chest bandages. "That fellow did not give you a permission for nothing. He knew I am weak in body. I am the engine that will open passages and use magic from a distance, but if any low-level creature jumps on top of me like that Crawler did, I will become food before finishing the second incantation word."
Maria gave a half-smile out of the corner of her mouth, a short gesture revealing a dimple on her left cheek.
"So you really need me to stick around."
Dante turned his face toward the gap in the iron door, annoyed at having to admit the obvious truth. "Technically speaking... yes. From a party-balancing standpoint, you are the front line."
"See?" She gave a light nudge with her shoulder against his arm. "And you wanted to send me to buy a notebook and a tape measure. Who runs the show in a fight here is me."
"Do not push your luck." Dante muttered, pulling down the long sleeve of the old shirt. The fabric pooled quite a bit at his wrists, but it completely covered the adhesive bandages holding the medicine-soaked towel against his rib. "We still have an urgent problem to solve before you start breaking bones around here."
"Which one?"
"My house." He rested his hand on the edge of the platform, testing the strength of his legs to descend to the dirt floor. "I disappeared early yesterday morning. My parents are oblivious, but if I do not show up by noon, my mother will end up calling the police just to avoid having to search the neighborhood."
Maria stood up first, stepping down from the concrete with the natural agility her twelve Dexterity points granted her. She extended an open hand toward him, waiting for him to lean his weight for the descent.
Dante looked at her outstretched hand, hesitated for two seconds, but ended up holding the girl's wrist. Her grip was firm, solid, holding his weight without wavering as his feet touched the packed earth of the pump house.
His rib hurt, but the pain was now bearable, like an old burn starting to scab over.
"What are you going to tell your mother?" Maria asked, helping him walk slowly toward the iron exit.
"That I fell into the construction hole near the train tracks." Dante replied, pulling the collar of the oversized shirt to hide the gray marks on his neck. "Kids fall into holes all the time in this neighborhood. They will complain about the ruined clothes, tell me to take a bath, and leave me locked in my room until Monday."
"And is that good?"
"For me?" Dante looked at her with a calculating glint in his gray eyes. "It is perfect. Staying locked in my room is exactly what I need to recover my hit points and study the grimoire before stepping into that hell again."
They passed through the gap in the iron sheet door, stepping out into the tall weeds under the yellow light of the morning sun.