Chapter 7: Eastpark with Lisa

Eastpark was unusually busy, so they needed to go further off the beaten path to find a good place to train. Lisa was as focused in her assault as usual, though her level of lucrim was no longer so overwhelming as it once was. She didn't bother to artificially lower her generation rate anymore and the fights were still enjoyable, especially since she was doing it for lucrim development, not martial ability.

Since it was nearly summer, Lisa had turned in her usual jacket for a blue blouse. Usually she wore t-shirts, but he had to admit that this look suited her. It was easy to imagine her strolling into an apartment and getting respectful treatment. Then again, she'd taken an unusual route in exploring lucrim massage and he found himself wondering exactly why.

Once they finished they moved to one of the picnic tables. Lisa had her hair up, as usual, but took it down to fix her ponytail. She smiled at him, but saw how troubled he was and let the smile fade. "What's wrong, Rick?"

"Things didn't go well when I was trying to look for an apartment and I'm still irritated about it." He told her what had happened, trying not to let his bitterness come through. While he spoke, Lisa listened carefully, but she also opened her backpack and pulled out a pair of water bottles and sandwiches. There was no wrapper, so she might have made them herself, but Rick was too distracted to think much about it.

When he finished, Lisa shook her head and made a sympathetic noise. "That guy was an asshole, but I'm afraid you're going to run into that attitude more. My parents know some landlords and they tend to do whatever they can to screen out tenants they might not like."

"But he wasn't trying to cheat me with those background check fees?"

"That's standard." Lisa took a bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully before speaking. "I guess I never really thought about it. Getting into a good apartment, there are a lot of little fees. That probably makes applying impossible for a lot of people."

"Huh. What about the ridiculously huge deposit for being a fighter? I can see them needing some insurance, but... really? That much?"

Lisa winced. "Judging from some of my professional clients' complaints, it can get even higher than that. Fighters judged a risk will make a landlord's insurance skyrocket. Now, in this case, he probably raised the number a bit on you to make you go away. But if you're trying to get an apartment yourself, you're probably going to need a pretty big security deposit."

Sighing, Rick assumed that she was right. "I can't afford to flush that much money down the drain, though."

"Oh, you'll get it back when you leave the apartment, unless you really do blow up the place. Landlords used to try to weasel people out of fighter deposits, but the guilds and sects came down hard on that. Thanks to some lobbying, there are really strong laws on the books to prevent fraud like that."

Though that was slightly reassuring, it actually didn't change the situation for him: having six digits of lucrim locked away in a security deposit was something he just couldn't afford. He needed that lucrim for his own development. With no solution in sight, Rick just munched on his sandwich in silence.

After a little while, he realized how much he'd been talking about his own problems. Lisa sat alongside him without any sign of discomfort, but he reflected that he was being self-centered. For some reason he thought about telling her that her blouse looked nice, then decided that was stupid. They had an agreement to trade training, so it would be dumb to risk that.

Instead, he gestured with his sandwich. "These are really good, thanks."

"You like them?" Lisa smiled more broadly than he'd expected. "I didn't ask, but I figured you wouldn't mind. I always get hungry after training."

"Yeah, thanks." He realized too late that he'd repeated himself and desperately sought for another good topic to keep things from getting awkwardly silent. "Has your business been going okay lately? Come to think of it, did you have trouble getting apartments, since you don't get normal pay stubs?"

Lisa made a face. "Yeah, landlords really don't like self-employed people. But since I have a lot of decent clients, I was able to show them my tax returns instead. Ugh, not that I want to think about that... no, business is going pretty well. I'm actually expanding a bit, thanks to you."

Rick blinked in confusion. "Thanks to me?"

"Don't you remember? You said that I did a good job explaining lucrim techniques, and that got me thinking. Nobody had ever said that to me before, so it really lit a fire under me."

Though he remembered now, it had been an offhand comment. Apparently it had meant much more to her, and he was just glad to see her looking so inspired. Not sure quite how to respond, he just nodded and smiled, then went back to his sandwich while she spoke.

"I got to thinking that I really should be doing more than giving my clients massages. I'm not a real expert, but they do ask me a lot of questions. Not taking advantage of that, at least getting referrals, was just leaving money on the table." She immediately raised a hand as if to ward off an objection. "Now, don't worry, I'm not going to become an influencer and try to peddle my patented secret lucrim growth formula online!"

"Wouldn't dream of it." Rick grinned, trying to imagine Lisa doing that kind of thing. He thought that she might be able to, but it definitely wasn't her style.

"I actually thought about writing a book, but... I don't know, I'm not sure I have the writing gene. But I do think I have some talent for crafting lucrim supplements. Not any kind of genius creations from scratch, but there's a lot of room for people to create customized blends specifically for individual fighters."

"Huh, so you're kind of doing customized nutrition programs for your clients, but for lucrim?"

"Just like that! Quite a few already have someone or turned me down, but several agreed pretty easily - apparently they approve of the work I've done with them." Lisa set down the rest of her sandwich and frowned at the ground, an odd tension entering her body. "That's just a slight boost, though. If I want to really turn this into a successful new part of my business, I need to create and market my own blends. And that's tougher."

"You seem to know a lot about it, though. Or is the problem getting people to trust you?"

"A bit of both. The main thing is... it's mostly science, but there's some uncertain art to it that you just can't determine without real experiments. So, I..." Lisa shifted away further, not making eye contact. "I was wondering if you might be willing to help me out with that?"

Rick stared at her, trying to read between the lines. Was what she was asking illegal in some way, or was she just nervous to ask him? It didn't seem that unreasonable, not after everything that had passed between them, but maybe he was missing something. "Sure, why not?"

Immediately the tension on Lisa's face eased and she smiled at him. "I was afraid you'd be insulted."

"Why?"

"Well, I just... I wouldn't dare use any of my clients as a guinea pig, so I wasn't sure if you'd be upset that I was just using you to run tests. It's not that I want to take advantage, it's that I trust you more. I definitely wasn-"

"Heh, it's fine, Lisa." Rick cut her off with a light touch to her arm and was surprised at how she jumped just a little. "That honestly never crossed my mind. I was actually thinking that it'd be a bit unfair on my end, just taking free supplements from you."

"Oh, it wouldn't be like that." Lisa hastily shifted to face him again, though she didn't move her arm. "I mean, I definitely wouldn't charge you for it, but these would be real experiments. I'm experienced enough that I'm sure none of them would be seriously harmful for you, but some of them would be ineffective or even slow your growth a bit. It's not a small thing I'm asking here."

"Don't worry about that - it can't be worse than everything Granny Whitney forced me to take, can it? Besides, I trust you to make good guesses."

"Thank you, Rick. That means a lot." Lisa paused, smiling at him, and seemed about to say something else, but at that moment Rick's mind spat up something that had been bothering him. He pulled away to reach into his bag and root around for the little white box.

"That reminds me, I had a really strange experience when I went to that job offer I mentioned earlier..." He told her about the position and oddities of the trial session, including all the details of the strange fight with Damian. Lisa listened carefully and asked a few questions until eventually he opened up the box and showed its contents to her.

"Hmm." Lisa bent closer and peered at the crystal vial for a while. "You've gotten a professional's opinion?"

"Yeah, I did. It's some kind of uncommon serum, worth a decent amount because it's useful for developing speed techniques. I was thinking about using it on my Bunyan's Step Lucore, but I wanted to check with you first."

"Well, I don't see anything suspicious about it. It seems like it was a real gift in exchange for cooperating." Lisa straightened up from the box and stared at him somberly. At some point they seemed to have drifted further apart and he wasn't sure when. "Do you think that's all he wants, though?"

"No, probably not." Rick sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Given that he seems to have a ton of money, I really doubt he's just looking for a job. Even if the job itself is legit, I'm afraid it might end up being a real complication."

"I'd be concerned about your mental health if you didn't think that. The Global Lucrim Authority is a serious organization, Rick, and anything they consider a problem is equally serious."

"I know. Some of my instincts say that I should just clear their trial and then immediately give up, but on the other hand... I haven't gotten any other calls back and this is maybe the best job available to me. Even if it ends up getting me in over my head, it might be my only chance to make some headway."

Lisa sighed and looked at him with a strange expression he couldn't interpret. "Rick... are you going to spend your entire life running from one disaster to another?"

There was clearly more behind her question, but he didn't feel capable of picking it apart. Instead he just answered as honestly as he could. "I don't want to. But sometimes I worry that the safe path is just a dead end, so I'll need to keep taking risks."

She nodded as if she understood, but didn't answer. Rick put the vial back into its box and tucked it away, figuring that he would deal with it later. Judging from her mood, it was clear that their idle chatting was over, so he might as well ask the other major question he had for her.

"I actually wanted to get your input on that weird aura technique. I think I remember most of it, but I'm clearly wrong about some details, because it's just not doing what I saw it do..."

As he explained, Lisa devoted herself to the problem and had some good suggestions. Rick felt like he was a bit closer to an answer, and their session overall had gone very well. Yet he still felt as though something had gone wrong.