The Gift of Loot Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Training Montage

Read chapter 26 of The Gift of Loot by Jack_Golightly on NovelPedia.

Thomas woke from a deep, restorative sleep. He had been completely sacked out and only had vague memories of waking up once to use the bathroom and scarf down spaghetti that someone had left out for him. Then he'd gone immediately back to bed. He looked at his phone. It was after ten in the morning. The apartment was quiet. It seemed that Derek had gone out, hopefully to network for another sales manager job, and the kids were off to school. Thomas had slept through it all. After taking a long-needed shower, he luxuriated in having his apartment all to himself again. Then, since he had never been much of a breakfast guy, he busied himself heating a Hot Pocket. He had a busy day ahead of him. Zach was gone, finding himself in nature or whatever, but Thomas could still dungeon dive. He planned to revisit the Demon Chicken dungeon again. It had been over 72 hours, so he could reenter, and it had dropped a nice variety of crystals last time, not to mention his penknife and dagger. He— The front door opened. For a terrible second, his mind snapped into battle mode, and he grabbed the nearest thing at hand, which happened to be a plate. He stood there, ready to throw it. His oldest nephew, Ashton, walked in. The kid looked comically surprised to see him. "Don't you ever work?" he demanded. Thomas set down the plate. "Don't you ever go to school?" Ashton slumped his way in and threw his backpack on the floor. "What's the point? I hate it here. And our history teacher is going over the start of World War I. Who cares about ancient history when we have history happening right now?" The microwave beeped, and Thomas slid the Hot Pocket onto his plate. Truth be told, he had hated history when he was Ashton's age too, though he was surprised that even a dumb kid couldn't see a little value in looking at the causes of World Wars when the world was about to... he didn't know. Be remade all over again? There would probably be at least one big war before this was all over. "I still want a dungeon dive," Ashton blurted. "Really? Even though you saw firsthand what your dad went through?" He raised his arm and wiggled his hand in emphasis. "But we're all going to have to dungeon dive, aren't we? To keep them from overflowing? That's what the news says," Ashton spoke quickly, as if he had been memorizing his little spiel. "And yeah, what happened to Dad was really scary, but he lived, and his hand is fixed. What if I go in there and the same thing happens, and I could have been training all this time, but no one would let me? I've been doing research, and there are level one dungeons with really, really low casualty rates. I can go on one of those. You could help me train. It'll be really easy!" Thomas was getting a headache. "Ashton, you're fourteen. You're not ready. Go back to school." Ashton had his mother's blonde hair and blue eyes, but the way he set his jaw in stubbornness was all Derek. "If you don't take me, then I'll go on my own. Or I'll join the guys at school who are already doing it and making money." God damn it. The thing was, Thomas didn't think this was an empty threat. All it would take was some determination and stupid teen bravado, which Ashton had in spades. Then add in opportunity, because not all dungeons were heavily guarded. Yes, he could do it. If he teamed up with a group of other idiots doing the same thing, the idiocy would compound. With a sick feeling, he thought back to the Mantis Dungeon. There was one guy guarding it. All it would take was some inattention, and Ashton and a group of friends could dart right in. Thomas didn't think anyone would go into the dungeon to stop him. This was not what he wanted to do today. He supposed he could have called Derek and ratted out his son, but Derek had not been making good choices over the last few days, letting the kid drive without a license. And he had taken him to his first dungeon anyway. He might actually approve. Thomas could absolutely envision a scenario where