Without any actual useful advice from Aurigeant, Kaldalis focused on forcing the rest of his sandwich down in silence. He let his mind wander.

Kaldalis had to decide on a productive use of his time. He kind of wanted to try and seek out Reno and SeventyEight to try and help rush a few more levels into them, but he wasn’t sure how he would do that. He was burnt out on the dungeon, but nothing else seemed as strong of an option. The only other thing he could think of was running around the jungle looking for fights.

Of course, as soon as he had food in his belly, he could think clearly again.

At this exact moment, he was unfettered, and he needed to take advantage of that while he could. Kaldalis didn’t know when he’d have another chance for a moment to himself, and for his own mental health, he didn’t want to waste it.

And that meant one thing.

The pier was much larger than Foturns’ floating dock had been, which was a great benefit. The new ship that had brought the newbies in - the word Rambutan carved and painted along the prow - was moored near at hand. It swarmed with sailors moving goods on and off the vessel.

Kaldalis was easily able to keep out of their way. The end of the wide dock had become a kind of staging area for crates and barrels and lengths of rope, but he was more than capable of clambering up the pile and sitting on the edge of a crate to drop his fishing line in the ocean.

He knew that he could have picked up a fishing daily from the cooks before heading out, but he didn’t need to add another thing to his to-do list. The camp - sorry, the town - had plenty of food now, and his fish were no longer a significant supplement. Keeping away from the quest - and keeping roe on the hook rather than other baits or lures to target other fish - meant that he was primarily attracting the pale perch he needed for the quest, slowly ticking up his counter.

After a few minutes of mindless fishing, he reached for his menus.

A small corgi joined him on the dock.

“I almost forgot about you all over again, little pup,” Kaldalis said, scratching the dog between the ears. “We’re not going to make that mistake again are we? No we’re not! No we’re not!”

The pup leaned into the affection, tongue lolling out with a big happy puppy smile.

Despite it all, Kaldalis had to admit one thing. Any videogame where you could pet a dog was a good videogame.

And here he was, petting a dog.

Just then, he got a bite on the line, which demanded his full attention. The puppy gave a happy yap. Kaldalis was suddenly alarmed to hear the click of doggy nails on wood as Ein started to run around the dock.

The dog was only burning off excess energy, but they were only a dozen feet away from sailors hard at work.

“Ein!” Kaldalis shouted. “Here.”

He was grateful to hear the sound of the puppy scrambling back up the stacks of crates to return to him as he finished reeling in his fish.

Once that task was done, he turned to the puppy and gave him another rub on the head.

“I need you to do me a big favor, buddy,” Kaldalis said. “I’m not gonna make you sit still, because that’s nonsense. You’re not going to do that. I’m just going to politely ask that you don’t get underfoot with the sailors.” He pointed back towards the group of people working on moving goods on and off the boat. “Just don’t be a nuisance. I don’t want you getting hurt, and I don’t want you getting any of them hurt.”

Ein gave a yap, and Kaldalis didn’t know if that meant he understood, or if that meant he was a dog. He didn’t want to keep the poor pup locked up in the pet menu if he didn’t have to, so he decided to risk it, throwing his line out into the water again.

The little corgi went back to scrambling around the end of the dock, thankfully around the crates and barrels and other goods rather than running up and down its length to harass the workers. He might not have understood what Kaldalis said, but he was trying.

Not having to worry about the pup meant that Kaldalis could properly get his introspection on. He focused on pulling in fish after fish.

The biggest problem he had was the limitations of his time, but he realized it was more than that. Back at the office, if he was overwhelmed like this, he had places to turn. The people around him were obligated to support him. His boss’s entire job was to manage all of their workloads evenly and even step in to assist directly with the number crunching if it came to that.

In this world, though, he didn’t have any support like that.

He had friends, but he didn’t have coworkers.

He had leaders, but he didn’t have a boss.

There wasn’t anyone to really help him.

Kaldalis either had to rise to the challenge, or people were going to suffer.

Reno and SeventyEight were going to face the same challenges he did, and probably die horribly at the hands of Infernal Horde and poison dinosaurs and giant lizard bears that they were simply too weak to handle. And if he helped them avert that fate, then Balrim and Myrin might suffer the same, only because they were unable to manage and control monsters in the same way as a tank could.

And all of that hinged on Garyung being able to handle matters with his own hands long enough for Kaldalis to deal with these problems. If he saw the large Bhogad rushing towards him with panic in his eyes, any time management he could work out would crumble to dust in his hands.

As he mulled things over, he realized that he wasn’t even paying attention to the fish as he pulled them out of the ocean.

Despite the change in the town - and in the dock - he was still pulling up the same fish as before. At the very least, the majority of them were pale perch, giving him a good run on the quest. But as he went on, he realized that was the only progress he was making.

Fishing wasn’t clearing his mind. It was making him focus on the problems.

“This isn’t helping,” he said out loud.

In response, Ein stopped his energetic scampering around and returned to Kaldalis’s side with a yap.

“No, not you,” Kaldalis said with a laugh, reaching over to scratch behind the dog’s ears. “You’re doing great, little buddy. Yes you are! Yes you are!”

Ein leaned into the affection and gave another happy yap.

“It’s just… I mean…” He trailed off, struggling to sum up his problems in a more concise way. “There’s a lot going on right now and I don’t really have the ability to deal with it.”

Ein looked up at him with his disproportionately large puppy eyes, seeming to listen.

“Though I guess that’s not really a problem I can ask for you to help with.” He looked back out over the ocean, watching the faint ripple where his line vanished beneath the waves. After his time fishing, it was inching towards late afternoon, and despite the hours, all his introspection had gotten him was a trip around and around the same problems over again. “So here’s a better problem. Fishing isn’t helping. I came out here to try and not die of stress, but all I’ve gotten is fifty-something more pale perch.”

Ein yapped and hopped forward, headbutting Kaldalis in the arm.

“Yes, you’re a big help,” Kaldalis said, scratching under the dog’s chin. “Yes you are! You’re a great stress relief! Fuzzy puppy is such a good calming influence!”

The dog made a happy puppy sound and yawned, slumping down to lean against Kaldalis’s side.

“But,” Kaldalis said, careful to keep petting the attention-seeking puppy, “this doesn’t help me in the long term. I was hoping by being out here, I could take some time to come up with a better plan of attack than to just suck it up and do the thing.”

Ein made an unhappy whining sound, though he didn’t move as long as Kaldalis kept petting him.

“I don’t know what to do, that’s all.” Kaldalis sighed. “I don’t really think I was going to come up with the silver bullet while sitting here and doing nothing.”

The puppy kicked his legs and rolled up again to his feet, tilting his head to give Kaldalis a look.

“What?”

An aggravated yap was a surprise to Kaldalis. He had already suspected that the dog had some capacity to understand him, but this was an unexpectedly direct comment on the part of the corgi.

“I don’t understand,” Kaldalis said. “Can you rephrase that?”

Ein yapped at Kaldalis and then turned to yap directly at the fishing rod in his hand.

“What?” Kaldalis asked. “Okay, okay, I’m gonna try and interpret.”

Kaldalis stared at the rod for a moment. Just then, the line started to tug, and he started running through the movements of the fishing minigame.

As he watched the line grow closer and closer, he started to piece together what the dog was trying to tell him. Once he had the latest pale perch in hand - bringing him to eight hundred and seventy-one - he knew what had upset the oddly intelligent pup.

“I get it,” Kaldalis said. Instead of throwing the line back out, he put it away. “I didn’t expect the answer coming to me by sitting here. So why am I here?”

The dog’s mouth fell open in a panting doggy smile again.

It seemed Kaldalis understood the dog’s complaint.

“Alright, Ein-the-Wise, you’ve made your point,” Kaldalis said. “So do you have a better idea?”

Ein closed his mouth and tilted his head for a moment.

“Right.” Kaldalis nodded. “You’re a dog. That’s on me. I knew that already, but I still asked.” He sighed and looked back at the town. “So many people need my help, but what I need is someone who is going to help me. If I’m going to find the next step, I need to talk it through with someone smarter than I am.”

Kaldalis scratched his chin for just a moment before looking down at the dog again. “And I know just who to see.” He reached down and started scratching the sides of the dog’s head. “Yes I do! Yes I do!”