It was quiet as I entered the Red Bottle, looking around the room. Nothing looked off, and after a moment a familiar Kobold popped out from behind the counter. “Good morning, how can- Oh! Arc. You-” her words immediately stopped and she suddenly sprang across the entire room.

  I struggled a bit to catch her, as she clung to my coat with one arm and started to check over the wound. “I’m fine. Just an assassin. I was worried it was Laslow and Tunslow, but seeing as they’re not here…maybe not.”

  The little Kobold seemed to relax a bit, though they were still fussing over the wound, fixing the bandages. Her tail was wrapped around my arm to keep herself balanced while actually gripping my hips with her feet, which was interesting because I was unaware they were so dexterous. “Okay?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m okay,” I said as I walked into the shop, heading towards the counter. “First time I’ve been shot by a bullet, but not the first time I’ve had a hole gouged out of me.” I had been stabbed more times than I could count.

  “Potion?” was her second question.

  “I drank my last healing potion, so I’ll be fine.”

  That seemed to be what finally managed to calm her down. However she apparently wasn’t done, immediately running off. “This is the Kobold?” Shuzshu asked, looking around at the oddly empty shop.

  “Yes, that’s Eulreka. She is extremely skilled,” I said with a bit of a smile.

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Strong.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” I snapped.

  Her expression became puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh don’t give me that. You know exactly what I mean. You-” I was interrupted as the little lizard came back quickly, with a tray full of potions. She seemed blissfully unaware of the conversation that was just happening as she held the tray out to me. “Hm? What’s this?”

  “Investment. You need potions, give potions,” she said with a toothy grin.

  I hesitated for a moment. “How much?” Her mouth opened and I continued before she could refuse. “Nope. I’m paying, because you need the money.”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Add to debt,” was her response.

  Looking at her for a moment I sighed. “Alright, I can accept that, I guess.” There were twenty potions that I looked at for a moment before sighing and nodding and started to take them and put them into my coat. “Thank you.”

  Her grin seemed even bigger with every potion I took. I had to admit that she looked adorable. “Healing potions important,” she said with a nod.

  I nodded in agreement. “Alright, I’m going to go knock some teeth in,” I said as I made my way out of the shop.

  “Teeth?” Velvese asked, glancing at Shuzshu as they followed me towards the guild.

  Again the door was open. I swear someday I was going to knock it off its hinges, but I was denied once again. I was about to shout for Landerson again, but I actually saw him behind the counter. Before he even had a chance to look up I whipped the would-be assassin’s guild card at him.

  He dodged and it stuck into the wall beside his head. His eyes scanned it before he looked over at me. I could tell he was about to say something until he saw my appearance as I made my way over to the counter. Blood dripped onto the floor as I did, since I had not bothered to clean myself up and it had not dried. I was also technically still bleeding, though barely. “Why did a guild member try to kill me this morning?”

  “Just because he had a card, you think-”

  Click.

  The hammer of a revolver makes an extremely distinct noise, especially to someone who knows what it is. He knew what it was that was now pointed at him. “You’ll have to do better than that,” I said softly.

  “I understand that you’re upset-” he began.

  “Upset?” Without looking, I swung the gun under my arm and shot the adventurer who had just stood up. I had seen Landerson look towards him and calculated the angle from his look. The gunshot was deafening, and the gun had less kick than I was expecting. This was the first time I had fired a gun since I had been in the military. “I have yet to get upset. Upset would have been coming in here and simply shooting you.”

  “You kick a hornet's nest, and expect them to take it lying down?” he said, visibly getting frustrated.

  “No, I expect you to be able to keep some sort of hold over those you are responsible for.” I didn’t point the gun at him again.

  “You expect me to manage hundreds of adventurers?”

  “That is literally your job, Landerson.” There was silence as the two of us stared each other down. “A member of your guild, a Tier Ten, registered to this guild, your guild, attempted to murder me.”

  “And where is he now?” Landerson said with a sigh, looking around the room.

  “What is left of him is smeared across the street,” I said coldly before turning around. “And the same will happen to every single bastard who thinks he can take me,” I was talking to the packed guild now. Velvese and Shuzshu were standing at the door, not letting anyone in or out.

  The room was silent, everyone looking at me, aside from the small group helping the man I had shot. It hadn’t even gone though his armor, but it had still surprised the hell out of him.

  “I am so sick and tired of everyone thinking that I can just be pushed around,” I said as I walked out. “Better be quick in finding them, Landerson. I don’t want to come back here again because you failed to do your job.”

  Okay maybe I lied. I was upset. I was extremely upset. With all the bullshit that I have been put through throughout my life, this was the first time someone had just blatantly attempted to kill me in the middle of the street in broad daylight.

  “Are you alright?” Shuzshu asked. We had stopped to get some street food and were eating it near a small fountain. This city liked its fountains.

  “No,” I said. My paranoia was already spiking harder than it had in a while. My nerves were fried. I had lost a lot of blood. Honestly I was probably only still up because of the healing potion. And to make everything worse, I wasn’t sure how to even explain what was going on in my head. My thoughts were racing, trying to pick out any single little insignificant detail that I had seen during the fight.

  The streets hadn’t been cleared. He was a good shot, deserving of his tier. His close combat was trash, but that’s because he shouldn’t have been. While he had high damage, he had very little defense. He should have had backup. There should have been a frontliner with him, but I couldn’t find anything in my memory. He was alone when I looked over.

  Did they ditch him the moment the first shot didn’t drop me? Did he think that he could take me solo? Even when I had Shuzshu and Velvese? He might not have been aware of the lizard, but still. There was no way he was going to survive the encounter. Was he suicidal? Some sort of zealot, or coerced into doing it? He had to have known he was going to die. Unless whoever had him do it promised they would save him.

  Shuzshu placed a hand on my back, which snapped me out of my thoughts. “You had that look,” she said, her face scrunched.

  “Look?” I glanced over at her.

  “When you are thinking too much,” she said, her voice was oddly soft, but it still had that rumbly tinge to it.

  I snorted, turning my attention to the street ahead. “Thinking too much is how I’ve survived this long.” I wasn’t sure if the Gnoll would understand that statement, but she didn’t respond either way.

  Back at the house, I finally took off my blood soaked shirt and tossed it to the side. I was caked in dried blood. Grumbling, I prepared another bath. If this was going to be a more common occurrence, it might be worth getting a magic tool that just made hot water rather than doing it myself. Or just making a tool.

  After checking if my wound was okay for the seventh time, Shuzshu and Velvese finally left to go work. I decided that rather than train to exhaustion, I’d do some tinkering instead. Being shot had reminded me that firearms were a thing, and I could replicate similar effects with magic and cause explosions with my fists.

  I got so engrossed in my designs and tinkering that Shuzshu had to literally drag me down the stairs for bed. She absolutely refused to let me stay up all night working, which was funny to me. No one had ever cared before.

  Not even in my past life.

  The next morning was attempt number three to help the little Kobold get materials. I wasn’t going to bother even going to the guild, but when I opened the door, there I saw a rather nervous looking man in a guild tabard. “Bloody hell. What now?”

  Landerson was sitting across from me in one of the guild rooms. “If you accomplish it, it’s been agreed to increase your tier to ten.” On the table was a blue gem that was gently pulsing.

  My brow was furrowed, thinking about the pros and cons of taking a special quest. Special quests meant that there was little to no information and they were the most dangerous. “How long ago did the party go missing?”

  “They were due back three hours ago. In total they’ve been gone for a little over seven hours,” he said. I could hear the nervousness in his voice. If I didn’t take this, he would probably have to do it himself. Had he gotten so weak that a little dungeon dive scared him?

  I continued to frown. “Three hours isn’t a lot. Typically search parties aren’t sent out until five hours. But even then-”

  “It’s because of who is in this party,” he quickly explained.

  That caused me to sigh. “A VIP?” I paused. “What floor?” A VIP in a dungeon meant that it was a noble of some kind.

  “They were supposed to go to forty. The beasts there are between Tier Seven and Tier Eight.”

  I took a moment to think about it before standing up. “What color marker are they using?”

  “Gold.”

  I nodded. “Raise me to Tier Ten, scratch what I owe on the house. Forty gold.” A gold coin per floor. That was what VIP’s paid, and since I was going to be escorting them down, I was going to get paid for the hassle.

  His face contorted into a mix of anger and frustration, but the fact he didn’t immediately protest showed me how desperate he was. “Fine. But, twenty gold, not forty…”

  “Deal,” I said and snatched up the blue gem before turning on my heels and exiting the room. Shuzshu and Velvese weren’t allowed into the room, as they were classified as slaves. For a moment I contemplated leaving them behind as I would be faster solo, but it would be far more dangerous alone. “Alright, We’ve got some rescues to do,” I told them and we rushed to the dungeon.

  Since I had taken the quest, I wasn’t going to half-ass it. Just being put to Tier Ten was worth it. “What’s that?” Shuzshu asked, looking at what I was holding.

  “Ah, a life tether. When a party is going deep into a dungeon, one of the members, usually the leader of the expedition, links their magic stone with one of these. If they die, the life tether stops glowing. It can also be used to track down the one it’s linked to in cases of emergency. Like this.” I held the tether in my palm, and one end slowly pointed towards the dungeon. It didn’t show, but I could also feel the crystal trying to point downwards. “Have either of you been in a dungeon?”

  They both nodded.

  “That makes this easy.” We exited the city. The two of them were faster than me, but I wasn’t slow by any means so we covered the distance easily. “We’re following the gold marks on the floor. Kill any monster blocking our path, ignore everything else. If adventurers block us, knock them aside. We don’t have time to loot, so don’t slow.” They both nodded.

  By the time I finished my explanation we had reached the dungeon. The guards there didn’t even stop us as we quickly descended into the fog filled stone maw of the cave. There were several teams in the main room. Every dungeon had one. Dungeons were strange things, but I didn’t have time to really think about that.

  Once I spotted the gold marker on the floor we rushed into the dungeon. Shuzshu and Velvese were in front, since they were faster than me they could easily get to any monster before me. I barely had time to inform them of what was up ahead and what to expect before they slammed into the enemy and took care of them. Although both of them were unfortunately easily distracted and I had to pull their attention back to the task.

  It was an oddly exhilarating feeling to just fly through a dungeon like this. I had gone into more dungeons than I could count. But never at this speed. As long as they had properly marked their path, we’d be able to follow. Markers were used for several things, one was to let you know the path another party had taken so you could take a different one in search of loot. Another was for rescues.

  It wasn’t until floor thirty that we actually had to slow down. The terrain type changed every ten floors in this dungeon, the first ten were caves, the next ten were forests, and even though thirty onwards was another type of forest, the monsters had spiked from Tier Four to Tier Six.

  There were a lot of camouflage lizards. They weren’t able to change their appearance, but they looked a lot like bark, so it was a bit hard to spot them when they weren’t moving. More annoying than difficult, but any ambush sort of monster required a bit more caution, which slowed us down.

  We also had to slow because we were starting to get tired. It had taken an hour of us to get this far, and we were either fighting or running or both the entire time. I could tell when Shuzshu became frustrated with them when she stopped just hacking them, but felling entire trees with her swings.

  When we crossed the threshold to floor thirty-seven I checked the life tether, which was still pointing forward and pulling down. The chances of them actually being on floor forty were slim. They were either deeper, or something happened on the way back.

  And my thoughts were confirmed when we crossed into floor forty and the tether still pulled down. “Fuck.” The tier of monsters were going to spike a bit again. And the terrain had changed to ruins. Which probably meant undead. Shuzshu and Velvese were tired, though I could tell from the look on Gnoll's face that she was having fun tearing through everything. Velvese was a bit more calm, though she was trying to not let it show she was tired.

  Continuing a rush forward, it was confirmed that it was undead. Skeletal Knights. They were Tier Seven, and the highest tier of skeleton. They were fast, armored, and skilled. Thankfully not skilled enough to take us on. But the fights now took a moment to finish and I had to get involved. It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying to fight earlier, but everything just went down before I could even get to it. Now that it took a few hits, I could actually strike once or twice before it dropped.

  Entering floor forty-one, the tether stopped pulling down. “This is the floor,” I said, glancing around.

  “Blood,” Shuzshu said, looking to the left.

  I could smell it too. And that’s where the tether was pointing. We moved slowly and the source of the blood was apparent. In the next room were at least a dozen dead men. Immediately I flagged them as not being guild members. Their armor was too uniform, and they were wearing tabards I didn’t recognize.

  Kneeling down besides one of the men, I checked him over. “He’s been dead for a few hours…” I muttered. Before I had received the request, but after they were supposed to have surfaced. Checking the wound I could see claws, but that wasn’t quite right. For claws to be able to slice so cleanly through this type of metal, the monster would have to be Tier Ten or higher. Higher, judging by the amount of bodies and lack of fight.

  But they weren’t running for the stairs. They were retreating from the stairs, as if something had chased them down from the previous floor. “I hear…talking?” Shuzshu said softly. She was standing over me, eyes glued to the hallway leading away.

  I checked the tether, and it was pointing towards the next hallway. “Slow, and quiet,” I said softly. It was easy for me to be quiet, but Velvese was still not quite good enough with her new leg, so she was in the back.

  Despite her size, Shuzshu was absolutely silent. She must have some sort of stealth skill. Maybe some sort of soft pads? Or maybe it was just a Gnoll thing. As we rounded the corner, I caught a glimpse of the room.

  The room was brightly lit, the source being a shimmering shield bubble in the corner of the room. The floor had several bodies piled to one side, some matching the previous room. However, there were a few others dressed differently. And there were also some of these differently dressed men still standing in the room.

  “How much longer?” one of them said to the other. There were a total of twelve standing, two were dead.

  “Maybe an hour. She can’t have that much mana left after eight hours,” another one said. They made a sort of makeshift camp in the room, having simply shoved the bodies to one side of the room.

  It was obvious who the enemies were, but I didn’t know who they were. Honestly I didn’t know either side. Playing the hero wasn’t really my style, but judging from what I could see, all of these guys were probably pretty strong. And all melee combatants, judging by how they all wore armor.

  “Oh fuck! A Gnoll!” one of the men exclaimed, seeing Shuzshu as she entered the room. Everyone’s attention snapped over and they raised their weapons.

  I checked the life tether one more time, and it was clearly pointing at the shield bubble. “We’re from the guild,” I said, stepping to the side of the Gnoll. “And I am only giving one warning to put away your weapons, or I’m going to let her rip you to shreds.”

  The air was tense. No one moved as I glanced around. All twelve of them wielded swords, and were dressed in heavy armor. They all looked like Knights, or similar professions.

  As I stepped into the room, tucking the tether away into my coat I watched their stances. All of them were ready to fight. “That’s the Impact Archanist,” one of them said. “He’s only Tier Six. And his pet is Tier Nine.”

  This would be a good test of my full gauntlets. As I activated them, they sparked and crackled with power. I knew they weren’t going to back down after what they had done. People were so predictable.

  Immediately I used a Tier Four spell, something I hadn’t done in a long time. “Flash Step. Impact.” Instantly I was in front of the closest one, and impact obliterated the front and back of his armor, causing bits of him to blow out of the hole. This used to be my ultimate move, combining the speed of flash step into the impact caused an even greater force. While flash step could only reach thirty feet, and couldn’t be used repeatedly, it had the benefit of the movement being nearly instant.

  They didn’t even have time to take in what had just happened before Shuzshu and Velvese flung themselves at either side of the group. I twisted and blocked a sword swing aimed at my head while I haymakered another who had made the mistake of turning his attention to Shuzshu. I don’t know if his helmet twisted round, or if it was his neck, but either way he went down.

  Shuzshu’s axe swing cleaved two of them in half before they could even fully turn, the third barely managing to deflect the blow. I didn’t see what Velvese did, but I heard another body drop.

  Another twist, ducking a blade and giving another “Impact” into the chest of the Knight who had attacked. He staggered, but was still standing. Leaning out of the way of another sword swing I brought my gauntlets up and shifted into my stance.

  Three people were on Shuzshu, two on Velvese, and the one I was facing was apparently the leader. Shifting a bit I could see Velvese now, twisting, turning, spiraling, and parrying every blow the two threw at her.

  The pressure from the man in front of me was intense. He was strong. I could already hear Shuzshu complain that she didn’t get to fight the strong one, but she had her paws full with the three on her.

  Dodging a sword strike, I planted a fist into his chest again. His armor was made of a strong alloy, and he had tanked an impact. That alone put him over Tier Ten. Nothing below that had ever shrugged one off so easily. Another dodge, and another strike.

  Frustrated that I was just holding him and buying time, his sword burst into a red energy. Focusing for a second on it I immediately knew what it was. Beast blade. It turns a sword into the claws of a beast. That meant his profession was a Bestial Swordmaster. There was a Red Feather guild member of that profession.

  A few more exchanges, forcing me to dodge wide to avoid the phantom claws at either side of his blade. I was about to reactivate my gauntlets when I remembered that I had extended time. Two bodies hit the floor as Shuzshu managed an odd swing that went through them and removed their legs.

  “Flash Step. Impact.” Suddenly I was down low and delivered an uppercut impact right under his guard as he was distracted. These were probably people he knew well, maybe they were even his friends. I wondered what sort of final thoughts went through his head as his helmeted head bounced off the ceiling while his body remained where it was.

  It was the last body to hit the floor, as if it couldn’t quite process what had happened. Glancing at the other two, Shuzshu was panting heavily with a few minor wounds that were barely bleeding. Velvese took a knee, also breathing hard, but she had no wounds. I quickly went over and retrieved the head of the leader, putting it into my coat before moving over towards the dome.

  Reaching into my coat, I pulled out the tether and my guild card before approaching the shield bubble. It was opaque from this side, but I knew that whoever was inside could see out. I placed my guild card and the tether against it so that they could read it and see what I had. “Landerson sent us to get you.”

  There was a moment before the bubble shimmered and vanished. Inside was a woman in a white and gold robe, with long red hair. I would say she was pretty, even with her eyes red and puffy, her makeup smeared. She was also shaking something terrible. There were two others that had been in the bubble as well. A younger looking man with red hair, dressed in similar armor to the majority of people, dead. The other was a maid with brown hair, several cuts across her side and back, but she was still alive.

  Kneeling down I cast a quick “Stabilize,” on the maid as I pulled out a healing potion, forcing her to drink half of it and pouring the other half over her wounds. The next two things I pulled out were blankets, putting one over the robed woman, and then wrapping the maid up in the other. I saw how the red headed woman looked at me, and then at the boy.

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  I closed my eyes and shook my head. That seemed to cause her to start crying again, pulling the blanket tightly around herself as she sobbed. As I stood up, I also pulled up the maid and put her on my back, adjusting her so that I didn’t drop her. “Come on.”

  “My- what about my brother?” she asked, barely able to even form words.

  I looked down at the body of the dead boy. “Velvese,” I said and gestured to the body. “Carry him.” She did as she was told and the robed woman finally got up when her brother's body was off the floor. “Shuzshu, you have point. Lead us out.”

  The trip out, although longer, was without any major problems. It hadn’t been long enough for the path we took to repopulate to a level that we had to be concerned about. Shuzshu was more than enough to take anything, especially when we managed to get to the upper floors. Progress was also slow as we had to match the pace of the red haired woman, but I wouldn’t fault her after what she had gone through.

  After a few hours of travel, Velvese moved a bit beside me and asked. “What is a dungeon?” she asked, looking around as we went from floor eleven to ten and the environment shifted.

  “Well, the common belief is that they are trials designed by the Gods to strengthen their believers. But-” I stopped, glancing back at the woman traveling with us.

  She only vaguely seemed to be listening. Her expression had been blank this entire time and her eyes glazed over, though my words seemed to get some sort of consciousness to focus on me. “But?” she asked.

  “I have a different theory, based on my experience and own research, but it could be considered blasphemous.” I didn’t wait for a response before I continued, “If it was truly a trial, then it would be more cohesive. There would be more overall structure to it. There would be tests. It would try to be helpful. But instead… it is chaotic, and ruthless, doing everything possible to kill those that enter.” I paused, again glancing at the robed girl. “I believe it is a higher tier of mimic.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Mimic?” Velvese asked, tilting her head to the side.

  “A mimic is a type of monster that transforms itself into something that could be seen as containing valuable things. It is capable of minor feats of creation in order to entice others. It is capable of changing itself, and healing from wounds. And…like all living things, it contains a crystal that contains its mana.”

  “Dungeon heart…” the girl muttered.

  “Precisely. A dungeon is just a mimic on a larger scale. It uses treasures to lure people in, and rather than attacking directly, it creates facsimiles of the monsters it knows to kill those in it. It’s why bodies that are left in the dungeon eventually disappear. It eats them. The reason why higher floors are so much weaker is because they are far from the dungeon heart, so it cannot put out as much mana. Similar to how it is easier to feel mana within your chest, than it is in your fingertips.”

  There were a few moments of silence before the robed woman actually came up beside me. “Why have I never heard of this theory?”

  “The church,” I said bluntly. “They say it is a trial by the Gods, what reason would anyone have to doubt them?”

  “But you do?” she asked.

  “I-” I sighed. “I have a complicated relationship with the Gods and especially with the church.” That sentence was enough to completely kill the conversation, and silence fell till we left the dungeon.

  When we had finally exited we were met with an extremely surprising sight. There was an entire army surrounding the entrance. Before I could even begin to think of what was going on there were suddenly several armored men in front of us, armed with spears that were pointed in our direction.

  Again before I could speak, the red haired woman shouted, “Father!”

  My eyes locked onto Landerson, who was talking to a well dressed blonde man. This man’s head nearly snapped with the speed at which his attention turned. He rushed over, shoving the guards out of the way as he embraced the girl. “Oh my Lillece… Where is your-” his words caught in his throat as Velvese set the boy down gently. His attention lingered for a moment before his attention turned to me. “My men?”

  I shook my head. “You’ve only got two survivors. Your daughter, and this maid.” I could see the heartbreaking mixture of emotions on his face as I gently placed the maid down on a gurney that had been brought over.

  The man's fists clenched. “Who did this?” he growled to no one in particular.

  It was at this point that I reached into my coat, and pulled out the man’s head, dropping it on the ground. “This was the leader of the group.”

  He nodded to one of the guards, who moved over and removed the head from the helmet, showing it to the man. “Salver? That’s- that’s impossible, he’s not even in the city.”

  “It’s true, father,” the girl said, sobbing softly. “He taunted me… saying no one would come… that I was going to die…”

  “If you’ll excuse us, we are all extremely tired,” I said with a slight nod before making my way away from the pair before he had a chance to argue. It was not a good idea to stick around and get roped into whatever politics was going on.

  “I’m hungry,” Shuzshu mumbled, and I chuckled a bit, nodding.

  “We’ll go and get some food on our way home.” As I passed him, I pointed a finger at Landerson. “Twenty gold. Wave rent. Tier Ten.” My tone was extremely accusatory. With all the fuss that was made, it was obvious that twenty gold was a pathetic reward.

  He only chuckled, and nodded in response. “Right. Stop by the guild any time and we’ll get that card updated.”

  We stopped at a stall on our way home, as promised. It was probably the best and worst day that that stall owner had as we bought literally everything he had. Or I should say Shuzshu bought everything he had. It was good stuff, meat buns of some sort that apparently the Gnoll got every morning before going hunting. I had to agree they were good.

  Shuzshu and Velvese had eaten several of them before we even got back home. They were in extremely good moods after this morning. And I couldn’t blame them. It was our first time all working together, and our first time in a dungeon. It was something to be celebrated.

  “I want booze,” Shuzshu suddenly said as I was pulling off my gauntlets.

  “Well, go get some?” I suggested. She had already stripped, as was her custom when arriving home.

  She huffed. “Do I have to get dressed?”

  “They won’t sell it to you if you’re naked,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

  Again she huffed, before getting her clothes back on and leaving. “How is she so strong?” Velvese asked, sitting beside me at the table.

  “I can only guess,” I said as I ate one of the buns. “Everyone gets strong for a variety of reasons. Some by choice, others by force. But the truth is, if you want to live, you have to be strong.”

  “Is that why you’re strong?” her voice was soft. “Because you have to be?”

  “Yes.”

  It was quiet until Shuzshu returned with three entire kegs. I wondered just how much money she had made to be able to afford entire kegs, but I didn’t really care since she was spending it on things that she wanted. It was going to be a long night.

  But it was an honestly fun time. Velvese and Shuzshu got into a drinking contest at one point, and I cheered for them. I hadn’t gotten drunk in a very long time but I was very much feeling it. I couldn’t drink in this life like I could do in my past, age and a different constitution saw to that. But it was a good time. Up until it wasn’t.

  I was staggering to the kitchen, wanting to shift my choice of drink to water to avoid a hangover, when I was rather roughly shoved against the wall.

  Shuzshu was towering over me, holding me firmly to the wall. Her nails were digging into the wood. “Why won’t you fuck me?” she demanded.

  “Huh?” was all I managed before her teeth bared down on me and clasped hold of my shoulder. This wasn’t like how she playfully put her teeth on me. This was her actually biting me. It wasn’t at full force, but it was with enough force that I felt pain even through my drunken haze.

  Velvese attempted to get up, but I put a hand up to stop her.

  Gently I placed my hand onto Shuzshu. I wasn’t entirely sure why she was so frustrated, but I could guess. Even after our previous conversation, her doubts hadn’t been swayed. “I’m sorry…” I said softly. “I’m sorry that I’m such a mess. Antisocial. Introverted. Paranoid. Abandonment issues. PTSD. Depression. Anger problems.” Her jaw had loosened as I spoke. It also didn’t help that I had the mental age of someone over ninety years old and had gone through puberty twice, my libido was almost nonexistent.

  She finally released her hold, and began to gently lick at the wounds she had inflicted. I was bleeding, though not very badly.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to. I want to… I just… I don’t have the drive to act upon how I feel. Maybe if I was younger,” I said with a chuckle.

  “You sound like an old man,” Velvese said, frowning at me.

  That got a laugh out of me before I pushed Shuzshu away. “Okay. Stop licking. I’m fine.” Immediately she fought me, continuing to lick at my neck and face. “Ack-” Her breath stank of alcohol. “Cease!” I cried out, laughing. I tried to fight her off, but there was no way I could do such a thing and eventually we hit the floor. “Oof…”

  Shuzshu pinned me to the floor with her body. “Mine,” she growled before promptly passing out.

  “Velvese!” I put up my hand, “Help!” I looked over at the lizard only to see that she too had passed out on the table. “Curse the both of you,” I said with a chuckle.

  With considerable effort I was eventually able to free myself from beneath the Gnoll, and then finished my tip to the kitchen, downing copious amounts of water. In my drunken state, it took forever to get one of my gauntlets on. “Levitate,” I said as I pointed at Shuzshu, using a fourth tier spell to make her weightless.

  I honestly considered leaving her, but that would just be cruel. As I slowly guided her up the stairs, which took a lot because the staircase would not stop moving, I hoped that she wouldn’t throw up. Unceremoniously I dropped her onto the bed nest that the two of them had made before going back down the stairs, nearly biffing it on the last step.

  Unfortunately for me, Velvese was also too large for me to lift and carry, so I had to use another casting of “Levitate” to get her up into the beds. Past me would probably throttle me from how wasteful I was being with my silver.

  Returning back downstairs I removed the gauntlet, which somehow took even longer. I was more drunk than I thought. I drank a bunch more water before going back up the stairs, practically having to crawl. My body was not enjoying the up and down. Maybe we should have put the bedroom on the first floor? I didn’t have long to think about that before falling into the bed and passing out.

  In the morning the first thing I did was check to make sure I didn’t throw up, or worse. Thankfully I was all good. The same could not be said of Shuzshu, who currently had her head out of the window and was making some rather unpleasant sounding noises. At least she had the idea of doing it out the window. Velvese was out the other window, having a similar time, though less violently as far as I could tell.

  I moved over, gently rubbing their backs. It was still dark outside, as apparently their retching had woken me up. “Poor things…” I said softly.

  It was quite a while before either of them felt confident enough to pull their head back in. Velvese was the first to recover, the lizard immediately leaning heavily into me. “Too much…” she mumbled.

  Continuing to rub her back, I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, the two of you alone drank over a keg with your little contest.”

  “We still have a keg?” Shuzshu asked, suddenly also leaning into me, which knocked us all over and onto the bed.

  “Yes, and much of the second one.”

  “Lower your voices,” Velvese said softly, her eyes closed. I chuckled softly. I wondered if they remembered the conversation last night. Either way, it was nice to just lay with them.

  After a few hours, I made them get up. Or at least I made them get off of me so that I could get up. The two of them seemed content to laze about today, but I had things I needed to do.

  After preparing to go out, I went to the guild. It was still very early in the morning, well before the new quests for today were put up. It was the emptiest I had seen the place. The person behind the counter looked half asleep until they spotted me and then shot up.

  I didn’t even make it to the counter before Landerson appeared from above. “Come on up here, Archanist,” he said, motioning with his head.

  With a bit of a shrug I made my way up the stairs. The second floor of the guild always felt like such a strange place. Probably because there were usually only two reasons you went up here; you were in trouble, or there was a special quest. This was a rare third thing.

  “Twenty gold,” he said as he threw down a pouch onto the table as I entered. “And a Tier Ten guild card.” This he didn’t throw on the table, but put it down.

  I moved over, pocketing the gold and retrieving my guild card in one motion. I quickly compared the two cards, and the only difference was the symbol on the corner denoting me as a high tier adventurer, with my actual tier displayed beneath it. “Excellent,” I said as I put the old card down and quickly put the new one into my coat.

  “The Duke was quite impressed,” he said with a nod.

  “I bet.” I paused, thinking about it for a moment before I realized. “You know, since it was the Duke’s daughter, you should have gone in to retrieve her yourself.”

  He let out a sort of unhappy chuckle. “That’s what the Duke was telling me when you all popped back out.”

  That explained the amount of military force. “Can I ask what they were even doing in the dungeon?” My curiosity was a bit too piqued to just drop it.

  He sighed, shaking his head. “Those kids wanted to experience a dungeon delve and gain some practical experience. While his son only had a Swordmaster profession… That daughter of his is the Saint.”

  Immediately my mind reeled. Not a Saint, the Saint. Saint is a unique profession. Professions are classified into four categories: common, rare, legendary, and unique. Archanist is technically considered a legendary profession, due to its potential and rarity. But a unique profession is literally that; unique. There can only be one person in the world with that profession. Hero is another unique profession, though it is currently unknown where the Hero is right now.

  “I’m sure the church is ecstatic that their Saint managed to survive,” I said as I turned around. “Now, I’m going to go and have a meeting with the Fairies and try to keep them from sacking this city.”

  I could almost hear him frown. “Is it that bad?”

  “There’s a reason why it’s illegal, Landerson.” I paused at the door to look back at him. “Did you find out who was doing it?”

  There was a moment of hesitation before he shook his head.

  I clicked my tongue. “Useless.”

  Honestly I think I enjoyed telling Landerson he was bad at his job a bit too much. What was really bad is that he never seemed bothered by my comments, like he was used to it. That was just an absolutely horrible thing. If I ever met the Duke again, I would tell him he needs to find a competent guild leader who actually did his job.

  The sun had just come up by the time I got to the forest. Standing at the edge for a few minutes, I simply observed it. I had to make an actual effort in fulfilling the promise in order for things to not get really bad really fast, but I really didn’t want to.

  With a sigh, I made my way inside, not bothering to really go to a specific destination. I spent about an hour traveling, wondering if that little Faerie was going to find me immediately or not. While I waited for her to find me, I decided to look for the materials that I was after.

  After a few hours I had found quite a lot. I was still looking for more handle roots, and I hadn’t found any six leaves, but I had found a lot of black roots and an actual crazy amount of blue bells. This was going to be worth a ton.

  My attention was suddenly drawn to a soft chiming noise nearby.

  “Yes, I am the Archanist,” I said slowly. I couldn’t see the Faerie that had spoken, nor could I tell if it was the same or different chime. They all kind of sounded the same to me.

  Slowly fluttering over from behind a tree was a silver haired Faerie, that I was fairly certain was the same one. She chimed a bit at me questioningly.

  “Yes, I upgraded my gauntlets,” I said as I gave them a pat.

  That seemed to be a satisfying enough answer as she floated over, examining them. This was indeed the same Faerie that I had interacted with. She chimed a bit, sounding impressed.

  “Thank you. I made them.”

  She stared at me, letting out a single little chime.

  “What? Rude. I can make a lot of things, and I’m really strong.” I did a little flexing pose.

  That got her giggling as she flew around me. She stopped in front of me, a grin on her face as she let out little chimes.

  “Of course I kept my promise. I have never broken a promise,” I said proudly. “I don’t make a promise if I can’t fulfill it.”

  She seemed very pleased at that, chiming words of praise. Suddenly her tone changed to one of excitement as she started demanding I follow her.

  Confused, I asked, “Where are we going?” That was more than a little concerning, but she seemed in a good mood so I wasn’t too worried.

  She chimed and I was immediately worried.

  “I did not promise to meet a Faerie Queen,” I said in the most flat tone I could manage.

  She chimed in a chasting tone.

  “I especially did not promise to meet The Faerie Queen.” This had just gone from bad to worse. And then it got even worse when I saw where we were going. A Torii Gate. “Uh… Do I have to go?” I asked.

  The little Faerie was behind me now, happily chiming away as she pushed me. She was extremely strong for her size.

  “No, of course I don’t expect The Faerie Queen to come to this realm, I just really don’t want to go to the Spirit Realm.” Unfortunately I didn’t really seem to have a choice as the only way I was going to stop her was to attack, and that would be even worse.

  Passing through the gate, the area around was suddenly very different. The area was now far more open and had less trees, and a lot more grass. It looked wrong, like everything was painted rather than existing. There were also a ton of Spirits of all sorts wandering about.

  Happily the Faerie came in front of me, and chimed a proud welcoming.

  “Yes. Thank you,” I said with a sigh.

  She happily guided me down a small path, happily chattering about nonsense. Flowers were the main topic, and thankfully I could follow along and give my input since I had a lot of botanical knowledge.

  The Spirits around watched us curiously. I did not like being here. I was extremely aware that I was trapped here, as you can’t enter or exit this realm without a guide. This was the Spirit Realm. The worst part about the Spirit Realm is that it is full of Spirits. But even worse than that, this is where most Gods live.

  The thing about Gods in this world is it’s a rather loose term. There are hundreds of Gods. Because in order to be a God, you only need two things. Power, and some form of immortality. Usually the immortality is just some sort of ageless body or something like that. Or even just living a really long time.

  Lesser Gods are hardly worth the copper to make a statue out of, but there are also a lot of major ones. I had noticed that there are even Gods I recognize from my previous world. Like Norse Gods, or Egyptian Gods, or Japanese Gods. It’s all a jumble mess and there are literally thousands of books about Gods.

  When my focus came back to the area around me, I spotted something that I actually recognized. Tall fox-like figures with varying amounts of tails, dressed in what looked like kimonos. “Kitsune,” I mumbled. Even from where I was standing I could see their hackles raise and all their attention snapped to me. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I realized that I messed up. That’s not what they’re called here. They’re just Fox Spirits. Kitsune is an otherworld term. “Shit.”

  The one with seven tails was immediately in front of me and I had to desperately try not to immediately go on the defensive. Seven tails was equal to a Tier Twelve. Fox Spirits had an interesting tier advancement. First three tails were worth one tier each, four to six were worth two tiers, and seven through nine were worth three tiers. It was a fairly simplistic representation of how their power scaled, but it was a decent reference. But Spirit tiers and monster tiers were very different, and could hardly be compared.

  “That word,” she said, staring down at me. And it was down, as she was three heads taller than me. Though her height was because of her disproportionate legs. Her legs made up more than half her height.

  “Ease up,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her. “My little friend can’t withstand your magical pressure.” I could see the Faerie struggling. While I wasn’t struggling, it was a bit stifling to be under the full pressure of such a strong magical being.

  “My apologies,” she said to the little Faerie as she reigned in her magic. That was a thing about powerful Spirits, they had auras. Her attention turned back to me. “That word.”

  “Yeah yeah.” I waved her off in an attempt to dismiss her. “I got it. You don’t like otherworlders because a bunch of psychopaths transmigrated and got god complexes.” There was no point in lying, since I had already messed up and Spirits had ways of discerning the truth. “I would kill to have even a tenth of the power that they started with.” I wasn’t sure if it was my words that stunned her, or my tone, but either way the tall fox was speechless.

  I started walking, the little Faerie quickly coming to join me, chiming in a panic.

  “No, I didn’t transmigrate. I reincarnated. Big difference. Huge difference. My soul is from another world, but my body was born here-” I paused. “Well, not here here. In the Middle Realm.” I was very much trying to ignore the very tall fox that was now following me.

  The little Faerie floated in front of me, chiming questions.

  “Well, first big difference is I didn’t get anything special. You see, they got cheat abilities and unique professions. I got nothing. I have knowledge, but that only fucked up my life even more, and gave me a really difficult profession.”

  She nodded her head, though I wasn’t sure if she actually understood. She asked another question.

  “My profession is Archanist,” I answered.

  There was a pause before she asked another.

  “Yes, that is also what I’m called. I was stripped of my name.” That seemed to stun the little thing.

  “Who did that?” the Fox asked.

  “Oh, you’re still here, Legs?” I asked, looking back. I had really hoped she would stop following me. She just glared, and I sighed. “My former father. He didn’t like my profession either.”

  That seemed to shut her up at least. It was honestly kind of fun making people shut up by weaponizing my trauma. Probably really not a healthy coping mechanism, though. Wasn’t gonna stop me from doing it. Suddenly the Faerie chimed a bunch, excited once again and I realized we were in front of a rather large castle. It had just sort of popped up, so I guess we entered a different zone. She was excitedly saying that we were here.

  Immediately dozens of Faeries swarmed around us. Again I had to suppress the urge to immediately go on the defensive, but I quickly noticed they didn’t even have weapons, and were chiming away happily that I was here. It felt kind of weird that they were so happy to see me. Legs was gone as well, apparently not having entered this zone.

  I was quickly ushered into the castle, and straight into the throne room. Again I didn’t have a choice as I was practically carried there. My attention was immediately drawn to the figure on the throne. It was a beautiful woman, long red hair that cascaded down her shoulders, a rather fair face and long pointed ears. She could be mistaken for an elf if not for the massive butterfly wings.

  “Ah, so this is the one.” It was actually difficult to tear my gaze from her.

  Shaking my head to unmuddle my thoughts, I tried to regain my focus. This was the first time meeting something that this world classified as a God, and I was not having a good time of it. I dusted off my undusty coat before bowing slightly. “Greetings Queen Titania, Queen of the Faeries. I am known as the Archanist.” This was unfortunately a figure that came up quite often.

  “Oh? You are well informed, Archanist.” With a slight flutter of her wings, she moved from her throne and alighted in front of me.

  “I try to be. May I ask for the reason I have been-” I hesitated, trying to think of the word.

  “Kidnapped?” she hazarded with a slight smirk.

  “Not the word I would use, but not incorrect,” I responded. I was doing my best to not look directly at her so I wouldn’t be bewitched again.

  She giggled and a shiver ran down my spine. I was not having a good time. “Yes, I apologize for my little one's eagerness to bring you here.” Holding out her hand, the little silver haired Faerie landed on her hand. “I have a request.”

  “Please don’t sugarcoat it,” I said flatly, really not in the mood for games or wordplay. “What do you demand of me?”

  I saw the corner of her mouth twitch before she spoke, “It is simple. I want you to find who is capturing Spirits, and kill them.”

  “That is a vague demand.” Her eyes narrowed at me and put up my hands in surrender. “There’s a lot of people who do that. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. All across the world. Even if I dedicated my entire existence to that task, I would not be able to make a dent.”

  “Do you think it such an impossible task?” she asked.

  “Unless you can change the fundamentals of how Spirits and magic exist, you will always have those who are desperate for power and willing to do the unspeakable to achieve it.” I took a deep breath. “If you can’t do that, then yes, I do think it’s impossible.”

  She seemed to think on this for a moment. “I see… Well, then I suppose you cannot help.” She waved her hand.

  Suddenly I was back on the path, the castle nowhere in sight. “Eh?” I looked around. “Well that was fuckin’ rude.” I stood there a moment, wondering if my little Faerie friend would come to help me leave, or if I was just screwed.

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the tall Fox Spirit approaching me. “My Goddess Amaterasu would like to speak to you.”

  “Well Legs, I don’t really want to talk to Lady Amaterasu right now… Meeting one God is enough for me.” She frowned at me. I sighed. “But, since I’m stuck here, might as well. Lead the way,” I said with a gesture.

  She turned and began walking without another word.

  Reluctantly I followed after her. I was racking my mind trying to think of how to get back home. Only a Spirit could activate a gate. After a few minutes of walking, I mentally shelved that line of thought and decided to ask a question. “Hey Legs, Fox Spirits serve the God Inari, right?”

  “We serve many Gods.”

  “I see.” There was a few minutes of silence. “You don’t want to talk to me, eh Legs?”

  “Why do you call me that?” she snapped, looking down at me.

  I paused, blinking at her. I gestured to her entire being. “You are mostly legs.” I had to admit that she had quite an alluring figure, and was probably the dream woman for anyone who liked legs and thighs. Of course that didn’t mean she was lacking in any other area, with a bust that complimented her shape quite nicely.

  She actually stopped walking, looking down at herself as if realizing for the first time that she was indeed more legs than not. “Oh.”

  “Sorry if it offended you. I just honestly didn’t know what else to call you and I’m a bit frazzled due obvious reasons.”

  There was no response from her as she just sort of looked at her legs. The kimono type clothing she was wearing had a rather large slit in the side and she had stuck her leg out of it, examining it. Of course I was looking at it too. It was kind of hard not to. She looked over at me. For a few seconds I thought she was going to be annoyed that I was examining her leg with her, but instead she said, “I am…mostly legs…”

  “Well, technically you are mostly tail. But that’s… wait, would that make you mostly fluff?” I rubbed my chin a bit. Her tails were huge and mostly made of fur, so that might be correct. In response to my question, one of her tails swung forward and she grasped it, examining the fluff. Immediately I wanted very much to touch that tail. But I also knew that that would be a one way ticket to her bad side. Shuzshu’s tail was not quite fluffy. Maybe a bit after a bath…

  “Mostly fluff,” she repeated. Her tone was one of both confusion and mild amusement. We had gotten off on a bad start, but now that we had both mellowed out things were much better. “You see the world in a very interesting way, Archanist.”

  I furrowed my brow. “I suppose I do?”

  We continued to walk, though the silence between us was a lot less tense now. We passed by the area where the group of Fox Spirits had been talking, which was off the little road. I staggered and actually dropped to a knee to keep from falling over as the world reeled. “Oh my… Are you alright? Perhaps rumors were all talk?” the Fox said smugly.

  “Give me a moment,” I said, putting my hand in the air. “That was a rather interesting experience.” I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths. Even with my eyes closed I could practically feel the world shifting and churning around me. After a few seconds of breathing and cycling my mana I managed to stabalise the spin of my mind and stood back up. “Okay.” I dusted my coat off a bit. “Continue.”

  She arched a brow at me but turned and started to walk again.

  Following her, I realized something she had said. “What rumors?”

  “Even among Spirits we know of the Impact Archanist.”

  I tsked. I really hated that name. If I ever found out who decided that I needed more of a nickname than Archanist I was going to impact their dick off.

  “It’s not a bad thing. Or I suppose from your position, it is a horrible thing,” she said with a giggle.

  “I suppose this has to do with those Spirits from Frea,” I said with a sigh.

  “Correct,” she said softly from behind me, her head practically resting on my shoulder. “To turn down marriage from such a figure was quite bold.”

  A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered the encounter. “I was already engaged,” I argued, though it was more that I didn’t want to be married to… that. Tentacles were not quite my thing.

  “Ah, but now you are not,” she said into my other ear, her hands placed on my sides as she guided where I was walking. “Yasragoth would be so pleased to know…” I could practically taste the mischievous look on her face.

  “While I respect them, I do not believe they would fit into my current relationship structure.”

  “Oh?” Her mouth was practically pressed against my ear.

  At least now I had a good excuse. “I no longer have a fiance, but I do have pets.”

  “Pets?” Her head stretched forward a bit, and she was looking into one of my eyes.

  “Indeed. A Gnoll and a Lizardfolk,” I said with a bit of a smirk. “I don’t think that Yasragoth would lower itself to be the mere pet of a mortal.”

  The sides of her mouth crinkled up into a smile as she let out a breathy laugh. “No, it would not.” There was a moment of pause as she seemed to study my face. “What an interesting man…” she said softly.

  There was an extremely cold chill that ran down my spin, like someone had just poured ice water down the back of my coat. Being interesting to a Spirit was how I got into this mess. And how I got into the mess back in Frea. Was I cursed, or something?

  I could only see one of her eyes from this angle, but it was clear that she was studying the details of my face. Her eye was a pleasant shade of brown, almost red to match her fur. “What’s on your mind, Legs?” I said with a bit of concern. While it was impressive that she could continue to guide us without really watching where we were going, I also couldn’t see because there was a big fox head blocking my sight.

  It took a moment before she seemed to realize what sort of position we were in, her eyes suddenly widening and her pupils contracting into slits. She was suddenly in front of me, walking as if nothing had happened.

  That had been… interesting. That had been a similar look to one that Shuzshu gave me on occasion, where she would just sort of look at me as if lost in her own little world. Was that a beast thing? But the more pressing question was why was she looking at me like that? Attraction, maybe? That would be concerning.

  Now the silence between us felt awkward. Eventually we passed through another zone threshold and we were somewhere else. It looked like one of those Japanese gardens, the kind with one of those gazebos in the center of a pond.

  I didn’t even want to look at the thing, because I caught a glimpse of what was sitting there. Amaterasu was a lot more powerful than Titania, or at least she was if I understood the hierarchy of Gods.

  “Arc. Sit,” came a voice, soft but strong. I hadn’t even realized I was already in the gazebo, standing in front of a sort of tea table.

  The woman on the other side was dressed in a rather ornate shinto robe. Her complexion was pale with distinct red markings on her face. Her hair was long and black, reaching down below the table. And in her hair was an ornate hair piece of red and gold. My immediate thought was she was probably the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

  “Lady Amaterasu,” I said with a slight bow before taking a seat across from her. On the table I noticed a tea set, and in front of her there were papers, some with markings and drawings. My eyes were immediately drawn to the brush and ink that sat on the table.

  The long legged Fox that I had been traveling with began to serve tea without being prompted. Internally I grimaced. I didn’t like tea, and there wasn’t any sugar or milk, or anything else to put into it. Though my face remained passive, looking at a tree nearby. It was the first cherry blossom I had seen in this life.

  No one spoke as the tea was poured, and a cup was placed in front of Amaterasu, and then in front of me. Legs then retreated to just outside the gazebo. She lifted her cup before speaking, “You are surprisingly calm.”

  “Would you believe me if I said I had been in worse situations?” I said before lifting my cup, tasting the tea. As I expected, it was just hot leaf water. I almost snorted as I thought about how uncle Iroh would be disappointed in me.

  “I don’t doubt that,” she said, placing the cup down. “I would like to make a request.” She put up a hand before I could respond. “Not a demand. And actual request, that will have no consequences if you should deny it. No matter your choice, I will return you back to the Middle Realm.”

  Looking at her for a moment, I placed my cup down as well. “You will have to forgive me for not believing you.”

  She nodded. “That is entirely fair. You are a very untrusting individual, with good reason, and I will not hold that against you.”

  That actually made me feel kind of bad to hear her say that. But it was true. “What is your request?”

  “There is someone hunting Spirits. But not in the normal way, nor for the normal purpose. While Queen Titania was approaching you to assist with this problem, she was too-” she paused.

  “Stubborn?” I suggested.

  “Mm yes. Too stubborn to properly explain the situation.”

  I sipped my tea. “I mean this in the best way possible, but Faeries are known to be flighty and air headed.”

  There was a twitch of a smile on the Goddesses face for a split second. “We have figured out that it is an organization in Brigalt. As our laws go both ways, Spirits do not hunt humans, and humans do not hunt Spirits. But this is being broken. If it continues as such, someone's hand will be forced.”

  I nodded slowly, my mind was racing with different possibilities of what they could be using Spirits for. The basic thing was mana. You could recharge magic stones with a Spirits power, or use them to empower large spells. But I could only theorize about other possibilities. “I see. So you want my help solving it.”

  “With your-” she hesitated, “Reputation of helping Spirits, even to your own detriment, I was hoping that you would be willing.” I couldn’t help but frown at her words. It was true I had done so in the past. That’s how I got tangled with a tentacle monster. “We are willing to offer you a Boon.”

  I nearly dropped my teacup. A Boon was a gift from the Gods, and were incredibly rare outside of the church. Granted they weren’t always powerful, but they were always helpful. “Are you sure?” I asked after a moment. “I’m sure you are aware of certain things about me.”

  While I called them cheats, this world called them Boons. They were an integral part in what allowed the Twelve Stars to dominate.

  “You hesitate for power?” she mused.

  “I hesitate because I have seen what it does. I don’t know if I-” I paused, trying to think of how to word it. “I honestly don’t know if I could trust myself with something like that. Power worked for is different than power given.” That was why professions always kind of bothered me. While they didn’t just give you mastery, they allowed it to come to you much easier.

  Amaterasu thought about that for a moment before nodding. “I see.”

  Slowly I stood up. “I won’t promise anything, but if I find out something I’ll try and put a stop to it. That’s all you’re getting out of me.”

  A smile slowly formed on her face, turning into an almost wolfish grin. “Oh that’s more than I could ask for.”

  I hesitated for a moment before bowing slightly. “Thank you for the tea,” I said before leaving the gazebo.

  The leggy Fox led me out of the garden, and though I was expecting to re-enter the Spirit World, I instead exited the same Tori Gate that I had gone in.

  Heaving a big sigh and closing my eyes, I muttered, “Thank fuck that’s over.”

  “What an interesting phrase.”