Chapter I – What If?

Harry slowly opened his eyes to the blinding light of a sunny day. His head, then his upper body, felt a gust of humid breeze pass by. His nose picked up a familiar salty with a slightly fishy smell filling up the room; it kinda smelled like home. His body felt tender, somewhat warm too. Not only from the sun tickling his skin but from within as well—like that funky feeling somewhere between dull pain and fever you get when going to bed after spending all day playing on a sunny beach, getting wasted on cheap beer while gorging on seafood.

“How are you feeling, honey?” A sweet grandmotherly voice spoke softly nearby. Her older gleeful appearance contrasted the wrinkles in her face, giving her a sense of tenured compassionate servitude. Her red thatch hat was just as bright as her cheery appearance, giving her maid-style black-with-blue-accent clothing a unique look as well. Her body had thicker proportions and well-endowed breasts, which she seemed proud of by wearing the same maid clothing as other far younger Sanbi maids. She masterfully crocheted away, waiting for Harry to regain his senses. “Looks like you had a nightmare, hon?” Her eyes noticed a bump on the sheets, coincidentally where Harry’s second brain would be. “Or a good dream?” Her sweet voice didn’t seem to imply anything—more like just treating whatever that bump was as a fact of life.

Harry looked as if he had just come out of a stampede. “Arrggh—” His brain was overflowing with warnings—like suddenly, his brain stem, commonly known as the body’s autopilot, disengaged. Harry felt like he had to force himself to stay alive consciously. He felt like he was telling his weakened heart to keep pulsating as he manually tried to draw a pained, laborious breath. Amongst the warnings, an accompanying pressure and dull pain surfaced where his bladder was and radiated down to his privates. He tried to bend his neck forward to see better what was happening, but it felt like his head was as heavy as a solid iron ball.

The grandmotherly maid touched Harry’s forehead. “It’s okay, honey. Your body is still recovering. Take your time.”

Ohhh. This sucks! A sense of being overwhelmed as he tried to stay alive kept going, but it didn’t appear like he was on his last breath—maybe the last ones based on the agony. He tried breathing deeply again, but it didn’t hurt as much this time. He tried to lift his neck again; it was still cumbersome but not as heavy as before. His eyes were no longer sharp, but the blurry ceiling he stared at was familiar. He then turned his head towards the maid, immediately recognizing that he had seen her before when dining with the Sanbi royalty. The clothing reminded him of the other maids, including Sora. That suddenly caused him to catch a glimpse of the dream, or nightmare, or whatever it was, where Sora was washing his back with a massive grin on her noseless and eyeless face.

The grandmotherly maid glanced over quietly, still crocheting away.

Feeling an ominous sensation invading his brain as Sora’s vicious grin lingered on his mind, a notoriously familiar sense of having just gulped five energy drinks at once struck him like a train. The wired feeling pushed his body to sit up, but as he groaned to do so, his body just tweaked slightly instead as this eerie feeling kept making his heart pound harder, at least as hard as it could pound. More memories began flashing back to him, including when Sora licked his neck during the check phase of the duel with Maiara. I need to tell Eiri! Harry fought his body to say or do something. His hands did go up a bit but then came back crashing down as he muttered, “H—w—”

“Oh, honey—I told you al—”

Sounding like a heavy smoker, Harry let out a cough filled with phlegm stuck deep in his lungs, almost choking himself in the process. “—where’s Eiri?” His voice sounded a bit croaky. “king-maid?—”

The caring eyes of this older maid looked up to the ceiling in search of an answer. “Today is Tollday—oh! She’s getting caught up with paperwork with Sora.”

Sora! Oh no! What if it was her? Harry tried to sit up again, but only his hands complied with the request—until they came crashing down against the comfort of the bed sheets as they grew limp.

“Oh, hon! Don’t struggle so much! I’m here for you.” With dull eyes and a downturned smile, the maid looked at Harry’s labored, pained breath, like he had been forced to run a marathon at gunpoint.

“But—Sora. I have—to go! I need—to tell—Eiri!” The words barely came out in between his breaths. His dilated pupils looked at the maid with all the remaining will he could muster, as the vision of being suffocated by a girly figure was prominent in his mind.

“I can’t bear this anymore.” The maid spoke under her breath, putting her crochet kit back in the thatch bag and pulling out a vial about the size of a shot glass with a cork holding back a black goo filled to the brim. She brought it closer to Harry’s lips, apparently awaiting him to open his mouth. “Please don’t tell anyone about it, hon! Eiri told me to do it without anyone seeing it.”

Harry felt a familiar sweet honey smell from the black goo hit the back of his nose with such intensity that it was repugnant. His empty stomach curled up, forcing him to dry-heave like some cats do when smelling cheese or sour cream.

“I’m sorry, honey. I know it’s strong, but you will feel much better.” Her eyes shone with the worry of a grandmother who is told she can’t feed her grandkids whatever she wants to. “King-maid told me I couldn’t bring you back to how you looked before because it was an order from the queen. I’m truly sorry, hon—I can only give you this much black honey.”

Black honey—yeah. The memory of Arukia’s tea came to mind. Opening his mouth, Harry began tasting this honey’s molasses-like taste characteristics, plus the crystallized sugar’s grainy texture as it rolled down his tongue. His stomach was on the fence at first, but then it made peace with it. This is not as bad as the stuff Arukia gave me.

Carefully pouring the rest of the black honey into Harry’s mouth, the maid went to the bathroom to clean away the vial. A familiar gush of angry water sounded from the bathroom when she pulled the handle above the sink.

Harry was mesmerized by the familiar blurry ceiling as the gush of water filled the background, louder than the noises from the city and birds chirping outside. A natural radiance of energy began to spread from his throat into his guts and outwardly into his body. Harry felt like someone had just transplanted his brain into a new body full of energy—the same energy you get when you wake up late in the morning without an alarm clock on the weekend and have a hearty breakfast with an excellent export-grade roast coffee. With a coughing fit, as he sat up in bed, Harry cleared his lung and felt the leftover sweet taste of the black honey taste mix with a salty, foul taste of the phlegm that was nearly choking him before.

“Here, hon, spit on it.” The grandmotherly maid rushed back into the bedroom with a pot.

Harry let out a phlegm that looked like a slime you would fight in a JRPG game—if you looked closely, you could almost see it coming alive and awaiting its turn to attack. With narrow eyes and curled-up lips, Harry felt a wave of gagging coming in the distance in response to the foul salty taste, but the sensation of being able to breathe freely counterbalanced it.

“Feeling better, honey?” The maid touched Harry’s neck and shoulder all over. “How’s your neck feeling?”

Shivering from the touch of her cold hands, Harry cracked his neck by just moving it slightly. It was tender, but it seemed to be working fine. “I think so.” Embracing the left side of his neck, a flashback of Maiara’s leg rushing towards his neck sprung on him. “So—what happened?” Harry looked around the blurry familiar room. Everything seemed to look the same when he went to sleep. The drawing of the old Itagiba-looking guy fishing in the clouds and the desk where he signed the contract were still there, but he couldn’t see the bloody mess he had made—even after squinting his eyes. The fost stone lamp was still on the nightstand, but this time it was dead, revealing a whitish pearlescent-like stone inside the glass; removing the sheets covering his lower body, he noticed he was wearing nothing but a blue-with-white-stars boxers. I don’t remember wearing this—AH?! Something else, or rather the lack of something else, called to his attention—his gut was gone. “Wait! When did I lose all of this weight?”

“During the past days.” The grandmotherly maid spoke from the bathroom, raising her voice above the angry gushing water as she cleaned the phlegm-filled pot.

“Days? But—but I fought Maiara this morning!” Harry placed his feet on the cold wooden floor and peeked towards the open window, seeing a sunny day shine down in the lively city. “Ahh—right?”

“You fought Maiara on the morning of Paulin fifteenth. Today is the seventeenth, close to Sunnohigh right now.” The maid returned from the bathroom and hid away the vial deep in her crochet kit with a victorious smile on her face—if one were to guess, it’s not every day a lovely old grandmother goes against the rules. “I’m really sorry, honey, but when you lose that much weight that quickly, you will feel funny for a bit. King-maid told me that the queen’s order was because of the Sanbi-eye job.”

Harry touched his beating heart. “So—you’re saying—I actually died?”

“Yes?” The grandmotherly tone of the maid was still there, but her eyes seemed rather puzzled as she brought clothes to Harry. “You know what, hon? I saw the fight too, and you had it rough.” Going back to the same crochet bag, she dug around and pulled out a rectangular thatch box and slid it open, revealing a yellowish-with-red-chunks cake the width and girth of a finger inside. “Here’s a consolation prize from me, so keep this just between us, okay?”

With a rumble, Harry’s stomach groaned over his full bladder, still pressuring him. Picking up the cookie from the thatch box, he looked at the maid’s caramel eyes. “Thank you—ahh—” His mind drew blank, not because he forgot her name, but surely never heard it in the first place.

“Aurora Toleri—sorry. Sanbi. I lived over there for a long time. Pleased to meet you, Harry.” Aurora tipped her red thatch hat with a significant smile—one that enhanced her wrinkles but one that would make you beg to replace your grandmother with her.

The excessive crunchiness of the finger cake was scraping the roof of Harry’s mouth. That was at least until his teeth dug into its center, giving away a moist filling with red chunks inside. Like orange yet tarter, a sweet, tangy taste contrasted the crunchy outer outside. It was so good that Harry closed his eyes and clicked his tongue, chowing it down with a loud humming—like a kitten tasting meat for the first time. As he kept chewing it, the red chunks grabbed all the attention by releasing a crisp apple-like flavor into the mix. Within three bites, the cake became one with Harry. “Hmmm—this is really tasty! Thank you, Aurora!”

“You’re welcome!” Aurora remained standing up, now looking at the clothes laid out by Harry. “Honey, do you need any help with that? You don’t need to bathe; I did that last night.”

Harry’s face reddened as he imagined the situation, feeling a certain defenseless vibe rising as he was dead or passed out—or whatever state he was in. “Eh—I think I’m feeling better now. Thank you—for taking care of me!” His eyes got the courage to look at Aurora’s caramel eyes, still showing the same genuine caring as before.

“You’re welcome, hon! In that case, I’m going to go ahead and let King-maid Eiri know you’re awake. Take your time.” The maid gave another big smile as she picked up her crochet bag and left the room, closing the door carefully to avoid making too much noise.

By himself now, Harry could only hear Aurora’s footsteps slowly clacking on the stairs while the familiar rustles of the city and gusts of humid salty wind rushed into the window. “Wait—these clothes are different.” The clothes Aurora laid on the bed beside him didn’t look as fancy as his previous clothes. They had a brownish base color, with Sanbi blue scales as accents. This looks like a company logo? On the right side of the shirt, there was also a Sanbi fish drawing sewn into the clothing. Oh shit! I really need to pee. Harry let go of the shirt and walked stiffly towards the bathroom. His bladder somehow made this issue even more urgent the closer he was to the oddly square toilet.

Harry propped himself forward to ensure he wouldn’t fall backward by the sheer force and volume of the torrential pungent dark yellow stream coming out of his body that smelled worse than the bar’s back alley—maybe his urethra feeling like it was about rupture overstated the actual amount coming out, but in case like these, facts don’t matter, feelings do. Harry’s eyes drew attention to the bathtub where the dream, or rather, nightmare, or perhaps a past reality, surfaced. He could feel as if the same vicious-grinned girl was still sitting at the bathtub, waiting for him even though she clearly wasn’t there. His breathing became shallow, and his heart began to rise again as he was getting close to finishing peeing. As this chaotic feeling inside him took hold, a sense of urgency struck him. Or perhaps it was the incoming gag that came next. Taking a step back as a cold sweat rushed through his body, Harry propped himself on the nearby sink so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Tinnitus then struck him like a flashbang. With a pained groan, he held back the incoming gag with his dear life. I HATE THIS! His mind was growing tired of whatever the fuck was happening inside him.

In the back of his mind, a thought rushed by. Perhaps this whole thing was nothing but a vivid bullshit nightmare fueled by several sleepless nights of working in a meaningless cubicle job that he compensated with binge eating like a hog. He must still be plopping his big fat ass on the same old fart-soaked recliner with beer on one side and tacos on the other. C’mon! Just wake me up already! I wanna go home!

Except, no alarm rang for Harry. This wired feeling slowly dissipated as his memories kept churning in his brain, taking away from the fact that he was somehow still alive despite having a heart attack at some point. Maybe that was the nightmare, and this is my reality? Wait. But then why stuff still feels weird here? Harry looked at his moist eyes and pale face.

No answer came to mind.

Harry made his way into Sanbi Castle, walking into a familiar mix of a parlor and game room located on the southeast corner. “Maiara?” Harry blurted out, looking at a blurry image of a girl that had to be Maiara—or Itagiba dressed in drag. It was kinda hard to tell.

“Are you retarded? I’m Yacamim.” The girl finished pouring herself a bright green drink. Her hair was loose rather than tied in a pigtail. Her blue base cloth with leather overalls clothing seemed close to Maiara’s, but not quite the same. It also looked really pristine, like she had just bought it. Not even caring to make eye contact, Yacamim stuck her finger in the drink, gave it a nice swirl, then sucked it clean before hamming a large gulp down.

“Yo! So, I guess you’re the Harry guy?” A stronger-willed gruff voice of intense bass came out of the scary-looking large humanoid sitting at the bar by Yacamim. It was a Darfaries, a humanoid species known for its large size with girthy tusks, floppy ears, and a nerve resembling a varicose vein that pops up from the tip of the middle and ring fingers and travels through the back and down the other hand.

Harry couldn’t help but stare at the badass-looking red and green mohawk. The flashy silvery ear piercings looked really, really cool, too—or an indication that he was a power bottom. Either way, he was a true adventurer; his chitin and leather outfit looked sturdy but not too over-cumbering in its weight. “Y—yeah? That’s me.”

“So, that’s him, huh?” Yacamim measured Harry, pouring the leftovers from her shaker into the glass—most of it at least, as she seemed too buzzed to care, or she’s not the type to care about it to begin with. Letting out a single long, wet inwardly burp, she began walking away in a mostly straight line. “No wonder sis whooped his ass.” She tonelessly but loudly spoke to herself on her way out.

“Hey, aren’t you gonna make a drink for us too?” The Darfaries seemed attentive to Yacamim’s muscular but still feminine body as she kept on walking away towards the exit to the atrium, where the stairs to the second floor, bathrooms, and kitchen door were.

No answer from Yacamim. At least not verbally; a single flip of the bird raised on her hand as she took another sip of her drink, going out of sight.

“Hehehe. Go figure.” The Darfaries adventurer raised his deep voice towards the open door where Yacamim had just walked through. “Hey yo! Monnahigh at Shaved Bagarisa?”

“Yea.” A loud womanly voice, slightly gurgly from perhaps taking a big gulp, echoed in the atrium through the half-open door. It was for sure Yacamim.

“Aiight. Harry, my man, pleased to meet ya!” The massive man stood up and looked down at Harry, not in a threatening manner, but rather literally, as he was almost as tall as a skyscraper. He opened both hands, then raised them high up in the air. Spreading his feet apart to lower his height, he puffed his stomach towards Harry. “Come here, brotha!” It sounded like an ultimatum, not because of the cherry tone but because it was this brute of a man just speaking up.

“Ahhh—hi!” Harry froze up, seeing this ridiculously buffed man, even more so than Itagiba, standing in a weird pose, asking Harry to come at him. “Ehh—I’m sorry, but—I need to go see Eiri.”

Apparently, the massive Darfaries man quickly didn’t seem to take kindly to being left hanging; at least one could tell by his souring face as he kept on holding the pose. Somehow, his large tusks now looked quite pointy and threatening. “No shit! You really don’t know about the Darfaires handshake?” Pure disbelief coursed through his voice as his large eyes stared Harry down—like a guy trying to pick a fight with you at a bar.

Oh shit. Harry remained frozen, “Eh—sorry? I-I don’t know. I-I—I just remember waking up a few days ago and—”

“Spare the deets. I got the gist from Itagiba.” This brute pointed towards the door. “Her sister went overboard like usual.”

“OH?” A gasp came out of Harry. Feeling his tension washing away, he blurted out, “So—Maiara is always like that?”

“Yeah, she’s always trying to prove that she’s better than Yacamim—at least she’s good at Homeegg.” A more soothed, but still just as deep, voice came from the Darfaries male as he kept on holding the strange pose. “Aiight. Repeat what I’m doing.”

Homeegg? Huh—interesting. Harry did as told, but now he no longer had the same belly as before, so there was so much puffing out he could do.

With his hands up and feet spread apart, the humanoid mountain of muscle began approaching him and spreading his feet even more apart in an attempt to level the plane field—as in trying to touch belly to belly, hand to hand. He then stared at Harry’s eyes with a display of willpower that looked like he was about to declare, DESTROY ALL HUMANS!

Harry could feel this odd ritualistic bonding happening with him, but he couldn’t break away. Even his respiration froze for a few seconds. He sealed his lips tighly, worried about a possible sloppy kiss.

“HIROMI GANDEW TOUGH-HAMMER!” The voice reverberated through the parlor with such intensity that the window shook. “Now, say your name.”

Harry’s ears rang. With spit on his face and a burst of weirded-out estranged laughter, he felt the ritualistic energy taking hold. Remembering what his badge said when Kibe handed it over to him, he shouted back, trying to match the same firmness as the behemoth of muscly humanoid, “Harry Sanbi!” It wasn’t a bad attempt, but not even close to Hiromi’s.

“YES! That’s how it’s done!” Hiromi let go of the pose and embraced Harry with a friendly, brotherly tight hug. “Glad you came back! Now let’s celebrate life!” Walking behind the bar, he perused around the alcohol cabinet. “Do you remember having lolish-floaters?”

“No—wait. I actually need to go talk with Eiri first!” Harry pointed towards the still half-open door Yacamim had left through to the atrium, remembering the royal offices were upstairs.

“Pfff—there’s plenty of time! It’s only Sunnohigh! Celebrating life comes first!” Hiromi searched the cabinets down lower, making rustling noses, including a noise akin to opening and closing a chest freezer. “Aww. Yes! There you go! Fresh gyut, and lolish!” He pulled out two small wooden containers. One was filled to the brim with a fruit that looked like cherries but with color hues between red and orange spectrums, while the other was a piece of root that seemed pretty close to ginger. Hiromi checked the shaker Maiara had left behind but then shoved it aside and grabbed a far bigger one from the cabinet—capable of holding enough booze to make a typical human forget everything bad, good, or even life itself. Placing all the gyut berries inside, he grabbed a muddler and muddled the gyut as if they had dishonored his family.

Is that how you do it? Harry couldn’t stop gazing at the pure muddling muscle action. He looked at his own arms for comparison, and they were downright feminine compared to Hiromi’s.

With the somehow still intact muddler set aside, Hiromi went after the lolish root next, pulling out a smaller mandoline slicer from a specific cabinet below without even having to search. The slicer was made out of slightly discolored wood with a steel blade in the center that had seen better days—it looked ready to be retired, but the beautiful green and blue tribal carvings built into it were probably the reason it was still in use.

Harry kept looking, assuming Hiromi would abuse the slicer like he did the muddler, maybe even break it in half. However, he didn’t seem to apply all his pent-up anger to it. Instead, he moved the root on the slicer with good enough precision to avoid slicing his giant hands in the process, making several slices of lolish root, some thin, some not so thin. The slices were being plumped on the table. When he was done, he waved the slicer in the air to dry it, letting juices drip all over, before shoving it back on the cabinet below—perhaps the real reason this mandoline slicer was fucked up wasn’t age after all, but abuse by certain functioning alcoholics.

Next in line was a specific bottle containing a clear white spirit Hiromi grabbed from the alcohol cabinet behind him—it had a small handwritten label hanging from the side, looking like it was either a small batch or homemade production. Pouring the whole thing into the shaker, he gave a silent sign to Harry as he placed the empty bottle back on the cabinet; he grabbed another clear white spirit that looked similar and kept pouring until the shaker was overflowing. He tightly capped it with the strainer and cap, and then began to shake the shit out of it with ultrawide motions that would for sure make an ordinary person strain—if his hands slipped up at any point, booze and fruit flesh would have painted the walls, floor, and ceiling of the parlor. One could safely presume it would cause enough grief for Eiri to snap, flip her shit, and cut Hiromi’s balls off.

Meanwhile, Harry remained sitting, silently appreciating the showmanship displayed as Hiromi finished swinging the shaker widely, then not so masterfully poured the contents into two glass containers—a mug that would get you drunk and a jar that would put you in a coffin. Finally, he tried to pick up the sliced lolish roots with his big fingers, but they kept slipping through—the table and his hands were soaked in booze.

Harry let out a chuckle. “Can I help?”

“No! I got this!” Hiromi placed one hand at the table’s end, swiping the booze-soaked sliced lolish off the table and into his hand. He squeezed the excess back into the table and plopped the sliced lolish into both drinks. With a triumphant smile, he wiped his hands on his armor. “Aiight! Let’s go!”

With a hearty amount of booze in his hand, Harry brought it close to his nose. The smell of something akin to gin mixed with vodka was strong, but it went along nicely with the fruit’s tropical, tart, sweet smell. Meanwhile, the gingery aroma of the lolish kinda went along with the rest—like the ginger that comes with sushi. Although, usually, those are a palate cleanser between shoving sushi into your gullet, not part of the experience per se. Cheering with Hiromi, he brought the drink to his mouth and sipped. OH FUCK! Harry’s mouth felt like it was on fire, and the source of the fire was now invading his throat, choking him. His breath felt like he was inhaling ghost peppers.

Bursting out laughing, Hiromi almost choked on his drink as well, seeing Harry looking like he had just drunk gasoline. “I think I did it a bit too strong—oh well, you will get used to it. By the way, have you been told the story of how I met her?” He pointed towards the door to the atrium, where Yacamim was long gone.

Ufff. This is really strong. Harry shook his head, trying to take another sip to see if it improved his situation. “I—” he coughed up. “Never seen—” He kept coughing. “—Yacamim before.”

“Really? Well, then this will be like a what-if story for ya.” Hiromi sat by Harry, wetting his lips with his coma-inducing jar of booze.

Harry took another sip of his strong drink, vividly picturing The Dead Wozen tavern Hiromi was describing, including the other adventurers with him.

“Why do you expect me to be all happy and shit about this?” Kaiana spoke up gratingly, waiting for an answer as she sipped her beer. She was a woman of minor port gifted with cutesy, youthful attributes and spirited energy, somehow endowed by disproportionately large breasts that attracted attention whenever she went—or known as Oppai Loli for the cultured ones.

“C’mon, Kaiana! I was just saying—” Hiromi took a gulp of his beer. The glass was twice as big as hers—so big it had to look bigger than her head. “We got it done! That’s what matters!”

“And for what end? To have this dead meat drain all my nari stones?” Kaiana slapped hard on the table, making a nice echo in the bar and catching a few glimpses that didn’t seem to care about her babbling—but were interested in her jiggling. She looked towards Takeo with a bitter dammed smile—the kind of smile that a boy will never forget because that’s when they realize they goofed it up and there’s no taking back.

Takeo was sitting silently with a ponderous face. He didn’t seem to take the bait.

“Not only did we not make any profit; now we’re wasting personal funds here! We need to be out there!” Kaiana waved outwardly, letting her unnatural gift jiggly around freely.

“Just let it loose a bit—it will all work out!” Hiromi gently said, taking another gulp. His eyes glanced towards Kaiana’s breasts for a sec before looking back at his mug. “You two ready for food?”

Takeo politely declined with a slow shake of the head, standing up as he stated monotonously, “We finished the quest. We celebrated. We all spoke our minds. Now we say our goodbyes.”

“SO YOU’RE GOING TO LEAVE JUST LIKE THAT?” Kaiana angrily shouted at Takeo, who was walking out of the bar with determination in his step and not even a glint of wanting to look back.

“Just leave him be.” Hiromi watched him disappear out of the door. “He didn’t speak his mind, but I guess not saying anything is also saying something?”

“Ow, fuck off with that!” Kaiana took a sip of her drink. “You’re the one who introduced him to the team anyways. Do you have someone else that doesn’t suck as much?”

“Maybe?” Hiromi finished his drink with a nice chug. “I mean, not everyone can handle your sassiness.” He belly laughed, letting his tusks enhance his wide grin.

Kaiana crossed her arms underneath her enormous boobs, making them even more salient. Her silent pouting seemed like a chord was struck. “Fine—he did give me his cut after all. Still, we could have made much more if he didn’t act alone, so it’s his own fault, dammit!”

Raising his empty beer mug and shaking it in the air towards an unsuspecting server, Hiromi’s lips longed for more happiness liquid. “Can’t argue with that—well, she ain’t looking towards here, so I’m gonna walk up there instead. Need anything?”

“I’m not hungry.” Kaiana stood up, adjusting her large wizard-like white-with-black-and-red-accents hat, then her alluring tight-fitting color-coordinated clothing that revealed her slender belly with a perfect belly button. “Thanks for the beer, Hiromi! Send me a winga mail if you do find someone that doesn’t suck as much! I will do the same if I come across a decent party.”

“Aiight.” Hiromi also stood up, approaching Kaiana with his hands up and belly facing forward. He then lowered his hand to match her height.

Kaiana pulled a chair, then stood on it—perhaps she was aware enough of their height differences that, without a chair, her head would be awfully close to Hiromi’s junk when they touched bodies. Matching Hiromi’s pose, she got face-to-face with him. “KAIANA DELTACROSS!” She shouted in the bar, catching everyone’s attention as her breasts got squished against Hiromi’s armor.

“HIROMI HIGH-GANDEW TOUGH-HAMMER!” Hiromi said in a powerful, deep voice, echoing in the bar loudly enough to be far above the chatter. The Darfaries folks amongst the crowd, who were few and far between compared to other races, seemed to almost in unison raise their mug towards them—like a sort of acknowledgment. Meanwhile, most of the others present didn’t seem to give two shits.

Kaiana and Hiromi smiled at each other as they finished the ritualistic Darfaries hug, then Kaiana jumped out of the chair and waved goodbye as she walked out of the door.

“Might as well eat my fill.” Hiromi walked with his empty mug towards the bar when his eyes caught a glimpse of a well-built guy with fantastic long, voluptuous blackish purple hair. He gawked at his shining hair, touching his own perfectly cared-for mohawk to compare. “BROTHA! YOUR HAIR IS AMAZING!” He grabbed this guy’s shoulder as he rested his body against the wooden countertop, clacking his chitin armor. “What do you—OHH NO!” Hiromi’s pupils flared up, realizing his grave mistake.

The bar chatter quickly died down, as if everyone’s mother was insulted simultaneously. A tense atmosphere took over the place as if a grand jury were about to state their verdict to the defendant.

The “guy” with amazing blackish purple hair slapped Hiromi’s hand away, then took a big gulp of “his” beer.

“YOU’RE NOT A DUDE!” Hiromi blurted out in a panicked voice, for sure getting caught up as to why the room was so tensed up.

Without notice, a fist flew through the air from the “guy” and flattened Hiromi’s noise, sending his body backward, clashing against a table, making beer and food fly everywhere. With a bloody fist, this “guy” kept staring murderously at Hiromi. “I’m Yacamim, you meathead fuckwit. Remember the name next time you try to fuck with me!” Yacamim cleaned away her bloodied fist on her own bluish clothing and then pounded the rest of her beer as if nothing had happened.

Hiromi, coming back to himself, stood up as food juices, beer, mead, and blood dripped onto the floor. With a straight face, quite literally since his nose flattened, he slowly raised his hand to check his green and red mohawk. Not only was it soaked in all kinds of substances but he felt that part of it also got chopped off. His uneven breath, open wordless mouth, and wide eyes glanced at a sharp weapon on the table. Right by it, he saw the missing piece of his mohawk resting peacefully on the table. If he had an aura that instant, it would have turned bright red and blown up the bar into smithereens, killing everyone around. He began screaming with such horrendous guttural violence that his vocal cords were about to snap. Without hesitation, his bloodshot eyes aimed at the perpetrator, Yacamim. He ran towards Yacamim with a punch, ready to explode her brains out.

Uncaringly walking out of the bar, Yacamim had her back to Hiromi, but his guttural scream gave away his intention. Evading the brain-exploding punch at the last split second, she blocked two more punches from this massive humanoid, ready to tear her limb by limb. Everyone could hear her bones splitting and cracking with each blocking, yet she seemed to swallow the pain with ease.

Hiromi threw a four-punch streak with all his might, but Yacamim kept evading and blocking everything. “I’m too drunk for this!” He defended two sloppy punches, and then a solid kick from Yacamim that took away his breath. “Fu—” He couldn’t even curse as he felt his chest muscles tearing under the skin. Redoing the same punch streak again, but on the last punch, he faked it out, then threw a forward kick with all his might, probably to show her off his own lower body strength.

Yacamim lost her balance, possibly a combination of booze and assuming that this colorful-looking adventurer was a mongoloid beast.

With this opening, Hiromi then punched squarely on Yacamim’s face, throwing her backward. “Not bad for a human girl!” He made a low, hoarse belly laugh as he saw Yacamim splattered on the floor with a flattened nose just like his.

Meanwhile, the bar was completely lit up! The verbal bets and cheering in the background filled the room with noise and excitement. “Go, Yacamim! Go Yacamim! Represent Sanbi!” The room blew up even more when she began to stand up, regaining her foothold and tightening her fists in her version strength display.

As if this kind of event was not uncommon, people started to rustle around, forming an impromptu battleground by pushing tables away and creating a battlefield in the middle of the bar.

The hinge of the blue atrium door creaked softly, breaking through the laughter. Next, a monotonous female voice said, “Hiromi, I see you’re teaching Harry well, but Eiri is waiting on him.”

Harry gleaned his blurry eyesight towards the familiar black and blue clothing, trying to recognize the taller girl, or maybe girls, wearing it—at first, it appeared like there were two maids, but then it clicked that it had to be the one and only maid Itanema. Do I even know other people named like that? Eiri! Something else far more pressing came to mind. “OH SHIT! I’m sorry!” Harry tried to chug the rest of his drink, but it spilled down his face and onto his clothes.

Hiromi touched Harry’s back and pointed his half-drunken jar of lolish-floaters at Itanema, spilling some on the floor. “Just put it on my tab! It’s fine!”

Itanema’s eyes were drawn to the drink spilling on the floor, then the mess on the bar table. She glanced back at Hiromi with her usual neutral expression—even though she would likely be cleaning it. “There are no tabs here.”

“Then bring Eiri down here! We’re having fun, right, Harry?” With a charming but still kinda threatening look, Hiromi looked back at Harry. Perhaps the terrifying part was due to his heavy, warm hand weighing down on Harry’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Looking at Hiromi, then back at Itanema, Harry flashed a big smile. “Yeah!” A fuzzy, warm feeling was dwelling inside him—or it was the alcohol filling up his belly.

“Go ask her then.” Itanema turned around and returned to the atrium, closing the door behind her. “Bring him with you.”

Hiromi placed one hand by his mouth while the other raised the jar towards the atrium. He shouted brightly, but still in the same deep, ultimatum-sounding voice, “Come drink with us too! The more, the merrier!”

No response came back from Itanema.

Taking a large sip from the jar, Hiromi let out a burp. “I gotta say, from all my traveling around—Sanbi people are always ready to enjoy watching shit going down. Except her! She needs to loosen up a bit, amirite?”

“Really?” Harry yelled out as the images of the duel with Maiara still lingered in his head, specifically when the people were helping him up and even chanting his name. So they didn’t care about me but instead just wanted the fight to continue? I guess that makes sense.

“Yea. You can take that to your soul death.” Hiromi clacked his jar on Harry’s glass. “But anyways, you want to hear the end?”

With a firm nod, Harry’s mind focused solely on the what-if story—so much so that what just happened with Itanema might have been forgotten already. He took another sip of his nearly finished drink.

“We just kept going on the brawl. I thought I had it in the bag, but she quickly learned my body cues, even my fakeouts. For a Naked Bruntos, a female Naked Bruntos, mind ya, her kicks were out of this world!” Hiromi placed his hand on the right of his belly, the upper right region. “She did get one right in my liver that I still remember to this day. She thought I was done for, but that’s when I took the opportunity and charged her with my shoulder.” Hiromi took another sip, taking the time to chew on a few sliced lolish roots. “My memory is foggy after falling on the ground and bashing my head, but I for sure remembered when the room got rowdy when we started making out.” Hiromi grew even redder in the face as he stared into the distance. “I can’t even remember who started it, but yea.”

With his mouth open, Harry tried to imagine the scene of two people with bloody flattened noses making out—something about it lacked the amorousness of a kissing scene, although it definitely must have been passionate in its own twisted ways.

Hiromi let out a long hum as his eyes seemed to long for her already. “After we used Body Restore on each other, we went back to her room.” Hiromi let out a smirk, seemingly just talking aloud to himself. “I still remember pulling that awesome blackish-purple hair like it was yesterday. I just couldn’t stop cumming—”

With a messy spit take going everywhere, including Hiromi’s armor, Harry’s reddened face seemed lost at what to say amongst the coughing, trying to clear the invading alcohol to stop burning his lungs.

Clearing his throat, Hiromi seemed to have caught up to what he had just said. His big hands swiped the excess drink off his chitin armor as he laughed it off. “They might look alike, but they are pretty different after all. If it was Maiara, I bet that would have never happened—there you go. That was the grand tale, but hey, at least you can still suck on the kingdom’s tits with an easy job!” Hiromi brought his nearly-empty jar closer to Harry with a bright smile that even made his large tusks shine.

Harry cackled, raising the glass to cheer. “I never thought it that way!” A rush tickled his insides—or it was his stomach giving a warning.

“SEE? It’s all about mindset! You know what, Harry? You’re cool! So why not play a bit of territory snipping to celebrate?” Hiromi pointed to the nearby odd-looking dartboard. It kinda looked like a bird’s-eye view of a baseball field—that is, if you rotated the field to make a complete circle. There were multiple zones with different colors each.

“Yea!” Harry’s fruity voice sounded like a true adventurer’s. He pounded the rest of his drink, then slapped it back on the messy bar table with a nice clack as he scrubbed his mouth on his forearm, blurting out in a drunken slur, “You’re coolio too!”

“That’s the spirit!” Finishing his massive booze jar with one gigantic gulp, Hiromi stuck it hard on the table, then stood up and stumbled towards the bags of different colored darts hanging on a nearby wall.

Harry stood up as well. “Ohhhhh!” His legs were wobbly, and the room felt like he was on a boat, but his steps seemed firm enough that he could walk towards Hiromi. “Oookay!” He could feel the booze slouching in his stomach with every step he took.

Grabbing two handfuls of metallic darts with colored feathers on the back, Hiromi handed red with blue darts to Harry and kept yellow with white for himself. “You played this before, right?”

With his blurry eyes, the board looked more like an avant-garde painting than a dartboard. With the set of colored darts in his hand, there was a feeling of familiarity. “Kinda? Was the board always this big and colored? I thought it was rounded too—” Harry pointed his hand towards the colored squares in the board, almost in reverence to its bright colorfulness. “OH YEAH! The center is worth more, right? Like we’re scoring to—three-sixty. Right? No less or more?” He squinted his eyes at the edge of the board but didn’t see any numbers whatsoever. Wait—Maybe one-eighty?

Letting out a dissonant hum, Hiromi also looked at the board. “I haven’t heard of that, but yeah, I prefer targeting the yellow ones, as those are worth more if you snipe all territories.”

“Snipe all territories? That’s—different—I think.” Harry adjusted his pants, feeling his privates glued to his inner thigh, nearly falling backward as he performed such simple task. “Can—can you explain?” Harry released a wet burp that sounded dangerously close to being upgraded into a puke.

“Aiight!” Hiromi threw a dart at the board, but it clung and fell to the ground. “Just a hunk—that was me warming up!” He threw another, and it landed miraculously on a green section close to the center. “Now try to throw on a green section or anywhere else.”

Doing as told, Harry used all of his strength to launch the dart, but his hand held it for too long, making the dart fly towards the wall and lodging itself below the dart board. Harry’s body almost fell forward, but he caught himself on his knees and held it there for a bit as the feeling of falling forward kept happening.

“Good try! Good try! C’mon! Try again!” Hiromi grabbed a dart from Harry’s hand and threw it towards the same green, but it landed far above it in a purple zone. “Aw, my chitin ass! Anyways, the goal is to land on the same color region to score a point. If you land on a region with someone else’s dart, you two cancel each other out. Ehh—right? Right—right. The smaller the region, the more it’s worth when sniping it. That makes sense?”

Blinking, Harry stood up slowly as his brain got caught up with the complex rules—at least for his current state. “—Yea? So I play next?”

“We all play at the same time. GO!” Hiromi threw a dart, making it land on another purple. He then kept throwing darts as if his life depended on it; with each throw, sweat began dripping on his forehead.

Trying to get caught up, Harry began throwing darts too, but it looked like he sprayed dartboard repellant on them as most were clicking off the board or the nearby walls. With each dart throw, Harry was slowing down. His face was growing paler, strained. One of his last darts clung tightly against a sizeable orange section in the board, giving him a rushing feeling, or the rushing sensation was from his stomach rumbling as it began its final preparations before pressing the nuclear button. Throwing the last dart as he breathed heavily, the room started to move too much. He clashed against Hiromi as he lost his balance.

“Brotha—you suck at this—Harry?” Hiromi held Harry; then, his eyes were wide open when he took notice of his paleness. His floppy ears then noticed a dreaded sound of retching coming out of Harry. “Ow, Harry! My brotha! Hold it! Hold it! HOLD IT!” With the same worried voice of a husband telling his wife going to labor to hold it just a few more seconds until they get to the hospital, Hiromi grabbed Harry and began to charge towards the atrium at full speed. Clashing against the door, smacking it wide open, he struck Harry’s head against the wall as he lost his balance; Hiromi didn’t even seem to notice it at first.

Another gagging sound came out of Harry as he held his mouth. Whatever he clashed into gave a nick on his forehead, and he started bleeding.

“MY BAD! MY BAD! WE’RE ALMOST THERE!” Hiromi’s tensed-up voice sounded like he were trying to defuse a bomb before it exploded.

Harry groaned as if he was losing the battle. The groans and gags coming out of his mouth sounded worse than a dreaded cat gag EDM drum beat waking you up in the middle of the night. He didn’t even know where he was anymore as he only felt a constant rush of the atrium scenery spin around him as the vomit was pressuring the back of his throat.

“STAY WITH ME!” screamed Hiromi as he kicked down the bathroom door square in the middle, making a loud boom that sounded like a grenade going off.

Feeling like he was breathing fire, Harry felt his body shiver as everything came out from up top in a powerful stream that looked like a geyser from a fire hydrant. Amongst the material things being ejected from his body, Harry felt the voidness and loneliness energy within him being purged out as well. Everything was being violently purged—perhaps alcohol is the interface for soul healing, or it is a temporary placebo before the cruel reality resurfaces when sobriety hits.

Chuckling, Hiromi patted Harry on the back. “Just don’t breathe it in. Let it all out first. Good job! Good job!”

Doing so, Harry felt his throat burn just as much as when the alcohol was going in. He could feel the waves of vomit swelling deep in his gut, powerless to stop it. It felt like the stomach was puppeteering his whole body; all he could do was fight the urge to breathe.

“My man—did you eat gyut early on, or is that pieces of your stomach?” Hiromi laughed as he pulled the handle above the toilet, letting an angry gush of water wash it away.

“I’m—sorry.” Feeling lightweight, Harry dry heaved a few more times, but only thick spit seemed to come out next. His teary eyes, snotty nose, and puke mixed with saliva dripping down his mouth were not a pleasant sight to behold, but his shivering died down, and with it, the feeling of spinning—perhaps that dark feeling inside him too.

Hiromi pushed the handle, stopping the gush of angry water. A relieved sigh came out of him as he patted Harry on the head, shuffling his short black hair. “Harry—my brotha, good job!”

Hearing a boot clacking towards them, Harry glanced at it and saw a blurry of a maid that felt too familiar. Her unnaturally bright cyan eyes and red lips were unavoidable to look at. Her dark brown hair shone against the sun’s natural light poking through the atrium windows, while her almond skin added a mysterious beauty to her aura. The tight blue corset on top of the black clothing enhanced her natural curviness and the eye-magnet power of her breasts. It was none other than Arukia. The maid that teased him to no end. Does she really like me?

“Eww—” With curled lips, Arukia looked away from Harry, who looked half-dead, and focused on Hiromi’s reddened cheeks. “Did you just kick down the door? Why? What is wrong with you? You could just have turned the knob!”

Harry felt like a knife had been shoved into his heart when he saw Arukia’s reaction. He couldn’t do anything but look down as he felt like he wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear out of her sight.

Helping Harry towards the sink, Hiromi glanced back at Arukia with narrow eyes and a sulking face that made his tusks look even more threatening. “I made the job easier for you, or did you want to clean puke off the floor?” His pointed voice sounded like an actual ultimatum this time.

With a click of the tongue, Arukia clapped back with a sarcastic tone, “That’s not an excuse to blow the door apart!” She stood at where the door was, looking around the bathroom for something, then suddenly her sensual red lips formed a smirk—it appeared as if she was readying herself for a mic drop with the same energy of a rapper about to fire a you-momma joke in a rap duel. She picked a piece of a doorframe from the floor with a partial imprint of a nonhuman-sized foot with clear indents of a spiked boot. “That’s all the proof I need to make you never set foot here again!” She hid the piece behind her, winking at Hiromi as she stepped backward. “I’m sure I can even get him as an accomplice.”

Hiromi stepped out of the room towards Arukia. His balance seemed slightly off, based on how he propped his hand on the doorframe as he stared Arukia down. “Say that to Yacamim’s face—she’s the next queen, after all.” His voice grew more profound.

Arukia tilted her head up to look at Hiromi; his cheeks and ears were plump and red, but his eyes, mouth, and even tusks looked ready to throw down. With a huff from his nose, Hiromi looked downright threatening—like she was staring at a bull ready to charge. Arukia did another click of her tongue as her eyes rolled back in her head. With her free hand, she waved Hiromi off. “That’s the best you got? You and Yacamim are barely here—why would they hand you the monarchy department?” Pointing back to the parlor, she drilled her finale statement with a gotcha smile, “You only show up because of the open bar!” She then pointed at a boxy contraption resting above Harry. “Get him some soap!”

I didn’t know that, but I guess it makes sense. Somehow the oldest kid rising to the throne feels like something I learned somewhere—but where? School? Did I go to school? Harry meanwhile washed his face in the cold water in the sink when he felt something touching him. It was Hiromi dumping a whole bunch of flakes of something in his hand that melted into soapy bubbles. He brought it closer to his nose, and it smelled like mint. Wasn’t it supposed to be like a bar or something? He scrubbed it on his face, feeling its soapiness aromatically soapy.

Hiromi’s threatening expression began waning as he placed the empty soap container back on the shelf. His silence and severe facade came crumbling down as he swung his head in an apparent denial that turned into acceptance. “I’m too drunk for this. You got me there. Fine. I will just give it to you then.” Hiromi turned back and walked closer to Arukia, digging his hand up into his short kilt-like clothing, getting close to his crotch.

“You already have Yacamim!” With a reddening face, Arukia put the piece of the door she held in front of her, then threw it at Hiromi’s feet as she backed away, her hands holding her chest.

“What?” Pulling his hand out from underneath the kilt, Hiromi had a leather bag about the size of his hand—luckily, it was his balls bag instead of his ballsack. “How many balls?”

Looking at the bag in Hiromi’s hand, Arukia’s eyes seemed thinkative for a second, but then she looked away. “I’m not touching that! Take that to Eiri yourself.” She sensually walked away, waving her hair around—perhaps trying to tease Harry and Hiromi with her swinging hips to gain upper hand in whatever game she was playing inside her head.

Shit! I completely forgot about that. Harry was drying his face with a hand towel. “I need to go to Eiri right now!”

“Hold a hunk, brotha!” Hiromi opened the leather bag, pulled out a single amethyst crusted in golden metal, and handed it to Harry.

Looking at the detailed handiwork of the golden metal, Harry couldn’t stop noticing how pretty but foreign it looked. “So this is what people were talking about costing pearls or amethysts?”

“You forgot about the balls currency too?” Hiromi seemed ready to give a brotherly goodbye hug, but perhaps seeing Harry bringing the amethyst ball to his eyes like a kid would pick up a frog off the street and scientifically analyze it, he opened his leather bag again. “I don’t have any sapphires—I don’t think I—oh, there it is!” Hiromi pulled out a single aquamarine, then a few pearls—all the same size, with the same golden metal crust—and brought them closer to Harry’s squinting eyes. “Fifty pearls is one amethyst. Ten amethysts is one aquamarine, and ten aquamarines is one sapphire.”

“So, the door cost one amethyst?” Harry looked towards the pieces of door scattered on the bathroom floor.

“Dunno—” Hiromi placed the balls back in the leather bag and shoved it up his skirt, hiding it somewhere most people wouldn’t dare touch. “But I have more drinking to do, and math ain’t my thing. You know where Eiri is?”

Harry nodded, holding the single amethyst tightly in his hand.

“Aiight. Come here!” Hiromi embraced Harry with a big brotherly hug. “Harry, or should I say Sanbi-eye? I hope you have tons of fun, my brotha! Next time I’m on a quest nearby, I will send you a winga mail for us to meet up!”

Harry felt this cuddly warmth coming from this beastly humanoid. His breath smelled strongly of ginger, with a tangy tropical twist, while his armpits developed a strong manly musk that would keep many people at bay. However, Harry was too happy to care for that, so he hugged him back just as tightly. “Thanks, Hiromi! Brotha!”

Harry presented himself to Eiri in her office with a sloppily clean face. His smile shone brightly; water drops ran from his wet hair, down his reddened culpable face, and dripped onto his shirt.

With bright eyes of her own, Eiri, also commonly referred to as king-maid, smiled back at Harry. “How are you feeling, Harry? Or should I say Sanbi-eye?” As she was sitting in her comfortable chair, one of her eyebrows rose as she curiously glanced at the single amethyst ball in his hand. “Hmmm—whatcha got there?”

“I’m—” Harry’s smile began to wane, his blurry eyes noticing another familiar face in the room—Sora, the maid that made his heart flutter. Although it didn’t flutter this time, it pounded in his chest in fear. The tinnitus in his ear went off again, sounding as loud as a fire alarm. The awful energy inside him, which presumably was ejected from his mouth not long ago, resurfaced deep inside his bowels. With them, intrusive memories crept back into his mind. He placed his hand on his neck, feeling as if his breath was still being taken away.

“Harry?” Eiri asked.

WAIT! Harry looked at Sora’s cutesy petite body, glancing at her hand, which was moving quickly through an abacus while the other hand was writing down things and her eyes were scouring through lines of a receipt. Was it her? His blurry eyes focused on Sora’s thin lips, comparing it to the vicious grin of the girl suffocating him in his memories. Maybe it had something to do with his lingering buzz, but something suddenly clicked deep in his mind—something isn’t right! The person that did that didn’t have tusks! The red thingy in the arm—yea! Darfaries interface! The person didn’t have that either! It can’t be Sora after all—wait—why did I think it could be her in the first place? Harry kept staring at Sora, his eyes duller than before, as his hands lowered on his own, hiding away the amethyst ball. Then who was it? He openly stared back at Eiri, observing her developing a slightly mischievous smirk; his mind drew blank in an attempt to refuse to believe she was the one.

Eiri played with her quill as she stared back at blank Harry. “You know, that’s pretty ballsy coming to the king-maid’s office and then flat out ignoring me.” Eiri kept on looking as Harry’s expression seemed stuck in time. “You okay, Harry?”

You okay, Harry? Eiri’s voice reverberated deep in Harry’s brain, snapping him out of his drunken daze. “I’m sorry, Eiri—it’s just—” Harry took a deep breath to fight the tightening feeling in his chest. “It’s just—” The words were not coming out. It can’t be her, can it? This feeling that he had drunk a pot of coffee was still there. Looking towards Sora, still just as busy as before, the words in his brain seemed jumbled, impossible to just flat out say in front of her.

A grin appeared on Eiri’s face; she winked towards Harry, then moved her head to Sora and spoke stridently, “What? Do you want to ask Sora to marry you? You need to take her to the Sanbi fountain first, then scream in front of everyone that you love her to soul death.”

Sora snapped her neck towards Eiri, then towards Harry, apparently only then realizing that he was right there. Her hands covered her quickly reddening face. Her eyes widened so much they were about to fall from their sockets as her body turned into stone—she even seemed to stop breathing because of how tensed up she was. The winga feather in her hand succumbed to the pressure and snapped loudly.

As he reddened in the face as well, Harry’s heart didn’t know whether to pound in fear or race in passion. His brain swirled in a mix of emotions as his mouth moved to say something to Sora, but no words came out.

Like a rabbit fleeing a wolf, Sora jumped out of her chair and exited the room so quickly that it felt like she had superhuman or, more specifically, super-wozefaries capabilities.

Harry kept on standing there, with an estranged smile and wrinkled eyes forming as the thought of being turned down again was added to the pot of emotions. Lots of words flew through his mind, but he still just couldn’t develop a sentence.

Eiri let go of her writing feather and stood up slowly. She patted her skirt as she spoke truthfully, “Yeah—you clearly have something you want to tell, so get it off your chest.” She came closer to Harry but then looked to be taken aback as her nose was attacked by something. “WOW—what were you doing? Did you drink lolish-floaters or what? Your BO is pretty bad too! *Hmmm—*why do you smell like a Darfaries armpit? Didn’t Aurora bathe you yesterday?”

Looking down like a puppy caught chewing on sandals, Harry showed the amethyst ball again to Eiri. “Hiromi told—told that I should just—enjoy life a bit. I had a bit much and—almost puked in the parlor. He brought me to the bathroom, but he broke the door.” Harry gave the amethyst ball to Eiri. “He gave me this to pay for it—I’m sorry.”

Eiri placed the amethyst on her desk. “That explains the bang I heard. Well, it’s not the first time he had to pay for stuff either—but he is the prince, so what can I do? Hmmm, at least he doesn’t wait until I generate an invoice like Itagiba.” Eiri placed her gloved hands on Harry’s shoulder, profoundly looking into his blue eyes. “But doing that wouldn’t cause your mood to swing like this, right? There’s something else you want to tell me about Sora? I already know you have the hots for her.”

Harry shook his head, his droopy eyes searching for any other person in the room as his voice gathered its will. “I-I thought I had this dream, but—but now I know that it wasn’t one—I think—ahh—it actually happened. Remember during the duel when Sora mentioned my neck?”

Narrowing her face, Eiri nodded soon after. “I think I—yeah. Yeah. I remember it—hard stuff injected but no longer active! Yep! That was it—it was solid proof that your corpse came from the Sanbi slums in some shape or another. Sora wouldn’t lie about what she sensed.”

“I—this dream I had—I thought it was a dream, but now I remember more—I think—” Harry glanced at Eiri, his voice growing weaker.

“We’re in this together, but you gotta tell me!” Eiri let go of Harry’s shoulder and rested her weight against the table, crossing her arm as her perked-up ears looked to be hanging at every word of his babbling.

“This girl injected something on me—on my neck. I remember it paralyzing me, making my mind murky. I can’t say for sure exactly when, but I think it happened on my first night here.” He closed his eyes, trying to relive it. Inside him, he could feel the anxiety rising. “The ceiling! The ceiling was the same ceiling as my bedroom, but it was nighttime. The—the girl suffocated me—”

“What? How?” Eiri’s voice sounded like a verbal two-combo word punch; however, her serious gaze didn’t seem aggressive but instigative for a solid answer.

Harry felt this ominous sensation of being mocked, but a more potent force within him made him utter, “She sat on my face—I—”

A burst of constrained laughter sounded from Eiri at first, but then it died down as she seemed to notice Harry wasn’t laughing. “Hmmmm—are you sure it is not a nightmare? Like a really vivid one? I mean, some would say that’s a wet dream—” A small smirk broke through the corner of Eiri’s mouth.

Harry’s voice sounded a bit mixed as embarrassment took over. “Eh—I guess true, sorry—” With a more resolute tone, courage finally came through to face Eiri’s snarkiness. “But I—” He took a deep breath. “I can’t shake off this feeling I’m getting! I don’t know what to do—it feels awful when I remember it.”

“Me neither, to be honest!” Eiri pursed her lips as she held her arms tightly. “I believe you suffered abuse at some point in your life, probably in the Sanbi slums, before Gabiro did something to your soul. It’s like what they say—painful memories are easier to remember than happier ones, so there’s a chance that you didn’t lose your memories but they are locked away instead because they were too painful! Honestly, I don’t know why someone would do such an unacceptable thing!” Eiri gasped as she seemed to cheer up; she stood up and looked brightly at Harry’s eyes like she had owned the lotto. “That’s it! That’s the ticket to remember where you came from! Do you remember any characteristics of the person? Or exactly where it happened?”

“But—but what about the ceiling?” Harry pointed up, then looked up as well. “Oh—” Harry’s crap eyes saw the same blurry white ceiling in Eiri’s office.

“Hmmmm—” Eiri pointed at the same ceiling with a smile. “Think of it this way—this ceiling style is more of a Sanbi thing, so it reinforces the point that you were not too far off from here. So who was doing that to you?”

Trying to surface the memories of the event also brought this anxiety and perturbed feeling alongside it. Harry tried to concentrate on the moment this girl went towards sitting on his face, but the memory seemed floaty, with details merging into one another. “A vicious smile? I’m—not—sure? Maybe long hair? Greenish? Darkish? Or was it short?” The nightmare, or whatever that vivid thing was, where Sora had a similar vicious smile, seemed to be interfering with the memory of the nightly attack as well, making the person who suffocated him appear even more so as an amalgamation of multiple people. “I can’t tell for sure—it’s all blurring together!”

Eiri sighed as the shine in her eyes faded. “It couldn’t have happened within the castle grounds. There are always guards at the main entrance, and my maids are handpicked and vigilant—for all we know, the memory seems so vague that it could have been a guy. I’m sorry, Harry, I am! But all I can say at this point is to have you keep trying to dig through your memories. They must have injected some nasty stuff to scramble your brain, but if you get me any specific details, then I can help you by opening a missing person search quest! That way, we can gather hints of someone who crossed paths with you without accusing anyone!” Eiri gave Harry a motherly hug. “Not that I don’t want to bring justice to whoever did this to you, but we can only accuse someone if we have proof. Or we’re the ones who will be punished.”

Harry smiled softly as his head rested on her warm shoulder. “Thanks, Eiri! I don’t know either, but once in a while, I have this thing inside me that makes me feel like my heart is about to explode if I don’t do something about it. But I just don’t know what to do!”

Eiri let go of Harry, firmly holding him by the shoulders, then caressing his head. “That’s PTSD right there! I heard something similar from a friend who cared for an older adventurer too. His whole party got wiped out by a massive walking flathead when they pushed too far into the depths of Bahyum Castle. He would start sobbing uncontrollably out of nowhere, sometimes even trying to kill himself, or get naked and run around screaming from the top of his lungs.” Eiri pointed towards the portrait on the wall of someone who looked awfully close to her. “I bet it is not easy to deal with that, but Mom always said to make life your bitch, not the other way around. Hmmm—so make life your bitch and have it choke on your little thing instead?” A chuckle came out of Eiri as she pinched Harry in the side of his gut.

Harry forcibly laughed as he felt the small leftovers of his once enormous love handles being squished. He tried to defend them against Eiri’s pinches, but her pinching abilities were far too masterful.

“For real, though, this is your opportunity to shine as Sanbi-eye! Go out and have fun! A friend said that PTSD is basically the past trying to screw over your future, so try to focus on the future instead!”

A warm feeling arose in Harry, contrasting that annoying feeling lingering within. “Thanks, Eiri! I guess I will!”

“Or if you want to hear Itagiba’s pep talk—” Eiri chuckled, deepening her voice, and slapping Harry on the shoulder. “Harry, my man!” Eiri grabbed his head from the top with a handful. “You need to get out of your own fucking head! You’re too deep inside! Don’t worry about it!”

Harry could nearly see Itagiba apparating in front of him. I—guess so? A chuckle of his own broke through the ominous feeling stirring in his chest. I have to enjoy this Sanbi-eye thing.

“I’ve been working on this one for a while. Glad it worked!” Eiri smiled cheerfully. “Now, are you ready? How’s your stomach feeling? Do you need anything to eat?” Eiri checked Harry’s new uniform out. “Actually, since you shared your secret, I will share mine too. You look better with less weight, but I still don’t agree with the monarchy’s department, or rather Neferteri’s decision.”

Harry touched his stomach; it felt a bit tender and very empty. “It felt really weird at first, but I think I’m getting used to it. Actually, I’m not sure if I am that hungry at the moment. I think I drank too much.”

Eiri began leading Harry out of the room, pushing his back towards the door. “Let’s get you some water and food then! At least I can help with that!”

“Can you also help me with my eyesight again too?” Harry carefully stepped down the stairs, aggressively squinting his bad eyes to see a little better.

“Dang it. Aurora gave you Nari Refresher. Hmmm—I think there’s still a dose left from the one Eori made for you. Let’s go bug Kibe right now!” Eiri chuckled. “Unless you want it for dessert?”

Harry’s body and soul shivered in disgust at the thought of slurping an eyeball on top of coagulated jelly hors d’oeuvres with a full stomach. The awful taste of coagulated bloody salty mixed with vinegar taste of the nari gel still felt like he had just slurped it down last night—except that happened days ago instead.