Chapter IV - Unwanted PTO

Paulin 66th, Freeday! It was the early afternoon of an overcast sunny day. Perfect to sit down and sip on hot tea and crunchy biscuits while playing a game of Bone Sack. Or if you're so lazy that you don't even want to aim and throw a piece of bone into sacks around the room, then a lovely game of Minari would do it perfectly since all you do is move carved pieces of wood around a multi-level board to fight out with your enemy and figure out which of the figures is the true one—as in the one that has a piece of nari stone stuck inside it.

But all of that seemed like a waste of time for Arukia. It didn't matter what day it was or how lazy the day felt like; her mind was always playing a game of Minari on its own, but instead of carved pieces of wood, it was the Sanbi Royals. But which one held the truth? In her mind, it was all of them. They all had truths of their own that would be of service to fulfill her contract to Red Winga.

With bated breath, she opened the single, only letter addressed to her that came in a blue envelope, standing at the edge of Sanbi's Forway embassy on the fifth floor. If she had taken two steps forward, gravity would do the rest, pulling her into the pavement and resolving all her problems by turning her into a pulp—temporarily, though, as she is at her prime and soul dying from that would be pretty impossible. But that didn't matter at all, as Arukia's mind was focused on the letter brought from none other than an unfortunately quite familiar person named Emelia Lakeeye Rich-Flower, the owner of Emelia's Flowery Paradise back in Forway. What does the flower hoe want now? The annoyance level in her brain was approaching dangerous highs.

My lovely Arukia,

It has been an eternity since we last talked. I miss you dearly! Can you grab a couple of Emerenthy—

Arukia rolled her eyes at the diabetic-inducing honeyed words. Emerenthy! Her eyes looked at the horizon in front of her. It was a city peppered with two and three-story tall buildings in the vicinity and lesser taller buildings in the far distance. The buildings had an overall white with a blue accented look, with flowery streets covered in stone roads surrounding them. The answer suddenly popped into memory in her unfocused gaze: That's the dead drop not far from the road to Forway. A moody feeling arose within Arukia, starting to see the next steps playing in her head. Just imagining having to go through all of that was gnawing at her conscience, and it’s something she must do, or pay the consequences outlined in her contract. But if she wasn’t doing that, then what was she even going to do? Not like she really does anything other than what is mandated by her contract with Red Winga, or her contract with Sanbi Royals.

—on your way here? Can you please come quickly?

Can’t just walk out like that or it will be suspicious. With another click of her tongue, she held back her face from turning sour as her hands crumpled the letter without reading the rest. Why bother me? You have all these other people to do dirty work! She stuffed the crumpled letter into her purse, and bit her lips to contain the annoyance oozing from within. After all information I gave—

"Boyfriend problems, huh?" A burst of smirky laughter came from a nearby Forway guard, caring for a Winga that had just arrived, taking out the envelopes from the Winga's small back pouch, and giving it a kiss in its tiny beak before putting it on his shoulder. The guard treated the birdie with more love and affection than many parents out there.

"No! Doesn't matter!" She took out a single pearl from the same purse and handed it to the guard. "Forway!"

"Sheesh—all these flavors, and you choose that! Right birdie?" The guard looked her up and down.

The bird followed suit, too, even making agreement chirps. Perhaps it could sense the bitchy energy emanating from Arukia's tense aura, or it was pure mimicry because it could smell the treats on the guard.

The guard took the pearl, then grabbed a black envelope and handed it to her with a slight smirk, "That's how I like 'em, though! Right birdie?"

“Twee-twee!” A cutish sound came out of the winga, opening its beak wide open.

Arukia reached out to grab the envelope firmly pressed between the guard's fingers. She narrowed her eyes at him, holding the envelope, then at the full-mouth open birdie flapping its tongue about.

"I can give you anything you want! Even prioritize your letter if you grab a beer with me later!" The guard was nearly smacking his lips! Who knows if it was thinking about his favorite beer or the fine-looking woman standing before him—either way, he and Birdie were salivating.

"Tsk!" With a loud click of her tongue, Arukia came closer to the guard, whispering in his ear, "I know your type—you can't handle the spice!" She pulled the envelope away from his hand, continuing her whispering, "—I only enjoy the presence of captains!" With a teasing bite of her tongue, she went inside, caressing her long hair and letting it fly in the air without looking back. She didn't need to look back as her swaying hips were, without a doubt, teasing that lowly guard. As if a nobody like you can ever get there—

In front of a shared writing station, she took out a dotted grid white page within the black envelope. Grabbing a winga feather, she dipped it carefully in the black-as-tar ink, then placed the feather on the dot and made a streak to the right. Without lifting her feather, she made a square and a connecting line to the right. She then added small circles on the edges of the square and continued writing, but this time without those same small circles. Her handwriting was precise, nailing down the angled edges and continuous lines of the Vraki writing with precision and proficiency as the cursive-glyph-like writing spelled out Will leave Sanbi on the 70th after I get PTO from Eiri. See you soon.

She waved the letter in the air, letting it dry. That must be it for my time as a Sanbi maid. That thought lingered in her head more than she expected as she folded the paper into the letter.

Using another winga feather, dipping in white ink, she addressed the letter back to Emelia all the way back to Forway. Closing the black and white inks she was using, she waved the envelope to dry it as she walked over to another sanbi guard sitting behind a desk and handed the letter with an abrupt motion of her hand.

The guard did not even look at her spicy beauty, sounding like a train station announcement instead. "The next Wingas will leave at Sunnulow. They should receive by the end of Gannday." He grabbed the envelope, letting melted wax drip on it and stamping it with a logo, using much more force than one should, making it nearly an unrecognizable splat. Still, one would implicitly know it was none other than the Forway symbol of trust.

With another bated breath, Arukia made her way towards the stairs to get out of this gothic-like, black-themed building. I have to come up with an airtight excuse for the PTO—

Paulin 66th, Freeday! Same day! Still! Arukia was home, although the sense of home wasn't strictly correlated with a homey feeling. For her, it felt like living in university dorms. The house she was in was shared with three other strangers. Her bedroom was only hers, but despite that, it still felt like sleeping in a hotel bedroom. Just something about it never felt right. Perhaps it wasn't the place, but the mindset she carried. All of the other places she could remember of including her very humble family home, had a similar feeling.

Nevertheless, it still did bring some comfort. Arukia sat on the familiar bed, resting her aching feet from walking about far more than planned. A plain letter and a key surfaced from a ragged cloth in her hands. She kept staring at it for a few seconds. Her silent stare in this empty room contrasted with the effervescent steam noises from the glimmering fost lamp. Not only was it a light source, but also a sort of white noise machine, as the water and salt reacted with the stone within to generate light and steam. It generated a bit of heat as well, but the thermal loss was minimal compared to the light conversion.

Something within her didn't want to open the letter after all, despite waiting for it after all this time. Memories of the Sanbi kingdom flooded her mind! She could never tell who was more worried about her if it was Eiri or Aurora—both equally, but Aurora was far more handsy. She could feel a cold running down her spine from all the times Itagiba looked her up and down with a literal red fire in his eyes—not that dissimilar from being in a zoo and locking eyes with a lion. You feel the hunger in its eyes, which makes your monkey brain raise the alarm, but you ignore it because of the thick glass pane protecting you. There wasn't any glass pane between her and Itagiba, but Neferteri kept that timeworn yet voracious wild animal in shackles. How long or tight the shackles were seemed unknown to her, despite innumerable attempts at probing for info.

"Argh!" Arukia broke through the nostalgia annoying her, placing the key by the fost lamp and flapping open the letter. Your goal as Sanbi Maid is done. Report to Magina 307 immediately.

"Finally!" Arukia slipped out a convincing sound, but then her shoulders dropped as she made a silent poult in this not-so-homey home. She continued reading the letter, gripping it harder with each word. Your suspicion of Eori's involvement with the Sanbi castle soul explosion on Paulin 14th and the Sanbi eye was true. We captured the Sanbi eye near Green Sea. He was wearing fake skin.

"I knew it!" Arukia spoke under her breath, continuing reading. Your new goal: Find the hideout where Eori is experimenting on Harry. Make it a break-in, and bring her journals and Harry to Black Sapphire for further research. Expect adventurers guarding the place, but unknown details. See below for hideout whereabouts.

Arukia saw a well-crafted map of a village named Dead Fish in the center, with a single road passing through it and some backroads spanning out. A ways to the northwest of the village, not that far from a river, a circle was drawn on the map. It wasn't quite exact, but it was a solid lead.

"Bring Harry all the way to Forway? But why?" She hid away the key in the false bottom of a drawer and threw the letter into the fost lamp, watching it soak in the salty water. She threw herself back onto the bed, staring at an old wooden ceiling that must have witnessed many people's lives, with her being the latest one, but not the last*.*

Letting a long breath out, Arukia pushed out a string of stabby venomous words, "Argh—all these Red Wingas agents are lame anyway!" Her mind brought back something she hadn't candidly thought about in forever. It was a place that was clearly home in her youth. A place quiet, too far quiet, and mundane for the likes of her. A place called Long Bridge. A large-ish village on the road between Forway and Sanbi known for its literal long bridge keeping the road between bristling with life, and the inns and taverns full of travelers emptying their ball pockets—or even if you don't have the balls to pay for lodging because they offer a safe-ish camping site for free where you replace the worry from being attacked by wild animals, beasts and bandits to just bandits.

At this camping site, a memory from deep within Arukia surfaced. It was her in her pubescent teens, drawing campers' attention with her charming dance or one-to-one conversation with sketchy-looking men while her friends looted what they could. That edging feeling of preventing getting caught at every second she was acting it out still tickled in the back of her mind. But that feeling wasn't nearly as good as charming her own friends after the fact to get more of the loot. Her body tingled, yearning to hit that same high just once more!

Except another memory came to shoot that down. It was Arukia's parents figuring out what she was doing and beating the shit out of her. STOP IT! WE'RE NOBODIES! CAN'T YOU IMAGINE THE TROUBLE WE WILL BE IN IF A GUARD COMES KNOCKING AT OUR DOOR? Her father yelled at her ear so loud it still rang in her ears to this day.

She turned away from the fost lamp, and the completely soaked letter within, hiding her face in the darkness of her own shadow. You're the nobodies! Thank you for nothing!

Memories of Forway came to her mind, some best left forgotten. Immediately! Arukia could hear Emelia saying that to her from her flower shop, standing before it and calling her in for tea with a suave-looking face, but a fiercely direct tone. At the same time, she could hear Eiri standing in front of Sanbi Castle, calling out to her as well, with her bright orange gloves flailing up in the air. "Hey!" Ready for another day!

She decided to pick neither, letting the thoughts die out alone. She could feel a tightness in her chest, a rising feeling inside her, wanting to say something. A vision of rinse and repeat of life as a Sanbi maid played out in her closed eyes. Doing the same patronage over and over, and at some point, finding someone that steals her heart and then her out of that crappy castle to live a life of luxury—and monotony? Like good monotony? The dream of that monotony tickled her mind and to some extent her heart, but something about it did not tickle her soul.

Only the effervescent steam noises from the fost lamp filled the room while Arukia was peacefully in one of her dreamlands.

Paulin 67th, Tollday! It was just a mundane, bright, sunny summer afternoon on another day in an endless weekly cycle. Arukia stood up in a room she had seen many times, her unusually bright cyan eyes stared down two very familiar people doing nothing out of the ordinary for a Tollday. It was King-maid and her loyal red-haired, petite assistant Sora, crunching numbers and balancing sheets on the upper floor of Sanbi Castle—in the economic room, to be precise. Or, from Arukia's viewpoint, it was a true sanctuary of information if you knew what to look for, coming here every time a name was listed on a dead drop to answer a few questions, but usually: How much someone reported to have made? If the difference was legit good compared to what Red Winga had tallied up with its members out in the wild, BINGO! Blackmail. And even better, a portion of it would go towards fulfilling her contract.

However, this time, things felt off. "Hey, Eiri! Can I get PTO for fifteen days?" Arukia said it straight, her hands tightly fidgeting with her hair, causing splinters to form. Those words just felt wrong.

Eiri's body halted mid-writing as her sudden wide eyes and slacking jaw drew towards Arukia. The blue winga feather in her frozen hands plopped forward as the only motion during those seconds.

Arukia halted her hair fidgeting as well. Crap! She’s suspicious! A single thought passed through her mind as her breathing tensed. Relax! Relax! Her tense muscles fought with her own will to appear calm. She forced her lips to give a smile.

"Haaaaa—" A burst of laughter came out of Eiri, "What? Is Hifuna invading tomorrow or something?" She leaned back and crunched on a biscuit.

"What?" Arukia let go of her hair, staring firmly back at Eiri.

Eiri returned the writing feather to the inkwell as she finished chewing the biscuit. "Ehh—It's just that you never requested PTO before! It's always me bugging you to do it, meet a boy on the wagon, drink together at a random bar on the road, fall in love with each other for the rest of the trip, think of all the things you will do together afterwards, and once you reach the city—" Eiri's smile died off, turning into a uneasy gaze. "Never mind on that—what happened?"

"Gabiro happened—” Arukia looked away, forcing her mind to retrieve the conversation plans. “—This whole thing made me think about reconnecting with my family," Arukia said it straight, like a well-rehearsed speech, as if she was hooked to a poligraph.

Eiri stood up and made her way to Arukia, tackling her into a tight hug and softly stating in her embrace, "I've been thinking the same thing with my mom and all—"

Meanwhile, the petite maid named Sora was still profoundly focused as if she had taken an entire bottle of dextroamphetamine. The fingers in her left hand moved with uncanny speed while her feather in her right hand quickly wrote the results down, and moved through the stack of papers. Her eyes appeared to be dry from the lack of blinking.

After a long hug, Eiri then held her hands, looking firmly into each other’s eyes, "When are you thinking of leaving?"

Feeling Eiri's rubbery gloves envelop her soft hands, Arukia continued in her matter-of-fact tone, "Day after tomorrow?"

"Ohhh—" Eiri held Arukia's hand, but her eyes dragged towards a board to her right hanging on the wall, filled with colors that presented the schedule of all maids. A quick scan turned into a sudden bright smile, "Okay! It's a bit tight, but we'll figure something out! Hmmm—actually, you can go tomorrow if you want! But—" The bright smile in her started showing some smirkiness in the corners of her mouth, it was as if the portrait of her mother Coema in the background was trying to possess her.

I knew it wouldn’t be this easy! Arukia could feel an eerie feeling from the Coema’s spirit shining through Eiri, but she held back from surfacing that feeling on her pretty face.

"We're all going to have dinner first!" Eiri turned towards the busy-looking, red-haired, girly maid with protruding bottom teeth and spoke loudly towards her, "Sora!"

Sora, still profoundly calculating things, suddenly appeared as if someone had kanchō-ed her. She shot up straight and looked back at Eiri and Arukia with an intense glare as if she was still coming out of a mathematically induced daze. She was furiously blinking. Her glassy stare and twitchy behavior looked like she had smoked a crack pipe.

"Sorry, but can you relay to the guards to ask all maids to come for an early dinner at the castle? Arukia is going on PTO!” Eiri hugged Arukia from the side.

"YES! King-maid!" Sora ran off towards the door, her right hand still tightly hanging onto the writing feather—it looked like she was on a mission to deliver the most important news that would shape the future of the four kingdoms itself.

Like I have the time to do that. Arukia felt the urge to click her tongue with a loud "tsk," but clenched her jaw instead with all her willpower and smiled instead. One of her eyes did twitch a bit, refusing to play ball as the annoyance was boiling inside her.

"Don't need to—" Before Eiri could finish her sentence, the door had already closed behind Sora. "Sanbi, dammit! She’s getting way too hooked on that." Eiri nodded towards a nari gel near where Sora was sitting. The gel had a whitish, transparent color with what appeared to be brown marbles suspended within. “Hmmm—I told her to go easy on that or she will never find a boyfriend, right?” She laughed it off as she walked to the board with all the maidly schedules. "Fifteen days, right?" The board had a column for each day of the Forway week, and several rows, leading to the hundreds of days. Within each day, there were usually three different-colored buttons marked to indicate who would be present. A small table to the side mapped the button color to the person responsible.

With a weak smile of her own, Arukia replied with a simple, "Yep."

Eiri pulled on glass containers below the board, each container neatly storing tens of each button. She began taking off Arukia’s cyan colored buttons for the week of the 67th into the next ones, "You know! I'm proud of you for doing that. It's not easy letting go of certain things! I talked with Sora before about bringing your parents to visit the Sanbi castle and having you reconnect with them.” She was then filling the gaps with the other colored buttons, “—but the reason I didn't was because she told me it would be wrong. I couldn't force that type of thing!" She looked back at Arukia with moist eyes, "She was right! That type of thing comes from within. Even nudging people can be wrong, too." Her lips pursed. Something must have stirred inside of her.

"Thank you, Eiri! I appreciate it!" Arukia slightly bowed towards Eiri, "I'm going to get the rest of my checklist done before dinner." With a teasing smile, she continued, "—and take care of our guests!" She bit her tongue.

Eiri smirked back, biting her tongue as well. "When you're back, you'd better infuse some of that on Sora!" Her upbeat tone contrasted with something in her eyes.

With a nod, Arukia made her way out of the room, closing the door behind her. Like she would ever learn—

Paulin 68th, Sannday! It was Monnolow, in the dead hours of the night. Sunrise was still far away from overtaking the greenish hue of this lone moon. Arukia would be off in one of her mundane dreamlands on a typical day, but this day was remarkably different. She was in a rundown hotel in the poorer outskirts of Sanbi, lit up by the moon's greenish glowlight seeping through the tattered curtains. She was biting hard on a cloth while injecting a syringe full of nari gel in her arm right into a thick vein for the quickest absorption. Bits and chunks of her hair dirtied up her naked skin.

That flower hoe is not sparing any expenses! My expenses! I copay for this! The red nari gel she injected was a very fine grain, and the meat within was so finely minced that it was hard to distinguish it from the blood, mixing it all together. I told her never to send the top-shelf stuff! Slowly injecting the gooey thing into her vein through a hypodermic needle, she could feel bouts of pressure, sharp pain rising in her arm and radiating through her body. Months! Months of progress got reset! This better be worth at least a full sapphire!

Arukia spat out the cloth, feeling a dry mouth bothering her more than the nari gel. What is so special about a Tolerideme-looking guy who knows nothing about the kingdom he is serving? He is a nobody!

The pain she expected did not come. Instead, an itchy feeling mixed with tenderness formed in the base of her scalp and in certain spots throughout her body. Her hair was changing from the roots and spreading outwards in real time. Maiara wasn’t even that interested in him to begin with! Why should we?

"Tsk," Arukia did a loud tongue click as she continued slowly injecting the nari gel. The annoyance within her bubbled and bothered her more than the nari gel itself. Even if he’s not from the slum, why are we bothering to bring his lard ass over? Just grab the research notes from the hideout and be done with it!

The pain radiating through her body continued to change her from the inside. Even though the transformation was happening quite slowly, it wasn't terrible. Arukia felt a dull pain take over her entire body as if she were feverish. She tilted her head back, straining her forehead as she tried to force her body to relax through the transformation.

Pushing a bit harder, the last of the slop into her veins, she felt a headache coming through alongside a slight fainting sensation. Her heartbeat steadily ticked faster and faster, each time pounding harder. Lying the empty needle on the side, Arukia forced her lungs to take deep breaths. Closing her eyes, she could feel the room slowly spinning, but it was still bearable. Her hands rubbed against the rough sheets to take her mind away from the transient, drunkenly high experience, but it didn’t help much to ground her back. Her face felt like the aftermath of a punch as well; her breasts had some of that feeling, too, as they reduced in size. Even her nipples changed appearance. Other things too.

Her heart pounded hard, but steady. It felt like she was climbing a mountain as her body felt exerted to its limit. All she could do was try to relax and ground herself and let it all happen. "Argh—" a pained murmur slipped out through her mouth. No wonder the top-shelf is this expensive. Way too easy to endure!

A few more seconds passed, and things started to return to normal, except her body was entirely changed to something else, something that was not her. Her new, differently textured blonde hair had already grown down past her neck, but no longer at such a fast pace. With each further second, it slowed down like the rest of the transformations.

The feverish feeling began to wane again, leaving behind a drained feeling. With a final deep breath and a loud exhale through her mouth, Arukia cleared her throat. “Hi! Hello!” A stranger’s voice sounded a bit strained as it came out of her mouth. She cleared her throat again. “Hey! Hi! Hmm. Not bad.” Her new voice was working, sounding just as charming as her previous voice.

Her hands rustled the cloth bag lying behind her. She pulled out a corked glass tube filled with a black, goey substance and dropped it on her mouth. Her tongue tasted it slightly differently than she remembered. It was still just as perfectly sweet as she liked, but the bitter tones were a bit more contrasting than what she remembered. She stuck the tip of her tongue inside, trying to get as much as he could. Within a few more seconds, the drained feeling also dissipated.

She corked it back and chucked the glass aside. Going through the rest of the stuff in the cloth bag, she got out a smaller hide bag that rustled with what appeared to be marbles inside. Peeking at the number of balls inside, a snap back to the dinner with the maids came to mind, a gift the maids scrunched up: about thirteen amethysts and forty pearls. That, plus the twenty amethysts that flower hoe—Emelia—gave as part of the quest, made a what-if pop in her mind: It was her fleeing it all, grabbing the first boat to Endlessfog.

That will never work—they know the fake appearance I have. I would waste at least a third or half of this changing my appearance again. Arukia rolled her eyes but now saw herself in the broken mirror, naked in the fake skin of someone else in a rundown hotel. Even if it did, then what? Where's the life I wanted?

She kept looking at herself, feeling her new textured blonde hair. Is this what you wanted? It felt as if this naked stranger girl looking at her asked the question, as if this naked stranger knew everything about her—well, it did. It was herself after all.

Feeling the transformation stable, and no more pain or itching, Arukia washed her hair and face from an old bucket with cold water. She grabbed a ragged towel that looked clean but was still stained from whatever multiple things had happened. Dipping in the old bucket, she brushed off her old self's last remnants—pieces of her dark-colored hair hanging to her new skin.

With each chunk of hair falling on the floor, a memory of her life as a Sanbi maid seemed to grow distant.

Feeling cold but clean, she dressed in a new pair of clothes, waiting for her. I was a leather gear set with a dark, heavy cape resembling a bedsheet. The gear was a bit tight, but still doable. She smelled her cape, giving off a fresh smell. Nice looking, but this stands out as being too new. I will have to dirty it up some.

She then wore a leather strap on her chest and attached a bow to it as the thoughts churned in her brain. City girl looking for her merchant boyfriend?—No. Will attract more questions.

She filled in the bolts into the leather strap slots, then slotted a nari gel. Helping a client—property prospector? Farmland prospector! Yep! I can slide questions about recent adventurers passing by.

"Argh—like these country bumpkins have anything good to say!" She grabbed a round metal item from atop the bed, flipped it open, and pointed towards the greenish moon slipping through the tattered curtains for a few seconds before looking at it. A dark blue spot of the sundial-like apparatus gave off a fluorescent light of its own, showing it was still a ways from sunrise. "Tsk. Still too early!"

Paulin 68th, Sannday! The wee hours of the morning turned into an early morning, slowly becoming an early afternoon, which then became a sunset not long ago. Arukia had been sitting on the same shared wagon seat since leaving the Sanbi outskirts many, many hours ago. The glow of the moon annoyed her, the chiller evening winds annoyed her, the smell of egua farts annoyed her, the sound of the nearly full bag of egua poop jostling behind the egua’s butt annoyed her, and even the tiny but constant rhythmic pull on the wagon from the two eguas annoyed her. With a forced breath through her nose, she kept silent, for this concoction of feelings just below the surface was just as volatile as a shaken-up bottle of nitroglycerin. She was, for all intents and purposes, not Arukia but Namia! Namia was a collected and reasonable person because she worked for important clients.

Except, a smug country bumpkin was also annoying her, driving the chemical reactions beneath the skin even closer to the surface. His laid-back attitude as he eye-googled a dirty-looking adventurer spelling away, or, fair to say, passed out, was not helping. “Tsk!” A click of the tongue slipped through Arukia’s conscience and reverberated through Namia's mouth. It was still a soothing sensation despite sounding in a stranger’s voice.

This bumpkin has been salivating over this adventurer for a while now, and apparently, the desire transformed from ideation to realization. He scooched closer to her, smelling her dirty black hair. He looked her up and down, her cutesy, black underclothing accentuated her natural clothes, tantalizing the eyes even more with the ragged look to it, showing skin through its scratches and holes. Her outer white and pink clothing contrasted with the dried blood deeply soaked within. With a pleasurable grunt, he stretched his arm and scooched even closer to smell her dirtied but still cutesy face.

Namia, or in actuality, Arukia, saw what was happening from the corner of her eyes. Her annoyance kept rising even more, so much more that her heart beat faster, and her hands tingled when she saw this piece of shit bumpkin feel up the adventurer's breast. "Tsk! Stop it!" a single command came out of Namia, but the Arukia within wanted to do far more to stop him.

The bumpkin, moving his hand downwards to feel what the adventurer was hiding in between her legs, looked back with reddened cheeks, "Wha'? U want som'?" He ignored the blonde lady and got his face closer to the sleepy adventurer. He wanted to explore every single inch of this adventure.

Namia's hands tingled even more, calling into Arukia to grab the crossbow. "One—last—time!" She put her hand on the crossbow resting by the seat and pulled it forward to show the bumpkin what she was packing.

The bumpkin didn't even see it, for he was focusing back on the sleeping beauty adventurer, already moving in to kiss her.

I HATE THESE PEOPLE! Arukia surfaced through Namia. She began taking the crossbow and hip quiver bag out of the seat rest, prepping an arrow, and arming—

"Arhghghghg!" The country bumpkin suddenly screamed, pushing himself off the adventurer's face as if he had gotten caught on a bear trap.

Damm! The outer Arukia and inner Namia both halted trying to prep the crossbow, for the problem seemed to solve itself.

The pink and white adventurer's jaw firmly clenched on the bumpkin's lower lip like it was a dangling lamprey fish.

The more the bumpkin tried to get away, screaming through his bloodied mouth hole, the more ferocious the girl clenched and gnawed on it. Her pink eyes were as cute as voracious.

The bumpkin’s bloody murder agonizing screams echoed through the dark forest. Meanwhile, the shared wagon was screeching to a halt, with the driver pulling to the side with his crossbow and nonchalantly walking towards the passengers, ready to make an arrow fly.

Like a feral beast tearing flesh from its prey, the pink and white adventurer tore off the bumpkin's lower lip with a final coordinated push of her hand on his chest and pull back of her head. New blood soaked against the dried blood in her chest, with splatters of it tainting her cute face and black hair. Her dilated pink pupils, a chunk of lip flesh in her mouth, and more blood coming down her chin would make most people turn back and run away screaming for mercy, for they would never forget such a macabre sight.

"Y'all havin’much fun back there! Can ya' pipe down?" The driver exclaimed, pointing the crossbow between the passengers. "Oy! Cletis! Whadda-fuck you doin' again?" He now pointed his crossbow towards the bumpkin, blood continuously running through his open wound and into his green simple shirt.

With a large, resounding spit, the white and pink adventurer spat out a chunk of lower lip flesh towards the dirt road outside. With another spit to clear her mouth, she wiped it clean on her forearm, "I have narcolepsy! This piece of shit tried to get his way with me. Rider, punish him!"

The rider looked towards Arukia, still with an armed crossbow in hand. "That true?" He looked at the crossbow in her hand, and with a sudden movement, he aimed to take a shot at her. "Disar' it! Or I' throw ya' out too!"

"Tsk—you should have intervened earlier," Arukia said as she slowly rested the crossbow on her lap, pointed away from the rider, and disarmed it.

The rider relaxed his shoulder, pointing the crossbow from hip level towards the bumpkin named Cletis. "Sanbi Damm-it! I'm tired of yar shit, Cletis! GETDAFUCKOUT!" He screamed towards him, pointing at the bushes getting swallowed by the darkness of the fallen night.

So he did this before—argh—I hate these people! Arukia rolled her eyes, imagining dealing with more of them over the next few days.

Cletis the bumpkin waved his arms around, "But—but—" he shifted his eyes between the two girls and the rider, "I paid ya 'xtra!" His voice sounded off due to the missing lower lip. “We had a deal!”

An arrow zipped from the rider's crossbow into the bumpkin's right shoulder, lodging itself deep within. "GETDAFUCKOUT!" The rider began prepping another arrow into the crossbow.

"FUCK!" The bumpkin's shoulder dropped, leaving his right arm kinda limp. "IMMAGOING!" He screamed back with a strange intonation as he opened the wagon door and jostled his way towards the bushes. Blood droplets marked his trail.

"Don't you worry about something getting him?" The adventurer in pink and white asked plainly towards the rider, wiping away the blood from her face in a dirtied flannel. Although the flannel was dirty, it was impossible to know if the flannel was capturing the blood from her armor or if her armor was capturing the dirt from the flannel.

"Why would you even say that after what he did? Tsk! What is wrong with you?" Arukia shook her head, placing the disarmed crossbow and hip quiver bag back on the weapon resting by the seat.

"He’l figure it out. We’l do!" The rider calmly strolled back towards his seat. “There’ village that way’”

"And you? You okay?" the adventurer continued to use the dirt flannel to wipe her bloodied chin. "Haaaaaa—it ruined the covering scent!" The adventurer blurted out as she continued to rub the flannel down her slim neck.

"Yep!" Arukia kept looking at this clearly cutesy and feeble-looking adventurer, but the vivid memory of her just now tearing off flesh from the bumpkin like a wild animal gave her pause on her own plans. "By any chance, have you seen other adventurers around the area?"

"Hmm—hmm," the adventurer replied with a negative hum. "I work alone."

The eguas pulling the wagon neighed loudly, pulling the wagon again.

That's—pretty foolish. Brave, but stupid. Arukia, or back to Namia's fake persona, looked at the moving scenery, seeing hints of two houses hidden among the trees in the distance, "You've been to Dead Fish?"

The same negative-sounding "Hmm—hmm" came out of the adventurer.

You're making this more challenging than it needs to be—can't probe anymore since she could be working for the stuck-up queen. Looking at this small but wild adventurer still whipping away—more like spreading—the dirt and blood around her blood-soaked chest, Arukia felt like she was watching a what-if version of herself, one she would rather not be in.

“Good luck.” It was all Namia could say to this odd adventurer.