-=Ronnie POV=-

*knock knock*

“Ugh....”

*knock knock*

“Fuck off…”

*BANG*

“Oh fuck!” I shout as the sudden sound make me jump out of my bed.

*thud*

-or fall out of it to be more precise.

“Open the fucking window Ronnie!”

“Fucking fuck!” I shout at the little bug flying outside my window. “No need to scare me like that alright!?”

I pick myself up off of the floor and open the window to let the little bug fly inside.

“Fucking- what was that sound even?”

“That was me clapping two bricks together really hard.” (Think like a movie clapper but made of bricks and much much louder)

“Oh really, in that form?” I ask and gesture to her general lack of size.

“Magic.”

“...Right. Well did you want anything from me or did you just want to get inside?”

“I’m supposed to go wake up Shiona but I have a few things I need to take up with you first.”

“Well you’d better make it quick then, Plush’ll probably not let you have any dessert today if he realizes you’re dilly dallying.” I teased her.

“It’ll be fine,-” She answered. “-I’ll just say the receptionist wouldn’t let me in. With how he acted when you first got here I doubt they wouldn’t believe me.”

“Suit yourself.” I say and shrug my shoulders “Now then what did you want to talk about?”

“What I wanted to talk about is a new companion.”

-=Shiona POV=-

Someone knocks at the door.

*knock knock*

I respond.

“Ugh....”

Correction, I almost responded.

But they keep knocking

*knock knock*

“Fuck off…”

Then the knocking stops and I hear the voices of Ronnie and Lizz from outside.

“Are you sure that’s going to wake her up? I mean, she obviously slept through it when you did it to me in just the other room.”

“That was magic, you’ll see.”

*BANG*

“Oh fuck!” I scream as the sudden sound make me jump out of my bed.

*thud*

-or fall out of it to be more precise.

“See? I told you it would work.” Said Lizz.

“You know this is all starting to feel really very familiar…” Commented Ronnie.

“Ugh…” I groaned to myself as I started to get up, though I stopped when I saw Litly hiding and shaking under the bed.

“Aw, did they scare you Litly? I’ll make sure to nag them to death with some harsh words later okay? Plush is already out so I think it’s about time to leave.”

Litly seemed to calm down when I spoke and soon crawled out from the bed.

“Oh my, have you had a growth spurt or something?”

Just yesterday Litly had been running in and under the bed without having to crouch or crawl at all.

In fact when she came out from under the bed I could clearly see that she’d grown in more ways thun just taller.

Her platypus beak which was previously shaped like a wooden oar had grown sharper and was now shaped more like a trowel while her legs which were previously so small that her feet looked to be connected directly to her body, like a certain pink puffball, had now grown as long as her body was tall and her tail had grown longer.

The webbing on her front feet had receded and now only covered half the distance of her toes, causing them to look more like the talons of a bird of prey rather than those of a duck, her hind feet on the other hand had grown more fur so that it covered parts of her feet.

Much like a platypus she still looked like someone threw a furred animal and a bird together, only difference being that now it looked less like a beaver mixed with a duck and more like a lynx kit mixed with a falcon, she’d even grown a pair of pointy ears, and although she didn’t have wings like a falcon she did have two very long feathers coming out of her back where you’d expect wings to sprout had she been a gryphon.

“Aw, you’re starting to really take after me!” I exclaimed and started to pet her head, in response she closed her eyes and started to nuzzle my hand while letting out a sound similar to the sound of a cat purring mixed with a bird chirping.

“Guess we weren’t quite right about you guys just being the same as a normal platypus… And say, those claws of yours look like they’ve gotten awfully sharp so I don’t think we can let you onto the bed anymore until we find out whether they’re venomous.”

*whine*

“Oh don’t look at me with those eyes, you know male chimeras have venom so it’s not that far of a fetch to say you might have some to.”

Litly seemed to get a little depressed when I said that but still got inside my shoulder bag before I left the room.

“Morning master. Lizz came in a little earlier and told me something about elves arriving and that we’re going to be leaving Logholm today.” Said Ronnie.

“Good morning to you to Ronnie, this means we don’t have to extend our stay at the inn either.”

“...You sound a lot less tired than someone who was just woken up, don’t tell me you were just faking your sleep!?” Rather than simply greeting me Lizz decided to accuse me.

“Well I’m so sorry for not being tired after you just scared me half to death.”

“I’m not buying it.”

*pok* Came a sound as Ronnie flicked Lizz’s forehead.

“I figured it’d be kind of hard for you do that with your feathers and all.”

“Thanks Ronnie.”

“Uhh…” Cried Lizz while Ronnie and I started walking out of the inn.

“By the way do you know where Plush is Ronnie?”

“Yup, Lizz told me earlier, apparently he’s helping the elves make pizza at the marketplace.”

“Pizza huh? That sounds like it would be good for breakfast.” I said, blissfully ignoring everything I’d learned about eating healthily in the other world before we went downstairs and left the inn.

“Which way is the marketplace again?”

“This way!” Shouted Lizz who finally caught up to us after snapping out of the shock from Ronnie’s forehead flick.

“Okay, lead the way Lizz.”

Lizz then started flying ahead while Ronnie and I leisurely walked behind her.

* * * * *

“Is that it?” I ask Lizz as I saw a peculiarly overwhelmed market stall.

“Yup! Though there weren’t this many people here when I left…” Responded Lizz.

“Well it shouldn’t be too hard to get there.” Said Ronnie. “You two can just fly while I shove my way through, I doubt anyone would have any objection.” Said Ronnie.

‘But that’s pretty rude isn’t it?’ Was what would be going through my mind hadn’t the smell of freshly made pizza decided to wander over to us.

“Okay, let’s do that.” I said while wiping the drool off of my face.

Can you really blame a girl? I it’s well past midday and I haven’t eating since yesterday evening.

-=Plush POV=-

Roll the dough.

Put tomato sauce and cheese on it.

“Plush?”

Chop some onions and put them on.

“Plush?”

Some ham-

“Plush!”

“!”

*CLANG*

“Are you okay Plush? I’ve been trying to talk to you for a while now?”

I pick up the knife that I’d dropped on the floor and look up to see Shiona in the way-too-big crowd outside the stall.

“Shiona? Why are you here?”

“What do you mean why am I here? You had sent Lizz to come get me!”

“I did?” I ask and look at Lizz who nods in response. “Huh…”

“Plush you’re kind of starting to worry me a bit, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine-”

“Where’s my order!?”

“Coming right up!”

‘Now where was I? Right, the ham!’

I start cutting up the ham and-

“Okay that’s it, you’re coming with me to take a break.”

“What? But the order-”

Before I can even finish explaining why I can’t leave work right now Shiona gestures to Ronnie who suddenly appeared out of the crowd, Ronnie then reached over the counter, grabbed me and pulled me out of the stall and… well thinking back on it something really must have been up because I’d completely forgotten that I could use phasing to get out and return to work.

* * * * *

“Are you feeling any better yet?”

“Yeah, thanks Shiona.”

Right now we were all sitting around a lone tree on a small hill right outside the city.

Actually there were a lot of people out here but there were also a lot of small hills with lone trees on them.

It was definitely man made to be a relaxing place, but is it really a bad thing that it’s not natural? It’s definitely a lot more relaxing this way than if everyone out here had to huddle together around a single tree at least.

“What happened to you back there?”

“I’m not sure... All I remember is that suddenly the customers were coming in much faster than normal… And then everything just sort of happened.”

“Everything?”

“Yeah.”

“No I mean… What do you mean by everything?”

“Uhm, the toppings, putting the pizza in the ovens and then taking them out… Everything.”

“So by everything you just mean the pizza?”

“I think.”

“What do you mean ‘I think’?”

“I… I’m not sure… It’s just I… Hang on no… I… I really don’t know how to explain it but… When all the customers starting coming in and the work got more and more hectic stuff just started happening… Like, I would look at the dough, then I would blink and the next moment the dough was already rolled out in a perfect circle, then I could look at the sauce and suddenly the sauce was on the dough… You saw it too right? It happened while you were there as well.”

“Plush what are you talking about? I saw you rolling the dough and cutting all the toppings yourself.”

“What?”

‘That can’t be.’ I thought, but then I vaguely remembered that right before the first time it had happened I had caught something blue in the corner of my eye.

At the time I had been so surprised by the food cooking itself that I completely forgot about it.

I took the book off of my back and quickly opened it while begging for the answer to be as simple as this.

The working dead

Undead, be they spirits or walking corpses, have long since been thought to be the ultimate workforce, never tiring neither physically nor mentally.

This skill allows the user to temporarily put aside their mind while performing monotonous tasks which have already been thoroughly ingrained into the user’s mind in order to let the user rest their mind.

Being woken up from this state by outside influence can cause great confusion and stress to manifest within the user.

...and miraculously it really did end up being that simple.

I showed the page to everyone around, to which Shiona responded with a loud “Ha!” when she read the title of the skill while the others looked relieved.