The sun was well in the sky by the time I woke up, [Clock] showing that fourth bell had already passed.

"Finally," came a voice from the living room as I made my way down the stairs. "I thought you were never going to get up."

"Good morning, Cluma. Aren't you..."

My voice ground to a halt as I reached the bottom of the staircase and spotted my house-guest.

"Well? What do you think?" she asked, twirling seductively. "I had Adele make it to your... preferences."

"What the hell are you wearing?!"

She was dressed in the usual black leather of a Dawnhold delver, but there was no way it would make effective armour. It barely made effective clothing. It was a skintight bodysuit with a high neck and long sleeves and legs, leaving her hands and feet uncovered. Her tail, too; it poked out of a heart-shaped cut-out at the base of her spine. A second, larger heart-shaped cut-out below her neck framed the white mark she'd acquired from her species change. There was, as far as I could see, no way in, but given the orichalcum embellishments, the comfort enchantment probably made it stretchy enough to enter from the neck. It certainly made sure every curve of hers was on full display.

My preferences? It was true that when I first had to deal with delver armour, I'd seen it in a rather unprofessional light, a problem that had only intensified when I hit puberty, but I'd long since grown inured to it.

"You like it, then?" she asked, and I realised that whatever I might be thinking about my resistance, other parts of my body had their own alternative opinions.

"Seriously, what are you trying to do?" I complained.

"You were getting stressed over what Earth was doing, so I thought I'd cheer you up. I ordered it after Krana dragged us to the first anomaly, and after the state you came back in yesterday, I thought I'd put it to good use."

"That's not really... appropriate..." I started, before Cluma's changing expression clued me in to my mistake.

"Again?! Seriously, what's changed since you started calling yourself my boyfriend? Nothing at all! You act even more reserved towards me now than you used to when we were kids!"

"That was because you were a kid. Now you're... you're... not," I finished lamely. But how else was I supposed to finish it? Hot? Sexy?

"You aren't even looking at me while you're talking," she said, and I realised my eyes had indeed drifted away from her, so I made an effort to concentrate on her face.

"Sorry," I said, taking a deep breath. "But please, it's a nice outfit, but it makes me feel uncomfortable."

"Well, I'm sorry that you hate being attracted to me," she huffed. "I can smell you, you know."

Drat... I was screwing this up again. She was trying to cheer me up, and I'd spat it in her face.

"It's not that I hate it, it's just..."

"Yes, yes. Uncomfortable. So you keep saying. But you don't explain. You never want to talk about it! How am I supposed to know what's going on in your head if you don't tell me?"

"I've already told you; it's an age gap thing. Half of me sees you as less than half my age."

"So? I'm still an adult."

"Not in my old world, you wouldn't be."

"We're not in your old world! I'm not even the same species as anyone in your old world! Thanks to you, I'm not even the same species as anyone in this world!"

"I know, and that's why I'm trying."

"You're not trying very hard... You know, despite what you seem to think, you've never once clearly told me you won't be with me this mating season because you think I'm too young. The best you've managed was to say you couldn't promise you'd be ready to join me this summer, with no further elaboration. You didn't say you wouldn't, just that you couldn't promise you would. You hate me talking about mating season, and you can't even say the words yourself. You seriously need to learn to communicate!"

Wow, that was a serious rant, coming from Cluma. Had I never told her? I know I'd mentioned the age gap making things weird, and that I tried to avoid talking about any uncomfortable subjects, but had it really been that bad?

In a way, I was glad I had no relationship experience on Earth, because approaching this as someone who had once been married would be a whole new level of weird, but I had to admit the experience would be useful. I could try to justify things; culture here was different, my mental age wasn't my Earth age and current age summed together, Cluma wasn't human. But it didn't help. I couldn't just throw away Earth culture that easily.

"Sorry. I will not be ready to join you this summer. Probably not next year, either. Even if you aren't human, you're human enough that you look too young. And I promise I will be clearer in the future."

"You said 'this summer' again," said Cluma. "Sheesh... Say 'mating season', would you? You're hard work. Well, I suppose I should tell my parents."

I blinked. "Your parents? Tell them what?"

"That we're not taking part in the ceremony for new couples following this mating season. I never told them we were, but given your... our... scents, they've been making assumptions."

I blinked again. Harder. I'd guessed the reason Camus seemed oddly happy with me recently was the fault of the pheromones [Xenophilia] caused me to give off, but how did it leap from that to marriage? That was a big step from starting a relationship. What was a beastkin marriage, anyway? I'd asked dad, but he hadn't said anything...

No, it wasn't that he hadn't said anything. I'd interrupted him. I'd realised it involved mating season and stopped him from speaking. Once again, I'd let my discomfort stand in the way of learning information I really needed to know.

Discomfort that was now preventing me from asking Cluma the details, despite how much I really should do. Fortunately, this time I could claim it wasn't procrastination, but that I simply had someone else to ask. After all, I had an appointment with a nymphomaniac slime who would surely know all about the mating habits of every species. Not that I was sure how I'd get her alone.

"It's almost the time we promised to visit the slime. I did tell her we might be late, but we should probably get going."

Cluma narrowed her eyes, glaring at me pointedly. "Are you seriously brushing off the conversation again? Fine. I'm going home to change, since this outfit disgusts you so much. You can go and visit whatever her name is yourself."

"What? No, I..."

I stopped talking on account of Cluma no longer being there to listen, having grabbed her bag, rushed out of the door and started stalking down the road with [Stealth] active.

Well, that had gone poorly. I hadn't been brushing the conversation off; I'd just wanted to get some info from the slime. Which I only wanted to do because it felt less awkward than asking Cluma directly. Yes, I had a communication problem, along with all my other problems, but that was her fault for jumping to conclusions! Should I follow her and explain? Would chasing her be better or worse than leaving her be? Why were there no instruction manuals for this sort of situation?

At least it meant I could catch the slime alone, and ask her whatever I wanted without Cluma overhearing. Leaving her be for now, I teleported to Synklisi and made my way to the sixth floor's boss chamber.

"Finally!" exclaimed not-Blobby, despite the fact I was ten minutes early. "Now, tell me exactly what happened yesterday."

"Can we leave that for a moment? I've got something more important I wanted to ask."

"More important?! We're being invaded by another universe, and you think something else is more important?"

"It's not an invasion. They didn't even know we were here! But fine..."

I gave a rushed summary of the previous day's events, as well as the earlier anomalies, including the fact that the System was detecting people on the other side.

"So, they're the reason for the reincarnations? In that case, won't there be dozens more? Wouldn't everyone in the room when you sent your hand through yesterday end up reincarnating here, too?"

"I have no idea. What they were doing back when I was exposed was obviously very different to what they're doing now. Maybe exposure won't have the same effect on people."

"Maybe? This is horrific! And mother isn't even here to stop them!"

"Don't always assume the worst of people. I turned out okay. Ish. Anyway, Tilyana backed me up about setting up any future portals in dungeons, so we can have some protection. Now, can we get back to the more important topic?"

"Fine, I'll bite. What's more important than literal invaders from another world?"

"I need to know how beastkin marriages work, and all the details on mating season."

The slime scowled at me. "You think that's more important?"

"Of course it is! Earth making contact is fine, but it's a big thing. I may be helping out with translations and such, but Serlv is the one in charge. This is me screwing up, personally, and not even knowing what I've done."

"And why, exactly, do you think I can help?"

"Because you... you... Well, you're you."

"So? It's not as if I've married any beastkin."

"I thought you knew all about this stuff?"

"I do massages, skin care and casual sex. Relationships are not my forte, and I have no clue about the details of beastkin mating season. It's not like they come down here in the middle of it, and they don't do casual sex outside it either. The closest they get is the odd weirdo who wants a tail massage."

Bah. She'd been my only hope! Who else was I supposed to ask? Mum? That was no less embarrassing than asking Cluma! Maybe I could wheedle it out of Cluma circumspectly? Or go back to dad, I suppose, given that he had first-hand experience, but I could picture his evil grin already.

"Fine. Sorry. It's just something that's worrying me."

Interruption over, not-Blobby wanted more details on the anomalies, so we changed subject back to them.

"So they want this 'electricity', which we can provide lots of, and they'll give us new technology in return? The sort of technology the System was explicitly designed to prevent the development of?"

"Umm... Erryn said that blocking technological development wasn't so important thanks to the Law?" I found my voice involuntarily rising towards the end there, my body apparently still remembering the time this slime tried to kill me for saying the wrong thing.

"Did she? It still sounds like a horrible idea to me. Is life here so bad you need stuff from Earth to be happy?"

"No. Not at all."

"Then what's the point?"

I felt there should be a short, snappy answer to that, but damned if I could think of one... Food here was plentiful. Medical care had recently regrown me a hand and an eye in two days, which Earth certainly couldn't do. We had indoor, magical toilets. Entertainment was... well, I wouldn't say no to a games console, but between the System and dungeons, I was practically living in a game world as it was. Earth technology was by no means necessary, not even for quality of life.

Actually, there was one answer. "We want to be able to block off portals if needed. Since they're created without magic, working together with Earth scientists is likely to be our best bet."

"That's true, but we don't have to supply them with power forever for that. Once we've got it, we've got it."

"But once we do have that ability, a continued relationship becomes much less risky, so we'd also lose the reason for not continuing to trade."

"True. Argg, I hate complicated stuff! Mother should be dealing with all this."

"How's the human Erryn doing, anyway?"

"No different from the last time you asked. She's growing up normally. There's nothing special about her."

I nodded, unwilling to offer an opinion as to whether I thought that was good or not without first confirming it agreed with the slime's.

"Well, that's the situation, anyway. Serlv might turn up here at some point to discuss our future plans with you, but we've got thirteen days until the time we agreed to open the next portal, so nothing's going to happen imminently."

With the heavy topic out of the way, we thankfully returned to a more relaxing chat, during which I only had to turn down one bath and two massages, and casual sex was never even mentioned. For all her willingness to do pretty much anything, the slime at least waited for an invitation first.

When I teleported back home, there was no sign of Cluma, and I couldn't help but feel guilty that I'd abandoned her for the day. But she was the one who'd run off, and I had no idea what I was supposed to have done. I had to admit that relationships weren't something I understood, or was any good at. If there wasn't an instruction manual anywhere, couldn't there at least be a relationship skill? I'd give anything for the System to simply download into my head a simple list of what I was supposed to do, but alas, that was beyond the ability even of a millennia old, magically enhanced supercomputer.

Heading downstairs to cook something for dinner, I noticed a bit of paper on my table that I'd swear I hadn't put there. That was... somewhat concerning. Who had been in my house while I was out? I approached it cautiously, not because I suspected a trap, but more because there was only one thing I could imagine it being about.

We need to talk. Tomorrow morning, third bell. Camus.

Sometimes, I hated being right.