“Shopping all done?”

Neira answered him with some unrecognizable noise, stuffing her face with a part of a fried chicken. Whatever she meant, Joe shook his head and scanned through his inventory. It looked like they got all the items he asked for and judging by the shoddy notes on the list Joe gave them, Neira managed to haggle down the price of some items. He almost complimented her, or at least wanted to until he saw the doodle she made on the back of the list.

Stoopyd mastaah.

It read and depicted an angry demi stabbing him in the ass with a fork. Well, at least she learned something. Hard to say that about the bony demi staring at her plate.

“The veggies are there for you to eat them not stare at them. Eat yer veggies. And meat. And… Have you eaten anything at all?”

He admonished his twiggy priestess as he sat beside her at their table and waved an empty cup at the innkeeper.

Loirra tried to excuse herself but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a sudden, rumbling burp and the scent of bacon. That must mean she was at least trying to stick to her four meals two deserts diet Joe ordered her to follow. Her belly, unproportionally swollen compared to the rest of her emaciated body, confirmed his guess.

He patted her knee and took her plate, causing a sigh full of relief soon followed by another shy burp.

“Huh? Where’s the tin can?”

Neira spit out the cleaned chicken bone and attacked him with a question.

“Gone. She wasn’t interested in farming back all her levels, so I freed her.”

“What?!”

The silent so far woman sitting across him, slammed her cup against their table. Several people including an annoyed innkeeper and the inn guard looked their way at the sight of a sudden commotion. Some had their hands locked around their weapons.

“Why the hell would you do that when you refused me?!”

“Because she is a big girl while you-are-not. Our benefactor would rip me a second asshole if I would leave you in some shithole of a city without someone to take care of you.”

The slime dripping, tentacle horror made sure he understood that.

“Now, sit down, shut up and stop embarrassing me or I may indeed sell you.”

That did silence the warrior although, it also made his first demi cast him some strange looks.

“What? You wanna complain too?”

Neira did not react to that outburst but for the first time since he got her, Joe felt a pang of fear. Whatever she wanted to do, her slave seal that lit up and appeared on her forehead prevented her from acting out her will. After a moment of glaring at him, she dried her mug of ale and left their table.

“Don’t take too long, we’ll wait at the east gate.”

Joe called after her then focused on cleaning up his plate. She was too sentimental for his taste but then again, he loved the scent of her cleaned fur and the weight of her hot body pressed against him. Sleeping sandwiched between those two walking comforters was the highlight of many of his cold nights. Though, he would do away with the snoring. He thought as his eyes walked away Neira’s swaying ass through the crowd.

“If any of you still haven’t had your fill of fancy cuisine you better do so now because starting today, there’ll be nothing but steady grind and hard rations for the next fifty days.”

Joe’s plan was simple. Grind, grind, grind and grind. Oh, and he had to play Frankenstein at some point this week.

Letting out a sigh, Joe stabbed his broccoli and put it in his mouth. He had at least five people to upgrade. Six if that twiggy gets the go ahead. As overpowered as his chop shop skill was, it still would cost him levels and he too wasn’t too keen od nuking his main. He still had more than a hundred levels worth of exp on his alt but, somehow, after last few days, he felt slightly repulsed by the idea of swapping into that body. Especially after it developed the feral sex doll title...

He began to dislike the creativity of a certain dinging system no less than he disliked that whore which pushed him into this whole mess.

A sun dried tomato suffered a mortal stab from Joe’s angry fork. His blood pressure always spiked when he thought of her…

“Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes.”

Joe mumbled under his breath. Forcing his mind to think of something else.

Interesting to know that some skills and titles were bound to a body while others stayed and moved with the soul. Although, his possessions weren’t as thrilled as he was at the prospect of upgrading their bodies. Well, all aside the twiggy but she was a special case. None of his skill worked on her without her god’s approval. If she wanted, she could blatantly ignore his orders and his slave seal was nothing more but an ornament on her famished body.

Joe cast a look at his dejected slaves. The human girl stared down at her plate, pretending Joe didn’t exist. The burping saint sat with droopy ears for she had yet to receive an answer to her prayers. Then he had that excommunicated follower of that bitch, waiting stored inside his body bag. That’s going to be a fun conversation. No less fun than the one he’ll have with that vivisected blade master or the insane wraith. And there was also Darkness giggling in his mind like a schoolgirl.

Well, whatever. He’ll cross that bridge when he will have to.

They did one more round of drinks and ate bit of a pie one of the barmaids recommended. Even the twiggy nibbled some, so good it smelled.

Raising his cup for a final refill, Joe noticed a white robbed priest belonging to that whore - potatoes, potatoes, potatoes - ordering people around and pondered why they even venerated that bitch. Wherever he looked, he saw examples of her incompetency or the despicable ways her church extorted the people they were supposed to serve. Same here, the arriving priest kicked out a bunch of people just so he could take a whole table for himself at the spot he liked. The way people tolerated it made the whole thing even worse to bear.

“I think I had enough. Let’s go before I witness something that would make me return my breakfast.”

Joe got up and his slaves followed. Some other inn patrons had a similar idea and the inn slowly emptied.

Their trek to the east gate turned out to be blissfully dull. So dull and uneventful that Joe in a rush of good humor bought some horribly overpriced fruit flavored, shaved ice for his girls. The creatively dressed ice mage selling the thing even earned a tip of a large silver coin Joe put into the valley between her painted breasts. As he did so, his fingers brushed against the long and ugly scar hiding there. He winked at the now frozen, ice woman, gaping at him and walked away with an extra-large portion for bedwarmer which he dumped into the item box. Neira would complain him to death if he hadn’t got her one.

***

Yalira heart rumbled in her chest fueled by fear mixed with undescribed Joy. How?! Just how?! It’s been years she begged and slaved away to gather the gold for her treatment but…

As the paint washed away, exposing her naked body, Yalira could only stand there and cry. She hugged herself and cried tears of joy. A miracle happened! Gone! All the scars and ugly spots left by the plague were gone! She was no longer unclean!

“Thank you…”

She whispered, remembering the eyes of that strange man and the wave of burning power that rushed through her when he touched her skin and… The coin! Yalira rushed out of the lake and fumbled through her purse until she found the odd piece of silver. At first, she thought it a coin but when she studied it, she found it was a medallion depicting an eight-armed woman whose four-breast occupied most of the coin. The mage blushed as she studied the more intricate details carved into the coin. Were these earrings? In such place?

With burning cheeks, the woman turned the medallion around and read the tiny script engraved there. If before a healthy blush covered her face, now it burned with a fire.

“P-praised b-be the true one a-and her m-mercy!”

Yalira dropped to her knees and intoned while pressing the silver coin against her lips. Then, after taking a long and carefully look at her surroundings to see if she was alone, she did the rest of what the silver script described.

***

In a place where no light had a right to be and where even nightmares did no dare to venture, a sneeze resounded, followed by a trembling of countless myriads of tentacles.

“Odd. That felt odd…”

Darkness pat herself out then checked her trembling screen, but nothing seemed out of ordinary. Even Joe was doing fine and the cookies he made were getting tastier.

Not finding a source of that odd sensation, Darkness shrugged her tentacles and went back to eating while watching the world through Joe’s eye.

If she took more care, perhaps she would notice the itchy spot developing somewhere on her monstrous back.