“This is highly annoying,” Lydia said and crossed her arms, visibly struggling to not readjust the patch over her right eye. They were on their way back home.

“Do you mean arrrrnoying Lylytina?” The joke earned Rave double the amount of the usual glare with half the eyes to convey it.

“We be coming for your fucking booty!” Thana jumped in, getting a laugh out of the Lightbearer. Seeing that positive response, Thana dug a bit deeper; “And we be searching all through the cavernous depths of yer backside!”

“Hahaha,” Rave laughed, and the two exchanged a fistbump.

“Great that you all draw such joy from my inconvenience,” Lydia reprimanded them. The eyepatch was a remainder from her post-fight treatment. The Apothecaries had successfully removed the glass dagger and patched her up. They could have healed her completely on the spot, but in their words, that would take an unnecessary amount of power. Instead, they used some regenerative magic on her and then put a black eyepatch on top of all of it, telling her it should be okay by the next morning.

“Want Undine to take care of it?” John asked, once they were back on their home island. There he felt at the very least safe enough to speak of things his enemies weren't supposed to know. Jack also landed on his shoulder. John had tried to get a Reveal through, to no avail. While he did manage to cut through the vision impairment and the hearing blockade, he had failed to make any Observes whatsoever. Both of the hindrances were up again shortly afterwards.

Lydia looked at him in thought, “...It shouldn’t work.”

“Why not?” John wondered; all Undine had to do was to apply some of her healing magic, and the thing would be over.

“The healing of more intricate things, such as eyes, should take an amount of skill you don’t possess,” the princess explained. “Then again, it seems your ability is breaking a lot of conventional laws regarding what you should be able to do and the offending object was already removed.”

Her eyes wandered over to Momo. The support simply walked further into the direction of the house. Under her arm, she carried three new books that had been delivered to her. ‘These are becoming a real problem,’ John thought. The amount of literature Momo devoured was starting to have serious impacts on the household. Even though she hadn’t claimed one of the rooms as hers, by now she had to take one just to have a place where Aclysia could store all of the books.

That wasn’t why Lydia was looking at her though. “The creation of Artificial Spirits is not something done as swiftly as you described it,” she said.

“Well, I did it by thinking what kind of personality I wanted and then using the Skill,” John shrugged it off; “I have read up on the proper theory: how to concentrate your mana within an inanimate object, how you need to create a soul frame and slowly program the characteristics, how the material of the object changes the way this process works, and so on.”

“And you just skipped all of that,” Lydia agreed. “As your girlfriend so aptly describes: this is bullshit. Your other Skills as well. I went to research, that thing you call Mana Ray is something eager arcane mages master in their late twenties. You just do it while contracting five elements, which in and of itself makes you one of the greatest elementalists in the world.”

“I am a one-man army,” John freely admitted; “So, do you want Undine to heal you or not?”

“Let’s get inside first,” Lydia said, and so they did. The princess took a seat in one of the armchairs as the elemental girls materialized.

“Sweet fucking freedom,” Salamander sighed and, in her big form, fell down into the cushions of the sofa.

Like Thana with her strength, Salamander had made massive improvements in not putting the furniture on fire. The trick was to completely disable the flames on her body, including her hair. That turned the fire spirit into a red-headed, red-skinned hottie with giant tits. Who was also completely naked.

‘Seriously, these double D’s are something I want to press my face in,’ John thought and then said. “Salamander, can you lie down?” With a raised eyebrow, the elven eared blaze elemental did. The Gamer proceeded to lay on top of her, his head resting on her ample bosom.

“The hell do you think you are doing?” Salamander wanted to know with a bit of a cackle.

“You are so nice and hot,” John, who had just left the coldness of winter, mumbled, cuddling deeper into her; “It’s like hugging a heater… that is soft…”

“I guess? Well, as long as it’s you, cuddling is fine. Would be better if you were naked too though.”

Rave, who was cold and much preferred to be in environments other people would refer to as ‘boiling’, looked at Copernicus. “No,” said the sun cat and hid underneath the couch, refusing to be used as a heater. The techno-lover continued over to Aclysia, who was cooking and whose inner fire wasn’t that warm anyway. Then she spied Nathalia stuffing her face with chocolate cake on the dinner table.

The two looked at each other for a moment. The dragoness was still chewing, and Rave wasn’t sure whether she really wanted that. “Ah, I’ll bury the hatchet,” she exclaimed and then went to cuddle Nathalia, who did not look all that psyched about it.

“Stop molesting me, mortal,” she growled.

“Ya like it in the bedroom though,” Rave teased as she sat in the bigger woman’s lap and practically melted; “Oooh, you're warm… a bit spiky though.”

“Be grateful I am not cutting you with my scales,” Nathalia told her off.

“Stop being such a meany and be more of a team player,” Rave retorted; “I’ll lend ya my boyfriend in a solo session later, if ya just let me sit in your lap for about… ten minutes.”

Rave did know what she could negotiate with and so Nathalia just continued eating her cake with a slight bit of grumbling, shushing away a certain small tempest elemental that tried to get in and steal crumbs off the plate. Sylph was quickly put aside to get lectured by Gnome.

“Well then,” Lydia pulled John’s attention back to her.

She took down the eyepatch, and Undine went to work. “Got to say, princess,” Siena said. “Your performance today was impressive. I approve of the creative use of wires.”

“It wasn’t easy to meld strands of hair together into these longer units,” Lydia said, barely suppressing a smile. It seemed she was rather proud of herself, and why wouldn't she be? “Only direct contact made that possible.”

She turned her head slightly and held her eye open. A bit of Undine’s slime, like a thick eyedrop, later and Lydia readjusted her vision as she was healed the rest of the way. John shuddered. Thanks to Gamer’s Body, the healing slime could be applied wherever on his body, as he only needed to recover HP. For the elementals and Aclysia, it was the same, as their bodies were more akin to a solid unit than a human.

For those poor, normal, biological types, however, the slime was only really effective when it was applied directly to the wound itself. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant, he had been told, as it acted as a quick painkiller, cooled the wound, and sealed it within a few moments as it vanished into the skin without a trace. He still couldn’t believe that getting a drop of slime into one’s eye was particularly pleasant though.

“The fact that this works...” Lydia said and pressed her eyelids closed, to then blink a few times. “...is stunning to say the least.”

“What can I say?” John listened to fire burning under Salamander’s skin. It was a pulsing beat of hums and crackles. “I am mister broken game mechanics.”

Thana burst out laughing, “Accurate.”

“Mhm, should you, of all people, laugh about that?” Siena asked and teasingly ran a claw over the blood mage’s stomach.

“Fuck it, why not!?” Thana asked. “Now stop fingering me, Shadow the Edgehog, we can fuck later. Now: Where is my phone?!”

“How the hell do you know about Sonic?” John wanted to know as Lydia, with an annoyed sigh, went to find out the answer to Thana’s question.

“It was one of those things I looked up while choking the Bloodfallen to death,” the blood mage answered. “Fucking assholes, really don’t feel sorry about breaking all of their shit-gurgling necks.”

John couldn’t exactly blame her, even if he preferred she hadn’t. He also didn’t exactly have the moral high ground to call her out either, as he, himself, killed some of the Bloodfallen while attempting to rescue her. Therefore, the decision was made to just drop the topic. This milk was not only spilled, but had spoiled on the floor and finally had gotten cleaned up not too long ago.

“Catch,” Lydia said and tossed a smartphone over to Thana. It wasn’t anything outstanding, the usual display on a black, flat case. If there was anything interesting about it, it was that there was no company name on it anywhere. It booted up within a split second.

“Oy, it says it just scanned my magical footprint,” Thana said and glanced over. “That shit sounds like you want to track me.”

“While I partially do want to track you, that is not what that is for,” Lydia said and informed her about the basic mechanisms of Abyssal networks.

“So that’s why your fucking phone only worked when you were around!” Thana said and looked at Rave.

“Congratulations,” the techno-lover said in an overly relaxed voice, “ya figured it out.” John was wondering why his girlfriend sounded this mellow, but checking would have entailed raising his head.

“You are now my official pillow,” John told Salamander.

“I refuse,” he was shot down.

“I wasn’t asking,” he retorted.

‘Master, if you allow me, I could easily increase the size of my bust to fulfil your requirements,’ Aclysia chimed in mentally.

‘Ruining cosplay is a sin, and despite what some people draw, A2 does not have giant tits. No deal… we can still cuddle though,’ John answered. ‘As a matter of fact, we should cuddle!’

“The fuck do you mean I have no money?!” Thana complained in the background.

‘Cuddling sounds nice,’ Sylph palavered, ‘can it be roleplay cuddles? I mean, like, like, like, see and then you would be the merchant prince of a long forgotten principality and I would be your… No, I won’t tell you. Guess, guess what I would be. What would I be? If you had to warrant a guess, and you were prince, what would I be? I would be your…?’

‘’’Concubine…’’’ everyone else in his head said in an exasperated voice.

‘Exactly!’ Sylph said and went on about how he was a trader in gummy bears and coffee.

“JOHN!” Thana shouted, “Give me money!” In a lazy motion, John pulled 200 grand out of his inventory. Nicely bundled and in the biggest notes possible, he threw the money over to Thana.

‘I-I would like some cuddles,’ Gnome said.

‘…Do cuddles entail binding someone to the bed?’ Siena wanted to know.

‘No!’ the earth spirit sounded seriously offended; ‘Bad Siena! Cuddles are a holy pact between the cuddlers a-a-and the idea to mix that with BDSM is t-totally not cool!’

“It still says I have no fucking money!” Thana waved around the cash in her hand; “The fuck is this?!”

“You would need a bank account and connect it with the Abyss Auction to use it,” Lydia informed her.

‘You are pretty concerned with cuddles,’ John noted.

‘I-I mean… not really!’ Gnome stutteringly avoided the subject.

‘She is a sleep grappler,’ Undine’s musical voice chimed in.

‘Yeah, little Gnome over here always has a body sized pillow to cuddle while she sleeps,’ Salamander cackled. ‘If you are too close, you get caught up in it.’

‘Can you… please just…’ Gnome wanted to plead for them to stop, but embarrassment made her sentences incoherent mumbles.

‘Yes, yes,’ Sylph, who had ended her story with John and his concubine living happily ever after, got back into the conversation. ‘It’s nice though! Gnome cuddles are super nice cuddles.’

‘Personally, I love to see her wake up,’ Siena said in a not at all creepy way. ‘Aaah, the look on her face, the embarrassed misery, when she realizes she has been hugging someone the entire night. That blush, that little uwuwuwu.’

“Uwuwuwuwu,” Gnome responded, out loud, with the exact noise Siena sadistically described.

John heard stones roll over the floorboards and finally looked over the back of the couch. He found Gnome, her face wrapped up and hidden under her pigtails, rolling from left to right. So, that was actually the same old, same old.

Rave sitting in Nathalia’s lap with a completely flustered face, however, wasn’t. “Now, are you satisfied?” The dragoness purred. In rhythmic circles, her hands worked the pink-haired woman's shoulders.

“How are you this good at this?” Rave wanted to know.

“I have a lot of practice in the arts of physical sensations, in case you still haven’t realized, you foolish little girl,” Nathalia whispered, her sharp teeth nibbling on Rave’s earlobe.

“Okay, you now have signed up with the Baltic Bank,” Lydia instructed Thana. “Now, if you give me these 200 thousand dollars, I will make a quick call to have the money arranged. What do you want to buy by the way?”

“Just some toys, you know, handcuffs and some shit like that.”

Lydia just shook her head.

John looked at Salamander.

“Is that naked cuddling offer still open?” he asked.

This is highly annoying, Lydia said and crossed her arms, visibly struggling to not readjust the patch over her right eye. They were on their way back home. Do you mean arrrrnoying Lylytina? The joke earned Rave double the amount of the usual glare with half the eyes to convey it. We be coming for your fucking booty! Thana jumped in, getting a laugh out of the Lightbearer. Seeing that positive response, Thana dug a bit deeper; And we be searching all through the cavernous depths of yer backside! Hahaha, Rave laughed, and the two exchanged a fistbump. Great that you all draw such joy from my inconvenience, Lydia reprimanded them. The eyepatch was a remainder from her post-fight treatment. The Apothecaries had successfully removed the glass dagger and patched her up. They could have healed her completely on the spot, but in their words, that would take an unnecessary amount of power. Instead, they used some regenerative magic on her and then put a black eyepatch on top of all of it, telling her it should be okay by the next morning. Want Undine to take care of it? John asked, once they were back on their home island. There he felt at the very least safe enough to speak of things his enemies weren't supposed to know. Jack also landed on his shoulder. John had tried to get a Reveal through, to no avail. While he did manage to cut through the vision impairment and the hearing blockade, he had failed to make any Observes whatsoever. Both of the hindrances were up again shortly afterwards. Lydia looked at him in thought, ...It shouldn't work. Why not? John wondered; all Undine had to do was to apply some of her healing magic, and the thing would be over. The healing of more intricate things, such as eyes, should take an amount of skill you don't possess, the princess explained. Then again, it seems your ability is breaking a lot of conventional laws regarding what you should be able to do and the offending object was already removed. Her eyes wandered over to Momo. The support simply walked further into the direction of the house. Under her arm, she carried three new books that had been delivered to her. These are becoming a real problem,' John thought. The amount of literature Momo devoured was starting to have serious impacts on the household. Even though she hadn't claimed one of the rooms as hers, by now she had to take one just to have a place where Aclysia could store all of the books. That wasn't why Lydia was looking at her though. The creation of Artificial Spirits is not something done as swiftly as you described it, she said. Well, I did it by thinking what kind of personality I wanted and then using the Skill, John shrugged it off; I have read up on the proper theory: how to concentrate your mana within an inanimate object, how you need to create a soul frame and slowly program the characteristics, how the material of the object changes the way this process works, and so on. And you just skipped all of that, Lydia agreed. As your girlfriend so aptly describes: this is bullshit. Your other Skills as well. I went to research, that thing you call Mana Ray is something eager arcane mages master in their late twenties. You just do it while contracting five elements, which in and of itself makes you one of the greatest elementalists in the world. I am a one-man army, John freely admitted; So, do you want Undine to heal you or not? Let's get inside first, Lydia said, and so they did. The princess took a seat in one of the armchairs as the elemental girls materialized. Sweet fucking freedom, Salamander sighed and, in her big form, fell down into the cushions of the sofa. Like Thana with her strength, Salamander had made massive improvements in not putting the furniture on fire. The trick was to completely disable the flames on her body, including her hair. That turned the fire spirit into a red-headed, red-skinned hottie with giant tits. Who was also completely naked. Seriously, these double D's are something I want to press my face in,' John thought and then said. Salamander, can you lie down? With a raised eyebrow, the elven eared blaze elemental did. The Gamer proceeded to lay on top of her, his head resting on her ample bosom. The hell do you think you are doing? Salamander wanted to know with a bit of a cackle. You are so nice and hot, John, who had just left the coldness of winter, mumbled, cuddling deeper into her; It's like hugging a heater that is soft I guess? Well, as long as it's you, cuddling is fine. Would be better if you were naked too though. Rave, who was cold and much preferred to be in environments other people would refer to as boiling', looked at Copernicus. No, said the sun cat and hid underneath the couch, refusing to be used as a heater. The techno-lover continued over to Aclysia, who was cooking and whose inner fire wasn't that warm anyway. Then she spied Nathalia stuffing her face with chocolate cake on the dinner table. The two looked at each other for a moment. The dragoness was still chewing, and Rave wasn't sure whether she really wanted that. Ah, I'll bury the hatchet, she exclaimed and then went to cuddle Nathalia, who did not look all that psyched about it. Stop molesting me, mortal, she growled. Ya like it in the bedroom though, Rave teased as she sat in the bigger woman's lap and practically melted; Oooh, you're warm a bit spiky though. Be grateful I am not cutting you with my scales, Nathalia told her off. Stop being such a meany and be more of a team player, Rave retorted; I'll lend ya my boyfriend in a solo session later, if ya just let me sit in your lap for about ten minutes. Rave did know what she could negotiate with and so Nathalia just continued eating her cake with a slight bit of grumbling, shushing away a certain small tempest elemental that tried to get in and steal crumbs off the plate. Sylph was quickly put aside to get lectured by Gnome. Well then, Lydia pulled John's attention back to her. She took down the eyepatch, and Undine went to work. Got to say, princess, Siena said. Your performance today was impressive. I approve of the creative use of wires. It wasn't easy to meld strands of hair together into these longer units, Lydia said, barely suppressing a smile. It seemed she was rather proud of herself, and why wouldn't she be? Only direct contact made that possible. She turned her head slightly and held her eye open. A bit of Undine's slime, like a thick eyedrop, later and Lydia readjusted her vision as she was healed the rest of the way. John shuddered. Thanks to Gamer's Body, the healing slime could be applied wherever on his body, as he only needed to recover HP. For the elementals and Aclysia, it was the same, as their bodies were more akin to a solid unit than a human. For those poor, normal, biological types, however, the slime was only really effective when it was applied directly to the wound itself. It wasn't exactly unpleasant, he had been told, as it acted as a quick painkiller, cooled the wound, and sealed it within a few moments as it vanished into the skin without a trace. He still couldn't believe that getting a drop of slime into one's eye was particularly pleasant though. The fact that this works... Lydia said and pressed her eyelids closed, to then blink a few times. ...is stunning to say the least. What can I say? John listened to fire burning under Salamander's skin. It was a pulsing beat of hums and crackles. I am mister broken game mechanics. Thana burst out laughing, Accurate. Mhm, should you, of all people, laugh about that? Siena asked and teasingly ran a claw over the blood mage's stomach. Fuck it, why not!? Thana asked. Now stop fingering me, Shadow the Edgehog, we can fuck later. Now: Where is my phone?! How the hell do you know about Sonic? John wanted to know as Lydia, with an annoyed sigh, went to find out the answer to Thana's question. It was one of those things I looked up while choking the Bloodfallen to death, the blood mage answered. Fucking assholes, really don't feel sorry about breaking all of their shit-gurgling necks. John couldn't exactly blame her, even if he preferred she hadn't. He also didn't exactly have the moral high ground to call her out either, as he, himself, killed some of the Bloodfallen while attempting to rescue her. Therefore, the decision was made to just drop the topic. This milk was not only spilled, but had spoiled on the floor and finally had gotten cleaned up not too long ago. Catch, Lydia said and tossed a smartphone over to Thana. It wasn't anything outstanding, the usual display on a black, flat case. If there was anything interesting about it, it was that there was no company name on it anywhere. It booted up within a split second. Oy, it says it just scanned my magical footprint, Thana said and glanced over. That shit sounds like you want to track me. While I partially do want to track you, that is not what that is for, Lydia said and informed her about the basic mechanisms of Abyssal networks. So that's why your fucking phone only worked when you were around! Thana said and looked at Rave. Congratulations, the techno-lover said in an overly relaxed voice, ya figured it out. John was wondering why his girlfriend sounded this mellow, but checking would have entailed raising his head. You are now my official pillow, John told Salamander. I refuse, he was shot down. I wasn't asking, he retorted. Master, if you allow me, I could easily increase the size of my bust to fulfil your requirements,' Aclysia chimed in mentally. Ruining cosplay is a sin, and despite what some people draw, A2 does not have giant tits. No deal we can still cuddle though,' John answered. As a matter of fact, we should cuddle!' The fuck do you mean I have no money?! Thana complained in the background. Cuddling sounds nice,' Sylph palavered, can it be roleplay cuddles? I mean, like, like, like, see and then you would be the merchant prince of a long forgotten principality and I would be your No, I won't tell you. Guess, guess what I would be. What would I be? If you had to warrant a guess, and you were prince, what would I be? I would be your?' ''Concubine''' everyone else in his head said in an exasperated voice. Exactly!' Sylph said and went on about how he was a trader in gummy bears and coffee. JOHN! Thana shouted, Give me money! In a lazy motion, John pulled 200 grand out of his inventory. Nicely bundled and in the biggest notes possible, he threw the money over to Thana. I-I would like some cuddles,' Gnome said. Do cuddles entail binding someone to the bed?' Siena wanted to know. No!' the earth spirit sounded seriously offended; Bad Siena! Cuddles are a holy pact between the cuddlers a-a-and the idea to mix that with BDSM is t-totally not cool!' It still says I have no fucking money! Thana waved around the cash in her hand; The fuck is this?! You would need a bank account and connect it with the Abyss Auction to use it, Lydia informed her. You are pretty concerned with cuddles,' John noted. I-I mean not really!' Gnome stutteringly avoided the subject. She is a sleep grappler,' Undine's musical voice chimed in. Yeah, little Gnome over here always has a body sized pillow to cuddle while she sleeps,' Salamander cackled. If you are too close, you get caught up in it.' Can you please just' Gnome wanted to plead for them to stop, but embarrassment made her sentences incoherent mumbles. Yes, yes,' Sylph, who had ended her story with John and his concubine living happily ever after, got back into the conversation. It's nice though! Gnome cuddles are super nice cuddles.' Personally, I love to see her wake up,' Siena said in a not at all creepy way. Aaah, the look on her face, the embarrassed misery, when she realizes she has been hugging someone the entire night. That blush, that little uwuwuwu.' Uwuwuwuwu, Gnome responded, out loud, with the exact noise Siena sadistically described. John heard stones roll over the floorboards and finally looked over the back of the couch. He found Gnome, her face wrapped up and hidden under her pigtails, rolling from left to right. So, that was actually the same old, same old. Rave sitting in Nathalia's lap with a completely flustered face, however, wasn't. Now, are you satisfied? The dragoness purred. In rhythmic circles, her hands worked the pink-haired woman's shoulders. How are you this good at this? Rave wanted to know. I have a lot of practice in the arts of physical sensations, in case you still haven't realized, you foolish little girl, Nathalia whispered, her sharp teeth nibbling on Rave's earlobe. Okay, you now have signed up with the Baltic Bank, Lydia instructed Thana. Now, if you give me these 200 thousand dollars, I will make a quick call to have the money arranged. What do you want to buy by the way? Just some toys, you know, handcuffs and some shit like that. Lydia just shook her head. John looked at Salamander. Is that naked cuddling offer still open? he asked.