We stared at each other for a few seconds before she withdrew her arm a little.

  “It should be for me. I was only going to confirm if it is not a fake. That is if it is what I think it is. Thank you for stopping me. I should have inquired more before taking action,” Levia replied calmly.

  “No worries. I was just being cautious. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt on your first day.” I smiled warmly. “We found this in a hidden chamber that belonged to the boss monster in the Woodman Dungeon. The monster was seeping energy from the entire Dungeon and its inhabitants and we think that’s where all of it went. What do you think it is?”

  “A Spirit’s Heart. And it does check out with your assumption,” she said, moving her gaze back to the crystal ball. “It is an extremely valuable item amongst magic users but not only. You should be able to sell it for a very high price. Or…”

  “Or…?” I raised a curious brow at her.

  “Or I could utilize the highly condensed mana making it up to greatly enhance any of my future alchemical creations. There are ways to liquefy the stored energy. If I had your permission to process it, I might be able to strengthen many things in the future.”

  “That sounds great. We should do that, right?” Aisha grinned joyfully.

  “Yes it does, but…” Levia continued.

  Aisha sighed while rolling her eyes. “Here it comes. There’s always a but.”

  Her comment made Levia a tad uneasy so I nodded at the charming elf lady to go on.

  “Both during the procedure of extraction and processing, and applying the liquefied essence, the chance of failure is quite high. It depends a lot on the skill of the person working on either but that is not enough to fully eliminate the undesirable outcome,” she explained slowly. “In the first case, it only affects the extracted substance, but in the other one, it may ruin the target of the enhancement. That is why only people with commendable wealth gamble with it, or those with a connection to a good processor.”

  “And how good of a processor are you?” I stroked my chin while pondering over the new information.

  “I estimate my failure rate at about twenty-five percent at the current moment. It will drop lower after I acquire some experience with the Spirit’s Heart. I have to honestly admit that working with one was nothing more than a dream for me so I am in possession of the necessary knowledge but can not back it up with practice,” Levia answered.

  “What about the chances of others?” Aisha asked.

  “Forty to fifty percent, I would say. For the majority of them, of course. There certainly are individuals matching my prowess and even surpassing it. But, such an opportunity to work on a Spirit’s Heart is very uncommon. People often do not want to leave it in the hands of less experienced processors due to the risk of a huge loss and they choose the services of the few who are well-known and established.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it, then,” I said.

  “Liquefied Spirit Heart’s Essence, or Purified Liquefied Spirit Heart’s Essence, are ingredients that can have an immense influence on Ritual Magic. Many Witches are aware of it but they do not expect to ever get their hands on it. Such endeavor is often extremely dangerous and risky, or unnecessarily expensive,” she explained.

  “So, in simple words, the choice is to either get rid of it for a good sum of money as a short-term solution without any stress, or to hold onto it and let you process it while aware that a decent part of it might get lost during the process but the rest ends up as a possible long-term investment since it can make plenty of other stuff better. Am I right?” Aisha summed everything up.

  “That would be it, yes.” Levia nodded gently, looking between us.

  “Hmmmm… What would you prefer to do?” I asked her after a moment.

  “I am just a subordinate and I will follow your lead. Since I can not promise not to make mistakes and disappoint my master, I would advise putting it up for an auction after researching the current prices of Spirit Hearts. I should be able to identify a good moment to sell it.”

  “But, you would definitely like to work on it, right?” I could feel a faint smirk curling my lips.

  Giving Aisha one more glance, Levia made a tiny nod.

  “How much?” I pointed at the orb with my thumb.

  She quickly caught up on my intention. “It depends on many factors. A few thousand Dungeon Dollars at least. The prices might reach tens of thousands.”

  “Granted it’s real,” I mused. “You said that you can verify it?”

  “Yes. I may do so at any moment.”

  We exchanged glances with Aisha and nodded at our elf friend. Levia got to work immediately, kneeling in front of the emerald globe. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. We could hear some quite eerie whispers leave her lips as she inched closer and closer to the orb’s surface with her slender palm.

  Shortly before she made contact with it, five points started faintly brightening up, just under the tips of her fingers. Her palm was pulled into the tough crystal in a blink and the contents of the sphere began to swirl like a trapped galaxy, twinkling mesmerizingly in the same, dark green color.

  After a few seconds, we noticed Levia’s breathing getting faster and a little hitched. When she began listing forward and jerking back like someone trying to fight off the drowsiness after not sleeping for longer than they could handle, I hastily crouched next to her.

  I had no idea if touching her skin counted as me touching the orb too but we couldn’t really leave her in this state, which was clearly worsening with each second. Aisha entered my line of sight and nodded, taking a deep breath. I knew exactly what she was planning without having to exchange a single word. Reassured a little, I nodded back at her and grabbed Levia’s wrist.

  Thankfully, my soul wasn’t suddenly sucked away, nor had my body imploded from the intake of an unbearable amount of spiritual energy. Aisha’s prepared tackle wasn’t necessary. I was able to peel Levia’s hand off the orb with just a little bit of resistance and her eyes immediately snapped open; her breathing still quick and somewhat shallow.

  “Are you alright?” I asked with great concern; I could feel her heart thumping in her chest hard.

  “Yes…” she whispered, slowly calming herself down. “I apologize. I did not expect this much… pain and sorrow. It seems that this Spirit’s Heart was not formed naturally, or even artificially by condensing multiple clusters of spiritual energy. This thing is a fruit of pure evil. For many long years, hundreds if not thousands of Pixies had their life force completely emptied out to condense this Spirit’s Heart. Countless lives have been lost forever. The mana stored inside is soaked with their grief and misery. It is something unthinkable. It is even more lamentable when you realize that there is no trace of resentment in all of it, just pure sadness.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about warning you about that. It’s my fault,” I apologized honestly while tenderly holding her palm. “I guess you would find it hard to work on something so distressing so we don’t really have any other choice than to sell it.”

  “I am afraid that it might not fetch a hefty price.” Levia softly shook her head. “It might be considered impure. Not mentioning the method of creation in the auction might feel dishonest, and doing so will certainly cause most people to turn away too. It is an incredibly old and dense Spirit’s Heart but not many will be willing to work with it, for obvious reasons.”

  “Fuck.” Aisha clicked her tongue in annoyance. “So it turned out to be a piece of junk. Fucking Seed.”

  I watched with Levia how my lovely drakan huffed and cursed both the item and its creator. It was unfortunate but it wasn’t like we could do anything about that. We had picked it up for free so we hadn’t technically lost on it.

  “Would destroying it do anything for the fallen Pixies?” I turned back to look at Levia and asked.

  “No. They are already gone, their existence erased,” she replied and I sighed heavily. “But, while this kind of Spirit’s Heart has been created maliciously, it still is an impressive Spirit’s Heart and it would be a great waste to destroy it. If you wish for it, it should be in my capability to work on it properly after accustoming myself to its peculiarities.”

  “I appreciate this, really, but I don’t want to force you to interact or even be around something that causes you so much distress. It clearly was tough to bear earlier. I don’t mean to say that you are weak mentally or anything like that, of course. It’s just not my style. That’s all.”

  “And I can confirm that,” Aisha chimed in from above; her arms crossed under her chest. “He really cares about the well-being of his Subordinates. Or rather, his companions. Instead of getting ordered around like the slave that I am, I’ve been treated like a roommate since the very first moment I came here. He means good.”

  After listening to her words, Levia looked at me. “The Pixies can not be brought back. Their energy is in this crystal. I think they would be happier knowing that their stolen lives are going to serve for something meaningful rather than simply dissipating after suffering so much. Is that not right?”

  She glanced past me at the sole Pixie present in the room. We all turned to Rose and watched her float calmly in one place for a moment. Then, she slowly hovered toward the emerald orb and stopped right above it. She buzzed faintly but it was enough for all of us to understand that she agreed. A note of sadness could be felt in her intentions coming through our connection, but tinged with appreciation, most likely for saving the rest of her friends.

  I reached out to pat the adorable entity with a warm smile. “Alright. We’ll keep it and see what we’re gonna do next in the near future. As I said, I don’t want you to force yourself into doing something painful, Levia. We can approach it slowly.”

  “That is alright. Thank you.” She gave us a bit more apparent nod.

  “Shit! Now I feel like smashing something because of all this!” Aisha stomped her feet on the ground; her tail swaying in clear agitation. “Dungeon. Now. I’m in need of some walking stress relief puppets.”

  I chuckled lightly. “If Levia doesn’t have anything against it, we can gear up and go.”

  “I am eager to release some of the accumulated negative energy too. The suggested course of action would be more than welcome,” the calm-again elf lady replied while standing up with my help.

  “Great. Let’s give the Dungeon some calcium deficit. Let’s go.” I winked at my animated mate.

  We exchanged nods and I led us out of the storage chamber after messily covering the evil creation.

  Chapter 8

  Whack-A-Skelly

  “Alright. Let’s grab all our stuff and get moving,” I said as we walked back into the apartment. “Though, would you like some more time to prepare your arcanas, Levia?”

  “If we are not in a hurry, I could write down a few simple spells.” Our Witch nodded slowly.

  “That’s fine. I think we will first open the weapon box and you can work on them in the meanwhile,” I replied.

  “Oh? Are we opening that one? What are we getting? Are you planning to give something to Levia just in case?” Aisha raised a brow at me.

  “Not necessarily.” I shook my head as we approached my desk. “We can buy something simple and small for her. Instead, we should try to get a weapon that will help us a little in the current Dungeon. Specifically you.”

  “Ah. I think I can guess what you are planning. Something blunt could be of use to reduce the wear on my greataxe.” My drakan mate stroked her chin.

  “Pretty much that,” I confirmed and gestured to Levia to sit down by the desk.

  Our blue-skinned friend followed my instructions and I handed her a full deck of empty cards with all the markers I had on me. After she received everything, I brought my wheeled chair closer and sat down too.

  I fully expected Aisha to take another chair from the kitchen to take a spot next to me, but no, she just nonchalantly dropped her sexy butt onto my lap with an impish grin, wiggling herself into my waist like the tease she was. Levia gave us a brief glance before returning to her drawing.

  Ignoring my playful lover, I quickly navigated to the Inventory and located the random box with the weapon. Opening it up the same way as the previous one revealed a horizontal spinning minigame similar to what we were used to. The difference was that there was a dropdown menu where I had to pick a weapon type before trying my luck.

  “Hammer? Mace? Something else? What would you like better?” I asked Aisha after displaying all the options to us.

  “Hmmm… Two-handed mace would be the simplest choice…” she pondered out loud.

  “Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we can narrow it down that much. It’s all between weapon types like slashing, piercing, throwing, blunt, ranged, magical, and so on.” I frowned. “Though, there’s a division between one-handed and two-handed, which is nice.”

  “As expected. We might have to rely on my gacha luck again.” She smirked at me over her shoulder.

  “Bring us something good, then.” I grinned back at her and handed her the mouse.

  Aisha chuckled excitedly and selected the two-handed blunt category. The silhouettes visible on the gacha strip switched up a little bit and we could more or less recognize some of them as hammers, maces, perhaps clubs, and some other, unidentified weapons.

  After trying to intimidate the minigame by glaring at the monitor intensely, she tapped the start button strongly. The row of rectangular blocks of various colors sped to the right in an instant and we watched them zoom from one side to another.

  Just as they began slowing down, we heard a soft thud and our eyes snapped to the side. Levia was just raising her face from the desk while rubbing her forehead with a soft frown, which looked incredibly adorable with her neutral, dreamy expression. She must have been observing our actions and had gotten too engrossed in the animation.

  “Sorry. I forgot to warn you.” I snickered quietly as she looked at me in slight confusion.

  “You can’t focus on the animation or it will make you dizzy.” Aisha smirked. “No one can fault you for doing so, though. It’s way too mesmerizing for the first time.”

  “Is your forehead alright?” I asked, trying to peek behind her white fringe.

  “Yes. It just stings a little. That was unexpected,” she replied quietly, still massaging the spot.

  “Let Rose take care of it if you don’t mind,” Aisha suggested and our Pixie companion appeared between us.

  She started the treatment while the two of us turned our attention back to the screen. I had a feeling that this would be a recurring trope amongst our newly recruited companions without any prior experience with modern technology.

  The animation had long finished and our prize was visible in the middle section with a red border and a thick arrow pointing at it from above.

  “A double-headed war hammer, huh?” Aisha mused. “Not gonna lie, I kinda wanted to try one back in the past.”

  “Seems like your thoughts were too loud and someone up there heard them.” I smiled. “It’s time I relinquished my role of the smasher to someone more fit for it.”

  She looked back at me with a playful grin. “I don’t think even dwarves come anywhere close to how good you smash.”

  We chuckled together while staring each other in the eyes until we realized that Levia was looking right at us. My cheeks grew a little warmer and I cleared my throat. Of course, Aisha didn’t back down this easily and ground her ass into my crotch with a grin to support her statement.

  “What was that animation?” our witchy friend asked in the most natural manner.

  “A fancy illusion-like thing to make opening the random rewards more fun and exciting,” my tease of a girlfriend answered.

  “And addicting,” I added. “It’s a little, exciting activity that can easily make you crave more.”

  “I see.” Levia nodded softly.

  Aisha slid off my lap with the tip of her tail grazing my cheek and sauntered towards the door without looking back. I knew perfectly well that she was smiling to herself from both this little action and the prospect of getting a new toy. I quickly ordered the delivery and she got the package shortly after the doorbell rang. After dragging it between the bed and the desk, she cut it open with a kitchen knife she’d grabbed on the way.

  What greeted us after she brought the contents out was a war hammer of a similar size to her greataxe. Dark, almost black wood made its entirety, from the butt at the bottom to the sharp spike at the very top end sticking out from between the two big hammerheads on the sides.

  Besides the decently sizable section of the grip, everything had a twisty design, like multiple branches were wound together. It resembled those massive metal cables upholding suspension bridges. The coiling pattern unwound near the top as it split to the sides where the hammerheads were. Their flat surface was comparable to my head in terms of size.

  “Neat,” Aisha commented, taking a few swings. “It’s quite light, actually. It still has enough weight to be recognized as a proper hammer but you can feel the difference. The balance is surprisingly good too considering how it looks.”

  “Won’t it break easily?” I mused.

  “I assume it’s made of something similar to the armor we had seen on the Woodknights,” she replied. “Possibly strengthened with magic to some extent. We won’t know until we test it out and there’s only one way to do that.”

  She grinned at me, resting the weapon on her shoulder.

  I shook my head with a wry smile. “I can already imagine the havoc you wreak with your Ground Pound.”

  “Still won’t be as messy as when you are the one doing the pounding.” She winked at me.

  Rolling my eyes, I stood up from the PC too. “How are your cards, Levia?”

  “I finished four of them. It should be enough for me to be useful,” she replied and showed her creations to me.

  “I have no doubt about that.” I smiled at her. “Do you have a way to store them?”

  Levia glanced at the chair in the kitchen. “The coat has inner pockets. They will be sufficient. I might need to figure something out when I want to carry a bigger supply.”