★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Name: ???

  Race: Pixie

  Age: 749

  Affiliation: Lucas King

  Position: Subordinate Familiar

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “There’s not that much information in its Status. The name is just a bunch of question marks, and it doesn’t even list a level among the few entries,” I muttered to myself.

  “More like a pet than a familiar, then,” Aisha replied. “I’m kinda glad, since that means we don’t have to share experience with it, but also somewhat sad that it’s like this. I guess it can provide emotional support, at least.”

  “It does have the Abilities section. Let me take a look.”

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  ABILITIES

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Light

  Minor Recovery

  Crippling Discharge

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “Light, Minor Recovery, and Crippling Discharge,” I listed them for my drakan mate. “None has a rank. Now we know what happened to the wound on my finger. Thanks, buddy.”

  I gave the Pixie a few gentle taps and it wiggled excitedly under my palm, proudly receiving the praise.

  “Hey, it’s always something. I honestly expected nothing. Regarding the name, though, maybe it just doesn’t have one?” Aisha wondered out loud.

  Before I could respond, our pink friend pitched in with its confirmation loops, answering the question by itself. We chuckled together and glanced at each other.

  “Try giving it one?” she suggested. “If it doesn’t mind, that is.”

  The cheerful, almost ecstatic circles it made clearly pointed out that it didn’t mind. I rubbed my chin with a free hand, mentally going through a myriad of choices.

  “Hmmm… This is always the hardest part… Now even more since it’s a living entity, and not some random NPC…”

  “What about Pinky?” Aisha raised a brow at me.

  I snorted and shook my head. “Really? We are doing those kind of pet names?”

  She chuckled with a smile. “Fine, fine. I just had to. Then… What about Rose?”

  “It’s a little bit cliche and mainstream but… I feel like it suits… her? It? Do Pixies have genders?”

  “The stories say that people heard childlike giggles and whispers similar to either a young girl or a boy, so… maybe? There are male and female Fairies, which aren’t that far off from Pixies. But anyway, just as you acknowledged, I suggested it because it just felt right.”

  I turned to our energetic friend. “What do you say?”

  Needless to say, Rose was ecstatic about her new name. She soared through the air like crazy, weaving and bobbing between the equipment with unbelievable speed and control. A nearly constant trail of pink afterglow followed her wild gyrations, illuminating the workshop in a faint, rosy hue.

  Glancing at my phone again, I confirmed that the question marks had turned into actual letters, spelling Rose’s name properly. And just like that, we gained a new member to our small team. A quite unexpected one, I must say.

  After Rose toned it down a bit, we refocused our attention on the cauldrons and spent a few hours producing as much saline solution as our will to do so let us. Though mind-numbingly repetitive, it was actually quite easy and rather pleasant work. We chatted as we worked, teasing each other now and then, and discussed our short-term plans.

  After the first batch, we visited the balcony again to confirm that we wouldn’t get into trouble or get reported by someone. It was so normal that it was bizarre, to see nothing of the fumes and smoke generated by the hearth. The filter acted just like any other AC unit would, whirring softly as it kicked out air. We could see the shimmering waves of the released, cleaned-up heat coming out of the opening.

  By the time evening came, we had filled the storage room to the brim with vials or even a few small barrels. It was our attempt at making a quick, bigger buck from those who had already gotten a taste of our product, and who might want to stock up for the future. Certainly, there had to be at least a few people like that.

  We stood amongst the shelves and watched as the fruits of our intense labor began slowly disappearing right before our eyes with faint, mystical purple flashes. Hopefully, we’d made enough to last for at least a day or two, unless another unforeseen thing happened, and our sales went to the moon again.

  No matter what happened, now we needed to get back to our real work. The Dungeon wouldn’t clear itself. The Pixies wouldn’t free themselves. And this time we had less time remaining until the Dungeon Break than we’d had during the Tutorial. I’d prefer not to take any unnecessary risk, especially since we had received a bonus quest that might take a bit to finish properly.

  Taking a quick and very pleasant double shower, we shared a late dinner together while watching the numbers in our account gradually rise. Making use of the excellent opportunity, I introduced Aisha to the wonders of the Internet. There was nothing better than some silly video to aid your meal.

  Since I had no actual speakers, we had to get creative with the headphones for them to fit her head without being impaled on her beautiful horns, but it was worth it. Her amazed expression, involuntary smile, and fits of giggles as she consumed not just her meal, but also the content, were incredibly charming. For sure, I had a silly grin on my face too. I’d always loved watching people have fun.

  Soon, we’d powered everything down and jumped out of our clothes, leaving only our bottoms on, as usual. I didn’t even bother asking Aisha about her bra. It had already become common for her to snuggle with me topless. I had no complaints there.

  With the dazzling drakan gently resting her cheek on my chest while hugging me from the side, I lovingly brushed my fingers through her crimson hair. We both glanced at the small pink sphere hanging out near the ceiling, giving my apartment a lovely rosy tint as it glowed faintly in the darkness.

  “So, uhhh… Can you even like… not emit light?” I asked with a wry smile. “Gods, that sounds so rude.”

  Aisha chuckled, tickling my skin with some pleasant vibrations. “Way to go, asking a Pixie to turn itself off. That’s like telling it to die.”

  “Please don’t,” I quickly pleaded, worried that our overenthusiastic friend might actually consider doing herself any harm.

  Rose made a few rounds under the ceiling, which we perceived as something akin to laughter, before zooming towards the bed. In the next moment, she crashed into me, plunging into my body. I felt the familiar prickling sensation but… on the inside. It soon changed into a warm, fuzzy feeling that enveloped my heart.

  I glanced down and noticed a slightly illuminated circle where it should be located, as if someone shone a flashlight through a pink sheet of paper.

  “Great. Now I can cosplay Iron Man every time I sleep.” I chuckled to myself and we soon dozed off.

  Quite a bit of fighting and exploring awaited us tomorrow.

  Chapter 26

  The Operation Begins

  Gradually leaving dreamland, I stretched a little in the bed and slowly opened my eyes. I flinched the moment my eyelids rose about halfway, yanking them up the remaining distance before squeezing them shut.

  “Shit…” I cursed silently under my breath. “I’ll have to ask you not to hang over my face first thing in the morning, Rose,” I requested in the most friendly and polite tone I could muster in my morning grogginess.

  The pink orb of pure mana trembled and began darting in every direction above the bed like it had a severe case of ADHD, which might actually not be that far off. With the last dash, Rose dove behind the edge of the bed, before peeking up over it slowly, showing only a fraction of her shape.

  That evoked a chuckle from me as I shook my head. Our new Pixie companion was just way too adorable.

  “Come on out.” I waved my hand. “I’m not angry. I wasn’t scolding you, just asking for the future.”

  With a note of hesitation, the energetic sphere unhurriedly floated back into sight, now making its way through the air without nearly as much fervor. At the same time, I heard a mumble and a strong arm snaked over my torso from the side, pulling me in close. Surprisingly, the slowly waking drakan beauty hadn’t remained on top of me for the entire night.

  “Morning, sleeping princess. Time to get up. Riches and honor await us,” I whispered in Aisha’s ear, brushing away a lock of dark crimson hair behind it.

  With an unintelligible murmur, she started raising herself upright, and I followed, looking around the room for any other unusual changes. But, shortly after I reached about forty-five degrees, Aisha slammed into me from above, shoving me back onto the bed as I let out a breathless oof under her weight. She finished the motion by climbing more onto me, intertwining her legs with mine.

  I just had to jinx it earlier, didn’t I?

  Releasing a soft sigh as Rose circled above us, I brushed my fingers through my lovely partner’s hair.

  “Aisha?”

  “Mmmmm?”

  “As much as I love getting all touchy and personal with you, we really ought to get up. Come on. You had the whole night to snuggle on my chest.”

  “Mmmmm.”

  The affirmative murmur I received wasn’t followed by any hint of physical activity, though, and I sighed again.

  “You are getting lazier and lazier with each passing day. I do kind of understand the appeal of this, it does feel super cozy and nice with your soft skin brushing over mine, but please.”

  Aisha let out a dissatisfied groan and raised her face a little bit, setting her chin in her hands with her elbows propped on me. Her charming bosom still rested on my chest, tickling me with its delicately pointy tips.

  “Who wouldn’t get lazy with a master such as yourself…” she explained with a long yawn. “Nothing short of perfection…”

  “So it’s my fault now, huh? I’ve been too lenient, hm? Should I start whipping you back into submission?” I wondered out loud as Aisha’s head began dropping again onto my chest. When she didn’t respond, I landed a juicy slap on her jiggly butt.

  Her eyes fluttered open and Aisha released a sharp gasp, glancing up at me with a cute pout.

  “Lucas…”

  I brought my hand down firmly on her other cheek, and was answered with a quiet whine, albeit tinged with a trace of playfulness in it. Aisha gently bit her lower lip and sighed softly, finally sitting up and straddling my waist.

  She groaned loudly, without a care in the world as she stretched, displaying her magnificent, perky breasts to me in all their glory. I ran my fingers up over her thighs and across her toned stomach as I admired my badass and beautiful companion.

  “Got an eyeful?” Aisha suddenly asked, with her arms still extended towards the ceiling and a warm smile decorating her lips.

  “Yep.” I chuckled and sat up, putting us in a lotus position. “I’ll grab some coffee for you.”

  She purred lovingly as I pecked her cheek and slipped out from under her athletic thighs. As promised, I wandered over to the kitchen and set the kettle on, preparing two mugs on the counter. I heard soft footsteps behind me and glanced over my shoulder to watch as the topless bombshell paraded across the living room and into the bathroom.

  I still couldn’t believe how the hell I’d ended up with such a gorgeous, strong, and fun woman. She was so out of my league.

  Rose floated up next to me as I shook my head, a silly smile on my face, and observed how I made some coffee for the two of us. I held my cup in front of her for a moment, but it didn’t look like the Pixie was able to take a sip. She might have smelled it or experienced it in some other, mystical way, because she began buzzing around again in no time, making me laugh out loud.

  When my Berserker friend came back out of the bathroom, I walked over to hand Aisha her mug. She thanked me quietly with a tender peck on the cheek and then joined me over at my PC. As I booted it up, she threw one of my t-shirts onto herself and I nodded at her in gratitude. Aisha was fully aware of how distracting her killer body could be.

  “So, how are the sales?” she asked, sipping on the homemade energy potion.

  “Half of the stock is gone. It seems to be slowing down, but we also made quite a bit more than before. I wouldn’t be surprised if the boom ended before we ran out.”

  “Nothing lasts forever.” She sighed and then shot me a side glance with a playful smirk.

  I snorted at her obvious innuendo. “Except for your teases. They never fucking end.”

  “You are welcome.”

  I ignored her smug expression, which she tried to hide in her mug, and refocused on the screen.

  “Looks like we are back where we were before setting up the forge, and even a little bit better off. We are sitting at just over seven grand. That makes about four-and-a-half grand of profit from what we sold overnight. Today’s profits will be another five thousand D-Dollars, if everything goes poof, bringing our account to a whopping twelve grand, more or less,” I explained with a little thrill.

  “Unbelievable. So much money from selling some water and salt. I honestly don’t know what to say.” Aisha shook her head with a wry smile.

  “It’s often the simplest ideas that earn the most.” I shrugged. “And then fade away the fastest. Anyway, we have shit to do today. Time to raise some stats, and get to work.”

  “Oh. Now I’m getting excited. I’m really curious about the point distribution. We each have fourteen, right?” She scooted a bit closer with her chair.

  “Correct. Let’s start with me, since there’s not much to discuss there.”

  I navigated to my character profile and brought up my stats to have one more look at them.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  ATTRIBUTES

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Strength: 11 (+3)

  Agility: 13 (+1)

  Constitution: 10 (+1)

  Intelligence: 15 (+1)

  Wisdom: 17 (+1)

  Leadership: 11

  Charisma: 18

  [Available Points: 14]

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “What are you going to do, then?” Aisha didn’t hide her curiosity.

  “Bring Charisma up to twenty-five, Intelligence up to twenty, and I guess Agility up to fifteen. Then, I gotta start putting some spare change into Constitution, so as not to neglect it too much,” I recounted my choices while tapping the plus symbol next to each of the aforementioned attributes.

  “I see. Any specific reason for that?”

  “Encourage scales off Charisma as its primary stat, while Telekinesis works on Intelligence and Agility. Those are crucial for me right now. Also, more buffs should show up that are based on Charisma, later on. I don’t need as much Leadership, since you are quite obedient. I can only hope that our next humanoid companion won’t be a rebel.”

  “Nothing a good dicking can’t fix.” She gave me a wink and I rolled my eyes. “The defiant ones crave it the most, trust me.”

  “I’d rather not. Drakan customs are quite extreme, I’d say.”

  Aisha chuckled and nodded in agreement. “What about me, then?”

  I had an intense urge to say something about her own craving, but I knew very well that she would have won if I had, so I bit my tongue to stop myself, and just in time too.

  Aisha’s half-squinted eyes watched me attentively from over her mug as I switched the display over to her attributes. I swear I heard her click her tongue, which brought a victorious smile to my lips.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  ATTRIBUTES

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Strength: 24

  Agility: 15

  Constitution: 15

  Intelligence: 8

  Wisdom: 6

  Perseverance: 11

  Fury: 16

  [Available Points: 14]

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “Your case is a harder one.” I stroked my chin, recalling all the leveling strategies I had come up with for my drakan warrior.

  “How so?” Aisha returned to her serious and curious mode immediately.

  “It would be good to have you main one of the basic stats, like I try to do so with Intelligence, more or less. But, picking either Strength or Agility can lead to vastly different outcomes in the long run, changing your playstyle significantly, including your Class titles.”

  “I see. Fury still remains the base, right?”

  “Correct. We could either boost it to twenty-five, then raise Agility to twenty or Strength to twenty-nine, or Fury to twenty, followed by a decently even spread between the latter two. I don’t think you need much Constitution at this point. You have decent armor.”

  “Agreed.” Aisha nodded. “The Kobold set is much better than I would have thought. Anyway, I didn’t think I would have so many choices after we decided on the physical path instead of the elemental one. This is way more complex than I expected.”

  “More like I’m overcomplicating things. It’s micromanagement, to be honest. You don’t have to pay so much attention to what I propose. You’ll be fine going with your gut feeling.”

  “But…” Aisha trailed while raising her brow at me.

  “But, you can kick much more ass if you know what you are doing inside of this. At least, that’s how it was in the game. You can become much more specialized without relying on luck.”

  “Alright. I trust you. All of me already belongs to you so I will follow your lead. What are the options?”

  My cheeks grew a little warmer after hearing Aisha’s bold and straightforward declaration, but I saw that she was completely serious about it when I glanced her way. She smiled softly at me, yet her eyes sparkled with determination like she was confident in her choice. She hadn't had much of it when she ended as my summon, though.

  I smiled back at her, feeling pretty confident myself. “The choice is simple, smash or slash?”

  She smirked for a brief moment. “I think I already know which one I would prefer more,” she said with a wink. “But, what’s the difference?”