There might have been a little bump in the road to get into the amusement park, but we made it in. Window made sure that we had enough money to pay for tickets and gave us some extra for food, games, souvenirs, and other things that people usually bought whenever they went to parks like this.

I had a feeling all of that money was poofed into existence instead of legally printed, so I wasn’t sure about the legality of it, but I didn’t care about that. As long as they took our money, counterfeit or not, I was happy.

Though, once we were inside the park and surrounded by tons of people, I was curious about something.

Everybody still had their ears and tails.

“Shouldn’t you wear disguises or cover those up or something?” I asked them. “So we don’t draw too much attention to ourselves.”

“Master… no offense, but you’re kinda bad at not drawing attention,” Lavi said.

“What? How?”

“You punched a guy in the face in the parking lot.”

“And he should be grateful I didn’t punch his little brat instead.”

Lavi sighed before Delphi spoke up to say, “Window said we don’t have to worry about it!”

“Well, nobody seems to be paying any extra attention to all of you.” I looked around and saw that there were a couple of people looking at my girlfriends, but they were all men. Well, and boys. Basically, anybody who would be attracted to them between the ages of zero and death.

But they were only being looked at as much as any attractive women would be looked like. It wasn’t like everybody around was looking at them in confusion wondering what was up with the lifelike animal ears and tails.

Maybe Window made it so that those parts of the girls were invisible to other people?

Well, whatever it was, it wasn’t worth thinking about if it wasn’t a problem.

More importantly, I dealt with the rest of the people staring at them by glaring at anybody who had the foolish idea of checking my girlfriends out.

It didn’t go without the girls noticing.

“Master… is really possessive, isn’t he?” Lavi asked.

“Possessive master in a sweater is nice,” Delphi said as a bit of drool ran down her lip.

Cami rose her hand. “Can I try?”

“Try what?” I asked.

“Scaring people who shouldn’t be looking off.”

“Go for it.”

Rather than glare at one of the few men still looking at them, Cami looked to the side and focused her eyes on a group of girls who were apparently looking at me and whispering to each other.

Despite Cami not being that expressive and her face not looking too different from normal… there was something different about the way she stared at them. The changes in her expression were so tiny that they were almost impossible to see, but they were there and they put her killing intent on display.

I immediately understood how Delphi felt as soon as the girls stopped and hurried away.

“Did I do good?” Cami asked, her expression now devoid of that killing intent as she looked up at me.

“You did. And you can do that as much as you want,” I answered.

Cami looked up at me with a slight smile before getting back to work keeping any women from looking at me.

With that taken care of, we finally looked around the place to try and get an idea of what we wanted to do.

It didn’t take long to figure out what time of year it was considering that there were spooky decorations all around. There were gravestones, giant spider webs, the staff walked around in costumes—it couldn’t have been any other time of the year aside from the one where annoying brats dressed up and ran around while begging for candy.

Then it made sense why nobody paid any attention to the tails and ears of those with me. Everybody else probably assumed they were parts of a costume. In that case, I was happy letting them think—

“Heh, furries,” some teenage punk said as he walked past my girlfriends.

Somehow, before I even had a chance to think about it, my hand ended up clutching the neckline of the boy’s shirt. “What’d you call them?” I asked, almost lifting him up off the ground.

Before he had a chance to reply, Delphi and Lavi pulled me back and told me to let him go. He ended up flipping me off as he walked away in a hurry.

That made me want to punch him even more.

It wasn’t that I had a problem with furries. I didn’t care. People were welcome to live their life however they wanted to, whether that was in a fursuit or not. But, I did have a problem with somebody insulting my girlfriends, and he used furry as an insult in that case.

That made me want to punch him.

“M-Master,” Delphi said, “I might like it when you’re like this… but we’ll get kicked out if you keep on attacking everybody you don’t like.”

She had a point. I was going to ruin our date if I kept getting pissed off at everybody who screwed with my girlfriends. Now, if somebody was responsible for hitting one of them in the face again, or hitting them at all, that would still be dealt with. But if somebody insulted them in passing? Well, I could always try tripping them and then laughing at them rather than starting a fight. Especially when they were almost half as young as me.

“Kids are the worst. Teenagers are also the worst,” I groaned. “Except Luca. She’s exempted because she’s mine.”

“Not—not that I plan on… ha-having kids or anything with you! But… o-other kids you have will be exempted, right?” Clawdia asked, not even able to look my way with her burning cheeks.

“I’ll treat our kid just as I treat Luca,” I told her.

“O-our kid?! Wha—I-I never said anything about—about having a kid with you, nya!”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t want to have one?”

“I-I’m not saying that either! I’m not saying anything!”

“But you just did say anything.”

Clawdia went from looking flustered and cute to disappointed and dead inside.

“Sorry. Teasing you helped me calm down from that punk.”

“Hey,” Clawdia said to Honey, “you’re not going to ruin the mood with stupid jokes, are you?”

“N-no?” Honey answered.

“Hmph.” Clawdia wrapped her arms around Honey’s. “That stupid man over there lost the privilege of me touching him.”

She said that I lost the privilege of her touching me, but she didn’t say anything about me losing the privilege of touching her. So, I reached out to poke her nose.

Unfortunately for my finger, it was intercepted with her teeth and almost torn off from my hand.

“You didn’t hold back at all!” I shouted while pulling my hand away, swinging it around in the air to try and shake the pain off.

“People who make bad jokes that kill the mood don’t deserve me going easy on them!” Clawdia shouted.

“You seriously bit hard. Now I know how Vala feels when you—”

I was interrupted by a warm, wet feeling around my finger.

That feeling was caused by my finger being inside of Delphi’s mouth as she licked where I was bit, her eyes closed as she wore a gentle expression on her face during her tending to my finger. Once she was done, she pulled my finger out from my mouth and gave it a kiss before looking up at me with a smile. “All healed!” she declared.

“Delphi, you make it hard to resist doing,” I paused when I remember there were kids all around us, “adult things to you right now.”

“Ehehe… now I’m not the only one holding back!”

“You really love this sweater, don’t you?”

She nodded and gave my finger another kiss and lick. This latest lick was significantly lewder than the ones she gave to “heal” my finger.

Surprisingly, my finger really did feel healed, too. Whether that was because I was caught off guard from her sudden licking and forgot all about the pain, or because her saliva actually did have some sort of magical healing properties, I didn’t know. It didn’t matter, either. What did matter was actually enjoying the amusement park we were in.

“Alright,” I said before returning my attention to Clawdia. “Since I ruined the moment with that joke, you can decide what we do first. Anything stick out to you?”

“I want to eat,” Clawdia immediately answered.

“No.”

“Why?! You said it’s up to me!”

“Because we’re going to go on rides! Do you want to throw up in front of everybody?! Are you that much of a masochist?!”

“Tha-that’s… too much for me. Okay. Fine, nya. We’ll save eating for later. What about…”

“A water ride?” I asked with a smirk.

“Abs-nya-lutely not!”

“I figured.”

“What about… that?” Clawdia pointed at a large pirate ship that swung back and forth. At its most extreme swings, its riders were almost parallel with the ground. It didn’t have anything to hold its riders down aside from thin seatbelts, so those riding it screamed as they almost fell off their seats each swing.

“Didn’t know you wanted to be a pirate. But if that’s what you want, we’ll go for it. The line seems short, too.”

“Muffin… a lot of the lines look short,” Honey said. “Why? I thought lines in places like this are always full?”

“Well, it’s the evening, maybe a school night—I never know what day it is anymore, and it’s the season of candy and skeletons. They probably have some haunted houses open that everybody is in line for. Or some more appropriately themed rides.”

“Ha-haunted houses?” Clawdia asked, clearly shaken.

“Haunted houses?!” Lavi asked, clearly excited. “Can we go in one of those?! Please?! That sounds awesome!”

“I guess we’re going in a haunted house after we roleplay pirates,” I said. When I saw Clawdia shaking at the thought of it, I said, “You can sit out and wait if you’re afrai—”

“I-I’m not afraid!” Clawdia shouted. “I can do it! I-I’ll show them that cats fear nothing!”

I couldn’t wait to see Clawdia get absolutely terrified during the haunted house.

But first came the swinging pirate ship.

The pirate ship actually ended up being slightly scary. Maybe it was because I hadn’t been on any theme park rides since I was a little kid, or maybe it was because I seriously felt like I was about to fall out of my seat despite knowing the seatbelt would protect me, but my heart ended up beating faster than I expected it to.

And that reminded me of something.

I was horrible at horror.

Even the spooky zone back in Vala’s universe was a bit borderline too much for me. If it wasn’t for how lighthearted and silly everything there was, I probably wouldn’t have been able to handle it.

Now I was in an amusement park full of employees dressed up in costumes who actually wanted to terrify us.

I wanted to tease Clawdia for being scared, but there was a high chance of me being the one who would get scared.

“That… was really fun,” Clawdia said. “I liked feeling the wind blow against me. Are there any other rides like that?”’

“What about that one?” Delphi asked, pointing at one of the rides in the distance.

The ride was a bit similar to the pirate ship, except it hosted two rows of riders in standing positions who were swung far higher into the air and taken almost upside down. The swing stopped just short of actually going all the way around. “That… looks really high,” Clawdia answered. “But I kind of want to try it. We… can we try it after everybody else has had a turn to pick something?”

Clawdia proved to be more adventurous than me since my stomach was already uneasy at the sight of the ride.

Was I always this much of a wimp in amusement parks? I thought to myself. Wait… now I remember.

The last time I was at a park like this was when my parents took me as a child. They had to pay me just to get me to ride a roller coaster with them, and I was crying the entire time I was in line with them.

I loved roller coasters after actually riding one, but I was still terrified of it all the way up until I went down my first hill on one.

They failed to pay me enough to convince me to ride anything else I was terrified of, though. Rides similar to the latest one that caught Clawdia’s interest included.

But…

If it meant going on rides that my girlfriends wanted to go on, I could do it. I could manage.

I would be brave.

But first was a haunted house. And thankfully, there was a tall sign sticking up from the ground that showed us a map of the park. It also showed the locations of three different buildings that were converted into haunted houses.

“Which one do you want to try?” I asked Lavi. “Looks like you get to choose between… The Gory Mansion of the Can—Can… Cannibal Doctor,” I gulped, “The Eldritch Horror Testing Facility, or The Smiling Clowns’ Murder Circus. Uh… these… they’re really going all out with the adult themes, aren’t they? Aren’t kids the main audience here?”

Looking around, there definitely was a majority of children, but none of them seemed bothered by anything. Even when one of the employees snuck up behind a group of kids with a fake chainsaw and revved it up, the kids screamed and ran away laughing rather than crying.

I would have been crying if I was their age.

“Muffin? You’re shaking,” Honey said.

“What? I’m fine,” I replied while forcing myself to hold back the shakes.

“Wait,” Clawdia said. “Is it possible… you’re more afraid of haunted houses than me?” A sly, catlike smile spread across her lips. I never saw her look that sadistic before. So much for her being a pure masochist.

“I’m not afraid. Lavi, choose one of the houses.” Please not the one with clowns. “We’ll go to whichever one you—”

“The Smiling Clowns’ Murder Circus!” Lavi announced.

Why’d you have to pick the one with clowns?! Clowns are already terrifying enough even when they’re not purposely trying to be scary! “A-a-alright. Murder circus it-it is.”

“Master?” Delphi asked with a concerned tone as she tugged on my sleeve. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”

There was no way I was going to back out. I had to be strong! I had to be brave! I had to protect them! If I was willing to punch children in the face, I had to be willing to punch adult clowns in the face, too!

“Muffin… your legs are shaking,” Honey said.

“It’s because a gust of cold wind blew on them,” I said.

“Nobody else felt it,” Clawdia said as she looked all smug.

“It was a hyper localized gust of wind that targeted me and me only.”

“It’s okay. You can always hide behind me if you get scared.”

“Aw-awfully bold of you. Are you sure that—that you aren’t going to be the one hiding behind me when they honk their noses at us?”

“Hmph. I don’t feel scared at all. Knowing that somebody is even more terrified than me puts the nerves at ease.”

I lowered my voice and said, “You know nothing, Clawdia. If you think you’re immune to their terror… just wait until you hear their noses honking in the dark.”

Clawdia took a step back and gulped. “A-as if such a pitiful thing would frighten me. Come! Let us see who the true scaredy-cat is!”

The challenge was on to see who was the bravest.

And I wasn’t confident in my odds.