"Remember," Samantha told Katie. "Make sure they actually eat. I'm not sure what their eating habits were before, but don't let them get too absorbed into their research to actually eat."

"Samantha acts like we can't hear her," Nathan muttered.

"I know for a fact you can hear me," she told him. "I just don't care. I'll believe you two take care of yourselves if Katie tells me you did."

Nathan rolled his eyes as he resumed checking his cards, Keith beside him doing the same. They were pulling items out of the storage cards, then moving them back inside. After that, they would stack the cards into various decks, slipping them into card boxes once the decks were full.

"I still don't get why she has to come along," Nathan muttered.

"Because," Samantha stared at him. "You want her to be a part of your harem, and you barely know her. If you tried to get to know her with me around, you and I both know that wouldn't happen."

"And you aren't worried I'm going to lose interest in you?"

"As if that would happen," Samantha rolled her eyes. "And you know it. You're head-over for me. We could probably be separated for centuries, and the first time you saw me after, you'd probably try to at least kiss me, if not outright get me in bed again."

"We're getting in bed again once you've recovered," Nathan muttered.

"Are you preparing to go into the game?" His father asked from the living room.

"Yes," Nathan answered. "Keith, done checking?"

"Yes," Keith answered. "Let's pack everything up."

They packed everything into their backpacks, then pulled them on.

"I've noticed," Alan said. "That you all wear backpacks, other than Samantha. I'm guessing you do, too, when not pregnant that heavily?"

"Yeah," Samantha answered. "During the Tutorial, we had them on us at all times. They contained supplies, and we were basically forced to keep them near us during it. Most of us don't feel safe without the packs, now."

"It has supplies in it," Nathan commented.

"What does it look like, when you go in?" Alan asked.

"Like this," Nathan answered, finding himself in the Fields of Choice, having already pulled up the menu and sent Keith and Katie the invites. "I didn't give Samantha a kiss."

Katie snorted as Keith laughed at Nathan's depressed expression.

"Don't worry," Keith put a hand on Nathan's back. "When you see her again, no time at all will have passed, and you can give her a kiss then."

"We have months until then," he sighed. "Hundred days or hundred-fifty?"

"I thought we could only go up to a hundred days?" Katie asked.

"We can?" Nathan frowned as he dropped several playing cards onto the ground. "Right, I did have that limitation when I was first playing around with it. I can set it up to two hundred days right now."

"Really?" She asked.

"Yeah."

"Do a hundred and fifty," Keith told Nathan.

"I want to get back to Samantha ASAP."

"You'll see her again in no time at all," Keith told him, and Nathan glared at him. "What? I can't make jokes?"

"Do you want the Ichtvar treatment?"

"What's that?" Katie asked.

"He strangled Ichtvar while holding him underwater," Keith said. "And that would kill me. Who else would be Cyrus's godfather, if it wasn't me?"

Nathan thought for a few moments.

"Luke's too young," he muttered. "Fine, hundred-fifty."

"Put it on Beginner," Keith said, then noticed Nathan's pause. "Katie's fighting a few monsters, remember?"

"…I know that," Nathan said quickly.

Keith rolled his eyes, then confirmed the setup. Katie did a moment later, and the trio found themselves in the cafeteria of the neutral instance. Immediately, Nathan and Keith got to work setting up the protective runes and their living space, the two of them ignoring Katie's presence until they were finished setting up.

"I can see why Samantha wanted me to be here," Katie told them. "You two… just got into that. I didn't even know what to do. And what are those runes for?"

"They're multi-purpose," Keith told her. "And we didn't 'just get into that', we always set that up first, then do other things. Nathan, there are only two beds."

"Yeah," Nathan pointed at one. "For you," he pointed at the other. "For me and Katie."

"Don't just assume she'll want to sleep with you every night."

"Should I set up a third?" Nathan looked at Katie.

"It's fine," she told him.

"Okay," Nathan made his way to the kitchen.

"Is there… anything I should be aware of?" Katie asked Keith. "Regarding Nathan, I mean. I do like him, from what I've seen of him so far."

"How did you two end up getting together?" Keith asked. "You seem… a lot more passive than the girls he usually goes for."

"I do?" She asked. "He's been with girls other than Samantha?"

"He had a hookup with one of four or five women before the Tutorial," Keith told her. "And none of them were as-as passive as you. Sorry if that offends. I'm honestly surprised you actually managed to survive the Tutorial, actually."

"I shouldn't have," she sat at one of the tables, sighing. "I didn't even fight the dragon – I just stared at it, frozen up in terror. I'm only even Level 53, you know."

"How did you make it through?" Keith asked.

"Luck," she shrugged. "And others. I suppose I survived the dragon without fighting because there were only a few others who survived. Everyone else died against it, so I guess that there was an open slot. I know there's a maximum of ten allowed."

"And the rest of the game?" Keith asked.

"Luck," she answered. "I had… a team. Four guys and another gal. They basically protected me up until the end. Worked with me whenever they could until a little before the Final Challenge."

"And then they abandoned you?" Keith asked.

"No," she snorted. "They raped me. I'm just grateful the System waited until after they finished to blow them up. I don't know how I'd have dealt with it if the guys physically exploded in me instead of sexually. It was the other girl in the group who started it, too. She encouraged it, egging them on. She led the whole thing, and the four of them got into it. It was… awful. And part of my nightmares. Getting into Nathan's bed at the hotel when we met took a lot for me, and I was kind of grateful he just wanted to snuggle. There was something just relaxing and enticing about him, though I think that might have come from his Charisma and being the son of a god of sex."

"He did?" Keith asked. "Nathan, the Master of Horndogs, just wanted to snuggle?"

They heard crashing from the kitchen, and looked in there to find Nathan acting innocent.

"We know you can hear us," Keith said.

"I wasn't listening," Nathan said. "Icthvar was making inappropriate comments."

The demigod unbuttoned his shirt and moved his tie to the side so that his familiars could pull out, and the two of them flew off into the hall. Keith lifted up his shirt so that his own familiar could do the same, and it chased after them.

"They'll keep the halls clear," Keith explained to a confused Katie. "If you go to fight something, we'll have them leave some. The more monsters that are cleared, though, the better and more food we get on the supply days. Those are every fifth day we're in here."

Keith closed his eyes to prevent her from noticing they were glowing as he focused his psychic power, opening up the mental connection he had grown familiar with, having practiced his telepathy many times with Nathan during their last three Survival Challenges.

"I know you were listening, and I know that wasn't because of my comment."

He sensed Nathan's annoyance, but could tell it was directed at something other than him. The answer came immediately after that, even without Nathan intending for the psychic to notice.

"You're pissed about them raping her," Keith said.

"Rape isn't something anyone should do, man or woman," the psychic could feel Nathan's concentration as he focused on the words he wanted heard over his pure thoughts. "Her old team was full of assholes and a bitch. No matter how much I want sex, they aren't having it unless they want it. I've got a fucking hand. If their souls weren't ripped into that dimension to power the System, I'd track down a necromancer as soon as we were out of here and force them to pull their souls out of purgatory so that I could punish them for it."

Keith almost asked Nathan what that punishment would be, but decided against it. Knowing Nathan, it wouldn't be pleasant, especially if he considered his own punishment to be worse than what they were currently going through.

"Why did you just sleep, that night?" Keith asked. "I'd have expected you to try to do something."

"I could tell she wasn't in the mood for it," Nathan told him. "And I was exhausted, too. I'd just contracted with Ichtvar, and it made me pretty sleepy. If she were in the mood for it, Maybe I'd have tried. Now shut up, it's hard to focus with you in my head like this."

Keith suddenly found himself seeing the nude memories Nathan had of a few of his past friends-with-benefits, and pulled out. He knew the demigod brought those memories up on purpose, as it happened whenever Nathan got irritated for having his concentration pulled away for a mental conversation. When Keith asked Nathan how those women would feel about their naked bodies being shared with him, Nathan responded that each of them had told him they didn't mind if he shared nudes of them with a trusted friend.

The demigod didn't use the word 'friend', but Keith was able to figure that part out on his own. They were all people who seemed to know Nathan pretty well for one reason or another, which meant they all probably really had no issue with Nathan doing that. If Nathan actually saw someone as a trusted friend, then that person was probably pretty trustworthy.

"Alright," Keith looked at Katie. "Sorry, my familiar went on for a bit. Now, you asked if there's anything you should know? Nathan didn't turn on the Optional Challenges for this run, but he might for the next. At the latest, the third. You'll still be killing monsters, though, but under supervision of one of us. In addition to that, you'll be training with us hopefully every time we train. I help Nathan with learning magic, while he helps me with learning martial arts and other weapons.

"Our goal," Keith said. "With our training with you, is to get you more up-to-par, even more so now that we know you are way behind. As far as we knew, I was the only person under Level 100 to survive the Tutorials, and that was because of my raw magical power. The only reason I ranked under Nathan was because of both his fifteen years of martial arts and combat training and my helping others who needed it, which delayed me."

"Alright," she said. "Thanks. I'll do my best to make sure you two actually eat, too-"

"Don't bother," Keith snorted. "Nathan never forgets a meal, as much as Samantha might worry over that. He might have a hyperfocus on things, but food comes first. Oh, but don't mind his attitude in the mornings, he's not a morning person. If he sleeps until eleven, he's usually decent upon waking. Otherwise, he's rather cranky."

"I'll show you cranky," Keith heard Nathan mutter.

"You already have," Keith snorted, then chuckled at Katie's confused look. "You've been explained to about awakening magic awakening senses, right?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Nathan's listening to our conversation," Keith told her. "And he's given some commentary on it, especially when I called him cranky. I was just responding to it."

"So then he knows-" her face flushed.

"There's a good chance he already knew."

"I did," Nathan responded, loudly enough for Katie to hear.

Katie stood and walked to the kitchen, Keith pulled her back out as soon as she entered, keeping her at its entrance.

"Kitchen rules," Keith said. "Unless you're helping cook, you don't enter."

"Oh," she said. "Is that a Nathan-rule?"

"It's a courtesy rule," Keith told her. "Nathan, what the fuck are you making?"

Nathan looked at his work, then at Keith.

"I brought some fresh ingredients with us so that we didn't have to wait until Day 5," Nathan told him. "I have ice cream going in the machine, chicken breasts cooking on the-"

"No," Keith said. "I meant that."

He pointed at the thing directly in front of Nathan, which looked like a chocolate tower the demigod was working on.

"Ichtvar annoyed me, so I'm using his chocolate to make a tower."

"He'll probably eat it anyway, you know."

"I know," Nathan said. "That's why I coated the insides in hot sauce."

Keith rolled his eyes.

"Nathan," Katie said. "How did you… how did you know? I didn't tell anyone."

"Ichtvar says it's a sense I have because of my sex-god father," Nathan answered. "I can tell how long ago someone had sex, and whether or not it was consensual. It was extremely faint with you, and I only realized it later, after Ichtvar told me about being the son of a sex god and that I had a few inherent traits. Then I thought back to a feeling I had about you, a very faint feeling, and realized that was that ability, though still weak. It only really worked when we were physically close or touching, but I can tell from a little further away, after training my magic some. So I've known since sometime while Keith and I were in our runs."

"And you didn't say anything?" She asked.

"And ruin the chances of getting to sleep with a beautiful woman like you?"

"…I'm not sure if I should be disgusted or happy."

"That was a compliment."

"I see."

"We need to work on your compliments."

"Fuck you."

"Please?"

"Fuck off."

"What he means," Keith told Katie. "Is that he didn't bring it up because he felt it was your place to do that, not his, and that if he pried, it might decrease your attachment to and interest in him. Nathan does see you as a pretty face, but he also sees past that, too. Otherwise, he'd probably have had sex with a lot more people than he has. Nathan's father's not just a god of sex, but of love as well, so there's always some actual attraction and desire when he's interested in someone sexually, even if he has a bad way of showing it for anyone but Samantha."

"You don't know that."

"I'm going to trust Ichtvar on this," Keith told him. "And Master Torzin, who I spoke to about you being the son of a sex god after you went to bed yesterday, and he told me this as well."

"Go away, I'm cooking."

"He doesn't like it when I'm right about stuff like this," Keith told Katie. "Come on, let's have you meditate some while we're waiting. It can take a few days to a few months to succeed in your awakening safely."

Or if you're one of Nathan's team, like Michael, William, and Samantha, he thought to himself. You'll succeed absurdly fast. Just like Nathan.