Opening my eyes as the crushing, gnawing, reality that I couldn’t escape settled in once again, I screamed, raged, threw everything I had out the window, and slumped down to my knees in front opening, sobbing as I stared out towards the rising black moon.

“Why? Why won’t you let me die? Why won’t you let me save him? One day! Just give me one more day.. All I need is one more day! But why? Why? Why this cruel joke? No matter how fast I run, no matter how hard I try, I’m too late.. Just a little too late..”

Taking a breath as the tears refused to stop, I stood up on shaking legs, and climbed onto the window sill. Staring out into the ravaged ruin that was once a city of beauty, a mockery as perverse as the repetition I had found myself trapped in, I leapt forward into the air, in the fleeting hope that this time, it might stick.

Snapping awake, I fell backwards onto the luggage I had previously thrown out the window, as phantom pain flickered through my body for an instant, and was gone. Looking down at the painfully familiar burnt hair, ragged and torn clothing, and scabbed wounds, I laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And cried.

Slamming my fists against the ground until the white blood began leaking from beneath my skin, in an act of futility, I gave up. Just blankly staring at the white blood dripping from my hands as I whimpered, and murmured to myself.

“A little more time.. All I need is a little more time, and everything would be alright. But I’m out of time.. I’m out of time.. A cruel joke, isn’t it, Tae? You’ve got all the time there is in the world, a literal eternity to try and try again, but all you’d need to make everything right for yourself is a little more time..

What can a girl do when she’s tired of living but can neither fix anything or quit no matter how hard she tries? Somebody, anybody.. Please. Do something. Help me.”

Walking across the cracked and splintered concrete, amid the blackened, twisted, and burnt spires of the city, beneath the milky white skies of the night, the distant, yet so very near, black moon shone its dim, dark, gaze down from above, reflecting the eerie malevolence of the unseen stars in its harsh, hateful glare.

As the brief bliss of euphoric pleasure brought on by the mix of drugs looted from a pharmacy began to fade, and the gnawing emptiness inside of me started to return, I crawled back into the comforting safety of the remaining wreckage of what had once been a gas station’s mini mart. Sighing and shaking my head, I looked out from my refuge at the shattered wreck of what was once a city that seemed to stretch on forever into the distance.

“..Tae, really, what’re you going to do with yourself? You’ve gone completely off the deep end, you know? You’re totally unhinged, and barely even yourself anymore. And the drugs.. They, they hardly even do anything for you now. Though I suppose that’s to be expected. You’ve.. I’ve been broken for a while now. Live, die, and repeat it all over again. And again. And again. And again, and again, and again.

It’s really no wonder everyone is going crazy, myself included. Some people don’t stay dead, some people don’t come back. Repetition. Dying and living through the same days over and over again, and it just won’t end. Can’t escape, can’t save anyone, people become monsters, monsters become people again. I don’t even know how much longer I can hold myself together. Everything just blurs together, nothing is ever the same but nothing ever changes.

How many years has it been since I’ve seen the sun? How many lives have I lived? Back and forth between the black and the pale, again and again, like a bad dream that just won’t end.. I want to give up.. I really do. But I promised him, didn’t I? I’ll live, I won’t give up, I’ll find a way out of here.. No matter what it takes.”

Curling up in a fetal position for fleeting warmth, I hugged my legs close, and stared out at the endless ruin from the cold comfort of my sorry excuse for shelter.

“Funny, isn’t it, Tae? Berkeley was just that little insignificant city nobody really cared about. But look at it now, just look at it. How many dozens of times did you just try to, run, run until you made it out? Only to find that the distant horizon outside the city never got any closer.. Running through the same city, different enough to deceive, but the same, continuing onwards. Forever. But I never managed to make it out.. Or live until Berkeley begins all over again.”

Pausing for a moment as hope flickered through my heart for a moment, I shook my head as it was snuffed out by the crushing emptiness.

“Maybe I should try and make that a goal for sometime.. Live until it starts over. Maybe I’ll find a way out. Maybe, just maybe, if I can find that, there’ll be a way.. Maybe.. Probably not. But it’s worth a try, isn’t it? You’ve got nothing better to do after all.. Maybe next time.”

Popping the bottle of pills open again as I settled back into the vice that spiraled further out of control, I waited for the feelings of a blissful, fuzzy, haze of forgetfulness to come over me.

Wrapping my legs around the man on top of me, clenching them tight around his waist, looking up at him over my shoulder, savoring the sensation of fullness, the impact as his hips met mine with a resounding clap, the fleeting moments in which I indulged in blissful haze brought on by a cocktail of drugs and further fueled by lusty sex.

Breathing his name in adoration under pale moon’s brilliant light, I dug my fingers tighter into the bedding, as words of passion I couldn’t remember spilled from my lips, in the throes of ecstasy and pleasure, as our hips met again in delirious lovemaking.

Waking once again, in a familiar wreckage of an apartment building, surrounded by the same belongings, as the feelings of grief, agony, loss, pouring out of my broken heart threatened to overwhelm me again, the realization finally dawned on me, amid the craving for the escape from the pain, the loss, and grief I had found in the drugs, the passion, sex with the most recent man to have claimed my body.

“No wonder.. No fucking wonder. For all this time, Tae, you’ve been trying to escape from it. From the pain, the loss, the grief.. No matter how hard you tried to find closure, no matter how far I degraded myself, no matter how far you fell.. Alcohol, suicide, pain, the drugs, the sex, nothing ever lasted, nothing could ever fill the void..

Everything in Berkeley repeats itself, returning to the same time, where everything after that has been done is undone, as if the past is erasing the future.. Broken bones, blindness, deafness, torn muscles, any and all injuries, pregnancy, burns, scars, chemicals, metals, everything that has changed is undone, and only memories of it remain..

But for how long do they remain? Memories change and fade. So like everything else, they’re eventually erased too.. How many times have I forgotten this? And.. The worst and most terrible of them all.. By far. Feelings.. Feelings are a thing that changes too. So of course.. If the past is erasing the future, ”

As the knowledge of my discovery set in, a new feeling of horror crawled into me, unlike anything I could remember feeling before, and more terrible than anything I could have possibly imagined. Sitting down as my head spun at the thought, I leaned back against the wall.

“I need to get out of here.. Before I break any further. I’m already such a mess.. I’ve already been going crazy for a long time, but now.. Now I know. But how? How do I get out? Maybe.. Maybe if I manage to reach the ending point, when everything starts to turn back, I’ll find a way. Or a clue.”

Staring into the shining expanse with awe, a luminous void, illuminating the dim, burnt out husk of a city with its scintillating unearthly light, peeling away the black moon, the skies, and stars, descended, bearing down upon the world with a clap of thunder that shook the endless city.

Reaching out, as it reached for me, in that instant, I could finally hear it. Calling for me still. The familiar, unfamiliar voice, whispering my name across the oceans of eternity. Amid the crushing weight of endless time embracing me. In an instant, a the fleeting moment seemed to drag on forever, everything crumbled apart, dissolving into the blissful nothing of the void as- And then, before I knew it, I was standing in an burnt out apartment, surrounded by familiar baggage, in the dim, dark ruins.

Staring, at the sky, beyond words, for a long, long time, as the beautiful, terrifying, awe of what I had witnessed haunted me with its glory, numbed me to the returning grief. Dropping my gaze away from the now pale moon, I blinked, raised my hands to rub my eyes.

Trembling as the monstrous cadaver in the husk of what was once a person forced me to the ground, I desperately tried to kick it away, which only seemed to amuse the creature further. Screaming, as the creature licked its thin lips with a long, bluish appendage that snaked out from its elongated, cavernous maw full of jagged, crooked fangs, the horror laughed, and spoke with a terrifyingly ordinary voice.

“Scream as much as you like, darlin’. Nobody is coming to save you. They saw your blood. Disfigured as we might be by the Blue, we still bleed red, we’re real humans. And humans stick together, you know? But White blood? A real human don’t bleed no White Blood. Don’t matter how harmless you look, we aren’t idiots. White blood means you ain’t human. And if you ain’t human.. It don’t matter what happens to you, now does it?”

Reaching down, the thing began tearing away my clothing, its drooling maw distorting into a rictus grin of predatory glee, its appearance befitting the nightmare we were trapped in.

“Pretty little thing, aren’t you? And a feisty one, too. Which is good, ‘cause I like em feisty. It’s a lot more fun to break in one with some backbone than it is to toy with a dead fish.. And it’s too late for you to pretend to be anything else, darlin’ Oh, we are going to have such fun together, won’t we?”

Gripping me tightly by my throat and right arm from above with its upper clawed hands, the monster on top of me trailed its lower pair of arms down to my rear, and I winced as I felt the claws scratching my skin while tearing my last semblance of modesty away, accompanied by the creature’s sickening laughter.

“You really won’t be needing this for what we’ll be doing, girlie, not one bit of it. But do struggle, it makes it all the more fun.. And maybe, just maybe, if you can struggle free, I’ll let you go.”

Bending as far as I could manage, I tried to shove the creature off of me, only to get a harsh, mocking laugh in return as its lower hands gripped my thighs, and forced my legs wide apart.

“It was really a good decision for you to come looking for a good taste of real human company, girlie. There’s nothing like it. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll enjoy it so much, that a little bitch like you will be coming looking for me just so you can experience a taste of humanity all over again in the next loop?”

Wiggling my rear until I found a comfortable spot on heaving the torso of the monster, I stared down at the struggling, crippled beast, and smiled sweetly, while waving two of its plucked arms in front of it to see.

“You really had your fun with me the last time we met, didn’t you? But guess what, jackass. A couple dozen loops isn’t enough for me to forget all the wonderful time we spent together. I’m back for a taste of that humanity, just like you suggested. Not that I think there’s any left in you. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, see this arm of yours? I’ll give it a try, and let you know.”

Setting down the arms to the side, I picked up the long, amputated tongue, still stuck on the spit, and toasty warm from its time in the fire, and bit into it. Savoring enjoying the view as the creature watched in horror, I tore off a chunk, and chewed for a long minute, before spitting out.

“You know, despite having the red blood and all that, you certainly doesn’t taste like a fucking human. And as you gave me a very valuable lesson about how nobody cares about what happens to things that aren’t human, I feel like I should reciprocate and give you a lesson on how nobody gives a damn about what happens to things that pretend they’re human, right?

But like you said before, I’m a good little breedable bitch, who’s body exists only to entertain her betters.. Humans like you. So let me show you how I’ll entertain my dear, kind, master, hmm?”

Dragging out my words, as I cut away the remainder of the creature’s pants, and began to strip off my clothing. Neatly stacking my garments away from my little fire, I sat back down on the creature’s torso, and made myself comfortable.

Reaching down to gently caress between the monsters legs, I watched as confusion flickered through its eyes as it tried to say something. Scooting my rear down until my bare hips were resting on the creature’s pelvis, I licked my lips, giving it my best, sweetest smile.

Turning around, to give it a nicer view of the body it had once enjoyed, wiggling my hips my in emphasis as I continued stroking between its legs with one hand. Gently placing my knife’s long blade into the fire to warm up, I turned my head, to give the monster a sultry look over my shoulder while whispering.

“Just look at it, you got to enjoy this beautiful ass a lot the other loop. Not just how looks, but also how it feels and how it sounds when you spank it, the warmth inside this girl as you battered her womb, the pleasure of slamming your hips into mine as you pleased.. But we’re not nearly done, right? We’re going to have so much more fun together, you and I, aren’t we?”

Licking my bloodied lips, as I gouged out my left eye, ignoring the pain and the blood leaking from the new gap in my body, I plopped the freed orb into my mouth, and swallowed it whole. With a smile, I looked out at the endless repeating city that stretched on into the horizon for all eternity with my remaining eye, and began to sing as I reached up for my right eye.

“Under sickly black moon’s light, white skies split by twisted spires, my god, it’s crushing me, tearing my heart open, I’m so tired.. The voices sing, but louder now, songs I cannot remember. Crumpled up, and thrown away, ripped to shreds, I watch the world go by, I’ve found my way, but who will save me from myself?”

Biting down on my lip, I dug my fingers into my right eye, and gouged it out as well, before swallowing the second bloodied orb. Shuddering and arching my back as I felt the changes happening in my body, a breathy moan leaked out from my lips as my heart began to thrum.

“I snap awake, the same day, the familiar pain, a broken world, without you by my side. My god, it’s crushing me, tearing my heart open, I’m so tired. Once again, I’m all alone, my mind gone, I’ve found my way, but who will save me from myself?”

Leaning backwards as the White within me began to burn like magma flowing in my veins, I fell back, as the world around me came apart in a clap of thunder.

The next thing I knew, I found myself back in the same building I always woke up in, staring down at the cold body of my beloved, who’s head remained cradled on my lap, sobbing. Looking out the window, at the real Berkeley, with rivers of rubble and ruin endlessly rising from the floating remains of shattered buildings to vanish into the relatively normal night skies, arcing lightning, the distant fires, I almost laughed.

Bending over, slowly, I caressed my love’s still, lifeless face, and leaned down, kissing him, then his forehead, and I said my final farewells, as my skin began to crack from the fires within, smoke began to leak from my wounds, partially obscuring my view.

“I’ve grieved for an eternity because of you, you bastard, how could you just leave me like this? It’s not fair.. It’s so not fair. But it’s okay, I’m a pretty tough girl, you know? I endured.. I endured so much.. All this time, all I really wanted was to just see you again. See your stupid, goofy, smile one more time.. Oh, well. As ol’ Taizou always said, if life were fair, you wouldn’t be rich.. I’ll be alright though, Misha. I’ll be seeing you again soon, anyway. While we couldn’t be together long in life.. Being buried together in the same grave wouldn’t be so bad, right, Misha?

Mom, dad, I’m sorry. I’m really going to disappoint you.. I won’t be able to keep our promise. The wedding is canceled, y’know? I’ve been a pretty terrible daughter this whole time, haven’t I? ..Still, I wish you guys best of luck with the colony.. Dana, thank you for all your companionship for all this time, you’ve been the best friend a girl could ask for. Taizou.. I’m going to have to let you down as well, I guess I’m just not cut out to be your chosen heiress.

And Misha.. There’s so many things I want to say to you. But I’m running out of time, and you can’t hear me anyway. If.. If you can still love a girl as broken and corrupted as me, I’d be so happy.. So happy.. But our time is up, my love.. Sweet dreams.”

Grabbing my knife off my belt as the voices grew louder and nearer, with shaking hands and failing muscles, I began to carve my epitaph into the floor, as the feeling of searing heat flowing through my body faded, replaced with a icy cold, and somewhat scary, numbness as I began to lose all sensation.

“Friends die, lovers die, so too, must I die. Though, I know one thing that never dies, the memory of fame well earned.. Friends die, lovers die, so too must I die. I know one, that will never-”

Holding myself upright by force of will as my body began to give out, the knife slipped from my fingers, as they refused to maintain my grip. Weakly chuckling to myself, I looked up as the moon seemed to draw near, so very near.

Waking, screaming in the darkness, as the first memory I could truly call my own, pain, tore through every part of me, and I began writhing against the restraints, as my body burned, tore, and was cut away. Dim, distant, familiar voices spoke, words not meant for me, but I clung to the sounds I could hear desperately.

“-emoval procedure is failing, her condition is becoming more unstable- -nomaly is the only thing keeping her alive in her sta- It’s reacting with her brain, forming tumo- -evere brain damage and rapid neurological decay, Taizou, Tae’s irrecovera- Can only recommend eutha- -ease her sufferi-”

Shaking my head and clapping my cheeks with my hands to try and banish the fragmented memories of my predecessor and my first days of life, varying from merely strange to beyond horrible that threatened to pour out, so I could focus on the present, I gave Erin a weak smile, and shook out my tails, taking a deep breath before continuing speaking.

“As I was saying, Erin, the place I saw there.. Berkeley, is a.. Very broken place, for lack of better words for it. The city was broken. The world itself was broken. And the people were also broken. Everything was broken there. Everything.”

‘Including myself.. Or rather, the other me. It broke her so badly that the little of what was left of Tae ended up becoming me.. And it’s also better not to think about that aspect. Same with the whole conundrum of my being a persona that could be counted as technically four years old.. That was born in the body of an impossibly old dead person with most of her memories through some bizarre esoteric space time anomaly in which a dead person somehow came back to life as someone else.

And may, or may not, possibly be some kind of incomprehensible alien entity that merged with a corpse and thinks she’s human, or at least, thinks she was human, because nobody knows what the fuck the Nine Mutagenic Colors are or do besides being mutagenic and possibly some form of alien life, and now definitely isn’t human due to stupid circumstances that feel like some kind of bizarre conspiracy to fulfill some kind of bizarre fetish, but is actually apparently also somehow related to my other self’s traumatic experience in a nightmarish time loop that eventually killed her after forcing her to endure a ridiculously long time spent in utter agony and grief. Existential crisis, questionable morality, and the biggest damn headache I’ve ever had thinking about something wrapped up in a single package, hooray!’

Pausing my internal rant long enough to put some semblance of order back into my train of thought, I flicked my ears back and forth, taking a deep breath as I did, and then continued speaking as I tried to not think too deeply about the rabbit hole I was finding myself farther and farther down inside.

“Now, before I start having a mental breakdown due to sudden existential crisis due to my own stupidity of thinking about something that I really shouldn’t have even though I know I shouldn’t think about it, Erin, the important thing isn’t that I looked into the luminous void of eternity because of weird elven gem magic.

The important part is that I saw, The Big Black Tower, Helvegen, or whatever you want to call it, reaching across that void, to a seriously bad place, Berkeley, and a monster, which you were able to recognize as having been one of several types of monster from this side just by my describing it, ate my window and invaded my kitchen the other day. And I live half a fucking continent away from Berkeley. And that’s concerning as hell.”

‘And the worst part of all of this is that Berkeley, and whatever the hell that void it’s connected to is, being involved somehow reminds me of how fucking shit my and Tae’s damn luck is. Sure, some people died from Nuclear Sandwiches, and all kinds of random bullcrap due to physics breaking down, but there was the fucking lucksacks both inside and outside of Berkeley’s Ground Zero that obtained actual goddamn super powers. All I got out of it was a very bad time, a psychiatrist’s prescription for a shit ton of different drugs, and years of therapy just so I could be a somewhat functional person. It’s really not fucking fair.’

“..The Ginnungagap, huh. Aye, a bit of caution regarding it is quite the fair reason for ye to be concerned about what happened.. And while I don’t know much about it, never cared to learn much about it, ye see, there is someone of a somewhat more.. Scholarly nature, that ye may be interested in speaking to.”

“I’m not sure if I like that there’s a pause right there before you said scholarly, but alright, you don’t have to convince me about it, lead the way, Erin, let’s go, we’ve got stairs to climb!”

Wagging my tails cheerfully as a touch of excitement crept through me, I wrapped my right arm around the titan’s left, holding it against my chest while raising my other hand in a fist pump.

‘Well, well, Arata, it’s time for a moment of truth. Opportunity has come, and it waits for no man, woman, or child.. If they actually know more about that void.. Ginnungagap, as he called it, than we do, I might just happen to learn something very, very, valuable..’

Smiling as we began our ascent, a tingly feeling, equal parts arousal, excitement, and the curious, instinctual feeling, that I had found for myself an opportunity possibly unlike any other, crept into my abdomen, racing up and down my spine. Clinging tighter to the titan’s arm, I pressed it a little harder against my breast, and winked up at him, and with a flick of my ears, wiggled my eyebrows suggestively as he looked down at me.

“..There something else ye’re planning to be climbing as well, lass?”

Letting my grin widen, I slowly licked my lips, and slightly narrowed my eyes while looking up, and pressed myself snugly against his arm. With a little extra sway in my step, I coiled my fingers around his forearm, holding tightly as I replied.

“Maaaybe. Just maybe, I might just be thinking a little bit about climbing something else.. But if there is, on the off chance that there is, if there is that something else that I’m thinking about climbing, Erin, would you perhaps have any objections to my doing that?”

“Nay, Arata, I say nay. Ye won’t hear any objections from me.”

With a giggle at the titan’s quick reply, I let my tails wag freely, enjoying the moment, while the tingly feeling in my abdomen took root, and the mild arousal I was feeling began blooming into fullness, as I climbed the stairs together alongside the titan.

‘Guess I can’t really deny being lewd next time Taizou or Mika start teasing about it, but oh well. I hadn’t quite realized before, but I might just have a thing for muscles.. Or maybe it’s the size difference. Or both. Or maybe I’m just really fucking horny after getting cock blocked repeatedly.

Regardless, with how big Erin is.. I wonder how big he is below the belt. He’s like, almost twice my size, and if he’s proportionately bigger down there as well.. It’d probably still fit. Probably. But I’d definitely experience the seven stages of big dick. Not a bad thing, not at all, that.’

Immersed in my own happy little bubble, I began humming as I walked up the stairs with the titan, hand in hand, until we arrived in front of the doorway. Taking a moment to admire the two nasty and strangely beautiful eight legged gargoyles on both sides of the banded wooden double doors, and the strange mix of features that made them look like hybrids born out of an orgy involving a crocodile, a spider, and a centaur, which would have been intimidating to look at, if they hadn’t only reached up to my waist.

Crouching down to admire the sleek, lifelike, and almost sensual curves of the monstrous beauty of a carving, I reached out, and ran a hand over the statue’s snout, and froze in place, as it recoiled and reached up to cover its face shyly, its face visibly darkening in a blush, as the other one spoke in a low, and surprisingly feminine, tone.

“Hail, great one, blessings of the Keeper of the Dead be upon you.. Forgive the impudence of us lowly guardians, oh Daughter of Vana, but I ask of you, for what purpose have you come to our hold? It is not simply to molest my sister, I hope?”

“..Uhhm, I’m sorry? It really wasn’t intentional, the two of you were so still and honestly seemed like really well made statues, so I didn’t think you were actually people? As for my purpose.. Uh, I guess, I’m here to see if I can learn some new stuff?”

Standing up, I hesitantly glanced towards Erin for guidance, who shrugged, as the crocospidertaurgoyle turned, stepped down from its small pedestal and pushed open the massive double doors with slightly unnerving ease.

“Your answer was.. Acceptable, you may enter the hold without our complaint. Now, come, daughter of Vana, allow me to fulfill my duty. Allow me to fulfill my purpose.”

Ears twitching in equal parts confusion and embarrassment as I stepped through the doorway, I found myself in a what felt like the strange mix of a train station, an excessively large cafeteria, and a hotel’s lobby, complete with couches, chairs, tables, and what looked like a large and crowded rowdy bar next to a series of stairways on the opposite side.

‘Thank god I didn’t touch somewhere else, the last thing I need in my life is to have weird gargoyle people complaining about me sexually harassing them to whoever’s the manager in charge.. God, that’d embarrassing beyond belief.’

Breathing a sigh of relief as I heard the doors shut behind Erin, I turned around to face the titan, blurting out the first question on my mind while clasping my hands together over my breasts.

“Y’know, Erin, maybe I’m just terribly biased and insensitive, but I had thought that gargoyles were well.. Monsters, and not people. They’re pretty scary looking too, and kind of weird, but they seem kinda nice given that it was still pretty polite despite my booping the snoot having apparently been really rude?”

“I’d ask what’ve ye been smoking, Arata, but neither of us had a chance for any of that. And just so ye know, they’re not people. They’re golems. Monsters made by people. Everything they can do is something they were made to be able to do. Even acting pissy with ye.”

Pausing for a long moment as I let the words sink in, a feeling of curiosity crept up my back, and was almost immediately extinguished as the titan continued speaking.

“But before ye start getting ideas, making golems is the most difficult and insane kind of profession ya could possibly take up. The only one more insane than joining the Adventurer’s Guild. Trying to recreate monsters that’ll tear ye limb from limb while trying to figure out, by trying and dying over and over in a thousand different ways, what ye can add or remove to try and make it less murderous and more controllable is.. Well, insane. Or a hardcore masochist..

Speaking of which, if ya ever do buy a golem for some purpose, don’t ever buy a golem from Xi Xiaohua, or any golems that’ve been branded with a white lotus flower, if ya’d like to have a social life. While most people that aren’t orcs are quite open minded.. Voluntary monster fucking is heavily frowned upon in most places.”

‘Wait, what the fuck does a random person or a white lotus have to do with fucking a monster? How does that even correlate? Is there some kind of not so secret society of perverts that uses white lotuses as a symbol to represent the fact that they fuck monsters? Also, did you really have to make that distinction? Is there rape monsters as well?’

Blinking, as I felt almost like a massive question mark was hanging over my head in the air, the titan gently took my hand, and gestured with his other. Stepping forward in a hurry as the titan began to walk towards the bar, I glanced around, letting my eyes linger on a small, and empty stage in the corner for a moment.

“Erin, I’ve got a lot of questions, some of them I feel like I shouldn’t even ask.. Anyway, who is the scholarly person you were saying that I should speak to? How do I find them? ..And also, just asking out of curiosity, do you need special permission to go up onto the little stage and sing?”

“Carmine, Arata, that’s her name. She’s an odd.. Well, not an odd bird, given that she’s a Halven and not a Harpy, but ye get the idea. Also a pretty damned cute scholar, unfortunately, she caught the Adventurer Disease, so it’s tad awkward to talk to her at times.. Make sure ye don’t catch it from her, alright? Questing is a very terrible disease, that causes people to have a nigh uncontrollable urge to break into people’s homes and wreck their pottery.”

Raising an eyebrow very high, my ears twitched, as I stared at the titan’s deadpan expression, trying to figure out whether he was teasing me or genuinely serious.

“As for going up on the stage to sing, Arata.. Well, ye can, but ye might not want to. That stage is not actually for musi-”

“No way, Tiatia, you were actually telling the truth? Erin of all people managed to bring a girl back? Seriously? That’s unbelievable! Are you sure it’s really him, and not just a mimic that ate him? I can’t believe my forever alone childhood friend could actually bring home a cute girl!”

Turning to look at the source of the voice speaking in a sing song tone, I blinked at the sight of the smuggest looking woman I had ever seen, who was holding something that looked like the bastard child of a pumpkin and a coconut, with a bamboo straw sticking out of the top, in her hands, carrying a halberd on her back, with vibrant crimson hair, partially wearing a black cloak, over a black coat, over an odd breastplate that emphasized her bust while leaving her abdomen, which was barely covered by a sheer and tight fitting bodysuit, entirely exposed.

‘Oh, my god. Someone that looks like they’re actually some kind of an protagonisty character straight out of a shounen anime’s live action adaption that’s apparently also Erin’s childhood friend just showed up out of nowhere.. Either something ridiculous is about to happen, or everything is about to go to absolute shit.. And of course I have no fucking idea which of the two it might be.’

Feeling my face and ears twitching as my mind started going blank, I let my gaze trail down the girl’s body, to the sight of a short, pleated black skirt, that barely looked decent with the large scaly tail of the same crimson as her hair visibly lifting up the back of it, with black garter belts and stockings, accompanied with black high heeled boots, completing the outfit that entirely defeated the concept of armor.

“Speak of a devil and ye can be damned sure she shall appear.. Arata, this pain in the arse troublemaker of a lizard is Carmine, an old friend who went mentally ill at some point and became an Adventurer, which is only really different from a bandit in that an Adventurer has a license, and this is Tia, Carmine’s money grubbing Adventurer companion with a heart of gold that she totally didn’t steal from somewhere.”

“..Uhm, it’s a pleasure to meet you girls?”

Letting my eyes wander back and forth from one girl to another as I tried not to think too deeply about the implications of what Erin said, I felt somewhat relieved that aside from an absolutely deadpan expression and a needlessly oversized book, the second lizardgirl looked relatively normal. And then my barely functional train of thought utterly derailed and came to a crashing halt faster than a train being hijacked by a heavily armed gang of drunken emus that were high on cocaine as the titan continued speaking.

“Carmine, Tia, this is Arata, and while she may look to ye like an ordinary lass of the Nadhir, she’s actually an odd but adorable goddess from the outside. To who’s derriere I may or may not be legally obligated, by the misbegotten laws of the Treaty of The Thirteen Holy Tea Cups and the Forbidden Hat of Undying Queen Elizabeth the Fifth, to worship as chief priest or whatever she’d like to call the leader and legal representative of her faithful, due to being the first person to witness her divinity as is provable by Geass in a court of law.”

Reaching up to feel at the sides of my head to confirm that I wasn’t simply delusional and that my brains hadn’t started leaking out of where my human ears had been, I looked back and forth between the two girls, who looked as dumbfounded as I felt, and Erin, who seemed absolutely serious.

“..I have a chief ass priest?”

Almost as if it were waiting to be prompted, a radiant, glowing white filigree plaque burst into existence in the air in front of the titan, who turned his head to give me a look of utter horror and dismay as if I had just betrayed him and shoved him off a cliff for five dollars and change.