The trip back to the corner of the floor that we’d claimed as our own was more or less uneventful. Isabella grumbled a bit at being awakened at the barricade, but she needed to wiggle through to the other side on her own. Brandr ran ahead and assured us that Jello-Muncher was still on the way, and that we had a little time to get back safely.

The goblins, we dropped off in the last few rooms on our hall, near where the exit to the roof was. Jello-Muncher had shown repeatedly that it was too large to wiggle in the smaller doorways to actually enter into the rooms, so we figured the goblin females would be safe in them from it.

As for the two girls whom Isabella had accepted as her slaves, she left them in the last room where the goblin igloo was. We never really discussed what to do with them, but I honestly don’t think any of us wanted to be in the same room with the girls. They were just too pitiful to be around, without making your heart hurt.

Once all the goblins and the two girls were settled into their new respective rooms, Isabella, Brandr, and I all settled back into the teacher’s lounge. I wasn’t entirely certain how to broach my thoughts on the girls we’d rescued with Isabella, so I went over and dragged one of the goblin corpses from where she almost got ‘raped’ over to the counter and began harvesting it.

Brandr didn’t seem bothered by my actions, calmly went over to the second couch, and began to undress and fold her clothes up on the couch there. Isabella had told her that she wasn’t supposed to wear clothes in the room, and Brandr took her seriously. Part of me wanted to tell her that it wasn’t necessary, that she didn’t have to strip in the room, but another part of me liked what I saw and since she didn’t seem to mind, I simply didn’t say anything. If she was OK with it, who was I to complain?

Isabella went over to the other couch, flopped down on it, and stretched out on her back. “Drake,” she was actually the first to speak since we’d gotten back, “I’m sorry I didn’t ask about claiming the girls. I didn’t mean to step on your toes, if I did.”

“Nah. It’s OK,” I told her. “I should’ve stayed in there with you, but somehow I just couldn’t. I just had to get away.” We were both silent for a while, before I finally spoke up again. “Izzy, I know you’re trying to help those two girls and all, and I know they need to level up to get cheat points if they’re ever going to be truly healed, but I’m afraid I won’t agree to let them join our party. We just don’t know enough about them.”

“I refuse, too.” Brandr’s quiet voice come through the party chat, and it shocked me for her to make her opinion known. “They’re weak and unworthy. I do not think they deserve a place amongst us.”

Isabella let out a little sigh of relief and then slowly sat up. “I wasn’t going to accept them either. They may provide food for us and the goblins for now, but I don’t think they’ll ever be much more than what they are now. The hurdles they have to face are too great to easily overcome, and no one has the time to baby them in this new world.

“It’s like with ‘Flea-bitten’: the stronger she becomes the harder her name tries to push her down. Any flea, tick, or mite within five feet of her, per level, is drawn to her body. She’s level five now, so she’s collecting all those parasites from 25 feet around her and encouraging them to feed and nest on her. Can you imagine how many fleas something like the goblins must have had? And they’re all settled on her!”

Isabella shivered, and reflexively I did the same. “And there’s no way to change a name in this world that we know of,” she continued. “That’s just going to be part of her new existence. Can you imagine having to live out the rest of your life being ‘flea-bitten’?”

“I hate to say it, and you guys might hate me for it, but I only accepted them so that we can make use of them.” Isabella’s voice was quiet and low. “We need their food, and we need their magic, but the part that made them people is already dead and gone. They’re brain-dead, or at least heart-dead, and their body just doesn’t know it yet. And we simply aren’t in any position to pass up the benefits their living corpses can offer us.

“I’d never want them in our party either, but I couldn’t just let them be when we needed a reliable source of food as much as we did. I’d like to think that if there was some small part of them still inside those shells, they’d approve. After all, we do plan on clearing the rest of the males out of this floor, and if I was them, I’d want to see every goblin male in the world dead and burning in hell.”

Slowly, I put down my carving knife and wiped my hands on my bloody pants and then walked over and gently hugged her. “No one hates you, and I think we’re all on the same page with the girls. We’d like to help them, but we just can’t. It’s all we can do to take care of ourselves currently. They’ll either get stronger on their own, or they won’t and they’ll stay like they are. It’s out of our hands.”

“I don’t want to help them,” came Brandr’s soft voice. “They’re weak. They quit fighting, and they have no one to blame but themselves. You don’t see me or the Lady Isabella giving up and surrendering to the beasts, do you?”

What the heck?! Trying to understand Brandr’s reasoning was even more confusing to figure out sometimes than Isabella’s. Brandr was a slave herself, and had given herself to me. If anyone sympathized with the girls, I would have thought that it would be her. Instead, she seemed to care the least about their condition. I couldn’t help but shake my head in bewilderment.

Finally, I let go of Isabella and went back over to the corpse I’d been carving up. I was actually getting quite a bit faster at harvesting almost-people, but I don’t know if I should be proud of that fact, or just cry. “I’ve been thinking,” I told them, “on what our next moves are.”

“Izzy, I think we need to take a few days, now that we have food we can depend on, for you to learn those last four spells. What happens if that book gets lost or destroyed? Better to at least learn the magic and have it, even if you can’t rely on it much yet, than to lose it completely somehow. “

Isabella nodded, leaned over, and got her book off the coffee table where she’d left it, flopped down on her stomach on the couch, and flipped it open. I didn’t mean she had to get started on it at this very moment, I knew she was still upset over claiming and killing one of the girls, but she was already starting to focus her attention in the pages once more.

“Brand, I’ve got a lot of different things that I need you to do for us while Isabella is learning. You need to keep an eye on the goblins and the halls and make certain none of the other groups sneak up on us unaware. Scouting and guarding is going to be one of your chores. You’re also going to have to help teach me more about fighting. I don’t have the experience of the people you’re used to sparring with, but I need to learn and improve. You’re the first person we’ve came across who can help be a sparring partner for me.

“I want you to check on the goblins every few hours when you can, and training with me will be in the evenings after the sun has set, and before we go to sleep. And then in the time between, I want you to scout out and see what you can learn about the other goblins and where they’re located. And, if you can safely pick off a few loners without putting yourself in danger, do so. Each one gotten rid of is one we won’t have to be afraid of later.”

Guarding, training, scouting, and killing -- I couldn’t help but feel like I was asking too much from her, but it was all things that needed to be done now. “Can you handle that, or is it too much on you? Don’t be afraid to speak up, if you think it’s too much to handle,” I told her.

“I’ll be fine,” came her quiet voice in my head. “I can handle such duties without any issues.” She was an odd one, but I felt she was dependable and I was glad she was with us now. Those other girls might be something to worry and fret over – a burden to us – but Brandr was cool, calm, and dependable. (And very sexy too, doing her stretches and exercises in the room here in the buff! I don’t know why Isabella had told her she had to be naked in the room here, but I had to admit, no matter which direction my eyes turned, I was happy with the sights that filled them.)

For the next several hours, we all did our own thing in the room, and I finished working up the goblin corpses and leveled up my harvesting humanoid skill several times. I was going to get rid of the bodies, but cracking the door and checking showed that Jello-Muncher was already in our hall and too close for comfort.

We could live with the smell of the rotting flesh tonight, and tomorrow I could toss the goblins out one body at a time and keep Jello walking back and forth in these tunnels for a while. In fact, it was a perfect plan to enjoy a day of safety tomorrow, and I did have something important that I wanted to do. All I needed to do is let Jello walk all the way back to the barricade and then toss a single corpse out into the hall. That’d draw him back in a frenzy when he smelled the blood or body, and then he’d spend half an hour eating it, and then another few hours slopping his way back to the barricade once again. The four bodies I’d just carved up would probably by us at least twelve hours with it hovering guard between us and the rest of the school. That should be time for me to do what I wanted to do tomorrow.

For tonight, I couldn’t help but smile as I finally went over and picked up the minotaur horns that Brandr had collected from the corpse in the hallway where she’d joined us. I couldn’t be certain this was a piece of the bastard that had killed me, but I assumed that it was and that made me grin for some odd reason.

“Brand,” I asked, “can I use your sword for a few moments?”

“No.” Her reply was soft, but quick. I couldn’t help but sigh in disappointment, but then she continued. “You cannot borrow the blade. I am your blade, and what is mine is yours. One cannot borrow what is already theirs.” Saying so, she pulled her sword from its sheath, carried it over, and then knelt naked in front of me like she had in the bathroom where I knighted her and made her mine. Silently, she held the blade up laid in both hands, and waited for me to take it.

Once I had taken the sword, she leaned forward, pulled her ponytail in front of her chest, and then leaned forward until her arms were on the ground and she was kneeling face down, to me. It looked awkward, and even if it didn’t embarrass her, I found the whole situation embarrassing as hell. Swiftly I used her sword to slice the minotaur’s horns into a dozen different pieces, and then I held it and simply looked at it stupidly. How the hell do you give it back to someone who’s kneeling face down in front of you?

I looked back and forth a few times, like a doofus, and was glad to see that Isabella hadn’t noticed. She was too wrapped up in doing her own research and studying for now. I couldn’t help but sigh. How could these girls confuse me so easily, and always act like it was the most common thing in the world?

Finally, I just shrugged slightly to myself and coughed lightly. “Arise again, my blade!” I tried to sound formal and certain, but honestly, I had no clue what I was doing. Brandr slowly straightened up and raised herself to where she was once again sitting upright on her knees and looking at me. Keeping my firm tone, I told her, “Take this blade, my blade, and wield it with strength, courage, and dignity. May it serve you as well as you serve me.” Slowly, Brandr reached out her hands and accepted the blade back from me.

Acting on a sudden impulse, I smiled to myself and told her, “Now, arise fully, and accept thy next reward.”

Brandr stood up and respectfully placed her arms at her side, with the blade pointing towards the ground. Her eyes never left mine as I stepped forward, gently lifted her chin, and then gave her the deepest ‘I want to taste your tonsils” kiss that Isabella had been teaching me.

Brandr never resisted, but when I finally let go of her chin and took a step back, her jaw remained slightly opened and she had a lost look in her eyes. Grinning, I told her, “That was your reward for being my faithful, true, and dependable blade. Continue to serve me well, and I shall reward you even more as you earn it.”

Swiftly her arm snapped up, and for a brief moment I thought that she was going to skewer me again, but instead she had raised the blade and was saluting me with it. “I shall do my utmost to be worthy of such words, and to earn more such rewards from my Keeper. I shall treasure this one forever.”

Now it was my turn to look stupid and confused again. Surely, she knew I was just stealing a kiss for my own enjoyment? As Brandr lowered her blade, she finally turned and walked back to where she had been practicing and stretching earlier and resumed her previous exercises.

I picked up a few pieces of the minotaur’s horns and fiddled with them for a while just to help me try and clear my thoughts. I might never understand women, but tomorrow was going to be a busy day for me. Finally, I got up and laid down on the bare floor. One night without pillows under me wouldn’t kill me, and I didn’t want to disrupt Isabella’s studies. I didn’t even bother to take time to undress as I relaxed and lay there and watching her read for the next hour or so before I went to sleep peacefully.