Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! Pets, merchants and cuteness, so welcome to the start of a new arc!

ANYWAY, BE PREPARED, FOR CUTENESS OVERLOAD! Now, if you allow me, I have to punch a wall to recover some of my manliness lost after writing this chapter, be right back.

ALSO, Introducing a brand-new oddball on this chapter! I bet that no one saw this coming! NO ONE!

ALSO(2), THE HOLY CHURCH OF CYGNAS, HAS, BY NOW, REACHED 495 FOLLOWERS! REJOICE, COMRADES! FOR HER NAIVENESS*cough*HOLYNESS IS SPREADING THROUGH THE IGNORANT MASSES!

ALSO(3), some one had asked me if I was Brazilian in one of the reviews, I always forgot to answer, but… HUEHUEHUEHUE BRBRBR, GIBE MONY PLZ! Yes, I am! (^.^)

ALSO(4), I wonder if I should find someone to proofread the old chapters for me… I don’t think I would be able to notice my own errors…. Hmm… I could ask Red, but she would take a whole year to do it… Hmm… Actually is it even proofread that it's called?

Have a good read!

-------

WHY? OH GOD, WHY? Why had this mad and twisted goddess reveal the truth to me? Doesn’t she knows, that sometimes, the truth is better left unsaid? Yet, yet, she just came and told me!

Now I can feel it, corroding me from inside, twisting my senses while mocking me from inside. The truth, it hurts, this pain I fell can never again leave me! This goddess, this insane and sadistic goddess, why would she do this to me? I swear, I swear, that until the end of my life, I will never, you hear me? NEVER forget what she has done to me!

I looked at her, my eyes burning with rage as I laid on my knees to the ground while remembering what had happened.

For you to understand this, I will have to rewind time. Back to a time when I was still innocent and ignorant. Back, to when I was happy… So let’s go back to when we last left off, and you will see what I mean.

…

We were still traveling through the forest, with me carrying a napping fox who refused to leave my arms and a trick-cat whom I was teaching some basic military drills. Or at least what I thought that were military drills. At that moment I was actually teaching him one of these songs that they force you to sing when training a forced march, or what I thought they do, not too sure, I’ve never been to the army before, so all my information is based from cartoons and anime. Mainly the comedy ones.

In fact, in the middle of our walk, Lieutenant even picked a leaf of grass and put the tip in his mouth, giving him a +2 badass status. Or as badass as you can be when you are a cat pretending to be a general, which makes him cute… Kind of like a child pretending to be batman.

Ooh, happy times were those.

As we happily walked through the woods, not more than one hour away from Eldor, when the disaster happened.

Aura, who had been peacefully sleeping in my arms woke up with an extra cute yawn before turning to sleepily with her ears drooping. I didn’t really need to be an expert in freezing-tailology to understand that she was asking to be petted. She became addicted to it after the scene in the clearing.

Gently petting her for a few seconds, she suddenly frowned while looking at nowhere. Something she did very frequently when talking to Cyg, and it seemed that my hunch was right, since after a few seconds her fur turned a silvery color. Usually, I refrain from petting Cyg, since she lets it go to her head far too much for my own tastes, but this time I kept going, I didn’t want to lose my hourly dose of fluffiness.

“Hey, Gon whyyyy… Hmmm…” She immediately trailed off while humming in pleasure, she kept like that for a full ten seconds before recovering. “Hmm… No wonder… She likes this… Sooooo much….” Her voice felt like she was almost melting. She quickly shook her head, removing it from my hand as she jumped off.

My fluffiness! I pouted a little.

“So… What’s up?” I asked in a slightly sour mood, but Cyg simply ignored it.

“Well, I was wondering one thing about your fight back then...” She said in a curious tone, to which I raised an eyebrow in question. “But, why did you hunt those blazing tails and Aura without getting yourself a class? You did go back to the city when you were level ten, right?”

I froze at this question as the facts repassed in my mind, and as it finally sunk in, I fell to my knees on the ground before finally falling on all fours, hanging my head low in depression.

“I… Completely forgot about it...”

There was a few seconds of silence, before Cyg finally said.

“So, you fought beasts much stronger than yourself while being classless, which is a pretty big handicap for yourself, leaving you in many tight spots during all those duels, for no other reason other than that you forgot?” She asked while holding back her laughter.

WHY? WHY DID SHE HAVE TO PUT IT LIKE THAT? ALL MY SUFFERING, ALL OF MY TRIALS, IN VAIN! OH GOD! THE TRUTH! IT HURTS!

…

And that’s my friend, is how we got to the start of this story, where I lay completely wasted on the ground as this dastardly goddess laughed at my situation. Revenge… I must have my revenge…

I slowly crawled towards her, preparing to choke her out of this world, when suddenly someone grabs my shoulder, stopping me. When I look to the side, I saw him, Lieutenant. He looked at me with some pity while slowly shaking his head.

Are you saying that discounting my anger on her won’t solve my problems? He nodded slowly. Then how, how should I react? Where should I discount my rightful fury? I approached him and laid my heads in his shoulders while crying in despair, feeling his claw gently petting my head.

At least I have a friend in the camp.

Meanwhile Cyg was literally rolling on the floor while laughing. I’m so window-balling her next time I login…

Our little scene was completely stopped when suddenly a furious screech came from the air. I immediately stood up while taking my bow and reading myself. Cyg quickly jumped away with Lieutenant immediately following her, since he still didn’t have the means to play his roles.

As I looked around, I saw a flash of brown coming in my direction, aiming for my head. With an easy sidestep I avoided it, and managed to see what it was that tried to hit me.

Remember when I said that there was a falcon who attacked me some time ago? One that I hit with a wind arrow and sent him flying to Cyg knows where? Well, he is back and angry.

At the time I had thought that he was fast, but after fighting against Auras and her freezing spikes of a really fast death… He is so slow… I couldn’t help but make a stupid smile at this reversal in the situation.

He flew away from me before making a turn; I started moving to mess a bit with his targeting.

We exchanged a few bouts with neither of us landing a clear hit on the other for a few seconds, and as I ran around, I suddenly heard it.

“Go! Go! War-gon-Go! Show to that beast who runs this show~~!”

I heard a strange music being sung, and as I looked back to my pets I saw something a bit unexpected, which made me trip and slide face-first in the ground for a few meters. At least this messed the bird’s attack and he flew harmlessly over me.

As it made an arc and came back in my direction, I raised myself from the ground while shouting and extending my open palm forward.

“TIIIMEEEE!!”

The falcon flapped his wings confused and made a turn back to the tree, where he landed while looking confused to me. I turned back to the two little critters that were following me and walked towards Cyg.

“Okay… What are you doing?” I asked her in a completely confused tone.

“Err… Cheering?” She said a bit shyly while hiding her face behind the blue and white pom-poms.

Yep, you heard me right, pom-poms. She had pulled, from Cygnas knows where (Which actually made sense in this situation) a pair of pom-poms and a cheerleader clothing. Then she sat on her hind legs while making some basic cheerleading poses and singing while holding the pom-poms on her front paws.

I swear that if I wasn’t completely lost on what was happening, I would have a cuteness overload here.

By the way, Lieutenant had been following her moves while using his meows to time the rhythm.

“And… Why are you doing this? Actually, isn’t that clothing a bit against your rules of not interfering directly?”

“Well, as long as they don’t leave, no… Besides me and Aura were a bit bothered by simply sitting here and watching you fight, so we wanted at least to cheer you!” I sighed while slightly rubbing my temples.

Better not think too much about this.

I walked back to where I was last time and turned to the falcon who was still sitting in the tree-branch.

“Okay. Let’s continues.” It squawked in accordance before lifting flight and attacking me.

…

Falcon meat is actually really tasty! And from the description, it seems that the feathers of this guy in particular makes for some excellent fletching.

Also, Aura’s cooking reached level 2, now that she had the skill, she didn’t even need Cyg’s help when cooking, so she became the official cooker of our team. And before any of you asks, right after the fight ended Cyg dismissed the cheerleader clothes, but I have the feeling that wasn’t the last we saw of it.

After finishing our early lunch, I, Aura and Lieutenant went back on our way to Eldor, reaching it in less than an hour. We entered the city, but not before Aura looked at everything in awe and Lieutenant started to smirk as he looked around.

Also, on the lasts times before arriving here, Lieutenant developed another weird habit. Whenever he isn’t walking he would stand on his hind-legs and stand straight, sometimes even crossing his arms! And this seemed to rub off on Aura, as she would try to imitate him.

After a quick stop to think on what to do, I decided that the first place to drop by would be at Melinda’s house. It has been a long time since I’ve been there, so I quickly made way towards it. The two critters were a bit scared to take the elevator on their first time, even more as there were a lot of people crowded. Aura had to take a ride on my head like when Cyg first took over her. Lieutenant was a bit more at ease and simply laid down between my legs.

This earned me a lot of stares. Mainly from girls who wouldn’t look away from Aura.

Is this it? Has my springtime come?

Anyway, after arriving on the general industries sector we got off and took the sub-elevator to Mel’s floor. A quick walk and we reached the house slash workshop. After a few knocks, the red-haired half-garuda half-human appeared and looked at me surprised.

“Wow, I wasn’t expecting to see you again!” She said in a playful tone, then turned towards my two pets. “And it seems that you brought friends too…”

“Well, I do need to come here to craft from time to time, you know?” I answered in a good mood before picking aura from my head. “This one is Aura, she’s a bit shy but a good girl.” Aura nodded slightly as a greeting. “And this one, is Lieutenant Colonel Whiskers McBallofur Maximilliamus the Third.” Lieutenant made a salute in greeting.

Mel blinked surprised and was clearly wanting to comment something about his name, but whenever she opened her mouth she would close it again, before finally sighing and beckoning me to come in.

Yes, I know, my naming senses are impeccable!

“So, what kind of thing are you going to do today?” She asked curious. I smiled as we reached the workshop and unloaded the four Blazing-tails hide and Aura’s hide. The expression of shock in Mel’s face was simply delicious.

“I want to cure and tan these two on the classic method. Best quality possible.”

She turned back to me, her mouth still wide agape as she tried to form words, but in the end she shook her head as if giving up on whatever she wanted to say to me, she simply beckoned me towards an old wooden box.

Salt, a whole freaking lot of salt… But it looked a bit different from the ones we were using when working before.

“This one is enchanted salt. It’s made specifically for curing hides of magical beasts. But it’s not exactly cheap, so I will have to charge you for it.” In the end, I paid one gold for the salt and left the hide curing. According to her, it would only be ready tomorrow, so I had no need to hurry.

I also took out some of the red-tails hide and started to craft some basic gear to level up my leatherworking. I didn’t spend everything since I had something I wanted to test before I went on to craft with the good stuff.

Your Leatherworking skill has achieved Intermediate rank. Skill: Leatherworking [intermediate] [lvl 1]

[8%] Your experience with this craft now allows you to also works with monsters scales and shells to make scale-mail and plate armor respectively

Yup, my first crafting skill is up to intermediate!

After being satisfied with myself, I took another batch of leather and started working on my most important craft of today, at least.

I cut the leather in the shape of a jacket slash suit after taking some measurements, added some symbol-looking things on the shoulders and put some pockets on it and adding some buttons to it. I made an inner part that LOOKS like it is an undershirt with a tie around the neck. Then I made some pants with a small hole behind and painted everything in a military green color, I also made a small military-officer hat with two large holes on its top to go with everything.

With his help, I quickly dressed the Lieutenant in his officer garb, and as soon as the job was done, his atmosphere changed from that of a playful cat to an experienced office. He walked towards a small box in the ground, put one of his hind legs atop of it and leaned on his knee while saying.

“Nya!”

In a tone a bit deeper than usual.

You have equipped your pet with equipment, however you lack the necessary class in order for it to have an effect, so this equipment will not grant all the status it would usually give. However, You do keep the inventory upgrade that comes with it. Lieutenant Colonel Whiskers McBallofur Maximilliamus the Third has been upgraded with 8 inventory slots.

I blinked surprised at the window. There is a class that can actually EQUIP its pets? Now, that is interesting. Moreover, Lieutenant now had eight inventory slots! This is shiny!

But the piercing gaze boring through the back of my head is kind of scaring me…

I turned back to see an angry fox staring holes at the back of my head, and I had no other choice but to try and placate her. When I asked her, I found out that she was jealous of lieutenant getting himself some clothes. I smiled awkwardly and calmed the angry fox by petting her while thinking on what I should do for her. For lieutenant it was pretty much a given that he was getting some military clothes, but I hadn’t really thought about giving her something, so I was kind of lost here.

Let’s see… She’s a three tailed fox… This reminds me of the orient… Some oriental clothing? That could work, but what exactly? Maybe a Shinto priestess? Although she would look cute, she’s more of a physical fighter than her fiery cousin, even her ice attacks were considered physical! I guess that’s a no.

Ooh! I know!

I quickly went back to the table and started working on it.

For the upper part, I made her a pure white kimono tied with a light blue sash around the waist, for the lower parts I made those wide pants that you use on martial arts, I think it’s called hakama, and painted it in a light blue that matched her fur. I also made a simple leather sack that you sling over your shoulder. The last part I couldn’t do myself, so I left Mel’s and search around for someone that could meet my requirement. I found a dwarf who worked with what I needed and asked him to make Aura a small conical straw hat with some space for her ears.

He looked a bit surprised at the request, but quickly made me one that I fixed on her head with the help of a string. I also bought a toy soldier and took away his sword, putting it on her sash.

She now looked one of these roaming samurais! Ronins! And the bag gave her a whopping twenty inventory slots!

I made sure that both of them were comfortable with their clothing, before you ask. Aura barked while happily wagging her tails while Lieutenant simply made a nod with crossed arms. All in all, this whole pet-clothing ordeal lasted no longer than two hours, since they were small and simple. Nothing too fancy.

Now, I had two things to do, and since both are in the commercial district, I immediately went there, followed by a samurai on my right and an officer in my left. The two of them attracted a lot of attention, as they were a very peculiar sight. Even some players stopped me to ask how I got them and whether they were some kind of premium pet.

After some detours, we finally arrived at Argento’s stand. I approached him but had to wait a bit, as he was already occupied with a white haired customer. I not-so-patiently waited around while discretely peeking at the guy’s name.

I literally had to hold my mouth with my hands so I wouldn’t stop laughing.

S2daddylovescygS2.

Yup, It was him. Cloaked in a black cape and with a crossbow on his back, a vampire with a daughter issues.

Okay, I couldn’t hold it any longer.

I started laughing madly, getting the attention of the two. Argento immediately recognized me as his eyes instantly turned into a pair of gold coins and he rubbed his hands together. The other guy, however, took a bit longer to recognize me.

“Oh! It’s you!” he said surprised after some time, but before he could even continue, the gnome was already opening space on his table while pushing him away, his eyes shining.

“My friend! It’s good to see you again! What do you have for me today!” The vampire turned to him surprised and seemed ready to complain, but the gnome simply waved his hand away as if saying that he doesn’t matter.

Wow, such blatant favoritism. Can’t say I dislike it, though.

“I see that you got some pets since the last time, huh?” He said looking curiously at my two friends.

I wordlessly dropped the red-tail gear on the table. They were better than my own set, to tell the truth, there was even two excellent pieces there! But, I have something even better in stock, just waiting to happen.

Argento almost started drooling when he saw the best pieces. Vlad, as S2 likes to be called if I remember well, was also eyeing an excellent leather glove I made that gave +10 intellect and +5 agility.

“Wow… Just… Wow…” The gnome said as he took out an abacus and started to make some calculations. “I can pay nin… no, ten gold for both excellent, plus three for the rest.” He said with shining eyes.

“Deal!” Ding-ding! Jackpot! “Say, did you get the things I asked you some time ago? The salt and lines?” He blinked surprise at the sudden mention, then nodded before pulling something from his inventory. Two large barrels popped into existence, followed by a wooden box atop of them. The barrels had lines and salt each, and the box was the tanning agent. I happily took them and stored in the inventory while he deducted two gold coins for the materials. Considering the amount, seems like a fairly low price to me.

I also told him about the special salt and asked him to buy me a smaller barrel worth of it. I left him five gold coins in advance. In the end, I still had more than a good profit in our trade.

“Hey, Wargon. He called me suddenly. How much would you ask for one of these pets clothing you did?” He suddenly asked me.

“Err… I don’t really know, I had no plan on selling them.” I said a bit at loss while looking at the two. They had gotten close to the table and were curiously looking at the things atop of it.

“Hmm… I could actually see these things selling. How about it, you make-me some of these and I’ll pay you fifty silver per piece!”

“Fif…Fifty silver? Isn’t that a lot?”

“Not at all. Player gear? Even if it isn’t your, there are many people out there selling a few things. But pet clothing? No one makes it and, from what I know, it doesn’t drop from mobs, so it is fine for it to be expensive.”

“But… Would it even sell?”

Argento simply laughed and pointed around. I blinked in surprise and saw as a lot of people were forming a large circle around me. Rather, a circle around Aura and Lieutenant.

“This will sell like cold water in the desert!”

I blinked surprise at this.

“Well… Even if I were to make something I can’t simply go making standardized items…” I said a bit awkwardly, receiving a confused face from Argento.“I would have to take that person’s pet to make some measurements, since the equipment doesn’t adjust automatically…”

His eyes started to shine even more with these words, but before I could go on or he say something, a Djinn girl suddenly approached me with shining eyes as she held my hands.

“Does that means that it was it you who made these? Then could you do something for my pet rabbit? I mean, I want something that would make him look cute and…”

“Excuse-me, ma’am.” Argento saved me from her grasp by pushing her away and putting himself between us. “Sorry, but me and the gentlegolem here have an agreement that any item that he makes that are intended to be sold have to go through me, so if you desire something, please negotiate with me. By the way, the price of a set is set around one gold for simpler sets, and up to two golds for the most complex.” Me and the public became wide eyed at the price of these, isn’t that really expensive? “As you heard my partner say before, all these works are custom made. Also, there is no recipe, so they are also handmade, thus the price.”

The spectators all became wide eyed for a moment after hearing these last lines, but started to nod and murmur something about making sense.

“Now, now, those of you who still wish to request your pet clothing, please make a line here and state your name, pet race and set theme and a method to contact you. But do understand that this is his playing time, so it might take some time for your request to be accepted.” He said as he opened a notebook and put it in the table together with a feather and ink bottle and sat there with his gold coins for eyes.

I saw a message arriving from him while he patiently wrote down the people’s names.

[Argento]: 1/3 mine, 2/3 yours of gold.

[Me]: Deal. I’ll start working later though(^.^’)

[Argento]: No need to hurry. I’ve been repeating here that you will take things at your own rhythm, and if anyone complains they will have their names removed from the list.

Morale of the lesson. Merchants are scary.

And I kind of have this feeling that I’ve been forced to accept without even giving my opinion, but that’s not very important.

As I walked away from the crowd, I noticed S2daddylovescygS2 standing in the corner while trying to look badass. Not very effective with that name.

“Yo! Sorry for that, I wasn’t expecting it to become that big of a mess.” I said to him a bit wryly.

“It happens.” He said seriously before turning to the two little guys following me from below. By the way, our ronin’s fur was silver at the moment. “So, which one is it?”

“Which one is what?” I asked faking an innocent doubt.

He sighed slightly.

“You know…” He started serious, but immediately after… “Which one is my adorable, fluffy and cute daughter that I love to hug, pamper and spoil! Ah! I want to hug her so badly! I should have bought her some sweets, she loves them! Ah… This reminds of that time when we were testing the taste senses and she kept eating all those cookies… Then Bill said to her that she would get fat and she immediately stopped while becoming completely red! She had forgotten that she could adjust her body at will!” All while he said this, he was opening windows with some photos, probably from his USB device, and showing them to me.

“Then there was this time when a nasty virus got into her system and she became sickly! She was feeling so bad, but looked so cute in those pajamas! Oh, Oh! Then there was this time that she accidentally deleted some data from the main drive, look how embarrassed she was! OWWW, she’s so cute!”

Please do note that I haven’t even opened my mouth since he started. Meanwhile Cyg was trembling in rage and embarrassment besides me while keeping her head low. And yes, she did look cute in the pajamas.

“And then, and then, recently she came to us asking if she didn’t look cute! When we asked her why was it she said that there was this friend of hers that kept bully…”

Hmm? Did I just hear something snap? Oh, it’s Cygnas.

In a speed that neither Vlad nor me could follow, Cyg climbed my leg and jumped towards him, in her hands (or paws, for that matter) was a slightly glowing blue thing that looked like rolled paper.

It is the Window-stick!

As she jumped towards Vlad, she raised the window-stick high and shouted.

“SHUUUUT UUUUP DAAAD!”

And in a true samurai fashion, she hit him in the head with enough strength to knock him down before landing cleanly behind him with a somersault. Then, just as Vlad started to get up, she jumped towards him and started to pummel him endlessly with the weapon.

“WHY! DO YOU! ALWAYS! EMBARRASS! ME?”

Wait, shouldn’t passive pets be unable to attack? Maybe it’s because the window-stick doesn’t count as an attack… Could be that. Now, how she was holding the window-stick? That is a mystery for the ages!

….

After a couple of minutes, Cyg finally calmed down and let the poor vampire alone. It was a whole another minute before he got up.

“So, what are you going to do now?” I asked him after he seriously checked Cyg’s condition as a pet. He was surprised with her sharing the body with Aura, but said that it didn’t matter much.

“I’m going to the cathedral to change my title and complete a quest. What about you?”

“I planned on going to the Silver Gauntlet to get some ideas for a class, but I think I’ll go with you for now since I’ll have to visit the cathedral later anyway and have no idea where it is.” I said while following him to the main elevator. He shrugged as if saying that it didn’t matter to him.

We took the main elevator and raised up to one of the highest levels. Boy, was it freaking hot here! Luckily, I had my leather jacket that protected a bit more than my steel armor. Aura and Lieutenant didn’t seem too bothered by it, though.

I followed him through he fancy looking streets filled with fancy looking mansions until we reach an even fancier building that probably spanned a couple of floors. It truly looked like a temple, with marble pillars here and there.

We entered it to find rows and rows of stone benches, lots of large statues of different gods and a grandiose altar, where a couple of priests were praying. Besides the priest and a couple of other people, the place was pretty much empty, probably not being one of the praying hours or something.

As we entered the temple, Vlad suddenly stood straight and said in a loud voice.

“The day send it’s regards to the one who waits!”

What that means, I have no idea. Probably some code words or something? For a moment, the people in the hall looked at us confused, until a man in the middle of the first bench of the middle row that was reading a book stood up and walked towards us.

Wait, was he there before? I’m pretty sure there was no one there before.

“So, you are the one that Iria sent?” He asked when he got in front of Vlad.

This man was a remarkable, to say the least. His hair was neatly combed back and probably had just applied some gel, as it had a slight shine to it. He wore a nice and elegant grey suit, with a black under-shirt and white tie. His pants and shoes were also completely grey and didn’t have a single spec of dust nor any wrinkles at all! This guy felt like a walking perfection, if I were to describe him. He had sharp features and could probably be called handsome. He was even taller than me, being probably around one meter and ninety.

“Yes, sir. My name is Vlad Blackcross and come here in the name of Iria, The goddess of light.” Did I just hear something incredible? “And here is the object she asked me to give you.” He said while taking a box from his inventory and handing it to the man.

But instead of simply picking it, the man waved his hands slightly as some light emanated from it and enveloped both me and Vlad for a brief moment.

“No need to worry, that was a simple cleansing and arrangement spell.” He said. And yes, I did feel refreshed as if I had just taken a shower and put on some new clothes. Heck, even the wrinkles in my leather gear was gone!

The man suddenly snapped his fingers and a pair of pure white gloves appeared in the air. He calmly put them on before finally grabbing the box from Vlad’s hand. He opened it quickly for a moment then closed it. He nodded satisfied and the box poofed into oblivion, then he patiently took out the gloves and threw them away, using a fire spell to incinerate them.

I looked at Vlad confused, but he seemed as lost as I was. The man, misunderstood our reactions, as he suddenly said.

“Oh, forgive me for my manners. My name is Arkhoss, and I’m the god of chaos.”

Huh? God of chaos? I looked surprised for a moment before turning towards Cyg. She quickly climbed my arm and whispered in my ear.

“Arkhoss is the God of chaos, but he suffers from OCD!”

…

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?