Waah... The fluffy! Waah… The smoothy! As I slowly felt myself melting away in a fluffsmooth paradise, completely ignoring the wailing scream of sheer pain and agony echoing on the background, I thoroughly enjoyed the petting session around me.

It was only when I heard an amused chuckle coming from a certain dwarven ghostess… Is ghostess even a word? It should be, seeing how not all ghosts are male. But then, ghosts aren’t really living beings so much as they are an unnatural phenomenon.

Bah, too much thinking and too little results. This is why I don’t do philosophy.

Shaking away the incurring bout of curiosity about unneeded grammatic-philosophical matters, I turned my attention back to Thalia, who was watching us with a warm and curious gaze.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” I asked in my best attempt at a serious face. Needless to say, I failed.

“Ah, actually, yes.” She said while putting on a more serious expression. “You see… The beer’s starting to run dry.”

“…Already?” I asked shocked. “Geez, I don’t know who’s worse. You or Elraira.” I said while recalling back to the dragon-kin drinking an entire barrel of wine in one go.

“…I feel like that’s a challenge to my drinker side.” She said with a suddenly competitive look.

“Please, for the love of Cygnas, don’t do that. I don’t want to go broke hosting a drinking competition between the two of you!” I said in sheer horror at the mere thought of how much money it would cost me to buy the barrels.

“Aah… Such a shame.” She said disappointed while sighing heavily. “Oh well. I’ve drank more in these last twenty minutes than I did in the decades that I’ve been dead, so I guess I can’t complain.”

“Huh!” The other, less important dwarf suddenly said in surprise. “Wait, you didn’t even leave a bit for me, dear?” He asked in shock. “B-B-But… How could you…”

“Ara, wasn’t it you who was saying that there was no need to negotiate with him?” She said in a playful tone.

“B-But…”

“Man up, dear. I don’t recall marrying such a crybaby who can’t even keep up his stance about his own decisions!” She said coldly.

Rognar let out a really pitiful whimper before nodding and sitting down on the ground, drawing circles on the floor, which remained due to how dirty the floor was.

“You know, I almost feel sorry for him. If only he wasn’t a comic relief…” I said, disappointed.

“And to think that he used to be such a dashing warrior too…” Thalia agreed with me. “Oh well, onto another non-alcohol related matters, what will we do about this place then?”

“Ah! Good question!” I said while clapping my hands together then raising a finger as if to make a point, only to receive four whimpers of disappointment because I had stopped the petting stravaganza.

D-Don’t give me those puppy eyes! T-This thing’s dangerous, you k-know! Maybe I should stop using it altogether. Yes, it’s for their own good. It’s… Ughh… Don’t cling to me like that Yuu! It’s cheating! And Aura, what happened to your aloof personality? Stop pleading like that! Th-That’s bad for my health! My poor poor mental health! And what’s with that depressed ‘Tek’? That’s so damn pitiful! And how can a future back-flipping killing machine wearing full body plate armor like you make such an adorable look?

(Author warning: Forgive the sudden interruption of our not-so-regularly scheduled program as we show you what’s happening inside the mind of our protagonist for a moment.)

It was a barren wasteland. With nothing but empty dried ground spreading as far as the eyes could see. In such an inhospitable wasteland, only one thing could possibly happen in this area, and that was War.

The ground shook as the two armies approached one another at the dead-center of the wasteland. The air shaking as the sheer tension built up to the point that artillery had to be recalibrated to the new air-pressure.

On one side, came a massive army, thousands of gons strong, brandishing flags and shouting the name of their desires. Covering the entire horizon on one side of the battlefield, it was truly a sight to behold.

Light Cavalry gons rode on the back of blue three-tailed foxes, wearing light armor and wielding the tail-longbows in a magnificent fashion. The heavy cavalry rode on the back of over-sized pebble-scorpions, wearing full plate armor while wielding sword and shield or massive spider-hammers. The air-support rode on the back of the white-armored wyverns, holding tostone-cutting long swords while hawking their enemies from afar. Finally, on the far back, the artillery wielded flags with a certain black kitsune wearing a kimono beside massive magi-cannons that shone with a threatening frost-fire glow.

“For fluffy! For Smoothy! For Smuffy!” They shouted their war cry over and over, the thundering roar shaking the very skies and earth to the point they threatened to shatter in half.

On the opposing side of this massive Pro-petting army, stood their opponents. Ten gons carrying a poorly painted banner with a misspelled ‘Logik’ word, wearing basic beginner gear that seemed a bit too damaged for their own good.

“…Erm… Have mercy?” The leader of the logic side pleaded in a pitiful voice.

In response to their plead, a single light-cavalrymen walked forward, being followed by a pink floating crystal maid stepped forward. He unsheathed his tail-sword and pointed forward with it.

“TAKE NO PRISONERS!”

The massive army charged forward with the fury of a thousand Ragnaroks as the logic side screeched like little girls wearing red-riding-hoods before a big bad wolf.

And then, a fierce battle like no other ensued.

[And now, back to your usual program.]

“I…” I said while doing my best to resist their advance. “I actually… Have some things I have to take care now… So…” I tried to weasel my way of this smuffy hell… Huh? Where did that word even come from? Whatever.

“But…” Drunk-yuu said in a pouting tone. “Petting…” N-No! Not the puppy eyes! My only weakness! Together with begging eyes! And fluffiness! And explosions! And sharp things! And pointy things! And a lot many other only weaknesses! “…Author said I could make you do something for me once…” She said in a pout.

“H-How do you even remember something that old?” I said, surprised she still recalled the Christmas special from two years ago. Her only answer was an upturned eye that was copied by everyone else around. “I… I… I promise to continue this later, okay?” I said after some thinking. “W-When we get into the ship, we should have a lot of time to do this.”

“Promise?” She asked me with upturned eyes.

“P-Promise.”

“Pinky promise?” As she said that, she raised her hand and extended her pinky forward.

THAT’S SO BLOODY ADORABLE!

“Pinky promise!” I said while coiling my pinky around hers and shaking it.

She gave me a smile that threatened to burn the mansion to the ground with how bright it was, her tails wagging behind her cheerfully as she giggled playfully.

Following that, I had to make a similar promise with each one of the other four who were still expecting me. However, due to the lack of pinkies, I had to be a bit more creative, making a clawy promise with Pebblesworth, a talony promise with Rio and a Taily promise with Aura.

I guess this isn’t that bad. Though I did feel a bit lonely when they separated from me.

[And now, one more peek inside Gon’s mind.]

Once again on the wasteland, however, from the battle that had happened, only a massive pile of bodies remained, with all their gear and equipment laying on the floor around them. On the top of this pile, ten gons using their beginner armor stood, tired, injured, but victorious.

Oddly enough, none of the Yuu banners, armored rios, cloaked Auras or huge pebbles sported the smallest injury.

“FOR LOGIC!” They shouted in unison.

Then they all ran down from the pile of bodies and towards the smuffy paradise.

[Thanks for staying with us through this quick moment of showing the inner workings of Gon’s mind. We now shall continue the program.]

“Anyway, as I was saying…” I said after clearing my throat and looking back to Thalia who was watching me with a warm gaze. “For now, the plan is to go back to town and tell lord Wich that you guys won’t kill his workers the moment they arrive.”

“Ah, so the Wich are still the lords, huh?” Thalia said amused.

“Yeah, I guess so.” I nodded. “Anyway, they should send a team of builders to deal with fixing this place up, so if you could lend them a hand, it would be great.” I stopped to think for a moment. “I’ll also ask them to bring a few more kegs. I guess I COULD afford to buy a few more.”

“I must say that I’m already really enjoying this partnership!” Thalia replied cheerfully.

“But then, how should we know if someone’s an invader or your friend during this whole ordeal?” Rognar suddenly asked with a serious expression. “It’ll be difficult to find out who’s a hoodlum and who’s actually here to do their job.”

“Ah! There’s the Rognar I recall!” Thalia said with a satisfied tone and an approving tone. I raised an eyebrow surprised, but nodded.

“Well, for now, I seriously doubt that anyone other than the repair crew will have any reason to even come here. And even if they came, there isn’t really anything for them to grab that would cause issues.” I said while thinking about it deeply. “Though, later on during the construction…”

“I doubt you’d have any issues during the repair process.” Crys suddenly interrupted me, catching me by surprise. Noticing my reaction, she proceeded to explain. “You see, chances are that the crew will know each other, so the moment some stranger mixes with them they’d notice.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” I nodded, and turning to the dwarven warrior, he looked like he agreed with us in this point.

“But, what about afterwards?” Thalia asked curious. “After the repairs are done, I doubt things would be as easy.”

“Then the owner-worker chat function should be helpful.” Crys said in a tone that sounded like she was just speaking the obvious.

“““Owner-worker chat?””“ The three of us asked curious.

Taking Crys’s words as a hint, I checked my menu and found a new option to bring up a window I was ninety-nine percent sure that I didn’t have previously.

Haunted Mansion Owner Wargon/Yuu Housing Class Mansion Durability 23% Quality Very poor Location? El-Dirrah's outskirts Facilities Name Level/specs Status/Upgrade Brewery LVL 0 (Broken) Repair Required Kitchen2 LVL 0 (Broken) Repair Required New Facility N/A Upgrade Available Bonuses Mining 0% Fishing 0% Lumberjacking 0% Foraging 0% Skinning 0% Brewing 0% Cooking 0% ---- ---- Residents/Workers

-Wargon (Owner)

-Aura

-Mr. Pebblesworth

-Lieutenant Knight Whiskers McBallofur Maximilliamus Von Scratchy the Third of Nyarnya

-Rioreia

-Crys

-Yuu (Owner)

-Rognar Copperfist (Resident/Guard) [Contact]

-Thalia Copperfist (Resident/Housekeeper) [Contact]

Okay. This is nice. First, I’m not sure whether the house is in a better or worse state than what I initially expected. I mean, it’s 23 percent in durability, so it’s not THAT bad. I think. Not sure. Might be mistaken. However, VERY POOR quality? What’s with that? It’s depressing! Anyway, moving on.

Skipping the fact that I had entirely forgotten the name of this village was El-Dirrah, I’m surprised to see that this house already has not one, but two facilities installed. I mean, yeah, it does seem to be in a really horrible state for the bonus to be zero percent, but still, it’s less work. I guess?

That said, I didn’t expect a normal kitchen to count as a facility.

Also, looks like that thanks to the house’s current status I get pretty much no bonuses whatsoever. Well, Cyg did tell us that the gathering bonuses were greatly based on both location and house status, so no wonder they are so damn bad at this moment.

Now, lastly, to the main point of this whole list.

What under the nine heavens is a Lieutenant Knight? Like, seriously? I’m almost certain those two military rankings didn’t even exist in the same era! And don’t come telling me about being knighted by the queen and whatnot, I’m talking about actual armor-wearing knights. This just makes no bloody sense whatsoever! Besides, where did that ‘Of Nyarnya’ even come from? Cygnasdammit you trick-cat, do you think you are a lion or something?

Should it really be this easy to change names?

Well, if I think too much about it, I’ll lose.

Anyway, as Crys had told me, there was an option to contact both Thalia and Rognar.

“This is convenient.” I heard Thalia commenting curiously while staring into space, probably checking a window of her own. “And… With this, we don’t need a whispering feather to contact the young golem here?” She asked curious.

“That’s right.” Crys said with a proud tone. “Though contact from inhabitants to chosen is a bit more limited, it should be enough to deal with most situations.”

“Aaah, I see.” Thalia nodded impressed, before turning to Crys. “You are a really smart sprite, aren’t you?”

“A-Ah…” Crys, caught by surprise by the sudden praise, had an embarrassed expression. “Thank you. That said… I’m actually an elemental.”

“Ah? Is that so?” Thalia said surprised.

“Wait a second. What’s that you said?” Rognar asked confusedly. “Chosen? As in, the ones that carry on the will of the goddess?”

“Erm… Yes?”

“And this boy here is one of them?”

“Well… Yes?” She said, confused.

“This boy here? Who looks like he can barely hold his weapon without dropping it?” He asked, and I felt my right eye twitching.

After a brief moment of staring at me in shock and disbelief, Rognar finally burst into a loud laughter while pointing at me. It took me a whole second to feel my fuse burn through faster than dry gunpowder on a sunny and dry day. And while I’m not entirely sure if dry gunpowder in a sunny and dry day burns faster than normal gunpowder on a normal day, my point still stands.

I grabbed the second charm that Yuu had made for me, the offensive one, and did something I’ve been wanting to try for some time. I pulled my hammer out from the inventory, surprising the dwarf as he stared in shock at the oversized weapon appearing out of thin air. His shock lasted enough time for me to stick the charm to the hammer’s head and activate it.

“W-Wait a second…” I heard him begging me in worried tone.

“So… You had something to say about holding weapons?”

“That’s…” He shook his head. “Is that a challenge?” He asked me with a sudden smirk, his axe materializing in his hand as he prepared to battle. “After all, the moment that talisman stops burning, your weapon will be useless.”

“Dear…” Thalia said in a low and cold tone, but I interrupted her.

“Yeah. That’s why I’m doing this.” I said, grabbing a freezing knife and throwing it to the ground under him.

The ghost dwarf let out a shout of surprise as the ice creeped up his leg. Recalling back to how Aura had frozen his mouth earlier, I guessed that he had a hard time phasing through objects without a moment’s notice. Looks like I was right on the spot. The brief moment that the dwarf took to free himself was all that I needed to approach him, hammer at hands and swinging it in a golf club motion while letting it explode on impact.

Now, if I am allowed a comment on my actions, one would be that he’s already dead, so something like this shouldn’t even phase him. Two, I always wanted to know how it feels to be on the opposite side of a slapstick comedy. Three, making people get stuck to the wall is a lot harder than you might think, you have to use the exact amount of force for him to break through, but not go flying.

I wonder if the Old man would give me a crash course on how to pull that one off.

The dwarf flew right through the wall and towards the backside of the mansion in a spectacular fashion, leaving a hole on his way out. I mean, it is a bit strange that a ghost would break a hole through a wall he was sent flying. Admittedly, the hole was a bit small compared to what you’d expect, but it’s still a thing.

I approached the hole and let out an amused whistle while seeing Rognar knocked out far away.

“That should serve as a warning.” I said amused.

“A warning indeed.” I heard Crys speaking amused, besides me. I gave her a quick glance, only to notice her staring at a point in the distance, and not to the dwarf.

I followed her gaze confused and for a moment I thought that I there was some sort of movement on the horizon, where we were looking, but my thoughts were derailed once I felt a pair of hands coiling around my waist and pulling me back into the mansion.

“Y-YUU!” I said worriedly. “What do you think you are doing?” I asked the Kitsune in shock.

“Hugging.” She told me cheerfully.

“This isn’t what we agreed on!” I said in shock while trying to calm myself down from the surprise hug.

“No. We agreed on leaving petting for later. You said nothing about huggies.” She told me in a childish, but also proud manner.

She… Actually had a very good point. The agreement never even touched on the matter of letting her hug me or not.

“Okay… I’ll let this one go for now.” I said with a sigh. “Anyway, if you wouldn’t mind…” I said while pointing out how difficult it would be to move around with her hugging me like this.

It took her a moment to understand, but she finally nodded and let go of me for a moment.

“You do reckon that is one more thing to fix, right?” Thalia asked while staring at the hole.

“Meh. Still worth it.” I shrugged.

“Yeah, it was rather amusing to be honest.” Thalia agreed.

“I find your lack of pity disturbing.” Crys said coldly.

“I give you eight for the reference.” I gave my critique. “You should have said it with more intensity to make it work.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Crys said while watching amusedly as Yuu tackle-hugged me once again now that we weren’t walking again.

“Oh well, he deserved it anyway.” Thalia shrugged before making a curious face. “That said, you being a Chosen does explain a few things.”

“Hmm? Like what?”

“You see, recently we’ve been having these adventurers coming here to try and… Erm… Exorcise us.” She said with an amused expression. “The way they acted was rather different compared to what we were used to. A fair bit more insistent too.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a chosen alright.” I said amused. “Oh well, if a chosen happens to try and invade this place, feel free to do whatever you want since, you know, we don’t die and whatnots… That said, I would rather that you guys didn’t end up killing a non-chosen around here if possible.” I said in a bit of a grimmer tone.

“…Alright. We’ll only scare them off, then.”

“Much obliged.” I said while nodding to the ghost. “Well, now that this is done, I guess I should go back to the town to inform lord Wich that this is done.” I said.

“Okay. I guess I’ll try to clean up this place a bit before the crew arrives then.” She said before frowning slight. “By the way, should we show ourselves or would you rather…”

“Well, I plan on telling him what I did, but…” I shrugged. “It’s up to you guys? Just try to not scare them to death or something.”

“Okay.” She nodded while summoning her spectral broom once again and starting to wipe the floor with renewed vigor. “It’s been so long since I felt like cleaning this place had any worth!” She said cheerfully. “What with that muscle-head breaking the house every other time someone appeared here.” She suddenly stopped. “Any idea when you’ll be returning here?”

“That’s… Well, I’m stuck around the village until the ocean calms down or whatever it is that the undines say, so I’m not sure. Probably tomorrow all things considered.” I said uncertain. After a moment, I decided that it wasn’t worth the effort and shrugged.

“Ah, we’ll actually leave tomorrow, Shishou.” Yuu suddenly told me while looking up from my back.

“Huh?” I asked confused. “But wasn’t the ocean still angry or something?” I asked confused.

“Han-chan sent me a message.” She told in her uncharacteristic childish drunk manner. “A merchant docked a few hours ago that will try her luck or something.”

“Wait, really?” I asked surprised and Yuu nodded excitedly.

“Han chan told me so.”

“…And when did she send you that message?” I asked confused.

“Some time ago?” Yuu tilted her head as if she tried to recall something. “Don’t remember.” She said as if it didn’t matter before hugging me once again.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” I asked with a sigh.

“…Did I have to?”

With a cute face like that? No, you don’t. While almost falling victim to the petting desire once again, I calmed down my itching hand and took a deep breath. Turning back to the ghost keeper I gave her an awkward smile before nodding.

“Well, looks like I might be disappearing for a bit longer than expected.” I said while scratching my head awkwardly.

“Well, this kind of thing happens. Not like we can expect this place to be inhabited by a living being the way it is in here, right?” She said.

I gave a quick look around. I mean, the ground might be threatening to pierce through my shoes with splinters, the ceiling looks like it’s about to fall down and crush us all to death, the pillars creak at every step someone take on the second floor. But all in all, it wasn’t THAT bad. Not as bad as lil-sister deciding to mess up the house bad.

Still, deciding to call it a day here, I gave my goodbyes to the ghosts in the house and decided to make our way back to the village with some effort, since Yuu insisted on clinging to me. Taking the free time to deal with some delayed matters such as the windows I had dismissed earlier, such as whether to publish my name or not.

I didn’t really have any reason to either publish or not, so after a long time pondering on the matter, I decided to leave this to a professional once I arrived at the village. AkA, a coin.

I also had to have a talk with Lieutenant, since his new name left me curious. Probably take the time to look into Aura’s old samurai clothes since we still had a whole day to wait. Something tells me that Crys will enjoy wearing those again. As my mind wandered around some very important and focused matters, Yuu slowly started to become sober again, as she suddenly let go of me and blushed heavily while looking away.

Thankfully, she didn’t run like last time, so at least I still got that going for me.

I think I’d break if Yuu went back to avoiding me again. While recalling those dark moments in my past, I felt a metaphorical manly tear roll down my cheek.

By the way, am I the only one still wondering how the hell the logic side won that war?

…

(Post chapter short extra)

“Good job back there Gon.” Cyg told me while passing me a towel.

“Thanks.” I said while using the towel to clean away some of the sweat from working under the spotlight. What? Snow? That doesn’t really help THAT much to be honest. “So, how do things look? Think this chapter is good to go?” I asked her as she watched the last scene on a window.

“Looks like it.” She nodded.

“D-Did I do everything correctly?” Yuu asked awkwardly, peeking from behind me. “I’m never sure with these drunk scenes.” She said with a pout, making the entire filming crew leak out an ‘awww’.

“You were great, Yuu.” Cyg said with a smile while comforting the kitsune before sighing. “Anyway, Gotta make a call.” She said while pulling a cellphone and dialing up some numbers.

“Huh? Did something happen?” I asked confused.

“Well, certain someones…” She stared at the two of us, and then at the camera. “Managed to break the fourth wall again, so I’ll have the repair crew come here to see if they can fix it in time.” She said while taking the cellphone to her ear and staring at us coldly. This time, both me and Yuu looked away awkwardly. “Hello? Daniel? Yeah, it’s Cyg… yeah, he did it again… Though it was the author’s fault, Gon didn’t exactly help… yeah…”

“W-We should probably get away from here.” I said with a small smile while stepping away silently.

“W-We wouldn’t want to interrupt the filming of the extra, right?” Yuu agreed with me.

We discreetly ran away while the goddess was occupied with her call. Sorry Author, but we’ll have you take this one alone. I saluted the camera before darting after the kitsune.