"No, I deserve to wear his ring. I fight on the frontline with him!" Fukasawa shouted.

"I support him with magic! I deserve to wear that ring!" Mary rebuked.

"But I heal him and have also known him for longer. We synergize more than both of you." Miya said.

"Uhh, please stop arguing girls... Maybe we could come to a consensus?" Kudo suggested. He was ignored by the three girls arguing over him. I saw a familiar couple gazing at them.

"So... how have you two been?" I asked Grantz and Alicia a simple question while temporarily ignoring the arguing harem.

"We've been fine. However, we are having a slight bit of trouble sorting this situation out." Alicia emphasized the harem in her statement. "Would you kindly help us deal with the situation?"

"Alright, I'll deal with them." I sighed as I walked up to the harem and pulled them all apart. "Cut it out, you guys." They were all shocked by my sudden appearance but even more shocked at my mechanical arm. Kudo's eyes were especially sparkly.

"Woah! Where'd you get that arm, Michael?" Kudo said excitedly as he gazed at it.

"Now now, we'll talk about that later. First, we'll deal with this." I motioned at the three girls who were standing there awkwardly. They came back to their senses and looked at each other with a fierce rivalry. I looked over at Grantz and Alicia and gave a proposal.

"What if you gave all of them rings to match Kudo's eye color, and Kudo gets to wear three different rings? The bonuses would stack on him, wouldn't they?" I gave what I thought was a sound proposal.

"Hmmm, maybe that could work. Let's try it out." Grantz pulled out a case with the rings in question. Where the hell does he keep getting these things? I pushed the thought to the back of my head as they all put on the rings. They all excitedly chattered with each other as they felt the effects of the rings.

Alicia suddenly appeared in their midst and asked for payment. They had to fork over 8 gold. I was confused, why were their ring's prices double ours even though it gave the same effect? Suspicions flew around in my head but I dismissed them as Kudo approached me.

"Michael, you've ranked up to C right?" Kudo asked me curiously.

"Yeah, I'm rank C now. Jane and I both are. Oh! You want us to train you now. Alright, just follow me." I motioned for the Harem to follow me. They trailed me and Jane as we headed over to the Guild. I headed to Alice's booth and asked her a question.

"Alice, is there a training ring in here?" She looked at me quizzically, then she saw the harem behind me.

"Yes, there is. Just head up the staircase over there. Don't cause another mess like last time, alright?" Alice shooed us off since there were other adventurers behind us. We headed over to the staircase and entered the second floor. The area in here was basically what you could call a gymnasium, but larger. There were many people in here sparring. Our group walked over to an empty spot where Jane and the girls sat down.

"Kudo, you'll be up first. Come at me with everything you've got." I extended my arm-blade and got into a combat-ready stance. He drew his longsword and looked at me with determined eyes. We waited for the other to make a move. After what seemed like an eternity, Kudo charged at me with his sword up. He swung downward which was largely telegraphed. To me, he was full of openings.

When his blade reached me, I easily deflected it and placed my arm-blade to his throat. This stopped him dead in his tracks and made him look at me with a slight bit of fear in his eyes. I withdrew the blade from his neck, causing him to breathe a sigh of relief.

"First of all, that swing. It was too telegraphed. Anyone could tell what you were doing from a mile away. You're also full of openings." I gave my opinion on that one exchange. He pondered over this and nodded. Getting back into a stance, I got ready for a second exchange.

The fights were all one-sided, though Kudo was faring much better. He went from fighting by instinct to a much more controlled style. He definitely left fewer openings as he paid more attention to the enemy than wildly swinging. Fukasawa was up next and she relied on her speed to overwhelm the enemy. Unfortunately, I was pretty fast too.

She dashed past me and went for a backstab, which I dodged. Quickly recovering from the failed attempt, she dodged my counterattack. She was faster than Kudo by a lot, though she was just as predictable. She attempted a frontal assault, her blades going for my neck like scissors. I dodged the blades and dashed behind her, using the same move she made earlier. Only I succeeded instead.

"I win." I slowly withdrew my blade from the middle of her back. "You're good at speed and lethality. However, you don't respond well to attacks from your blind spot. You need to work on your combat awareness, which includes sensing danger from unexpected locations." I explained to her.

"Is that how you dodged my backstab?" She asked, puzzled.

"No, I saw you dash past me and assumed you would go for a stab. I guessed correctly. My agility is pretty high too." She probably expected me to be a low agility type of person, considering I was wearing heavy armor.

"I see. I underestimated you quite a bit, Michael." She chuckled and we continued sparring for a while. When we were done, we sat down and Jane went up with Mary in tow. Jane taught Mary to cast while moving and dodging. Of course, this took time since Mary's chants were constantly interrupted by the need to dodge.

She did manage to get it down though, and Miya was up next. She was mainly a healer but had a few offensive spells. Jane also taught her how to cast while moving and to only heal when necessary to conserve mana. After a couple hours of training, it became nighttime and we decided to stop there.

We agreed on doing a request tomorrow to see if the harem made any progress. Jane and I headed back to the Boisterous Inn where Alice welcomed us back. I stared at her which once again made Jane jealously poke me in the side. Jane and I headed back up to our room where I was forced to "bathe" with her for another 30 minutes and went to sleep.

Both of us woke up and got dressed in our gear. We grabbed breakfast and practically inhaled the food. The adventurers new to staying at the inn were surprised, but the others that have stayed here treated this as if it was normal. After finishing, Jane and I sped over to the Guild to meet up with the harem. We waited there for about an hour and killed time by chatting with other adventurers. When the harem showed up, we let them pick out the request since we didn't want to make them face B-rank monsters at their levels.

The harem picked out a request about taking down a group of Harpies that nested on a mountain near a village about 15 kilometers away from Lerton. We took it over to Alice who filed the request and told us more details about it. Apparently, they had a large colony of about 120 harpies which needed to be cleared out quickly.

Jane and I decided to head over there first and wait for Kudo and the others to show up. We had a traveling speed far faster than theirs and waiting for them would be better, or so we thought. Jane and I left the gates and sprinted to the village on foot.

We cleared about half the distance in one day and camped out in a small clearing by the road. Jane and I sat next to each other and she leaned her head on my shoulder. I stared into the fire and recounted the events that transpired during the past eight months. It was all so surreal. Jane entwined her hand with mine and I kissed her before she kept resting her head on my shoulder. Her breathing became steady, and that was when I knew she fell asleep.

I let her sleep on my shoulder while I sat there and stared into the fire. Once it was dawn, we destroyed the campfire and kept moving. We reached the village, or what remained of it.

"Looks like we were too late." I sighed. There were corpses littering the area and they were recent ones too.

"The entire village is ransacked. There's pretty much nothing left. Looks like the harpies were more dangerous than we thought." We set up camp in the ruins of a house and waited for the harem to arrive. We had to wait two days and silenced a few harpy scouts that passed by our makeshift campsite.

Once the harem arrived, we immediately set off for the approximate location of the harpy colony. Climbing the mountain, we silenced many scouts that were patrolling the area. Once we made it, we saw a mass of harpies below us in a large nest made of logs. Seeing how concentrated they were, I decided that we would do a pincer attack. Jane and I would go in from the front and the harem would go in from the back.

They all agreed and we headed to our set locations. When we were ready, Jane and I sent a spear of ice through a line of harpies. Jane then cast her Blizzard spell, which did damage over time and slowed the harpies. It wouldn't affect us, and I charged into the midst of the harpies. Swinging my greatsword and stabbing with my mithril arm-blade, I slaughtered the harpies. I heard sounds of battle coming from Kudo's side and saw harpies constantly falling. They were doing well and I decided to focus on killing the harpies.

When about half of them were dead, the Matriarch Harpy appeared and dived straight for me.

Matriarch Harpy Level: 53 Health: 1200 The leader of the harpy colony. Fights fiercely if her colony is threatened.

I barely managed to dodge the nosedive aimed at me. Her speed was on a whole other level. The Matriarch came around for another dive and I managed to dodge it and cut off a wing. Now that it couldn't fly anymore, killing it would be an easy matter. I walked up to it and mercilessly stabbed my arm-blade into its throat, ending its life.

Jane and I let the harem finish the rest of the harpies off so they could gain a bit more combat experience. Seeing me caked in blood, they were a little until I explained to them that it wasn't my blood. We destroyed the nest and sped back to Lerton to inform the Guild of our bitter victory.

Jane and I arrived first in Lerton and went straight to the Guild. I explained to Alice that the village was destroyed when we got there, but still subjugated the harpies. We were given ten gold to split up amongst each other. Jane and I waited for two days before the harem showed up at the Boisterous Inn. I tried to give them their share of the money, but Kudo declined and said it would be payment for training them. I gave Jane half the gold and thanked Kudo.

"No problem, Michael. Our party is much more efficient especially now that we put our training into real combat. We're able to fight much better now." Kudo left to prepare for another request, and I left with Jane to do the same thing. I did see that Kudo and his harem did well against the harpies. I just hope they're able to accomplish what they were summoned for, whether it be a Demon Lord or something else.

If they did it, I wouldn't have to do it.