“I watched the Kobold King part too. Your friend can turn into a giant, isn’t that so cool~” she said while creeping towards me on the floor like a cat. 

“How come you didn’t use your flying whip though?” Euphemia continued. She flipped over, her shirt riding up and exposing her belly as she raised her hands theatrically. 

“Go whip, restrain!” she said, trying to impersonate me with a deep voice. “Bind this poor kobold!” 

I shrugged, taking another long drink from my beer. “Hey, that’s not what I sound like. And I just didn’t want people to know about my abilities.”

Euphemia smirked. “Because if people knew about your perverted abilities then you’d have a harder time finding innocent girls like me to attack in the future, right~”

“Is there anything innocent about you at all?”

“What are you talking about, I’m super innocent~” Euphemia said, leaning up to finish her beer with a chug and a satisfied Ah~, then immediately reaching over to the table to crack open another one. 

“Yeah, right,” I answered, and decided to change the topic. “Just how bad are things at Talos right now?”

Euphemia let out a sigh. “It’s sooooo bad at the moment. Because the orcs have the city surrounded, you can’t even sneak out, and if you die you just respawn back at Talos so there’s nothing you can really do.” 

That sounded exceptionally shitty for the Talos resident Eclipse players. Being trapped within city walls with very few chances to earn gold and experience outside of dishwashing and other low level quests, players couldn’t even leave the city safely. 

“Well, there is a way to leave the city that might be safe,” I said, pretending to be thinking to myself, but in fact this was a bit of theatrics for vengeance. 

Euphemia’s eyes lit up immediately. “What is it? Tell me~” 

“There’s a secret passageway… But what do I get for telling a raccoon who steals my popsicles without permission?” I said, leaning in to pinch the culprit’s cheeks. 

“Pl~ease~ tell me,” Euphemia begged, clinging onto my sweater. “I’ll pay you back! I’ll wash and fold your clothes! And do your dishes!” 

Hm. That wasn’t too bad of a deal. Originally I wanted to just taunt her with my knowledge without actually handing it over, just to see her struggle. But since she lived right next door, her housework offer was actually realistic. I decided to probe a bit more to extract more value from this spineless raccoon.

I squished her cheek just a little bit harder until her face was stretched comically. “You know how valuable this information is? And do you even know how to do laundry? Look at your own apartment!” 

Actually, Euphemia’s apartment was relatively clean with the sole exception of the numerous beer cans sitting all over the place. It looked like she had a dozen friends over last night to have so many empty cans laying around, but knowing Euphemia, the more likely explanation was just that this girl was an alcoholic. 

Euphemia continued to pout. “Please tell me, you don’t know how bad it is in Talos, I’ve been doing missing pet quests for daaaaaays~” 

“Okay, but first you have to listen to what I tell you to do.”

Euphemia nodded enthusiastically.

I rubbed the top of her head. “Good doggie. Sit.”

A fierce glint appeared in her eyes as she realized I was returning her own line to her, but she swallowed her pride and sat there, slightly shaking with rage. I was laughing internally at the sight.

“If you want to know the secret passageway out of Talos, you will clean my apartment, do my laundry, and cook for me twice a week for one month.” 

“But that’s not faaaaair, it’s–”

I held up my palm. “And counting the theft of my last red bean popsicle, blackmail, physical assault, and emotional damage, I’ll be increasing it to two months.”

Euphemia looked like she was about to burst like a hard boiled egg accidentally left in a microwave, but she bit her lip and considered her options. 

I already did the calculation in my head though. It was unknown how long the Talos siege would last, so if she wanted the guaranteed immediate out, my proposal was necessary. 

Euphemia tugged at the bear ears on her pajama hoodie in frustration. “Agh, I’ll do it.”

I took my wallet out from my pocket and reached into the inner layer, taking out a spare key.

“Take this. Remember, two times a week for two months alright? I want to see neatly folded laundry, rice in the rice cooker, and spotless floors.” 

Euphemia mumbled under her breath. “Fucking asshole.”

My eyebrow raised. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing~”

“You want me to increase the time again?”

“Nooooo~” Euphemia pleaded while clinging onto my leg and moping on the floor. “I’ll do it, I'll do it.” 

“Watch your mouth then.”

Euphemia pouted and took my spare key. 

“The secret passageway out of Talos is in the basement of Evelyn’s magic shop in Talos. Ask for her permission or tell her I sent you and I’m sure she’ll let you use it.” 

Euphemia’s eyes went round at the revelation. “Thank you for telling me~”

I grunted. “You better hold up your part of the promise, otherwise I’ll make your life a living hell, got that?”

“Okay, no worries oppa~”

Euphemia got up and crawled on top of my lap to hug me, resting her head on my shoulder. As much as I wanted to resist out of principle, having a black haired beauty climb onto me and press her body against mine as I felt her bra outline through her pajamas against my chest made it hard to fight back. 

“This is just like those trending couple videos, where the girlfriend wants attention, so she crawls on the lap of her boyfriend who’s playing video games, to see how he reacts,” she said softly near my ear.

“I’m not your boyfriend, though.”

“No, but I can be your pretend girlfriend~” Euphemia said while smiling sweetly. 

She pulled back and maintained eye contact with me, her eyes sparkling. “You’re kind of cute, anyway~”

Euphemia brought her face closer to mine and planted a wet kiss on my right cheek. 

I grabbed her hair and gently brought her towards me, planting her pouty wet lips to mine. My tongue entered her mouth and met hers, making a dirty wet sound. 

She pulled away for a moment to catch her breath, smiling. 

“We’ve done this before, haven’t we?” Euphemia said melodiously.

“In-game doesn’t count,” I replied. 

“Oh, really~” she said mischievously, before diving at my neck. 

“Ouch, hey!”

Without any hint of restraint, Euphemia sucked in on my neck like a vampire, leaving a bit of her lipstick and a large angry red hickey. 

“I have to go to work next week…” I groaned, which prompted her to bite down.

“OW!”

“Heehee~” she giggled. This devil. 

I rubbed my neck painfully and got up, although Euphemia tried to squirm and cling onto me like a koala. 

“Don’t forget your part of the deal, or I’ll make sure you face the consequences,” I said to her sternly.

“Okay~” 

After finishing my beer in one go and making sure she actually closed her apartment door this time, I headed back to my own apartment. I checked my phone. This girl actually saved herself into my contacts with a heart next to her name.

I did some quick stretches before logging into Eclipse, right as the regiment meeting was starting.

Commander Isaac was standing in front with the other three commanders. They all looked like gruff veteran men with the exception of the fifth regiment commander, a woman with sharp glasses and white gloves. 

“Attention!” Commander Isaac barked.

The woman with white gloves, otherwise known as Commander Isabelle, began the explanation. “We will be marching upon the dwarves tomorrow. Regiments one and two will take the southern route, and regiments four and five will take the northern route up the mountain.” 

“For today, we will focus on drilling to disperse in an organized fashion when the dwarves use their falling boulder tactic and minimize damage. Regiments one and two, head over to the valley. Regiments four and five, follow me to the waterfall.” 

A stampede of feet hit the ground as we separated into two forces, as I reunited with the seven surviving members of my squad and headed towards the waterfall. Commander Isabelle was actually running through the river, hopping on the stones as if she was made of air. 

“Do you see the commander’s movements?” I asked Donovan, who was running beside me.

“She would make a formidable opponent. I can barely follow her movements with my eyes.” Coming from Donovan, who was a former tournament winning judo wrestler, that was a major compliment. 

“I think she’s a thief class,” Rose added. “Or an assassin.”

I nodded. The insane footwork she was showing had to belong to some sort of assassin based class. I could swear to god that at some points, there just weren’t any rocks and she was running on the water itself.

All the commanders were formidable fighters in their own right. We continued along the river until we reached the origination point, a cascading waterfall along the northern end of the mountain surrounded by lush wild grass and flowers. 

Commander Isabelle stopped at the front of the waterfall. “We’ll begin live fire exercises now. Let’s get a volunteer mage. How about you?”

She pointed at a female mage, who walked up to the waterfall beside Isabelle at her orders, and climbed onto the top of a rock outpost that the commander gracefully jumped on top of in one leap. 

“Try to cast [Fireball] down from this ledge at them, but hold back the magic power.”

The female mage looked apprehensive. “At our soldiers?”

“Yes. If they’re not strong enough to take on a weakened Fireball they shouldn’t be out here anyway.”

Isabelle cupped her hand around her mouth to amplify her voice. “You hear that, fourth and fifth regiment? When Miss Mage here casts Fireball, prepare to run to the side as fast as you can.”

Isabelle pulled the female mage towards her and whispered in her ear. The mage nodded eagerly, then raised her staff. 

Poof. A smokescreen appeared in front of her staff, obscuring a clear visual of the mage casting. Here on the ground, soldiers were waiting in grim anticipation of what was going to come next.

The next moment, two fireballs came out of the smokescreen simultaneously. How were we supposed to dodge two fireballs at the same time? The regiment scattered as fast as they could, but the fact that there were two spells to dodge added an element of madness to the task. 

More than a few soldiers got hit by the impact craters, but luckily the damage was nowhere near severe enough to cause fatal damage. One of the soldiers that took a direct hit from the fireball lost half his health, but even that was easily healed up by the priests and clerics in the regiment. 

Commander Isabelle didn’t look pleased. “Awful job, soldiers.”

Standing on the rocky outpost were two mages. It seemed that the commander snuck another one in when the smoke screen was in effect, to heighten the difficulty of the exercise. 

“I’ll demonstrate how it’s done.”

She spoke to the female mage from before and the new mage, then left a smokescreen that covered both of them. Isabelle then jumped down gracefully and motioned for us to clear an area for her. The soldiers quickly gave the commander some space.

Two fireballs came searing down at her from above, with little time to react because the smokescreen obscured the casting animation of the mages. 

All that was left of Commander Isabelle was an afterimage, as she reappeared right between both explosions, standing on about half a meter of ground that wasn’t scorched by the flames. 

Before we could even catch our breath, another set of fireballs flew out, and the commander dodged them again by launching herself into the air, flipping gracefully and landing on her high heel boots with her knees bent. 

She picked up a rock while standing up, then tossed the rock at high velocity at the smokescreen above. The rock whistled past both mages and dissipated the smoke cloud, revealing two panting mages with sweat rolling down their faces. 

“Keen awareness and quick movements are necessary to thwart velocity based traps like falling boulders. We’ll continue drilling now. Remember to stay focused and alert, and move your feet the moment you sense something coming.”

She leapt back onto the high ground next to the two mages. “And remember, practice makes perfect. By the tenth drill, if any of you are still getting hit by fireballs, you will receive half rations for dinner.”

“Let’s begin again,” Commander Isabelle stated while creating the smokescreen again. 

And so, fourth and fifth regiment spent the rest of the daylight hours drilling. We eventually added [Earth Lance]s to the drill as well to simulate ballista arrows, and even [Cone of Cold] just to up the difficulty even more. A few different people failed the drills every time, and whenever we made noticeable progress, the commander just increased the difficulty by adding in more spells and more mages to the mix. 

As the sun set and we were thoroughly exhausted from drilling, we made camp for the evening. Large bonfires across the camp crackled as we feasted on a slow simmered stew made of local leafy vegetables, some wild potatoes we managed to scrounge up from the mountainside, herbs, spices, buffalo meat, and some rabbit meat. 

The smell was amazing, wafting through the entire camp. I eagerly tucked into the stew, which was served on a wooden bowl with a wooden spoon that felt great to hold by hand. I finished the bowl in under two minutes, then got seconds and finished that as well. With a hand on my belly, I let out a satisfied burp. 

A whooshing sound went right past my head, and then another. I recognized the sound instantly. Arrows.

“We’re under attack!” a soldier yelled, as a volley of arrows that looked almost like a swarm of angry mosquitos descended upon the camp.

Commander Isabelle flicked her wrist, as two kunai appeared in her hand. There was no doubt now that she was some sort of assassin class. She threw a kunai at lightning speed at the direction the arrows seemed to have originated from, resulting in a pained yelp from something in the distance.

An arrow whizzed straight towards my face, and I grabbed the wooden bowl I was eating stew from and covered my face just in time, as the arrow embedded itself in the bowl with a thud.