For the second day in a row, I wake up handcuffed to a bed. Though rather than Ahnya's large form curled up next to me, someone smaller than myself is laying on top of me. I have platinum blond hair draped over my face, and even in her sleep, her delicate hands are resting in, interesting places. Before I can more than acknowledge to myself that it's Keiuri draped over me, I hear the noise that woke me again. A slight giggle from somewhere nearby.

I halfheartedly try to blow the bright hair out of my face, then shift my head slightly to peer over at the door. Naturally, I find Ahnya, Mera, and Kammy all peeping through the cracked open door, with Flam tickling Kammy to try and jockey for a bit of space to look in.

I open my mouth, then hesitate, unsure of what to say. So I close my mouth, shrug slightly, then wave.

Kammy covers her mouth with one hand, and her cheeks darken? It looked like the tiny black spots on her skin spread across a larger area. Then she clears her throat, elbows Flam, then lightly pushes Mera and Ahnya back. Finally she opens the door the rest of the way and walks in, somehow managing to look calm and competent, hands held together in front off her skirt as she bows shallowly. "Pardon me miss, breakfast is ready if you and your guest would like to attend." Kammy curtsies after delivering her message, then turns around to walk back out, picking up Flam on her way, who had tried to sneak into the room behind her.

"Right. Keiuri, you awake yet?" When she doesn't respond, I nudge her head with my chin. "Come on, breakfast."

She mutters something. Then before I can nudge her again or say anything else, she chomps down on my neck with an exaggerated, "Nom!"

"Eehp! H-hey. Why you biting me?" I rattle the metal webbing of the cuffs against the bedframe. Then my face flushes as I recall the times she bit me yesterday.

Keiuri's teeth pull away only to be replaced by her lips. "Muah~ It's cause you make the cutest noises when I bite you."

"I do, do I? Ehah." I glance to the still occupied doorway. Mera looks thoughtful, and Ahnya is just nodding. "Right, well. Breakfast? Please?"

"Okay. That sounds good too." Keiuri sits up, lightly clutching the sheet. "Just, give me a minute to find the key." She climbs out of bed, taking the sheet with her to cover herself, but leaving me mostly exposed, she never did quite get around to taking my shirt all the way off. But, I suppose it is just Mera and Ahnya.

After a couple minutes of searching through the room she had somehow made more of a mess of in one evening than Ahnya had made of her hotel room over several days, Keiuri slumps in defeat. "Sooorry Aradeee, I don't know where the key ended up. Miss Ahnya, can you get her out of the cuffs?"

"Uff fu fu. She can get herself out even easier than I could." Ahnya's smirk at the fact I still hadn't remembered that is somehow more embarrassing than my state of undress.

"Of course! Let me just recy- ah, no the warehouse thing is better?" The cuffs vanish from my wrists, then the first thing I do is pull my top down. After that, I take the cuffs back out of storage and place them on the bed as I stand up to walk over to my bag. The only other clothes in it is stained with my own blood. "Woops, I didn't go home for a change of clothes."

"Ahem. Did you forget that Mera went clothes shopping to stock the closets here?"

"Oh, right. And those ended up, where?"

Ahnya holds a finger up with her mouth slightly open, then blinks. "Good question." Then she places the claws of her right index finger and thumb in her mouth before whistling sharply. The two proper/playful maids somehow quickly walk back into view. "Flam, could you repair that shirt? The blood has also had two days to set, so washing the stains out might be a little effort. Kammy, could you get lil' Blue and Keiuri dressed? I do believe outfits sized for Blue should fit Keiuri, reasonably well. Mmm. Something, matching or complimentary between them, if you can~"

Kammy blushes again, if the black spots covering more of her face is in fact her version of a blush. "Yes ma'am."

Flam picks up my old shirt to look over the damage. "Whatever did this had wicked claws. Hmm?" Faster than I can track, she's standing next to me lifting my current shirt up. "No scars at least. Good." Then she shoos me towards the taller maid.

"Wha? Huh? How did you move like?" It only takes a moment of focus for my jaw to drop. "A level eighty maid? Seriously?" I glance towards Kammy after that, turns out she's at a more reasonable, but still high, sixty two.

Kammy raises one hand towards the door. "This way please. Luckily the manor did have a full dressing room, with abundant space for the outfits brought in thus far. Both in terms of clothing for the ladies of the house, and for our uniforms." With that statement, she leads the way.

Keiuri is still covering herself with the sheet, until just before our goal when Flam appears and steals the bedding, presumably to clean it. Which leaves Keiuri attempting to cover herself with her hands. "C-can't Aradee and I get dressed on our own?"

Kammy glances our way, with only a slight blush. "While I shall not object if you both insist on it, I also doubt that you would be able to keep your hands to yourself in that situation. So for expediency's sake, I would prefer to assist you. Plus, lady Ahnya did ask me to pick outfits for you." Sensing no further objection, she throws the doors before us open.

All of the walls of the large room beyond are lined with shelves, drawers, or poles for hanging clothes. Less than half of the hanging space is occupied. There are also a few small benches in the middle of the room, and full size mirrors in two of the corners. Kammy quickly walks to the left wall, picking out a few things quickly. Two sets of reasonably practical black undergarments, two identical rose red dresses, not as nice as the dress from my birthday, but certainly cuter than my usual preferences, and two pairs of black shoes, one pair a bit tougher looking than the other.

Kammy lays the clothes out on a bench, then turns to consider us. She approaches me, then slides her hands under my shirt before lifting it up and off of me. After tossing the shirt in a hamper, she looks over Keiuri and I. "Right, I'll need to clean you up first." She pulls a sponge out of a hidden pocket in her dress. Before I can more than furrow my eyebrows at it, she holds it up and says, "Instant, double sponge bath." The sponge vanishes from her upheld hand, and suddenly I feel as if I had just bathed. Kammy holds an index finger in front of her mouth. "Shhh. Cheating this morning, I'll show you to the baths next time, kaay?"

With a snicker, she holds up a pair of panties. "Alright now, one leg at a time."

"Uhh, you're actually going to help us dress, like, directly?" At her nod, I tilt my head. "Ooookay. I guess." Despite how awkward it feels, getting dressed with an experienced maid's help does go rather quickly. Once I'm fully dressed, I tug at the straps of one garment in particular. "I don't, usually wear bras."

The other girls both glance my way, Kammy with a raised eyebrow, and Keiuri with a smile. "Well, it looked cute on you!" She's already given up on resisting Kammy's attempts to dress her, let alone trying to cover herself in front of her.

Once she has finished dressing Keiuri, Kammy draws a slight shuddering breath. Her face is fully darkened with a blush. "My apologies ma'am, you're both, very cute, so I need a minute to, collect myself. If you take a right after leaving the dressing room, you should find your way to the dining hall fairly quickly."

"Ah, sure." I tilt my head slightly, then reach way up to pat her head. "Thank you for your help miss Kammy."

She squeaks, and seems to be holding her skirt down, as opposed to how showy her curtsies are. "N-not a problem ma'am! Just doing my job."

"Hmm?" I shrug then lead the way to the doors, opening one side to let Keiuri out. Then when I step out after her, I almost run into Flam.

Flam is holding my shirt, already clean, dry, and stitched up. She holds it up a moment to show that the repairs were done with a slightly darker, and clearly higher quality thread, leaving marks that are easy enough to see with a close look, but nearly passable as an intact garment. Once she's done showing it off, she walks to the door I hadn't closed yet, pausing in the doorway with a smirk on her ruby red lips. "Well hello, Kammy. Need a hand?"

"N-no I was just going to-" The door suddenly closes, just shy of hard enough to count as being slammed. Flam must have dashed in and swatted it on her way by.

"Ohhh. Ohho. Well. Interesting." I'm certainly blushing a bit myself, but I shake my head, then grab Keiuri's hand. "Off to breakfast. I'm sure they'll, catch up?"

As stated, the dining hall is easy to find, especially with the door open. The table is large enough to easily sit a couple dozen, but it is currently only set for four. The two free plates are right across from Mera and Ahnya near one end. The plates are already loaded. Bacon, sausages, eggs, thinly cut fried potatoes, thick cuts of fried bread, and a shelled boiled egg right in the middle, for some reason. Still looks tasty. There are also several other dishes on the table with other things in them, more food, condiments, that sort of thing.

"Well now I feel embarrassed about the lunch I worked so hard to make yesterday." Keiuri is clinging to my side and pouting. Unlike my own usual pout, hers actually looks a little sad.

"Don't be. Cooking is one of the maid class', heh, many specialties. And Kammy in particular is exceptional in that regard. Well, come on. Sit down. Eat. I mean, the food is kept at perfect temperature by a skill, but still no need to delay." Ahnya beckons us towards the tantalizing table.

I take the seat directly across from Ahnya, then Keiuri jumps in my lap, sitting on my left thigh to put herself near the second plate, which she drags closer anyway.

"Uhm. Okay?" Not quite sure what to do with my left hand in this situation, I wrap my arm around Keiuri's waist, which does get a happy sigh out of her. Though, that might be because of the bacon she's already eating, instead. I look to the plate, then slightly up to the other dishes. Then I reach out and grab a single small strip of something that is crusted in sugar.

"Careful, that's-"

Crunch.

"Mixed candied citrus peels." Ahnya has a faint frown as she watches for my reaction.

The sharp fruity sourness is a bit strong, but after a moment the sweetness comes through. Then I toss the rest of the sugary thing in my mouth.

"Okay. I heard from Mera that you can't handle spicy foods, but apparently sour is fine. Good to know. Those are one of Flam's favorites." Ahnya's lips quirk into a slight smile. "Hmm, did Kammy find something else that needed to be done? She usually likes to attend during meals."

With a sausage dipped in egg yolk halfway in my mouth I barely manage to mutter out, "They're uh, busy."

"Busy, with? . . They? Ohh. The lovebirds are taking a break. Hmm. Nothing wrong with that." Ahnya smiles broadly as she cuts the boiled egg on her plate in half with a fork and knife, revealing the egg to be soft boiled, as the yolk runs slightly. Then she speaks again while applying small amounts of salt and a ground spice to the halved egg. "They are still in that honeymoon phase, I suppose."

I hum questioningly with a bacon and tomato sandwich, I hastily assembled, in my mouth.

"Their wedding was only a few weeks ago. Letting them live here instead of the busy capital was almost as much a wedding present as, well the various other things I gave them." Noticing my uncertain expression, Ahnya furrows her own eyebrows, then raises one. "They're married to each other, to be clear. Silly girl, did that not occur to you? Well, not to worry, they're very open in their relationship. One pretty nearly has to be open to, my sexual advances, to be hired into my maid staff." She does at least have the decency to blush after declaring that. "Ahhh. Though I would ask that you not advance upon Kammy too quickly. I would like to confirm some details with Zenach first. I was hoping she would be along with the forward group of maids. But I suppose she must have gotten distracted with her experiments. Likely doesn't help that I gave her the remains of one of those least eidolons from Dan. Peculiar material, that."

I tilt my head, trying to figure out, anything. Then suddenly go cross eyed as Keiuri holds something up in front of my face.

"You have to try this, it's so good!" It's the boiled egg from her plate, with a bite missing out of the point.

"I have one on my plate too? You don't have to share." After I say that, I notice that the last strip of bacon from my plate, that hadn't gotten folded into my impromptu sandwich has mysteriously vanished. "Huh. But if you insist. Ahhh." I barely get the sound of holding my mouth open out, before she shoves over half an egg in.

It certainly has the flavor one would expect of a chicken egg, but it also has the rich savory taste of a perfectly marbled medium rare steak mixed in, somehow. I hear Mera mutter something about me being too cute, but am not really focused on that.

I quickly shift from stunned to chewing through the tasty morsel, savoring every bit of it for several seconds. Then I decide I need plain toasted bread after such a savory egg, so I grab the other slice from my plate to chew on. "What the heck was that?! Magic egg?"

"Ahh, yes. The river folk are primarily meat eaters, but Kammy likes eggs best. From the simplicity of a well prepared over medium chicken egg, to the splendor of a soft boiled cockatrice dragon egg. She has put a lot of work into perfecting the art."

"Dragon eggs are that tasty? Does that, include adamant dragon eggs?" I'm already eyeing the egg on my plate, as well as everything else around, trying to figure out what to eat it with.

"I'm not sure. I had never seen adamant dragon eggs until recently, let alone eaten one. Also, I said cockatrice dragon. As in a hybrid of the two. A cockatrice is a monstrous chicken serpent, thing. The version mixed with the tiny jewel dragons are actually rather pretty though. Like a snake peacock. No, that doesn't sound better."

I end up hollowing out two halves of a biscuit to put cut up pieces of the egg in alongside some bacon based gravy.

"Right, well. The eggs are amazing, so I need to make a spawner for them, then I'll get Dan to flood his dungeon with them."

Ahnya giggles. "Do you mean, 'Ahnya, please give me a cockatrice dragon to use my skill on'? Cause if so, happily. It won't be a problem."

I blush and try not to smile. "Sorry, yes. Please do." I offer Keiuri a bite of one of my egg biscuit gravy boats as thanks for the egg.

By the time I'm full, I still have half of the potatoes, one sausage, and the remains of a now yolkless fried egg left on my plate.

Right after I acknowledge that I'm full, Kammy and Flam come into the room. Flam is carrying a lightly frosted and fogging tray. Kammy has lipstick marks on her neck and legs, but is managing to maintain a bit of professionalism. She seems to be taking notes.

"Smaller serving sizes for miss Aradain and miss Keiuri. Miss Merases has cleared her plate, but seems full. Hmm. Hope you all have room for dessert. Flam is an excellent pastry chef."

"Not to worry, I figured on this happening. So I maid a light berry and rum parfait for dessert. Just a splash of rum, since I don't know how alcohol tolerant you three are."

Kammy is looking my way. "Addendum, always has room for dessert."

I laugh awkwardly as I push the plate away. When Flam passes me a chilled cup full of sweet cream and bisected fruit, I dig in happily. Only pausing briefly when I think to add a couple candied citrus peels to it.

After dessert, I take a moment for a full arms overhead legs out stretch, almost unseating Keiuri and lightly poking Ahnya's knees with my new shoes.

Keiuri looks thoughtful, then she hops down from my lap, approaches Flam, and bows. "Please teach me to make desserts! Aradee liked that parfait thing even more than she liked the weird monster chicken egg. That's all the reason I need."

"Uhh. Were my reactions that different between the two?"

Mera lightly kicks my leg. "Yeah, you closed your eyes and hummed in a way that seemed like purring during dessert. You only did the purr-hum while eating the egg."

"Mmmhmmm. You were both paying too much attention to me. Do I need to use the art of deception to obscure myself while I eat?"

Mera laughs and shakes her head.

Flam had been silent long enough for that exchange to happen, Keiuri lightly bowed before the whole while. "Well, you do seem to have some resolve in your feelings for her. And, who am I kidding? High elf. Practically no other way you could be. Anyway, I'd be happy to help. Should be fun even. Not sure how light magic could help, but pure skill can do plenty."

"While they're doing, that. Time for adventure? Are we good to go after that weird monster in the bubble?"

"Mera got up to level eight, and probably made a fair bit of progress to nine. So, I suppose you should be close enough. Unless you snuck off and leveled up again yesterday? No. Good."

"Didn't, level up. No. I did kinda end up fighting, a monster. Though that wasn't, fun. And, new functions for monster conversion." I flick the screens from yesterday her way.

"Well, that's interesting too. Take out Vengeance, hold it in a loose grip, point up, and decide to double its size."

"Okay." I do as instructed, and it turns into a smallish dagger, into a big one. "That easy?"

"Yes. It did say according to your will. You might even be able to just, make it longer instead of bigger overall. Which likely would be more useful. Hmm. But how much energy did it take?"

"Ah. Uhh. Defaulted to ki and mana, feels like, five and ten percent respectively? Maybe kind of a lot."

"That should be less of an issue as you level up. Though I doubt you can currently double the size of your guandao. Like I suggested, just make it longer."

"Mm, yeah. An extra meter of reach when the opponent isn't expecting it would be devastating. Should I try out rupture too?"

"Not in the house! Plus, you should do that with like, your slime knives or something else you don't care about. Not that one you put effort into."

I return the dagger to its original size, then shift it around. "Say. Do you know how I can put more venom in this? It's supposed to be poison-y. But it doesn't, open? I've got a venom vial option, but don't know how to use it."

"Have you tried just, putting the tip of the dagger in the liquid? There are some magic knives that work that way."

My mouth opens as I utter a soft, "Ooohh." Then I quickly test that idea, finding that it works. Though the venom I'm using now is a mild paralytic.

After I put the knife away, Keiuri comes up to me with puppy dog eyes. "You're going on an adventure? Can I come?!"

"Weren't you gonna study desserts? Plus my party already has a mage. Though I guess there are only three of us. Hmmm. . ."

Chaos_Sinner777

This chapter and next chapter were gonna be one chapter, but then I was three thousand words in and barely through breakfast. So, two chapters! Does make this one rather, flirtation and slice of life heavy, but hey.

Also, fun fact, I accidentally used "maid" instead of "made" in regard to the parfait. But I left it cause pun.