“Incoming!” I said. I knew from the onset of that sick feeling in my stomach that they were on their way here. “This is gonna be like something from a comedy show. I hope he keeps all his clothes on. My eyes are still virgin.”

“He’d better,” said Seraphiel.

“Says the exhibitionist,” I said.

“I told you, I ran out naked because you screamed,” said Seraphiel.

“Shush.” Barefoot, Sariel walked to the bedroom door and put his ear against it. In a few minutes, even I could hear them coming. I could sense the virus, too. There was the sound of the door opening and laughter as the couple entered the apartment. We could hear them talking naughty to each other. Blushing, I got up from the bed and stood facing the window with my fingers in my ears.

Since the Rite of Cleansing produced a visual effect, the woman would have to be either unconscious or blindfolded for me to cure her without revealing myself. Uriel could choose either a sleeping drug or a blindfold, depending on how things unfolded. All I had to do was to stop myself from puking or making any noise.

We waited a few minutes then Sariel opened the door. Uriel was standing in front of the open doorway, all his clothes still on. He put a finger to his lips and motioned for me to follow him.

“Darling, hurry,” said the woman from the other room.

Uriel entered the bedroom first.

Eek! She was blindfolded and also tied up on the bed in her see-through underwear. She was a natural redhead.

I closed my eyes immediately and started the Rite of Cleansing though it was hard to concentrate with them talking.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

“Don’t be impatient,” said Uriel.

“You tease…”

I shut out the sounds in the bedroom from my mind and entered a meditative trance. The black spots of the Iah virus were, surprisingly, not as active or numerous in her as they had been in Uriel. Lifting my hands to shoulder height, power flew from my palms. I couldn’t see it, but I knew that a cleansing golden light was covering her body. When I was done, I tip-toed away, back to the guest bedroom.

Seraphiel eyed me worriedly as I sat down on the chair, but I felt fine except for a slight headache. The nausea was manageable, and I wasn’t even that tired since the viral load had been quite low.

Since I thought we might be waiting for a while, I took out a book titled “The Art of Disguise” from my handbag. However, I hadn’t read more than a few pages before we heard the sound of the bedroom door closing then, after a few seconds, the sound of the apartment’s front door. Uriel entered the guest bedroom a few moments later.

“Oh my goodness, it’s only been a few minutes,” I said. “Is that even enough time-”

“She said she wasn’t feeling well,” said Uriel.

“Was it right after I cured her?” I asked.

“Yes, she said she suddenly had an awful headache.”

“Oh dear. Well, she’s cured so she should be fine after some rest,” I said.

“She said she was bitten by something small when they were shooting a scene in an abandoned tire factory at the Solbjerg district,” said Uriel.

“Hmm, this is probably just a monster infected with a mutated strain of the virus rather than an actual Iah spawn,” I said.

“What’s the difference?” asked Sariel.

“It’s like you three. You’re infected, but you’re not Iah spawn,” I said. “The spawn are large clusters of the original virus.”

“We’ll head over there right now and kill it,” said Seraphiel.

I had prepared for this sort of reaction because I knew they still didn't understand the danger. Shaking my head at their lack of common sense, I handed Seraphiel a piece of paper.

He unfolded the paper. “...”

“What is it?” asked Uriel.

Seraphiel showed Uriel and Sariel the drawing of a large, fanged mouth swallowing three stick figures.

“That wouldn’t be a good idea because, as you know, Uriel was infected merely by coming into secondhand contact-” I said.

“Prolonged and intimate secondhand contact,” said Sariel.

“Do you really want to risk it?” I asked. “She said it was a small monster, right? You wouldn’t normally need three S-class ELs for that.”

“Alright, I’ll have someone else take care of it,” said Uriel.

“Remind whoever it is to burn the corpse. When it’s dead, I’ll go and get rid of any remaining traces of the virus,” I said. “I’ll also need to check if the people you sent to fight the monster got infected.”

Uriel and Sariel decided to go back to work since it was only an hour after lunch. Seraphiel insisted on sending me back to his apartment personally.

“Everything will be fine. You didn’t even feel any symptoms this time,” said Sariel to Uriel as we exited his apartment building.

I prayed that it would be so.

LinMeili

I made a cover that I think I will use! Here is the small version:

 

Click on spoiler for the big cover image.

Spoiler

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I really like this title, too, but if you google it, there is already a novel and manga with a similar title to "Save the Last Boss." I think it's best not to use it since I don't want to confuse people.

 

I thought of putting the cursor on the "start" button, but that took the focus away from the title. I might make the pink diamond more pixelated. The colors are limited, which makes it look very simple and clean, IMO.

Pros:

• clean and simple design
• might attract "gamelit" readers
• very readable title
• gets the genre and concept of the novel across
• free, since I made it myself :)

Cons:

• looks different from the other covers in the same genre, might be confusing
• this story isn't gamelit so people might leave a bad review if they buy it thinking its gamelit or litrpg
• title not catchy enough!

What do you think? Is it good enough to use as my Amazon ebook cover?