Eventually, I break out of their grasp by saying, “I have to use the bathroom!” While leaving the room in the corner of my eye, I can see their faces contort into an annoyed look, but I do my best to ignore them and get out.

Immediately, once my feet are out the door, I shut the door as calmly as I could and let out a sigh. It’s like night and day with those two now that this Demonic Bond is active. Before, they were overly kind to me, but now they are just extremely clingy in a scary way.

Heck, the first few times I tried to wiggle out of their arms, they just grabbed on tighter with an angry look in their eyes.

I look down at the tattoo and remember hearing, “Your wish has been granted again, Eric!” 

I never never made one! So how is it doing it again? Did the original owner make a wish but if that’s the case, I won’t really know what the wish is because he’s definitely long gone!

Shaking my head, trying to just adjust to the new circumstances. I regain focus and actually head into the bathroom, but instead of actually using it, I just go to their sink. It works similar to those motion activated ones. I wave my hand underneath it and a magic circle appears that pours water out of it at a steady pace right on top of my hands. 

Then I cup my hands just to watch the water overflow and space out. It is at least five minutes for me to continue and splash water on my face a couple of times, but right before I finish, a quiet knock comes from the door. Honestly, I thought I was hearing things because of how quiet it was. 

Just in case someone is there, I say “Just a minute.” Just loud enough for anyone outside to hear me, but then the quiet knocking continues. Which disproves my thought of it being just in my head or it being something else.

I just want a minute to collect myself even a little. The issue I soon realize is the longer I wait, the louder the knocking gets and once it gets around what I would call slamming, I open the door quickly right after the next “knock”.

It’s Ava… before she registers the door opened, you can see she looks… nervous? Anxious? Then instantly back to the sickeningly sweet smile she had before as she says “What took so long?”

Trying to give a roundabout answer, I tell her, “I think it was a normal amount of time.”

She obviously didn’t like that answer but she clings onto my arm and leads me into their main dining, kitchen, and living area while saying, “Whatever, we have some time before the Union closes so I’m going to get you signed up today.”

Then quickly she leads me out to the busy main road. It might just be me and Ava this time, since there’s no sign of Sarah. Looking at all the shops, I find this world isn’t quite as medieval as I thought, but I figured that after seeing Sarah’s bathroom and the front gate.

The road seems like a well-worn brick road with many small chips to big potholes. Not that those really make a big difference when its main purpose is to be walked on. 

Soon after letting Ava drag me through the road, then taking me down quite a few side roads, not that I’m complaining too much because I get to see where quite a few shops are.

We even passed what looked like a red-light district. Not that the girl leading me liked that. Ava's pace obviously sped up when passing it and even her grip tightens onto my arm tighter.

Around the edge of town is where I find myself in front of what looks like a large shed and now I’m starting to wonder what this Union is. Before we go in, “Is this place really going to be where I find work? What even is this job going to be?” leaves my lips nervously.

Ava lets go of my arm and turns to face me then she says “This is the Mercenary’s Union! People make requests as little as they want you to sweep their shop front or as big as a kingdom needing help to purge goblins’ nests.” then turns back around to open the large door. 

That means there’s a large scope for jobs. I wonder what kinds I should take. As soon as you cross the door, you are walking down a long and wide staircase lit by some form of floating blue light.

It takes some time to get down them, but then it opens up into a large room with several counters with workers and some hallways. Ava leads me to a counter and says, “We need to get you registered. We’ll get you and me some jobs tomorrow.”

Author's note: I hope you enjoyed! :D