"Haaah..." Zayne yawned as he woke up surrounded by dirt. As the last bit of drowsiness went away, he was beginning to feel the changes in his body.

He wasn't quite sure but he felt like he was a bit taller, his arms were a bit more muscled, and his senses were even sharper than they already were.

'Holy moly. A Demonoid's enhanced senses stack with vampiric senses. That's nuts...'

But the proof was in the pudding, as they say. He could hear better now, even to the extent of being able to sense the movements of insects close by. Zayne imagined it as having echolocation abilities.

His sense of smell was also much better. The proof of which was that Zayne's ability to smell the rabbit poop about seven meters away from the hole he was hiding in. He could tell that it was rabbit poop since there was a rabbit ten meters away with some poop left on its fur that smelled exactly the same.

'It's awesome that I can even tell distance just from the smell...' he thought, but then he realized he was literally testing this new ability out on feces. 'This is a terrible use of enhanced senses...'

Shaking his head, Zayne manipulated the earth on top of him to form an opening, which he used to climb out of his hiding spot.

"You're finally out..." Luna muttered with an overcast expression as she threw a pair of pants over.

"Mm." Zayne deftly caught the pants and smiled as he put them on, reveling in the wonders of civilization. He still felt a bit dirty though, so he opted to use a cleaning spell on the inside of his pants and their contents.

<< Sey Len >>

A cloud of shining dust blew out of Zayne's hand as it got bigger and bigger, surrounding his whole body. After a few moments, the cloud disappeared, leaving a very clean and fragrant Zayne.

He gave his armpits a good sniff and nodded. They smelled just like his favorite deodorant.

"What the hell?" Luna stood up and stomped over to him. "Why didn't you tell me you had something like that...!?"

"Whoops. It didn't cross my mind. My bad." Zayne used a nearby twig to write the Words of Power on the ground. "Just imagine yourself in a clean state. You can also add a scent that you're used to, but it'll cost a bit of mana."

"Mm." Luna nodded, closing her eyes.

<< Sey Len >>

Much like it did to Zayne, a cloud of dust came and went, leaving a cleaner Luna.

"Very convenient." Luna nodded in satisfaction. She sniffed her cuffs and smiled. "I even smell like that really expensive perfume that I only use on special occasions!"

"Yep. It can do any scent, as long as the caster has smelled it enough. The scents that the caster smells from other people's casts of the cleaning spell doesn't count though." Zayne explained as he used telekinesis to put on the tunic. It took a bit of effort since he wasn't quite skilled at it yet, but he was able to do it after some trial and error.

"Neat." Luna tersely commented.

"Hm." Zayne looked toward his girlfriend as he put on the boots. She was obviously in a strange mood. "So, uh. How'd the errand go?"

"..." Luna looked away. "It went okay."

"Oh, yeah...?" Zayne nodded after he finished tying the bootlaces securely. He turned toward Luna and poked her arm. "So how'd it really go?"

Luna sighed. "There were some hiccups. I had to go back to back and forth since I apparently have to wear the clothes so they get included in the transformation."

She gave a rough account of what happened after she got flashed by a drunkard. Zayne nodded along as he raised a question.

"Did you try putting the tunic and pants inside your tunic? Or maybe hanging them from your belt. Cuz the pouches get included when you transform too, no?"

"..." Luna stood there blankly for a bit, before suddenly using telekinesis to strip Zayne of his tunic. She then stuffed it inside of her tunic, and then transformed.

"Oh, it worked." Zayne nodded in satisfaction. It was a shot in the dark, but it was hit.

"Dammit..." Luna, back in human form, cursed as she fished out the tunic and threw it back to Zayne. She beckoned, then the belt on the ground flew up to her hand. "Here's a belt..."

"Thanks."

"..." Luna watched silently as Zayne put on the belt. When he was done, she pulled on his sleeve and asked. "Are you my consort now?"

"Yep."

"See? We can even communicate telepathically like this."

"Oh!" Luna's eyes widened as her lips formed a smile. She was eager to try it out too.

"Zayne? Can you hear me? Say 'I love Luna~♥' if you can hear me."

"..." Zayne remained silent as he walked over to the cliff edge and observed the hamlet below. Torches and lanterns were getting lit since it was getting dark now. He must've slept for hours.

"Hey! Zayne? Say it."

"..." Zayne regarded the inn with narrowed eyes. The cannibal, Olivia, was there. Since her inn was full of visitors, she would likely kill and eat someone right now. That didn't matter to Zayne though. What mattered was the wealth Olivia had gathered from her actions. He had plenty of other ways to use his knowledge of this world to make some money, but more was always better.

"Hey, Zayne~! Say it~!"

"Shut up. You're so annoying."

"You're so annoying," Zayne said in real life just to add emphasis. He pointed toward the village. "Let's go."

Without waiting for her response, he turned into a bat and flew off.

"Hey! You don't even know which room you have to go to!" Luna cried out as she turned into a bat as well, following after him.

 

---

 

"Wow, this is crappier than I thought..." Zayne remarked as he sat down on the bed and observed the room. "But I guess it's still on the better end of the spectrum when it comes to medieval inns. Especially if we consider that it's literally out in the boonies."

The bed was pretty much just a sheet of cloth laid over a stack of hay on top of a wooden frame. There was a stool propped up against the door, a small table, and a small cabinet to place some clothes in. The room's walls were wooden and made no assurances that the room next door wouldn't be able to hear you talking.

If nothing else, the room was somewhat clean and didn't have an unpleasant odor. There were no cobwebs on the edges of the walls and the sheets were clean.

All of them were very big pluses.

"Hey, Zayne..." Luna sat down right next to him, eyes boring holes into his head.

"Wh-what... stop looking at me like that. You're creepy." Zayne tried to playfully push her face away from him but she didn't budge. Her face still looked serious.

"You're my consort now, right?" she asked intently.

"Uh, yeah? We kinda already established that..."

"According to Merriam, a consort is normally used to refer to the spouses of royalty," Luna explained, emphasizing a certain word. "That means that consorts are kind of like husbands and wives, right?"

"Uh... yes?" Zayne answered, starting to see where she was going with this.

"So, that means you — my consort — are kind of like my husband now, right?" Luna asked, but then she shook her head. "No, that's not right. Since you're my consort, that means you are my husband now. Right?"

"..." Zayne smiled wryly. A part of him really wanted to play a prank right now, but seeing how Luna was acting right now told him that it was a bad idea. So, he just nodded. "Yeah."

"Really? So we're married now. Technically." Luna reached out to hold the sides of Zayne's head and turn his face toward her.

"Yes, yes. Me husbando." He chuckled as he pointed at himself, then at Luna. "You, waifu."

"..." Luna stared into Zayne's eyes for a few moments, before her face broke into a grin. She then started giggling. "Hehehehehe..."

"You laugh so creepily..." 

"Shut up..." Luna let go of Zayne's head and then fell sideways to use his lap as a pillow. She covered her cheeks with her hands as she continued to smirk.

"Is it really something to be so happy about...?" Zayne shook his head in exasperation, but his lips had also formed a smile at some point.

Luna pinched Zayne's thigh lightly. "Of course. I've been wanting to get hitched for so long, but you kept putting it off since you wanted a better wedding. Even though I would've been happy with just a marriage registration..."

"Ahaha..." Zayne chuckled dryly as his hand reached down to stroke her hair. "And now, we don't have a marriage registration or a wedding."

"One hundred percent your fault, by the way."

"Shut up..." Zayne let his back fall toward the bed as he stared at the ceiling. "I would've just gotten us hitched at some local parish if I knew this would happen... the wedding rings I hid in my drawer were left there too. Shit."

"You already bought wedding rings?" Luna sat up with a surprised expression.

"Yep. They were pretty nice. I got them for cheap from a friend." Zayne explained as he thought back to how Tyler had foisted the wedding rings on him. Saying they were evidence for something. The man could've just thrown them away, but he didn't want to waste them. So he sold them to Zayne for a ridiculously cheap price.

"Seriously...?"

As the couple sighed, a large notification popped up right in front of their faces.

 

 

The moment that Zayne and Luna finished reading through the long message, it disappeared and a small velvet box appeared in the air in front of them.

"Oh." Zayne caught in just before it hit the floor. The moment his hands gripped the box, it vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving two golden rings behind. "What the...!?"

"Wh-what's wrong...?" Luna asked as she gazed at the rings in his palm.

"Uh... these are the wedding rings I was just talking about. The ones I was hiding." Zayne confessed after calming his thoughts.

"Oh?" Luna's eyes widened as she reached forward and snatched the ring that looked a little smaller than the other. She almost put it on, but then she realized something. Handing it back to Zayne, she said, "Put it on me."

"It's not gonna fit since it's made for adults." He sighed in exasperation as he bonked his wife on the head. "Don't just go putting it on. What if it was cursed or something?"

"Oh... my bad." Luna apologized but her hand was still held out. She gazed at Zayne, telling him to get on with it.

"Did you not hear what I just said...?"

"It's fine. We're creatures of the night, so we should be immune to curses, right?"

"What kind of reasoning is that? My world doesn't have such logic." Zayne sighed again, but he still put the ring on her finger. She wouldn't stop until he did it, and something was telling him that there wasn't really anything wrong with the rings anyway. "Oh?"

Surprisingly, the ring changed shape to fit Luna's ring finger perfectly.

"Neat," Luna remarked as she took the other ring and put it on Zayne's. Zayne's ring also adjusted itself to fit snugly around his finger. Luna raised her hand and gazed lovingly at her ring. "Hehehe..."

"Stop being creepy." Zayne snarked, but he also gazed at his ring with a warm smile.

A new notification window appeared in front of them.

 

 

"..."

"..."

Even after the window disappeared, the couple just stared at the air for a bit, but then both of them looked down toward their rings, then at each other.

"..."

"..."

"Well, let's just go and do it." Zayne shrugged.

"Fine..." Luna sighed.

Both of them reluctantly raised their left hands and began to lick their rings.