"Oh? Can you smell that?" Zayne asked as he nudged Luna with his elbow.

"Mm. Someone just got killed."

The moment they exited the portal, their enhanced senses immediately alerted them to the smell of fresh blood somewhere below.

"Seems like Olivia made a move on someone," Zayne said matter-of-factly as he started closing the gate to his private dimension.

"What do we do?"

"Hm?" Zayne raised a brow in confusion. "Do we have to do something? We can't bring back the dead anyways. We also can't really push Olivia to the brink by threatening to expose her either."

Luna raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Huh? Why?"

"Cuz she has this device that can spread poison gas throughout the village. If she gets exposed, she'll try to take out all the witnesses." He drew a line over his neck. "That's what she did in the last place she lived in. We'll be fine though since we're both immune to poisons."

"What the hell...?" Luna's face morphed into an expression of horror at the seemingly friendly woman's mercilessness. "So we'll just let her run amock?"

"That's the plan..." Zayne subtly averted his gaze as he finished closing the portal. "We'll get more people killed if we do something. On the other hand, if we leave her alone, she'll just take one person every few weeks. The lesser evil and all that."

"Oh god..." Luna covered her mouth, feeling a little queasy. "So she's the only one with an antidote...?"

"No." Zayne opened the door. "She got a fairy's blessing when she was young. That's why she's immune to poisons and so... ehem. Well-endowed. Also, you should transform back to your fifteen-year-old self."

"Fairies! Can we meet one?" Luna's eyes brightened at the idea of meeting such a fantasy-like creature before she casually turned back into her younger form. Her clothes returned to being a tunic and pants, albeit a bit higher quality than what she originally wore.

"I kinda set them up as these random-encounter creatures. Though there are a couple of big-named fairies that stay in one place..."

"Can we go meet one? Please? I wanna see." Luna pulled on Zayne's sleeve with an imploring look on her face.

"Why are you treating them like they're zoo animals...?" He chuckled before shrugging. "Fine, I guess. We can actually get something good from them, so it'll be two birds with one stone."

He'd originally planned to go there anyway, but he decided to act like he was giving in to her to score some points.

'We can get the fairy eye blessing for Luna. Plus the location is close to a certain character that I want to recruit... Luna's gonna be so pissed when she knows the character is a woman though...'

He would have to try hard to butter her up on their way there.

"Really?!" Luna hugged his arm excitedly. "Is that really okay? Don't we have better things to do...?"

"It's fine." Zayne hit his chest, trying to look dependable. He smiled as he kissed her on the forehead. "It's just a minor detour. If it's for your happiness, I'd do anything!"

"You're so fucking cheesy." Luna giggled as her hug tightened. "Thanks!"

"No problem..." Zayne decided to endure the guilt he felt at deceiving her. He told himself that it was for their own good in the end. Recruiting that woman would be a major boon to their future survivability, so he couldn't allow Luna to get in his way.

Even if she was against it, he'd just have to try his best to prepare for the aftermath of her dissatisfaction.

 

---

 

"There aren't any open tables... let's just go sit at the counter," Zayne suggested.

Luna nodded. "M'kay."

The couple walked toward the counter in the first floor's tavern, bathing in the curious stares of the drunk and soon-to-be-drunk patrons. Zayne noticed that they were staring at Luna in particular, but since he was used to people gawking at her, he ignored them.

As long as all they did was look, he'd have no problems with that.

After Zayne sat down on an empty chair, he received a telepathic message from Luna.

'Hey, does being a singer mean something different in this world? Illya's memories don't tell me what it is...'

'Huh? Why's she suddenly asking about that..?' Zayne inwardly wondered as his bros furrowed. But since they were in a tavern, he understood.

She must've heard the term from one of the customers.

'It means prostitute.' he telepathically replied as he patted the chair next to him, signaling Luna to sit down.

She just stood there, processing what he'd just told her. "Wh-why...? What does—"

'You're speaking out loud right now.' he reminded.

"Oh..." She gasped softly before resuming to communicate telepathically. 'What does singing have to do with being a prostitute? Are you making a dig at the entertainment industry...?'

'What? No.' Zayne shook his head as he manually guided the still-standing Luna to sit on the chair to his right. 'Y'know how there's this thing where women are just pretending to moan to make guys feel better about themselves right?'

Luna nodded. 'I don't fake it though. Just so you know.'

'I'm aware. You kinda squirt right into my eyes sometimes, so I don't need you to tell me that.' Zayne held in his laughter while he dodged Luna's attempt to pinch his waist. 'Well, hookers have to do that even more blatantly, since they know it'll get them repeat customers. It also helps that if the man banging them likes them, they won't get beaten or something. Cuz that's a thing that happens with independent prostitutes.'

Luna's lips formed a disgusted frown.

'So the moaning. Moaning is pleasant to a man's ears. Y'know, like a song? That's why I call them singers in my story's world. "Singer" is a slang used in cities that basically means someone who moans under men for a living. You wouldn't know about it, since Illya was a village girl. This place is a bit special though, since despite just being a hamlet, they have an inn that gets visited quite frequently.'

After saying that, Zayne turned toward the front as he called out, "Excuse me! We'd like to order!"

Hearing his explanation, Luna couldn't help but hold her head in her hands as she remembered how she just casually said that she'd been singing since she was twelve.

"Oh my. It's the pretty girl." Olivia walked out of the kitchen while wearing an apron. Smiling, she gazed toward Zayne. "What can I do for you?"

"We'll both have a roast duck. I heard it's your specialty," Zayne answered as he secretly took out one of the many gold coins in their ring's shared-space and placed it on the counter. "With some veggies and wild berries on the side."

"You don't want bread?"

He shook his head. "You don't have anything that's isn't as hard as a rock, right?"

"Afraid not." Olivia giggled. "Drinks?"

"Just water, please." Zayne pointed toward the barrels behind her with a smirk. "I don't want your watered-down swill."

"Hey hey." Olivia pouted as her eyes narrowed. "They're not that bad. I've drunk from much worse pubs."

Zayne shrugged.

"Will the young lady over here, not be having drinks?" She turned toward Luna, who was still clutching her head while blushing in shame.

"She won't," Zayne answered on her behalf. "She's a lightweight. And she's thrice as annoying when she's drunk. I'd rather not have to deal with that while traveling."

"Hey, I heard that." Still holding her head low in mortification, Luna still reached out to pinch Zayne's arm, making him yelp in pain.

"Fufu. You two seem quite close." Olivia giggled. She asked Luna in a quiet voice, "Is he you pim—"

"Husband." Luna looked up with a face that burned red as she declared. "He's my husband."

"Oh? You have a husband even though you're a—"

"I'm not! I just made a mistake! I didn't know what you were talking about at first!" Luna rapidly yelled a series of statements, gathering the attention of everyone in the tavern in the process.

"Hey, why are you shouting...?" Zayne lightly shook her shoulder as he smiled wryly at the surrounding patrons.

"Oh, no. It's quite alright..." Olivia covered her mouth in amusement as she picked up the gold coin, flipping it on her palm a couple of times to check its weight. "It seems there was a misunderstanding."

Zayne stared blankly in the air for a moment. It wasn't hard for him to connect some dots. Luna had made it obvious by asking such a weird question, and by looking around, Zayne could see a few patrons shaking their heads as they laughed or nodded in realization. "Luna did you say something about being a sin—"

"Don't say it! Just shut up!" Luna covered his mouth as she glared at him. "Why are you being so fricking smart now of all times?"

Zayne peeled her hand away — with great effort — and complained. "You make it sound like I'm normally dumb..."

"Am I wrong?" Luna smirked.

"Huh? You wanna say that again?" Zayne snorted. "Want me to remind you what just happened literally a few minutes ago?"

Luna gritted her teeth after not being able to come up with a rebuttal.

"Ahaha." Olivia laughed, her voice akin to tinkling bells. She waved at the bickering couple as she went back to the kitchen. "I'll get your orders out in a few minutes."

Once the cannibal innkeeper was gone, Zayne playfully nudged Luna.

"So. What's the story with the singer thing?"

"I'm not telling you." Luna turned away in annoyance, but she subtly gazed toward the kitchen as she sent Zayne a telepathic message.

'Is she really a bad person? She doesn't seem like it...'

Zayne also sent a glance toward the kitchen, seeing Olivia smiling as she inserted a skewered duck inside an oven.

'You can smell the blood on her. Human blood. So you tell me.' Zayne shrugged. The vampiric version of [Enhanced Senses] was particularly advanced when it came to things related to blood. Zayne was sure she'd noticed the scent of a middle-aged man's blood that clung to Olivia's body.

'That's true...'

'Plus, if that wasn't enough...' Zayne pointed to the floor, where he knew a secret room lay hidden. 'You can still smell the half-butchered corpse below, right?' 

Luna bit her lips in frustration. 'Can we really not do anything about her...?'

Zayne sighed. 'Luna, everybody here's going to die soon anyway. Did you forget about the whole demons-spilling-out-of-a-portal thing that the forest has going on right now?'

"Oh..." Luna gasped as she remembered.

'And before you ask me what we can do to save these villagers, I'm just going to answer that there isn't anything we can do. Even if we tell them about the demons, do you think they'll believe us?'

Seeing Luna's shoulders droop in disappointment, Zayne sighed once again.

He really didn't have a way to save these people. They wouldn't believe him even if he told the truth.

'I could have them all evacuate to my private dimension...'

Zayne thought back to the ability of his wedding ring. It had come at just the right time.

'But it's not like these people are good people either.'

In the story, Grant had tried to warn everybody about the demons, but nobody believed him. If Grant hadn't been stronger than everybody else in the village, he would've probably been beaten up and kicked out.

That was why he ended up staying at the inn for a couple of days. He went back every day trying to convince them to evacuate, but they just spat in his face and told him to leave.

In the end, Grant was unable to convince the villagers. That was when Olivia tried to poison and eat him, but his immunity to poisons foiled her plans. Olivia would then use an artifact to injure Grant and proceed to use another artifact to spread poison gas throughout the village, killing them all to reduce the witnesses to just a single injured person.

He was able to survive the injury and easily kill the defenseless and powerless Olivia, but was unable to save a single villager.

'And so he learned a hard lesson in life. You can't save them all, yadda yadda yadda. Be careful who you trust, bla bla bla.'

Zayne fondly thought back to all the hate mail he got after that mini-arc.

In any case, he decided that this place's people were a lost cause. Even if he showed them his ability, would the villagers even come with him?

The option of going back to the forbidden forest to get proof was foolish, since it would put him and Luna in danger.

Luna sighed, seemingly giving up on the idea. 'This sucks... you're horrible for making a world like this.'

'Hey isn't that a bit too much...? I was just writing a story! How was I supposed to know it'd come true?' he defensively retorted through telepathy. 'Plus I wrote this part when I was fifteen... I was emotionally in a dark place at the time. We both were.'

"Mm..." Luna nodded meekly in agreement.

"Here's your order!" Olivia came out of the kitchen with a plate in each hand. She walked over to them and set it on the counter.

"Wait, it's a whole duck!?" Luna exclaimed. "I thought it'd just be the legs or something..."

Zayne chuckled as he secretly used a cleaning spell on both of their hands under the table. Then he tore a leg from his roast duck and dug in.

'Huh. It's not poisoned. I guess she's being careful. Luna and I get a lot of attention after all. Although most of it is on this dumbass who got mistaken for a whore.'

"So? How is it?" Olivia leaned forward, letting her enormous mounds rest on the counter as she smirked.

Zayne's eyes couldn't help but fall on them, as if they were pulled by gravity.

Olivia giggled. "My eyes are up here, boy."

After properly chewing and swallowing the mouthful of duck meat in his mouth, Zayne's eyes finally looked up as he answered, "Ma'am, I know. I didn't intend to look at your eyes."

"Oh my... how bold." Olivia's cheeks began to partially burn red as she laugh. "I like bold ones like you. How about you come up to my room later and I sing you a song?"

Zayne waved a duck leg in front of her as he chuckled. "My apologies ma'am, but I prefer my wife's singing."

"Ahaha, is that so... but looking at her right now, I think she wants you to sing. In pain that is." Olivia covered her mouth as she looked to the side.

Zayne didn't get to follow her gaze before he felt someone pinch his thigh. Hard.

"Yowch!" He jerked to the side, almost dropping his food.

"Where the hell did you get the courage to flirt with other women in front of me?" Luna held her fork in a very threatening manner as her narrowed eyes glared at her husband.

"I only did it because you were there. Also, we were just fooling around..." Zayne smiled wryly as he nursed his thigh. If he pulled up his pants, he was sure that he'd see a bruise. That is, if his regeneration skills didn't kick in. He turned toward Olivia, asking for help with his gaze. "Right?"

"Innkeeper! I need more booze!" a drunken patron called out.

"Coming right up!" Oliva yelled back. She then faced Zayne as her lips curled into an alluring smile. "I don't know about you, but I wasn't joking."

After saying that bombshell of a statement, she escaped back to the kitchen to fetch a few more mugs of ale, leaving a bickering couple behind.

 

---

 

"Phew. I'm so full..." Zayne rubbed his belly as he sat down on the living room sofa of their house.

"I'm not..." Luna sat down on the spot right next to him.

"Even though you ate an entire duck...?"

"Mm. I'm hungry for something else..." Luna smiled as she turned her head to face Zayne, eyes glowing red.

"Oh." He'd almost forgotten that she was a vampire now. "I'm too full to fuck right now... I feel like I'll barf..."

"Oh shut it. You realize it's basically our honeymoon right now, right? We just got 'married' earlier." Luna brought her face close to Zayne's neck and sniffed. She sighed in bliss. "I'm digging in~!"

"Fine." Giving up, Zayne made it easier for her by tilting his head to the other side.

"Hehehe~" Getting the go-ahead she desperately wanted, Luna moved to straddle her beloved husband and sink her fangs into his neck. Her vampiric instincts told her exactly what to do, so Zayne's blood was absorbed by her without any trouble, despite this being the first time she'd ever done this.

"Ow, this kinda fucking hurts..." Zayne's face twitched due to the unfamiliar pain. "I expected something more... erotic?"

'I just want this to be over...'

After a minute of voraciously sucking on his blood, Luna's teeth finally parted from Zayne's neck.

Luna licked her lips. "Wow, I've never tasted anything that delicious..."

"Yeah?" Zayne used a finger to swipe at his still-unhealed wound and put the small amount of blood he got into his mouth. He gagged. "This tastes like... well, blood. Same old blood."

"Not to me. I can't really describe it, but I just know it's super yummy." Luna did a chef's kiss but then she looked at him strangely. "Aren't you supposed to be half-vampire now?"

"Did you forget? Halfies like me don't inherit the blood-drinking thing."

"You should've added it... Well, whatever. That doesn't matter now." Luna started taking off her clothes as she kissed the wound on his neck. "Now let's get to fuc-- eh?"

Before she could even take off her top, she fell sideways onto the couch.

"What... I feel really... sleepy..." Luna said slowly, as her breathing began to slow.

"Oh?" Zayne chuckled as he stood up. "It's cuz of that nerf that I added to your racial description."

 

 

"Zayne... you limp-dick... motherfu—" Luna's consciousness flew off to dreamland, unable to even finish her sentence.

Zayne smiled warmly as he picked her up and brought her to their room.

"There we go..." After setting her down on the bed, he sat down next to her stroking her hair and face as he re-read some things from his settings notebook through his [Author Priveleges]. Making doubly sure that he remembered certain things correctly. Their travel route would be decided by what secrets and treasures he chose to pursue first.

Time passed as he read and made plans, Luna still hadn't woken up.

"It should be about now..." he muttered as he stood up from the bed slowly, careful not to wake up his wife. Zayne gazed at her and whispered, "I'll be back."

He created a portal right next to the bed and left through it, closing right after he left.

 

---

 

Knock Knock

Zayne knocked softly on the wooden door, waiting patiently for it to open. Despite how it was closer to dawn than midnight now, he was sure that the room's owner was still awake.

He could smell blood in the air after all. New blood.

After a few dozen seconds, the door opened to show a woman in a simple white tunic that one would expect to be worn to bed. The tunic clung tightly to her form, outlining her curves.

Olivia looked surprised to see Zayne there. "Oh? It's quite late, can I help you with something?"

"Yes." Zayne nodded as he smirked. "Didn't the innkeeper tell me that she wasn't joking when she said she'd sing me a song? So after I was sure that my wife was asleep, I came here."

"Hm~?" Olivia's expression changed from one of confusion to that of amusement. "I really do like daring men like you... especially the young ones."

"That's good. I'm very young."

Olivia giggled. "Indeed. Well then, do come in."

"Great." Zayne put on a dirty smile as he stepped into the room.

"..." Olivia closed the door while she licked her lips in anticipation of her next meal. Dark intentions occupied her thoughts as her eyes gleamed with malice.

"..." However, since their backs were against each other, she did not see that Zayne's eyes did the same.