Chapter 68

The next morning I woke up laying next to Morrigan who was sandwiched between me and Bella. As much as I am, well, a Succubus, I thought it was important to take things a little bit more slowly with her. She had been happy when I suggested she sleep in the bed with the two of us but I didn't think she was ready for me to move further with her quite yet.

The morning was the most convenient time to change classes so I decided to switch it to [Novice Prostitute] to gain the Endurance stat and maybe get something if I did end up having sex later.

I read over the description of [Novice Prostitute] again,

[Novice Prostitute]Unlock condition: Have sex with two people within one hour of each other. Doubles effective endurance during intercourse, the impact of Charisma is doubled when used for seduction. While this class is equipped gain 1 Endurance per class level. Improves sex skills and abilities. Gain skills related to seduction and sex easier.

I read the entry for Endurance as well,

[Endurance]Endurance increases the ability to do hard work and labor for a longer amount of time with less fatigue and stress on the body. As Endurance increases more magic reinforces the body to be more resilient and hardy. High Endurance allows people to work far past the point of exhaustion and keep moving when others would have been forced to stop. Endurance does not reduce the need for sleep and rest.

It was kind of amusing to unlock Endurance through a class like this rather than a normal labor job. If I remember correctly Bella had moved a lot of her points from this stat to other ones when she was able to redistribute them after her transformation into a lesser succubus. I would also be lying if I said I wasn't curious what kind of sex skills I could learn from wearing this class for a little while. Tomorrow I would change my class to [Novice Magic Swordsman] once we were ready to go adventuring again. [Novice Prostitute] was a class I got when Mark... ugh, I decided to put the thought out of my mind.

I slid out of bed, stretched, and peeked over at the other bed where Mimi was cuddling with Torien from behind. Since Morrigan slept in our bed tonight there wasn't room for her so she slipped in with Torien, much to the catgirl's appreciation. I smiled, happy that everyone is warming up to each other. Not too long ago Torien was worried Mimi would kill her in her sleep and now they were looking so cute cuddled up to each other.

I was the first one up today. I went into the bathroom and prepared myself a bath. There wasn't any way for the water to heat up automatically in this inn but with some clever use of my new [Light Scribing] magic I was able to heat it up myself pretty quickly. I thought it was a bit funny the first practical use of my new spell was to heat up bathwater but considering what I had amounted to a baby's first spellbook, it wasn't that surprising. I slid into the warm water and let the heat seep into my body.

The twins' new adventuring gear probably wouldn't be ready until tomorrow so we wouldn't be able to really adventure yet. It would be a good idea to have some time alone with Bella soon, it was important to make sure she didn't feel left out and I essentially took the other two out on dates the last couple days. Bella and I haven't really gone on a proper date yet either, other than her practically dragging me to the bath house. Since the time we first got together we have had a lot on our plate and I didn't really have a chance to really relax with her.

I thought back to the night Mark had forced me down and shuddered. Between needing money and just keeping myself occupied enough to keep that horrible event out of my mind, I haven't let myself relax. My mood soured when the events of that night played back in my head. It made me sick to my stomach but truthfully it affected me less than I thought it should. Maybe it was because Bella had saved me, even if some damage had already been done, or maybe being a Succubus made me not as worried about being forced like that.

Never before now had I felt like such a freak.

I jumped when I heard a knock on the bathroom door. "Lilith? Can I come in?" Bella called through the door.

"S-sure." My voice cracked when I replied and after touching my face, I realized I had been crying. I quickly wet my face with the bathwater to hide it as Bella entered the small bathroom.

She came over to me and kneeled next to the wooden tub, she had a frown on her face.

"W-what's wrong?" I asked her.

She sighed. "Lilith..." she ran her fingers through the damp fur on the side of my head. "I could sense your emotions before we got [Soultouched Connection], you don't need to talk about it if you don't want to. But please don't forget that I'm here to help you if you need it. You don't need to suffer alone."

The pained look on her face forced me to look away. It made me feel terrible that my problems were spilling out onto her.

She took my chin in her hand and forced me to look back at her. "Lilith. This isn't something you need to face alone. I helped you that night and I'll help you again, as many times as you need. You aren't a burden on me, you saved me that day too."

Bella leaned forward and kissed my forehead like I had done to her too many times to count. Her kiss made me feel warm and protected in a way that I had never experienced before. I broke down and sobbed. She pulled me close, leaning my head on her chest. I'm not sure how long I cried or what exactly I was crying about but eventually the tears stopped and I gently pulled away.

Bella was soaked through her pajamas and I felt a tinge of guilt flare through my heart again but I just crushed it down.

"Why don't you get cleaned up too... I can reheat the bath for you."

Bella smiled and stripped as I got out of the tub. I used my magic to heat the water back up for her and she quickly washed up while I dried off. She was already getting out by the time I felt like I was dry enough so I waited for her to dry herself off too before we left the room together.

"Lilith, Mimi's acting weird," Torien said.

As soon as I turned the corner into the main room Mimi rushed over. "Lilith! Are you okay? What happened?" Mimi looked anxious and distraught. Her newly expressive eyes scanned over my body, looking for some kind of wound.

"I..." The words caught in my throat. I didn't know what to say.

Bella laid her hand on Mimi's shoulder. "It's okay now Mimi, I took care of it. I'll tell you about it later."

Mimi looked from me to Bella and back before she nervously nodded.

The twins looked at each of us confused but thankfully didn't ask. Perhaps they could tell I wasn't really in the mood to talk about any of it right now. When I sat on the bed Mimi sat next to me, as if glued to my side. I took a deep breath to settle myself.

Before the silence could linger Morrigan spoke up. "So, what's the plan for today?"

I was really thankful for her in that moment. She changed the subject so I didn't have to. I cleared my throat and resettled myself. "I um, well we were talking about getting crates or something for ourselves. Why don't we take care of that today, we can go back to the carpenter we went to for Torien's bow."

"The mouse girl?" Morrigan asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, I didn't take the time to really look at it closely but the furniture in the store seemed well crafted. I liked those two so that might be a good place to pick up something like that."

Torien smiled. "The bow she made was really high quality. I haven't gotten a chance to try it in a fight yet but it felt really good on the practice range."

The five of us packed up our things and Mimi was once again sitting in her sword sheath on my waist. It had been a little odd yesterday without her comfortable weight on my belt. Mimi stored my claymore so I didn't need to carry it around today. We weren't planning to leave town today anyway, nor were we even prepared to.

I hadn't thought about this until now but we would need to purchase another tent for the girls. I wonder how feasible it would be to learn some kind of terra magic for shelter. Mana conversion for ritual magic was kind of bad though so I suspected it probably wouldn't be an option. It sounded like Mimi was close to her limit too so trying to take a whole house or something crazy like that was out of the question.

Before I knew it we stood in front of the mousekins' shop we were at the other day. It was a lot quieter this time and it was pretty obvious that the forge wasn't running today. I wonder if business was as bad as it looked. I tried the door and was happy to see that it wasn't actually locked as I had feared it might have been.

The four of us came in and saw Twill, the male mousefolk, at the desk this time. He looked like he had just woken up but rubbed his face and stood up when he realized we were actually customers.

"Welcome! O-oh it's you four again. Was everything alright with the bow?" he asked nervously.

I laughed trying to diffuse the awkwardness. "We actually haven't even tried it out yet. We actually came to buy something else."

He visibly perked up. "Sure! What are you looking for?"

"We're looking for some, mmm, crates? or boxes? Something sturdy but light that we can keep our things in while we travel."

"Sure! Let me go get Meena, she would have a better idea about that sort of thing than I would." Without another word he scampered off to the back.

I looked around. Despite the lack of foot traffic, the shop was pristine. There wasn't any dust and everything looked polished and well taken care of. A few moments later Meena came back with her brother and had a big smile on her face.

"Hey! Welcome back. Twill told me you were looking for crates?"

I nodded. "Something of the sort. We're going to be traveling soon so we need somewhere to keep everything. Preferably something light and sturdy.

She led us over to a corner of the shop. There were a variety of boxes and crates as well as trunks and chests. The idea of putting a treasure chest inside of Mimi amused me to no end but with a slight tug on one handle I got the impression that it would be quite a bit too heavy.

"For your uses I would recommend something like this." She showed us a small trunk, it was quite a bit smaller than I was thinking. On the plus side the corners were reinforced with steel and it had leather wrapped carrying handles that would make it less prone to getting damaged and easier to transport.

I opened the trunk. It was insulated with something that smelled pretty good. It had a bit of a waxy feeling when I ran my finger across it but it didn't seem like it was going to come off all that easily when I scratched at it a little.

I looked up. "Is this trunk water proof?"

"Yes! I make a special lacquer that seals it up and insulates it. I find the smell quite pleasant as well." I nodded looking back down at it. I rubbed my chin and looked over at another crate that was closer to the right size. The larger crate was big enough but while it was light, it felt flimsy like it would break if we weren't careful with it.

-- "Mimi, do you think four of these but larger would be okay for you to carry?" --

-- "That would probably be fine, depending on what you fill the boxes with. Heavier and denser things like metals take up more space. I'll probably need to upgrade my storage space soon..." --

-- "Honestly, with as useful as your pocket dimension is, it would be worth it to buy you more monster cores to eat if it helped us carry more stuff," -- I said.

-- "At this point my restriction has more to do with my level than anything else. I need to eat stronger monsters to grow it any further." --

-- "That makes sense I guess. Does that mean you need a weapon?" --

-- "I'm... not sure. I haven't directly fought very often before. It was easier to avoid the other mimics and I never really wanted to fight over territory. I don't know how to fight." --

-- "We should talk to the girls about this later, they might have a better idea about that than I do." --

I brought my attention back to Meena. "Do you do custom orders?"

She hesitated, "I can but that's a bit more expensive and it depends if I have the materials on hand."

"I'd like four boxes like this," I said pointing at the trunks, "but a similar size to this." I said pointing at the larger crate.

"F-four... Um. I could probably do that. I'd need Twill's help though, he'd need to cast new parts for it. Let me go talk to him really quick."

She rushed off and spoke quietly with her brother.

Morrigan ran her fingers over the trunk and looked up at me. "Are you sure this is a good idea? This can't be cheap. Is Mimi okay with it?"

"I asked her and she said it would be fine. We'd need to be careful not to fill them up too full with heavy or dense things though."

She nodded in response just as Meena was coming back.

She looked nervous again. It was honestly kind of cute how much she wore her heart on her sleeve. "We could do four of those trunks as large as those crates for one gold each, for a total of four gold. We would need half up front and we could get them to you by the end of the week no problem."

I thought about it. The twins' gear would be ready tomorrow so I would really rather have this as soon as possible. I felt like I was being really impatient by getting everything as a rush order but I also didn't want to leave so much of our stuff in the inn considering we had changed inns three times already."

"Would you be able to get it done for me by tomorrow morning? I can pay extra."

She was caught off guard but recovered quickly. "E-eight gold. We can have it done by tomorrow morning."

"How about six but I pay it all up front?"

She looked back at her brother before looking back at me nervously.

I smiled at her. "If you need to talk about it, I don't mind."

She quickly ran back over to her brother where they animatedly discussed it, I couldn't tell from watching what they thought about it but they reached a consensus in only a few moments.

She came over with a big smile. "Deal!"