The wagon cart continued its rumbling way along the dark forest trail.
Kiki and Akira were undressed, huddled together beneath a bundle of wool blankets they'd retrieved from the back of the wagon to keep snug and warm.
They'd been talking, and through this Akira had come to learn a fair bit about Kiki. Like the fact she was a new player, who'd spawned in only a few days ago--on the streets of a town called Mithil, which was where the caravan was heading.
"I got scooped up by some guards real fast," she explained. "They sent me off to train at the monastery, since all the monsters around here are too tough for a low-level to take on. Makes it impossible to level up alone." She squinted, concentrating. "Levelling...up? Is that what it's called?"
"Yeah." Akira replied, grinning. "You'll get used to the lingo--"she gave a hearty chuckle, rustling Kiki's hair--"there's a lot of it, but you seem like a smart girl."
Akira then glanced at her karate gi, lying in a crumpled heap at her feet.
"So...what's it like as a monk?"
"It's called the Hidden Dragon Monastery," she said, clinging tightly to Akira's arm all of a sudden. "I've lived there just over a month." She groaned. "Been slacking on my training, though."
"What kind of training?"
Kiki didn't answer, her senses being taken for a journey again. As, like a rabbit too timid to fully emerge from its burrow, she hid her mouth into the soft supple skin of her peacefully reposed lover, giving it a close sniff and--
Oh! It was a rich, untainted scent like a new dollar bill. Or, a just-opened pack of chewing gum, like she used to get at the corner store as a kid, in her previous life. It greeted her nostrils with all the welcoming warmth and nostalgia of a childhood friend--who turned out drop-dead gorgeous, and admitted to having had feelings for you all along--that sent Kiki's mind into a dizzying spiral of lustful yearning all over again.
Akira Maximilian…
Just what kind of a mother-flipping magician was he, to enrapture her so?
Aroused, Kiki frantically shifted herself to be on top, looking down at Akira with wild, desperate eyes while being comfortably cushioned by the CEO's pillowy chest mounds.
"Let me come with you!" She pleaded.
Akira sighed. "No, Kiki…"
"I'll hit up any block you'll take me!"
"I can't have you," Akira said, sitting up, gently pushing the young monk off. "It's too dangerous."
"N-n-no!" Kiki cried, her voice cracking with emotion as she grabbed onto Akira's ample waist. "My life wasn't worth shit before I met you, Akira! I'll gladly give it all up in a heartbeat, just so you'll touch me again!"
Akira sighed. Truly, one of the hardest parts about being a CEO was having to sometimes be the one to break the bad news to an employee.
However, it was for Kiki's own good.
The only way was to give it to her straight, as Akira detailed:
"My group is always diving headfirst into danger, and I'm just not certain you're equipped to handle it--as someone who's still only Level 3."
"B-b-but—" Kiki began to protest, thwarted by Akira holding a finger to her mouth.
"Stay, and continue your training with the other monks. Focus on strengthening yourself, so that you'll become strong enough to be a worthy addition to anyone's party."
Kiki gave a limp nod in response, though her watering eyes betrayed her.
"I-I will, Akira…" she sobbed. "But only if you promise to return one day! It doesn't have to be soon, I just want you-" Akira interrupted her, leaning in to bathe her cheeks; meeting the tears that dripped down through the grooves of Kiki's eyes with her lapping tongue, leaving comfortably warm trails of saliva as she gently brushed from side-to-side.
Intimacy bloomed in Kiki's chest as seduction slithered down her legs, forming a molten pool of [Girl Nectar].
This beautifully bizarre man…
His techniques were ruthlessly alluring, and impossible to expect.
When did all of Kiki's willpower crumble?
What was left standing, in the dust-clouded rubble?
"I've...given everything to him…" she breathed.
Whereas for Akira, he'd simply wondered what the [Girl Nectar] and tears from a cute girl would taste like. As though her swelling emotions were unripe fruits, waiting to be plucked from her blushing cheeks.
And as for the flavor, it was like--
Akira smiled.
Rainbows and unicorns.
"A true gentleman like myself will never make a promise he can't keep," she told Kiki, flaunting her head in a fit of melodrama, just as soon as she'd had her fill of the sweet nectar.
Then, fixing on her with a devilish grin, Akira devilishly whispered:
"So, let's you and I make a deal."
She wrapped a hand behind Kiki's head, pulling the monk girl's face to her chest.
"I'll promise to return to you someday, if you'll make a few promises to me in exchange," she said, glancing down; into Kiki's eyes that glimmered with childlike adoration, hanging on his every word as a wolf fighting its primal urge to howl at the moon.
Before resuming: in a serious, deadpan monotone; with a soulless and stern, all businesslike "do these terms and conditions sound agreeable to you?"
Kiki was quick to nod, with a fiery determined look.
"I'll do anything you ask!"
"Alright. So, first: no more orgies. As we discussed."
"Yes, I promise!"
"Good." Akira smiled, before adopting a scolding look and tone:
"Next, do a better job at brushing your hair!"
"Eh?!"
Akira lifted her bangs away from her eyes.
"More people should appreciate your beauty."
"R-r-right...of course."
"On that note, you should fix your appearance."
Kiki's poor grooming was an old habit, carried over from her previous life, but…
"Okay," she replied, nodding with resolve.
Akira clutched Kiki's face in both hands as the two locked eyes: Kiki's brimming with passion and expectation, Akira's with a lingering... drowsiness...as he let out a loud, ill-mannered yawn, exhaling hot carbon dioxide straight into Kiki's unfaltering face, before issuing his third, and final condition:
"Lastly...."
…
Eventually, the wagon cart reached its destination and grinded to a halt.
Akira redressed and hopped out of the back, stretching and yawning. She looked up to see a towering, ancient-looking stone wall with a sealed iron gate, lorded over by [Level ??] [Mithil Guards] stationed on the high ramparts--all of them bthe same race as King Ravana's cow-like henchmen, the [Nandi].
Ai immediately ambushed her with a close hug from behind.
"It sounded like Big Sis was having fun!"
"That's right," Akira said, giving Ai's hair a loving scratch.
Kanna emerged from around the cart.
"Akira-kun. The monks said we're going to have to pass through three checkpoints in order to enter the city."
She cleared her throat, abruptly turning.
Akira touched her arm. "What else?"
What was making her anxious?
Kanna faced her again, blushing, with a frustrated scowl.
"Strip searches, at every gate," she said. "Then, they use something called [Chi Power], to find out whether you're one of those cat people in disguise."
"You mean, one of the Rakshasa?"
She nodded. "Even our clothes and inventory items could be Rakshasa in disguise, so they get tested too."
"Wow. Talk about paranoid," Ai said.
Just then, the three all simultaneously looked up at the sound of a taut bowstring being released, followed by the sharp whiff of an arrow in flight. A javelin had been launched from one of many ballistas mounted along the top of the first checkpoint wall, clipping a small bird that had nearly breached its perimeter.
It seemed excessive, however by the time the bird hit the ground, its true identity was revealed to be--
Just a regular bird.
The ensuing silence was broken by Akira's loud laughter.
"So, strip searches?" She yawned. "That's it?"
Kanna sighed. "Ara ara...easy for a perverted guy in a woman's body to say, Akira-kun."
Ai was a shaken soda can; fit to burst!
"We're getting naked again?!"
"Oh, there's also--" Kanna suddenly said.
Promptly, she withdrew a bulging bag of coins from her inventory and tossed it at Akira for her to catch.
"Kanna-chan...is this my salary?"
"It's our payment, Mr. CEO," she answered, smirking. "For watching over the caravan."
"No no no!" Akira quickly said, flustered. "We can't accept this. Not from monks!"
She urgently tried to shove the coin bag back into Kanna's hands, who steadfastly wouldn't take it. "Kanna, it's Business 101: don't accept payment from charities! It just looks bad."
Groaning, Kanna lifted Akira up by the collar in one hand--with all the effort of lifting a light-packed grocery bag.
"These monks aren't a charity, Akira-kun."
She proceeded to plop Akira unto the back of the wagon cart, pointing at something stored therein with several layers of thick, wooly blankets draped over it; Akira had noticed before, during her friendly sparring session with Kiki.
Upon drawing the piled blankets up on one side, it exposed a stack of flat, rectangular white cardboard boxes which altogether exuded an aura of considerable heat.
"Their monastery…" Kanna was saying, just as all the pieces were clicking in Akira's mind.
Ai jumped up: "It's also a pizza place!"