"And that what i was doing down there." Mari explained over some spiked orange juice. Aki had been right, the wine went great with it for some reason.
"Any chance we can get Sieg's equipment back?" Asked Brandon, their tank and leader.
"Can't we just go and take it back? I'm sure that..."
"Shut up! We were raised together Sieg, the orphanage was a place where we didn't have chances do to something better than adventuring, but that means we also don't have the luxury to act stupid. I know you're not dealing with the dissolution of the party too well, but this is a serious problem. That was a lot of our revenue which you went and lost. You know we have no way of paying for it with the contract leases we've been taking. We were that close to paying off the last of our contract terminations too, but now we have to do what this guy wants as well or we will finish this with three people and you will be on you own." He snapped, completly intimidating the much smaller man with his towering presence and hurtful words.
"Yeah, about that." Mari started, trying to get everyone's attention. "Aki has actually already started experimenting with it, something about the material being good for enchanting. He'd already done both the breast plate and graves with two enchantments each before getting out of the dungeon." This left the three others on the table completly surprised and downcast. "But he said he was fine with us borrowing it if we gave him some kind of garantee!" She quickly added.
"Really?" Asked their quiet healer, Sara. "Do we even have something that would fit as garantee if he can basically make money?" She pointed out with worry all over her face.
"That's the thing, I already have all of Sieg's equipment." She, again, waited for the news to sink in and depositing a small pouch on the table before removing the clearly more volumous armor and partisan from inside it. "Before you ask, it's two and half cubic meters over."
"How much did you suck his dick for something like this?" Pointed out the eunuch. While his foul mouth would normally be reprimanded harshly right about now, his team mates had faces of worry that said they felt like asking a fairly similar question.
"Not all that much, actually." She laughed, the commentary making the other woman on the table blush. "You see, they want me to be sort of like their secretary or assistant secretary. I negotiated a contract to join their party and they agreed." She beamed with pride, hitting a fist to her chest. "Now we can safely finish off our debts and I have a stable job garanteed."
"Mari, are you sure you want to do this?" Sara asked while holding her hand and looking her in the eyes. She was quite virginal for a thirty year's old, but that didn't mean she was foolish. "We can do it without this kind of condition even if we don't like it much." She softly said.
"Sily Sara, of course I want to do this." She said, not mentioning how it was mostly a formality so it'd be easier to explain how she'd joined their party considering she HAD to report Aki's mind magic.
*****
Changing job again, Aki noted that his next wall had finally come, yet he couldn't seem to care much. He liked to fight an learn about magic, sure, that didn't mean he had no other interests. The dungeon trips had been fun, both in their own way, but he felt he could use some down time.
This wall was simply an XP hog, so there was no way around it but to just murder hordes and more hordes of monsters. He was however, quite satisfied with his current abilities, and with no reason to go back to the dungeon he'd just come out of.
And so, he decided to go with 'Tempter' for his next job and just fuck through that XP bar at a pace he'd later set.
He almost immediately regretted that though.
"You are Aki, correct?" Asked a tall and lean guy with a serious face. His eyes were hetero chromatic, one blue and one purple, so Aki imediatly recognized who he was.
"That would be me, yes. I imagine you would be the inspector dispatched for me."
"That is so. If you would follow me so we can begin the interrogation." He signaled to a room.
"I would like to ask for a more informed guild personal to accompany us so as to assure the fairness of the procedure, so if you would wait." He said, stopping the man in his tracks.
"That would entail sharing your information with that person as well, are you fine with that?" The man asked, Aki simply nodding while keeping his smile.
It took very little time to file the request, which actually ended with the guild master voluntaring himself a bit after.
On the sound proof and extremely enchanted room for dangerous individuals.
"Please, state your name for the record."
"Aki."
"Your current job and level." That made him look at the guild master, who sighed and nodded.
"I am currently a level 1 tempter. Just changed jobs." And if a mortal could notice him changing it again it'd be either an appraiser or a truth teller.
"You have on your own will, under no outer influence or persuasion from another, unlocked and selected the 'Tempter' job?" The man asked, his impression of the situation getting more bizarre as he incredulously looked at the young man in front of him.
"Yes."
"Would you elaborate?" The guild master asked.
"I wished to train it with my wife and our new friend so I could better excel at the related capabilities of the job, though the mind magic part of it is mostly a bonus." He shrugged.
"Truth. Next question. Have you ever ussed mind magic to break the law?"
"Not in my knowledge."
"Have you ever used mind magic to acquire sexual favors?"
"I have ussed it to get a better understanding of the previously mentioned 'friend', and her personality, which led to me and my wife having laid with her, but otherwise, no."
"Truth. Do you have any intentions for the governmental body of this country?"
"Well, that's going to be a mouthful. I do wish to obtain command over it and the lands that same body reigns over, but it is mostly a dream. I would not dare do anything outward unless I was pushed to an extreme situation."
"Truth."
*****
"I need hugs. And a lap pillow." Aki groaned to his wife after the 18 hours long interrogatory.
The guild master could only curse the lucky bastard. He was going to need to get Botsy out of the shelf and have someone carry the snoring truth teller to wherever he'd been staying at town, because he himself had been surprised to hear there was one of those guys around, nevermind a high ranking one like that.
The day after that.
"Wow, buying a big house was way easier than I thought." Aki said, happy to look at the house with five servant rooms, three bedrooms plus a master one, a large kitchen with big Islands and various cabinets, a big living room, a reading room, a office with a great view, a spacious basement, plenty of soundproofing all around and a great field on the back.
Really, it was more of a noble vila than an adventurer party's home, which yes, was actually quite common all around, nevermind on a city with three dungeons like this one.
"You, you guys sure it's fine to spend so much on this?" Asked an astounded Mari, who'd come back from a quick delve and found her new party had decided on a big house as their headquarters. She wasn't really going to complain about not being included on the decision since she was never very good with these kind of things, but... "How much was it even?"
"Well, i decided to buy the land too, so it was a four point seventy five thousand small gold coins or forty seven and a half big gold coins. Thanks to that the tax is only five small gold coins though." He pointed out, pride obvious in his face.
"EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY YOU SHOULD HAVE WAITED!" She screamed at his face, imediatly losing strenght after that. As an example, one must understand that all in all her previous team made ten to fifteen big gold coins per year. After they had several contracts with minor nobles and merchant companies.
"I will hear all you complaints, but at least come inside, please?" He pleaded, causing her to groam. She was quite concious of the fact that was all the money they'd made from the rank 6 dungeon long delve. The moment she walked inside, the door was slamed shut and she was swept of her feet and carried in a princess hold.
"Even if you fuck my ass until it won't close, i will still be angry!" She proclaimed, sure to be able to keep to her word.
"I know, i know, and it wasn't actually what i had in mind. No, it's just that Xera also missed you." He pointed out, the fake lizard-kin perking at the mention of her name, and she smiled at seeing their friend arriving even if she looked livid. With Aki sitting down by her side on the sofa of the living room, the two begun to press her in a hug and gently smother her in affection, which made the angered woman relax a bit as they massaged her head and kissed her cheeks.
"Ok, will you two tell me why you bought such an expensive house though?" She said, starting to get embarased at the kind of attention they were proportioning. It made her feel tingly in a way she was not very ussed to.
"They were not going to let us buy anything cheaper." Said Xera.
"True, after it got out a demi and a scary mind mage were looking for a place to call their own, plenty of people decided that they did not want to be the ones selling to us. So we had to go looking through the city's agency and this was quite perfect for our future plans, if out of the way and pricy. I don't think that fatso knew we even had fifty big gold coins." Aki elaborated.
"We're still happy to have met you though." The wife pointed out.
"Our cute, sexy and inteligent friend who has complicated feelings for the strange couple she met in a dungeon." He accentuated such by massaging her left ear. Her face was extremely adorable when he did that. Maybe she'd only be some kind of conquest if she'd not liked to sing songs she didn't even understand just because she thought the melody was pretty or if her smile wasn't that much brighter than either of theirs.
Aki was starting to question where this kind of relationship he'd envisioned would lead to. Would one of them ever want out? Would they meet more people like this? He'd need to keep track of this kind of development or he'd end up...
"You're thinking something stupid again." Xera pointed out, which surprised him, but ultimately made him smile before kissing her forehead.
"Thanks. Anyway, we should probably inaugurate that king sized bed upstair." He suggested, taking both his wife and their 'fiance' to the master bedroom. The bed had been enchanted for confort and resilience, and even their heavy frames didn't even make it creak or groan. Both the ophidian and the otherworlder actually packed a lot more weight them their appearences would suggest after all.
The cat-kin was technically the same, spouting around sixty eight kilos in her little frame and 1,60 meters of height, but her case had much less to do with the magical nature of musculature and more with her race's natural form.
"We're having the best damn nap my magic can provide and cuddling for the rest of the day." He announced.