A fiery explosion broke into a certain shop, destroying the entrance, a part of the outer wall and most of the first two rooms.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?" Samantha screamed as she ran, buck naked, from within the shop only to see a raging fire and black smoke that quickly filled the room. "My door! My wine barrels! My casting couch!!"
"I-I'll put it out!" screamed a girl with shoulder-length wavy light-blue hair, one of the first to emerge from within the fire.
"Argh!!" Flavna screamed in pain and fell from the fire. Most of her armor was destroyed, her entire left side from shoulder to upper thigh was bright red from heavy burns.
"Agh, this didn't happen last time!" Beatrice held her right arm, also scorched, but not nearly as severely as Flavna's.
The damage was similar to Flavna's at first, but Beatrice's rapid health recovery not only prevented the damage to the tissue from spreading but also healed the burn. Compared to the scream-inducing agony that she experienced for a few brief seconds in Ember's embrace this now felt as mild as a bee sting.
"Why is there never any water anywhere?" Mimi complained while struggling to put out the fire with the measly sprays she produced from her fingers. "At least there's this," Mimi said as she enhanced her magic with the wine that spilled on the floor.
Ember meanwhile emerged on the other side of the fire and hid away from the others.
"Hey! Come back here!" Samantha screamed. "You don't get to set my shop-slash-house on fire and just run away!!"
"S-Samantha?" a buff naked dude with a big ol' cock showed up from within the shop.
"Get back to bed and stay rock fucking solid!" Samantha demanded. "I'm going to ride you for everything you've got after I deal with a certain freckled bitch!"
"Give me a little bit more time, I'll deal with this," Mimi said as she slowly emerged victorious in her firefighting duty.
"Let me try this," Beatrice said as she walked up to Flavna and used her [Magic Heal] on Flavna's burn.
The effect, however, was minimal. At rank E the Skill only healed for ten percent of the target's maximum health. And since Flavna wasn't literally dying, and their temporary alliance was shaky at best, Beatrice decided to hold off from putting her new free Skill Points to use.
Mimi eventually put out the fire and the massive hole in the shop's outer wall helped ventilate the smoke.
"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" the naked blonde got right in Ember's face. "This is the third time you've come here in the last few days. You haven't come here that much in the last three years!!"
"I'm making up for lost time," Ember said.
"Right. Anyway, this isn't a fucking inn! Go pester those cat girls!"
"I'd prefer to stay out of Y'Shtara's sight for a while."
"Why? Usually, you'd just… Wait… That fire that I heard about… Oh, she will beat you bloody! But since when did you start acting so conspicuous?"
"It's been… An eventful couple of days."
Samantha sighed and said, "You're lucky I have easy access to stupid muscle to get this fixed. But you owe me even more now."
"Put it on our tab," Ember said and quickly surveyed the damage.
"Speaking of which, you made a lot of promises last time you were here," Samantha reminded.
"Well, we vacated Belmot's fortress," Beatrice said. "And most of it is still standing."
"Asuna will probably make it her new command point," Ember said.
"Wh… No, you'll have to tell me later, right now I need a refresher and then put those big hands to work."
Before walking away—having taken a breather—Samantha finally bothered to take a better look at her new company.
"Each time you bring a new set of weirdos-eh?" Samantha's eyes stopped at the wounded dark-haired girl with her trademark heavy eyeliner and eyeshadow. "Is… Isn't that the captain of the Purple Guards!? You brought their captain!? HERE!?"
"Yeah, yeah," Ember rearranged her ruffled hair while looking in a broken mirror. "The captain of the whole two members of a recently defunct city guard."
"Watch your tongue!" Flavna growled and started to stand up, but Ember quickly moved over and poked Flavna's red shoulder with her pinky. This was enough for Flavna to fall back in pain.
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