"Take a left here. Avoid that turn and just skip a block ….Right here."
Vaina told him where to go; sharp turns and sketchy alleyways. She directed him on the correct path to avoid the look-outs with web tattoos. She seemed to know her way around the black light district extremely well.
Eventually they arrived at… what was it?
The first word that popped into Magnius' mind was 'shack', but that wasn't quite right- even though the building was small and rickety, it was still made of stone.
He had mistaken it for a wooden house because he could see it had been boarded up countless times to 'repair' the building. He expected it to collapse if he removed a single one of those boards.
…She didn't bring him here to harvest his organs or anything right?
"Let me down. I can stand just fine."
Vaina slid off his back gracefully but landed clumsily on the ground, almost falling back onto her butt again. Magnius noticed.
"Are you sure? You still seem a bit unstable…"
"Shut up."
Vaina stomped inside the building… her house? And slammed the door, leaving Magnius outside with nothing but his bathrobe. Magnius felt a strong sense of deja vu from the situation.
He sighed as he thought about the situation; what the hell was he supposed to do now? Wander the streets until he got lucky and some escort approached him first? Not likely since he was only wearing a bathrobe. Didn't seem like he could afford their services because of it.
So he had to get clothes first- as fancy as possible- but how? Steal them? He cringed at the idea of petty shoplifting so he could get laid.
Maybe he'd get lucky and just find some in a clean, neat little pile on the ground somewhere? He laughed at his own idiocy for thinking that. Maybe he should just borrow them from some unconscious p–
Vaina interrupted his train of thought.
"What're you still doing out here?"
"..."
Vaina Sighed when Magnius had no reply.
"You… helped me out, so I'll return the favor. You'd have left already if you had anywhere to go right? Come in."
Magnius hobbled inside and was immediately hit with a sense of… emptiness. The space was so void. There was no furniture nor decorations.
The only thing filling the space was candles, burning with soft light to brighten the room. That in itself was strange. Most households used mana crystals as a source of permanent light.
The second thing he noticed was Vaina. And that she was unexpectedly attractive. It had been difficult to see her in detail in the black lights of the black light district. And now he realized that's exactly why the lights were black. Making people difficult to recognize allowed them more freedom to do whatever they wanted.
He had mistaken her hair color for black in the dark lights of the black light district, but it was actually chestnut brown. And her features were soft. Ridiculously soft; she was too easy to look at. The only thing that wasn't soft on her face was the mole under her left eye. But that in itself had a devastating effect.
"Get down over there if you wanna sit." She pointed at a single bed, with a thin pillow and blanket.
"You need anything? I've got some food in the cupboards."
Magnius knew that even if she had food, it wasn't much, so he decided to pass on her hospitality. Instead he asked for something else.
"You got any spare clothes?" Magnius figured she wouldn't because she was a woman but surprisingly, she answered that she did.
"They might be a bit tight, but… I've got pants and a shirt. Do you really have nothing except that bathrobe?"
"..."
"I-I'm… not even gonna ask. Wait here."
Magnius patiently waited for her to come back with a scruffy pair of pants and flaky shirt. They looked like they hadn't been worn for a very, very long time.
"You can keep them."
"Thanks." He put them on, and even though the shirt was a bit itchy, it really wasn't that bad.
Especially compared to having a punctured lung.
He remembered where he would be ordinarily around this hour. Probably being hacked up by Sedia's sword. He cringed. He was going to break that sword one of these days.
And that made him remember what his objective was: To have sex in order to become a hunter. Absolutely ridiculous.
He also remembered another assignment Sedia had given him where he had made zero progress. His values. Even after half a year of being a trainee, he still had no idea what they were. And that scared him.
"If you think any harder I will literally be able to hear your thoughts." Vaina made a joke and he gave a surprised laugh. She'd been so withdrawn that the joke was a welcome surprise.
"My bad."
"..."
"..."
It was awkward. The silence was stifling. Both of them realized that they were effectively strangers, and that made everything more difficult for Magnius.
"If there's nothing else I'm going to sleep. You sleep on the floor. And I'm warning you now; If you try doing anything to me while I'm asleep, I'll turn you into a eunuch." Vaina gave him a threatening stare.
"S-sure."
Vaina took the bedding, pillow and blanket from the bed and gave them to him, presumably to put on the floor so he could sleep on it.
She proceeded to blow out each of the candles around the room.
Magnius lied down on the floor on the other side of the room from the bed.
And just like that they went to sleep. Or they tried to. The floor was simply too hard to sleep on for Magnius after sleeping in one of Sedia's luxurious beds for months, and the bed was too cold for Vaina without the blanket since the house had no heating.
She couldn't help it and shivered. Magnius noticed and he got up to give her the blanket back. She then pulled him down onto the bed with her before he could lie back down.
"We can share body heat," was what she said as she pressed her back against him "s-so don't make this weird."
"Alright." Magnius put his arms around her and pressed her against him.
"What are you doing?"
"We can share body heat better like this. Don't make it weird."
"..."
Was this it? Was he about to complete his assignment?
…
He realized that was lying in bed with a beautiful woman in his arms and all he could think about was completing his 'assignment'. Magnius chuckled within himself. What a bastard he was.
But who was this woman, anyway? Should he really be doing this?
And that's when Vaina turned in his arms and kissed him.