"This works perfectly! Most of us at our rank are all friends anyway so they can come to our wedding at the same time when they come to meet you!"
Akira hadn't stopped practically bouncing off the walls since they'd left the adventurers guild earlier that day. She was now walking around inside their room back at the Blue Hedgehog already making plans for their grand wedding together. Tories had signed their marriage certificate right there on the spot, legally confirming the marriage of Matthew Winters and Akira of Venindale. There hadn't really been any celebration back at the guild hall as repair efforts were still under way by the time they'd left. A few people, mostly the guild advisors and a few of the steel ranked adventurers that had been present upstairs earlier, gave them their congratulations but it seemed a more formal party was to be held later that night at the Blue Hedgehog itself where everyone would meet. Akira had wanted to go straight back to the inn to prepare for the celebration and to tell them of the good news but Matt made her stop by at a jewelry store with him first.
Apparently though normal wedding rings were common in this world, it was more accusatory amongst adventurers who were getting married to one another to buy their spouses a magical ring instead. Matt didn't have any reservations about getting Akira another magical ring, but he insisted that he also get her an ordinary wedding ring as well. She originally didn't seem keen on the idea of getting a non magical wedding ring as well but she quickly changed her mind when Matt slipped a silver band with three cut diamonds onto her finger. It wasn't anything special by Earthen standards but to Akira it seemed like it meant the world to her and that at least made Matt a bit happier.
He ended up spending a bit more money on the magic ring than the wedding ring but he justified the high price point of nearly four thousand gold pieces with what the ring was apparently capable of. The "Ring of Amity" was made of carved hematite and had a slightly red hue to it and had the rune for friend engraved along the band. It was a pretty ring but Matt was more interested in what the ring actually did. Apparently when the wearer who was attuned to the ring touched a willing creature, the two would become magically bound to one another. While the magic bond lasted, if either of the bonded individuals were healed in any way, the other would also receive the same healing effect as well. There was also a way to "invoke the rune." This apparently made the individual who wasn't wearing the ring but was bonded with the wearer to hit like a mac truck. The clerk had used another term though, saying something along the lines of being able to hit as hard as rampaging Bulette. Matt only knew what that was based on the games he had once played and would have been lying if he said he didn't like the sound of being able to hit as hard as the land shark like creature. Akira had liked this ring as well but she still seemed much more infatuated with the wedding ring still.
When it came time to pay for the two rings, Matt instinctively pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and was about to hand the clerk his credit card when he realized what he was doing and stopped. The clerk looked confused for a moment before a leather pouch of coins suddenly appeared on the counter top directly under where Matt held his card. Now they both looked down at the card and the coin purse in equal confusion. After a few awkward moments, the store clerk grabbed a hold of the bag and passed it over a glowing red rune on the counter that immediately turned green when the bag slipped over it. Apparently that meant that there had been the right amount of gold in the bag already and the clerk placed the bag away into what Matt assumed was a storage device somewhere on his person.
Matt left the store with Akira, still confused as to what had just happened while still holding his card in his hand. Akira was still admiring the ring on her finger when Matt chanced a small glance at his phone once again. He quickly scrolled through his apps and opened up his banking account and was shocked to see he was now missing the exact amount of gold coins from his bank account that he had just spent on the rings. Matt quickly powered off his phone and slid it back into his pocket before anyone could see what it was he was doing and looked at the car in his hand again.
"So this must now act as some sort of storage device specifically for gold now. That's fucking handy" Matt smiled before he put the card back into his wallet.
However this time instead of placing his wallet back into his pocket, he decided that an item such as his card was probably far safer in his bracer where it couldn't be so easily taken by some pick pocket. The wallet disappeared from his hand with a small flick of his wrist just as Akira practically threw herself at him and almost caused the wallet to fly out of his hand before it was stored away.
"Oh darling, I love it! I love it so much!"
She was holding up her hand that had her new rings on it but was clearly meaning the wedding ring more.
"I'm sorry it wasn't anything more. Everything else in there just looked a little too, gaudy I guess." Matt apologized
"What are you saying darling? This is absolutely perfect! I could care less about what it looks like all I care about is that you gave it to me"
She had smiled up at him as she clung onto his bicep once more and looked up at him with her eyes full of sparkling glee. Matt couldn't help but laugh and nod, ultimately happy that she was happy.
"So, what colors were you thinking for the wedding darling? I was thinking something along the lines of sage green and ivory, to go along with both or hair colors of course" Akira asked back at the Blue Hedgehog as she paced back and forth in front of Matt.
"I'm not really one to understand colors and stuff like that so I'll take your word on whatever you want honey" Matt replied with a slight chuckle at her continual excitement.
"Hmmm I know we both have our orange hair so maybe then if we went with burnt orange as well as small accents to the other colors then maybe that'd look nice too"
She had stopped in front of him and was tapping her bottom lip with her pointer finger and looking up into space while visualizing the arrangement. Matt watched her with a smile that felt like it would never leave his face as he stood leaning against the kitchen counter. Akira was planning for a much larger and grander wedding that she wanted to have back at her "estate." The smaller wedding party downstairs was put in Thomas and Sophia's hands, as somehow word had gotten back to them about the party being held in their tavern before Matt and Akira had a chance to explain the situation themselves. They'd been given a bottle of fine wine and pushed on up to their room while the preparations were still under way. Ever since then, Akira hadn't stopped talking about both the wedding and her plans for the future with her new husband.
"Like I said, I'll leave that stuff up to you" Matt chuckled and reached up to gently pat her head between her ears.
He had found out the night before that this was one of her weak spots. She nearly melted every time he patted her head between her two fox ears or when he gently rubbed the ears themselves. Matt watched her shoulders slump a little this time and she looked up at him with a dewy eyed expression on her face. She then raised herself up onto her toes and closed her eyes, pursing her lips and waiting for him to kiss her. It was impossible to say no to that as he happily kissed his wife softly on the lips. The two stayed there in the moment together, each getting lost in the other as Matt wrapped his arms around her and she allowed him to pull her in closer.
"I love you so much Matty" she cued softly to him
"And I love you too Akira" Matt replied, but chuckled slightly.
"What's the matter darling?" Akira asked sounding confused
"Oh nothing. Sorry dear. It's just… only one other person has ever called me that before" he replied
"Oh? And who was that?"
"My big sister. She had all sorts of nicknames for everyone, it was kind of her thing really, but mine was always Matty."
"I honestly feel a bit ashamed. Here we are, technically already married, and I'm just now finding out that you have a sister." Akira laughed a little in his arms.
"Ah it's alright honey. I don't normally talk much about my family. Don't get me wrong, I love them to death and all but… I don't know. Just, you don't normally talk about that kind of shit in my line of work."
Akira looked up at him for a moment, her tails slowly moving back and forth in contentment as she stayed in his arms.
"Would you tell me about them?" she asked
"I mean… yeah I don't see why not. I don't know if you'll ever get the chance to actually ever meet them but, sure."
Akira smiled brightly before she guided them both over to the sofa so she could cuddle him as he told her more about his life back on Earth. The two laid down together on the couch with Akira laying on top of him with her head on his chest.
"Well for starters, I actually have several sisters. I'm the second oldest and I have three other younger sisters as well. There's Autumn, my big sister, then Emma, Sienna, and Mary. Autumn is older than me by about two years or so then my little sisters are still in their twenties."
"Wait" Akira said, suddenly looking up at him "H-how old are you?"
Matt paused for a moment. The realization that they actually didn't really know that much about one another suddenly dawned on him. He felt a bit embarrassed and somewhere in the back of his mind she could hear Autumn scolding him like she always did to her younger siblings.
"I believe I'm around thirty two? Something like that" Matt laughed.
Akira went quiet and Matt could see she was deep in thought for a moment. He watched as her eyes darted back and forth as if she was reading some sort of invisible text written somewhere on his chest before she suddenly let out a loud sigh of relief as she put her head back down on his chest.
"Is everything alright?" Matt asked her
"It's fine. I was worried for a moment there. Kitsune live a lot longer than humans do and I was worried that I may have been much older than you. But I remembered reading an old text once that compared the aging of different races to one another. If you're thirty two by your human standard years, assuming the length of your years on Earth remained the same as they were here, then I'd technically be about a hundred years older than you. But, since Kitsune are so long lived in comparison, then I'm technically only thirty years old by our standard years."
"Well damn. How old do Kitsune generally live to be?" Matt asked
"Depends. It normally correlates with the number of tails a kitsune has. The more tails, the longer lived we are. My teacher before me had five tails, the most any Kitsune had had in millennia before me, and she lived to be nearly seven hundred years old. So I should live for a little over… eight hundred years?"
Matt didn't want to figure out that math in his head. He wasn't sure exactly how those numbers added up but then again there was a lot in this world that already didn't make any sense to him. He figured it was just best to take her word at it for now as it seemed she'd probably far outlive him anyways.
"Sorry, I've been actually meaning to ask you something about your kind if you don't mind"
"You needn't be afraid to ask me anything dear. To you, I am an open book" Akira replied and snuggled into him once more.
"Alright then. You said you had a mentor, or a teacher, and at one point you said there weren't many of your kind left in the world? So does that mean you're all alone?" Matt felt unable to properly find the correct way of asking his question.
Akira giggled softly but shook her head as she looked up at him from his chest.
"No. I do have family still around if that's what you're asking. I actually have a little sister as well. She's only a little younger than me but she's still going through her rebellious age." Akira said rolling her eyes
"You have a sister? Will she be at the wedding?" matt asked
"I honestly don't know. Hika is quite a bit more of a free spirit then I was at her age so who knows where she is. I did try to talk to her earlier but she sounded busy, so…" Akira shrugged
"You… talked with her?" Matt asked
"Yes, we both have sending stones linked to one another just in case one of us needs to get a hold of the other. I had reached out to her to tell her the wonderful news but she sounded like she was in the middle of a fight so I'll let her be for now."
"A fight?"
"Hika is always getting into fights. Granted we both were a bit… hot headed in our younger years. It's honestly no surprise to me that she's in some sort of altercation. I'm sure she'll reply back when she can."
"That's slightly concerning. So wait, is she a nine tailed Kitsune like you?" Matt asked
"No. I am considered an anomaly by my kind. Hika only has one sapphire tail but she can still be rather scary. Both her and I are the only two Kitsune known to have sapphire tails if that puts things into a better perspective for you."
"So if you and I are both Adamantine rank, then what rank is she?"
"Strangely enough she's never actually taken the aptitude test. She's more of a… pugilist or an arena fighter anyways. But if I had to guess then I'd assume she's somewhere around Mithral perhaps? Don't get me wrong, when she goes all out she can even give me a run for my coin but she can't go all out for long. A drawback of having only one tail."
"Damn, it seems like you're both pretty badass" Matt chuckled.
"Don't forget your Adamantine rank too, my love. But as a fair warning, if Hika does show up at our wedding she'll likely make a grand show of it and challenge you to a fight or something."
"You think I stand a chance against someone like her?"
"Tough to say honestly. Truth be told I haven't actually seen you in a real fight yet. I assume you'd be fine or else you wouldn't have gotten your rank, but still."
"Hold on, that's actually something that's been bothering me a little. Why did the guild master just hand me my rank like that? Isn't there some sort of test or something I should have taken to prove my ability?" asked Matt
"You're right, there should have been some sort of formal test. However, I need to remind you that you not only single handedly destroyed an aptitude crystal, which is near impossible to do mind you even for those of Mithral rank, but you did also manage to stay standing while being hit with the full force of my magic energy. Those two feats alone were probably enough to prove your standing."
"I guess you're right. Who am I to question things about this world that I barely understand anyways. Not that many of the concepts of this world are super foreign to me though. This world has a lot of similarities to that of fictional literature and games and such of my world."
"Hmm, a scholar and a warrior. I definitely won the lottery with you"
Akira grinned as she leaned in towards Matt's face a little more and looked up at him with fluttering eyes.
"I wouldn't call myself a scholar." Matt chuckled "I just liked to have fun in my down time while I wasn't training to kick doors down and such. Honestly the hobbies I was into would have branded me as a bit of a social outcast years ago back home."
"Interesting. Tell me, why do you train to… kick doors down?"
Matt chuckled a little at her genuine curiosity and was partially glad she hadn't asked him more about his hobbies instead. He began to tell her that his job wasn't literally just kicking down doors but instead it was a way of saying that he was trained to enter into a room or structure with speed and violence. He also felt the need to explain to her that his job was much more than just clearing rooms and that he was tasked with covert special warfare and operation missions like killing or capturing high-value targets, conducting reconnaissance, and so much more.
"Oh, so you are like one of the Proctor's Shadow Cell teams." Akira exclaimed
"The… what?" Matt asked
"The Proctor's Shadow Cell teams. They are the special teams of the coveted guardians of Tytaura. They are mostly of the Mithral rank or equivalent and spend their entire lives devoted to their cause. Frightening bunch even if you ask me."
"So these Shadow Cell teams, what country or nation do they belong to?" Matt asked, trying now to gather intel about this new special forces group.
"They do not belong to any nation. They are of the Proctors, the guardians of Tytaura whose sole job is to protect the people of Tytaura from threats unknown and protectors of the portal systems." Akira replied
"Oh, so their sorta like what the three forty second was starting to become back home." Matt muttered to himself "This shadow team though, they use magic and stuff right?'
"Some do, I suppose. I personally haven't met many of them before, only a few in passing here and there when I had business with their commander. She's a fellow Adamantine rank by the name of "H." She should be coming to our wedding if you wanted to ask her more darling"
"It's fine dear." Matt said with a chuckle and dismissed the notion.
Truth was that he was indeed very interested in this Shadow Cell group as well as the so-called Proctors as well. Though his interest was purely of that from a tactical standpoint of finding out more information about this potentially magical special operations group. Just like he wouldn't go asking a ruler back in his world about their special operations program, he wouldn't be asking this "H" person about theirs either. He wanted to know more so he could better gauge what they were capable of if he ever found himself either operating with or against them. For now, he'd drop the matter, but he would keep his eyes and ears open for anything else pertaining to these groups.
"Exactly how many people do you think will be attending the wedding?" Matt asked, changing the subject.
"Are we speaking of the celebration tonight or Venindale?"
"Uh, both?"
"Well, let's see. As for tonight's celebration, I imagine a good deal of people will be coming if they aren't here already. Besides the people from the guild I was told that this was more of an open door celebration, so anyone could really come so long as they have food and drink to keep the party going."
"What of the guards?"
"Oh we won't be hearing from them any time soon. I made sure of that with a few messages I sent out earlier while you were picking out my rings. But as for our wedding back home, it'll probably end up being a party throughout the entire city if not the region I'm afraid. As for those in actual attendance of the ceremonies then we have the Adamantine adventurers as I mentioned before, a number of dear friends of mine that'll be traveling in, my sister if she decides to grace us, a few other Kitsune… I'd say a good amount as well."
Matt took a deep breath in and held it for a moment before slowly letting it out in a deep sigh. Akira was making it sound like that there was going to be no shortage of people around at either event. If Matt was being honest, he wasn't the biggest fan of crowds. Not that he wouldn't tolerate them though. He'd gone to a few conventions before and sometimes his job had him operating in high density areas like cities before too. He just preferred smaller group gatherings at most was all.
"Is everything alright dear?" Akira asked, looking at him with concern on her face.
"Hmm? Oh yeah, I'll be fine. Just going to have to get used to being at the center of attention is all."