AN: Jain is Ja (yes) + Nein (no) and it is my favorite word in German. Even though it is more of a slang, I love using it! It just sounds so cool!
Lin was like a soldier before a battlefield. Kai had made him a three-course meal, the soup being left for last just so it could be warm and unclog Lin's nose.
Not that it was clogged, but a good soup could go a long way to a man's betterment. Like this one, for instance, which was writing him a message using the noodles.
"Hopla me!" The soup finally wrote. Lin took his spoon and then stirred the soup. If the ghost wanted his help, then he better rearrange the noddle because Lin was tired, hungry, and the food smelled great.
He had no time for someone to write him nonsense. Although… he had to admit that writing with noodles must have been hard on the poor spirit.
"HELP ME"
Lin nodded. That was better.
"Jain," Lin said simply. It was his favorite word from the northern nations. It just sounded good; he had to admit. Besides, a jain could solve an argument before it started.
After all, if one said a jain, then they agreed with their conversation partner.
Well, to a point, but…
"HELP ME!!!!"
Lin knew that the hello would follow soon. He sent a mournful look at his soup, which would surely end up as cold as an iceberg by the time they managed to help the ghost.
The fairy looked at the gnome, who was slurping noodles happily, steam rising from his bowl.
"Kai, can we please switch bowls?" Lin asked, for he really did not want to go questing with just three chocolates in his stomach.
"Sure!" Kai already counted himself a lucky man, for he saw many indirect kisses in his future. As soon as the bowls changed hands, Kai frowned.
"Darn it, the system woke up," it was not every day the system wanted to send him off on quests, but when it did happen, it was always something that could see the gnome six feet under. "Look here, Hugo, I am having a lovely dinner right now! Can't you go and bother someone else?"
They had danced this dance before, but Hugo still refused to let Kai retire. There had been a debt linking the system and the adventurer once, but Kai had long since paid it off.
"You have a system?" Lin asked, Kai nodded. "Cool! How much does it pay you for your mana?"
Kai blinked. Wait… he was supposed to be paid for that?
The noodles in the soup began to move once more. Kai watched them with twitching eyes. After a whole of five minutes and three failed attempts, Hugo finally managed to write a simple: bb.
The system had not even bothered with a smiley face!
"Ah, hell nah!" Kai growled, as he made a mental note of how long he had been used as a hotel without getting any pay for it. "You will pay me in full, Hugo! What happened to: one has to work to get money, one has to save to keep them?"
The noddle soup began to reshape itself once more.
"Jain," was Hugo's response.
"This fudge won't fly!" Kai said, standing up. The noodles were rearranging themselves as Kai took his whip from next to his table.
"Are you… going to try to whip the soup?" Lin asked, confused. The fairy had finished his soup, and now was working on the steaks before him.
"What? Nah, I am going to the judge. Just need to prepare a couple of things," Kai was not going to allow to be exploited once more!
"But you barely ate anything," Lin told him, as he looked at the steak before him. There were no calls for help written on it, and he had already eaten a bowl of soup.
Besides, Kai was funny. Lin did not want the gnome to drop dead. Creating talking corpses required a sacrifice, and rats no longer allowed such things to happen to them.
"No problem, I ate some mushrooms earlier. Enjoy your meal, the guest room is upstairs and has a four-leafed clover painted on the door."
Kai had not lived for so long by not trying to arrange things for himself. Not only did he hope that Lin would stay the night, but he was also already planning what sort of candles he could buy on his way back.
Hugo would get his! Kai would have someone to snuggle up to soon!
"Jain," Kai heard Hugo say in his mind. "No judge is going to order an exorcism for a system which had led to you saving the world again and again."
"That may be," Kai thought, a grin from ear to ear splitting his face. "But I know a good lawyer who is always willing to make a stand against systems."
"Jain, but…" Hugo continued, but Kai pressed the restart button of his system communication.
Oh, he knew how much Hugo hated that. The system usually played a game in his mind with him flinging debris at birds, and he never paid Kai his full attention during a conversation.
Kai hoped that the system had been close to a high score. Served him right!
Lin ate his meal in silence, glancing at Kai every once in a while.
A system was not something that got given away like candy by the gods. If Kai got rid of the system, then all of its secrets would disappear in the void with it.
Then again…
Kai seemed to like him. Not only that, but he seemed to genuinely believe in the fact that he and Lin were soulmates. So…
Lin stood up and used his necromantic mana to steal Hugo from Kai!
Faced with certain death, Hugo accepted the invitation. Only for the system to start knocking on the walls of his broom closet, which was actually what Lin had created for him out of spite.
After all, the system had forced Kai to risk his life for far too long! It was time for revenge.
The flying pig, which had gotten lost in the forest and had a pack of wolves trailing behind it, oinked. Foreshadowing the fact that the wolves would remain hungry, for they could not fly, and yet, that everything was possible.