Chapter 66 Quirks.

Chapter 66: 66 Quirks.

Juniper sighed heavily. "Ah, so it’s like that with her. I knew this would happen."

I deliberately ignored Ayra’s butt in my face. "Why is she like this? Seriously, what’s going on with the whole punishment routine?"

Ayra refused to answer as she reluctantly straightened up and returned to her seat, realizing I wasn’t going to play along for now. Elsa merely sighed and rolled her eyes as she clung to my arm and accepted a forkful of pancakes from me.

"She’s always shown... signs of being into this sort of thing," Juniper explained delicately. "Even during our early training days with Seer Morvain. We all slept in the same room, and she would talk in her dreams about punishment in a very... unwholesome way."

"I think it came from Edgorn Riggs, yes? The Champion who led the Hero’s Party some three millennia ago? He famously held a rather abusive, sadistic relationship with his heroines, involving a lot of spanking and—whips." Elsa’s face contorted with the last word, as if she’d just unlocked a morsel of knowledge she wished she’d kept hidden away in the back of her mind. Ayra’s eyes practically had hearts in them at the mention, however.

As we continued eating, trying to ignore the glowing tattoos on Ayra and Elsa’s stomachs, Juniper suddenly tightened her bathrobe and asked, "When is the next full moon?"

I’d actually looked this up earlier, after her mention of it last night. "Six days from now," I replied.

She nodded approvingly. "Perfect. That gives us time to prepare for the ritual and get accustomed to one another."

Elsa and Ayra, however, exchanged disgusted, horrified, indignant, hateful glances. "Wait," Elsa said coldly, her voice shaking, "you mean we need to wait six more days before we can have sex with Grey?!"

"That’s heroine abuse!" Ayra wailed. "And not the good kind!"

"It’s the proper protocol for the ritual," Juniper insisted firmly. "Unless you want to sacrifice a significant power boost for our champion?"

That silenced their protests, though both women looked like someone pissed on their pancakes.

After breakfast and cleanup, we moved to the living room. I set up Super Plumber Kart 64 on the TV, figuring it would be a good distraction. All three women proved hilariously terrible at it. Juniper picked up the basic controls quickly but kept crashing into shit. Elsa kept looking for shortcuts and never used her item pickups. Ayra—well she drove backwards for a whole race. Enough said.

"This is impossible!" Elsa declared after finishing second to last for the fifth time in a row. "The course is clearly designed to confuse elfmaids! This is racism at play!"

"I promise that’s not the case," I said, not really feeling the need to elaborate.

During a break between races, Juniper turned to me. "I’m curious about your class. You mentioned you’re a Cavalier?"

"Yeah. I just unlocked it after fighting a ground dragon," I explained. "Supposedly I’m waiting for my steed to show up. The System said it would ’find me’ after I completed the ritual."

Juniper nodded as if this made perfect sense. "I’m familiar with your class. The First Maiden of the last Hero’s Party was a Cavalier. The summoning process can take time. It does its best to find the soul of a living creature alike in form to one you’ve ridden before, and adapts it into something ideal—something equine that you will bond with easily and surely."

Later that afternoon, we ventured outside to give Juniper a proper tour of the property. The road was just barely visible in the distance through some trees, which was a relief—it would be challenging to let her out during daylight hours, but for now, the risk of discovery seemed minimal.

I showed her the silo that would eventually become her tower, the barn where we stored equipment, and finally the field where the portals appeared nightly.

"This is where we face whatever comes through," I explained, gesturing to the open space. "Same spot every night, almost without fail—give or take a few yards, anyway."

Juniper examined the area carefully, her tail leaving subtle patterns in the grass as she moved. "The dimensional fabric is indeed thin here. I can feel it—but it seems more linked to you than to the field itself."

"Yep, we came to that conclusion as well," I sighed.

At her request, I showed her my stat sheet. Her eyes widened as she read through the numbers.

"Remarkable," she breathed, her cheeks going red as her hair, burnishing her mocha-colored skin. "Such a respectable level after only a few months, and without proper training. Not to mention your base stats—they dwarf ours when you subtract the level bonus. You truly are our champion."

As we headed back toward the house, Elsa began her whining about her feet being sore. Without even thinking, I scooped her up in my arms. She immediately wrapped her arms around my neck and began planting small kisses as a reward on my shoulder, seemingly unable to help herself despite Juniper’s watchful gaze.

Juniper observed this with a raised eyebrow. "I look forward to seeing just what it is about you, Grey, that has these two so obsessed."

"Wish I could tell you," I chuckled.

"I could make a list!" Ayra offered. "His stomach muscles, his arm muscles, his back muscles, his eyes, his nose, his hair, his ears, his penis—"

"Definitely the penis," Elsa nodded in agreement.

"His—his niceness—I mean cruelty, his spanking power—"

"We’ll cut the list off there," Juniper muttered, snapping her fingers. A little golden twine made of light seemed to painlessly sew the dog-girl’s lips together. "Much better."

Back inside, we settled in front of the TV again. Elsa took great pride in explaining the concept of shows to Juniper, despite clearly not understanding it herself.

"These tiny people live inside a world that we use the box to view, you see," she declared with supreme confidence. "They perform at our command when Grey presses the buttons. He can make them louder or quieter, and he can change viewing portals to other realms entirely. In some realms, all they do is talk about what is going on elsewhere in this one."

"That’s... not even remotely how it works," I sighed.

Juniper watched with curiosity, asking insightful questions about broadcast technology that I did my best to answer, but I was no cable guy. Meanwhile, Elsa and Ayra gradually succumbed to post-meal drowsiness, and it was entertaining to watch them go limp like snuggly noodles.

Elsa curled around my left arm, using all fours to hug it against her body like a koala on the world’s last eucalyptus tree. Her golden hair spilled across my shoulder as her head rested in the crook of my elbow. On my other side, Ayra had stretched out with her head in my lap, her tail wagging even in sleep, rhythmically thumping against the couch cushions.

As they slept, their shirts rode up slightly, revealing their womb tattoos. Both symbols glowed ruby red, pulsing gently, almost in unison.

"They’ve been lighting up like that all morning," Juniper remarked with a knowing smirk. "Have you deduced what it means yet?"

"Yep," I confirmed in a low tone, careful not to wake them. "Pretty obvious after the first few times."

She laughed softly, letting her eyebrows do a dance for me. "I bet it was."

I watched the sleeping women with affection. "You know, I adore these two," I admitted, "They’re truly incredibly fun, strong, and interesting women... but I can tell I’m going to be grateful to have at least one other slightly more grounded person around here."

Juniper blushed, the color vivid against her dark skin. "I have my quirks too, you know. I just haven’t, um, let my guard down yet."

I held back a laugh that probably would’ve been a raucous snort. "Whatever you’ve got going on, I’m absolutely positive it doesn’t match up to the unhinged chaos these two bring to every moment of every day."

She smiled enigmatically. "Guess we’ll see."