Chapter 78 Fuckface.

Chapter 78: 78 Fuckface.

Her raw physical stats were decent. It seemed like she’d only get more dangerous as time went on. I wasn’t sure if she leveled up on her own or with me, but it seemed like the Bond system had something to do with it.

The Bond Scaling was the interesting part—every physical stat would climb as we got along better. The System had essentially made "don’t be an asshole to your horse-girl" a mechanical requirement rather than just a general good idea. If I cared about getting her to peak performance, I’d need her to like being my steed, and to get her to be happy to be with me.

It seemed like an uphill battle. Then again, she was clearly still into me, so maybe the methodology was going to turn out to be a lot more straightforward than I was imagining.

I closed the interface.

On TV, Clementine had started up the remote war again and ultimately put on some kind of reality competition show. Ayra was immediately and intensely invested, but Elsa was pretending not to watch and failing miserably. As for Juniper, she lowered her book by about three inches when the drama started to get really good.

"Hey," I said, to the girls. "The Portal’s going to open in a couple hours. Clementine, you can stay inside if you want, but I thought you might want to see what we’re actually dealing with. I’m not expecting you to contribute."

She didn’t answer right away. On screen someone got eliminated and Ayra made a dramatic sound of distress, like "Ohhh nooooo!" Clementine watched her for a second with an unreadable face before looking back at me.

"Will it be dangerous? Just watching or whatever, I mean."

"Nah, we’ve got it covered. You’ll be fine if you stay back and make yourself scarce. We’ve got a pretty good system at this point."

"She would be safest near me if she wanted to get a little closer to the action," Juniper said, not looking up from her book. "I’ll be holding the flank. She can observe from there."

I nodded. "Works for me."

Clementine looked at Juniper, then back at me. "Fine. I’ll watch. Also, I have to stress this—your tits are fucking massive."

---

We suited up around eleven, putting our armor on and grabbing our weapons.

Clementine came outside wearing my jacket, which was an interesting decision given that she’d arrived wearing her Pizza Dude jacket. If I had to guess, it was a move designed to piss off Elsa, and it was working judging by the look on the elf’s face when she took note.

Clementine’s hooves were loud on the porch steps as she stepped out, and the field stretched out dark and wide open ahead of us.

"Same spot every night?" she asked, falling into step beside me.

"Give or take. The portal follows me, not the property. As long as I’m out here during the lock-on window, it opens close by."

She processed this for a few steps. "So... we can’t leave the property? Like ever?"

"For short trips it’s fine," I said with a sigh. "Early in the day, ideally, just to play it safe. And having you on board will be good because you have a driver’s license and can take the other girls out sometimes just to get away if you ever feel cooped up. But yes, I’m stuck here."

She winced sympathetically. "That’s a really insane way to live, Grey."

"You get used to it." I shrugged, forcing a smile. It wasn’t often that I thought about the implications of that situation, but when I did it was a pretty dark line of internal inquiry.

Ayra took her position at my left with her war hammer over her shoulder, ears straight up. Elsa positioned herself ten feet back—close enough to shout tactical advice, far enough to be mostly uninvolved, which was on-brand for someone with a CON of 4. Juniper spread out to the right flank, coiling low. Clementine stopped where Juniper had indicated, arms folded, squinting into the dark like she’d been told to expect something but still didn’t quite believe it.

"How long does it usually—" she started.

And just like that, the air tore open.

The portal ripped wide right on schedule, crackling with purple light and that familiar electric energy in the air. A hand came through first—four thick fingers with nails like blades gripping the edge of the tear—and then the rest of the thing hauled itself out. It was big, thick, troll-adjacent, with a grayish hide and a low-slung head that swung side to side like it was already irritated at everything.

Clementine took one step back.

"Ashbeast," Juniper said, already moving right.

"Good or bad?" I asked. "This is my first time seeing one."

"More than manageable."

That was all I needed.

The fight went the way most of these fights went now—messy but not particularly stressful. The ashbeast was slower than most foes and had no tactical ideas beyond grabbing whatever was in front of it, which made it predictable and pretty trivial to deal with. Ayra hit it twice from behind while I worked the front, and Juniper frosted its knee joints with that exhale of hers whose mechanics I still didn’t fully understand but definitely had learned to appreciate.

We brought it down in under three minutes, and I finished it with a thrust to the base of the skull that Elsa helpfully directed from her safe distance.

"Good job, my champion! I will pepper your penis with kisses this very night!" she cheered, then cocked her head thoughtfully. "Though I suppose I do that most nights now."

Clementine let out a growl somewhere farther back when she heard that.

I looked to the side to see Ayra bouncing on her toes before the thing had fully stopped twitching. "Did you see the second hit? Was it good? It was good, right?"

"It was good," I confirmed.

"I knew it." She pumped a fist, tail going berserk. "But perhaps still not good enough for your cruel standards, master?" she added hopefully.

I let that go.

Juniper was already examining the portal scar when I bent over to let Elsa crawl onto my back. When I walked back, Clementine was standing exactly where I’d left her, both hands squeezed into fists.

"You do that every night," she said. Not quite a question.

"More or less."

She shook her head. "That’s so fucking stupid."

I laughed at that. "Alright. Do you think you’ll be joining us in the future?"

She stared at the smoking remains of the ashbeast for a long moment, then at the fading purple smear where the portal had been. "Probably," she said finally. "I’m going inside."

"I’ve got hot chocolate," I added.

"Whatever, fuckface. Talk to me when that parasite isn’t hanging off your back."

"What did she call me?!" Elsa gasped.

I couldn’t help but smile.