Novels2Search
A Tower Of Dreams
Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

'Misha always did love to rest his head on my thighs, and his content expression as he did was just so adorable. Dana loved to tease, and I.. Well, I guess Tae was also pretty cute. And I bet Tae was probably really fun to tease.

Though, I wonder, while I know Tae was kind of a lewd girl, was she as lusty as the current me, or is this trait unique to Arata and not Tae.. Actually, that's pretty easy if I think about it.

My past self was fully human, though modded. My current self isn't even human anymore, and I apparently even go into heat now, so.. So I guess that's one clear difference between Arata and Tae. Arata is way more lewd than Tae.'

I chuckled as I caressed the warm metal shaft of my spear, basking in the comforting sunlight, sitting down on the grass while curling my nine tails around me, forming a puddle of pink fluff.

'Yeah, I guess that's one point of individuality that the previous me didn't have. The current me is way more lewd, and gets over embarrassment pretty easily. After all, I'm already getting used to going without underwear in public.

Not to mention that the bottom half manages to offer less protection as a miniskirt on a windy day. And a tug to the sides would uncover my breasts.. Well, it'd uncover the portion it does cover.

I wonder how Misha would react if he saw me like this.. Well, I really have no idea. Arata's not the girl he fell in love with after all, Tae was.

Being a different personality from the original, in the same body, with much of my original self's memories gets really damn confusing. It's annoyingly hard to tell where Tae ends and Arata begins at times.

Ah well, at least it's not split personalities. I'd totally go crazy if that were the case. Being a sexy and lewd foxgirl with some emotional and personality issues is fine, being crazy and lewd probably isn't.'

With a shrug, I yawned and stretched out my arms and tails, before curling my tails back up into a comfortable fluffy puddle around my body.

"Bleh, waiting around like this kinda sucks.. It's comfortable weather and the sun is pleasantly warm, but it's hard keeping track of the time without any clock. Does this world even have the same number of hours of the real? And nobody's around, so it’s not like I can ask.

When's Raynolia going to get back? It's surprisingly lonely out here on my own. And boring.. It'd be nice if there was something interesting for me to do, other then wait around feeling lusty and bored.."

I laid down on the grass and closed my eyes, basking in the warmth of the sun as I tried to relax and wait patiently for the elf's return.

"While they are really big and do have a little bit of weight to them, lying on my back like this is nice and comfy. They don't shake, jiggle, or bounce around, and the feeling of cool air and warm sunlight on my skin is great.

Easily accessible clothing is surprisingly nice to wear, I guess.. Maybe I should pick up some miniskirts to wear, it has been ages since I last wore one. When did I last.. Oh right, Berkeley."

My face, ears, and tails twitched as the eerie scenery of the hellish city that stole both my past self and her lover's life away returned to my mind.

"Berkeley really was a hellish mess.. Same with my memories and feelings regarding it, since the me that is Arata wouldn't have ever existed if it didn't happen..

I remember Taizou said something about the nature of the experiment that caused the incident.. What was it.. Higgs.. Higgs.. Higgs field! Right, that’s what it was. It was something about manipulating the Higgs field."

My ears caught a faint and out of place rasping sound, like rusty steel grinding against a file. Annoyed, I stood up and began looking around as I tried to figure out where it was coming from.

"Raynolia said he'd be giving me plenty of rewarding when he gets back if I'm good, so I doubt it's him. I've got no idea where Luci is, but I don't think she'd be doing that either. Elves have sensitive hearing too, don't the-"

I trailed off as my breath caught in my throat. Tightening my grasp on the spear as I caught sight of a bizarre, disturbingly humanoid, abomination of a creature that was quietly shambling up the slope of the hill towards me.

Where her face should've been, was a large obsidian plate, reminiscent of a tower shield. Small and wriggling tendrils resembling tentacles protruding from the top and bottom.

In the center of its face was a revolving, eerie, and arcane crimson pattern that seemed to bleed out a black ooze, which dripped down onto its disturbingly normal human torso.

My blood ran cold as the desire to flee crept up my spine, as the creature raised its elongated, misshapen, and pallid arms with an abnormal number of joints up to its head, and began to claw at the sides of her head with it's freakish, talon-like fingers.

The sound of rasping rust and metal began intensifying, and I stepped backwards as the creature began to shudder with a wail that sounded like a distorted mixture of a goat's screeching and human screaming.

"What kind of monster is that? A wandering boss monster? Shouldn't a beginner encounter a slime or something cuter? Definitely not something that looks like it belongs on the silent hill, right?"

I took a deep breath, gathering my courage as I readied my spear, unsure of what to do as the creature's wailing grew louder and louder, before she dropped down onto all fours, and began to charge.

As the creature leaped up towards me, I stabbed out. Feeling a sickening crunch, and a nauseating splatter of sticky warm liquid as the monstrosity unhesitatingly impaled herself on my spear as it knocked me to the ground.

With as much strength as I could muster, I kicked its face as hard as I could, and the creature leaped backwards with a shriek, tearing itself away from the spear, seemingly unfazed by the horridly gaping wound in her chest.

I scrambled up to my feet as quickly as I could, my heart racing, while I tried to catch my breath. The creature began slowly pacing sideways while keeping out of my reach, as if it were sizing me up.

As I watched its movement warily, Raynolia's statement from the other day ran through my mind, slightly relieving my nervousness and tension as the realization struck me.

'Right.. Every monster has a runic seal, a fatal weakness.. It didn't care about getting stabbed, but freaked when I kicked its face.. That pattern is the weakness.'

With a deep breath, I tried to calm myself, steadying my grip on my weapon as I waited for the creature to give me an opportunity.

'Remember your training, Arata. You're not a total rookie, you've got a year of krav maga under your- Oh shit!'

I threw myself to the side as the creature suddenly lunged towards me, its body stretching out as it raked at me with its claws.

As I caught my footing, I became all too aware of flaring pain in my left shoulder, and the feeling of blood slowly trickling down my arm, as the creature retreated back to standing out of my reach.

'It was going for my neck.. It was definitely going for my neck, I can't drag this out, I almost just lost my head.. I need to settle this quickly..'

With a breath to calm my nerves, I threw caution to the wind leaped forward, throwing my tails out towards the creature's arms in an attempt to block them.

As I stabbed towards its oversized head, the creature's knee shot up into my abdomen, knocking my breath out of me as I threw my bodyweight into the lunge towards its head.

With an audible crunch, the creature began convulsing with a unholy shriek as a mixture of black liquid and mist began spurting out onto me.

Coiling my tails around the shuddering arms, I pinned its body down beneath me, desperately catching my breath as I wrenched the spear sideways, bringing the creature's movements and shrieking to a sudden stop.

"Fucking hell, that hurt so much worse than training with those merciless instructors.. I feel like I'm gonna puke, it's not going to leave a bruise is it?"

I tore the spear out from the creatures broken head and took two steps back before collapsing onto my rear, breathing heavily, turning my attention to my wounded shoulder.

"The gashes are surprisingly minor for how much they hurt.. The bleeding is already stopping, but, this isn't going to give me scars or an infection, is it? If that kind of thing happens even in the digital world, that'd suck so much.."

As the nervousness and tension drained away, I held up my hand, which was covered in creature's sticky black fluids, before my face, and sighed.

"I guess this has to be thing that Raynolia warned me about earlier. But hey, at least I can show this off a bit. I'm officially a monster hunter now. Although.. I'm curious, what do monsters taste like.."

With mixed feelings of triumph and exhaustion, I placed my spear onto my lap. Driven by both impulse and curiosity, I licked the inky fluid off my hand, and immediately regretted it.

"..It's so tangy and bitter.. The taste is so damn gross.. What kind of idiot am I, why would I even do that? Besides, it could be poisonous. Seriously Arata, you were able to use your head in a fight, why can’t you use it after a fight?

On the bright side, I definitely earned myself a good and thorough rewarding from Raynolia.. After all, I killed the monster and protected the elves' home. That’s something that should deserve a good rewarding."

I nodded to myself as I wiped my hands off on the grass, trying to take my mind off the pain by reminding myself that there was something to look forward to.

'Now, what do I do.. Wait around for one of the elves to get back and ask them what to do with the carcass, deal with it myself, or just rest a bit under the shade and wait until Raynolia's here to give me some loving.. Sounds good to me.'

After a moment of thought, I slung my spear over my uninjured shoulder, and clambered to my feet, taking a glance at the gashes that marred my left shoulder as I did.

'The bleeding has stopped already, and the pain is beginning to fade, so I think that's a pretty good sign.. But really, isn't the pain and injuries a bit unnecessarily realistic?'

I stepped into the shade of the palm trees next to the elves' porch, laid the spear down, before closing my eyes and lying down as I resumed my waiting for Raynolia's return.

Groggily, I sat down at my living room table, feeling half asleep as I picked up the note that had been left out for me, scrawled out in Taizou's characteristic lazy cursive, and began reading.

"Since you're too busy becoming a fox girl to wake up, we picked up some cereal and milk for you to eat. Mika and I are heading out for pancakes. With love, your beloved and overly awesome great grandfather, Taizou.

..Dammit, pancakes would be awesome right now. Screw those two! While I was fighting a monster straight out of a horror, the two of them went out for pancakes! Agh, they're off enjoying pancakes and all I've got here are cornflakes.."

I grouchily retrieved a bowl and the milk, poured myself a bowl of cereal, while I began plotting my revenge against the fiends who orchestrated the pancake conspiracy.

'Those abominable snack bars wouldn't work, they'd be on guard against those.. I'll need to be patient and ambush them with something they'll never expect..

Huh, now that I'm thinking properly, hasn't my behavior changed a bit recently? Though I've always been a lewd, and while Tae was also lewd, in hindsight, my behavior has definitely been strange.

Getting off from being in a compromising situation, and getting groped and getting off from being roughly handled by a stranger, was never something normal for me. Wouldn't having a really shitty first impression of the elves be normal given what they did?

And yet, my impression of them is pretty good, Raynolia seems like a pretty nice guy, and he's pretty damn attractive.. I don't feel like he's a creep or even a dangerous person at all despite everything that happened when we met..'

As the realization sunk in, I felt a bit of a chill run down my spine as I turned to look at the machine lying on the floor, as the thought occurred to me.

"Is this from having my hormones and body screwed with.. Or has it been screwing with my head too? I hadn't noticed before, but my body in the real feels.. Lacking and constricted, without my tails and ears like in that world.

This is.. Should be, scary. But it's more frightening that I don't feel scared about this at all. It feels perfectly natural to me.. Just.. How much have I changed without realizing it?

While I have the option to do the safe and cautious thing, not touch that machine again, much less get inside of it.. I don't even want to. I want to see Raynolia and Luci again.

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I want to explore that world further, and even though fighting that monster straight out of a horror game was terrifying and hurt badly.. It was exhilarating. Almost to the point I want to face it again."

Breathing heavily, I pinched my thigh, using my pain to snap my abnormal thoughts back in order, grabbing my phone as I tried to make some sense out of my conflicting feelings.

"Okay Arata, you need to do it. Alright, recording, check, specialized PSION encryption, check, sending the encrypted audio to my PC in real time, check. Alright then."

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath to calm myself, set aside my food for the moment, and began speaking for the recording.

"So, for one of the few times since I left therapy.. I am in need of a logged self recap. I do not know how much I have already changed, nor do I know how much I will change, so, let's begin with sorting out this mess.

Today is may twenty third, a friday, of twenty eighty nine. First thing to address is that I can't tell if the change to my behavior is due to the changes in my body, or if the machine is screwing with my head as well.

Secondly, as disturbing as some of my realizations should be, I don't feel really bothered by them. And since I am not in the machine, I can conclude that it is unlikely my thoughts are being influenced by it.

I believe the way I think may have changed due to the changes to my brain's structure, though, according to Taizou and Mika, I have shown no signs of personality drift yet, so it either is not a significant change, or the difference is hard to notice.

Additionally, while I should feel extremely wary about the virtual reality machine, I don't, and find being the thought of getting back into it rather pleasant. I am entirely unsure of the cause or reason for this."

Taking a bite of my cereal as I caught my breath, I chewed my food slowly as I took the time to properly put my thoughts and what I wanted to say in their correct order.

"Thirdly, my feelings regarding the elves, my sexual desires, and other desires. After thinking properly, it would be natural to have a bad impression of the elves, but I currently feel quite positively about them.

My sexual desires have been running rampant, though that's almost certainly due to the abnormal condition of my hormones, and also likely caused by the fact that werebeasts apparently have an estrus cycle. Supplementary note, I believe I am turning into a fox-type werebeast with nine tails.

I am unsure of whether or not I would have found being taken advantage of arousing, before the changes to my body, as I never experienced a situation quite like it before.

Nor can I say for now, whether or not the machine may have been screwing with my mind, and thus causing me to enjoy the experience.

Also of note, is that my experience fighting that whatever Raynolia called it, while terrifying, was, in hindsight, oddly enjoyable.

I believe that is everything I need to recap for now, I need to keep track of my feelings about this sort of thing, and log any possible changes to my behavior, personality, or desires whenever I become aware of them."

Having finished my speech, I ended the recording, breathed a sigh and set down my phone, resuming breakfast, while feeling somewhat better about my situation.

"I should've resumed my self-logging the moment I discovered that my body was changing, rather than having put it off till now. But well, at least I realized it.

Also.. It's equally possible that it might not be screwing with my body and head anymore, because the machine is already done screwing with them."

I shook my head, trying not to dwell on it as I finished my food. After cleaning up my bowl and putting the box of cereal away, I drank a glass of water and flopped down on my couch.

'Really.. Despite being aware of all that, I'm really looking forward to seeing Raynolia again.. Though this feeling certainly isn't love, he's definitely pretty damn attractive in one way or another.

Aside from that, I'm already past the point of no return, since I can't even be counted as human anymore. At least, not biologically. And besides, screwing with my head can't get any worse than altering the structure of my brain.

So.. I might as well get back into it, and see if I there's any hints as to why they'd do something like this. After all, motives and expenses don't match up. Who'd profit from doing this, and why?

There was also that thing with Raynolia and Erik, where they couldn't tell me how real world people and they are different, because of some rule. While nothing might come out of it, finding out what they couldn't tell me, might offer some answers.'

I tapped my fingers on the couch while I gathered my thoughts and resolve together, engraving my starting goal into my mind, as I sat up and fixated my gaze onto the coffin-like machine.

"While the people on the outside investigate how or why this happened, I'll search for the answers within. Get every bit of knowledge out of the elf that I can.

Remember, Arata, questions first, and see to what happens in bed later. If I have to, coax the knowledge out of him while in bed.. Also, talk to Luci, and at the very least.. Ask her permission if I am actually going to bed him.

Control, control, control. Maintain self control. Strive towards my goal, discipline myself when necessary, and don't let passion or desire control me."

As I finished speaking to myself, I went to drink another glass of water, before climbing back into the machine, closing my eyes with a new feeling of purpose.

Opening my sleepy eyes, I began to sit up, only to be gently pushed back down into the soft bed by Raynolia, who gave me a gentle and comforting smile from above.

"Good morning, sleepyhead. You don't need to get up, you're injured so you should rest a bit. I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised, you've far exceeded the expectations we had of you.

You've proven yourself to be one of the few trustworthy outsiders. Though you're a bit of an idiot, and certainly rather naive, to our surprise, you've proven yourself to be a truly good girl, and Luci has given you her approval.

As such, Arata, we'll start treating you honestly and seriously. I apologize for the rudeness with which we have treated you."

I blanked out at the elf's statement and simply stared at him, my sleepy mind struggling to comprehend what he meant. In contrast to my confusion, he chuckled, and continued to speak while he reached down and began stroking my hair.

"While that look of confusion is amusing, you don't need to be so surprised. Did you think molesting a girl trapped in a net was a normal behavior for an elf? Of course not, it was blatant harassment because you're an outsider.

I'm not the sort of bastard that would actually think of that as something normal to do. Though your reaction to the situation was rather interesting, that was also partially our doing."

My jaw dropped, as I found myself utterly blown away by Raynolia's confession, feeling as if my brain were overheating, at too much of a loss to reply, and the elf continued while he stroked my hair.

"You see, the places in which outsiders are going to descend are lit like beacons in the night while using the arcane sight, a rainbow connects the earth to the stars. We can even tell whether the descending one will be male or female.

So, we set up traps, and waited. While I know they doesn't exist in the outside, we soaked the ropes in aphrodisiacs. Golden sea wine, by the way, intensifies their effects. Would you have set aside reason and caution to get intimate with a stranger if you weren't drugged?"

I sat up, ears flattened back, my tails twitching nervously, staring at the elf, resisting the urge to kick him as everything that had happened between me and the elves suddenly began to make a lot more sense.

"..So, if you're being honest with me like that, you're telling me that you elves drugged me, and molested me to harrass me? Can you give me one good reason that I shouldn't fucking kick you right now?"

"Feel free to kick me if you like, you certainly have that right. We did treat you pretty horribly. I'm not going to do something lame like make an excuse for it."

In response to the elf's statement, I promptly kicked him off the bed with as much strength as I could muster in my legs. After a long moment, Raynolia climbed up off the floor with a groan.

"Though I fully deserved that.. Damn, that really hurts. As expected, vixens really do have great legs.. Not that I want to be on the receiving end of them Now that you've given me my just dues.. I've got a few more things to say.

Unlike how some outsiders think, we're not the mindless dolls called NPCs, that can only follow a prewritten script. We live, we feel, we think. And many of us have a very poor opinion of outsiders."

Having vented my anger at the elf somewhat, I felt a lot better, my ears perking back up as I glared at Raynolia, and gestured for him to continue speaking.

"Also.. There's no way you'd be drugged with aphrodisiacs just to harass you because you're an outsider, nor was it so that I could take you to bed. You could say that we were testing your character. Admittedly, in a rather vile manner.

It quickly became clear that you were unexpectedly a decent person, unlike the average outsider, and I felt like our treatment of you was a mistake. But today, you proved that despite being an outsider, you're a courageous and dependable vixen. So that's why I'm actually being honest with you about this."

I tilted my head to the side and raised an eyebrow at Raynolia, folding my arms beneath my breasts as I replied to the elf with a scathing tone of voice.

"You called it a test? That's a test? That? I don't get it one bit. Drugging a girl and molesting her on top of that, that's how you test a girl's personality? Are you fucking serious?"

"It works. Though it's pretty horrible of us, it works pretty well. Males and females, especially those like you, who has the mark of desire, are most honest in bed.

When I said you exceeded our expectations, I meant it. Unlike the majority of outsiders, you didn't try to cheat us out of our belongings. You didn't try to steal anything, and when given the opportunity to get free things, you didn't get greedy.."

He gave me a long and hard look, leaving me feeling somewhat uncomfortable as I stared back at the elf, ears flattening back and tails tense, until he cracked a smile with a chuckle.

"You also didn't try any of the crazy antics outsiders are known for. Such as trying sneak up and put baskets over people's heads, and you didn't randomly smash anybody's pottery.

I cannot for the life of me, understand why the outsider tradition of barging into people's homes and smashing their pottery in search of krion even exists."

My ears twitched and my tails curled as I tried to keep a neutral expression in the face of the unexpectedly comedic complaint from the elf.

"Raynolia.. While I'm not going to act like what you've told me never happened, frankly, I'm pretty damn upset about it, but I'm not really one to hold a grudge. And maybe it's because I'm in heat, but I don't feel like any serious harm was done.

But I'm going to make this very clear with you, if you do something like that to me again without my permission, Raynolia, there will be hell to pay."

As I vented my anger at the elf while resisting the urge to swear like a sailor, Raynolia gave me an apologetic look and quietly listened as I fumed, before finally speaking after a long moment of silence, as he held out a pouch to me.

"Anyway.. These rightfully belong to you. I harvested them from the Lausang Svanni you defeated. Congratulations, it's the first few pieces of your hard earned krion.

Though it's not worth much more than two days worth of good food or drink, krion is krion. And krion is power. If need be, you can use it to wield the true power of your Gungnaegg."

With ears flattened back, tails twitching, I nodded as I suppressed the arousal from being in heat, which had begun to mix with my anger towards the elf.

"Hey, Raynolia.. Is there any place to study more about this world in the village? Like, a library or something?"

The elf shrugged as I took the pouch of krion from his outstretched hand, before replying to my question with a sigh of helplessness.

"Well Arata, I'm sorry to disappoint, but, while there is a library in the village, I'm afraid that you probably wouldn't be able to read anything in it. So, as you're our guest, we'll take on the duty of properly teaching you what you need to know."

He picked up a large tome, bound in gray leather, off the lamp stand, opened it up, and continued speaking while he flipped through the pages.

"Starting with this bestiary, written by none other than this elf that's standing before you, with the help of his lovely fiance. ..Oi, Arata, what's with that look of suspicion?

Luci and I are actually a pretty famous duo of Record Keepers.. ..Ah, right, you're a newly descended outsider, and I've yet to tell you what a Record Keeper is.. Anyways."

Raynolia cleared his throat, his ears drooping and reddening somewhat, and I realized that the elf seemed somewhat embarrassed by his statement.

"Record Keepers are a group who not only hunt monsters, but, like the name suggests, we record everything we can about them. Knowledge is power after all. The two other largest organizations are the Hunter's Union, and though I'd rather not talk about it..

The Adventurer's Guild, as they call themselves, is the second largest group of the various monster hunting organizations. However, I would heavily recommend against joining it, as the Adventurer's Guild is notorious for being a place where weird outsiders gather."

As Raynolia spoke of it, he visibly cringed, making an expression that seemed as if merely thinking about the Adventurer's Guild was a wretched, painful, and utterly nauseating experience.

"Uhh, Raynolia.. Does that Adventurer's Guild really have that bad of a reputation? Also, by weird, are you talking about what you mentioned earlier, like randomly smashing pottery they encounter?"

In response to my question, the elf simply sighed, before reaching out and placing his hand on my head, gently stroking the length of my ears as he replied.

"I'm sorry to say, but randomly smashing pottery and trying to put buckets over people's heads can't even be called strange for an outsider, and it's a mostly unspoken rule to keep outsiders away from anywhere people keep large pottery.

How should I say it.. Weird outsiders are the kind that do even crazier things, like as some of them have said, grinding or smashing their bodies against walls in an attempt to get inside of them, for some reason.

Another example, is killing themselves by jumping off high places in an attempt to get out of the map, as they call it. Like I said, weird even for outsiders, it's best not to get involved with them."

My ears, face, and tails all twitched as I imagined the sight of people excitedly throwing themselves off of cliffs. After a moment of silence, I asked the elf a question that his statement brought to mind.

"By the way, Raynolia.. You mentioned them killing themselves. What happens when people die in this world? Do they just kinda reappear somewhere?"

"Nobody actually dies in the lands of Hel. Not even if they wanted to. And while there's more to it than that, you're not exactly wrong. People reappear from a manifestation of their Arcana's Card, in the manner depicted by their card."

As a certain image resurfaced in my mind, and I grimaced at the thought of respawning in the embarrassing position that had been displayed on my card.

"Hmm? Arata, is something wrong? Oh.. Was it what I said about reappearing from Arcana Cards? Should I assume that yours is the kind that's embarrassing to have seen?"

I glared at Raynolia, who seemed as if he had read my mind, and he simply grinned in reply. With a pout, I turned my head away, and the elf chuckled, before he suddenly began petting my head.

"Don't worry about it, the Arcana Card depictions vary a lot. And the embarrassing kinds are on the better side. The most unfortunate person with The Fool as their Arcana, that I know of, has an unavoidable, and unstoppable, fall to the ground, face first.

Anyways, as for what we were going to be doing before we got off track.. Lausang Svanni, the monster you slew. The name of the creature means Fake Lady, as you can probably tell from its appearance.

It's one of the most disliked, but also one of the least dangerous small monsters you can encounter. Lausang Svanni will usually try to sneak up and attack people that're unaware of their presence.

But if their faces are seen, they will start screaming, during which they're completely vulnerable, and will only attack after they finish shrieking and clawing at their head."

As Raynolia finished speaking, I suddenly began to understand why he had begun calling me an idiot since I had woken up earlier.

"..So you're telling me that I got intimidated and injured, when I could've just casually walked up and stabbed it in the face to kill that horrifying thing while it was screaming and that'd be the end of it?"

"Mmhm, that's completely correct, Arata. Though you're a bit of an idiot, you don't have that bad of a bad head on your shoulders, I'm sure of that. You're just in the habit of not using it."

The unexpected reply from Raynolia hurt my feelings a lot more than I expected it would, and I dropped backwards into the bed's soft embrace, before pulling the covers over my head.

As I desperately tried to hide my shattered pieces of pride and the crumbling remnants of my little dignity that remained, the elf poked my side. After a moment of silence, I replied from beneath the covers.

"There's no response, it appears to be a corpse.."

"Well then, I guess, since it's a corpse, there's no need to give the poor vixen any training. And no need to share a nice big piece of the cake my lovely fiance brought back with her either."

I immediately sat up and threw the covers off, ears perked up to their limit, wagging my tails in a display of excitement for the elf to see, fully declaring my desire.

"By the unfathomable, mystical, and arcane magical powers of cake, the foxgirl's corpse that was lying still in the bed has been revived!"

"Arata.. You're weird, you know? Cute, but definitely weird. Not a bad weird, as is rather common with outsiders, but weird none the less. But after you have a piece of cake, I'm going to be training you, understood?"

With a crisp salute to the elf, I climbed out of the bed, and stood at attention, back straight, tails stilled, and ears remaining perked up as I tried to maintain a serious expression.

"Second Lieutenant Arata reporting for her training, sir! Please give me any and all orders and instructions and that piece of cake, sir!"

"..Alright. Your orders are to stop acting weird, and join us elves for some cake. Afterwards, you'll be undergoing some special training, so prepare yourself."