As the white light and warmth faded, he saw that he got some looks from the people around them. Coming out with a Beastfolk, a naked one at that, must seem weird. The few other Beastfolk he had seen that followed Players were at least dressed slightly. He would have to mend that shortly. But for now, Dia didn’t seem to mind, or just didn’t care, and he wasn’t stopped as much as he expected from the guards.

[ Companion Elara, level up +3! ]

[ Elara reached level 10, skill unlocked: Venom 2. ]

[ Venom 2

Type: Injury

Effect: Damage

As the venom enters a wound, injected, smeared or otherwise, the victim must succeed in resisting it or take the Venom’s effect every few seconds. This lasts until the target dies, is cured or manages to resist.

-Can be harvested and used on weapons.

-Boosted damage and resistance difficulty compared to Venom 1. ]

This caught Sam off guard, he was happy to see it, but it came out of nowhere. The positive was that this meant she was alive, which was a massive relief. The other was that the XP he amassed on the Island seemed to be shared once he arrived. Though perhaps not the flat levels he was given as that’s not shareable. A quick check found that the important numbers of [ Venom 2 ] seemed to be 5, compared to the 1 of Rank 1, so the resistance math based itself around 5 instead of 1, and the damage itself was 5 a round. This was a good upgrade.

In either case, this meant that she should be somewhere, but... where this was, was anyone’s guess. He would have called Janik but he had no idea where his phone was, he had it when he was sent to the island a while ago, the flashlight he had was also gone so he didn’t consider seeing them again.

He’d just get a new phone later, he could afford one now without many problems, but he needed to contact Janik before anything else. The reception should have a way for him to do just that. Sam started speed-walking in the direction of the reception, Dia looked extremely out of place, almost terrified of things going on around her, other Players, weird floors, and fluorescent lighting. All things alien to her.

She opted to walk very close to Sam, walking on her hind legs and grabbing onto his arm, feeling at least a sliver of safety in his presence.

Sam was a bit sad that this was how she was introduced to Earth, but a bit through accidental lack of planning, he ended up rushing this. Since the first shock had already happened she would somewhat have to just take it...

Finding his way to the reception he was happy to see that there wasn’t a queue so he could just walk up to them.

“Good day, how can I help you.” The practised sentence came from the middle-aged woman behind the desk.

“Well... I need to register her as my companion, I also need to contact another player, my phone is broken and... well... it’s important.” Sam looked a bit rushed, in contrast to the scared Dia and the extremely chill and collected receptionist.

“Certainly, who are you trying to contact?” She handled these things easily enough like it was something she did every day.

Mentioning Janik’s name, he was told that due to not being on the emergency contacts list, they couldn’t just let Sam speak with him, but they could send Janik a message on Sam’s behalf. Registering Dia was just as easy as with Elara, the only thing she recommended was to get her dressed, at the very least to a modest level. Sam was also told that the room was still in his name and had drawn payments since he requested it two months ago.

“Hold on. Two months?”

“Yes, according to the notes here, room service explained that the room looked untouched, save a snake companion the first week. After that, it looked as clean as the day before.”

This bit of info had Sam mentally phase out for a moment, two months? But he was just gone for a week... Or so...

“Sir?” The woman looked hesitant but needed to metaphorically bring him back. “What message should I send?” She looked ready to type something and seemed to just want to get this task over with.

“Just send that Sam is back and that I’m in my room. My phone is broken so if he could come see me.” This was the easiest to handle at the moment.

“I also want to just sell these, add it to my account.”

Placing the two Aether Crystals and the three Goblin cores from the island on the desk he just left for his room, not considering that this wasn’t the correct desk to do so.

Dia hadn’t let go of his arm all this time and followed him into an elevator, which had her practically vibrating in a strange curious state of fear. She often looked back at Sam with her ears flat to her head and tails between her legs, each time she looked at him with fear in her eyes it lessened slightly, seeing how he didn’t seem to care about the current situation. But it only lasted for a few seconds before it built up again, repeating the cycle.

He found himself in his room after not long, he was a bit in a daze, enough to not properly notice Dia’s condition, she was there with him and following him, holding onto him, that was about what he considered at the moment. Everything changed once the door opened, looking into the apartment-like room the thought of a shower came to mind. Oh gods that was going to be good.

Almost rushing into the bathroom with Dia in tow he almost tore his clothing off, to Dia’s extreme surprise.

“Sa!” She exclaimed his name in surprise, looking extremely confused. When he went into the shower, which in her eyes must have been extremely weird, he almost felt like years of fatigue was running off his body with the water. Dia stood outside the shower and looked at him with wide and confused eyes, smelling the scents coming from the tiny transparent room with flowing water seemingly coming from nowhere. Sam held his hand out for her to take it, and she used several long seconds to persuade herself to do so.

Once she took his hand he slowly pulled her into the warm water, she tried pulling her hand out multiple times, but reassuring words from Sam managed to persuade her slowly, and she found herself in the warm water as well. Seeming to enjoy it once she dared to step into the weird tiny room, Sam took this time to help wash her properly for possibly the first time, shampoo and conditioner were complimentary after all.

Sometime later, Sam found himself teaching Dia how a hairdryer worked, she had a lot of furs and this would probably cut down drying time considerably. She was obsessed with licking her fur as she smelled it over and over. She almost looked confused by her scent.

“No, don’t worry, it’s fine, you smell great!” Sam commented as he used a brush alongside the hairdryer to get water out of her fur.

“Var fruk kima!” She sounded like she complained as she was smelling her arm. Sam knew that the first two words meant ‘I’ and ‘Smell’, or perhaps nose, but it sounded like she was complaining about the smell. Probably the first time her fur had smelled like that.

He had to stop her from licking her fur as he dried it, even though she wanted to again and again. Her natural grooming instincts were problematic to deal with when it came to hygiene like this. Or rather, it wasn’t a problem, he expected her to continue grooming herself as she had done so far in her life, but perhaps this could at least make things easier for her, and make her cleaner than licking could ever do.

Having cleaned his gear it was currently drying in the bathtub, it felt like the best place to do that kind of thing. The blades were simple enough but the main issue was the armour, it took a while. He had dressed up in spare clothing, as his bag was in the room still.

In the middle of drying Dia, the door rang and an overzealous knocking followed. Sam expected this to be Janik.

Sam was dressed, and though Dia had a towel around her, it fell as soon as she got up after he took a few steps away, not being used to clothing yet that would have to come later. She followed only a few steps behind him as he walked over to the door, opening it he saw Janik with a pained expression. Immediately as their eyes met Janik stepped in and grabbed Sam in a bearhug, leaving him to struggle against it.

“Sa!” Dia panicked through the situation, someone grabbed Sam and she seemed to react accordingly. Before Sam could say anything through the tight hug from his friend, she had already stepped forward into a quick spin, her leg extended at the peak of the movement, managing to connect with Janik who didn’t see this coming.

Janik’s grasp of Sam loosened as Dia’s leg transferred enough force into his face to send him flying back, landing on the floor and tumbling into the wall out in the hallway, knickknacks flying off his body and landing across the floor. Forcing the man following him to step aside to avoid getting hit.

“Vrana thrar zar. Var shok lin!” She shouted angrily at Janik, seeming to be pissed that someone attacked him.

“Dia.” Sam commented harshly at her, forcing her to look at him, her ears flattened as she saw him less than happy like she did something wrong.

“Sa... Vraka frana?” Her whole aura changed, only two seconds ago she was ready to face the world in head-to-head combat, but now she looked meek, submissive and seemed to have understood she did something wrong.

“Ok... I... didn’t expect that...” Janik commented through some coughs. He looked fine... relatively speaking. Some of his lost-and-found’ness had fallen off in the shock and, though on the floor was relatively undamaged. Getting back to his feet surprisingly fine, some damage lingered on his face but he looked fine all things considered. As he got up his hands slowly moved towards his swords. “Should I be worried or are we fine?”

Janik had understood this was not a proper attack, or he would have pulled his swords without checking, but at the same time, he wasn’t sure what was going on, a smart man clarified while ready, which was just what he did.

Sam sighed as he patted Dia on her head, she didn’t perk up but her submissive and weak-looking nature faded slightly in favour of confusion.

“Come in, I’ll explain what’s going on. It’s safe, she’s just a bit... protective, I guess.” Sam had to force a smile, he didn’t even know how to communicate to her that Janik was a friend, not a word he was familiar with yet.

Leading them into the room, Janik followed eagerly but with a modest amount of hesitation. A 16 or so-year-old boy followed him into the room, the boy had a muscular and athletic build, short hair and wore a robe with a staff in his hand. Closing the door after picking up the knickknacks he lead them to a table with some chairs around it.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Moving and halfway forcing Dia to sit down, she looked strangely uncomfortable sitting on an actual chair, struggling to decide what to do with her tails she didn’t seem to like it, but did as told by Sam regardless.

“Sooo.... who is this? What went on? Where have you been for two months?” Janik listed all the important questions at the same time.

“I have my own questions... Who is this? Where is Elara?” Sam smiled back a bit smartass-like.

“No, fuck you, you go first.” Janik commanded, his smile being nowhere to be found, though he looked somewhat annoyed and angry, it was more in the sense of curiosity and need to know than honest anger.

Sam sighed and explained what happened. He started in the Dungeon with Elara, suddenly being moved by the System to the island. He explained what he did, what he had to do, what the people did towards him and so on. Explaining that he found Dia in a cage, near death, she bonded with him after he nurtured her back to health and now she’s bonded to him through the system. Not going into depth just how close they became, he was no stranger to speaking about intimacy but it felt kind of weird when it involved himself, though he did explain the language barrier and that he had learned some words, just not enough to properly talk to her. He continued with having to kill a lot of Players, especially the leaders to complete the quest. He avoided touching on just how many he had to kill and the fact that he didn’t consider killing them any different from the Goblins. In the end, through explaining how he had to kill the more powerful Players with cleverness and... frankly horrible methods, Janik’s expression remained surprisingly poker-face-like the whole explanation as he took it in.

The story ended with having arrived back in his room and casually explaining that Dia probably thought the hug was an attack and panicked.

“Jesus Christ...” Janik replied to the whole story afterwards. “I’ll forgive your friend for the kick but jeez....” He didn’t seem to know what to say. “I had hope the first few weeks but... I’ll admit I didn’t expect to see you again at all after the first month.”

“Yeah, what the fuck is the deal with that? I didn’t spend more than max a week on the island... But the receptionist said two months?!” Sam exclaimed through annoyance, not because of his money having ticked away, but because this was just weird.

Janik seemed to have taken this as his turn to explain. He didn’t know why there was a time difference, or if he was just unconscious for over a month. But since Janik went back home to rest after following the possessed Sam around for a few days, it has been two months.

Elara was adamant that she wanted to stay in the room until Sam came back, she felt the link was there still and refused to consider that he had died. However, after the first week of Janik checking in on her, she decided that staying there might not be productive. He offered her to come with him and she reluctantly accepted. She was kept safe with Janik’s kids, he briefly explained that he’s the guardian of 17 kids in a large house, which is why he needs so much money, so she’s kind of there to help the youngest ones be entertained. Janik would do it himself but with Ethan, the 17-year-old kid that followed him, having awakened as a Player, Janik was busy making sure that Ethan was doing things right and training him.

“Elara is surprisingly good with the kids. Grace always loved animals, we even volunteer at an animal shelter from time to time when I have the time, but lately, that hasn’t been as often as I’d like, but Elara... as a snake, has really done well for her. I’ll have them come over with her, it... it was frankly a problem having Elara not rush back here when she felt your return, but I thought it was smart to check things out first. She.... I’ll admit that I had her wait for Grace’s sake... ” Janik’s proper smile returned, it seemed that Elara had found something to do and was helping Janik out. But Janik didn’t seem to try and hide that he was focusing on the kids, which Sam couldn’t blame him for.

After a second of processing, Janik continued.

“She told me that she waited for you to return to the dungeon for a while, she hid in some rubble. She was in there at least for a few days before she got TAC to contact me. She didn’t have any problem leaving, the emergency exit function worked fine for her, though she had some slight problems getting people to help her in TAC.” He chuckled, seeming to recall something from that scene.

Sam couldn’t blame her, he could imagine how others would react to a snake, a talking snake, trying to contact a Player...

“So, besides the fact that I was gone for two months, everything is good, then?”

“Oh yeah-” Janik replied, looking happy again. “-Ethan is coming along well, he’s pretty good at this, but he needs to get better at thinking safely.” Janik gave Ethan a fake punch in the shoulder as he mentioned that, Ethan looked a bit embarrassed at the parent-like behaviour from Janik.

Sam felt kind of strange seeing Janik like this, but it did put things into perspective, his protective behaviour and paranoia about safety.

“By the way... What... what did you get for winning the island?” Janik asked.

Sam had explained that he was rewarded for completing the quest, but he didn’t detail exactly what he got.

“I got a timed skill that increases my weight limit tenfold. My health is now calculated based on Spirit and I got a few levels. As I hit Level 20 I also got my next class upgrade; a range increase to my Area.” Sam abstracted things down to the simplest explanation of the skills' functions.

“Hold on...” Janik looked at Sam with a different expression. “Holyfuyck your health is higher... Didn’t it used to be 30something?” He looked happy but confused.

“Yes, it was 35 when we last spoke, a decent upgrade.”

“And... you’re level twenty now...” Janik’s expression faded into a deadpan annoyance, not trying to hide his envy. “Well... A week of work to surpass me that much isn’t annoying at all...”

“It was a week of almost dying every other day. And I paid for the skill upgrade... I think... with lots of powerful items.” Sam tried to defend himself, that this wasn’t just a walk in the park.

“And on top of that, you got yourself a wife.” Janik gestured towards Dia, who jumped in her chair at the hand suddenly waving her way.

“I guess I sort of did?” Sam replied honestly. He didn’t exactly know what Dia saw him as, a husband, a mate, a lover, a master or just something else. “The word she refers to me with, my best guess is that it means mate.”

Janik’s face twisted into a wide and lecherous smile. “You did it, didn’t you.” He leant forward with his elbows on the table, fingers braided together in front of his mouth as he gave him a very interested expression. “How was it?”

“None of your fucking business, that’s how it was.” Sam smiled back at him. For a brief moment, he recalled that after the ‘Rental’ incident, he was fine sharing details regarding the Harpy and Kobold, but for some reason, it didn’t feel right now.

“Well... fucking be that way.” Janik fake-moped as a result.

They stared at each other for a few seconds with fake sour expressions before sharing laughter. Ethan joined in alongside, getting the shared bullshit that was going on.

“But, I have to admit...” Janik started hesitantly. “With the experiences you got on the island, I would like to spar with you again and see where you’re at with everything. If we’re to continue together I think that’s a good idea.”

Sam couldn’t argue his logic, but he did wonder how that would play alongside Ethan.

“How will that work with him?” Nodding towards Ethan, speaking about him as if he wasn’t there. “Is he trained, will he come with us or...?” His voice was filled with uncertainty.

“No.” A hard and definitive soundbyte from Janik. “I would love to have him with me... but he’s not going to come with us doing the shit I expect us to be doing, not yet. Once he gets some more levels and power, we can consider it.”

As Janik explained, Ethan sat there and nodded in agreement, it seemed that Janik’s words made sense to him as well.

“But, I assume you’re tired-” Janik’s eyes trailed off to Dia before returning to Sam. “-and other things.” Sporting a wide grin he continued. “So I think we’ll come back tomorrow. I’ll bring Elara then, I’ll heal up as your girl has one hell of a kick, and we’ll start with a spar after breakfast. How does that sound?”

It all sounded good to Sam, he just wanted to sleep now, fatigue was catching up with him with a vengeance and with his gear drying he might as well get some rest.

“That sounds fine, but... out of curiosity, I have only looked at the numbers in her sheet for the kick, how was it?” Sam’s smile was heavy with schadenfreude towards Janik. Since he was fine he decided to take enjoyment out of the mental image of the tiny Dia, two heads shorter than him, sending him flying into the next room.

“I’m lucky I’m still wearing my armour. Defence of 46, still got 54 damage through it. It fucking hurt and without this good of an armour, a crit could have killed me.” Janik’s expression was a bit hard to read, it had a mix of weird pride on Sam’s behalf, but a slight hint of fear. “To be honest... Even with my armour, it could have killed me if she critically hit me...”

This put things into context for Sam. He didn’t know Janik’s health, but according to the numbers in her info, the Spin Kick did double normal damage, but left her off balance and probably vulnerable for a short while, it also took longer to perform than a normal kick, but her kick was listed as an expected damage of 50, so the Spin Kick would do 100, a critical hit would be 200 damage... That was considerable, even with an armour of 46 that would be 154 damage peeking through.

He would have loved having that in the duels on the Island.

He would have to train with her at some point, get a feel for how she fights so they could fight together, but now he could metaphorically hear a siren song from the soft bed. Just a bed not made out of moss on a stone floor.

Janik was metaphorically thrown out, as was Ethan. It wasn’t too late in the evening but Sam didn’t care. Not feeling incredibly hungry, knowing that everyone was fine and safe on Earth, was enough for him to let fatigue catch up.

As the door was locked he slowly headed into bed, Dia confusingly followed him, only to give him the most surprised and ecstatic expression as they crawled into bed. Spending minutes bouncing around in it like a child.

The last thing he remembered was Dia finally calming down before she snuggled up against him