Volcatia sank more deeply into her chair.

It was even better than the night before when she'd shared the bed of Atilia Liberalis and her lover…

Whatever the fuck his name was.

The man hadn't had great legs, though his skill with his gladius made up for that in some small way.

Maybe.

Either way, that was then, and this was now, and right now she wasn't thinking about then because it had only been a way to pass the time.

She was deep into being friends at the moment.

She'd made a sudden decision on it earlier in the day after finally finding someone else who liked her style of coffee-making, and, while she'd needed some time to remember exactly how being friends worked, she now felt that she was probably the best friend anyone could ever have.

She'd defended Carl's workshop from a number of boring people who were trying to do boring things, and then she'd even bought the building outright in an attempt to send the very not-subtle message that they should stop because she was getting annoyed.

She wasn't great at being subtle.

She was only trying now in order to maybe avoid being even more annoyed.

Having seen the state her new friend was in that day, especially after checking on Mina, she was put in mind of her own father on some occasions.

But that was then, and this was now.

She'd taken advantage of one of the many times Carl had grown distracted to gather some hasty measurements of the girl's head and bring them to Laetoria Cerularia, having the sense that Carl had likely forgotten about their original bargain entirely.

She didn't have a great memory, but it wasn't bad enough that she'd forget things that happened only a day earlier.

She'd tried distracting him a little by agreeing to teach him something of fighting.

He'd taken to it normally and without any sort of proficiency which she hadn't expected him to have.

He was no Laberia Salonina.

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Now that was a woman with some really fucking amazing legs.

Volcatia had nearly asked the older woman if she wanted to fuck upon seeing her that morning, but it was neither the time, nor the place, nor the person for that sort of thing.

Still though, they were solid enough to fight with, yet it was easy to imagine—

She was getting distracted again.

What else had she done…

That's fucking right!

She'd just been sitting around with Carl for a whole fucking day now!

She was going insane.

Yeah, at first it was a little relaxing.

Maybe more than a little, now that she thought about it including the chair.

That hadn't lasted long.

Volcatia wasn't someone to just sit around.

She was a doer.

She did things.

It didn't fucking matter what kinds of things she did, she just needed to be doing them.

Doing things kept her mind away from other things that she didn't want to think about.

Things that required her to waste more time before she could do them.

Things that she wished she could have done.

Volcatia decided to take a steak out of her Inventory skill to have something to chew on.

She didn't particularly need to eat, but the new skill she'd acquired was just too much fucking fun.

She'd put in all sorts of shit she imagined might be fun to have around.

Maybe she'd gone too far.

Maybe she didn't need to put in a residential building she'd scared citizens of D-two out of.

She left them plenty of money though, and they'd be fine.

The sheer novelty of being able to have such a thing available to her was demanding her attention, demanding that she find some fun, interesting way to put it to use.

She was sure she'd come up with something that would make the random act entirely worthwhile.

But for now she was still bored.

"If you make something interesting happen now," she said to Carl, "I promise I'll never ask again. I'm so fucking bored right now. Even this steak isn't helping."

Yeah, Volcatia said the words, but she wasn't really expecting anything to happen just because she'd asked.

Many weird and interesting things happened around Carl, like the time he sleep-ran away from her into the arena that morning and seemed to have no memory of it, or the time that someone in D-one gained enough interest in his daughter-like ward to attempt kidnapping her over and over despite clear, unmistakable warnings that they needed to fucking stop because she was getting really fucking annoyed, or even these chairs…

Then, shortly thereafter, it happened again.

Dungeon cores?

And more than one?

Volcatia admitted to herself that she'd had a moment of doubt, but it seemed she'd need to put that doubt to rest for good.

Carl Maximus Tempestates was by far the most interesting person she'd ever met.

He was exactly the friend she wanted right now.

Even if his gladius-name was stupid.