“For the last time, Itela, I don’t have to have you guide me,” Karbo said. “Even in a blindfold. I can just use my aura to maneuver.”

“And for the last time, Karbo Battlemaster, that’s not the point.” Itela sighed. “If you use your aura vision, you’ll be able to see more than I want you to. This is a surprise. Let it be a surprise.”

Itela was still refusing to spill even a single bean regarding what to expect from Karbo once he saw the animals, but she had managed to rope virtually everyone she could into witnessing it. Corbin was there, as were Milo and Mizu. Lily was the leader of the expedition in general, so of course she was in attendance. Even Remmy had got roped in, despite not knowing Karbo at all besides his red avalanche of a reputation. Arthur got the feeling the librarian was coming along for the food as much as anything, but that felt fine.

It was a celebration of sorts. Lily, who had been perhaps sick, was now definitely well. And while Arthur suspected she’d be getting into trouble sooner or later, she was at least okay for the moment.

He had decided, definitively, that he was not going to bring up what he had heard Eito say to anyone at all, ever. Arthur had a small amount of information on potential from Philbin already, and Eito and Remmy’s conversation all but confirmed that the tour guide’s theory was right. But Eito had also said that knowing about it at all might be bad for Arthur, and that seemed like a good enough reason to leave well enough alone.

It wasn’t like his life was going poorly. He had every single thing he wanted except the ability to teleport back home to Coldbrook, and even that small flaw was almost entirely outweighed by all of the many upsides the capital had to offer. He was eating well, sleeping well, and was even about to go see dozens and dozens of tiny baby animals that Lily said were friendly to the point of a full, warm lap the entire time he was there to visit.

If that was the worst case scenario of not knowing more about his potential, he’d be more than happy to live with it. There seemed to be some risk if he was a power-hungry turn-to-evil sort of guy, but if Eito’s professional judgement was that Arthur would be fine, he’d probably be fine.

“Okay now,” Itela said. “I’ve sort of hijacked this little excursion, but Karbo isn’t the only one who hasn’t seen this before. Anyone who wants to be surprised, close your eyes. Eito and Milo will guide you in.”

“What if I want to be surprised, Itela?” Milo looked mildly offended. “Why am I the guide?”

“Because, Milo, you’ll have more fun seeing people’s faces and making fun of them for what they looked like later,” Itela said. “I’m a cleric. I have all these bases covered. Now, who is closing their eyes?”

Arthur decided to close his and so did Mizu, just to join in on the fun. After another twenty seconds of walking, the procession stopped, and he heard the sound of doors being pulled open before being guided out of the sunlight into a cool, indoor space.

“Everyone ready?” Itela asked. “Good. Open your eyes.”

The world that rushed back to Arthur as his eyelids fluttered open was filled with small, furry things. He knew Hings but there must have been a couple dozen animals in the place and most of them were complete mysteries to him. Just like on Earth, the Demon World covered its common-animals-and-the-sounds they make education early on. When Arthur arrived, he was a decade or two too old for anyone to remember to teach him, depending on how he counted his own age.

“Oh, wow. That’s a lot of cute in one place. It almost hurts my eyes.” Arthur was watching things jump, run, prance, and flounce, all in one eyeful of impossible adorability. Mizu, next to him, caught her breath. He felt her hands involuntarily flex in a petting motion on his arm. Even that alone was worth the cost of admission and they hadn’t even sat down yet.

And then, just behind Arthur, a rumbling sound began to sound, so deep and resonant that his teeth felt like they were going to chatter from the sheer force of it. He turned around to see Karbo standing there with wide eyes, and an uncomprehending look of shock contorting every single one of his features. The growl got louder as Karbo’s vision seemed to come back into focus and shift from one small, defenseless animal to the next.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Oh boy. Here it comes,” Itela said. “Eyes on Karbo, everyone. You might only get to see this once.”

Karbo’s voice was naturally deep. Sometimes, it was unnaturally so, like when he used his aura to amplify a battle roar and strike the fear of the gods into some gigantic monster. Arthur had seen that a few times, enough to start to think of Karbo as mostly nice, but ultimately deadly. It was the kind of voice that subtly reminded people that the fundamentally nice guy was not to be messed with in some absolute sense.

As a result, Karbo was not actually capable of squealing in the high-pitched, literal sense of the word. His voice just didn’t have the range to make it happen, and even if it would have been possible with auras, he certainly didn’t have the presence of mind to try at the moment. Left without the option of a high-grade squeal, his voice did the best approximation of one it could as it came out of his growl, sounding a bit like an avalanche that had just seen a bunny-like ball of fluff get distracted and fall off a pillow. Which, Arthur thought, was pretty damn close to what had actually happened.

“Oh gods. Gods. Itela. Look at them. Loooook.” Karbo grabbed Itela’s arm and pointed. “Look at that one. He’s not even good at walking yet. I can’t believe…” Karbo wiped a tear from his eye. “Thank you for showing me this. How long can we look at them?”

“Karbo, it’s a baby animal cafe. You get to play with them,” Itela said warmly.

“No way.”

“Feed them.”

“If this is a joke…”

“I’m going to rent you a brush so you can fluff them up.”

Later in the day, a very confused mason would be informed that the reason he was replacing four separate stone tiles was that a very large warrior had jumped up and down for joy in them, shaking the entire street as he did. That would be later, though. For the moment, everyone waited for the localized earthquake to stop, then sat down on the various cushions scattered around the cafe and next to small floor-height tables.

“Oh, of course you get one first,” Mizu said. A small baby avian chick of some kind had bounced up to Arthur and was doing its damnedest to untie his shoe. Mizu was beaming with delight. “Oh, look how fluffy he is, Arthur. Why do you get to be the animal favorite?”

“I don’t think I am. Look over there.” Arthur pointed across the room, where Karbo was already buried under a bunch of rabbit-beasts and Hings. Gods bless him, the big guy was actually giggling, moving as slowly and gently as a worried grandmother with a baby as he picked one of them up, petted it, and then put it back down to give attention to another animal. “I wonder why that is?”

“My mother once told me that the trick to calming an infant was to feel confident you could. It makes them feel safe,” Mizu said. “I doubt anyone can make anyone feel much safer than Karbo can.”

“What about me?” Arthur said, dropping his hand to the floor. The duckling-thing climbed into it, and he brought it up to his chest, leaned back, and let the duckling off there. It snuggled into his chest, honking softly in obvious joy. “I don’t make you feel safe?”

“Apples and oranges. You’d do anything for me.” Mizu nodded at her boyfriend in satisfaction. “For anyone, really, but especially for me. But Karbo’s pretty nice too, and he can punch a hole in an entire mountain range if he wants.”

“True.” Arthur pet the duckling as a Hing baby found Mizu and began to bleat at her to pet it. “I could start doing more pushups, I guess.”

“If you want,” Mizu said. “You are the only person I’ve ever met who was my type. You might not want to rock the boat.”

“Really? What about that giant water demon from yesterday?”

“The one who gave the talk?” Mizu asked. Arthur nodded, and Mizu began giggling uncontrollably. “Him? Arthur, really? He’s so boring.”

Lily ran by, chased by a small pack of rodent creatures. She was barely keeping ahead of them. They were little chubby round things but they were fast.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I know I have offworlder charm. Or whatever,” Arthur said. “But really? Not even a ping off that guy? He looked like a god of the sea.”

“There are no gods of the sea,” Mizu said.

“Really? Not one?” Arthur blanked. “Earth must have had dozens.”

“It’s a big boring empty place made out of undrinkable water. Who would want to be the god of it?”

“Skal.”

“Maybe. But no, no interest in that guy.” A little furry round thing without clear characteristics of any kind besides a general poofiness found Mizu and bumped into her leg repeatedly until she picked it up. “Oooh, who’s a cute little fuzzy thing?”

“Are you talking to the puffball or me?”

“You aren’t that fuzzy.” Mizu leaned back to give the little fluff a flatter surface to scamper and play on, which it did for about three seconds before curling up on her stomach and trying to go to sleep. “But you are Arthur. And it turns out that’s my thing.”

“Good to know. You do know you're my thing too, right?”

“Of course I do, Arthur.” Mizu pet her puffball and sighed. “It’s hard to miss. I bet there are some paving stones that know at this point.”