…She said she likes me. Shit, I’ve never been in a romantic relationship… How do I handle this?!

Okay okay okay. calm down James. You knew this was coming. This is normal. It only makes sense that after everything, she would be interested in me. You’ve read about this. You got this. I’ve got this.

I should meet her with my sincere feelings and…

She speaks back up, “I mean as a person, of course…”

…

FUCKINGDAMMIT

“But as a man, as well.”

Oh.

“But I want to keep things like they are now.”

…Sigh.

I don’t know why I was getting so excited about this…

I can feel the waves of disappointment wash out of me and into her nostrils.

She gives a tiny laugh, where I shoot a glare at her. She snorts a little more.

“Haha, I’m sorry. When you get flustered or confused, it looks so cute that I couldn’t help but tease you.”

She gives a delighted smile before giving a somewhat serious smirk.

“…I really do like you a lot and maybe when things are… safer, in the future we can look into exploring it more.”

Ah, right.

I forgot about that. Something like that is even worse than a Romeo and Juliet scenario in this world… demi-humans and humans being attracted to each other is almost unheard of in this world.

That is not even including that the disgust would be from both sides. There would most definitely be verbal abuse thrown, not to mention potential physical, if we weren’t strong enough.

She continues, interrupting my thoughts. “I wanted you to know that I recognize and really enjoy our current relationship and wish we could take it further. Especially, after everything that’s going on, I wasn’t sure the next time we’d get to have a conversation like this.

“However, to go any further than this type of relationship could cause too many issues… I’m sorry.”

Yeah, I can understand that.

Not only that, but I’d essentially be taking advantage of her… due to the fact that I’m currently in a powerful position, in our relationship.

Time to suck it up and do the mature thing.

“I understand. While I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt a little, I agree it’s better to figure things out first and then look at it again when we are safe.”

I pause for a moment, thinking of the right way to put my next words.

“I think it is important to say this, though.”

I look at Gong directly. “Gong, I believe you are a gorgeous woman and that the way that people view demi-humans like yourself is wrong. I am attracted to you and I like you as well. Both as a person… and in other ways. I don’t want to take advantage of you in any way and I want to keep what we have right now, at the very least.”

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She stares at me for a bit and laughs again.

“Yeah, I know. I can smell it, remember? Though, it is nice to hear you say that. But enough about this. It looks like Lin and Ai are waiting on us.” As she turns around, I can see her ears turning red.

She heads out in front of me, moving briskly ahead.

We continue to walk for another minute or two before she abruptly pauses for a moment. With a sharp intake of breath, she quickly turns back to face me.

“Before we get together, though, I want you to find a bunch of wives. Preferably different from me. You’ll need at least three before you can come for me and this booty.” She slaps her revealed human portion’s enormous butt with a jiggle. Waves travel across her shiny butt, rippling across.

She gives a quick exhale, like she got something off her chest and giggles to herself. She continues forward. Leaving me to figure out what she meant.

I can’t tell if this is just a culture thing… or a Gong thing. I think a little of both.

Heading into the main hall, we can see Lin and Ai at the table. They seem a bit on edge. Probably due to what they might have heard regarding the attack… and how we have to change our plans moving forward.

I take a seat at the table, opposite of Ai. Gong crouches down a bit and begins speaking first. “So, it appears that we will need to change some of our plans, due to recent events. Though, not everything that happened recently is bad.”

Looking at Ai and Lin, she speaks to them directly, “As you guys already know, we were attacked by the Vermillion Stripes gang, after visiting Big Sister Crane, our information broker. James and I had split up, with me fighting the bulk of the group and him… getting beat up by some of the members. And don’t worry Ai, as you can see, he’s doing alright. It appears he figured out how to drive them away.”

Surprisingly, Ai had looked a little confused about the fact that I had gotten beat up. I thought it would be Lin that would be more surprised.

However, her next words help me to realize why she wasn’t surprised.

“Well… anyone can see that he doesn’t know how to really fight. Though admittedly, I’m not surprised he figured out how to drive them away. He’s pretty smart like that, when it counts.”

I’m not sure if I am supposed to take that as a compliment or insult… but she is pretty much right regardless. Even if this is coming from the girl who was somehow trapped by ‘said’ guy.

Her eyes flicker over to me, before looking back to Gong.

Gong then looks over to me, “Now for the part you guys don’t know. Before the attack, Big Sis Crane and I had managed to work out a deal with the Yellow Sashes. They would support my claim to my area. Most people already stayed away or recognized it as such, but since I never did anything with it, there was no reason to challenge it.

“Now that we will be utilizing it and have the power to protect it, we needed support from other groups. That way the other three gangs don’t descend on whatever we do there and take everything we have.”

Ai speaks up, “I may be wrong, but didn’t you and ‘Big Sister’ Crane already have that agreement?”

“Well, yes. However, it was unofficial… which in the information world is still huge hole. It allows people to still move on us, like the Vermillion Stripes did. They will be able to plead innocence, since we weren’t officially allied to anyone ‘at that time.”

Which leads me to James here. He actually managed to get the Yellow Sashes to declare a full alliance with us. Though, they did name our little group, the Maroon Spiders.”

Both Lin and Ai look sharply over at me. “What the heck did you do to get those women to recognize you?” Lin exclaims.

…

“Well… I may have given them the cure to a spreading STD in their ranks, that was paralyzing quite a few of their members.”

Silence falls over the two of them. “Hmm… I really shouldn’t be surprised at this point.” Lin says that with a straight face.

Gong squints her eyes and adds something unnecessary. “Oh, he didn’t tell you the best part though. He got their attention by healing one of their members, without touching them… or talking to them. Without cultivation, I hear.”

I can feel their judgmental stares from here. Gong gives a sigh, “I’ve already grilled him on it, so we don’t need to go down that path again.”

After a continued feeling of staring, it abets a bit. I give a nervous cough and speak up.

“Despite my clear misjudgment on how to use my powers, I did learn something interesting. I may be able to use my ability to provide ranged, instant, constant healing. Specifically, if you get seriously injured and I’ve ‘marked’ you, you can get automatically healed. I’ll have to practice it a bit, but I’m confident I can make it work.”

“Hmm, that could be pretty useful if we get into a tight spot. Does it have any downsides?”

“Yeah, this one definitely has a ‘maintenance’ cost, as I like to call it. I can only do it on so many people, at a certain distance, and to a certain distance. What those are, I don’t know yet. For right now, though, I’ll set it on all of us.”

Okay, it feels like the cost is pretty low… probably because we are right next to each other. It doesn’t even make a dent into my mana regeneration either… Though that will probably change the farther they get away. Definitely will have to test this.”

I continue to explain more. “What the four of us will also have on us, is the instant and continuous healing. So, if you get a fatal injury, you should automatically healed. Now, if I was to put just the continuous healing over time, on a spider, it costs me even less. By my estimations, I believe I can support the entire group of spiders with a really low continuous heal.” With a look at Gong, “I believe that should help their survival rates, as I felt how many died due to post-fight deaths.”

She looks down in sadness, “Yeah, we lost quite a few of the big spiders. Though, all of the spiders are growing pretty well.”

There’s a moment of silence, before I continue.

“Alright, so that’s one idea on the table. What’s next?”