Mariana shot off from her resting place when I opened the door. Like a ball of golden fluff, she waltzed between my legs as I climbed in the direction of the living room. What followed could be described as an amalgamation of man and Golden Retriever rolling downstairs towards an unpleasant end. Memories of what followed are fuzzy, but the head-on impact against the front door was sure to be lethal.

Well, it was an end, yes. It was, also, a start.

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I woke up to her tender tongue exploring my cheeks. Her blonde hair shone under a new sun, one I had never seen. I lay on grass greener than I could ever imagine. And there was her panting, happy face. And above it, a green bar crowned her head. It showed the amount of HP she had, somewhere in the millions. In a black section of the bar a three-digit number—later I would learn it was her level— could be read.

“Wake up Walter, wake up, wake up,” a mellifluous female voice beckoned to me.

I raised my head and took a quick glance around, but there was no woman to be seen.

“Here moron, here. It’s me, Mariana.”

And then I looked at her, bewildered.

“Okay, we are dead and this is heaven,” I concluded and decided that there was no reason to get up. I had imagined heaven with more virgins, to be fair.

“No, we got transported to another world after hitting our heads against the door. Like in your mangas, but without elves of an unhealthy bust-size. Their poor backs. O, their poor backs!”

“Stop talking, you are, with all due respect, a bitch. You are not supposed to talk.”

“Oh, worry not, this is not speech, this is telepathy. In the twenty minutes you were unconscious I managed to get some utility spells in the nearby town.”

There was no town nearby, so I raised an eyebrow.

“Let me explain: there was a squirrel in the town. Now there is no squirrel, nor town. We both started at level one and look at me now. By the way, do not get close to that smoking crater. I did not check for aggressive survivors.”

A talking dog was a thing I was willing to deal with. A talking genocidal Golden Retriever was pushing it, but I had no other option, so I entertained her.

“Okay, so, we are in a fantasy game-like world and you killed everyone in a town meanwhile you tried to catch a squirrel.”

She nodded and wagged her tail. Standing up, I looked to my left. There was, in the middle of plains most gorgeous, an ugly steaming hole in the ground. How many souls had been lost to my pet’s shenanigans? I chose to remain ignorant at such a subject.

“Try not to kill me again if another small critter catches your eye.”

“Please, every level gave me points I allocated in intelligence, wisdom, and… every other stat. Really, they max out easily. And there seems to be no level cap for dogs. I multiclassed and, in the leveling process, I decided to use my strongest spell to attack the squirrel. By that point I had tripped over some old ladies and exploded the adventurer’s guild and that gave me a shitton of XP, so… well, let’s say the remainders of the town suffered the same fate as the squirrel. But, hey, I got that ugly nutchasing whore.”

Relief washed over me. It was not psychopathy: just her usual, catastrophic clumsiness at work.

“I am about to send you a party request, answer it.”

As I got the request, a sharp burning pain traversed my head. I clawed my scalp with both my hands and let out a small groan. Green light, born from the body of Mariana, rained over me.

“Is that heal or poison?” I said, hoping she was not trying to get rid of me.

“Healing poison,” she answered, never stopping her happy panting.

“Why does the party invite hurt?”

“Level difference, I guess. Accept anyway, I have resurrection spells for when you inevitably die as you leech experience from yours, truly. So if your head explodes, and after I get a taste of your corpse, I will use them and you will be back in one piece.”

I do not know how I kept my sanity as she explained everything to my confused ass, but I guess dying and waking up in the middle of nowhere makes one more tolerant to madness inducing speeches of talking dogs.

Eventually, I made the question anyone with triple digit IQ should make first thing when they are in the middle of nowhere.

“How far are we from civilization?”

“One mass teleport.”

I considered her answer carefully.

“How far are we from civilization with harem forming potential for me?”

She stopped panting and tilted her head to the side.

“Does not compute. Women here work just as they do in Earth. Well, maybe they get disintegrated more often, but the thing is, with no offense meant: you are an ugly fuck, Walter. A slim, untidy, virgin, fretful and ominous weeb of York,” she sentenced before proceeding to lick her own asshole.

Mariana had seen me perusing those vile webpages, and even slept besides me as I rubbed another sin out to things I prefer not to reveal. I could defend myself against accusations of the kind, had they come from a human. But my pet knew me better than anyone.

Then, the greenest grass I had ever seen faded away.

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Without excessive fanfare we materialized in the main square of a marvelous town. The orange roofs and white bricks of the buildings around were bright; the strong, assertive voice of bakers and blacksmiths flooded my ears. The smell of horse dung contrasted with all that beauty lost in the modern world. Then I glanced above our heads to be blessed by the sight of a titanic oak that provided shadow for both us and the children, who played around with excessive mirth for a penicillin-free world.

Mariana headbutted a lone child —who was playing with a makeshift ball— purely by accident. The girl exploded with excessive gore and violence, smearing blood on the snout and forehead of the Retriever. An ethereal image appeared above Mariana’s head. It was framed in gold, and in its red, bloody text, one could read “Achievement unlocked: Lassacre”.

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“Well, as far as we know, she was an unnamed npc and her mother is nowhere to be found. Besides, there is no evidence of her fateful finale, and the illusion spell I quickly casted should hide my deed. We are in the clear,” she expressed while licking the blood off her lips.

“Why do you feel this imperative need to explain everything?”

“I am the brains; you are the jester.”

I was not in the mood to dignify that with an answer. The immensity of the town's personality left me awestruck, and it reminded me of the lost suburbs of my childhood. The trees with bright pink flowers and cotton like fruits lining the sidewalks evoked the rough —yet beautiful when in bloom— silk floss trees back at that old neighborhood.

The people were dressed with loose garments of a wide variety, probably manufactured, their colors mainly white, beige or of soft pinks.

Then there was the red in Mariana’s face.

I ambled towards the nearby fair as she gamboled in circles looking like a completely normal Retriever that had been bloodstained for reasons alien to the breed’s nature.

The locals around us were immersed in a shopping frenzy, where both sellers and buyers had quick eyes and sharp tongues. Colorful fruits, manufactures, small wooden capybara statues and multiple iron and steel tools passed from hand to hand and disappeared inside purses and pockets alike.

“Do you think they will notice the bloodstain? It could be chocolate milk. Or poison. Or slime goo. I mean, I hope there are slimes here. Who will be able to stick with you if you get slime girl withdrawal symptoms? Perhaps not me.”

I could not answer her while the mob engulfed us. What kind of madman, would, first of all, dress like I did —with T-shirt and a pair of jeans— and, second, discuss with his dog in public.

“Behave thyself, foul beast!” we heard an old lady scream as she tried to subdue her berserk-for-sausages poodle.

“Should I do something about it? I have a spell to unsummon poodles,” she said with a casual tone.

“That is… certainly specific.”

“It’s called ‘Banish demon and slash or lap dog’,” she added

“That is… certainly clarifying,” I said, realizing that, indeed, I was talking to my dog like the madman I tried to avoid becoming. But, lucky me, nobody seemed to care. There were sales to conquer, riches to relinquish in benefit of whoever made the weird rodent sculptures.

The heavens split in two and lightning, seemingly forged by the gods for its precision and cold aura, struck the poodle, sending it to some unknown oblivion. The old lady fainted; the fall took a sliver of her HP bar.

“He will find his way back to this dimension. The lappies always do. But the spell works!”

When the surprise caused by the spell diluted and the crowd recovered its normal flow we followed it until we saw an alchemist’s stand. We stopped by and Mariana perused the potions as I remained silent.

“Okay, the blue ones must be mana. I don’t need those. You may. The yellow ones… we don’t need those. Mainly because I have no fucking idea what they are for. The gray ones…”

“There are no gray ones,” I commented, as if talking to myself

“Most of them are gray!” she said, looking at me with a serious expression. As serious as a retriever can be, anyway.

“Most of them are red and green…”

“Those are not colors. Just shades of gray.”

My only working neuron picked up what was happening, and I decided to not comment on Mariana’s colorblindness. Perhaps that’s why the blood stain looked to her way less incriminating than it did for a person.

The alchemist was interlocking his fingers and rubbing them nervously. He had to be either a good potion maker or a charlatan, because someone that routinely runs from imminent explosions had no business being that fat.

“Well, your wish is my command, dear customer. Do you need any effect in particular?”

“If you do, I dropped a ton of gold from leveling that other town. Innocents are an excellent source of income.”

I heard a soft voice in my head, telling me ten thousand gold pieces had been gifted to me by XxGood_GirlxX.

“Do you have anything to make me irresistible to the fair sex?”

“Excuse me, sir, could you repeat that?”

“I want something to become handsome; the collective wet dream of the female population.”

“I sell potions, not miracles,” he said, visibly bothered by my question.

“Ask for a fire resistance one, because you just got burnt to ashes,” teased my loyal accomplice.

“I was just making sure you were someone I can trust. You see, I need potions that can work, and have no undesirable side effects on, dogs,” I explained with my best impression of a functional member of society.

He raised one of his hands to his face, and played for a while with his mustache.

“Sorry if I doubted you, good man, I get tons of black haired, ugly-as-sin morons asking for love potions and what not, and you unfortunately look the part. I am a healer, sometimes an enhancer, not a rapist enabler. If you want potions that work on your fierce companion, I can provide some. They are not meant to be used in the heat of the battle, but the beastmasters that bought them never complained. What do you need them for?”

“I swear if you ask for a potion to turn me into an elf or any other sort of humanoid just to satisfy your debauched desires I will commit ownercide,” threatened Mariana, slightly ruffled.

“Do you have something for flea allergy or to keep them at bay? She starts losing patches of hair if bitten by them,” I asked, ignoring Mariana. Fantasy world or not, she was my pet, and therefore my responsibility.

“No, but I will come up with something if you give me a fortnight and some funding,” he said, showing the palms of his hands, a signal that he had nothing to hide.

“Tell him we will spare no expense.”

“Well, tell me your price, but be aware: I expect results. I’ll let you know I have the means to destroy this whole city if you make me mad,” I boasted, because why wouldn’t I? I had the money, I had Mariana, I had…

The man exploded in laughter.

“You are level one. Cease the joking, this is business, good man.”

“Sir, look at me! The dog, the dog,” Mariana communicated to him, and I could listen. I supposed she wanted me to.

The smile of the man died, and realization dawned on his face. He raised a shaking hand towards Mariana, pointing at her.

“Four… hundred…”

“I prefer the spelling Houndred, thank you very much.”

I gasped in horror, for she had discovered puns. A dark future awaited humanity if dogkin became proficient at using the most malicious of weapons.

The man suddenly calmed down.

“Wait, you are a Golden Retriever, right?”

“Yes.”

“Your breed is too nice and stupid for me to be afraid of them. But a talking dog, I have never worked for one. I will have your potions done, I just need two hundred gold for the ingredients and some fleas to test them on. The price of the product elaboration and the experimentation fee included, of course.”

“And how many potions would that yield?” I asked, because Mariana was wagging her tail and had no previous experience doing business.

“A minimum of one, no known maximum. I deduct the coin for the work done and use the remainder in different ingredients. Some come from my own storage, some are bought in the meantime. If the two hundred gold are shown to be insufficient, I keep experimenting, taking a loss. Worst case scenario, if after a month no progress has been done, you get to take potions up to the price you paid, as many as that may be.”

Then I got backstabbed and robbed by a shrouded figure. Mariana looked puzzled as I fell to the dirt and the smell of my precious blood flooded her nostrils. The alchemist was quick to force me to chug a red potion, and I felt the burning pain as the wound began to close.

When I recovered my breath and the fear of imminent demise abandoned me, I stood again and I had only one thing to say. I was used to getting mugged, but I had always been lucky, so it was only my second stabbing.

“This is way worse than I thought, Mariana. We got isekaied to the magical equivalent of Latin America.”

“Well, delirium is a normal reaction after that bastard visits my stand. He stabs my clients every so often. Knows it is not murder, as I won’t let people die on me and —Oh, the dog just transferred two thousand gold pieces to me. Thanks, good girl,” he said, stretching his hand to pat her head.

Mariana was panting and wagging her tail. She looked as dumb as clueless as she had before coming here.

“Well, we need to go before I get stabbed again”

“I could stab you, Walter, for free,” offered my dear pet.

I politely declined by slapping the bitch. She lost one health point and instantly regenerated it.

“Well, I suppose her trade covers the fee. Right, alchemist?”

“Please call me Predrissimo, Mister Walter, and rest assured, the fee is covered.”

“No need for the honorary, Predrissimo. See you in two weeks,” I said as I stretched my hand. He looked at it bewildered, as if I were holding an alien on it.

“Where we come from humans use this ritual to seal deals. They stretch and shake hands. Barbaric, if you ask me, as it is nothing that cannot be said with the right butt perfume,” explained Mariana with a concerningly casual tone. I guessed that, for a dog, that sentence was not weird at all.

Reticent and with unease Pedrissimo shook my hand. Without further ado we said our goodbyes and parted ways, mainly because I was not in the mood to get stabbed again.