Waiting for Mariana to return from her expedition toward cactier lands and extirpating dick bones were two absolutely compatible activities. The good thing about Mamotreto being already dead was that there was no blood pressure nor movements on his part. It was a pleasurable butchery, truly. Sunny day, not a cloud nor scavenger in the sky, only me and my recently developed passion.

The tissues were tender and cooperative, and the smell foul. Not like I cared, Introduction to Zoology during my days at uni and cooking for Mariana during my days as a neet—with a Master’s in biology— had immunized me against the delicate aroma of rotten flesh and bodily fluids. I don’t know if you ever sliced and cooked liver for your pet or least loved family member to eat, but let’s agree that it isn’t a pleasant smell and adding the pungent stench of torn bowels doesn’t make the situation that much worse.

Of course, during daytime in the desert, and until the flesh dries out, bacteria fest on the corpses with an intensity rarely seen in a controlled environment. What I mean to say, is: don’t kill your neighbor’s dog to take their baculum. You will evacuate your stomach. You are not me. You do not want to be me. I do not want to be me.

I saw a cloud of sand approaching. Checked on my belts to see if they were ready for another fight, and if the newcomer I had stolen from the mauled body of Matador had acclimatized.

“So, new guy, what shape do you reckon Planet has? Is it flat? Spherical?”

“It’s a giant island composed of a divine, giant Corgi butt floating adrift in an unending sea of creation,” ventured the new belt.

There was a beat of the purest silence my belts could manage.

“Oh, give me calves, you genius!”

The sand cloud grew closer, and as it did, a bouncing, phallic shadow revealed itself at his heart.

“About damn time,” I said, and finished extracting the baculum from the corpse.

You know what was in that cloud. I don’t need to describe her, nor her telepathic scream, nor the humungous cactus she had unrooted.

“Walter! Walter, I got it!” Mariana announced.

That was it, that’s how I, Walter Ignacio Gallardo, would find my final rest in this world. Not slain by some terrible foe or respectable rival, no. I would be killed by the sheer emotion of my pet once again.

“Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos, santificado sea tu nombre…” I began praying, not to be saved, not because I believed in God, but because Pascal’s wager was a very convincing argument. Minimum effort at religion with full payoff? Yes, please.

She pulled the brakes, lost her footing, and soon enough a rolling avalanche of Golden Tus and Cac Retriever was heading for me.

I could roll through it, yeah, but Mariana was technically rolling already. I could try to outrun it, but that would take effort. How likely was it to do more than knock me out, anyway.

Mariana’s lower back met my face and decided such a fated encounter could not end peacefully. Her tail wagged as I got added to the avalanche down the dune, dog, cactus and man, moving as one—a very, very drunk one.

This brought me memories of my fucking death. The sand was gentler than the stairs, and there was no door to collide against. The harsh love of the cactus was a valued addition.

“Wiiiii!” Mariana enunciated her love for Nintendo consoles as the disaster unfurled.

We reached the valley between the ephemeral wrinkles of the desert, my back against the ground, the cactus resting on my legs like a particularly hard-haired, dick-shaped, huge, and green, cat.

A mound of sand sprouted a fluffy tail, and it seemed hell-bent on wagging it.

“I’d guess you couldn’t find a smaller one.”

“That’s what she said!” uttered Mariana. I slapped my face. It hurt a bit. I slapped the cactus, and carefully watched the spikes buried on my hand, and the blood seeping from the wounds.

Stolen novel; please report.

I looked at the mound bewildered, then back at my wounded hand, and then at the mound, bewildered squared.

“There is absolutely no scientific evidence that you are able to pull off that kind of joke, Mar. It’s impossible! I will edit it out mentally, unless I forget to forget.” (Note from Walter to Walter: Don’t forget to edit this out of the book too.)

Ordered my belts to stop swooning over the newcomer and heave the plant that was crushing my shins.

Once freed from the oppressive sitting of the green cat, I grabbed Mariana and sheathed her.

“I did not agree to be your sword this time,” complained my sword.

“And I never agreed to finding wool-based cryptids in the corners of each room if I don’t vacuum every day, but that’s part of the Master-Pet contract.”

“I only shed during some months!” she remarked, and it was true. Twelve months a year are some.

I carried her back into the cave. It was high time to learn if Dulnu was the slime and if it was even remotely female.

How long can a group of men, a woman and whatever the fuck a slime is play cards for? I still seek the answer to that question.

“Boss you are la—” said the Faux Frenchman.

“Yes, I killed him,” I Interrupted him, taking my right hand to Mariana’s handle.

“Are you our new boss now?” asked the bald woman, raising an eyebrow.

“Fsssft?” added the slime.

“I have only one thing to say: N,” said a dude that wielded a pair of katanas ornamented way past what common sense dictates as reasonable, and dressed in a black jacket.

“I,” continued the slime.

“G!” added Mariana.

Sometimes I forgot that this plane of existence was bound to be filled to the brim with, and I shudder at the mere utterance of this word, gamers.

They promptly completed the tower of Raquel.

“Okay, yes, I killed your boss.”

“Is Mamotreto alright?” asked the woman, and one could see the worry on her face.

“Yes.” I gave a reassuring smile before continuing. “I kind of botched the left side while extirpating the baculum.”

“The what?”

“Dick bone,” explained the slime.

“You can talk beyond single letters?” every other bandit said in unison, staring at the blob like I wasn’t there, covered in the blood of their dear friend: Mamotreto.

Its body rippled in a shruggish way “Making fart sounds was funnier.”

A dude that had more hair than I exes stood from the table and stormed out of the lair. The magic lights followed him.

The slime began glowing in the dark.

“I never liked that bald son of a bitch,” muttered the woman.

“So, how do we proceed? I have a quest to complete. I killed a fellow Argentinian and his dog. And you are…”

They kept playing cards and betting in the dark. Ignoring me.

“Take whatever you want, they won’t care,” said the slime.

I raised my lip in a mix of disdain and confusion. “I expected you to want to avenge Lucas.”

“He could kill us all without breaking a sweat, what chance do we have against you?” argued the Frenchman.

“Fair, is the loot back there?”

They nodded and kept on playing.

I relieved Mariana from her charge as a sword, allowing her to be a pet again. “Mariana, do you have light spells?”

“None of them weight anything.”

I snorted.

“Fetch me the most interesting thing you find down that cave, you are dog, you see in the darkness.”

“You wish you could C in Darkness,” she sassed. I started to think she had a piece of brain reserved specially for mocking my patrician taste in waifus.

I palmed her flocculent butt, “Go before I bathe you.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Mariana bersekered away. There was no worse fate for her dog mind than being held still and soaped for several minutes on end.

A loud thud followed. Then, several more, softer than the first. She was down there, wielding her tail against an innocent object.

“Walter, there is a very hot secretary down here, to the left!” claimed Mariana.

I didn’t go down the tunnel. The English language cannot even fathom how to describe my movement: I didn’t walk, run, or waddle, or trip. I didn’t hover there ominously. It wasn’t a teleportation, because it had a trajectory. I Hornied down there. There is no other possible definition.

And her beauty illuminated the room with a faint red glow. Because she was two meters tall, made of lava and some lumps of hardened basalt feathers. She was resting above a black stone nest, probably of her own making. There were no other treasures in the room, probably because she would have melted them.

“Next time I dash for the promise of female companionship I need to make damn sure it is not a bird. Mariana!”

“Yes?” she asked as she turned away from the flaming secretary.

“Take ornithologist as a profession.”

“I cannot, I would retrieve the birds.”

It was a fair point. I tried to get closer to the bird, but the heat was scorching. She analyzed me with two eyes too black to be lumps of coal. One could think that she had mugged them from a poor pug.

She made a low, whistling noise when breathing, and I’d venture it was due to gasses escaping from the lava. Either that or the pugness ran far deeper than the eyes.

“How do we take this back to the city? Furthermore: How do you even steal this?” I gestured at the bird with both open hands.

Mariana used her paw to touch the lava being. There was a foreboding sizzling sound coming out of it.

“Interesting,” she said, watching her flaming limb. Her HP bar wasn’t moving. “It’s like water made of fire.”

“Its liquid rock, Mariana.”

“That’s oxymoronic!”

I sighed. At least mar was immune to the bird’s heat.

“Well, take her with us, I don’t know, go behind her and make her walk by nipping at her feet or…”

Mariana got a hold the long neck of the bird, who started kicking and trying to pluck Mariana’s eyes out.

“Let’s go,” my pet said, impervious to the onslaught of claws, beak and fire. At least the bird wasn’t getting harmed by Mar’s soft mouth.