Lilastheria looked slightly confused. I would need some time to think about all of this, but not now. “I will give you some money.” I said. “And you can stay in the city for now. Just don’t kill anyone, unless it is in self defence. Would you be ok with that?” I asked.

“Sure mistress.” She answered.

While she transformed into a gorgeous human with fiery red hair and blue eyes, I took 100 gold from my storage. Her eyes got wide when I dropped it in front of her. She quickly collected the coins and stored them.

“We will contact you once we have a plan. You can also return to your own plane if you prefer, we don’t want to force you to stay here.” I said.

“I would rather not be tortured by Beira, so I will stay. Thank you mistresses.” She bowed to us and left.

We watched her go. “I feel ashamed.” Lucy said. “I never thought about it like that. We took her freedom…”

“Yes, we need to fix this. We can dissolve the binding once this mess is over. Until then we just have to make sure not to abuse our power.” It was not an ideal solution but it had to do, for now.

We started running in the opposite direction from Lilastheria. We also made sure to cover our trail. Once we were some distance away we turned back to our humanoid forms and stopped our invisibility. We walked in silence for a bit.

“We should get some food.” I suggested.

Lucy giggled. “Of course you are hungry. Maybe we grill something again? It’s a beautiful night. Let’s enjoy more time at the lake.”

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While the park had some lights along the paths, it was really dark if you just strolled around through the woods. Although we did have a bright moon tonight. Not that we needed it, unlike humans we could see just fine at night. I looked at the stars, they were beautiful.

We found a nice place again. As we were pretty much alone in the park now, at least I assumed so, we stayed at a rather open field of grass. Lucy jumped into the water while I built a fire pit. Once it was burning nicely I followed her into the water. My mind was still in turmoil over today's events. But for now I decided to just relax a bit. Water was simply calming.

“So what will you serve us for dinner?” Lucy asked while she floated next to me.

“Hm. Maybe some skewers. I have some meat and vegetables with me. We could just season them with salt and pepper.”

“You have skewers with you?”

“I have long, thin needles…”

“Why do you have long needles with you?”

“Uh… I just do.” I shrugged. While I told her that I was from a different world I never explained the details of my new life. It would be hard to explain a video game and the tendency to loot everything.

We returned to land and I assembled the skewers. Lucy just stayed naked so I decided to do the same for now. I pulled a barrel of ale from my storage and we started to drink. We sat next to the fire, Lucy leaning on me as we enjoyed our food. We were both silent and content, lost in our thoughts. It was a bit more normalcy after a draining day.

We were still enjoying our food when we heard people coming nearer. They carried torches and looked like guards. We put our clothes back on but otherwise remained seated. Our food was gone by now but we still enjoyed some ale. When the guards approached our fire one of them stepped forward and started to speak: “Ladies Amaya and Lucy, would you please follow us back to the palace? We have questions about today’s events.”

“You mean our encounter with Alexander? Sure. Did our guards not brief you?”

“Your guards are dead.” He answered while staring at us.

“How did that happen?” I managed to look surprised while I asked.

“Demons might have been involved. We would rather have that conversation elsewhere though.”

I looked around. “It’s not like anyone is here to listen. Honestly, there are probably a lot more people eavesdropping in the palace.” I pointed out.

He sighed. “We would still like you to follow us to the palace. We need an official statement from you. And far more senior people than me will lead that interview.”

“Oh well, it is getting late anyway.” Lucy said. She stood up and started to stretch. We followed the guards out of the park. Our carriage was still waiting. I hoped the driver had a pleasant day at least.

I watched the city roll by as we drove back. While the streets were illuminated there was almost no other light. It seemed that even with the magic technology around nobody had invented neon signs yet. Soon we arrived back at the palace.