Straf and Cycelia enter their inn room, and Straf pushes the door close. Cycelia takes a step towards the bed, but freezes and glances around the room with uneasy eyes. Straf walks past her before he notices her odd behavior.
「What? You don't like the room?」
Straf turns around, and asks with his fists on his hips. Cycelia shakes her head.
「No, it's not that… Straf, I know this may sound a little silly, but… Could you check under the bed, and outside the windows?」
Cycelia requests, not moving a step away from the door. She fingers her silver medallion with concern on her face as she looks at Straf. His eyebrows furrow and his face twists into an expression of ridicule. However, he shrugs and walks up to the bed.
He grabs it by the foot-end and lifts it up to his head level, without as much as a strained grunt. He points his palm to the empty, dusty space beneath the bed and smirks a little at Cycelia. He lowers the bed down.
Thud. Crreeeak.
Straf lifts his eyebrow at the creaking plank below his foot, but continues onward towards the window after a momentary pause. He opens it. He leans out and looks down below, above, to the sides, then slides the window shut and shrugs his hands at Cycelia, giving his head a slight tilt.
「Then… Could you check that wardrobe too?」
Cycelia points at a tall wardrobe straight across the room, facing the bed. Straf scoffs, and shrugs his hands again as he walks towards it.
「What, are you afraid of monsters in the closet? Should I keep the light on?」
Straf mocks Cycelia lightly, and grabs the knobs of the wardrobe doors. He swings it open, and steps aside to let Cycelia get a better look, pointing his palm at the empty space within again.
「There. Any more places where a monster could hide?」
He flicks the wardrobe doors close with a dull thud, and steps away towards the bed. Cycelia sighs.
「I know it's ridiculous, but I just don't feel safe anymore. I thought the manhunters would be my only issue, but I suppose it was just wishful thinking after that demon…」
「If you don't feel safe because you don't trust in my ability to keep my harem safe, that's fine. I'll just prove you wrong.」
「No, no! That's not what I'm saying at all! I'd be too terrified to go anywhere alone at this point! But… All it would take is five minutes without you here…」
「Hey, you're free to stay by my side as long as you feel threatened, then. Besides…」
Ba-dump.
Straf rubs his chin and looks at the ceiling as he starts to think hard on something.
「…Think of it like this. A big scary monster is chasing you, and you just broke its line of sight. What would you do next?」
Straf asks Cycelia as she sits down on the bed. She looks away for a second while gently furrowing her brows, then looks back into Straf's eyes.
「I guess I would hide somewhere, if it's really scary.」
「Right? Makes sense. If there's something real scary out there, just hide and pray it doesn't see you. Now…」
Straf points to the wardrobe, still looking at Cycelia. His finger steals her attention, and her eyes drift to the wardrobe's doors.
「If there's someone hiding there, you know what that means, right? He's scared as shit. And he'd be right to be scared. I'm the most terrifying thing in the whole city. The whole kingdom, probably.」
Straf proclaims with a smug grin and indestructible confidence in his voice. Cycelia's nervous face turns into an amused smile, and she can no longer restrain her laughter. She covers her mouth as she giggles softly with eyes closed, and her gifted chest bounces in her shirt with each laugh. She manages to contain her giggling.
「You're right, Straf. You're pretty much worse than a demon at this point.」
Cycelia says with a smile while looking at Straf. Her expression shifts into a more serious one, as she cocks her head a little.
「Heheheh… Yeah, too bad the sword is gone. Soul-eating is a good threat if you can actually actualize on it.」
Straf chuckles and shakes his head, spreading his hands. Cycelia starts to unbutton her shirt.
Ba-dump.
「Straf, if you have to get up early in the morning, I'll head to bed now.」
Cycelia slips her shirt off her shoulders. Straf lifts his eyebrow, her decency is only protected by a seemingly anachronistic combination of a tasteful lace bra with a corset, as a one piece of underwear. She unbuttons her skirt and slips it off her thick legs, revealing matching lace panty.
「Okay.」
《Oh yeah, mandatory modern undies. And it's the type fit for a high-class lady, or a high-class hooker pretending to be one. Schrodinger's underwear.》
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
「…Will you join me?」
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Slightly underwhelmed by Straf's nonchalant reply, she flutters her eyelashes at him and asks. She slips under her blanket.
Ba-dump ba-dump ba-dump.
「Yeah.」
Badumpbadumpbadump.
Straf nods and answers, Cycelia starts breathing heavily despite being literally at rest. Her heart races as Straf climbs onto the bed.
「Huh?」
Her brows furrow in confusion as Straf kneels on her bed, and faces away from her towards the wardrobe.
「Don't mind me. Just pretend I'm a cat, or a guard dog. You pick. Goodnight, Lia.」
Straf says as he closes his eyes and lowers his head slightly. He kneels with a dignified pose at her feet. Cycelia blinks, staring at Straf's back, trying to break through her confusion.
「…Okay. Goodnight, Straf.」
She turns on her side with a slightly disappointed grimace…
A few hours later…
《What the fuck? He's still sitting there? In that same pose!? How long is he going to stay there!? I'm tired of this cramped fucking thing. He's paranoid like a motherfucker, too. I'm lucky the ceiling is high, if I didn't climb up in time…》
A leather-bound man looks through the wardrobe doors. Straf is kneeling on the bed like a statue, and Cycelia is sleeping with a frown on her face.
《If my novice didn't get them, that probably means he killed 'im. Too bad, he wasn't too shabby otherwise. The bath angle wasn't even a bad idea. It could have been me.》
The masked man sighs quietly.
《…Fuck it. He must be sleeping weird.》
Crrreak…
He pushes the wardrobe door out with a quiet creak of its rusty hinge. He slips out, and lets the door shut without a sound. He draws his dagger and takes careful, painfully slow steps towards the bed. One for every few seconds. He glances nervously at Straf, who still hasn't had moved in the slightest. The assassin lifts his dagger up, pointing its tip at Cycelia.
「The closet is a poor place to hide for you.」
「Wha-!?」
The assassin freezes. He glances at Straf, who is glaring back at him with eyes full of murder. The moon lights up Straf's face ominously, and the assassin's eyes widen in panic when Cycelia wakes up and looks at them.
「…Straf?」
「Wearing leather and telling someone to call you master? Come on, you think I wouldn't know?」
In a blink of an eye, Straf shoots up to his feet and grabs the man's face with his hand. He shoves his head downwards towards the floor.
Crack! Crash!
「Straf!?」
Cycelia jumps up in her bed wide awake, when she sees Straf sink through the floor with another man.
「And then he sai-」
CRASH!
「What the fuck- What is going on!? Again!? You ruined my ceili- My floor- Both of them!」
The innkeeper interrupts his story as Straf suddenly crashes through the ceiling with the man, and slams the assassin's head into the innkeeper's table. Multiple people jump away, and the inn's attention is entirely on Straf. Straf straightens out, standing on the table.
「I'll have you pay for that!」
「You have an assassin infestation. I just dealt with it. Do you really want to be known as the inn that makes people pay for a room with an assassin hiding in it?」
Straf points accusatively at the innkeeper.
「Wha- I-」
「Yeah, I thought so. Give us two fresh rooms. Don't have any? Kick someone out.」
「Straf! Straf! Are you okay!?」
Cycelia runs down the stairs with her shoes untied and most of her shirt's buttons undone. She slows down as she sees Straf tower over her another would-be assassin.
「Is he… Dead?」
Cycelia asks, Straf furrows his brows and focuses on the man on the table.
「Nope. Almost. He's probably in a coma, though. That sucks, I wanted to ask him where their place is.」
Straf grimaces a little as he glares down at the man. Cycelia walks up to the table with huge, fearful eyes.
「See what I mean? Just trying to have a night's rest and level, and then one of those assholes pops out.」