After his first siege, months of crafting and learning, a few days of completing minor quests and a few days destroying cultist bases, Aki had gathered quite the sum of Quest points. After clearing an entire territory filled with animals and monsters higher level than him, he had maxed them out.

The limit was apparently set to a thousand times the original amount necessary to complete the quest. At 2.5 million points it would simply not go up despite his notifications still reporting the gain of quest points, which made sorting through the mountains of chaff even worse due to the added line in every notification.

Luckily he didn’t get damage notifications for every hit dealt and received, but still, he didn’t have nearly enough control over the whole system to just up and ignore the tons of notifications. Despite the bore that it was, he still used the thing to gather information on his foes as even the ones without titles still left behind some rather obvious hints all around due to their level, designation and life level, so it was better to go through it now rather than when he wanted to actually find something.

As for actually finishing the quest and getting his rewards… He wasn't going to risk it.

There was no guarantee that what the system would give would suit him perfectly to the point where it would integrate with him in a non-detrimental way, and every other possible resolution to the situation would lead to a longer healing time for him.

His preferences in bed aside, it was still better to not be in pain all the time. If he for some reason also ended up losing the capability to cast due to complications, then that would mean he'd become unable to put himself to sleep, and even if he took the whole of the nameless village's pain medication, it would still be a mere question of time until he was worn down by the mental fatigue and started to accumulate Regrets like coffee cups he forgot to bring back to the kitchen and left around the house.

So there he was, sitting on the roof of the house hosting him, waiting for something to happen on the seemingly inert settlement, hating every second that his heightened emotions made drag longer, as they could be summarized to anxiety, dread and hope that the rescue squad would come get him any moment now.

Because literally, he knew for a fact there were at least three teams meant to retrieve important personal that found themselves in complicated and dangerous situations, one of them being in reserve most of the time, and the fuckers had had four days at this point, so they should be somewhere close as he left quite the obvious trail.

Every day that he fought he'd even take the time to call the palace for a quick update, with princess Sera using the third report to scream at him. Which he had made sure to not cut short so others could hear the battle. Although it'd incredibly loud, his heightened state did allow him to fine tune his senses as well, so he'd been able to know when she was done and delivered a one liner about the good of the country.

They couldn't have possibly not seen the rampaging dragon on the outpost, so anyone sent to investigate would… The realization came to him as quickly as his anger flared.

They weren't here yet because they thought the dragon was alive and pissed.

Well, he had a way to fix that. Even if he didn't have the sheer force to broadcast his feats at the moment, he could always lean onto his seniors to show him the solutions offered by Magic.

…………..

Aki could tell he was being watched, something he didn't particularly understand yet as he was currently not performing even a passive mana detection technique to spare his channels, but it clearly came from a confluence of inflated stats and his Path.

He didn't turn around though. Many children had already come to look at the scary visitor, all of them going away after he proved himself to be a boring guy with a scary face, focusing intently on a tree stump in the middle of nowhere.

Later came a gaggle of women who seemed happy to pretend themselves stealthy with their hushed whispering about his body, hair and demeanor. Which, fair enough, he could probably pass as a young Hollywood star due to his looks and appearing older than he actually was, he understood where they were coming from.

Not that it was easy to ignore some of the comments and implications about the women without internet of this village and what they may or may not do later even if he didn't put up a show.

It did surprise him that instead of hiding or approaching him normally the person actually came over and put a great pair of tits right next to his head.

"What are you doing?" Asked a rather sweet voice many a young actress or singer would kill to have. Turning his gaze towards her face, Aki saw a caucasian lust demon-kin with big doe eyes and plump cheeks framing small, cherry lips.

Immediately, he started pitying the girl. There wasn't a hint of make up on her face (and what make up could there be in such a remote village?) and despite her pointy, forward facing black horns, it was impossible to call her anything but 'cute' or 'pretty'.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Enchanting to pass the time." He said in his usual, dispassionate form. No one wanted to be pitied, but he wasn't going to become another person to satisfy the girl either.

And indeed, euphemisms aside, she could only be described as ‘girl’ despite the obvious mature figure behind her plain, green commonmer dress. Short stature, curiosity in her eyes, dainty stature and open posture all pointed to her being either rather naive or incredibly good at faking it.

Lust demons could always manipulate their appearance after all, so depending on the girl’s descendancy she could be anywhere from fourteen to her early thirties. Something he would not dismiss as paranoia, especially considering that the village head and a few others around had an obvious military background.

“Enchanting!” She exclaimed in wonder. “Isn’t that super hard and expensive? How would you do that with a tree stump? Is it secretly magical and we’ve just been passing it by?”

“Yes, because it’s me, and all life is magical, so yes.” He answered in order, snorting over her look of confusion.

"That 's so mean.” She pouted. Actually pouted. “Those were actual questions you know?"

"Maybe, but if you're asking me like that then clearly you're not ready for the corresponding serious answer. Besides, it's funnier this way, not like I get much chance to be sassy." He admitted.

"Why." She readily asked.

The sense of normalcy to the whole thing coupled well with the exercise of figuring out wether this was a spy, a child soldier on a mission or a girl actually looking out for her future.

Mixing truth and falsehood, he spoke as if to a dumb teenager actually enjoying the conversation. Something he himself was not too far from all things considered.

Mayhap more importantly, it was a great chance to allow himself to be vulnerable.

While he had just taken down a dragonic horde and was currently not so well disposed, a conversation like this was simple enough to maintain while enchanting something so simple and aligned to his path.

It was not too different from him trying to make friends in high school either actually. Perhaps that was another expression of his path from when he was failing at it?

Chatting about nothing, being a vaguely critiquing listener, discussing hobies… comparing romantic experiences.

That one in particular hurt. While the little succubi could not compare to that one girl he got a crush on when he they were both sixteen (which the girl claimed to be), his little 'combo' could also not compare to her own achievement, so there he sat, listening about the boys from the different villages.

While she seemed to share a taste in taller partners however, she'd lucked out of the phase of looking for 'broken' women by not being attracted to fairer sex at all, so that kind of put her over both him and his previous crush to an extent.

'Going after hunks is just healthier even if they are dumb, even in this realm.'

By the time he'd realised it, he was actively sharing knowledge on some of his favourite books. Despite them all being fantasy, in this world, most of them were actually just pretty normal, especially with people here being used to some sort of feudalistic government, though plenty also counted as outlandish enough to be actual fantasy.

Of most interest to Mimi was the wuxia variety and courtly intrigue drama though, as his improved synapsis allowed him to actually start weaving the overly complicated plots of those things into an actual story instead of sounding like an idiot biting his tongue every five seconds as names and stupidity came to mind.

Admittedly, it made it hard to focus on he enchanting, but at this point he was pretty much done and was just reinforcing the things with some flourish while awaiting for a clear, dark sky to serve as contrast. It also made it easier not to mind the pain too much though.

When it was time, it wasn't even him who noticed, so entranced that he was with the translating and adaptation of the story of a certain golem and genie stuck on the USA in the twentieth century as he made little illusions in the air representing the middle eastern characters as things developed chapter by chapter.

"I really want a ring like that now, but I think we might have stayed up a bit too late. The hunters keep the premises clear, but this is pretty close to a dangerous beast lord territory, so it is better not to risk it. Aki, would you get me to my place?" Warned Mimi as she lifted her head from his shoulder to look into his eyes, which he reciprocated in reflex.

"It's that late already?" He said in genuine surprise, looking up to see the stars through the sparse trees. "Sure, we should probably get going if we plan to catch any sleep before tomorrow. Let me just do one thing and we can go." Offering a hand for her to hold onto, he lifted himself with his legs easily enough, Mimi being even less of a problem to lift once he could put his weight behind it.

He did pretend to not see her slightly widening grin though. Instead, as he approached the invention he liked most, he grinned himself, knowing exactly the type of mayhem he was about to cause. The type that only someone living in an apartment building next to raving teens could ever understand!

As mana coursed through the heavily runed tree stump, it started to glow and vibrate, making a tiny white noise like a lightsaber being activated (completely unintended, but appreciated). Then it released a huge pillar of golden light and the fun began as Mimi looked at the whole thing in and shock and apprehension behind him.

The real pillar was barely the size of the clearing they stood at, but it could easily be seen from a distance as it reached a few dozen stories high. At it's top then, a big and reasonably detailed dragon head formed, clearly decapitated, with it's tongue lolling out and eyes turned inwards. Like a skeleton's haw hinging open, it's mouth opened up and Bonnie Tiller's voice sang for the first time in this realm, a full instrumental orchestra coming through just as he remembered it as the words were translated to the local variation of the common tongue.

Despite the lack of video, he was pretty sure that his presentation of it wouldn't be the only reason why people would be unable to appreciate this and several other great hits he was about to present with.

He himself could only suppress his joker grin so much. Nobody much liked it when he sang in english, well, now they could enjoy it for all the wrong reasons!