“Honestly speaking… Ignoring the fact that you would not have survived for long with a Baby Kraken in tow. Even if you had managed somehow, I do not think you would ever manage to overcome one, to begin with, even after Awakening.” Hannah heard her father explain. ”On the other hand, while Beholders are not on the same levels as the Terrors of the Seas, they do rank high enough on the Terror Rankings because of their innate abilities, numbers, variations, and the occasional civilizations they manage to build.

Hmm… Now that I think about it. Generating a Supreme Dream Gem under a Beholder’s, well… Baby Beholder's presence makes just enough sense if we include long-term exposure, and at least one of your Ability Potential Assessments being at Impressive.

Yes… Definitely makes sense.

Although, what does not, is you having a Baby Beholder in the first place, but that piece of intrigue you can pursue in the future.”

“Since the main culprit is identified, I think I can understand from where the Evil you think and perceive originates.” Her father’s recording pointed out. “Beholders are one of the many Nightmares that occupy a large variety of lands, mostly through force as they can grow quite powerful, but their impressive intelligence is widely agreed upon when they are not xenophobic assholes on anything that does not resemble them.

Then again that trait is shared by most Nightmares.

Still, despite their high intelligence, the xenophobic trait is much more apparent when Beholders regularly go after their own variants with extreme prejudice.

On the other hand, having high Logic can make anything sound reasonable, even genocide.

Hence, a little warning to you, my dear daughter. Always try having balanced stats between Logic and Insight, and Instinct and Will. At least if you can, but you will be fine if they are not, as long as one stat is not at least five times higher than its counterpart because, from this point on, you will understand just how much each Stat Point is worth.”

“Now, let me return to the main topic.” Hannah heard and instantly dreaded the incoming topic of possibly pet ownership. “Even if it's a Baby Beholder, your Nightmare will be somewhat smart. Hence, what you probably have experienced might be extremely Evil from your point of view, but from its own, it just followed a certain set of Logic that would get it closer to its goal, which is the generation of Fear so it could feed from it and grow from it.

As such, what you think is malice, is in truth just cold intelligence. Plenty of humans behave similarly, not just monsters.

That means, now comes the main reason as to why I brought all this up.”

Just as she expected it, it was coming.

However, just as she had promised her mother to not immediately throw a tantrum, Hannah took a deep breath before focusing all of her attention on what her father wanted to convey, so she could understand and not misunderstand his words because of her inherent Fear of the monster waiting outside the office door to rip her to shred, only to feast on what was before her.

Shivering at the thought, Hannah took another deep breath and listened to her father.

“You have three options before you as a Summoner Specialist.” Her father pointed out. “The first is to completely ignore your Nightmare and instead focus on something else, like a different kind of animal through which to conjure your Summon, since animals are the most common type of Summon.

You could make any creature you want and it would work.

The question, however, would be how thorough your replication of said animal is, thus your thoroughness would determine its power, its flexibility, and its intelligence. Unless you forgo intelligence altogether and treat your Summon like a puppet, but that is closer to a Tool, or better said, a Hybrid User.

The caveat of this path is that your Summon will be weaker early on until you find the real animal, the true source of your Summon, and study its behavior to replicate its strengths and intelligence as an autonomous Summon.

So if you, let's say, make a summon replicating a lion or tiger, you would get a powerful Summon early on, but it will still pale to what an actual lion or tiger can do, much less of what will be possible later on once you are more experienced on top of the improved Stats making your possibilities rise even further.

But here is the crux of your problem, at least as I see it.

If you chose this path, the Dream you awaken will most likely not be able to go beyond the Supreme Grade. Of course, I am sure you can not conceptualize what that means right now, but let me give you an analogy.

A Supreme Grade Dream makes you a Hero, but above Supreme makes you a Divine, or a God so to speak.

Unfortunately, even that will go over your head, but it is a good enough analogy.”

Indeed, just as her father said it, it did go over Hannah’s head because right now she was but a helpless maiden of fifteen years of age.

Worse of all, even for a fifteen-year-old girl, she was more diminutive when compared to her peers. So she simply could not even imagine a version of herself that could be a Hero or a God. No, the only thing that she had was her intelligence, but even that was nothing special since she was sure that her smartness only developed as far as it did because the pills, she had consumed for the last seven years, had made it very easy to set aside the distractions of a natural child’s mind, such that she could focus on studying.

As such, it went over Hannah’s head.

Luckily, the terms for Hero and God were common enough that at least she could understand that a vast difference stood between them.

“Your second choice, or path, depends highly on how you define your Dream as it awakens.” Hannah heard her father explain. “So if you are good enough at conceptualization, meaning imagining stuff, you could manifest a growing Dream, a Growth type Summon.

A Growth-type Summon is much, much weaker early on, even more than your first choice, but it will have the potential to overcome the barrier that exists between Supreme and above Supreme.

Nonetheless, for you, as it was for me when I first awakened my Dream and became a Tool User, that takes a very high Insight Stat. Moreover, since Insight is related to your Conjuring Potential, it means that you suck at imagining and improvising stuff.

If you took the old ways of using your strongest Ability Potential Assessment as the bedrock, you could probably succeed, but then again, if you did you would not be a Conjurer but something else entirely, hence with completely different requirements for Awakening.”

“Anyway, back to the second choice and path.” Her father voiced out. “One way to cheat this higher requirement for Insight Stat and Conjuring Ability Potential is to take your inspiration from the source, which in this case is your Baby Beholder.

By using your Dream Awakening with the Baby Beholder’s existence as the base, you can replicate its powers, both the current and its future ones. At the same time, you can replicate its growth potential, which no doubt will bring you close to above Supreme since the strongest Beholders already exist at the top of the Terror Rankings, meaning Supreme, though with a different terminology to differentiate Nightmares from Dreams. Additionally, you would be avoiding the downfall of its intelligence since it will be but a Summon and not the real thing, thus it would remain eternally obedient to you.

As such, the question becomes, can you tolerate using one for the rest of your life? Tap once for yes if you can, and twice for no.”

Without even having to tap anything, Hannah had already decided that her answer would be a definitive NO.

No, it simply did not matter if she did not gain that fabled S-Rank and whatever it entailed.

She would not do it.

Just as Hannah wanted to instantly tap the Dream Gem twice, she remembered her mother's words and the promise she made to her.

After taking a deep breath, Hannah quickly examined what her father had told her so far, and quickly realized that, just as her mother had assumed, her mind had misled her in the wrong direction by making her assume her father wanted her to take the monster as her pet.

It was either that or there was more to her father's plan.

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Taking a deep breath, again, Hannah focused and tapped the Dream Gem twice.

“As expected.” Her father said, though she was having a hard time deciphering if his words indicated disappointment or approval. “Few could be that tolerant of their captors and torturers, or even forgive them for their sins like Jeshua did or Jesus as you know him.

Look where that got him! Hanging from a cross! Ah… I am getting emotional here since it's a bit of a sore topic of mine.

That said, let me talk to you about your third choice, your third path.”

“The third choice is for you to become a Hybrid Conjurer Specialist.” Quickly remembering what she had been told about them, Hannah nodded even though her father could not see it. “Nonetheless, from there we will be veering away from the already trodden path by using the Tool and Summon Conjuring as the building blocks so you can fashion your Dream into a Capturing Device, hence making your Dream a Tool-based Dream at its Core, instead of a Summon.

However, since it is a Tool, extra features can be imbued aside from the obvious capturing functions, namely in the form of specific Profound Law Interaction allowing you to go beyond your current lacking imagination through a bureaucrat's most favored skill, Delegation.

Delegation is when you offset your work to your minions, so you can sit back and relax while they do your bidding. In this case, however, your minions will be the Profound Laws of Law and Chaos, by having Law interact with Chaos inside your Capturing Device.

Simplified.

After your Capturing Device captures a Nightmare, the Nightmare, which is of Chaos, will be infused with your Dream, which is of Law. When that occurs, an instance of conflict will occur between the two Profound Laws. Nevertheless, after that initial conflict occurs, a balance ensues between Law and Chaos since neither can actually destroy the other. When it does, in that moment of Balance between them, a third Profound Law will manifest, the Profound Law of Pure Potential.

Pure Potential is energy without any biases where the amount of generated Pure Potential depends on the duration of the ensuing Balance between Law and Chaos.

When the Balance is broken, by either you or the Nightmare, the already manifested and present Pure Potential will take the path of least resistance and infuse itself into the Nightmare to trigger its evolution, because all Nightmares are prone to evolutions, transmuting the innate nature of a Nightmare into something entirely new.

Something that is neither static and never-changing commonly seen in Law or shifting and ever-changing commonly seen in Chaos.

Something that is neither a Dream nor a Nightmare yet holds the advantages both sides hold dear… for the most part that is, because there will be limits and requirements that need to be met to make use of those advantages.

Therefore, after being captured and transmuted into a new type of existence, the Nightmare will become a Dreamon, your Summon to do your bidding.

Nevertheless, since your Dreamon will be its own Individual, now that it will no longer be shackled by Obsessive Law and Impulsive Chaos, it will have to be trained, taught, and befriended if its max possible potential is to be evoked through friendship, hardship, and fighting.

Lots and lots of fighting to be the very best it could be.”

One second Hannah was fine, and the next she felt the world swirl around her.

Up and down, left and right, the world went around when Hannah quickly took a few steps forward to grab her father's desk. That was when she noted additional sounds originating from her father’s recording, but she just could not process them.

Either way, whether she heard them or not, Hannah began heaving as if she had a tough time breathing. However, when that was not enough to alleviate her problem, a spiking amount of pain began emanating from her head with ebbs and flows that seemed to drive themselves deeper and deeper into her.

In the end, when Hannah could no longer hang on to her awareness, she simply dropped to the ground with her back facing the floor and her eyes facing the ceiling. Yet, it was at that very moment when she noticed some kind of black particles rising and gathering above her.

No… Hannah denied it in her head because she suddenly realized that the black particles in truth came from her. They rose from her head with two tiny columns emerging from the left and right of her eyes.

During that one instance, her mind jumped to the earlier morning when she had turned on the TV and watched a somewhat funny cartoon. It was in that very cartoon that she had seen a similar scenario of smoke rising from a character's head, and it happened because the character had been thinking too hard without being able to truly figure out or understand the solution to the problem before him.

Yes…

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

When Hannah woke up, it was clearly morning if the stray rays of light were any indicator. Unfortunately, Hannah cared very little about it since her head felt like someone had actually hammered a nail into her skull.

Even simple shifting of her head left and right made the splitting headache worse. As such, with no other choice before her, Hannah simply laid still under her blanket all while trying her best to ignore the aching.

A few times, she had even tried falling asleep again, but that was an utter failure because, despite the pain it had induced in her, her father's words still simmered to the forefront of her thoughts, therefore making Hannah have no choice but to confront the message they contained.

Yet, when she did, it seemed that the headache took a backburner in importance as if understanding was the cure for her headache.

Thus, Hannah put all of her attention to understanding.

In the end, the trance-like mode of pondering was interrupted by the sound of a door opening and closing.

That made Hannah understand that her mother had returned, only just as she wanted to stand up and welcome her back, the spiking of pain in her head returned. Not as bad as it had been right after waking up, but it was still bad. So Hannah simply stayed still and awaited her mother to find her as she was.

Creek, the bedroom door made before Hannah saw her mother’s blond hair and her amber-colored eyes settle on her. There was an intrigued look within them as they, no doubt, wondered where the daughter hid. However, when they noticed Hannah’s somewhat cloudy stare, any intrigue vanished, and only worry remained behind.

“Honey… You don't look alright? Anything bad happened? Did you not wake in your father’s office?” Hailey asked as she came inside to check on her daughter in detail. Regardless, when a weak shake and a nod of her daughter's head ensued, Hailey was somewhat confused because a simple nod and shake were not enough to tell her what she needed to know. “How about you tell me the bad news instead of me trying to decipher it from a simple headshake?”

Listening to the demand, Hannah tried her best to speak up through the headache. “Office… Did… Father… Spoke… Something… Head… Hurts… To… Understand.”

“Right… Mmm… A headache you say?” Hailey inquired before seeing her daughter nod. “A strong one?” Once again a nod was the answer. “I think I can help you with that. Let me get some water to help you swallow it.”

That declared, Hailey went for her bag and found a simple migraine pill before taking a small jug and filling it with tap water. Once back inside the shared bedroom, she helped her daughter up so she could swallow the medicine and the water.

“Alright… Now rest and we'll talk about what you went through after. Ok?”

“Hnn” Hannah answered vocally after realizing that drinking some water had made her feel marginally better, with the pill no doubt needing longer to work as it dissolved and entered her bloodstream.

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“Yes, her fever is still there, hence why I called to prolong her absence.” Hailey answered.“Yes, it's nothing serious but you know how fevers are, they just like to stick around. That being the case, even if her fever goes down today, she will still need a few days to recover properly. Additionally, since it is already Wednesday, my daughter might as well take the rest of the school week off for proper recovery, hence why I am suggesting prolonging her absence over the next two days and the weakened, just in case.”

Listening to the mumble over the land phone line, Hannah reassured the teacher's worries. “You don't have to worry about that. My daughter has a good head, it will take but a few hours for her to catch up to the curriculum.” Saying that Hailey rolled her eyes at not saying the obvious of just how public schools were underfunded, thus lowering the quality of the teachings in the form of third-rate teachers. Then a moment later, she heard the teachers make a proposal. “That will be fine…I am sure my daughter will appreciate the notes, so… I will come by on Friday and pick up the materials.”

“Great… Thank you. Have a nice day.” Hailey said before finally hanging up the phone by socketing it on the wall mount. “Sigh… Annoying bastard. Ok… OK… Enough venting Hailey. Time for some housework.”

Slapping her own cheeks, very lightly of course, Hailey went about doing what she could, but as was true of small apartments, there was not much to accomplish after.

When that was done, all that was left was to go grocery shopping.

A quick glance inside the only bedroom without a bed in it, Hailey noted Hannah sleeping if her chest was any indicator. Truly seeing her like that, peaceful and unbothered, was such a godsend because it was about time for something to go right in their lives ever since Heinrich died.

Although the earlier brief explanation from Hannah, about what had caused her migraine in the first place, was another statement that was hard to swallow because, just like the nightmares that had plagued her daughter for so many years, Hailey had a hard time imagining a few words managing to cause an instant headache.

Especially, after Hailey had written down the exact wording, word by word, in a notebook.

Shaking her head, Hailey left Hannah all alone and went grocery shopping.

It may have been a few days early for it, but it was fine since she had an additional goal that she would like to explore before reaching the supermarket. In fact, even reaching it was a tiny bit easier since it was but a few blocks away from her downtrodden apartment.

Darrel’s Books, Comics, and Games Store

If Hailey ignored the public library, then this one was one of the nerdiest places that existed in the city. Most of all, it's not the intellectual nerdy but the geek nerdy kind, and it was here that Hailey hoped to find some kind of answer. After all, even if everything her daughter told her so far turned out to be but a hoax of a traumatized child's mind manifesting her long-gone father in her time of greatest need, the idea behind the identity of the monster had to come from somewhere, and though her daughter had not mentioned it before, it was the only place from which she could have learned of a name like Beholder since it stood right on the route her daughter takes to school.

Regardless if it was but a figment of imagination or her actual father able to do stuff with Dreams and whatnot, this place would at least provide some kind of answers because even without entering inside the store, Hailey could already see posters of books, comics featuring heroes fighting monsters, and something called Dungeon and Dragons in one big poster.

Taking one big glance at the big poster, Hailey ignored it and entered the store.

There she found stands, shelves, kiosks, and most importantly people. Though, when she looked around, it was as if she was the most important person in the store with how every single male gave her that disbelieving face that she had even dared to enter.

Ignoring their stupefaction, as Hailey had long ago grown used to males staring at her like that, she went right for the clerk seated behind a cash register.

“Hi…” Hailey announced with a smile and one of those cutesy voices that perked all men right down to their bones, the clerk being no exception as he rapidly came to his senses and stood up.

“Hi… Hi… Welcome to Darrel’s Books, Comics, and Game Store.” The man in his thirties announced. “I am Darrel, the owner of this little shop. How can I help you, Miss. ”

“Look, I am not sure if you will believe me, but my daughter has been having these awful nightmares that just would not leave her alone.” Seeing the slightly flabbergasted face, Hailey wondered if the man would ever believe her to begin with.

“I am sorry to hear that, Mam.”

“Thank you, but I am here because somebody has told terrible tales of monsters to my daughter and now she's suffering from one.” Hailey remarked. “And seeing that your establishment is the closest by, I am convinced that it had to have been someone from your clientele.”

“Umm… I am sorry for… such a terrible thing to have occurred.” Darrel, the owner replied.

“It's fine… It's fine… I know you're not at fault for what happens after somebody leaves your stores, but in my mind, you still are responsible as a secondhand culprit for my daughter's constant nightmares.” Leaving the silence to hang for a second longer than it had to as she glared at Darrel the owner, in question, Hailey got the main point. ”I know, there is not much I can get even if I involve the Justice Department but I will still need you to compensate for her troubles.”

Instantly seeing the man turn bleach white, Hailey knew that she had successfully gotten the point across. Now it was all about properly negotiating without blowing up her advantage.

“I… I am sorry, Mam.” Darrel uttered before a different part of his mind found something on which to cling. “But just like you have said previously, we are not liable for what our clients do outside the store, therefore whatever compensation you are seeking, there will be no compensation to be received from us.”

That said, Darrel felt his heart bleed as the pretty women before him stared daggers right into them.

“We will see about that.” Hailey responded haughtily. “First I need to know something.” Announcing it, Hailey quickly browsed through her handbag, all while ignoring the silence and the staring from the other customers. “This is a description my daughter gave me of the monster in the nightmares. Tell me what you know about it!”

The presented note had a somewhat vague description of what Hannah had given to her mother, but when Hailey saw the signs of recognition surface on the store owner's face, she knew she was on the right track.

“You recognize it?” Hailey almost shouted at him, making the man flinch a tad bit.

“Cough… I do, Mam.” Darrel quickly answered. “If I am not wrong with my assumption, then whoever had… ugh… whispered to your daughter, had whispered about a Beholder, a magical floating eyeball with tentacles… Ugh… Yea… I can see that producing nightmares in children.”

“Behol… What? Speak plainly.”

“Beholder, Mam… Umm. Give me one second.” Darrel said before pointing with a finger and quickly ducking down behind his desk to whip out a common book within his social circles, hence why he always had some ready to grab and sell.

Seeing a book placed on the counter, Hailey quickly took note of the title; Monster Compendium for Adventurers; Volume 3.

A moment later, Darel opened it up and quickly went through the pages before settling on his name, the picture, and the descriptions of the monster in question.

“Here it is, Mam. Beholder… A floating eye with tentacles as you can see.” Darrel announced before turning the book around and hoping to somehow dodge the curved ball, in the form of a nagging woman, sent at him. “Bear this in thought, Mam. There are many depictions of a Beholder. Some are more… ugh… gentler on the eyes, but some can get really freaky.”

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Staring at the colored picture, Hailey finally managed to visualize the problem maker, though she doubted that the drawing before her eyes could truly depict what her daughter had seen and experienced for the last seven years.

Done finally visualizing the monster, Hailey paid more attention to the text below it as the words described the monster, from its general appearance to its behavior and abilities. Still, there was enough geek jargon that made no sense to her.

“What do these capital letters represent?” Hailey asked Darrel the shop owner.

“Armor Class.” Darrel answered the moment he saw what the blond woman’s right forefinger pointed at. However, when saw her confused look he went further in depth. “It's the summary of armor statistics expressed through numbers in the game. Ah… Since you are asking, you probably don't know anything about Dungeon and Dragons. D&D is a tabletop role-playing game, where players come together and play adventure-styled story scenarios with their imagined characters. Naturally, since the characters are imagined they could do many things, so to prevent abuse and make everything grounded and real, Rules, Stats, and Terms were designed to keep everything balanced through basic math even a child could understand.”

Hearing it, Hailey tried extremely hard not to roll her eyes at the nerdiest shit she had just heard in her whole life.

“Right…” Saying nothing else, she focused back on the book on the counter before leafing through the book and its listings. “And for an Adventure to exist, Monsters are needed?”

“Indeed.” Darrel answered. “By using the same Rules, Stats, and Terms, the Monsters were given strengths and weaknesses to overcome.”

“Right… What do these 2d6 numbers represent?” Hailey inquired as she saw it mentioned quite a lot in the texts.

“Ah… That would be the unique mechanic of the game, Dice.” Darrel said before quickly grabbing a pair of dice and showing it to the lady before him. “Different dice give different results, so a dice provides a unique experience to each Adventure as the imagined character's actions and consequences depend on the numbers that appear after a dice is rolled, whether for bad or good.”

“Mmm…” Listening and not saying anything, Hailey tried to recall if her daughter mentioned anything like this. Ultimately, however, the answer was a clear no. Still, an idea did form in her mind. “I see… That being the case… Let us say, I wanted to create a scenario for my daughter to play through with a… what was it called again... a Beholder as the enemy so she could vanquish it, which would hopefully translate into peaceful dreams again, how would I go about it.”

The moment she inquired about it, it was as if a dam broke from Darrel’s, the shop owner, mouths as he began describing scenarios, dungeons, monsters, players, and a Dungeon Master.

In the end, what it boiled down to was a different book, a D&D Player's Handbook about the Rules, Stats, Terms, and mechanics that bound everything into one whole.

Done listening for the moment, Hailey changed her posture slightly by fixing her back to angle more straight all while her chest puffed out somewhat. Then, she angled her head to the left before using her right hand to pick up the stray hair on the right side of her head before tucking the same hair behind her right ear.

At the same time, she opened her eyes wider to make herself more appealing to the male ego.

The result was almost instantaneous when she noticed the shop owner’s face.

“Listen, Darrel.” Hailey voiced out somewhat seductively by directly speaking the man’s name causing the man in question to immediately perk up even further. “Obviously… This is too much for me to take in at once. Can I borrow these two books to familiarize myself with everything at home? Once I am done reading and understanding, and hopefully manage to help my daughter vanquish the monster plaguing her dreams, I will return them to you.”

“Ah… That… It's double, Mam.” Darrel almost stuttered out. “However, in exchange, I would need to be provided with a name and address. You know, just in case I know where to look for the books if you ugh… by chance forget to return them.”

“Really? That would be great.” Hailey added with her still somewhat raised voice. “Can you throw in one of those dice? I swear, I will return everything, in let's say, a month?”

“That… Sure… I can do that, Mam.” Darrel the owner compiled before quickly taking out a leasing paper card, one which would document the lender's information. “Here… Write down your name and address.”

“Can I have a pen to write with?” Asked and provided with, Hailey quickly wrote down her Name and Surname, as well as the address and apartment number she currently lived in. Once done, she dropped the pen and pushed the leasing paper card back to Darrel. “Thank you, Darrel. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“It's fine… Mam. I am glad to be of help to you… cough… I mean to your daughter.” Darrel corrected himself at the last second. “If you have problems with understanding the intricacies of the handbook, you know where to find me.”

“Thank you, Darrel.” That said, Hailey grabbed the two books before remembering to ask for a plastic bag to carry them in.

After one last thank you sent the shop owner’s way, Hailey made her way out of the shop wilfully ignoring the stares sent her way.

Truly, the moment she was out, a few of the more regular store customers made their way directly to Darrel.

“Darrel… Darrel… Darrel… It seems you need to up your Charm resistance.” One man jokingly commented. “ You barely survived the encounter with that pretty lady.”

“I must agree with Charles there, Darrel.” A second man voiced out. “That woman’s Charm was strong enough to make Darrel, the money pincher, forget about the money pinching.”

“Cough… No… No, I did not, Mike. That… That was an investment.” Darrel quickly responded. “An investment for the future meeting with…” Hanging there for a second, Darrel urgently glanced at the leasing paper card. “Miss Hailey Blackwood.”

“Blackwood, you say?” A third voice spoke up, causing everybody else to focus on him. “I knew, her face seemed familiar, but now I am certain, and if so, then you lucked out there, Darrel. That woman is a professional courtesan down at the Rose Peach Bordello.”

“You sure, Kevin?” Darrel inquired while rolling his eyes all while willingly ignoring how his friend Kevin had come upon the source of information, after all, having played with him for a few campaigns, Darrel was clear of Kevin’s lecherous nature.

“Absolutely?” Kevin pointed out before shaking his head. “No… But I am reasonably sure that it is her because the surname Blackwood is not common at all, and there is a lady there bearing her looks and surname.

Listen, Darrel. If you play your cards properly you may get more than lucky,” Kevin added with a smirk and twitching eyebrows. “since, last I checked, Miss Blackwood is quite expensive to… ugh… make an appointment with. Oh… And by expensive, I mean Expensive.”

That voiced out, Kevin annotated the remark with his fingers even further to make the point.

“Damn… Guess you best get to praying, my friend.” Charles commented jokingly on the side. “You'll need Divine Intervention to get into those pants.”