I only needed two hours of sleep back in those days, and with Skull getting many boons from my Skills and indeed her own Skills from both her Blessings, she likewise only needed such small amounts of rest. On the other hand, Chooka still needed a full night’s sleep, so Skull and I would snuggle her to sleep, and when we woke, we would go about our lives, leaving Chooka to her beauty sleep.

We set about our chores, keeping the house in order and preparing food for the day, all very domestic stuff. We only had a few Skills between us to aid in such an undertaking, but we had learned Abilities to make up for that shortcoming. That is to say, we learned spells from people who had the useful domestic Skills and the ability to teach us. Abilities could also include magic items, boons granted by gods, or other such mechanisms outside of one’s Blessing, but everything that fell under that blanket term tended to be less powerful, efficient, and expeditious in their application. Worse, some even required incantations, which are totally gross!

Some people laughed at the notion of having a Blessing of [Maid], [Butler], or something similar, but powerful individuals who had honed their Skills could manage the domestic affairs of a whole estate single-handedly and thus were highly sought-after and well-compensated. No Blessing was weak if a person pushed it to its full potential, but most people were happy to only develop themselves to the point where they lived comfortably. Similar to how anyone could get chiseled abs and rippling biceps if they hit the gym, yet a great number of people still lived sedentary lifestyles, most people were content to pursue other ventures.

Such passions necessitated the need to learn things outside of one’s Blessing, and ‘spells’, if you will, were just generally agreed upon concepts of what should be the input and output of using mana. For instance, channel mana into thermal energy, condense it, and chuck it at something, and you have a fireball spell. Refine it to an acceptable grade where you can produce the quantity and quality of a specific expected grade of its use, and you are said to know that spell. Militaries operated entirely under this concept in order to create a cohesive force doctrine, for having individual troops all with wildly different Skills would prove chaotic and unwieldy on a battlefield.

Skills from Blessings just gave Abilities for free without having to really learn them, and the versions from Blessings were typically superior. However, some Blessings, such as [Mage], [Warlock], [Wizard], and so on, were designed to learn spells and collect other Abilities and use them. The downside is that, except for me, and to some extent Skull, people do not get to explicitly choose their Skills for their Blessing. They can try to coax it to develop a certain way by doing specific activities, such as unlocking more sword Skills by practicing swordplay, but they could not choose each and every Skill they earned. Thus, Abilities helped to even the playing field, and some individuals lacking in Skill could be absolute monsters due to their Abilities.

Sadly, Skull and I were not monsters when it came to keeping the house and grounds in order, so several hours were devoted to that undertaking. Mother had taught me how to garden, so the task of maintaining mine generally fell to me. Skull busied herself with food preparation and firewood. She sucked as a chef, but she fared just fine at getting all the ingredients prepared, slicing meat and vegetables down to size and getting everything organized and laid out for me to come cook. Mother had been an unimaginative cook, so I had ventured far and wide throughout the city to learn some useful recipes. I couldn’t hold a candle to [Chefs] and the like, but Chooka and Skull both enjoyed the edible results of my endeavors in the kitchen, so that was good enough for me.

Chooka awoke to a bath freshly prepared for her, clothes for the day laid out, and breakfast ready for her by the time she stepped downstairs. Skull and I had the time to make sure Chooka did not need to expend her efforts for such trivial matters, and in turn, Chooka took care of us and our needs. As a [Courtesan], she provided valuable entertainment, and while not a [Musician], she absolutely crushed it on the electric shamisen and could probably have made a living off that skill alone. Her singing was on point, too, able to do that husky growling of the death music like Alterez listened to, but she could also hit respectably high notes.

“How did you sleep last night,” Chooka asked me, a not uncommon occurrence.

“Same as normal. More dreams from past lives. They slowly grow sharper and more distinct, but not enough for me to make complete sense of them,” I answered after swallowing down a mouthful of food.

That’s right, this is one of those stories of being reincarnated in another world. However, given my dreams and memory flashes of various ‘me’s’, I had to be somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand lives across as many worlds. Some had technology advanced enough to colonize the stars, and while I did not know the specifics of how it worked, I understood the general concepts. If I ever see a combustion engine in its natural habitat, I will recognize it for what it is.

Like, I had never seen an airplane in this world, but I would know one when I saw it and what it did. That did give me clever insights into certain applications of magic, such as the veritable ‘bazooka’ I had used to kill the hydra that is the mother of The Boys. I had since outgrown the need for it, but no one else seemed to employ such a device. Perhaps it was because plenty of Skills performed a similar effect far better than such technology, and indeed, magic and the reliance upon it had made the need for most technology more of a curious pastime than a serious undertaking. The general layman still knew germ theory and the like, but no one invested in mundane cures to diseases when a [Cure Disease] spell healed people of such pestilence.

“All in due time, my love. The mystery will unravel itself when the moment is right, and we will be here with you until that time and beyond.”

Chooka squeezed my hand in reassurance, and Skull, not wanting to be left out, squeezed the other. With both my hands occupied, Skull also stabbed her fork in the direction of a sausage on my plate, but a quick magic barrier erected around one side of my plate thwarted her attack. However, a tendril of shadow had gone under the table, my chair, and back up behind me, to grab another sausage from a different angle. I detonated a trap under one of the legs of her chair, and Skull fell backwards, her concentration and the grip on the sausage broken. The sausage fell back to my plate, but not before Chooka snatched it out of the air with a lightning quick jab.

“Always a good morning when I manage to get your sausage in my mouth,” she stated proudly before chomping down on it. Double entendres and sexual innuendos are the staple of her conversation with me, a sure sign that she was comfortable and happy.

Skull huffed, unsatisfied as she righted herself and the chair. Stealing each other’s food with sabotage, subterfuge, alliances, and betrayal had become a favorite pastime of breakfast together. It kept each other sharp and offered a forum to air any grievances before they festered into relationship problems.

“I’m afraid that may be all you get this morning then,” I replied as I turned my gaze down to her plate.

Chooka looked down in turn, and her scrumptious and piping hot food faded away, the illusion I had been maintaining on it broken.

“Oh, you clever bastard! When did you make the switch?” inquired Chooka with a mixture of pride and mock anger on her face.

“When you lunged out for the sausage, I opened my pocket dimension just barely above the surface of your plate to absorb your food and placed an illusion at the same time. You were so distracted by your attack that you forgot to defend.”

Smug, I took a sip of my drink, only to spit it out as the whole thing had been spiked with salt. Skull blew me a raspberry and took a swig of her own wine after righting her chair, her whole attempt to pillage my sausage having been a diversion. Skull and Chooka gave each other a high five, and together we all shared a laugh.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Well played, ladies. I’m sure some god of trickery will smile upon you today at the shrines.”

“Remnimi don’t have a god of trickery in their pantheon. We are an honest and loyal people, noble in spirit and purpose,” she stated matter-of-factly, the bald-faced lie apparent to everyone and she knew it.

“Exactly what a god of trickery would want you to say,” chimed in Skull.

“Fear not, my fifteenth love, I would never try to trick you,” replied Chooka.

“Fifteenth! Last week I was fourteenth. How have I dropped so in the polls,” inquired Skull with mock indignation.

“Oh, you know, I gave you one requisition form to fill out and you hand it in two days late,” answered Chooka as she took a sip from her tea.

“You wanted it in triplicate, you monster,” roared back Skull with a slight hint of genuine frustration. She turned to me pleadingly, “Tell me that she is the villain here, not me. It isn’t my fault the letters swim about on the page. Makes it hard to fill out,” she mumbled the last part to herself as she lowered her head in self-pity.

“Skull, I love you dearly,” I started, “but you should ask for help next time. Yes, triplicate is monstrous,” I continued as I spared a glare at Chooka before returning my gaze to Skull,” but that is no excuse to tarry on something so simple. We are here to help you, but you still need to ask.”

Skull remained silent for a moment, staring down at her plate in contemplation before looking back at me to answer. “You are right, and I will do better next time. Chooka,” she continued as she turned her gaze to the remnimi, “I apologize for my tardiness, and I promise to do better next time and to destroy something you love if you make me fill out paperwork in triplicate when you know damn well that there are any number of Abilities out there to make copies,” finished Skull, her emotions communicated honestly as always.

“I would expect nothing less, my thirteenth love,” Chooka answered as she patted Skull’s hand, who in turn perked up at that news.

Maybe it was Chooka, maybe it was Skull, or maybe it was some quirk of [Courtesan], but people seemed to want to be in Chooka’s good graces. Certainly, no Adventurers in the guildhall dared defy her, and even the guildmasters hesitated to countermand her, such was her presence and the value provided by her extreme competence for the job. How she didn’t get a Dual-Blessing as a [Quill Pusher], I will never know, for paperwork and navigating bureaucracy was her undisputed domain.

“First love,” she said as she suddenly turned to me, “I believe the dessert should be cooled down by now. Be a peach and fetch it from the windowsill, please.”

“As you command, my mistress,” I answered as I stood and gave an overly dramatic bow.

I walked over to the windowsill and found the scones that had been cooling there nowhere to be seen. I gazed out into the yard, a trail of wet grass leading back to the pond.

“Oh Booooooyyyys,” I shouted out across the yard at them. “I would like a word with you.

Four heads turned in my direction, each avoiding my gaze, and one in particular looking extra sheepish.

“Dio, would you happen to know where the scones went? The ones that sat here on this windowsill to cool. The ones with the same kind of filling as I can see is still plastered on your lips and staining your teeth.

Diogenes let out a small shriek of dismay, still not meeting my gaze but knowing full well he had been caught.

“Dio, look at me,” I commanded.

The vandal slowly turned to look my way, the other three doing likewise.

“You were not allowed to have these scones. You stole it, and stealing from your family is wrong. No snacks for you for three days.”

A loud whine followed, accompanied by suppressed snickers from the other three.

“As for the lot of you,” I continued, all necks snapping to attention as the mirth stopped, “None of you stood guard last night. I snuck right past you while you all slept. You are supposed to sleep in turns. Any hydra living in the wild does this to survive. No snacks for any of you for a day.”

Four times the whining followed. I closed the window to help keep out the noise. I looked on as heads started nipping at one another while they proceeded to argue amongst themselves. A few bites accompanied that, but with little fear that they would all decapitate each other at the same time, I left it to them to sort themselves out.

I turned back to the two women awaiting their scones, with naught to offer but bad news.

“My apologies, my little doves. A certain rapscallion had absconded with our scones.” I walked towards them, doing my best to be as seductive as possible with a bit of a sashay to my strut. “While scones are no longer an option for dessert, perhaps instead you could have… me.”

I used the pause at the end to be coy and suggestive as I pointed to myself. Normally, this maneuver would probably be performed by a woman seducing a man, but I packed all the confidence I could into it and doubled down on my hope that I could pull it off. Chooka and Skull shared a look at each other before turning back to me.

“Sure, I could go for that,” Skull shrugged in response.

“I’ll bring the sweet wine to go along with our ‘dessert’”, answered Chooka.

Back up the stairs the three of us went. An hour later found us all gathered together and ready to head into town, none of us having been devoured, as vore had not made it onto our list of deviant predilections. We may not have had scones, but we did indulge in some pattycake. Well, you know what I mean. The kids don’t, but they shouldn’t be reading this.

We were all dressed for Shrine Day. Skull wore her armor, as always. She basically could only be found without it when at a bathhouse or in a safe place to rest. Ergo, the public only ever saw her in armor, and she had a reputation for being a serious badass in part due to that, and in part due to the one-sided brawls she participated in from time to time. She also had her zweihänder on her back, and it also looked ornate in the same macabre fashion of her armor. Bones and skulls tended to invoke fear in people, and invoking fear was a core part of her person and a tenant of her faith to Gulthar.

Chooka wore a rather conservative outfit, which is to say, short shorts and a tank top that went almost to her navel. She also sported thigh-high stockings, complete with garter straps to her shorts, as well as combat boots. She kept brass knuckles in a pocket in case things got rowdy, and of course she wore the bracelet I had given her to officially make her my mistress, an ornate yet simple thing of polished azure with a silver border and a single ruby as the centerpiece. She never went anywhere without it, for she cherished it not only for how it represented our love, but also because of its enchantment that helped her stay cool. Remnimi tended to live in colder climates because they easily overheat in temperate zones. So, while she no longer needed to wear skimpy outfits out of practicality, she continued to do so because the attention she gained from it helped to fuel her [Courtesan] Skills. The whole ensemble was red and blue, which matched her skin tone, all accented with black, which matched her hair and horns.

I wore a mix of yellow and black with the only part of my body exposed being my neck and head. I carried no weapons on my person, for I rarely needed them, and my arsenal of such things remained stored in a pocket dimension. My Skills and training more than made me capable of handling myself in a fight, and it was actually faster to materialize a weapon from my pocket dimension than to draw it from a sheath. I never wore armor, as I had Skills that relied on that. My biggest concern in a fight would be that my clothes got ruined, for my regeneration and healing Skills could handle pretty much anything except for the yet untested decapitation or head being crushed. It would be a battle of attrition to bleed me out of both mana and blood, and such would be unlikely to occur in a city, so I kept my clothes casual yet stylish.

The three of us ready, we set out on a nice stroll together to the shrines. I was tall for a human, and only barely taller than Skull. Chooka, on the other hand, towered over us, easily a head taller than me, taller still if you count the horns. We probably made for an odd sight, but the locals were used to us by now, especially on our Shrine Day.

We galivanted along to the Shrine District, the part of the city relegated to the affairs of the divine and the patronage of the gods. We greeted people as we went, seeing familiar faces of people who had the same Shrine Day that we had. A week was seven days, and Shrine Day came every ten days. With there being exactly (down to the second) 432 days in a year, and twelve months in a year, that came to some weird math for when Shrine Days and days of the week lined up within a given month, assuming one stuck to the same schedule. Ergo, it helped ensure that everyone had a fair disbursement of Shrine Days such that their weekends were not always bogged down with their duties to the divine. Today was our day, so we did our part.