“Care to run that by me again?” I said. Malquea rubbed her bloody hand over my sofa, making me wince.

“What’s hard to understand? It is now your job to take care of me. I assume you have royalty in this dimension, no?” She had this look on her face that made it obvious she thought I was an idiot.

“We do,” I said sheepishly. “But I’m not really…”

Malquea took a hard look around, then put her feet on my coffee table. She had dark red stilettos that, like the rest of her outfit, were unpractical and ridiculous.

“I see you’re a man of low stature—”

“Medium stature,” I said. “Medium.”

Malquea chuckled. “If this is how the average person lives then I find it rather amusing—”

“This is how people live. It’s normal. What’s not normal is you,” I said.

“You have a nasty habit of interrupting me,” she said, pulling herself up. The self-acclaimed Lord of Lords took a few steps towards me. I was slightly taller than average. Thanks to her heels, the top of Malquea’s head just grazed above mine.

“I can barely support myself. You can’t expect me to take care of you.”

“You refuse to service me? What is your name, fool?”

“Leo,” I said, carrying a straight face.

“Well, Leo,” she said, putting an unnecessary emphasis on the word. “There’s probably hundreds—if not thousands—of people here in this world who would love to have the opportunity to pamper the likes of me.”

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“Fine,” I said. I opened the door. “Hope you find them.”

“Ah, I see how it is,” said Malquea, her face more than a little surprised. “I’ll be taking my leave now.”

She stopped in the middle of my open doorway, sagging the carpet with all the leftover rain dripping from her body.

“I hope the rest of your life isn’t half as pitiful as what you led me to believe it was today,” she said.

“Alright.”

She turned heel and walked off into the rain. The downpour had increased in ferocity since they had made it to the apartment, now resembling a thick fog of drizzle that made it hard to see five feet in front of you.

It took three minutes for her to knock on my door.

“Yes?” I said as I opened the door. Malquea’s blonde locks were matted around her face. She was shivering.

“Fetch me a towel,” she said, holding her arms out.

“Here ya go,” I said as I handed one to her. She took a seat on my sofa (I gave up on caring about it ever since she wiped her hand on it) and tried her best to rub off all the water.

“Why is this dimension so damn wet!?” she said between gritted teeth.

“Do you want to change out of your clothes? If you can even call them that.”

“This is a ceremonial garment produced by the finest seamstress in my dimension. Each of these bones represents a piece of the most powerful enemies I’ve faced.” She had one hand pointing at the bits of bone holding up her breasts, the other hand pointing at the ribs on the side of her stomach. I can’t believe they’re actually human bones. At least, I think they’re human…

“Literally no one here would ever wear something so stupid,” I said. “It’ll get you weird looks. Is that what you want?”

“Royalty deserves to be treated as such,” she said, her nose angled up.

“You’ll get cold.”

“Surely this rain is an infrequent occurrence,” she said.

“It’s not.”

“Very well.”

Just as I was about to turn to my room, Malquea grabbed my hand.

“Where are you going?” she said.

“To pick you some clothes from my closet.”

“Your fashion sense is horrid,” she said, scanning me from head to toe. I wore a white long-sleeved button-up shirt with black pants and a barista apron. All of it thoroughly soaked.

“Excuse me?”

“Point me to your wardrobe and I will find my own choice of clothes.”

“But…”

“In the meantime, Leo, you can fetch me food and a hot beverage.”

That was something I could do. I thought about resisting her request but I can’t forget the fact that she carried a metric-long sword that she can stab me with at will. I stepped back and went to make some coffee.