Satoshi woke up in the morning, finally on a bed, though it was still dark since the windows were opaque and closed. The mattress he slept on, though not exactly comparable to those in his previous world, was leagues softer than sleeping on a random roof every night.

“Mmmmm…”

The ferretgirl called Feriana stirred in his arms, her naked body hugging him tighter as if to never let him go.

Satoshi thought back to the previous day and smiled. The situation turned out too good for his actions done on a simple whim. He was especially satisfied with the way he used his ability to control the breathing of others around him to dull their thoughts or otherwise give a little boost. He had used it first on the pangolin-man a little and then on the girl extensively. He even used it against her father to make him tire quicker and smudge his thoughts to prevent him from being able to properly respond to his surroundings.

*sniff* *sniff*

Satoshi felt her nose against his chest and heard her sniffing his scent.

It seemed like the girl was awake but didn’t want to move away. They hadn’t done anything sensual in the night and the girl had cried herself to sleep in his arms after all his theatrics pulled off successfully. About a head smaller than him and a few years apart at most by looks, she was a totally legal affair and he would, by no means, deny divulsion in some strenuous late-night activities but it was not something that was on his priority list.

*sniff*

“Mnnmm… hehehe..”

He remembered the look she gave him when she took his hand. It was akin to devotion. Satoshi didn’t particularly care about her sentiments, he just wanted a convenient travel partner. He needed someone on a regular basis, so they could teach him things and he could train them to understand his needs and get things done that needed interaction with other people. Considering the place he was in and his race and that of the citizens here, he couldn’t have asked for an easier sentiment than devotion. The only thing that could have been any issue was the relationship with her father which was evidently already so bad that breaking it off actually helped his case. Now he could conveniently not only use this house as a base but also take her along on his travels.

*rub* *rub*

He didn’t have any plans to treat her like a slave though. On the contrary, he was more than willing to treat her well and make things great for her as well. Even though Satoshi was self-centred, he wasn’t ungrateful. Like the time in the wolf-men’s village, when he was saved by Smirnie. He still genuinely wished to go back there and thank him properly but that was still a while to go even with this new potential companion of his. It would take them time to get used to each other and more than that, there was a plethora of exploration left to do in this world.

“Hehe..”

Satoshi separated himself from the girl who was conveniently enjoying herself, immune to his thoughts for the future. It was dark but he could tell what was in his surroundings as he focused more power in the passive detection of his ability. He used his ability to force the windows open, breaking the lock in the process but it went unnoticed as he covered the bed in a sound barrier.

As the light of the sun illuminated the room, he noticed her initially upset at being so suddenly separated from him but she turned red as soon as their gaze met in the virgin illumination and tried to bury her head in his chest again, but Satoshi held her by the shoulders and studied her.

(She should get used to me as soon as possible.)

She was a young woman, probably around the age of 20-22 with brown hair and brown eyes. The small ferret ears on her head and the white fur at the sides of her face added to her cuteness while the slightly longer nose and healthy lips added to her charm as a woman. Her brown eyes with similarly brown eyelashes would have made her a rather sought after woman in his previous world, is what he thought.

“Ey Chuk sawbak ah.. Aksi oki baltam hani ah..”

She said something in a meek voice as he carefully studied her.

(Oh right. She’s a talker.)

Ignoring certain memories of the previous day, he sat both of them up. Now that his ability was out in the open, he made no effort to conceal what he could do and used it on both of them.

(It’s good that she doesn’t even try to resist, otherwise there is no freaking way I can lift her. Though it is a little weird how she seems to get delighted whenever she feels me using my ability on her.)

She smiled as she felt the air force into her lungs and control her body simultaneously. She made absolutely no movements and let him do with her as he pleased. Finally, now that they were seated up and she was no longer trying to hide herself, he looked at the rest of her. Out of his robe, he had on the undergarment that tagged along from Earth and Smirnie’s loose pajama that Satoshi had cut short at some point of time. While the girl sat as nude as a new born.

He moved his gaze downwards from her face. She had a relatively long neck and the way she stretched it to rise her head as much as possible reminded him of an actual ferret. He touched her neck gently tracing an almost faded outline of a hand that tried to strangle her a few days back at most.

His eyebrows furrowed as he shifted his gaze downward. The scars started at the shoulders, the blackness indicative of the time she had carried them. Further down, on her breasts, even going across her nipples. Her arms, her stomach, her waist. Some were still new and noticeably red. He knew there were many many more on her back from when he felt her naked in the night.

Satoshi grit his teeth in anger. The scars never stopped. They extended all the way to her feet, her flesh at the thighs singed from the abuse. Even around her vagina. The pubic hair grew sparse and irregularly due to the flesh being ripped. He grabbed her by the arm, uncaring of the ugliness of which he was touching and gently turned her around. And had her go down on fours with her bum pointing at him. He touched her there. How amazing those hips would have been, how he would have loved to grab and squeeze them; they had been disfigured to an extent so unsightly, that there was no way to tell where the wounds started and where they ended. It was a wonder she could sit on those hips. Even the flesh around her vagina was torn and it was obvious to see that it should still be aching her, agonising her, tormenting her brain to go mad from the pain. Then he remembered when she smiled at him, and when she cried in his arms. He didn’t care about her past, but now that she was his possession, just the thought of someone having done this to her, made him want to torture the person till the end of the world.

“Your father got a much better end than he deserved.”

He spoke through gritted teeth, each word dripping venom.

Feriana turned her head when she heard him speak. She looked at his face full of anger but because of the gentle way he touched her, she knew it wasn’t directed at her ugly skin. She turned her body around to face her Messiah and this time held his face in her hands.

“Reme Yali sugsa nohe ek iyel davandhya.”

She said something to him with eyes full of love.

*grab*

Satoshi used his ability to breathe some calm into himself and grabbed her wrist. Feriana no longer diverted her eyes from his gaze. It pissed him off to see her put on a happy face in front of him. A certain memory popped into his head and he looked to his stub of a leg.

(If this thing could be healed to such an extent, then maybe..)

The skin on his leg was smooth as if a leg was never even there in the first place. Then he remembered the party of four beastkin. The mage had healed the catkin’s injuries.

Satoshi got up and flew to the floor, sure about his next actions.

“Get dressed.”

He made an action of putting on clothes towards the ferretgirl and after making sure she understood, he left the room. Outside, the father’s body lay, blood seeping through the floor. Satoshi felt a surge of anger before it quickly died down.

(There's no point now. If he was alive, I would have made him suffer.)

Feriana quickly followed after him carrying her gown from last night in her arms. She stopped behind Satoshi. He knew she was looking at her father's dead body. Neither did he turn around and nor did he say anything to her.

"Hacha ahu ut ram yaga."

She said something without an ounce of emotion and jumped over the body to head towards her room upstairs. Satoshi smiled at her action but that smile disintegrated at the sight of the mutilation at her back..

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He closed his eyes and focused on his passive detection to make a map of the house. He then flew over to different parts of the house and found a suitable room to dump the body. He had gotten incredibly good at carrying inanimate objects with his ability, compliments to the flying practice on his own body. He used the air to take the bedsheet from the room they slept in, wrapped it around the body and dumped it in the other room. The blood was left for Firiana to clean later.

After a few more minutes, Feriana came down the stairs slowly. She had picked out her mother's dress; the only one she had that was just a little fancy. It was a gown similar to the one she wore yesterday, only this one was yellow with red embroidery at the ends of the sleeves and the lower end. Her chest area was accentuated and her hair was combed neatly and came in half a spiral from the back to the front from the right. Her hair was just long enough to reach her breasts and matched well with the colour of her dress. Her mother must have had a similar hair colour and bought this dress keeping the particular combination in mind.

Satoshi, uninterested and uncaring of any of it, simply turned around and walked away towards the exit of the house.

“Kuraaaa!”

Feriana, realising that, shouted towards him to wait for her and rushed after him.

*quick footsteps*

(Oh!)

Suddenly remembering something, Satoshi turned around, almost causing the ferretgirl to crash into him. She took a step back and pouted at Satoshi, making her displeasure known. Satoshi being Satoshi, ignored her, held up his hand and rubbed his thumb to his index finger.

Feriana made a clueless face as she tried to repeat his hand movements in an attempt to figure something out.

Undeterred by the failure, Satoshi removed his coin pouch hung at his side inside the robe and opened it up for her. Feriana came over curiously to take a peek.

“Whooooaaa!!”

She put her hand into the pouch and took out a large silver coin. And rubbed it. And bit on it. And licked it.

“Whoooaaaaaaaaaa!!!!”

She looked at it with starry eyes, as if a child had found a new toy.

Suddenly, an interrupting gust of wind blew the coin away from her hands. It moved through the air like magic and landed in the coin pouch for Satoshi to close it, forever hidden from view. He even put the pouch back inside the robe as an ultimatum.

Feriana’s eyes had doggedly followed the coin all the way to the pouch, and the pouch to inside the robe. Only once when it was gone from sight did she come out of her stupor to produce another pout, this time accompanied with folded arms, accentuating her already accentuated breasts.

Satoshi repeated the rubbing of his fingers to indicate what the sign was hence supposed to mean. Feriana forwent all pretence and nodded her head. Then Satoshi made some hand signs to indicate to her to collect any and all coins in the house and get it to him.

Feriana made a determined expression and followed orders, as she quickly ran around the place looking for the valuable round metals.

“I don’t know what kind of money this thing requires but I would rather keep every possible penny on hand.”

-------------------

Feriana POV

First I ran to my room to get the few coins I had and even the two large bronze I used to keep hidden under my drawer for emergency. My mother’s dress got a little dirty as I had to kneel on the ground to get the hidden coins.

(Oh no!)

I brushed the dirt off the dress with my hands.

“Mou.. Even though I wanted to look good for him.. He didn’t even look at it!”

I kept rubbing the dress thoroughly till the dirt was barely visible anymore, but then I smiled.

“That’s just like him.”

The only other place where I could find more coins was in father’s room and I knew where he kept them. So I ran back down, noticed Satoshi waiting at the main door gave him another angry pout at not caring about the efforts I put for him and without wasting a single second more, hurried over to father’s room. I would have never dared to take any of his coins without his permission but now he couldn’t hit me anymore. I found the pouch in his cupboard. It was much lighter than what Satoshi had. Just in case, I searched around the room, if there were any places he used to keep coins that I wasn’t aware of.

“Ah, found one!”

There was a coin stuck to under the bottom shelf of the wooden cupboard.

“Oh cmon, come out.”

In trying to not dirty my dress and the position of the coin, it took a bit of an effort to remove the coin.

“Dammit, all that effort for a small bro...nze….?”

It seemed similar at first glance but that was only because I was naive and inexperienced. Now that it was in front of my eyes, it was too yellow and shiny.

…

“Huh? What happened?”

I suddenly woke up as some air forced into my lungs. I instinctively looked around for Satoshi but he wasn’t there. I was in father’s room and wearing my mother’s yellow dress that looked good with my hair… and the world was slanted. Or rather, my body wasn’t straight. Satoshi’s aerial powers were holding me in place. I put one foot back to regain balance and stood up. I looked around once again but either he could turn invisible or he really wasn’t in this room.

“How did he do that without even looking?”

Then I remembered he had saved me from the whip as well even though he wasn’t there. I smiled subconsciously as I felt his presence in the air and that he watched over me from wherever he was.

(But what happened?)

I tried to remember what happened.

(No…)

My entire body broke down in cold sweat as I recalled my last memory. I looked around and there it was, lying on the floor..

“It’s a.. *gulp* gold..coin..”

Not moments ago I touched a large silver for the first time. I had only ever seen it rarely. But a small gold… I hadn’t even seen it, much less touch it. Yet, moments after I touched my first large silver, I touched a small gold.

*gulp*

I swallowed again.

A man can live luxuriously on a gold coin for months and frugally for years! I never knew father was hiding a gold coin! If I knew, I would have stolen it and ran away years ago!

Some air brushed against my cheeks reminding me of the situation. I looked down where the gold coin lay, daunting and majestic. My hands felt too gross to touch it.

I finally found some courage and a way to take it to Satoshi.

When I reached him with the coins, he gave me a weird look.

(He didn’t even flinch at the sight of a gold coin!)

As expected of my awesome saviour, he didn’t even bat an eye at the ridiculously luxurious coin. I brought it over, held in a white piece of cloth just so my vulgar hands wouldn't touch it.

Satoshi casually picked up the gold coin and examined it. Then he picked up the other pouch and spilt the coins into his hand. It had two small silvers and a number of bronze. Satoshi segregated them based on some kind of calculation and put a specific amount back. Then he took out the pouch he originally had and again shifted a few coins.

Now with a pouch at each side in the inside of his robe, he turned around and exited.

Still giddy from touching the gold coin, I followed behind him absentmindedly.

The sun had come up. I closed the door behind me and ran over to Satoshi and grabbed his hand.

"Hehehe.."

He didn't react to it but that was just like him. I just happily wrapped my hands around his arm and walked closely so that my breasts touched against his arms. It was a pity that the robe came in between but he had to keep it on to hide his identity so it couldn’t be helped.

People on the streets gave us weird looks probably because of our difference in clothing. Satoshi wore a shabby oversized robe which was now also torn around the elbows, while my dress was something a commoner would wear in a party or function.

I didn’t care about the looks. They had no idea about the person inside the robe. Inside that robe was a man above any normal person. The sheer power he controlled.. It was magic yet it was not. Magic requires a chant. That was the norm and what everyone knew; it was common sense. The ones that were more powerful could take up to a minute of chanting in the language of the Ancient Gods. Yet the man in my arms could do it without lifting a finger and without parting his seductive lips.

“Hehehe..”

Satoshi finally looked at me as I rubbed my cheeks against his shoulder happily. I’m sure he was still constantly using his magic in ways I couldn’t even fathom.

“Food.”

He said something and made an eating gesture.

“Oh right, we haven’t eaten anything since yesterday evening! I was too lost in my delusions of you to realise.. Hehehe… So it’s called ‘foood’ in human language?”

I thought for a bit.

“Okay, lemme take you to a nice place!”

I pulled his arm and he followed. He didn’t bring his walking aid so I knew he was flying; is probably how his movements were so very smooth. I had no trouble guiding him around as he easily followed without needing to mind his steps. In fact, he was much better at maneuvering than I was who had lived on these streets for years. It was as if he had a real-time mental map of the area around us. Sometimes I would point at routes that we were going to take ahead, he would turn us into a back alley and we would come out on the other side of the street and move onwards.

And not long after, we were at our destination.

“Phew, we made it. This place is called ‘Red Roasts Inn’. It's a little expensive so I’ve never come here before. I never had the kind of luxury to eat here and father would never take me. Though it’s not that costly too, or so I’ve heard. The neighbours come here....”

Not standing around waiting for me to finish my story, Satoshi walked in, dragging me at his side.

*ding* *ding*

The inside was mostly empty. Of the dozen or so tables, only two were occupied. That most likely had to do with us coming at an odd time. With all that happened last night, we woke up late and with the stuff in the morning, we got out even later. Hence the breakfast timings had passed and most people would have already left for their work.

“Welcome to Red Roasts!”

A pig-girl, a few years younger than me, came to greet us in a waitress’s apron and guided us to an empty table.

“Today’s special is ‘Red Roast Tarpon’, one is 3 large bronze but if you order two, you can get it for 5 large bronze.”

She said, handing both of us a menu. Satoshi put his menu down and pointed at me to order something.

(I wonder how he managed to survive here without being able to speak our language.)

“Umm.. Could you please get us two vegetable soups and two Red Roast Tarpon?”

“Yes, mam.”

The pig-girl courteously noted our orders, took our menus and went away.

I looked towards my saviour with a smile. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, he didn’t really speak much. Not that I would understand even if he did. But I felt like there was always something on his mind.

(Is that because he’s been travelling alone?)

The kind of responsibility one would have to shoulder to travel alone, moreover into a place where you can’t even communicate.. Nothing about my saviour was any less than super-duper impressive.

The mood changed and I somehow knew his focus was on me. He extended his arm and pulled back the sleeve of the robe to display the bandage. I hadn’t changed it in the morning because of all that happened and I thought that taking him to a healer would be better. But that wasn’t what he intended to say. He slowly hovered his other arm over the bandage.

“Are you talking about a healer? Umm.. I was intending to take you to one after this.”

I nodded to him in understanding. Then he pointed at me.

“Me? I’m not a healer?”

Then he pointed at the rest of me, slowly. Suddenly I remembered what happened in the morning and him caressing my mangled flesh.

“You want a healer for me…..?”

I was sure I understood wrong. But then I felt the air wrap around my body and move about in a gentle massage.

I was still sure I was wrong. I mean…

“..Healing scars like mine will take too much money.. It’s..not worth it..”

I looked down as I made my statement that he wouldn’t have listened to even if he understood the language. I remembered the angered expression on his face in the morning.

(I can’t cry again!)

I held back my tears. I knew this man was serious and I couldn’t fathom him not taking what he desired. If he as simply as wanted to see my body scarless, I felt like he would go about and get it done somehow.

"But the local healers most likely cannot."

I accepted it. I knew there was no way I could deny him, even if the concerned person in the affair was me.

"We will probably have to go to the mage's guild and find someone…very good. And I have no idea where to even start."

I shook my head visibly.

He retracted his outstretched hand as well his power exploring around my body and looked to the side where the pig-girl had left for.

I sat quietly, a burst of emotion welling up in me. Some air again forced itself into my lungs as if telling me not to worry about it.

*Deep breath*

I inhaled deeply by my own strength and my mind cleared a little.

(Is that how he stays so calm?)

Even though the tearful emotions got suppressed, there was a warm feeling of love in my gut that grew ever stronger.