Roaren walked over to the table and I used my blend of magic techniques to cover his hands in the same mud I used on my own, creating a protective coating. “If you ever feel even the smallest sting, I need you to stick your hands in this water as soon as possible alright?” I flicked my wrist and another ball of water formed in the air beside us.

“Let’s start with one that’s a bit easier.” I pulled one without fire damage from the storage as I quickly sorted them and got to work. “If you get good at it you can do the whole thing in less than a minute, see, here you start with splitting the abdomen straight down the middle, reach inside and gather up the webbing like cotton candy, and then you…” I looked back at him, clearly holding back vomit. “You uh… You get used to it…”

He nodded, stepping closer.

‘His personality is as soft as his fur.’ “Go ahead and extract the silk from inside the abdomen, just keep doing it the way I was.”

Despite the tension in his body, he did fine, but that was the easy part.

“Good, now make an incision here, and here. Use this organ here as a landmark, but don’t push the blade in more than an inch, too far and you’ll burst the pressure sack and melt your hands off.”

He paused, his arms stifling up even more.

‘It’s not that scary is it?’ “The margin of error you have is pretty huge, so just go slow and you should be fine. It’s not as dangerous as it sounds.”

“Uh… Right…”

I let out a sigh. ‘Yup, soft. It’s not a bad thing though, if anything I wish more people were like that.’ “OK, pull your hands out for a minute.”

‘I pulled out a spider's acid gland from my storage. And twisted it around. “Here, see this? It’s going to be sitting in there like this, and you're cutting it here, but if you cut into it more than halfway through the pressure sack will burst and any acid it made before it died will burst out. Idealy you never even cut into it at all and cut around it, but there’s a ligament here you have to sever. Just cut the ligament without cutting into the gland, make sense?”

It took him a moment to get over his nerves, but when he did I was able to walk him through it with ease. In no time we were done and celebrating his first success. Now… All the was left was the hard part.

“Unfortunately… You hunt with a fire magic. Don’t get me wrong, fire is great for killing them, the increased temperature ruptures the pressure sac and they practically just explode without even having to fight them… On the other hand…” I pulled out the next one and his nose scrunched up at the smell, making me start to see the wolf in him even more. “Yeah… Fire magics great don’t get me wrong, but sometimes seriously messing up your enemy isn’t a good thing…”

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After a short awkward pause, I flipped the spide onto it’s back and continued. “For these, we want to flip them over and cut it out from the other side. Like this, just pretend like it’s open heart surgery.”

He turned his eyes away and suppressed a gag as a hot green fog burst from the corpse when I cut into it.

“There, now you see the gland, but we can’t take it out yet, First, cut a hole in the other side, then pour water over it till it’s the same color as the other gland we carved out, see? Now it should be safe to touch, at least temporarily. Still make sure to not touch your eyes, and wash your hands and all that after you're done.”

It took some time, but eventually, we managed to navigate around the different problems, and by the end of it he had enough experience I was confident he could do it on his own. For safety, I still recommended he wear a pair of leather gloves though, and he agreed to buy some before he tried it on his own.

By the time we were done, the stench covered both of us. I wasn’t sure if Dabai’s fire magic was getting better or what, but it was awful…

“Ok… Well… I’m going to go take a bath now… I don’t have any soap though, so it’s going to take a while for me to get this smell off.”

His nose was twitching, and it looked like he was about to cry. “Just come to the bathhouse with me then. You can use mine. I always carry a lot on me because of my fur.”

My mind went blank for a moment as I stared at him.

“Uh, Chika?”

I was torn. ‘He has soap… but it would be way too awkward if he found out I was a girl now… Worst case scenario he tries to stop me from going in the girl's bath and… But He has soap…’

I slowly shifted my weight. ‘This has to be the stupidest problem I’ve ever had to worry about…’ I let out a sigh. “Sorry… But no… I’m uncomfortable bathing around other people…”

To be fair, I wasn’t lying. I hadn’t been to a public bath in my life, and I had no memories of when I was young enough to take baths with my mom. The soap was nice… but not necessary.

“Ok… You can still borrow some if you want though.” He said, staring at me like I was stupid for assuming I couldn’t. “Trust me… You need it… Although to be fair my sense of smell is stronger than yours.”

“Uh… Right…”

We both got cleaned up and met back at the bar, sitting down to eat. Somehow Roaren made it back before me though… Not only was his hair and fur shiny and clean, but the faint scent of coffee soap lingered around him… It was annoying. My hair was in terrible condition, tied up under my helmet, but at least the stench was gone…

The moment I walked over and sat down with the group Roaren took in a deep breath and let it out with a relaxed sigh. “That’s better, now you smell like me, instead of those rotting spiders.”

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up as my whole body became stiff again and my face started to turn red. ‘I mean… I used the same kind of soap so that makes sense right… Why does it sound so embarrassing when he says it like that?’

“Chika?”

“Uh… Right, sorry. I think I made the water a bit too hot, so my head must still be cooling off…” I calmly took my seat next to the rest of them, letting out a deep sigh of my own. ‘I smell like him? Why is that more embarrassing than smelling like charred acid?’

I cleared my throat, wiping the thought from my mind. “Let’s see, business first. I’m getting a double promotion, so I probably won’t be gutting spiders for you guys anymore, but I taught Roaren so you should be good.”

Ted grinned, sliding a mug across the counter. “I figured as much. You’ve your own life and are probably off to grander things now. Just try not to get too crazy alright? Everyone’s luck runs out if it gets tested too many times.”

I lowered my gaze. ‘He’s right… I should have just run away… I’ll have to be more careful or I’ll really die…’ I thought back to the intense adrenaline rush I had. It felt so long ago, but that feeling almost lingered even then. It felt indescribably good. That in itself was what worried me…

He gave me a quick jab to my shoulder, “Hey, chin up. Everyone who gets anywhere has a little crazy in them. Are you ready to celebrate? And I still have to hear that story you promised!”

“Right…” I couldn’t explain it, but something felt like it was missing. And unexplainable feelings that I couldn’t describe eating away whatever excitement I had at that moment.