Shami was the first to wake up and yawned like a sleep deprived fool as she got out of her hay made bed. She peeked through the curtain to check on Tanatswa and noticed that he was sleeping peacefully. She dressed up quickly and left the hut and went off to pee and to take a shit at the same time. She had made her own hole where she did her business, just outside the fortress and really hoped that no living creature would ever find her taking a shit.

The call of nature was her special moment, just like how some people would read their favourite book during a defecation session in the toilet. To her, relieving herself, was the same as freeing herself from the stresses of life and she always felt better after releasing a huge chunk. Shami would thus rip off a piece of the fur and use it to wipe her ass. The process was raw and she didn’t see herself as a conventional woman after doing that, but she clearly didn’t have a choice. Maybe she could just make a functioning toilet as her new custom goal as well as figuring out how to make tissues or alternatives to tissues.

If Tanatswa knew how to make soap then definitely, with a little effort, she would be able to solve her sanitary issues. Speaking of sanitary issues, Shami wondered what she would have to use as a substitute for a tampon or maxi pad. Her biological functions were no different from her past self, so she would have to deal with that eventually, and hopefully in a convenient fashion. She remembered that women in primitive societies used soil or ash to pad their loins but some cultures would just rinse off the menstrual blood. But having to do that in a river, to what extent was that healthy?

She postulated that maybe with a higher mithridatism level she would be able to weather any kind of infection but she would have to invest her xp into leveling it up. She then thought about what Tanatswa had said last night and felt conflicted; one side of her’s hated how blunt and cold his remark was, and the other side was thinking that the coldness was just a front to hide his troubled feelings. She would have to cohabit with him for now as they figure out how to live in this foreign world.

When Shami was done, she disposed of the animal fur and used her bare hands to shovel dirt into the hole. She then bolted quickly to the wall and then jumped up so high that she managed to grab a hold of the edge of one of the top rocks. She then climbed down, and trotted towards the hut. As she got close and noticed Tanatswa exiting the front door. The morning light shined on him and his tattered clothes exposed his fine build. Regardless of what he had said last night, there was no denying that his body was dazzling. She kept a face of disapproval and gave him a blank to keep appearances. Tanatswa noticed her and said, “Good morning.” Shami swallowed a bit of saliva and then uttered, “Good morning to you. Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah I did, um, about last night…” he said, lowering his eyebrows and squinting his eyes before getting interjected by her.

“It’s okay. I mean if that occupied your mind for the entirety of your sleep then I would feel bad.” she said, placing her arms on her hips.

“You sure, I mean I could have said that a bit better.” he said, looking rather sad.

“Well you might make things worse by nagging me. Just know that I am the type of girl who says no once and her no is definitely a no. No uncertainty here buddy.” said Shami who proceeded to pat him on the shoulder to emphasize her insistence. Tanatswa noticed her rather expressive face and decided to back down on trying to even things out between them. He then told her, “Okay cool, I will be back, give me 5 minutes.”

“Where too? I hope you’re not going for round 2 in those woods. You barely made it the last time.” she said, slightly surprised by his plans.

“I am just going for the call of nature.” he said, trying to apply courteous euphemism.

“You mean to do number 1 and 2?”

“Yeah, those 2 things.” he said slightly embarrassed.

“Well you could have just said you are going to poop. Well just make sure you shovel your shit and keep it as far away from this place. Like outside the walls.” she said with a serious face. Tanatswa couldn’t help but cringe at her brazenness towards the subject. She then told him, “Wait here.” Shami speed into the hut and began to search for a specific item. After a couple of seconds she arrived with a small ripped piece of animal fur. Tanatswa looked at her all confused and asked, “What’s this for?”

Shami looked almost surprised by his question and said, “It’s for you to wipe when you’re done.” Tanatswa’s face contorted to the point that his cringe had become as light as day. This woman didn’t at all find the talk about pooping, something he considered personal and relatively taboo between the opposite sex, to be a big deal. He began to feel awkward and she noticed it. Shami then asked, “Do you feel awkward right now because I am handing you this?”

“Like yeah, this is really weirding me out.” he said, scratching his head and looking to the side.

“Well, a little heads up buddy, we don’t have any tissues or any toilets here and quite frankly, for a guy to be bothered by me handing you something to wipe your ass when you know fully well that we have to go commando in this fucken place is really ridiculous.” she said, slightly gleaming at his expressions.

“Jesus christ, you don’t really have any filters don’t you.” he said, almost appalled by her lack of shame.

“Filters? Seriously dude, like what’s so strange? You’re a human being who has to poop and so do I? Wait, I get it now, is it because it’s a girl who is having this discussion with you? Mind you I know that most guys are all about the toilet humour and there is no way you’d find this awkward if I were a guy, right? Wow this is so cute, it’s like so obvious on your face.” she said breaking into laughter.

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“Forget about it, I will just head on and forget I had this conversation with you.” he said, quickly averting his attention towards leaving the area.

“Oh boy aren’t you a sensitive man, you can’t handle a girl talking about poop. Like, if I told you that taking a shit this morning felt glorious would that make you sick? Like dude, you will only make this weird if you decide to make this weird. Besides I don’t know how you have been taking care of yourself ever since you got here, but unless you are planning on wiping your butt with grass or maybe your shirt, I would suggest you use this piece of fur I took the effort of tearing for you.” she said, stretching out her hand for him to receive it. Tanatswa averted his attention towards her and then said, “Fine, geez, I will take it.” He took the fur and ran off as he tried by all means to avoid hearing her shouting, “Don’t be a savage. Don’t leave your business out there exposed!” She was having the time of her life, laughing at Tanatswa whose impression of her had become slightly skewed. At some point, some unsavoury imagery of her defecating popped up in his mind and he tried by all means to think of different things that would save him from the gross imagery. Shami was a girl who liked to tease and clearly didn’t give a fuck about any of the social norms that he held with much reverence. This lack of cuteness was sullying his impression of her but soon enough he handled his call of nature and returned to base.

Shami had gathered some water from a stream nearby and began to wash her hands, as she prepared her breakfast. There were fruits laid out on dried animal skin and she began to devour them slowly, Tanatswa returned and found her, lying on the ground, eating voraciously. She was apparently also a messy eater, but as soon as he took notice, she surprisingly became self conscious and began to eat properly. Tanatswa could not figure her out at all. Apart from her fine, fit and petite body, her character was making her lose points in his idea of the most marriageable woman. Alas, she offered him to join in on the feast and the two of them began to discuss.

“So what are your plans Tanatswa?” she asked, pausing to see what he would say.

“Well, ahem. So I think I have a lot on my mind, but for the most part, I want to find others out there like us and I want to level up and reach level 2. If there is one thing clear to me, I think getting stronger and knowing about the mechanics of the custom goals and whatever our bodies can do will be helpful information. Judging from my encounter with the dark figure that was riding the dragon and those wolves, it seems like everything that has life here has levels. We are both level 1 but if we max out at least 4 stats we will get a special ability. I wonder what that is but I hope to find out very soon.” he said, as he looked at her dead in the eye.

“Well that seems like a plan, so you think that if we have higher levels than the animals or whatever dangerous things that are here, we will be technically safe from harm?” she asked.

“Well since this world basically behaves like an RPG, then I am guessing higher levels will imply invulnerability to danger. I mean we are already level 1 and look at the crazy shit we can do. It’s like I am the black captain America who constantly takes steroids and breaks fitness records.”

“Aren’t you get intoxicated by your self praise.” she said, sarcastically with a bit of a laugh.

“Well, you managed to build most of this fortress by yourself. You managed to be a human crane. Anyways, despite how strong we have become, there are still things out there that are way stronger, so we need to level up, especially before heading out. I think that’s the most ideal thing from how I look at things. When we are at a decent level then we will look for the others.” he said, folding his arms together.

“Well, in the first place how would we even find these others?” she asked rather confused,

“Well it’s pretty obvious. I used the custom goal to search for the nearest person within my vicinity and it led me to you. We will just use the custom goal to find the others.”

“Holy shit, I hadn’t thought about that at all, you can actually track people using the custom goal? Wow.” she said, almost falling off to the side in pure shock. Tanatswa was also surprised that she didn’t know, but his guess was that the kind of information you’d find out about the mechanics would be based on what you prioritised in your searches. Tanatswa then went on to say, “Well, yeah you can do that and it seems like you using the custom goals has helped you with carpentry for this hut.”

“Actually, I didn’t use the custom goal for the hut or the fortress. This may sound super crazy but before I died I was in my final year of university studying housing and architecture. I have a background knowledge in that stuff and also my dad ran a business that contracted builders and stuff. So, crazy how that knowledge became applicable here.” she said, a bit stoic in her delivery.

“Wow, that’s crazy. Architecture, I didn’t think you were the type.” he said, with his eyes wide open in awe.

“Well, yeah, it has always been in the blood,” she said, getting slightly sad at the thought of recalling her past memories, “but anyways, we will make use of the custom goal thing to find the others, but personally I wanted to first develop this piece of land that we are on. Like I want to make it feel like a liveable place or home base. I know it sounds crazy to want to establish your own place in a foreign territory you have barely had time to fully experience, but I want a place where I can crash whenever I think shit out there is too intense. So a home base is my main goal for now.”

“A home base, wow. Okay, well I guess I will help you with that as well. I could pick up a thing or two from the architecture professional.” he said, rather excited by her prospects.

“Well I am technically not a pro because I never got a chance to graduate. Well, anyways what was your profession back when, you know, you were still alive?” she asked, slightly curious to hear his answer.

“Well I actually never got a job offer after I graduated. I did a computer science degree, but I was particularly fond of making websites and stuff.” he said with a rather unenergetic response.

“Hmm, that sounds, well, interesting?” she said, not sure what to make of what he just told her, considering that his response seemed enthusiastic.

“You don’t have to say interesting, probably web development sounds boring to you so you don’t have to fake it with the remark ‘interesting’.” he said with a rather serious tone.

“Wow, you’re very direct and blunt. Well cool, in some way it’s an interesting thing. Like aren’t netflix and youtube made by web developers? I mean making stuff like that seems cool, people like you are important in the internet age.” she said, trying to keep the conversation positive.

“Well I wasn’t at the level of making netflix or youtube, anyways let’s just get back on topic. So basically the plan is to train, experiment and test the custom goal mechanics as much as possible, max out our stats, level up as much as possible, help you make this place look like a home or something and then finally seek out others. Did I miss out anything?”

“Well, I think we should also make an effort to get to know each other. Despite you thinking that I would for some reason naturally think that IT jobs are boring, mind you I had a lot of friends in university who did IT and we would hang out and discuss stuff. Don’t be quick to think that I would relegate your past to be dull, I mean we are both dead idiots who committed suicide so there is no need for me to be rude and sideline you. So feel free.” she said, with a nice smile that made Tanatswa get butterflies inside. She was really unpredictable or rather he wasn’t used to this kind of female interaction and then told her, “I think women like you are a rare breed.”

“Wow, that came out of nowhere. Well I will take that as a compliment. So shall we start working on these plans of ours?”

“Whenever you’re ready, because I think I really want to see how far I can go with this body of mine.”

The two of them had finally come to an agreement and were willing to fulfill their goals. With their 4 highest stats near the finishing line, who knows what special abilities they would get.