Konrad's body thrummed from a gentle pressure—in more ways than one. Sweet cinnamon scent tickled his nostrils before he could even pry his eyes open again. The pain? All gone.
Instead, a new sensation took over—the heat of soft thighs pressed flat against his groin.
A girl straddled his hips, clad only in scraps of fabric; wild, orange tangles in misshapen buns.
Blue paint smeared across her arms and cheeks in hasty lines, and a circle on her bare stomach.
Her face felt somehow familiar, and so did the situation. But he hit a concrete wall when trying to remember. A memory Konrad knew he had, but couldn't quite dig up for some reason.
"Enjoying the view?"
The smug grin revealed sharp but a little crooked incisors. Freckles shifted on an upturned nose and heart-shaped face. What he thought were buns turned out to be her ears.
Triangle-shaped and fluffy orange to match her hair, flicking around at every noise.
As she wiggled her hips to send Konrad over the moon, a tail came into view, too.
The white tuft swishing at its end could have hypnotized him all day.
"For the spirits, Liliske, have some decency," a groan came from the right.
Konrad's heart jumped, pushing the small body off his lap before he realised. He covered his groin with the last morsels of his sanity, his face burning bright red.
"Oww, that wasn't nice," the girl complained, dusting herself off.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a tall, redheaded man swing a heavy blade, decapitating the last of the Griphlets. That monster turned into smoke, too, gone as if it never existed.
Only a crystal remained, pulsing with a faint purple light.
"Guess we won't find the dungeon now," the man sighed, sheathing his blade.
"There'll be more clues," the girl said with a shrug, picking another crystal off Konrad's chest.
She threw it into her gaping maw, crunching like it was candy—but sounding more like glass. Her companion grabbed the rest in a hurry before she could get to them.
"Don't eat 'em, stupid," he smacked her head. "These each fetch a gold."
"Mmm, but tasty." Her chewing grated on their ears. "And you can't hunt without meow magic."
Konrad perked up at the last word.
"W-who are you?!"
"Oh, it talked," the man noted, wrestling the girl for the last of the crystals.
"He talked indeed," she chirped, skipping back to him. "Who? Call me Her Serene Demonic Highness, Liliana the Sorceress of Dragonfire. Or something. And that's my minion."
She performed an exaggerated curtsy, cut short by another smack on the head.
"Don't mess with him. I'm Welf, she's Lily. Both from the nearby tribe," the man offered a hand, yanking him off the ground at the same time. "You're a peddler? Is that your cart?"
Even when they finally stood face-to-face, Welf was still a head taller.
Sunburnt and wiry under a similar blue war-paint, he wasn't exactly overdressed either.
They were wildlings the merchants kept talking about—primitive and ruthless.
Yet they saved his life.
"No, uh. I'm Konrad. Konrad Ostfeld," he muttered, hoping that would not offend them. "The owner and the guards ran when those things appeared."
"Smart. You should've, too." Lily purred, dancing around him. "Konrad? Konny boy, huh?"
She sniffed at him from an inch away, making him even more self-conscious. Her sweet scent was intoxicating, but with a rough idea of how bad he must have smelled after the fight—
Welf had to step in, pushing her away to give him some space.
Konrad couldn't help but notice he had no feline features at all.
"Don't be a bother, Liliske. Go, check the cart," he rasped, and she'd skip away with a shrug. "You don't mind if we help ourselves, right? It's not yours anyway."
What was the question? He was too busy staring at that wiggling little—
Ah.
"N-no, go ahead," he mumbled, forcing blood back into his brain from his nether regions. "It's grain and dried chanterelles, but—did you say those crystals go for a gold each?!"
"Oh, dibs on the meow-shrooms," Lily yelled, already losing interest.
"Yes?" Welf said, shaking a pouch sounding like it was full of glass. "If you know the right buyer."
If that didn't smell like an opportunity, nothing did.
"I, uh, broke my gear killing two, so, um—their loot," Konrad had to clear his throat twice.
"Meow, you didn't," the girl protested without even looking up from looting. "When they're dead, they go 'POOF'. Did they go 'POOF'? No? Then they weren't dead."
He saw a monster go up in smoke before—so he wasn't hallucinating?
And there was a fireball, too, but it was all hazy. And why was he blushing now?
That girl was too wild and adorable, giving his brain the strangest signals.
Beasts near Haiten didn't explode—hunters would've gone out of business if they did.
He couldn't make sense of anything anymore.
"Well, guess you wounded two," Welf noted, scratching his temple. He threw Konrad a crystal that caught him off guard. "I'll fix your sword if you have the pieces. I'm a blacksmith after all."
"Huh?" He scrambled to grab the treasure, pulsing warm in his palms. "Thanks?"
"So you give away one, but I can't eat 'em?!" Lily complained, her mouth already full of chantrelles. "And I healed him for free, too."
Konrad only noticed then how much his tunic was in shambles, but he was not.
He tapped himself down, eyes going wide. "H-how?"
"How, how?" she puffed her non-existent chest, pointing at herself. "Told you—sorceress."
Right. She did say that. But in that case—
Konrad dropped to his knees, hands clasped together.
"Could you teach me? P-please!"
The redheads froze. Welf suppressed a chuckle while the girl struggled to swallow.
"Teach what?" she asked, fluttering her eyelashes.
"Magic," Konrad yelled, no longer caring about sounding desperate. "I'd do anything."
"Hmm." The girl raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms. "Do you happen to be a demonic entity older than time itself? A dark lord with untapped potential, yet to awaken?"
What kind of question was that? As much as he wished he were, Konrad shook his head.
"Then im-paw-sible," Lily said with a shrug, returning to stuff her face with more mushrooms.
"Sorry," Welf grunted, tapping his back as he helped him up again. "She was born like this."
"Born with magic?" Konrad asked, confused.
"No, batshit crazy," the redhead laughed. "You don't want her to teach that."
He wasn't even sure about that, struggling to hide his disappointment.
He was alive, yeah, but—even if he could find that mage in Aset, he had no money for tuition.
And learning from a beauty like her would have been a lot more motivating, too.
She was already back at devouring chanterelles, tail swishing in happy, fluid motions.
When she finished destroying at least three pounds of the food, she flashed him a grin.
"Hey, but even if I can't teach you, become my servant," she offered, flabbergasting him. Before he could even consider it, those cat ears started twitching again. "Ah, here they come."
"More Griphlets?" Konrad gasped, but saw nothing. Not even the two redheads—
Almost as if turning into smoke like the dying monsters.
He found himself alone with the cart again, but not for long.
The guards and the peddler returned moments later, shocked to find him alive.