"So that's how it is?"
Sharan glanced at Leo. She didn't particularly care about the details of his situation. Instead, she placed a brooch in front of him.
"Take this and use it. It will allow the people you speak with to understand what you're saying. It only lasts for one month, but that should be enough time for you to learn the local language."
After saying that, Sharan turned and left. The brooch was a fairly valuable item—a consumable magic tool she had personally crafted—but as long as it helped, that was enough for her. She wasn't especially concerned about money.
Leo hurriedly thanked her.
"Thank you very much, Miss Sharan. I'll definitely repay you for this item in the future."
Sharan turned back and smiled.
"No need to repay me. Just buy me a drink sometime."
With that, she left the room completely. Leo wanted to say something more, but at that moment, the doctor spoke up.
"All right, sir. Now that you can understand us, there's no need to worry too much about your companion. She simply suffered a shock and fainted. She'll wake up shortly."
The doctor explained the situation, and Leo quickly expressed his thanks. He then sat down beside Kelly's bed and waited.
The doctor's judgment was accurate. Not long after the doctor left, Kelly opened her eyes and stared straight at Leo.
"So why are you here?" she asked flatly. "Did I end up back in hell again?"
Kelly looked at Leo with a complicated expression. She remembered clearly—she had fallen into the sea of the Celestial Realm, and because she couldn't swim, she'd sunk straight toward the abyss.
Just as she thought she was done for, she hit some strange boundary.
Then she was suddenly out of the sea, in some bizarre place. The ocean there felt… wrong. Not long after that, she felt her body go weightless again and started falling once more.
If a piece of drifting wood hadn't smashed into her head, she wouldn't have been completely fine.
"The good news is, you didn't go back to that shitty world," Leo said. "The bad news is, I came to save you—and now we're broke. We owe a pair of fisherman father and son for saving our lives, we owe the doctor for treatment, and we owe a mage for a magic item."
Kelly shuddered.
"That sounds worse than hell."
Being broke was already bad enough, but she was more curious about something else.
"Still… since you saved me, shouldn't you be heading back now? Or did you already send Lux back?"
Kelly looked at Leo carefully. She thought he was a bastard, but the fact that he'd rushed over to save her proved he was a good person—someone who wouldn't break a promise lightly.
So why was he still here?
She sized him up, then flopped back onto the bed and spread her arms out.
"You're not still thinking about sleeping with me, are you? Fine, go ahead, you animal. I'll just pretend I got bitten by a mosquito. That thing of yours isn't even bigger than my double-barreled shotgun anyway."
Leo's eye twitched.
"You really know how to ruin a serious moment."
"I need almost ten thousand energy points to go back," he said, sighing. "Even if I screwed you until you got pregnant, it still wouldn't be enough. So I need to make a fortune here—then hire a bunch of women to sleep with me so I can grind energy."
"But women who do it for money won't have much emotional engagement, so the efficiency will probably be terrible."
He looked at Kelly.
"So you're going to help me make money. That's the cost of saving you."
"WHAT?!" Kelly exploded. "You want me to earn money so you can go whoring?! How the hell do you have the nerve to say that?!"
"Then are you willing to treat me as your husband and let me screw you eighty times?"
"NO!" Kelly snapped. "Who the hell would let you in?! Who cares about you at all?! Don't drag me into this!"
She turned her head away angrily.
Leo sighed.
"I still think it'd be better to fuck this bastard until he's foaming at the mouth. Yeah. Just like Lux."
As he spoke, his hand reached out and grabbed Kelly's chest. The softness instantly eased his tension.
Kelly froze like she'd been struck by lightning. Face red, she grabbed Leo by the collar.
"You asshole! What are you doing?!"
Just as she was about to explode, a cough came from the doorway. The two of them looked up to see the beautiful female doctor standing there, utterly awkward.
"This is a church hospital," the doctor said stiffly. "So if you're both recovered—"
They were kicked out.
Walking along the bustling streets, Leo and Kelly looked at the endless stream of cargo carts, the dense rows of shops, and sighed in unison.
"So why am I the only one with a language problem?" Leo complained. "You can communicate just fine here. Does the Celestial Realm seriously use the same language as this place?"
"What's so strange about that?" Kelly replied. "There's a legend that the lower world was developed by Celestial people fleeing from war. I just didn't expect it to be true."
She suddenly got excited and tugged on Leo's sleeve, pointing ahead.
"Leo, look! It's the Mage Guild! There's actual magic here!"
"I'm literally talking to you right now because of magic," Leo muttered, tapping the brooch on his chest.
"And do you even have money?" he added. "Learning magic requires full-time study. How much do you think you can afford? Let's sell the gold first."
Kelly deflated.
"Right… lunch isn't even settled yet. Magic can wait."
Then suddenly, she froze—and a gold bar appeared in her hand.
"Wait… can the gold from that world actually be used here?"
Leo shrugged.
"Only one way to find out. Worst case, we sell steel. You know how much of that junk we've got."
Kelly's eyes sparkled as she imagined the thousands of steel ingots in her inventory.
But just as Leo continued scanning the street for a pawnshop or bank, a disturbance broke out ahead.
A woman in a yellow combat outfit was slammed to the ground by another woman in tight battle gear. A brick smashed down on her head, and two needles glowing with purple venom were driven straight into her back.
"This is what happens when you don't pay your debts!"
The woman screamed once, then collapsed unconscious.
The attacker stood up calmly. The guards didn't react. The bystanders barely glanced over.
Leo clicked his tongue.
"Damn… this place really is hardcore."