An explanation later.

“Well, I need to get stronger without you in some way, don’t I?” Rave asked as they were sitting around her room. Copernicus was fervently denying coming out right now so Rave had eventually given up. “Yeah but that jump is stupid high.” “Aaaand?” “And that is bullshit.” “Hey, I needed twenty years to get to this point. If you grind non-stop for a week you reach this level. Now tell me whose ability is bullshit again?” Rave confronted him and John had no other choice but to sigh and agree to that.

“In other news, I was wrong about Moira.” Rave admitted her wrong-doings, “So what is our plan now?” “Now we look into Victoria…. how about we call Travolta and look if he found out anything?” John suggested and with some **** but now thoroughly without arguments Rave pulled out her phone, put it on speaker and called Travolta.

“What?” The annoyed voice of the Guild Leader echoed from the phone. “Hey, Travy, it’s me, Rave.” “I know I can fucking read.” Came the disgruntled answer. “The hell do you want?” There was a sound in the background like something that was rotating with tremendous speed. “Well, I wanted to apologize for yesterday and...” “Wait, yesterday? Don’t you mean today?” Travolta probed, his voice seemed slightly panicked, “No the meeting was yesterday.” “Shit…okay make this short I need to do something.” “so we found out Moira is innocent.” “Shocker.” Was the dry answer to that. John looked at the phone with a raised eyebrow. Sure, Travolta wasn’t the nicest person around but he usually was controlled angry, now he sounded just straight up angry and…panicked, like something was after him.

John was confused, Travolta had been, aside from himself, by far the one with the coolest had during the accident with Jimmie and later on during the Guild meeting. Only one moment he had slightly lost control over his anger was when he told Victoria to never come back. Personally John thought that particular fit of anger had been justified to a certain degree.

The rotating sound in the background stopped and was replaced by the sound of glass clacking against glass. “You want something else?” Travolta asked. “We will look into Victoria next.” John said, “Just wanted to know if you got any leads.” “No, if I have been busy securing the Arcade…speaking of which it is best if you don’t come here for a while…and look after Jimmie for me.”

Before either of them could ask about the why Travolta ended the call. “That…wow…just a second please.” Rave said and called him again. He didn’t pick up. “Motherfucker!” She cursed loudly causing John to jump. Mad Rave was not a nice Rave to be around. “Urgh, now I want to punch something really hard….” She murmured and threw herself on the bed. John looked at the time. It was close to 15 o’clock. There still was time to farm a bit. He felt however like he was forgetting something.

‘Düd dü düüü.’ He heard a bad imitation of the Skype-Call noise in his head. The voice was almost emotionless with a hint of pride. The guess wasn’t hard. ‘What the hell Aclysia?’ ‘I read today that just suddenly talking to someone is rude, Master so I searched for what is called ringtones. Does it not please you, Master?’ John thoughtfully wiggled with his head, ‘I wouldn’t say that but you accidentally picked one of the three most annoying sounds I can think off. We should find something else in the future.’ ‘Understood. The reason why I call then: I have been informed that dinner should be read at 15:00 but with neither you or Mistress Rave returning yet I have worry that the food will get cold before you arrive. Shall I post-pone the cooking?’

There was what he forgot, ‘You are a treasure Aclysia!’ He thought and got some happy humming back. ‘The answer is Yes. Can you hold for a second.’ ‘For you always, Master.’ “Jane, how does punching monsters and then fucking the rest of your anger out in a threesome sound as afternoon plans?” He asked. In response Rave shot up out of her lying position, “But we punch something that isn’t made off wood for a change.” She demanded. “Can do.” John smiled “In that case sign me up.”

‘Okay, Aclysia forget about cooking for now. I need you to take some money out of the household purse and use it to ride a bus ticket to our usual hunting ground. Can you do that?’ ‘I have the route memorized, Master.’ Came the response, ‘I do however feel uncomfortable about using the money designated for the household for my own transportation.’ ‘Don’t worry about it, I will put new money in later.’ John eased her worries. ‘I understand, in that case I will wait for you at the bus station closest to the designated target.’ Aclysia said. ‘Very good, see you in a bit.’ ‘Click.’ She thought out loud and John giggled.

“Okay, so Aclysia will await us at the forest.” He informed his girlfriend and they got moving. It was great to not watch over Aclysia all the time. During the last week, he had the idea to just let her run the errands of grocery shopping and do the chores so that she wouldn’t spent all her day doing nothing (or worse: On reddit).

The first time he did that it went catastrophic. Aclysia had been molested, screamed at, cursed and somebody even tried to hire as a hooker. He had been monitoring the whole ordeal from start to finish. The second time around he made sure that he raised Aclysia’s Charisma to 10 first. Now people only stared at her when she went out because of her outfit but they no longer found her as sympathetic as a piece of spoiled fish. Since then there were no problems (Although she had been dragged into a photoshoot one time). John was fairly certain that, if it wouldn’t be for Gaia downplaying things Abyss related to the common human, Aclysia could become some sort of local legend.

That aside she kept the apartment clean to the point that he was afraid his mother would be suspicious of him when she returned. The same problem didn’t apply for the money luckily, he just put that into his inventory and only left 20$ in the envelope to make it seem like he was responsible with the money. Truth was that he simply had so much of the stuff that he couldn’t be bothered.

“Oh crap! I wanted to look into Mana Items from the Auction!” He suddenly blurted out as they arrived at their destination. “Little late for that now.” Rave said and nudged him out of the bus, “Well, okay, ya could actually still buy stuff but the extra you would have to pay to order it here would be massive.” “Why though? They have flying drones I don’t believe that it would cost them that much more.” “It won’t cost THEM more but they know that ya would generally pay more for deliveries in the middle of nowhere.” Rave explained. John sighed as economic classes sprung back into his head, “Yeah, yeah, Demand and Availability are the factors of the price.”

They headed over to Aclysia who was standing next to the bus sign, in the exact middle of a stone slab and perfectly still like a statue with hands folded in front of her waistline. She only reacted once John stepped next her. “Greetings, John.” She said with a bow. Yes, he, at the very least, had managed to get her to call him by his name in public. At all other occasions, though…

Fifteen steps towards the forest and there it was, “What is our goal today, Master? Treants?”