I took it easy at the start of the next day. I slept longer, skipped breakfast, and went for a walk around the commoner district. I had nowhere to rush right now. Running more dungeons would be pointless considering the experience penalty, and I was planning to grab a bounty from Cora during the lunch anyway.

  As the time to have lunch with the two women came, I slowly headed to the Cock-a-doodle-doo Rooster. I arrived a few minutes before twelve and headed straight to the table where I could already see a smiling and waving Cora next to a pouting Juliet. Seeing them, Alrune didn’t miss the opportunity to speak up, her voice playful.

  “Look at Juliet; she is way overdressed for a business lunch. What was she thinking?”

  Now that Alrune mentioned it, I noticed. The dress she wore had the same style she usually favored, but this one had a very glossy, almost metallic finish. The slit on the side went a little higher, and her neckline—oh god. I thought her neckline was brave the day she was flaunting her assets to me, but this plunging neckline made it so that she didn’t even have to try.

  I slowly approached the table, smiling. “Greetings, Juliet and Cora. How have you been?” I asked, sitting down.

  A smiling Cora answered, “Good, really good. And you?”

  “It was complicated!”

  “How come?” she asked further, while Juliet started to look like she ate a lemon, seeing conversation flow just fine without her.

  I just inwardly chuckled and continued. “You remember that bandit camp you gave me a request for?”

  “Yes, I do. Did something happen?”

  “Not really. I got to know that the requester was the Slavers' Guild, after I found a small girl chained and beaten in a cage, with a slave crest!”

  “Ouch! What did you do?” a worried Cora asked.

  “I freed her from slavery and placed her in the Healing Heart Orphanage. She was refusing to speak. Poor girl must have seen things not really meant to be seen by adults.”

  “Shit! Sorry about that! I had no clue about the kiddo. I knew that the requester was the Slavers' Guild and hoped you wouldn’t ask. And you didn’t….”

  “All good; it would be worse if some psycho got the job. Since the girl was a slave, she was officially mine once I cleared the bandits. Having her owned by some cunt—” Delivered in a calm, silent voice, that still somehow felt that it could cut paper in half. “—that would try to sell her, or worse. It sounds so bad that being disgusted by helping the Slavers' Guild for a bit doesn’t seem like such a bad deal.”

  Cora was about to speak up, but Juliet decided to take a break from her scowling, seeing that I was chatting with Cora just fine, while ignoring her. “What about the fox on your neck?”

  “Ahh! This girl!” I patted the fox’s head. “This is Yuki. Selah, the little girl from the bandits, has her sister Snowflake. They are something like emotional support animals for her.”

  She nodded in understanding, not asking further. Maybe because around this time a server stopped by and took our drink orders. The moment he left, Cora chimed in. “Considering what you mentioned, you have the missive signed, right?”

  I nodded and handed it to her.

  “Perfect! I will complete the request for you. Should I look for a new one?”

  “That would be nice. I wanted to ask you for one.”

  Cora nodded and went to work on her tablet. Juliet used this opening to speak up. “You wanted to sell some stuff?”

  “Yes, please!”

  She presented me with a cube like the last time. As she did, I asked, “Will you take crap from the bandits, or should I sell that junk somewhere else?”

  “Just put it in there!” responded Juliet.

  I unloaded everything I had: a bunch of monster cores of different sizes, mundane weapons from the bandits, some alchemy reagents from the dungeon—just everything. I left behind just a chest I had totally forgotten to open. That gave me an idea.

  “Cora, Juliet, you wanna play a little guessing game?”

  Cora shrugged while tapping away. “Sure!”

  Juliet replied with an excited voice. “Gladly!”

  I placed the chest in the middle of the table, continuing. “I found this in the bandit camp. Let’s guess what is inside.”

  Juliet’s hand flew into the air as she chirped in with a good mood. “Gold! It must be gold!”

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  Cora’s gaze left the tablet as she looked over the wooden chest on the table. “Weapons?”

  I shrugged. “Considering it was just a bunch of schmucks...” I thought for a few seconds. “Silver and copper?”

  “No fair! I already had gold!” pouted Juliet once again, but this time it was more of a playful one.

  I chuckled and asked, “All ready for me to open it?”

  Both of them nodded and I opened the chest. Inside was a pouch with a bunch of gold, silver, and copper, a nice ornamental dagger, and a book. I placed the dagger and the chest itself inside the black cube, selling it instantly and the money went straight to my inventory. While the two girls celebrated a little that everybody was right, I checked the book. Seeing the contents, I spoke urgently.

  “Cora, these are sale records. It lists to whom they were selling slaves.”

  “Show me!” sounded from Cora, her voice very serious. She looked over the records and continued. “These are the complete records of an illegal slave trade. If you don’t mind, I will drop this at a guard station; they will have a nice reward for you!”

  “Thank you, I would be very grateful for that. How about the missions? Did you find something?”

  “I have two things; I suggest you take both. First one is a quick little gig here in the city, but very well paid. Wealthy baron here in the city asked for a ‘handsome, combat-ready escort’ for his daughter for a night. The baron requests often various minor things and pays very well. The second job is to remove a target in the outer district—a man that forced himself on the wife of the requester. This one offers less than average pay, but removes an asshole from the face of Galaniel. Guards don’t give a damn about the outer district and won’t go there, even now that the victims moved into the commoner district. So, what do you think? Taking them?”

  “What does the ‘handsome, combat-ready escort’ entail exactly?”

  Cora chuckled. “Bodyguard in a suit for a social gathering. Daddy is worried about his little treasure and she wants some eye candy while at the gathering.”

  “Sign me up for both!”

  “Perfect!” spoke Cora and looked back to her tablet.

  After this, I managed to complete the transaction with Juliet just before the server appeared and brought us our drinks. “Ready to order food?”

  “Sure, I will have this pasta.” Juliet pointed to a line in the menu for the server.

  “I will have the same, please!” quickly added Cora.

  “I will try the Stando-fish!”

  I didn’t expect such a vivid reaction to me ordering food. Alrune started laughing in my mind once again, after she somehow managed to wheeze out, “Nice one!”

  Cora ended up spraying her drink all over herself, since she was in the middle of drinking when I ordered. Juliet on the other hand just went back to her ‘eating lemon face’, avoiding eye contact while blushing all over her face and neck. Even the server had a hard time keeping a straight face.

  For a moment, I was confused. Between the howling laughter in my head, the almost-chuckling server, the sputtering Cora, and a bright-red Juliet, it finally all came together.

  “Fuck! Sorry for that, I really just wanted to try the fish. See?” I turned over the menu and pointed to the line with the food I wanted. “It’s called ‘Stando-fish’! It’s a special fish with a bunch of garlic.”

  Cora almost fell from her chair, holding her flat belly as she laughed. The server could no longer hold it in and started chuckling, covering his mouth, while Juliet looked like she was going to cry. This time it was Alrune who reacted through her wheezing.

  “Dude, just stop it. First you invite her sister to what she thought was going to be a date, then you order shit called ‘Stando-fish,’ and you finish it with an explanation that it’s just a dish loaded with garlic. You may as well carry a huge sign: ‘NOT INTERESTED’!”

  Properly realizing the mess I had made by ordering a dish, I sighed. I stood up and walked in front of Juliet. There, I bowed deeply and spoke with a tone that was sincere and mature.

  “I sincerely apologize! It wasn’t my intention to humiliate you or anything like that. I really just found the dish interesting and wanted to try it.”

  This made the tables around us freeze. Not to toot my own horn, but I was in a quite noticeable body. About one point nine meters tall, built like a brick house, handsome face—the whole package. People are normally checking me out even when I am not sitting at a table with two beauties.

  So, when I stood up and bent in front of one of them, it attracted a lot of attention. But honestly, I didn’t care about that one bit; I just knew that I had unintentionally overstepped and wanted to make sure everybody knew it was not on purpose.

  The surprise came a few seconds later. I was still keeping my head down, when Cora’s voice rang through the room.

  “Sis, don’t be hard on him. He really didn’t want to hurt you! He just didn’t realize exactly what he was ordering!”

  “I know, Cora,” spoke Juliet. “But I wanted to let him simmer for a moment longer.”

  I slowly raised my head towards Juliet. She looked much calmer; she was even smiling a bit. As she noticed me peeking at her, she spoke, nodding toward my chair with her head.

  “Sit down, Mr. Stando-fish!”

  I chuckled and went to sit back in my chair, really happy that the tense atmosphere I brought to the table had gone away. We talked shop for some time, and then, just as we were about to leave, Juliet took a deep breath and spoke.

  “Look, Victor, we are not teenagers, and considering all that happened today, we should stop playing games. I think it is obvious that I am interested in you! So, could you please give me a plain, direct answer? Do you not find me attractive?”

  My eyes ran across the two sisters, both of them tense. Cora was looking at me with conflicted feelings; on one hand, she didn’t want anybody to be close to her darling Juliet, but on the other, she didn’t want her sister to be rejected to her face. Juliet’s face was filled with nervousness and fear, with a little bit of hope sprinkled over the top.

  There was no dancing around this situation, so I decided to spill the beans.

  “It’s not that I don’t find you attractive. On the contrary, in fact, I find both of you really gorgeous. I even enjoy spending time with you two; it’s really fun. The issue is that I am not looking for a relationship—with anybody.”

  The reaction I got was something I really didn’t expect. Cora blushed heavily and diverted her gaze to the ground, while Juliet smiled from ear to ear, her face shining like a miniature sun.

  “So you find me attractive! OK then, I will make you fall for me and want a relationship with me!”

  To say that I ended up confused as they left the table would be the understatement of the century. One promising to conquer my heart, the second embarrassed beyond belief—they left the table. As I was trying to dissect what had just happened, my lovely little inner demon spoke.

  “Nice one! For a person that tries to keep his distance from chicks, you are quite a player. Instead of dropping one, you added the second to the running! Maybe I will get the threesome I wanted to watch.”