Chapter 9: Chapter 9

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Core of Eros
Mana: 3.7k
Tier: 1

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“Shit,” Aseri said. “It really does work like that. Huh.”

“It’s more than I thought.” More than a thousand mana, for a quick handjob. “There has to be diminishing returns.”

“You think so?”

“It doesn’t seem like a reasonable mechanic, otherwise.”

“Mechanic?”

Stop using game terminology. “A cooldown, or diminishing returns, would mean we had to get work done between … sessions. I don’t think the core would reward constant, uh.”

“Sex,” Aseri said amusedly. “You’re a sex demon, and you’re awkward about saying the word sex.”

“I’m in polite company.”

“I just jerked you off.”

She has a point. “Okay. But I didn’t want to be crude. I’m not awkward about it.” I’m definitely awkward about it. Sue him. It wasn’t every day he’d been transported between worlds to be jerked off by a gorgeous semi-human monster girl.

“Okay,” Aseri said. “You’ve gotta let him recharge, anyway. So we can get some work done in the meantime. But we should confirm your theory—as soon as he’s going, let’s try again.”

It could be you, next, Logan thought about saying. But Aseri was a practical woman; she had to have realized that. Which meant she didn’t want to be next. Logan wouldn’t push that. He should consider himself lucky she was willing to interact with the core’s strange behavior at all.

“Sure.” Having been recently emptied out by Aseri’s determined movements, and her shirt having been thrown back on, covering up her heart-stopping body, he was able to think clearly. “What’s our goal?”

“Grunts,” Aseri said instantly. “You got unlucky, getting me first. We need to tunnel to a spawning pool as soon as we can, and start building a work force. Two people can only get so much done.”

Unlucky? Getting Aseri first? But he understood the point. “Spawning pool. Will that be at one of those pinpricks of light?”

“Pinpricks? Is that how you guys know where to go?”

‘You guys’? Avatars, she meant. “Yeah. When I’m in [Ethereal Form], I can see … points of interest.”

“Ethereal Form,” she said. “An Avatar skill?”

He nodded. 

“Neat. Never had an Avatar willing to talk about this stuff. Not one I can remember, at least.”

Aseri had made a few references to other lives. It didn’t take significant deduction to know monsters reincarnated, and lost memories of their old lives over time. Would it work the same for him? Seeing how he wasn’t a real monster, he didn’t want to try. His gut said no. One magic reincarnation is all this guy gets. Though was it a reincarnation? Logan didn’t even know if he had died, much less how.

He planned on asking more about monster life, but focusing on practicals was both—well, practical—and what Aseri was clearly itching to do.

“So. More tunneling.” He grimaced.

Aseri laughed and patted him on the back. “I feel that. But yeah, more tunneling. Dungeon set-up isn’t a glamorous thing. We can talk and work, at least. You have company now.”

Boredom hadn’t been his main concern … it was that he was tired from digging rock for several hours straight. But he better get used to it. There wasn’t a chance he was tapping out now that Aseri had joined him. 

Okay, maybe I have a bit of an ego. Not coming off as weak to his new ally mattered a lot more to him than it should.

Or, not a whiner. If he was weak, or deficient in some way, he wouldn’t let it stand in the way of accomplishing necessary tasks. He’d tell her, and they’d figure something out. But here? Gritting his teeth and getting through some manual labor? He’d let his ego carry him forward on that.

Logan made her a shovel—they’d share the wheelbarrow—then they set off to the eastern wall to start digging toward the second closest ‘pinprick’.

Aseri’s shovel impacted the wall and bounced off, clanging loudly. Logan jumped—slightly—in surprise.

Aseri shot Logan an irritated look, then smoothed it over. “You didn’t give me privilege. I suppose I should’ve reminded you. Considering …” she waved a hand, not being explicit.

His ‘memory problems’. 

This wasn’t the first time Aseri had referenced a skill that wasn’t explicitly part of his arsenal. The core had only provided four—but he could do more. Heal, to name one. He’d been able to draw mana from the core to patch his wounds. 

Stab wounds, that this woman gave me. Logan had mixed feelings about that. Aseri had treated it as something totally inconsequential, so he forced himself to move past it. Violence is a way of life down here. Get used to it. 

But, additional abilities. ‘Privileges’, apparently, being one. How?

Listen to your instincts. That was how all of this had worked, so far. 

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Uh … give Aseri build privileges, he prompted that set of ingrained instincts. His attention latched to some indescribable pocket of information inside him, and he tugged, focusing it toward Aseri. Something shifted.

“Try now?”

Aseri’s shovel sank into the stone. It looked like she still had to struggle to embed it, but the tool dug in with supernatural ease. “Cool,” she said. “Thanks.”

She didn’t act like anything was unusual. Logan guessed that the dungeon was only so malleable for him, the Avatar. The grunts would be even less efficient than Aseri, at a guess.

But still. A second pair of hands was useful. She worked at around half his speed. Honestly, Logan felt bad about it. She had to put in twice the effort, just by fact she wasn’t the core’s Avatar. Logan had no right to complain about carving through the soft material.

“You can top yourself off, by the way,” Aseri said. “I should start stating the obvious, considering your situation.”

“Top myself off?”

“Refill your stamina, using mana.”

“I … can?”

“You’ve been digging this whole time without, haven’t you?”

Logan coughed.

“I was wondering why you were flagging.”

She’d noticed that? His attempts at nonchalance hadn’t worked, then. Fatigued muscles were hard to hide.

“You can do it for me, too,” Aseri said. “I’ll let you know when I need it. It’s not cost-effective, but getting to a spawning pool as fast as possible is worth it.”

He did so. The tiredness in his muscles erased, and he was briefly annoyed that he hadn’t discovered this sooner; it would have saved him hours of suffering.

They worked away. A few minutes in, Logan said, “You never answered me. What are you?” The conversation had taken a natural turn, and the question had been forgotten. “If it’s not rude, like I said.”

“Not rude, just odd,” Aseri said. “Infernal. Informally, lesser demons.”

“Lesser?”

She shot him a curious look. “Weaker, slower, less attuned to magic. Real demons—you—are better in almost every way. Not all monsters have the same potential. Demons are the highest, or in the highest ‘tier’, I guess. Infernals are pretty high up too, but not quite as high.” She paused. “Feels weird explaining all this to you.”

Thunk. His shovel impacted stone, and he tossed it in the wheelbarrow. It was a noisy process, and he and Aseri needed to raise their voices to be heard. 

“Infernal. Do they all have orange eyes?”

“Yeah,” Aseri said.

They’re beautiful, he wanted to say—but knew that would be odd. “What are mine?”

“Your eyes? Silver.”

“Silver?” He hadn’t expected that. “Is that all demons?”

“Silver, gold, or white. I … think. I haven’t seen many.”

“We’re rare?”

“That’s understating it.”

“Huh.”

They worked away.

“How’s he doing?”

“Sorry?”

“Logan Junior.”

“Please don’t.”

Aseri laughed. “Is he ready for round two? We need to find out if it’s a good method for farming mana, or if it’s like, once a day, or once every few hours.”

“We do. But … I don’t know?” What was he supposed to do, just try to pop a hard on? Here? Now?

Aseri rolled her eyes. “I’ll help. Let’s see if we can get him going.”

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