SMASH or PASS

Chapter 62: Chapter Sixty-Two: Escort

Morning.

I woke up to a rather strange feeling.

I felt like I had a long, bizzare dream.

However, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t remember a single thing of it.

"...Weird."

◇◇◇

My body had officially reached its limit.

After many weeks of juggling countless fuck sessions every day, the muscle aches all over my body taught me that there’s a physical limit to optimization.

SP is earned by my dick. But my body doesn’t listen to my dick’s opinions.

There was a night quest posted on the Bronze Ledger bulletin board.

[Escort Mission: Merchant Cargo Transport]

[Route: Via Ashenmere Corridor to Lower Commercial District]

[Content: Guarding alchemy materials]

[Reward: 3 Gold Coins]

[Risk Level: Medium]

Three gold coins. That’s a lot of gold.

The journey to the elf forest didn’t really relax me as much so this may be a good chance?

There were three reasons why I accepted the job.

I needed money.

My fuck sessions were free, well, because the costumers and their SP were the product in those cases. I never asked for money for sex...

Now to think about it, maybe I should’ve charged them. Duke’s daughters, count’s daughters, and nearly all women in that academy wouldn’t hesitate to pay expensive price for this...

But it’s too late to start charging now after I nearly fucked everyone there.

I was rich on SP. But very low on actual gold.

Night quests usually pay better than daytime ones. And... well there’s no actual reason. Instead of just fucking and fucking and fucking at the academy, I wanted a job that didn’t involve smashing people.

...Well, I didn’t really smash anyone. To be precise.

◇◇◇

Fenra came on the escort run.

Since I told her about the needle demonstration in combat practice, her attitude towards combat-related quests had clearly changed.

She’s walking beside me. The distance of a combat partner.

Not the distance of a pet. Or the usual distance, at least.

But something was off.

Her ears were flat.

The angry-flat. The "someone is going to get killed and I haven’t decided who" flat.

"...Fenra?"

"Shut up." Fenra said in a cold voice.

"...!!!?"

Did I do something wrong?

Pixia was sitting on my shoulder. She smiled. "Weird for her to act this cold. Did you do something, Noel?"

"...Nothing I can think of."

Fenra stopped walking. She turned around. Her eyes were murderous. The kind that wives in this world probably used right before their husbands stopped existing.

"You two really have the guts to say that after what you two did last night!"

"...???"

What was she talking about?

Pixia raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Don’t play dumb!" Fenra’s tail was bristling. Every hair on it standing straight up. "I smelled it! I smelled EVERYTHING! You two! In the bed! While I was sleeping RIGHT THERE on the bed!"

Silence.

"You think my nose doesn’t work when I’m asleep!? It works BETTER when I’m asleep! Every scent gets recorded! EVERY. SINGLE. ONE." She was shaking. "Pixia’s mana was all over your face! Your forehead! Your SKIN! And her scent was—was—mixed with yours in a way that only happens when two people are—"

She couldn’t finish the sentence. Her face was red. Her ears were red. Even the inside of her ears was red.

"You two FUCKED!"

The street went quiet. A merchant three stalls down looked up from her cart. A stray cat paused mid-lick.

Pixia and I looked at each other.

Pixia burst out laughing.

"PFFT—what!? Me and HIM!? Did you have a weird dream or something, Fenra!?"

"It’s not a dream! I SMELLED it!"

"You smelled mana residue, you dumb wolf! I was checking his spiritual alignment while he slept! It’s a diagnostic! A FAIRY diagnostic! There’s nothing sexual about it!"

"Fairy diagnostics don’t leave THAT kind of scent pattern!"

"How would you know!? Are you a fairy!? Did you go to fairy medical school!?"

Fenra’s eyes narrowed. "I know what sex smells like. I’ve been smelling it on him every single night for five weeks. I am the WORLD EXPERT on what Noel smells like after he fucks someone. And last night, he smelled like he fucked YOU."

Pixia’s laugh died. She looked genuinely offended. "Okay first of all, have you SEEN me?" She flew off my shoulder and hovered in front of Fenra’s face, arms spread wide. She was about seven centimeters tall. "I’m THIS big! Where exactly would he put it!? Huh!?"

"I don’t know and I don’t WANT to know!"

"No seriously, think about it for two seconds! His dick is literally bigger than my entire body! The math doesn’t work! It’s physically, anatomically, structurally IMPOSSIBLE!"

"I know what I smelled!"

"You smelled a DIAGNOSTIC!"

I raised my hand. "Can I say something?"

"NO!" Both of them.

"I’m going to say something anyway. Pixia is seven centimeters tall. I don’t think I need to explain why that makes this impossible."

Fenra glared at me. "Then explain the smell."

"I can’t explain the smell. But I can explain basic geometry."

Pixia landed back on my shoulder. She crossed her tiny arms. Then she grinned. The kind of grin that meant something terrible was about to come out of her mouth.

"Well~ I mean, technically speaking, he COULD use my whole body as a masturbation tool~ just wrap me around it and go to town~ does that count?"

"PIXIA."

"What!? I’m helping! I’m proving it didn’t happen by showing how ridiculous it would be if it DID happen!"

"You are making it worse."

"I think it’s funny~"

"No, thank you. Absolutely not. Never."

"Your loss~ I’ve been told fairy skin is very smooth~"

"STOP."

Fenra’s eyes had gone from murderous to something beyond murderous. A new emotion. One that didn’t have a name yet. Something between "I will kill everyone in this street" and "I will cry for three days straight" and "I will never trust another living being again."

"Fenra." I stopped walking. Faced her. "Nothing happened. I swear on Rose’s bread."

"...Rose’s bread?"

"Rose’s bread."

She stared at me. Her nose twitched. Reading my face. Reading my sweat. Reading my heartbeat through the smell of my blood.

"...You’re not lying."

"I’m not lying."

"But the smell—"

"I don’t know what the smell was. But it wasn’t that."

Her ears slowly, slowly came back up. One at a time. Left first. Then right. Like two flags being raised after a siege.

Her tail unclenched.

"...If I EVER smell something like that again," she said, "I’m biting her in half."

"I’m SEVEN CENTIMETERS! You’d sneeze me out!"

"I’ll bite slow."

"Fenra, that’s—"

"SLOW."

I decided to stop talking.

We walked. Fenra was on my left. Pixia was on my shoulder. The air between them could have frozen steel.

Three blocks of absolute silence.

Then Pixia leaned toward my ear and whispered, just loud enough for wolfkin hearing to catch:

"For the record, the smooth skin thing wasn’t a joke~"

Fenra’s growl lasted the rest of the trip.

◇◇◇

The client was a man named Grellen.

He was in his thirties. A human male merchant. He’s the second independent male merchant I’ve seen in this town, after Aldren.

He was standing next to the handcart, trembling even before we arrived.

"Oh, um, are you from the guild? I’m glad you came... Oh, and, is the wolfkin with you too? Um, she won’t bite, right?"

"She won’t bite... Probably."

"P-probably..."

He gripped the handle of the handcart with both hands. There were twelve wooden crates on the bed. All different kinds of Alchemy ingredients.

"The route takes us through the Ashenmere corridor," Grellen said. "That’s the Solham family’s territory. They’ve been contesting my shipments for months. If they send someone..."

"I’ll handle it."

"Alone?! Alone, with only your guild badge, and no weapons visible?! The Solham family has four bodyguards! They’re all bigger than you! One of them is rumored to be part-ogre, and I’ve seen him lift a cart with one hand..."

"I have a wolfkin."

Grellen looked at Fenra.

She was walking on his left, between him and the dark side of the corridor. Her posture was combat-ready.

"...Yes, there is certainly an intimidating presence about her." Grellen admitted.

"She’s Second Rank."

"Second Rank." He processed this information. "What exactly does that mean?"

"It means the part-ogre with one hand would need both hands and still lose."

Grellen swallowed hard. He pushed the handcart faster. I could tell his anxiety had shifted from "I might get robbed" to "I’m being escorted by a beastkin who could kill everything in this corridor."

◇◇◇

The corridor was quiet for three blocks. Then Grellen’s monologue resumed.

"I don’t usually work at night. I’m a daytime merchant. Spices. Herbs. Nothing controversial. My wife said this contract would be good for expanding our client base. My wife is wrong about a lot of things, but she’s terrifying when I disagree, so here I am, walking through the Ashenmere Corridor in the middle of the night with a wolfkin and a man who think he is an Übermensch."

...huh. Didn’t expect to be called that here.

"Why do you think I’m an Übermensch?"

"You have that look. The calculating look. The look that says ’I’m doing arithmetic about whether to let this man die if the Solham guards show up.’ I’ve seen it on guild contractors before. The bastards who survive always have that look."

"I’m not calculating whether to let you die." I am.

"What are you calculating?"

"Whether the items distribution in this corridor matches the standard patrol pattern for the Ashenmere sector, or whether the security routes have changed since the last guild survey."

I didn’t pull that from my ass. I was doing that while also considering whether to let him die.

"...That’s even scarier. For some reason, that’s even scarier."

◇◇◇

The Ashenmere corridor was the merchant quarter’s main artery after dark. Wide enough for two carts. Lined with warehouses whose shutters were locked and whose security lanterns cast pools of orange light at regular intervals. The shadows between the pools were very dark. Anything could be standing in those shadows and you wouldn’t know until you were inside them.

Grellen narrated every shadow as a potential threat. "Did that move? It did, didn’t it? Isn’t that corner too dark? Why is only that corner so dark?"

"Shut up."

"I talk when I’m nervous."

"I noticed."

Fenra’s ears rotated. Tracking something ahead.

She stopped.

Body rigid. Head low. Tail straight.

I stopped too. Grellen crashed into the back of the handcart.

The crates rattled.

"What?! What is it?! Why did we stop?!"

"Something’s ahead."

"Something WHAT?! A guard something?! A robbery something?! A we-should-turn-around something?!"

’Something’ emerged from the shadows. It looked like...

A woman.

She stood in the middle of the road. In the center of the Ashenmere Corridor, as if she owned it.

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