158 The Hero’s Duty

'You will get it when you meet him… if he says something stupid just ignore it and play along with him.'

…

Those were the words that came to my mind after Pinky greeted us.

'Hello, my name is Spencer, you must be Pinky.'

I was going to stretch my hand, but I figured that it was difficult to give a handshake to a rat, so I made a slight bow as greeting instead.

'It's my honor to meet you oh great Hero, this humble servant it's indeed Pinky, the lord of the sewers and king of the rats, you have our kingdom at your disposition in this crusade to free the Green continent from the influence of the Demon Lords.'

…

Well, Dante was right… he is weird.

'I'm grateful for it, your help couldn't have arrived in a best moment, I wanted to thank you for what you did yesterday on behalf of Green Shelter.'

'There is no need for it Hero, as I said we are together in this crusade.'

As I talked with Pinky, I remembered the object that Dante told me to give him.

'Dante told me to give this to you.'

I took out the triangular object wrapped on Cai-Cai skin and pass it to him.

'Sacred scale!! I'm sorry great hero! But it's not possible for us to accept something like this, a scale from the goddess herself it's not something that we mere mortals can accept.'

… play along~. Date's words resounded once more time in my head.

'It's not that difficult… just imagine that you are inside that VRMMORPG~ that used to love in school.'

That's not a memory…

'Dante stop playing with my head…'

'I wasn't playing. I'm just telling you… it's embarrassing, but it's the best way to deal with that idiot.'

A lot of things started to make sense… why he always avoided explaining about Pinky… he probably was embarrassed about it, I wonder what kind of stuff he had to say while playing along…

Whatever this is for the mission.

'That's too bad, Cai-Cai… I mean the Snake goddess will be sad when she hears that her gift was rejected by her followers.'

'Stop! We can't make the snake goddess sad… but this is too much of a gift for us…'

'You can make a temple around it so you can go pray to her, the connection with the sacred scale might make it easier for her to listen to you in times of need.'

I have no idea what I'm talking about, and I could even hear Hayley laughing behind me. Rose would find this so fun, I think she might even start talking with him about her novels as a reference.

'That's a great idea!'

Without him giving any kind of signal thousands of rats around us started to run and move stuff around, like if they were one entity.

'Since I'm not worthy of carrying such sacred artifact I will ask for the Hero to keep it until we finish the temple. Don't worry we have a travel method for you to arrive in time to the Blood Lord domains, Dante already explained to me that tonight we are taking down one of his generals.'

… Blood lord must refer to Hamilton.

Since we will need to wait here for a while, we were guided by Pinky to a place where we could sit. That area was incredibly clean.

'We are aware of the surfacers standards, so we prepared this area to receive the Hero's party and Snaked goddess envoys.'

There was a wooden bench to sit and a couple of plastic stools I went to the bench, and Hayley sat at my side. We took our chance to eat some of our rations and drink water.

'I haven't introduced the rest of the team properly…" I started to point as I mentioned them. "Milo sub-leader of Green Shelter Hunting team, Mark, a renown vanguard and this is my friend Hayley she has a control type power.'

When I mentioned Hayley Pinky's eyes shine a little.

'Oh, so the Hero's woman is here too.'

I spill the water when I heard his words and started coughing.

'No, she is just a friend, I already have a girlfriend, and she will join us later.'

I didn't want any weird rumors because of this so I might have overreacted a little.

'Oh! Sorry for my rudeness, I thought that she had already joined the hero's harem.'

This time it was Mark the one that spat the water, but it was because he was laughing. Hayley didn't say anything, but she was a little red now and giggling…

I focused on what I just said and noticed that there were two ways for it to be understood…

'No, no. I didn't mean like that, I meant my girlfriend will join the team during the mission, not Hayley joining my harem…'

This time even Milo was looking at me with weird eyes. I'm just making this worse

'And I don't have and don't plan to make a harem either.'

I could see mark enjoying this, Hayley was a little confused but also found it amusing, I decided to not go into her head because I already know a bit of what she thinks about me thanks to mind reading. Milo was just shaking his head with a hand on his head.

I totally get why Dante hates this rat…

Pinky tilted his head like as if he didn't understand what I was talking about.

'Why? The Hero is bounded to do great things, because of his greatness women always will follow, making just one of them happy is evil and cruel for them, hence having multiple women to make them happy is a part of the hero's destiny… it's almost as important as stopping the demon king!!'

This must be a joke…

'I will think about it, tell me when the temple is ready we need to be ready.'

'Of course, remember hero you have a duty to fulfill, and sometimes it might be difficult, but this is for the greater good. I will give you time to rest.'

Pinky made a bow and left us there while he went to keep an eye to the new temple construction.

After he left Mark looked at Hayley and me and smiled.

"So… Hayley, are you joining his harem, or do you have someone else in your mind."

It was clear that he was trying to hit on her. Hayley was a little embarrassed because of what Pinky said, but even after this, she wasn't going to let Mark tease her.

"I don't know, first we have to see during the building of the harem if I manage to get an interview. From what I heard from pinky the competition will be rough if I'm lucky enough to be selected to be part of the harem would be amazing."

She put her hands in a prayer position with shining eyes.

"But! Even if I get selected with so many girls on it, I still have to see the conditions, the timeshare I get, the cuddle's rights and all that. So the harem is the priority for now, but It's too difficult to say if I will be part of it, for now, maybe I can't even pass the filters of the casting."

I remember a game show where a bunch of people competes to get a date with a celebrity, I always thought it was stupid, but this reminds me of that tv show. Mark followed her game teasing me.

"I believe that you can easily pass those filters, don't worry."

Luckily Milo was there to stop this nonsense before it continued.

"Can we take this seriously? I get that you think this is fun but we didn't come to play or to discuss her probabilities of getting into Spencer's harem. We should be moving."

I decided to ignore the harem comments and focus on the last part to change the subject.

"We have to wait a little more, the relations with Pinky are important. They might be rats but remember that they took care of a wave stronger than the one we face during the evacuation."

He sighed because he knew that I was right.

"Sure but if it takes too much time, we will have to leave."

As we talked, Pinky appeared.

'Hero the temple still needs time to be ready, but we already have the place for the sacred scale ready.'