42 Only Idiots go Bump in the Night

'Mn, comfy bed, but why does it smell like alcohol?'

'Oi, quit pokin' me.'

"S-sis, *hic!* oi sis."

'Ah, sounds like sis is drunk, leave me alone, drunk sis, I'm trying to sleep.'

"*hic!* Wakey wakey sis!"

'Oi, is drunk sis trying to put something in my mouth? Fuck off and let me sleep!'

"*hic!* sis! wake up, there'sh a ten-tenacle on your *hic!* your face!"

'Oi, you mean ten-ta-cle, idiot sister.'

'Wait...'

"TENTACLE!?"

*BOOM*

"Fuck!"

"Haaaaaa *hic!*"

Ai held her forehead as Amari crashed on the floor with blood flowing out of her broken nose.

"Yay~ *hic!* Sis is 'wake." Amari drunkenly giggled before she started snoring, passed out on the floor covered in her own blood.

"Pt!" Ai spat out what Amari was trying to shove in her mouth, it was, indeed, a fried squid tentacle. Ai shuddered the moment she saw it and kicked it away under Amari's bed.

"O-oi sis, you are never getting drunk around me again." She turned to Amari, her face was covered in blood but she still had a grin as she snored loudly.

"Oi, idiot." Ai said as she lifted Amari up and carried her to her bed. She cast [Heal] as it mended her broken nose and stopped the bleeding. Ai couldn't help but smile, even though her sis was an annoying drunk, she was cute when she was asleep.

Ai sat down on her own bed across the room and closed her now amber eyes. She decided to shoot out her senses in case anyone was out in the hallway this late at night and, sure enough, she sensed a few men picking the lock of the room next door.

Ai sighed and opened her normal silver and purple eye once more. "Of course there will be idiots. Ah well, now I'm awake and bored and there are a few skills I've been wanting to test out." She grinned with a hint of sadism as she remembered the dream where Aiya fought Andromeda and used her portals offensively, she wanted to try something out.

Running her hand over the metal web, she channeled mana to unlock the door and stepped out into the hallway, the three men stopped picking the lock and looked at the little girl that was glaring at them.

"Ey lads, looks like easy prey just fell into our laps. C'mere little girl, why don't you give us your goods nice and easy, an' nobody will get hurt."

Her eyes turned amber as she looked at the three idiots.

[Curtis: Level 5 Rogue]

[Nicholas: Level 7 Fighter]

[Gunther: Level 5 Mage]

"Oi, idiots, drop everything you stole and get the fuck out of here and you might get to live." Ai said as her lip twitched.

"Eh? You dumb, kid? It's three against one an' you're only Level 5. Kids shouldn't be cussing at your age, y'know?" Ai forgot that she had decided to disguise herself as a Level 5 Mage while in the city. Higher-level adventurers usually had more coins so she wanted to try to prevent any unwanted bandit attention, which didn't really matter now since she decided to go looking for trouble out of boredom.

"Ah, sorry about that, forgot about the disguise." She said as she adjusted her disguise just a little.

[Maria: Level 10 Mage-Apprentice]

The three bandits looked at her in fear, then grew confident. "We still outnumber you kid, now hand over your stuff!"

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Ai grinned with a hint of sadism. "I promise it will only hurt a lot."

Waving her hands through the air, "[Accelerate]" 16 small red circles appeared in the air around her and, "Numbers 1 through 16." portals opened up behind the acceleration circles as mana daggers flew out of the portals. Once they hit the red circles, they disappeared as the bandits were shredded to pieces. It wasn't that the daggers had disappeared, they were simply too fast for the human eye to track.

"Fuck yeah!" Ai said excitedly as lantern light illuminated the wall at the stairwell. The half-orc receptionist came up and looked down at the bloody mess that Ai made as a fourth bandit grappled Ai, holding a knife to her throat.

"Ey, stay back or the girl is dead." The man said with panic in his voice, the half-orc smiled and said. "I don't think it's me you've gotta worry about."

Ai smiled and said with a fake scared voice. "Ah, please mister, don't hurt me, I'm just a little girl with Number 17!"

*PUSHI*

Blood trailed down Ai's face as a spear had been launched through her assailant's head.

Ai let out a creepy, childish giggle as she pushed the corpse off of her back.

Pulling the spear out of the head of the bandit, she threw it back into the portal as it closed. "Sorry for the mess, mister." She turned and said to the half-orc.

"Bah, no worries miss Maria, these bandits have been targeting our clients for the past few days. I'm glad they finally ran into someone they couldn't handle." He said with a chuckle.

Ai held out her hand. "Then I believe some recompense is in order, right?"

The half-orc sighed and handed her a single silver. "That's the most I can give miss, and it's coming out of my own pocket, owners are greedy. Consider the other silver a cleaning fee."

Ai smiled and nodded. "Fair enough, thank you for your generosity mister..."

"Orlan."

"Right then, thanks and good night, mister Orlan." Ai said with a grin as she skipped back to her room.

Closing the door and locking the web, she looked over to her snoring sister, her leg was dangling off the bed as she had a pillow crushed into her chest with both arms.

"Goodness sis, If you ever took a lover, I'd feel sorry for his spine." Ai shook her head and smiled warmly as she grabbed the covers and tucked her sister in.

Ai laid down in her bed and closed her eyes. 'I've neglected to enter to my Domain for while, I should see how the girls are doing.' She thought as her mind was once again enveloped in the void of her Domain, as the mana strands came into view, she spotted the coiled strand that they usually met up at and projected herself there.

"Ah! Ai! You came back!" Aiya said excitedly as she hopped off of the coil.

"Yeah, sorry, had a lot going on. Where is Andromeda?" She said as she looked around for the third girl.

"Ah, well, she got kinda depressed after you left and kept to herself over by the core, I went to check on her a few times and it looked like she was trying to reinforce your affinities." Aiya responded as she looked towards the direction of Ai's core.

"Ok, would you mind coming with? I've got a few things to tell you girls." Aiya nodded as she followed Ai through the Domain.

Reaching the core, they saw that each of the affinity cores were wrapped elegantly with mana strands, feeding large amounts of mana into them which were then recycled by the creation circle beneath them.

"Well, that would certainly explain why my magic got a nice little boost in power." She looked over at the silver-haired girl responsible as she had her eyes closed, palm stretched out, focusing on reinforcing one of the affinity cores that now shined with bright yellow electricity sparking throughout.

"So one of my elements is lightning, that's good to know." She landed next to Andromeda and tapped her on the shoulder. "Yo!"

"Ah! Ai! I didn't think you would come back!" Without thinking, Andromeda flung her arms around Ai and hugged her.

"Not quite ready for that yet, Ameda." Ai said as she pushed Andromeda away.

Andromeda blushed, both at her hugging Ai without thinking and the fact that Ai had called her by her nickname. "S-sorry Ai, I was just so surprised."

Ai waved her hands in the air. "It's fine, it's fine. But on a serious note, I've got to let you girls know what's been happening since we last spoke."

The girls nodded and listened to every word that Ai spoke.