26

O(I)O(I)

Lenise surprisingly floated into the room afield with gold that was a representation of the demise she suffered, but what gold has to do with death Saitama didn't know—maybe there would be an over abundance of it instead of food, the production of it would poison the water people drink and when there's a pile of money in the world...people will learn they can't eat it.

Lenise floated to the left side where a pile of gold was just piled together with askance written all over her face.

"I can't see it but I know it is somewhere buried under-"

"Guarded by the most inneal trap of all: a djinn," Pief told her sister.

"You were blessed with seeing through walls to find material, but I can look through walls and see traps."

Saitama's hand shook feeling indeterminate what he was suppose to do. The sisters were so close to each other they were an inch of touching each others chin with their own. Lenise raised a finger and opened her mouth, abruptly fleeted to her finger going limp and letting out a defeated sigh.

"Why do we fight? We make problems that should be easy to solve harder with our squabbling."

Pief looked so quiet looking at her sister.

"Your a ghost and I'm a ghost; who cares if my ears can point or my eyes can be enlarge and terrifying. Why didn't we see that when we were-"

Saitama interrupted the culpability she placed on herself by chopping his hand through the gold!

A geyser of once innealed gold shot out directly in his face. Even though it was gold it was molten hot. A normal man's skin would have been completely roasted—not him. He was just looking very bored.

"Your such greedy humans," A voice snided through the room.

A wisp of red smoke filled the room as the djinn guarding the treasure made his appearance. His entire body had red, almost plastic looking skin, a potbelly, an ivory white urn swirling with sand inside, beaming red eyes, serrated teeth together and lots of black gruffy hair like the fur of a dog.

"Now look into your own greed with my-"

Saitama cut him off while he was preface haughty and punched him right in his face. It was unknown whether a djinn had flesh or was just a manifestation of ether, but just hitting it once shredded its skin right off. He wriggled his arm in the stash as Lenise's attention fluctuated between the dead body of the djinn and Saitama's arm moving.

"Can you give me a hint of what this perfume case, tiara or brooch looks like? Possibly while my arm is still rummaging."

Lenise quivered in realization before telling Saitama in lots of detail what he needed to find. He managed to find it quickly. The item was a lekythos, completely purple, a few jewels in the handle, with intricate designs all in black showing a half of a skinny man and half of a tiger.

He sauntered back to the gargoyle with the item in hand. The gargoyle was extremely giddy to see him with the thing, tried to snatch it from his hands only for him to yank it from her.

"Hold on. Let's let celebutante here tell me how to use it before we do anything reckless."

Lenise instructed how to use it—she squeezed on both the handles of the lekythos and thrust it in her direction. She was awashed with a sticky purple substance yet her eyes were still untouched.

Then the goo started to glitter and transform; dripping off her body as it did so.

Apathy "That stuff brings new meaning to moisturizer cream."

Eventually, the goo vanished showing only the gargoyle or what Saitama knew was her. She was hazel skinned, had magneta clothes covering her body except assumingly her back where her wings were and that prism slit still showing off her midriff. She had on green sandals. A pink loincloth was strapped around her right ankle. And her eyes were honey colored.

She had it all, furrowed eyebrows and puppy dog eyes and after feeling her own face they just seemed to flare up when she gave a cutesy smile.

"Holy sweet viands, I'm ME again!"

She skirled off the ground as if she still had wings hotfooting her way towards Saitama before clinging to his arm.

"So what relationship shall we fake while we stroll back to your village? Coworkers, siblings...lovers? Whatever the case, just call me Kaylyn."

Saitama never met a girl who beamed happily while speaking flirtingly around him.

"I doubt anyone's going to ask that supposition."

Kaylyn still beamed with a bright smile before escorting Saitama down the long hall.

"Have a good day, ghost ladies. We'll try to treat you better than the other fool's who died down here."

Nonchalantly/perky she moved with Saitama down the path they tread through leaving two girls alone who really needed some attention.

O(I)O(I)

Princess Lumina wasn't a very strong girl but years of peeling potatoes had helped her get a little strength and resilience. She used that to help move her father out of the ruins. His demeanor was different from the rambling lunatic; reverted back to a scared, feeble man.

He was shaking, bumps were just bulging out as if bugs were crawling inside of him—Lumina smiled.

"It's such a nice day out, perfect after spending so much time inside. Do you feel warm or cold dad?"

He answered at first with an answer not predicted, yet best to his sanity.

"This reminds me of where I befriended my first Hodag." He mustered a smile. "I loved that rambunctious thing, named it Shade. Was a brave thing. When I got married it mated with a bright one I called Marina. After they had their firstborn he died of unhappy circumstances. Marina migrated away from me with that calf shortly after to a forest or a jungle, a pain I don't know. I wish I befriended his son Griffin...maybe he'd come back and I could ride that Hodag again...does the air feel a little cold today? Someone light that fire."

For a moment Lumina was entranced by his long-term memory. She also felt saddened knowing how inevitable it was he would lose his sense of balance soon being unable to walk—and it was going to happen much faster than with her own grandfather.

O(I)O(I)

Saitama and Kaylyn were running through the forest at the pace of a three-legged dog. Kaylyn was trying to keep up with the caped baldy but she didn't go two kilometer before heaving and being drenched in sweet.

"Why are you running? Can't you fly with your wings?" He asked.

"I wouldn't be a very good human if I used my wings to fly; I don't think we've evolved there yet."

"Well can't you just use flying magic?"

"Oh right why didn't I think of that...because flying magic is for people who don't have wings!"

She was in a hard place, fortunately Saitama had a solution to the problem: piggyback her.

Her arms felt moist against his cheeks seemingly releasing the most sweat from her run and her legs kept thrashing around trying brakes that just weren't there. If this wasn't humiliating enough she moved in front and breathed into his nose.

"I read in a book horses like this. How does it make you feel?"

"I feel regret. And it is regret for offering this, but I'm famished from running so much so..."

"Giddyup!"

Saitama charged down the dirt road at topspeed. Kaylyn never knew adrenaline like this on a road without her wings out, nor did she find a human so quick without the use of an accelerate skill. All that running went smoothly; day and night just passed like a beautiful dream while she was clinging to Saitama's back.

To keep another compliment to herself he made it back safely. After three days of whispering what she remembered she finally had the luck of gazing at the kingdom in all its beauty.

The air was a tower of black turmoil. Smog and charcoal in black smoke, pike's were banging on the hilt in a disturbing union making Kaylyn slightly shudder, silhouette's of monstrous pointy eared goblins, and a wall askew by a fallen pillar...it was in a state of a "fixer upper".

This area was riddled with monsters, gave Kaylyn the excuse she needed to transform into her true self and just flap her wings and wiggle her tail being her true self.

"How queer." Saitama remarked. "Did the lotion wear off after three day or can you control when you turn back?"

"I think we have more important matters with the raid on your kingdom." She replied.

"This isn't my kingdom. I lived in a city—I'm just a hero for fun trapped in a world different from my collection of manga's. I mean it's a cliché isekai world; I just never got into that crap."

Kaylyn on second glance of the kingdom noticed a minor difference between her original thought and what her eyes saw: the goblins were kneeling down trembling in fear when heroes walked around them.

"We've arrived too late; thank Bhibris god of stone we weren't needed."

" Don't be so sure, there's plenty of people you need to stop before those downtrodden adventurers destroy the kingdom."

Kaylyn tried putting her wings back into her body but couldn't—she was exposed to whoever made that voice. Turning around she got to see two little girls...ghosts staring at her. They looked at her plainly processing what they saw, a winged monster with dabs of human skin over her arms and neckbones.

They skipped having a conversation with her to disappear and reappear putting their arms around Saitama.

The bald hero looked more confused than relieved.

"How is this possible? None of you two have real arms."

"Who said it was?" The one he remembered as Lauve said.

"So...shouldn't we be looking for that trinket? The one that can bring back those two; located in this kingdom." Kaylyn reminded Saitama.

Saitama felt silly for almost forgetting about it.

"Right. And we better do it now while it's dark so you can blend in as an ordinary human being."

O(I)O(I)

Xylie was lucky she and her sister managed to survive for so long with the tyranny of the gold ranked adventurers.

All that hiding she did prolonged their life but weakened their health. It appeared they would soon have a visitor despite their best efforts to evade. There was a way they could sneak out through the back Xylie's sister creaked open the door before slithering out to confront whoever was outside.

He was a gold, heavily cladded man with a glaive spear. The older sister tried intimidating him moving her tail around while she glared into his eyes.

"Veer away...Now!" she growled.

His eyebrows flared seeing her intelligence, but he smirked in the end.

"Your a big creature. Once I exterminate you...even royalty will kneel before me."

They were both ready for an impactful fight, however, they were interrupted by a person appearing in-between them.

"Do any of you know where I can find a necromancy's resurrection tool?"

They looked baffled, the hero detesting the bald stranger while the harpy hybrid was dripping from her fangs.

"You have until the count of nine to leave before your plebian ass is toasted."

Meanwhlie, Xylie was skulking to the fight while Kaylyn was skipping to the left in an intersection. To call it fate would be an understatement but they bumped into each other as they moved. Xylie felt like a sack of rocks hulled on a carriage on a rickety path. She opened her eyes staring at the cringe face of the woman holding her hand over her face...her wings flapping to be seen.

"Y-Your a gargoyle." She stammered.

Kaylyn recovered from her headache despite the pain to see who called her a "gargoyle". She in turn noticed the feathery wings on the back of the stranger.

"Your a harpy."

She paused...

...

...and then extended her hand.

"Nice to meet you."

Xylie quivered seeing the hand so close and enticing. She gave the gargoyle respect she deserved shaking it, her face flushed with excitement from how warm she was.