Familiar "faces"

Being teleported back the sleeping girl and Raas softly plopped on the bed. The girl stirred slightly upon sinking into the soft matrice. Raas smiled slightly. He grabbed the blanket with his tail and pulled it over them. Curling into a ball and softly saying good night, he too succumbed to the tiredness.

'What a day...'

...

The next morning the veiled girl woke up with a big jawn and stretched her limbs. But then she noticed that her veil came undone while sleeping and she panicked. 'Wha- Heh?' She quickly looked around and soon spotted the bundled up snake just a few centimeters away from her sleeping soundly without a care in the world. Her veil was just right under Raas, so with a quick motion, she snatched the veil and draped it over her face again.

*Sigh*

"Puh, luckily he´s such a deep sleeper," whispered the veiled girl while whipping the imaginary sweat away.

She then stared at the sleeping Raas in silence and thought back on last night's conversation. She was kind of embarrassed that she fell asleep in the middle of their talk, but turned serious upon seeing the beautiful gem on Raas´ forehead.

It was a lie if she said that she was not jealous of Raas´ luck... in fact, she was quite envious, well most people would get envious upon getting a primordial gem delivered to you on a silver plate, but she was still happy for the "little one" to get such a... gem.

Heh, gem...

Anyway... her hand slowly reached towards Raas, gently touching the gem. Sol´s gem shone dimly upon the touch but soonly dimed again. The veiled girl carest the gem softly. It was slightly weird for her to stare at Raas as his eyes were constantly open, even when he was sleeping.

She inspected Raas closely and gently touched his orange-tinted scales.

*Crack* *crack*

*Break*

The sound of breaking glass could be heard as she ran her finger across his scales.

*Shook!*

"What!"

She hastily retracted her hand from Raas and distanced herself a little from the sleeping snake.

"Ho- how is that possible? What?" completely confused and not understanding the situation she looked at her hand that touched Raas scales. Instead of a blueish color, her hand was now covered in beautiful green scales with sharp claws. Calming down she looked at Raas to see if he was surely asleep, but seeing the rhythmic breathing and the calm beating heart she sighed in relief once again.

The veiled girl took a deep breath and touched Raas' body once again, and like the first time, her other hand too was covered in green reptilian scales. She turned silent and thought for a while before casting a silent spell, making her hands turn back to blue skin.

"I forgot that it had that passive ability, but to think that it would work on that... Guess I have to wear gloves now..." said the girl while pulling white gloves out of her pockets.

Putting them on she continued to gently touch Raas scales. She enjoyed the feeling of his scales and found them beautiful, not at all menacing as they should be, but she didn´t do it because she liked it. No, that was merely a byproduct, the real reason was that she sent slight mana pulses into Raas' body, to see how his body flared and responses to that.

After a few minutes, she stopped and stood up. Casting a quick clean spell, she made herself fresh and clean again. Pulling a book out of her rope she sat down on a seat and read in silence as the crystals on the cave ceiling slowly brightened up, making the illusion of a day and night cycle.

*Raas pov*

*Yaaaawwnnnn*

With a giant yawn, I woke up from my slumbers and rubbed the tiredness out of my eyes. After last night's talk, I was completely spent, mostly mentally though. Not seeing the sleeping girl beside me I looked around the room and spotted her reading a large book in silence while sipping some fragrant tea. Noticing my gaze she turned towards me, and I somehow knew that she was staring at me with a slight smile... so I just smiled back.

"Good morning," said I to which I got a "good morning" in return.

"Are you now willing to tell me your name?" asked I again, not wanting to call her "you" the whole time.

"Nope~ not yet!" said the girl with a mischievous grin that I couldn´t see.

To which I sighed.

"Sooooo, I guess you don´t want to the arena again right?" asked the girl.

I pondered for a while but ultimately decided with, "no I have enough near-death experiences for this week. Today I just want to explore this place for a bit. As an otherworlder or Acutra I am quite interested in other cuisines and culture, especially something so interesting as a monster´s one!" exclaimed I with excitement.

"Hmmm, I´m good with that. Guess, Acutras really does love traveling and exploring. I will give you a little tour then, but first, we need to get some breakfast! I am dying from hunger!" said the veiled girl while holding her stomach.

I chuckled a little at her cute behavior and agreed with a nod, and walked out. "Oh! I almost forgot! We have to conceal that gem on your forehead... well the news is probably already spreading like wildfire, but it doesn't hurt to do it anyway."

So after a quick spell, we finally departed. The small town was already buzzing with monsters. While we were walking through the busy town I could feel a lot of monsters probing, glancing, staring, or straight up walking up to us and asking me about having Sol´s gem. Thanks to the queen's blessing all 209 attempts were blocked. But regardless, we still had an amazing time just walking around the place and tasting all kinds of food. We basically went on a food trip all around the town, and that is where I realized that she had an endless amount of monster cores, or so it seemed as she bought meat after meat after meat. I also learned many things about monster behaviors, social manners, and culture thanks to the many conversations and food trips.

She leads me towards a small stand that sold seasoned and cooked monster meat. It was kind of odd but whatever. The veiled girl bought 2 meat skewers from the venus flytrap monster. No, it wasn´t the one that I encountered at the entrance, this one was dark green and black.

So while we were touring around the town, we ate our meat skewers.

"Mmmmm~, this is even more delicious than the Kraberus meat! From what monster is that?" asked I while taking another piece of meat. The veiled girl had to hold my skewer too, as... well... no hand.

"Don´t know, it is always random here, we got very lucky here! Oh and don´t worry they don´t sell poisonous food... well at least not here." said the veiled girl who was blissfully eating piece after piece.

"Meh, I have poison resistance, I think I will be fine anyway."

We continued to walk around the town as she showed me the many different buildings and shops here that I haven´t got the chance to see. After a few hours, we took a break as the girl's mana was running low from concealing the gem, so we sat on a small hill near the village and starred at the ceiling.

"Raas, what do you think about this world?" asked the girl out of nowhere.

"Hmmm, deadly, dangerous, violent, painful, and exhausting..."

"Heh heh thought so..." said the girl with a dry laugh.

"... but it´s also vast, never boring and exciting. I have so much to discover and explore here, and here I meet so many nice people... especially Sahra..." said I a little shy.

"Hmmm, good to know~," said the veiled girl while turning towards me.

"What about you?" asked I wanting to change the subject.

"Well, I just live, don´t really have an opinion... but I wish this world would be more peaceful." said the girl a little bit melancholic.

...

An awkward silence fell between us, (un)luckily a familiar voice called out.

"Sa sa sa sa sa! Ah, if it isn´t the small snake!"

I turned my head and saw two familiar plant monsters. Not liking his teasing tone I called back, "Heeeh~ if it isn´t Mr. Bush, long time no see."

The monster fumed and shouted, "you cooky little shit, what did you call me!"

"Hahahahaha, calm down Mr. Bush~" Hearing the female monster tease the monster that was toying with me. "What did you call me you dried up cabbage!?" shouted the venus flytrap monster back.

I felt a kind of a deja vu hearing those two bickering.

The "Cabbage" monster flared her vines and leaves in anger, but calmed down, "do you want to be punished again?" said she in an oh-so-sweet tone.

The other one shuddered and backed off from her, "no-no, please don´t, Cadina!"

"Hmpf, that´s what I thought!"

"Ts, I will get you back..." grumbled the monster in anger while clicking his tongue(?). Cadina only ignored him.

Meanwhile, the veiled girl and I just starred at the weird plant duo doing their skit as if they forgot that we existed.

Seemingly noticing us again she commented with a tinge of surprise in her voice, "oh, you changed quite a bit in such a short time, little snake. You have become, quite... how do I say it, imposing?"

"Ehh, thanks..." said I while scratching my head.

The grumpy "Mr. Bush" was clearly still angry and remarked, "Ts, whatever he only got a color change and a gem on his forehead. Heh, it looks kind of stupid this with this... black... and... orange gem... ... ... wait... WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!" In the end, his whole body shook in disbelief. "NO No no, how can this be! No, I don´t accept this! No! You can´t possibly have this! Fucking damn it! NO!"

The three of us glanced at each other and Cadina sighed while I and the veiled girl tilted our heads in confusion over his sudden outburst.