Haunted Mansion

We took the short walk back to Port Natalia, whereupon for the first time all week we split up. Alice had no interest in being present just to endure me telling Meia how it all happened and the thank yous, especially since there was no good food at Meia's house. So I gave Alice some walking around money so she could shop and sample some delicacies. I still didn't understand why royalty wouldn't be carrying around money. Maybe someday Alice could educate me on the economics of the civilized part of the monster world.

At Meia's house, I relayed most of what had occurred and presented her with the pledge ring the kraken queen had given to me. As can be expected, she was very grateful. Her husband wasn't present, still out fishing apparently, which made me feel even more awkward. I'd done an entire wedding trial for a couple and never even saw them together.

"My darling will be really happy with this," Meia said. "Now I need to reward you."

"No, it's fine," I said. I'd left out the really bad part of the story, getting overcome by the crab girl, in part because it was embarrassing and also so she wouldn't feel guilty for having sent me on such a dangerous mission. Fortunately she hadn't inquired as to why I was a day late. "I'm just glad I could help. I really like seeing monsters and humans coming together."

"But I'm just an ordinary citizen," she said, running right over my refusal. "I don't have much money, or an item that a hero might find useful. Therefore, as a reward, shall I give you a blowjob?"

My jaw nearly hit the floor. I still wasn't used to how casually monsters regarded sex. I guess when you think about it, it makes sense. Sex is food for them. Humans eat casually together, after all. Now I was wondering if monsters had a lot of group sex, which I guessed could be a version of "eating out together."

Meia seemed to misinterpret my expression. "Is this not good enough?" she asked. "I'm confident with my mouth skills. I don't think any human could even last thirty seconds. Teehee. But since this is your reward I'll draw it out as long as possible."

Guh. Did Alice know this was coming, and leave me for the first time to give me some privacy? She had to, she knows how monsters think! I was once again shocked at how explicit monsters could be. Meia was just incredibly gorgeous. The offer was so tempting. But I was still not sure I should take it

"Aren't you…. Married now?" I asked.

"My love is only for my darling," she replied. "So this isn't cheating on him."

"I get, as a monster, why you'd see it that way," I explained. It also occurred to me that such relationships might have difficulties if the cultures didn't find a way to compromise. "But since you're married to a human now, you really have to be considerate of human culture and traditions just as he needs to be of yours."

Once again, Meia ran right over my objections. "Is it possible that you're holding out because of that silver haired woman?" she asked.

"No! Of course not!" I stammered. It was true, though! I hadn't seriously considered that Alice and I were going anywhere. We'd just gotten through having a talk in which she made it clear that we were friends, which was quite a step up from where we'd been when we started out. In theory, this should be no problem, and I rationalized that Alice seemed to have set this up for me anyway.

"Then it's time to give you your reward," she said. She approached me and quickly removed my pants. I still marveled at how quickly monsters seemed to be able to denude a man.

She wasted no time getting into it, bobbing her head up and down, doing all sorts of interesting things with her tongue. She hadn't been making an empty boast, she was very skilled. True to her promise, she went slowly to try to drag it out as long as possible. Still, "long as possible" when a mermaid is softly fellating you is about 2 minutes. She wrapped her arms around my waist as I ejaculated into her warm mouth. Although I knew I'd experienced blowjobs before, I'd never experienced a woman swallowing the way she did, her mouth tightening as she drank the delicious semen as it shot out.

"You already let it out," she said. "Haha, there's no helping it. Even my darling comes right away when I do this. You lasted a little longer than he does. But don't worry, I'm not done yet. I'll go even slower so you have time to really enjoy it."

This time she concentrated mainly on licking and even gentler sucking. It was pure heaven. I marveled at her control. She seemed to know exactly how far she could go without sending me over the edge. Occasionally she would surprise me with a more forceful move, like a hard lick or a deep suck or suddenly shaking her head, and then backing off and being more gentle before I went past the point of no return.

"Okay, time to finish you," she mumbled, my penis still in her mouth, her voice making light vibrations that only further enhanced the pleasure. She began to move her tongue side to side under the head, a movement which I was surprised to find felt even better than the up and down motion. Ten seconds later, I exploded into her mouth a second time. I told myself that for all the trouble this job had been, it had been SO worth it.

When she finished swallowing, with my dick still in her mouth, she took it out, kissed the tip as if to say goodbye, and got up. "Well, that's the end." She said. "I'd give you more but we monsters have to be careful or else it would be a week before you walked out of here. Teehee."

She wasn't kidding. I was strong enough to get right up and walk around, if unsteadily, after one orgasm caused by a monster, but two with Alice had had me on the verge of unconsciousness. But it turned out she wasn't just skilled at giving pleasure, she was also skilled at not taking too much energy. I guessed that the gentleness of her technique might have resulted in less being taken from me than would otherwise be the case, although I felt like I'd love nothing more than a twelve hour nap. To my relief, I was able to rise from the chair. Oops, maybe not. She had to catch me as I nearly fell over.

"Why don't you sit back down for a few minutes?" she suggested. "I'll get you some water. It's important to rehydrate after an experience like that."

I complied, so she left and returned with a glass of water, which I thanked her for and drank gratefully. We made some small talk for the next few minutes.

As I got up to leave, she said, "The next time you come to town, please stop by again. I want to give you another reward. Just two times seems paltry, in my opinion."

That sounded fantastic to me, although I somewhat hoped that she'd be feeding solely off her husband by the time I saw Port Natalia again. I had never considered that loving monster/human relationships might be complicated by their differing social mores.

I staggered towards the market, looking like a drunken fool. Passersby stared at me a little, but I guess given how common mermaid/human relationships were in this city, they probably knew what was up. Before I reached the market, Alice materialized suddenly in front of me.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "Your face looks funny."

"Um, nothing, nothing."

"Was Meia happy?" she asked.

"Very, very… happy."

"Hmph," she humphed. "Well, whatever."

"Anyway," I said. "Isn't it a wonderful thing for man and monster to be in love like that?"

"I am happy," she said, smiling. "It's good to know that the bond between humans and monsters hasn't been completely severed."

I was surprised to hear her say that. A master at holding her cards close to her chest, I realized that she'd never really given me a firm opinion on what she thought about human/monster relations. Other than that my own view was too simplistic, of course. But that left her leeway to go either way. Perhaps she really was hoping for a better world? Or at least open to it? Maybe I was helping her find the good path!

Next on our list of things to do was a haunted mansion. I wouldn't call it a haunted mansion to Alice's face of course, because she had an irrational fear of ghosts. But I respected her bravery. This was a job she chose, not me, because it involved Monster Lord business. This was one of the places where Alice had mentioned there were weird things going on. She had to look into it. For her to overcome her fears to do her duty raised my already high opinion of her. Now don't get me wrong, I still wasn't sure how much I LIKED her. She was still a bit of a meanie, although less awful than before. And to the extent I was feeling something towards her, I was mature enough to recognize it could be a combination of many factors rather than actual, adult affection. I was too old to fall for childish crushes but still too young to avoid the feelings entirely. So in spite of myself, I thought again about how the man must be stronger than the Monster Lord to marry her. Strength is about more than raw power though. Even if I was capable of beating her in combat or whatever trial a man had to go through to prove his strength, I knew I would never really be stronger than her in many of the ways that mattered.

I'd asked some townspeople about the mansion and the variety of rumors was so large it was impossible to determine what was true or not. Ghosts, witches, zombies, you name it. Alice declared the whole effort unhelpful due to humans being ignorant and superstitious and there's no such thing as ghosts and why would she be afraid of ghosts anyway and she was sure she knew what must actually be going on, just had to chastise a monster that was doing things she wasn't supposed to and no she wasn't going to get into it right now.

We arrived at the mansion around nightfall. It occurred to me that maybe we should have set out earlier in the morning rather than trying to get this done on the same day as the Meia job, especially given that I was injured at the end of it. Alice had suggested we wait as well, but I argued that tomorrow I'd be stiff and probably worse off. And just as the talon injury had stopped hurting, too.

I had to admit the atmosphere here was really creepy. The graveyard next to the mansion didn't help matters. I made the mistake of pointing out the graveyard to Alice. She snapped that she'd already noticed it and that I needed to stop talking about obvious things. She definitely was off. She was maintaining a calm exterior, but you could almost feel the tension coming off her.

Suddenly, I saw a figure looking out a window on the second floor. It was a small girl and she was looking right at us! "Alice, did you see that small girl looking at us through the window?"

Alice screamed and hid behind me.

"Alice," I said. "Are you sure you're going to be okay? If you want, I can just go in myself. I assume you won't be fighting whatever's in there anyway."

"The only thing I'm afraid of is hunger," Alice protested. "And this is probably important, so let's just get this over with quickly so we can eat afterwards."

"Sounds good," I said. "Let's do it."

If it was possible, the inside looked creepier than the outside. No wonder the people of Port Natalia were terrified of this place! Alice, who normally walked next to me, preferred to stay close behind me. We hadn't been in the house a full minute before I noticed a shadow creeping up on us. "What's that?" I blurted.

Alice screamed again and ducked her head behind me. "Ghost!", she screamed. Suddenly her demeanor changed back to her normal taciturn self. "Oh, it's just a ghost girl. I thought it was a ghost."

"What?!" I exclaimed, utterly confused. "How is a ghost girl different from a ghost?"

Alice replied clinically, now completely unworried. "A ghost girl is born from a collection of souls mixing with magic power. "

"Um," I said, more confused if that was possible. "That sounds like… a ghost."

"Nonsense!" she said. "Ghosts are unscientific! Now stop talking about ridiculous things and finish this."

Alice vanished. I wasn't sure what the point was, since the ghost girl had already seen her. Still, she was focused entirely on me, being dinner and all.

"Human energy," she said, with a ghostly voice that made me pretty sure she was a ghost, "I'll suck it all up."

Well, she certainly talked like a monster. I sure hoped that Angel Halo worked on incorporeal beings. It was enchanted, so it seemed probable that it would. I took an experimental swing at her and the usual light-filled cut appeared on her "body". Whew, that's good news, I thought.

As Alice requested, it was finished quickly. She moved quite slowly and seemed to be trying to embrace me but she never got the chance. I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it, but then again, if she was a monster, maybe I would somehow? Eh, best not to think about it.

Strangely, Alice didn't immediately reappear. Maybe she was staying invisible to avoid ghosts? I looked around to make sure there were no immediate threats, but I couldn't see any. Which in a haunted house might not mean anything, I thought. Oh well, best to just move on and if something attacks I'll deal with it as best I can. If it was all just creepy looking monsters that resembled the undead but weren't really undead then it wouldn't be much different from what I'd already been dealing with.

As I reached a staircase, I noticed a creepy looking doll sitting on the stairs. Something told me that this was never a good thing. Sure enough, it too attacked me, grabbing my leg as I tried to pass it heading up the stairs. She began to crawl up my leg. I was having trouble shaking her off, and she managed to get her hand down my pants. Surprisingly, the hand wasn't cold. Okay, so another monster of some sort. I had no idea monsters imitated these types of things. This one I didn't have to seal. I removed her from my leg and tossed her away from me. She yelled, "I just wanted to play with you!" and ran off.

When I got to the top of the stairs, to my surprise I found Alice. She was trembling in a corner of the room. "Alice, are you all right?"

She didn't respond. "Alice, did something happen?" I couldn't see anything in this room that could have scared her so.

"Ooooooooo." Well that answers that question, I thought. That caused Alice to jump up and start slithering around in circles until her tail caught on something and she splatted face down on the floor, knocking over a desk and a bookcase. Fortunately she was unhurt. Well duh, she survived a fall from the skies. Faceplanting in a house isn't going to do her any damage.

"That girl! That girl!" she started babbling.

"What girl?" I asked, looking around.

"That one!" she pointed at a picture that had fallen at my feet, knocked off the desk that she had upended.

I picked the picture up and looked at it. It looked nothing like the girl that had been staring at us from the window. This wasn't a girl, this was a young woman, a rich one by the looks of it. She must have lived in this mansion before whatever happened here occurred. Alice heard something and started slithering around in circles again. It was footsteps ascending the stairs. Well it's not a ghost, I thought. They don't have footsteps. Sure enough, it wasn't. It appeared to be a zombie. Alice screamed again, then as with the ghost girl that supposedly wasn't a ghost, she calmed down immediately. "Oh, it's just a zombie girl."

Then Alice did something I'd never seen her do before: attack a fellow monster. She punched the zombie girl and knocked its head off! "Sheesh," she said. "Don't surprise me like that."

Now I probably didn't mention it before, but Alice is heavy. I first noticed it when she jumped at me and wrapped me up the first time she thought there might be ghosts about back in Captain Selene's treasure cave. It's not that she's fat, far from it, her human form is super skinny. But she's about 12 feet long and her snake half had to be solid muscle. So she had to weigh 300 pounds between being the height and length of two people and the lower half being so densely muscular. The point I'm trying to make here is that this was an old house. Which explains why she abruptly fell through the floor. She looked at me in alarm when she heard the cracking under her, then went right down, screaming.

I knew she'd be uninjured in the fall, but worried that she might be scared down there by herself and run around like a lunatic. Unfortunately, the noise attracted more trouble, as several zombie girls shuffled into the room. "Need…. Warmth…."

I'd never fought multiple opponents before, not even in practice, unless you count a lot of tails or tentacles. At least these zombie girls were slow. I was starting to wonder just what the hell was going on in this house.

Wait, if they are slow, I can do that new move in combat that Alice taught me! Seeking a place to climb, I found another desk. Good enough. I leaped off the desk and brought my sword crashing down on one of the zombie girl's heads. She was instantly sealed. Outstanding! This move is really useful if your opponent is slow! For what that's worth.

Two of them tried to grab me but they were too slow. I got back up on the desk and executed the move again. Another zombie girl sealed. Two for two! By now though there were too many close to me to try that again, so I started to slash all around me, trying to seal the remaining four zombie girls before they could corner me. Things briefly got interesting as one of them dropped to her knees and got my pants down just enough to bite my penis. I briefly panicked, thinking that this would mean I'd become a zombie, but then remembered what Alice had said about it not being possible for a monster to bite a human and turn them into a monster. As was proving usual for monsters, the bite didn't hurt, it actually felt pretty good. It probably helped that she appeared to have no teeth.

Another managed to get an arm around my neck and bite me there as well, which also felt surprisingly good even though this one did have a few teeth. But they were too slow, and my resistance had become stronger, so that's as interesting as the fight got. Within seconds, all the zombies were sealed.

I took a moment to catch my breath, when suddenly the girl I'd seen in the window entered the room! She didn't look quite human. Another monster? "Ah! My experiments!" she screamed.

"Who are you?" I asked. Her response was to run away.

I pursued her down the stairs, not yet sure if this was a fight or whether she needed saving. Since she said something about experiments, was this the person Alice wanted to investigate?

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, the girl was there, waiting, an enormous zombie next to her. The zombie was a strange mixture of beautiful and appalling, with absolutely ridiculous body dimensions. She had to be seven feet tall, with the largest breasts I'd ever seen.

"What's with you?" the girl I'd been chasing asked. "Why are you going crazy in my laboratory?"

"What's with me?" I asked. "What's with you? What's going on in here?"

"My name is Chrome," she responded. "I'm a necromancer. This place was an execution ground, then a graveyard. Since there are so many corpses, it's great for my experiments."

Now things were starting to become clearer. Necromancy didn't sound like something Alice would approve of. I was a little disappointed as well that this really did seem to have nothing to do with me. I didn't think pulling me from another dimension or messing with my mind had much to do with necromancy. I resolved to not let Alice get away with calling any mission I deemed important "pointless". I was running around this creepy house sealing scary monsters on a mission that had nothing to do with me. She owed me.

"This girl," Chrome gestured to the giant zombie. "Was the daughter of the rich guy who owned this place. She was an excellent specimen. I want to reanimate the dead into something even more powerful than normal monsters!"

"You need to stop this… project," I demanded. "You're scaring the people of Port Natalia and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be happy to see you desecrating human remains."

"I still have way too much research to do," Chrome said. "I'll make a nuisance like you into a new experiment. Get him, Frederika!"

The giant zombie started to shamble slowly towards me. Was she going to try to squash me or something, or was she built to be the biggest sex zombie ever? Judging by the "enhancements" she'd received, it seemed the latter was more likely.

I got a partial answer when she used her superior height to grab my head and push my face between her breasts. Battling monsters who were trying to pleasure me always felt like an absurd way to fight and now this was getting even more ridiculous. I thrust my sword into her abdomen, which caused her to back off.

Then she spoke. "Please… kill…. Me…."

I was horrified. The girl's consciousness was still in there? Did Chrome realize the enormity of the evil she was doing? I resolved to free this woman from the horror she was enduring. The dead should rest peacefully!

"Frederika, use that move!" Chrome shouted. Her long arm reached into my pants and started to do funny things to my penis. Her fingers were moving with incredible dexterity and for a moment I went weak in the knees.

"I switched her fingers with ones from a young pianist," Chrome explained. "Her nimble fingers should feel amazing."

I was so stunned from the explosion of pleasure that Frederika managed to get her other hand down my pants. The pleasure tripled, as both hands working together were greater than the sum of their parts. She looked into my eyes as she was giving me the best hand job ever. "I… don't… want… this…."

I snapped out of it with a jolt. I felt like I was raping her even though she was doing this to me! But she wasn't, really. Chrome was doing this. Chrome was raping both of us!

Chrome continued to taunt me. "Hehe, you can't endure it, can you? Frederika, drink his semen!"

She dropped to her knees, so tall that she still had to bend down quite a bit to bring her mouth to my penis. I grabbed her head and tried to keep it away, but she was quite strong and succeeded in getting her lips around it. "Please…." She mumbled.

I drove my sword into her back. She pulled away from me and stood up, Angel Halo protruding out of her back. She still wasn't sealed, and now I was unarmed! Chrome yelled triumphantly. "Frederika, use your killing move!"

She pulled my sword out of her back and tossed it to the ground. But not away from me! She just dropped it in front of her, which meant it was still within reach if I was fast enough! I dove for it and got my hands on it. Frederika then just basically fell on me. Her body lay over my legs, preventing me from getting back up. I started to frantically chop at her body with my sword. I hated doing this. She didn't cry out, but I knew from experience that Angel Halo did cause some pain even though it did no real harm. She didn't deserve any of this.

She was moving, trying to use her arms to hold down my sword arm and get into position to rape me. Chrome was cackling madly as she watched. I stopped chopping at her and waited for my chance. Thank goodness I understand leverage! I thought. Frederika was too heavy for me to move out from under as she currently was, and would be too heavy for me to escape once she actually got into position, but at some point in between I knew I'd have a shot. Sure enough, just as her vagina was poised over my erect penis, ready to plunge down on it, I grabbed one of her arms while pushing on her other side, at the same time raising up my waist. That was the risky part. If I entered that hole I knew it might be over in a second. Fortunately I just rubbed against it a little, which was bad(or wonderful, depending on your perspective) enough. She toppled over. Now I stood over her prone form.

"Aw, dammit!" Chrome yelled. "Just give up already!"

I drove my sword into her back again as she lay prone. She collapsed back on the ground but STILL wasn't sealed! You'll pay for this pain you're making me give her! I raged silently. This had to end. Frederika deserved mercy. Then I noticed the staircase again. If this doesn't do it….

I climbed up about halfway, then launched myself off, hurtling towards Frederika, who was just regaining her feet. My sword slammed down on her head. Finally, she started to fade away, sealed.

"Thank… you.." she croaked. A bright light escaped from her body. Was that her soul? I hope she's free now, I thought.

But the battle had taken its toll on the weak floor. Alice had fallen through a small hole. Frederika's now lifeless body, myself, and Chrome caused nearly the whole floor to collapse. We all went tumbling down into the basement.

I was unhurt, thank goodness. I looked around and saw dozens of coffins. Chrome was livid. "What the hell did you do?! First you break Frederika, next you break the floor of my laboratory! She was my ultimate masterpiece!"

"Corpses are not toys!" I yelled. "The dead have the right to rest in peace! You violated Frederika, in more ways than I could have ever imagined! How could you be so indifferent to that suffering?"

"You science hater!" she shot back. "Corpses are just lifeless things! If you're going to be like that, I'm going to have to defeat you myself!"

She couldn't intend to fight me, could she? She looked like a little kid, although I knew that monsters' apparent age wasn't always what it seemed. Still, I hoped she wouldn't use pleasure attacks against me, that would be… creepy. Of course, everything since I entered this house had been creepy.

Correctly interpreting the look on my face she said, "Do you think I'm weak? I'll show you the power of a necromancer!"

Her magic was indeed powerful. She threw bolts of dark energy at me which didn't hurt but made me cold and seemed to sap my strength. She threw lightning bolts that stunned me briefly and singed my clothes as well as the hairs on my body. She was fast, running around the crypt, hitting me from a distance with various magical attacks. She found a black dagger on a table and came at me with it. I dodged that attack and scored a hit with my sword on her in response. She yelled out in pain and surprise and went back to longer distance attacks. I was surprised I was holding up under the bombardment. Perhaps I really was abnormally strong compared to the humans of this world? But if so, why wouldn't whoever have brought me here chosen someone even stronger, like a heavyweight boxer, or a Marine? What made me special?

I finally managed to corner her, hoping to finish this quickly. But she had more tricks up her sleeve. Out of thin air, she summoned what appeared to be a zombie head. It dove for my still exposed penis and clamped on, sucking hard. I could not pry it off. Now there was a definite time limit on this fight. The saving grace was that it did not seem to have that extra eroticism that monsters had. It must not be a monster head, just a magical apparition of some sort. Maybe I could hold out a few minutes and finish this! But as I was distracted trying to remove the head from my dick, Chrome pulled out a syringe and stuck me with it. Paralysis spread through my body and I collapsed. No, not paralysis, I could still feel that cold, creepy head sucking on me.

Chrome stood over me with a sadistic smile. "Now you'll be my experiment and make up for all the damage you've done. I've been meaning to see if I can make zombies reproduce. Your semen will be milked for those experiments!"

She removed the undead head from my penis and tossed it aside. She bent down and grasped me in her hand. "This is a good specimen, you should be proud. My creations will make good use of it. I won't need corpses anymore. You'll father an army of undead for me! The world shall be mi-"

Chrome's Bond villain speech was cut short by my sword at her throat. She stared at me in disbelief as I rose, still holding Angel Halo at her throat. "How? That's impossible! You should have been immobile for hours! How strong are you?!"

"End your experiments now, or I'll have to seal you," I threatened.

She paused, seeming to consider my demand. Then saying, "I'll let you go with just that today!" she bolted.

I attempted to follow her, but she knew this house better than I did and I lost her. But then I noticed a shadow behind one of the coffins. Could she be hiding rather than running? I ran over to the coffin and pointed my sword at the figure hiding behind it. It wasn't Chrome. Alice! She was trembling in fear.

I sheathed my sword(funny how the monsters always remove my pants but rarely my sheathe) and bent down to comfort Alice. She was babbling. "I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry! An evil god, the first Monster Lord, I don't care! Just please help me! I won't do bad things anymore! I won't bully the Kitsunes either! I won't pull on their ears! Or step on their tails! Or steal their fried tofu!"

I gently put my hand on her shoulder. She turned to me in fright, tears in her eyes. "Alice, it's okay, it's me."

Alice clutched me hard, trembling. I embraced her, reassured her. Once she had calmed down enough, I briefed her on what I'd learned.

"It's as I suspected," she said, her anger burning slowly and dangerously. "Chrome! Get down here right now!" Her eyes flashed, not at me directly, but seemingly created an effect that encompassed the entire house. A coffin in the room exploded, revealing Chrome. Now Chrome was frightened as Alice advanced on her. Alice grabbed Chrome and started slapping her, again and again.

I put my hand on Alice's shoulder. "Alice, enough. She's a girl."

Alice stopped, but corrected me. "That's no little girl. She's over 100 years old."

"Um… don't abuse your elders then. Chrome, apologize for scaring Alice."

"I wasn't scared!" Alice insisted. "Just…. Cold."

"I'm sorry," Chrome said.

"Do you know who this is, Chrome?" I asked.

Chrome nodded.

"Get the hell out of here!" Alice commanded. "You disgust me!"

Chrome wasted no time fleeing.

"So you knew what was going on?" I asked Alice.

"I had an idea necromantic experiments were probably occurring here, but not being an expert in necromancy that doesn't mean I knew what to expect in this place. It's forbidden science. It's easy to see why the townspeople were scared. In their ignorance they probably thought all these zombies and ghost girls were real ghosts. Which of course don't exist."

Suddenly, an apparition of a well groomed girl appeared in front of us. It was the girl from the picture! Frederika?!

"Frederika, is that you?" I asked, awestruck.

"Thank you hero," she replied. "Now my.. no our, souls have been saved."

Another apparition appeared. "With our bodies turned into zombies, our souls were bound here. But now we are finally free."

A third one appeared! "Even if I'm just a soul, I can finally return. The homeland I've missed so much, San Ilia."

No, there weren't just three! All around us, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of souls began to ascend, many of them thanking me as they did. In a few moments, they had all vanished.

I took back everything I had thought about this not being my business. As much as I was proud of having stopped and reformed the bandits, or reuniting Happiness Village with the harpies, or helping Meia with her marriage trial, this was the most incredible thing I'd experienced so far. I was deeply moved.

"Now they can finally rest in peace," I said. "Wasn't that amazing, Alice? Alice?"

Alice had fainted.