Chapter 81: Chapter 81: A Little Embarrassing

“Hey, c’mon, is it really that embarrassing?” Jay tried to console her more-than-just-a-friend with a gentle pat on the back. “I mean, my secondary class is all about sex, too, and look how good it is! I bet your sex spell class will be just as awesome!”

After the revelation of just what kind of magic casting class had been offered to her as her only option, Aila had taken to squatting on the ground, her face buried in her hands. Jadis could see her ears peeking out from her hair, red as beets. The embarrassment radiating off of the redhead was palpable.

“Please don’t call it that,” Aila mumbled from behind her fingers. “Anything but that.”

“Fuck wizard?” Syd suggested.

“Gods, no!” Aila quickly refused, finally pulling her face out of her hands to give the three of Jadis a pained look. “That’s worse!”

“Yeah, well, is it really that bad overall?” Dys said, one fist on her hip. “You’ve been fine with me having a lewd class up to now. Why is it so bad if you have one?”

“Because!” Aila started, then stopped. “Because—Because I don’t know! It’s—I’m not a pervert like you are! I thought I’d be offered something reasonable, not absurd! I don’t think I could ever tell my family about this class!”

“Hey! I’m pretty sure you’re plenty pervy,” Jay countered lightly, not bothering to deny her own perverted nature. “I seem to recall you being the one to admit you were willing to fuck the three of me when you thought I was sisters and not just multi-bodied.”

A dawning look of horror crossed her face and she flushed even redder, her head sinking back into her hands as she let out a pitiful moan.

“Oh gods, you’re right… I’m such a degenerate!”

Aila continued to let out a litany of soft curses and mumbled groans as she sat huddled on the ground, thoroughly dismayed and ashamed to have the only spell-casting class ever offered to her be one that flew her lewd deviancy like a flag, undeniable and irrefutable.

Jadis felt quite a lot of sympathy for her companion. When she’d been offered her lewd classes, she’d been offended by the implications, at least at first. Of course, she’d come to terms with her own degeneracy fairly quickly, and by the time she’d been offered her Perverted Ritualist of D class, she’d not only resigned herself to perverseness, she’d come to welcome it openly.

Aila was having a little more trouble coming to terms with her kinky revelation.

Jay walked over to the balled-up Aila and picked her up while still in fetal position, prompting a surprised yelp. She cradled the abashed woman to her chest in a tight hug, giving her a kiss on the top of her head.

“It’s fine that you’re a pervert,” Jay assured her, pushing past a half-choked sound of protest. “You don’t have to tell anyone what your class is, right? You can just call it an arcanist class and leave it at that. We can keep a secret, you know. It’ll be just between us for as long as you want.”

“Besides,” Syd added, leaning on her lance, “You’re in good company. No bigger pervert around here than us. We certainly won’t complain if your class asks you to do anything racy with a volunteer.”

“You have to have sex with us regularly anyway,” Dys pointed out. “If you want to keep that boost to your arcane attribute, at least. This way you’re just killing two birds with one stone.”

Aila let out a heavy sigh, then patted Jay’s arm, asking to be put down. Once back on her feet, she looked up at Jadis with defeated resolution.

“It’s fine, thank you. I’m being ungrateful, and I’m sorry. I just… I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting to be called a slut by the gods today.”

That unexpected statement caused Jadis to break out in a chorus of laughter, the seriousness of the delivery contrasting the surrealness of the sentiment. Even Aila chuckled a little as Jadis struggled to regain her composure. When she eventually did, Jay leaned down and gave Aila another small kiss on the forehead.

“Who cares what they say? You’re our little slut, anyway.”

“Rude!” Aila cried out, but there was no anger behind the admonishment. “If you’re going to behave like that, I’ll go find some other Nephilim to power my spells.”

Jay’s grin faltered at Aila’s words, a subtle realization of implications coming to mind.

“You’re not worried about how the class sort of makes you dependent on me, are you?” Jay asked, worry in her tone. “I mean, I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay with me. I’d like you to! I just don’t want you to feel forced or—”

“No, it’s fine,” Aila waved off Jadis’ anxiety. “If I want to leave, I assure you, I won’t be stopped. That being said, I’m not sure how dependent the class will be upon… sexual interactions with you, or more broadly, Nephilim. It might not be as reliant as we’re assuming. It’s kind of interesting, actually. I’m probably the only person on Oros with this class, maybe the first ever.”

Aila let out a bemused laugh, smiling wryly up at the three of Jadis.

“I bet if I level the class up and learn more about it, I could write a paper about it and turn it in at the imperial academy. I could be a published scholar!”

Mood lifted and minor existential crisis averted, the four-but-really-two of them gathered the last of their things and prepared to leave the valley.

“What’s your first class skill?” Jay asked, hefting a bundle of half the weapons they’d looted over one shoulder.

“Hold on, I need to actually accept the class,” Aila said, pausing for a brief moment.

A shiver went through her whole body as a strange pearly light flashed across her for a split-second before disappearing. Aila shook her head, blinking rapidly.

“Wow, that felt different from my primary class,” she murmured, a distant look in her blue eyes.

“Don’t leave us in suspense,” Dys half-whined. “We’re ready to start seeing some amazing spells from the soon-to-be greatest arcanist ever!”

“What is an arcanist,” Syd asked a second later. “I don’t remember that class from your lesson yesterday.”

“No idea,” Aila admitted. Her head was tilted to one side as she read her invisible menu notes. “Either it’s some odd wording on one of the big six, which does happen sometimes, or it’s a rarely seen, more esoteric class that isn’t well documented. Considering the description, I feel safe in guessing the latter.”

“And your first skill?” Jay prompted.

“My first skill is an active spell called ‘Arcanist’s Force Bolt. The description isn’t too weird, actually,” Aila admitted. She then read the description aloud.

“Sounds cool,” Syd said.

“It doesn’t sound too dissimilar from some wizard spells I’ve read about,” Aila murmured. “Fairly basic, actually.”

With a look of concentration, Aila pointed at the ground some twenty or so feet away from her. A sudden shimmer of transparent force, almost like a heat wave but more solid, burst into existence at the tip of her finger and shot out at lightning speed. When it hit the ground, the power of the shockwave physically thumped against Jadis’ chest. The ground was ripped up by the spell, leaving a round crater in the dirt that was several feet wide and deep.

“Nice!” Jadis shouted excitedly, her cheers coming in various forms.

Aila had an almost stunned look on her face, an expression that rapidly shifted to elatedness.

“I cast a spell!” she cried out, tearing up a little. “I can’t believe I cast a spell!”

“A fucking powerful one, too!” Dys complimented. “I bet you could knock a wretch’s head right off with a spell like that.”

Aila smiled radiantly up at the three giants surrounding her, true happiness bright in her eyes. Before she could say anything in response to Dys’ comment, however, Jadis’ attention was caught by movement on the ridgeline of the valley to the east. A distant figure was cresting the hill.

“Something’s coming!” Jay warned as she moved to protect her companion.

All three of Jadis instantly leapt into formation around Aila, Jay and Dys in the front with their mallet and maul in hand, Syd behind them with her long steel lance held high overhead. For her part, Aila reacted as quickly as she could, crouching low behind the living wall Jadis had made, her hand held up as though she was ready to blow something up with her mind, a very real possibility with her new class.

As the figures crested the hill and became fully visible, Jadis relaxed the tension in her bodies.

“Ah, it’s just the guards,” Dys huffed, lowering her weapon.

“Are you four alright?” the lead elf guard called down, his voice breathless from chasing after them.

“Yes, we’re fine,” Jay called up. “Come on over if you want. We were just about to leave, though.”

The two guards jogged down the hill, metal armor clanking as they came. As they drew closer, concern was evident on their faces as they saw the dead demons strewn across the valley. That concern evolved into shock when the massive bloody corpse sitting in the shallows of the sea cove became visible to them.

“Is that a sea bull?” the female guard squeaked, marking the first time Jadis had heard her voice.

“Yes,” Aila confirmed, stepping out from behind Jay and Dys. “It was possessed, by an arcane corruptor of flesh. We’ve taken the eye core for proof and bounty, but you should go check it out so you can notify your captain back at Felsen. There were more than two dozen twisted wretches here, plus that corrupted beast. With those kinds of numbers, the guard and the magistrate should be made aware of the possibility of an increased demonic presence in the Broken Hills.”

Jadis was impressed with how easily Aila took charge and directed the conversation with the guards, all her earlier anxiousness, fretting, confusion, and excitement hidden behind a perfect mask of professionalism. She easily commanded their attention and focused them on what was important. Jadis was happy to let her handle the interaction, especially since she was presenting conclusions that Jadis had herself suspected but lacked the full context to know for sure.

Demon activity around Felsen seemed to be growing, not shrinking. From what she’d gathered, most of the demons should be outside of the perimeter set by the mercenary companies stationed along the edge of the forest miles to the north. Such large groups of demons as this one had been should be a rarity, and grundwyrms like the two she’d fought in the past few days shouldn’t be around at all. Yet, here the demons were, another big group with a heavy-hitting powerhouse to back them up.

“Stay here, I’ll go check it out,” the elf guard said to his subordinate, leaving the female guard behind with the three Nephilim and Aila.

As he jogged down the slope, Dys eyed the remaining guard who was giving Jadis’ three selves a questioning, almost fearful look, with occasional glances at Aila as well.

Jay turned to Aila and said quietly, “We can discuss your new class later, when we have some privacy.”

Aila nodded, then seemed to remember something. “The sea bull’s body. It’s ruined for meat purposes with that demon’s tentacles corrupting it. But we should still be able to sell some parts of it to an alchemist for ingredients. It was a magical beast, after all.”

She turned to address the remaining guardswoman.

“Would you please officially mark down our claim on that beast? There’s no way we can bring the whole thing back with us and we don’t have the tools or skills to properly harvest its components.”

The woman didn’t respond, her helmeted head turned to look up at one of Jadis’ bodies.

“Well?” Dys prompted, startling the nervous guard.

“What? Oh, sorry!” she said, drawing herself into a more formal at-attention stance. At Dys’ continued flat stare, she hurriedly admitted, “I didn’t catch that, could you repeat yourself, please?”

Aila did so, explaining what she wanted again to the guard who pulled a small leatherbound notepad from a belt pouch. She hastily scribbled a few words onto the paper with a metal pen, then passed the pen and pad to Aila for her to sign it. While she did so, the guard glanced up at Dys, her attention obviously drifting.

“Problem?” Dys asked, quirking her eyebrow.

“No! No, not at all. I just haven’t ever seen four people take down a sea bull before. I was told you’re level thirty-four, and that you’re level nineteen,” she motioned to Aila almost as an afterthought. “The kinds of people I’ve heard of fighting monsters like that in small groups are usually level sixty at least, with their third class already. You must have some impressive classes to be able to fight a monster like that at your levels.”

“If you only knew the half of it,” Aila said under her breath, drawing a suppressed smirk from Jadis.

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