“What was that about?” I raised an eyebrow, confused.

  We had just finished dinner, and Luci's family had bid us goodnight after announcing that the wedding will take pce tomorrow afternoon. Right after that, Setsuna suddenly stood up and went outside. Once she was gone, Freiya got up and left as wwell, saying she had something to do outside.

  After Luci and I said goodnight to the other three Kitsune, we headed off to her bedroom.

  Fitting for a princess like her, it was fairly sizeable. Against the middle of the back wall was her bed, which looked big enough for at least three people to sleep on comfortably. To each side of the bed was a small table, and one side seemed to have what looked like a mp, and was probably enchanted. Off to one side of the room was what appeared to be a walk-in closet, and the other side of the room had a bookshelf, which didn't have a single empty space on it. Finally, there was a round rug in the middle of the floor, which was green with a golden trim.

  “Well, here's my room. It's not too much, is it? My parents barely held back I'm furnishing it, and the little they did was only because I asked them too,” Luci said as she stood in the middle of the room, turning around to face me while I was still standing in the doorway.

  “It's nice,” I nodded, closing the door behind me as I fully entered. “That's probably the biggest bed I've ever seen before, and I doubt it was cheap to get all those books, but I like it. I may be biased though, I'd like anything of yours.”

  “Hehe, thanks,” she replied, walking over to bookshelf. “Speaking of books, do you happen to have a bestiary yet?”

  “No, I don't think so,” I shook my head. “Is that just like a list of a bunch of monsters and stuff?”

  “Yeah, pretty much,” there was a pause as she found what she was looking for. She handed the book to me. “Here you go. It's my old one. I practically memorized the whole thing as soon as my parents finally gave me permission to become an adventurer.”

  I began flipping through it. It was a lot more thorough than I expected, having a detailed sketch of every entry, as well as a decently long description of everything and the ranks of the monsters. After a moment, a specific page with two entries caught my eye.

  “Goblins!” I excimed, somehow shocked to find the entry of the staple fantasy creature. If I remember correctly, they're supposed to be the mortal enemies of all women, and that includes me now…

  “Oh, right. I forgot to mention, that bestiary doesn't just include monsters, but also certain semi-intelligent races, like Goblins.”

  “Ah. I just hope we never have to run into them…”

  “Oh? Why's that? We don't really carry many valuables, and if we did have a problem with them, they're only F rank.”

  “Valuables…?” Why would carrying valuables even matter when it comes to Goblins? I shook my head.

  She said they were F rank, and sure enough, right next to the little guy with the big nose, long ears, stubby limbs, and a loincloth there was a big F drawn in. I decided to look at the description next, and… well, my fears were unwarranted.

  As it turns out Goblins in this world aren't what I thought they'd be. Instead, they're actually decently friendly little fellows. And in the case one isn't, they're weak enough even a kid could fight one and have a good chance at winning. The real problem comes from their obsession with collecting various objects, which is basically anything that catches their eye, but usually just shiny, more valuable stuff.

  According to the bestiary entry, the seemingly random gibberish they speak is an actual nguage, with just the small problem that nobody's been able to transte it yet.

  While I'm at it, I'll mention the entry below it. An SS rank creature called the Goblin King. Supposedly, there's only a few, and nobody's ever seen it before, giving it the high rank due to the little there is known about it. The only thing people have actually found out is that in areas with high Goblin poputions, random objects will just disappear, even when no Goblins are nearby.

  There is one other thing known about them. At one point, researchers with the Guild found a particurly friendly Goblin, who they questioned. After painstaking amounts of time, they've managed to even transte a few words, meaning “King like Goblin, but Zorpeluzogabata.” I'm not even making that up, that's what the bestiary says. I guess they couldn't figure out what that word meant.

  I closed the book and set it off to the side.

  “Well, I guess my old world was wrong about Goblins. Anyway, is there anything else you wanted to do tonight?”

  “While I'm curious about what your old world thought about them, that can wait,” she said the part with a yawn. “I kinda feel like going to sleep early tonight. You probably should too. Like, I know you don't feel tired, but it's still probably not the best idea to stay awake for longer than ten straight days, not to mention the fact that staying up even half that time is probably unhealthy.”

  “You're probably right. Although, I don't think I could really do ‘straight’ days anyway,” I chuckles at my own joke.

  “Um… I'm not entirely sure what that means .. I assume it was meant to be a joke?”

  “Yeah…” It seems this world is a little too uneducated for those jokes to work…

  Even as Ren, before those jokes would even make sense with me as the subject, I've always found them funny, and wanted to try it out. Now when I finally have the chance, I find out the people in this world don't even know what it means. Ah, I see now. Is this what depression feels like?

  Putting aside the jokes that only I hear, I do actually wonder about that side of things in this world.

  “Actuslly, I have a question real quick. Are people like us considered normal in this world? Now that I think about it, the only other time I've seen a simir retionship is with Ina and Shimo.”

  “People like us…? Oh, you mean same-sex retionships. It's not… not normal, I guess? Traditionally, a retionship will be between a man and a woman, but nobody really cares if it isn't. Especially with the help of Augmentation potions.”

  “I see,” I nodded, suddenly stopping when I heard another familiar word. “Wait, there are potions here? How come I haven't seen any?”

  “Yes, there are potions. They're just not very common in Pristel. It's the same with the Dwarves and Beastkin too. Most people will only make potions with weaker magic, and turning it into a potion would only weaken the effect even more, so most people don't bother. Genetic magic works a lot better, but as you know, it isn't very common, and ones that have focuses outside of combat are even less so.”

  “That makes sense, I guess. Circling back to why I asked about potions, what are Augmentation potions?”

  “There simply potions made using Augmentation magic, which is the Genetic magic of the Augmonica family, who are nobles from Osakara, like the Revierres. Speaking of which, the two families are actually pretty close to each other, and the st guests that showed up after us happen to be the Augmonicas,” she paused. “If you're wondering what the potions do, they're a weaker form of the family's magic, which allows them to change their bodies. It's a little wierd to expin, but they can do things like change their face, or grow an extra limb. They can even temporarily move around their organs, or remove, repce, or add more. The potion form of the magic is always made with a specific effect in mind. Such as creating an extra appendage along with everything necessary to make it work, which allows couples like us to have children if they want.”

  “So it's like that…” honestly, I can't say I didn't see it coming. I could feel my face heating up, and see the same happening to Luci, so I changed the subject. “So… Sleep, right? We should go to bed now.”

  “That's what we were gonna do, good point”

  With that, our first night back in Pristel passed, and it was the day of Vic's wedding.

  Alpy376