Someone was shaking me.

  “Sweetie, wake up!”

  Ugh, I had a strange dream. You confessed to me.

  “That was real! I’m still upset that I couldn’t sleep in your tails, but I’m over it. I have an idea!”

  Right…things went a bit too fast, so I had secluded myself and curled in a corner. 2 idols in 2 months. Is this my popular phase? I would be lying by saying I never wanted that, but I have realized that everyone has their own baggage. The more people you take in, the more of a packing mule you become. I don’t want to become a packing mule.

  I got up and rubbed my head. I’ve had too much thinking lately. First completing [Foxfire Lunacy] and then all this social stuff. I’d take creating difficult skills over social stuff any day of the week, though.

  What is your idea? Surely not completely finishing me off, is it?

  “Why do you word it so strange? We’re partners now! I want to find out how you keep getting into trouble!”

  Yv seemed ready to go outside.

  I am cursed. The end!

  “Noo! I mean it! Maybe it has a reason, or maybe it’s a passive effect of you being a 9t!”

  But Giana doesn’t have that problem, does she?

  “And why would you take Giana as an example when you’re a man, you don’t show the same traits as vixens, do you? Why wouldn’t this work in reverse?”

  That! Oooh that’s a good one. Maybe male foxes just get into trouble and that’s why there are only 5…

  “So I thought about what you told me; about what you’ve been up to while we were away. How you got into trouble by just staying home…It’s quite impressive, you know…”

  I refreshed myself, took the wrap Yv handed me and walked to the door. She blocked my path and put her hands on her hips. “Are you going out like that? You wore that yesterday!”

  It’s from Jarn and it’s not dirty. I freshened myself up with water magic!

  Yv shook her head. “Ugh, men… come here.”

  Hey wait what! I thought that you would make my life easier!

  I got dragged back in. Nilah was watching me and seemed amused.

  Nilah! You traitor! Shouldn’t you help me?! I’m getting kidnapped by a rabbit!

  “I made this!” Yv presented… a hoodie with some cool foxes made out of foxfires on it and a pair of pants with many pockets.

  Wait… this is so cool! I was wrong!

  “I used some Jarn textile you left in the storage in the basement, sorry.”

  Eh? I don’t care. I will never use it anyway. This is great!

  “For someone who likes style points, you surely do keep wearing similar stuff…”

  You’re not wrong, but I don’t deal with stuff I don’t like or understand. I don’t understand clothing. Why is it called a pair of pants. Its 1 thing.

  I put on my new outfit and made a [Frost Mirror].

  Right…I have so much more style points, it’s as if I’m a different person…

  “I’m glad you like it! I know that your normal wear makes it so that you’re always ready for battle but. That’s not necessary if it's Jarn technology, right?” Yv inspected me and gave me the ‘ok’.

  That is an excellent point! Let's go!

  Yv blocked my path again. “Do you even know where we’re going?”

  Uhh, you go ahead then!

  “Well then, let's take a mission from the AA and cause some trouble!”

  Oh I haven’t beaten up something for a while! Let’s go Nilah!

  We went out and walked toward the AA. This new outfit was quite comfy. Is this Yv’s first step in making my life easier?

  Just like the idols always do, Yv was turning heads. The doors of the AA opened, and familiar gazes fell on us.

  “It’s the Silver Torrent and Yvonne!”

  Adventurers crowded around us and were being a nuisance.

  Hey guys! Back off! Leave the idol alone!

  “They’re also here for you…”

  I pushed the fans aside to get us to the terminals to access the missions when I felt something disturbing.

  All right assholes! Who touched my tail!

  The fans cleared away, and only 1 guy was left. He was holding the tip of my tail and a pair of scissors in his other hand.

  You have 1 chance and 20 seconds to explain yourself. Don’t fuck it up.

  “Can I get some?” The fool got turned into an ice cube.

  Listen here guys, this counts for Yv…onne and me. You can watch but not touch. I’m not as nice as these idols. If you want to touch, that’s fine, but be prepared for the consequences. We’re not an attraction, we’re people like any of you.

  Some people clapped, and many people seemed to agree. People came for Yv’s signature and even for mine. It took us 20 minutes to reach to the quest terminals.

  I think I need another trip to the spirit world…

  “Please don’t do that. Giana and Noelle were quite distressed when that happened. How about this A rank quest?” She pointed at a subjugation quest.

  I went to the E-rank section.

  Aren’t you still the lowest rank? How about this E-rank quest to find a granny’s cat?

  “But you’re an A-rank right?” Yv scrolled back to the A-rank section.

  Yes but Daddy’s girl will use anything as an excuse to get me to S-rank.

  I went back to the E-rank section.

  “Who is ‘Daddy’s girl’?” Yv went to the A-rank section.

  The vice president of the AA, why do you want an A-rank mission…

  “I want something exciting, how about slaying this giant winged panda?” She said as she pointed at a dangerous looking quest. Wind users were recommended. [Levitate] or [Flight] were also recommended. None of which I know.

  So you’re going to solo it?

  “But you can fly with those swords, right?”

  That didn’t work, eh? By the way, I need you to teach me an easy flexible wind skill.

  Yv accepted the quest and ignored the danger warning and minimum adventurer requirement of 4. “Why does it need to be simple? You’re perfectly capable of handling advanced wind skills, right?”

  Well my wind affinity is nothing special but…It's often the simple flexible ones that can be turned into monsters.

  “Simple yet flexible, eh?” I didn’t like the look Yv gave me. “How about [Wind Rope]?’

  We walked outside and ignored the fans and adventurers asking us to party up.

  “You’ve turned into a celebrity yourself.” Yv mused as she skipped along.

  Not by choice… it's not my fault that nobody can enter my role…

  “Maybe not make it so hard?”

  Hey come on, you know that your lives depend on my controlling my targets. I’m not taking that lightly.

  “So how easy do you think that flying panda will be?”

  Is an animal like that even supposed to exist? Strange creatures keep popping up.

  We neared the edge of the city and were about to enter the jungle.

  “I don’t know, the quest says that the difficulty was high as the panda could fly and lives high up in the canopy. Agility seems quite useless if it decides to fly up.”

  Aren’t pandas the big morons in the animal kingdom? How could they be a threat?

  “I don’t know. Nobody seems to be watching us anymore. Shall we speed up? I’m wondering how I match up with you in agility.” Yv’s ears perked up, and she crouched, getting ready to hop off.

  You want to race a phoenix hybrid? You sure like to take the ‘brave or stupid’ to it’s max.

  I got ready to speed off.

  “Well then, see you there!” Yv disappeared and streaks bounced between trees. I took off and went monkey mode with my tails, running where I could and jumping off trees where I could.

  I passed Yv after 52 seconds. Still impressive that she could stay in the lead for so long.

  It was not far for speedsters like us. Our speed went into scaling the verticality of this jungle.

  “How did I do?”

  Not bad.

  “Did you hold back? You didn’t use magic.”

  Uhh I don’t have to cheat at all times. Where is that panda?

  Yv and I were sitting on some branches in the canopy. Yv’s branch was struggling. Not that she was heavy, but the branch was quite thin. Giana, Yv and I put together were way lighter than the next heaviest in our team; Raishin.

  “He didn’t detect us, did he?” Her ears perked. “Found him! He’s fighting a young jungle dragon in that direction!”

  I followed Yv, hopping from tree to tree, and found a giant panda with 3 enormous bat wings chucking bamboo boomerangs and breathing fire.

  Now I’ve seen it all. Is that a bamboomerang? Are these creatures real, or is someone making them with stupid puns in mind?

  “Is it a panda bat? Or a bat panda? Why is it fighting a jungle dragon?”

  Because jungle dragons are morons…

  The Pandabat was dealing quite a lot of damage to the young jungle dragon. Its fire magic was no joke. Neither were the bamboomerangs. They tore through the scales of the dragon. Either this dragon is a joke or this Pandabat is a real threat.

  How would you beat up that Pandabat?

  “Pandabat? Oh… clip its wings while evading his bamboomerangs and hope it dies as it falls down. If not, drain his mana or nutrients with [Flower Drain].”

  Cute rabbit with brutal skills, eh?

  “How would you defeat it?”

  There are many ways to defeat it, but I could drop a [Foxfire: Meteor] on it and it will be an easy kill.

  “So why are you still A-rank again…”

  Well as A-rank or higher you occasionally get request to babysit important individuals which I don’t feel like doing. I already had one… never mind, I didn’t have one. And… don’t you have any big racial skills?

  “I could never learn them because we got kicked out of Hourai quite young… You guys might be the only ones, as you’ve been constantly in combat since then… ”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  I see, how about I don’t oneshot this panda so you can have a good battle and find out? It’s time to control that panda with [Hattrick]. Playtime is over panda! You’re going down!

  [Hattrick] went out and 9 swords appeared. I hopped on a sword and hovered next to the tree.

  Hop on, I hope you can surf.

  We were flying at our target on my swords and Yv was having difficulty staying on hers.

  Hey come on Yv, shouldn’t you be good at this?

  “H…how?! I never did this!” Yv jumped off, went 4t mode and hopped from airpocket to airpocket to the panda.

  The panda noticed us and the jungle dragon used his chance to escape. My swords intercepted all the bamboomerangs flung at us. 2 swords stayed near Yv to serve as footholds or to deal with fire flying at her.

  Petals gathered around her hand and formed some sort of handcannon, shooting blasts of wind and nature energy. Is that some sort of flower cannon?

  Lasers got shot from the jungle below with the panda as a target. Yv sure has guts using my archnemesis in front of me.

  The Pandabat formed a large club out of bamboo and wanted to slam it down but it got swapped with a leaf. The panda was bamboozled and got a [Rabbit Kick] in its face. He must not have spotted Yv coming in with a kick.

  Whoa! You kicked the color out of him! He’s all black and white!

  Yv gave me a tired look, shook her head and ignored me. Tough customer.

  Just tell me when my puns are getting un-bearable!

  The panda dropped out of the sky and sound creaking branches and trees could be heard before a large thud.

  I flew down to the napping Pandabat. Did he get one shot?

  The Pandabat moved and got up. My swords came into action and clipped its wings. It was just an overgrown panda now.

  Yv landed on its head with a dropkick. A nature energy shockwave escaped and the creature roared.

  Oh! Do a tornadokick!

  “I will tear down this jungle if I do!”

  Then go for it before he steals your thunder!

  The panda spun around with his bamboomerangs and created a bamboomerang tornado.

  “Fine!” Yv used [Accel Step] and did a tornado kick, sending out an enormous flashy tornado, shooting [Wind Blades] out. It devoured the bamboonado and chased the panda.

  [Frozen Ground] went out. It slipped and…

  Yv, can you give him pants?

  “What? Really? Now?”

  Please?

  Vines covered the panda’s loins and formed pants. I responded by freezing the panda’s pants to the floor.

  “…”

  You know that ellipses aren’t a dialogue option, right?

  The panda got hit by the tornado and roared. The tornado didn’t finish it off, but it had deep cuts in its body. Blood was staining his new pants red, and it was panting.

  This was an A-rank mission? What a joke.

  “I am confused too. Shouldn’t this be harder?”

  I swapped Yv to me and 8 swords formed a cage around us blocking bamboomerangs.

  “Oh so there were more! That makes sense!” Yv pointed her handcannon at the panda who had its butt frozen to the floor. “Can you gather them all there? How about…”

  She showed me a magic circle of a wind skill.

  What is this? A wind vine? No a thread or rope?

  “It’s [Wind Rope]. It’s simple and flexible, a bit hard to control, though.” Yv’s cannon was gathering a lot of wind mana and nature energy so I had to back off.

  Any chance that you’re charging a laser?

  “You could tell?”

  I’ve become an expert in lasers, as I’ve been hit by almost every laser I’ve encountered!

  “That’s not a good thing…”

  My swords used [Wind Rope] but it was messy. Difficult to control, and no wind affinity are a bad combo for trying things out.

  I’ll practice that another time, else we’ll be here all day.

  My tails started [Dragonevein: Ocean’s Wrath] to protect Yv and myself from bamboomerangs while the swords went out to clip the wings of these pandas. They weren’t anything special speed wise.

  Every panda that dropped to the floor got swapped to the first panda and turned into an ice cube.

  All 5 pandas got frozen in range of Yv’s laser and it was times to get rid of them.

  “Sweetie, can you hold my back? The recoil of this might be a bit much.”

  Sure.

  I held Yv’s back so she wouldn’t fly back.

  Something wasn’t right, though.

  Hey Yv, am I not lighter than you? How is this going to help?

  “Oh…”

  The cannon went off and we got launched. I covered us in my tails, turning us in a fluffy cannonball. I confirmed that the pandas had been reduced to atoms, so at least that was a worry less.

  We stopped moving but there was no shockwave due to the fluffiness of my tails.

  “I didn’t feel an impact…how soft are your tails?”

  Dunno.

  I uncurled and we were surrounded by jungle dragons.

  Ugh, what do you guys want?

  I ignored Yv’s surprise.

  “Who are you?! Are you the one who attacked Ubrynyr?” A dragon asked.

  We didn’t attack any dragon and do you realize how ridiculous that question is? How am I supposed to know who that is?

  “Don’t be foolish! Every jungle dragon knows who my son is!”

  I rubbed my temple as my headache was coming back.

  Dear overgrown lizards. Do we look like jungle dragons?

  “Your Draconian is even better than my wife’s so…”

  “Jaronyr! Whe iz wong wiz meh Draconia?”

  My Draconian is better than a native… my head…this is a joke, right? Guys, I’m not a dragon look!

  I pointed at my tails.

  “What about her?” The dragons locked on Yv.

  Do dragons have opticians? Look at those ears! Come on guys! Hey focus!

  The dragons got distracted and started eating fruit.

  They…forgot about us…come on Yv let’s go.

  Yv looked at me as if I was speaking Draconian. And she was correct!

  Sorry, problems of a polyglot…

  “What did they want?” Yv helped me up.

  It’s better that you don’t know… And shouldn't you be able to understand them?

  “I could if I get exposed to their language for an hour or if I attune to their auras.”

  Both sound like terrible ideas.

  “Hey you! Intruders stop!” The dragons had remembered us and surrounded us again.

  Does your son look like a panda?

  “Huh? Are you blind? Look at us! How could a panda be a dragon?!”

  These dragons piss me off.

  Very well, so you have opted for annihilation.

  The magic volume edition of [Fireball] got activated.

  “Oh, those must be like those fireflies! How cute!” A bulky dragon put his claw in the fire, causing it to get turned into ash. “Aaaah!”

  Hostility got aimed at us and a jungle roar went out, and multiple dragons locked on to us.

  “Uh… sweetie, isn’t this bad?”

  Bad for who? I still have this mana in my system.

  Dragons swarmed at us and I countered them by increasing the mana pressure, causing many to flee.

  All bark and no bite.

  The [Fireball] got shot into the sky and exploded, causing all the dragons to flee.

  A firefly…that’s a new one. I need a good name for my magic volume magic.

  We went back to our battlefield. It was easy as we had to follow the trail we had made by getting sent flying.

  “I still can't figure out how you keep getting in trouble. It doesn’t seem like you could help it. And…I was partly responsible.” Yv collected panda parts and some bamboomerangs.

  I never noticed before, but since Yv had poured charm mana into me, I’m more…aware. Her legs are truly long and alluring. Her ass is round and firm, and she was bending down without a care.

  This is bad…

  “Is there danger? Your heart rate increased.”

  I just noticed something, don’t worry.

  We restored the area as best as we could and went back to the AA. Yv’s rank got skyrocketed, and she was close to reaching C-rank. I got the usual bullshit of applying for an S-rank assessment.

  “That was fun!”

  Hey, why don’t you use an air blast or an air pocket to counter the recoil? To air pocket can get launched behind you so you can attack in two directions.

  “Oh! That’s a brilliant idea!”

  We had caught the attention of 4 adventurers.

  “Hey, we’re still looking for 2 people to fill our permanent party, how about it?”

  Yv stepped in before I could do anything. Her aura had changed. “You very well know that that is not happening. We’re quite popular around here, don’t tell me you didn’t know. We already have a permanent party. Please don’t come looking for trouble. Let’s go team leader.”

  My hand got grabbed and Yv pulled me along. We left the AA like that. She sure did make that easy. We didn’t talk the whole way back. Yv was humming a happy tune and a pleasant fragrance emanated from her.

  “Where is Nilah by the way?” She asked after the door closed behind us.

  Oh, she always returns to me or hops in the dimensional pocket herself. She knows that I’m forgetful so she takes care of moments when I forget or in this case; get sent flying.

  “I see…” it was hard to know what aura was her original one, but she seemed to go back to the one that was most common which was a bit shy. The aura she ahd settled on was way more assertive than how I knew her though. Almost as if she was a different person.

  I dove on the couch and went to mess with some magic circles. The insane conditions needed to use [Foxfire Lunacy] popped in my head, and I created many shadow clones and spread them out to draw the circle.

  Well that might take a while.

  “What did you do? If I may ask.”

  Don’t be so shy.

  I patted the seat next to me and she sat down.

  Just preparing my ultimate technique. I’m preparing for the worst. It might look as if I’m fooling around or lazing around from time to time, but I’m doing my best to make sure we don’t get killed off by random occurrences.

  “You have fought gods, right? How much chance do Noelle, Giana and I have to make it out alive?”

  With or without us?

  “Without.”

  0, sorry. When they bring you down, it’s over. Giana and Noelle don’t have the firepower to bring them down, but they probably will be fine. You might not.

  “And with you guys?”

  Well we will have an 80% chance of escape with me, else wise, 100% against minor gods but anything stronger is between 5% and 30%. It might get better if they have a glaring weakness we can capitalize on, or if we can sabotage their offerings.

  I continued messing around with magic circles. While anti-climactic, I had used [Hattrick] in combat but… there was no point if the magic circle wasn’t drawn yet. What a blunder. Using [Hattrick] is one of the easier ones, though.

  I jumped up as the doorbell rang.

  Oh hell no!

  I threw open the door.

  What?!

  “We were supposed to move in this house, but it was supposed to be empty… Do you know what’s going on? It seems as if you’ve been living here for a while.”

  Oh, give me a second, I will fix that. Come back in a minute.

  I closed the door, cast illusions on my house, and used [Elgard Overload] to swap with an empty house in a quiet neighborhood.

  Heh, hardly anybody lives in this area, perfect!

  “Is that how you moved your house? I expected something more…crazy…”

  Not you too…

  Yv got up. “Well, then I’m going to cook something. Look forward to it!”