Rey paced his room, wishing he had the internet or some porno mags or something so he could rub one out to clear his head. He could try without it, but then it was just a lot of mental work, and his brain right now was too focused on death and severed limbs. And that made it difficult to do the deed unless one was into that kind of thing. Demon Rey would've had no problem with that, but human Rey's head wasn't in the game right now.

  Phil's warning about his friend wanting to meet Rey meant that the big bad wolf knew about Rey's fake future-seeing abilities. It was still surprising that no one else had taken the Seer Element and seen that Rey was bullshitting everyone. But he couldn't worry about that.

  The chief thing was that he had to help everyone grow stronger as quickly as possible so he could implement his plan, which he knew would not unfold as smoothly as he anticipated. But if he executed it now, then they might be slaughtered altogether.

  "Ahh!" Rey pulled his hair.

  It was like he was choosing between stepping on a Lego or answering his ex's call, and that would be awkward as fuck, since his ex was just downstairs and didn't even know she was his ex. He banged his head on the wall.

  He groaned. Focus, Rey, you're about to be fucked three different ways, and you're thinking about pleasuring yourself.

  Think about that succubus instead. Demon Rey provided his insightful thoughts.

  He was right. After all, he was never wrong. He should think about that succubus. Her mesmerizing form and the way she…

  It had just started to work when he heard the voice of the last person he wanted to hear.

  "Rey," Kassandra called.

  It was fortunate that his back was to the door. He dropped onto his bed and put one leg over the other.

  "Kassandra, what brings you here?" He stumbled through the words.

  She raised an eyebrow, and for a moment, Rey feared that she had figured out what he was about to do. And if she did, Rey would run to Unokir himself and put an end to his miserable existence rather than live with that embarrassment.

  However, in the last playthrough, once they were the only two that remained, they had done the deed many times, but Rey was determined not to get that close to her, as that would lead to her demise. If she ever figured out what he was about to do, she would never let him live it down.

  "Kassandra?" She said. "So, you're back to calling me that."

  Rey chuckled. "Sorry, my mind was on other things, Kassi. What brings you here?"

  She stepped into the room and, to make matters worse, sat right beside him. Her shoulder brushed against his, and that was all his boy needed to jump with joy.

  You've got the worst timing in history. Go the fuck to sleep.

  "I didn't miss the expression on your face," she said, staring into his eyes so intently that Rey had to look away. "You look miserable. What future did you see?"

  "I'm sure you can guess what I saw," Rey sighed and scooted away from her ever so slightly so their shoulders weren't touching.

  She nodded. "How bad is it going to be?"

  "If it were a buffet, I'd be getting an all-you-can-eat-trauma," he replied. "I'm pretty much at stress level: maximum at this point. And we're not anywhere close to being ready for Phil's BFF."

  "Not even after all that fighting."

  Rey shook his head. "I wish we were, but that didn't make a difference. We've wet our beak with blood, but we need to gorge on it, or that fuck will gorge on our intestines. And I, for one, would like to keep them inside my body."

  She was quiet for a long moment, and Rey couldn't help but stare at her beautiful face. He could get lost for days in those green eyes of hers. Those dimples and that laugh that made him fall in love with her. But then her screams returned to him. The screams as she died, and Rey was powerless to save her. He would've followed her if he hadn't been so enraged at the thing that had killed her.

  He knew he was doing it again. He should look away. Stay away from her. Keep her at arm's length, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't look away, especially when she was so close. He wanted to put his arm around her, hold her close, and never let go.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Finally, she turned her head to look at him, and he quickly looked away.

  "Were you staring at me?" She asked.

  "What?" Rey feigned a frown. "No. Why would I do that? I was looking at that wall."

  She smiled that god-awful smile that made Rey want to do things that would even have the Joker questioning his sanity.

  "Yeah, okay, there. Anyways, I was thinking that if we're not strong enough to face Unokir, then the only thing we can do is kill more demons and get stronger."

  "Yes, and that ended so nicely for you," Rey commented.

  "Rey, you can't keep worrying about me," she said. "We all have to take risks if we want to get strong enough to face the demons that are out there."

  "Don't I know that?" He muttered. But I cannot stop worrying about you. If worrying about you burned calories, I'd be shredded as fuck by now.

  He looked at her and gave her a wicked smile. "So, who should we kill this time? I think Tia can go, though killing her might be a little difficult, as she has an auto-reply on her body. Any damage done to her is automatically returned to sender."

  She frowned at that. "Who said we need to kill someone else? I was thinking more along the lines of what you and Ajay did when you guys left to train, and you came back from an escapade with that succubus."

  Her face fell a little. She was thinking about the deed that he had bragged about to everyone, and if he were like the Rey of the past, he would have run to tell her the truth, but he didn't tell her the truth this time. After all, he couldn't break the bro code.

  "Yes…" Rey said. "We may be able to find another dungeon. Though it would be doubtful, the boss would be another succubus. Now, that was something."

  She huffed and shook her head. "Is that all you think about?"

  "When I'm not thinking about everyone's impending doom."

  "Then let's go put those thoughts out of your mind."

  "Wh-what?" Rey leaned away from her.

  "Let's go hunt some demons. What did you think I meant?"

  Rey chuckled nervously. "Nothing."

  It was not nothing. It was as close to nothing as a tactical nuke is close to nothing. For a second, his little friend awoke with a hunger to put dragons to shame. He had the urge to slap it back to sleep, but that would only strengthen its resolve.

  Kassi, please leave. He begged inwardly.

  "Anyways," he quickly said before the conversation veered into the uncomfortable. "You're not healed yet. We go hunting now, and you'll be back on the operating table within two minutes."

  "Then we'll wait a couple of days." She moved for the door but stopped midway. "You can uncross your legs now."

  Unokir, get the fuck here right now and swallow me whole.

  *****

  Two days passed, and in the last two days, the castle was busier than a beehive. They cleaned up the place and got to work reinforcing it. Hardly anyone even talked about Phil and Professor Doom and Gloom. They just faded out of the conversation, even though everyone was working towards making sure they didn't bust in the castle door guns blazing.

  Rey mostly avoided Kassi after that awkward encounter in his room and decided that he would try to avoid being alone with her with a passion. His feelings for her were growing, and he needed to curb-stomp that shit like he did to the demon babies. In his defense, those babies were dripping with experience like a ripe mango. He just had to slurp them up.

  He made his way downstairs, and mostly everyone was there—most of those that mattered anyhow. Tia was up on the watch tower, and it was better that way. He didn't want to tell her where he was going. Besides, she could track him from the watchtower anyway.

  "Okay, folks," Rey coughed loudly as if he were a chain smoker whose lungs were about to give out. "I'm heading out to kill some things. My trigger finger has been twitching for the past few days."

  "I'll come with." Ajay shot to his feet.

  "Maybe we'll find another succubus to play with." Rey raised a hand in a high five.

  Ajay looked around to see that Filomena was watching, so he didn't return the high-five. Instead, he made a motion with his eyes towards her.

  Rey lowered his hand with a sigh. "You take the fun out of everything. But still, let's pray that we get as lucky as we did last time." He elbowed him lightly while winking at him. "I'm sure there is a monster that wishes to let a couple of stallions loose, eh?"

  His brother from another mother coughed as if he had snorted a packet of turmeric and pretended not to have heard that.

  "There'll be no stallions letting loose," Kassandra stated as she stepped up to Rey and crossed her arms. "I'll be coming with you two and making sure that you don't run off and do indecent things."

  Rey deflated. "Guess no more succubuses for you, Ajay."

  He turned a shade of red that Rey didn't think was possible for him. Rey snickered at his discomfort, but there was more than one person who was not feeling grand.

  Filomena wrenched her hands together. She clearly wanted to say something but didn't know how to, which was a surprise, considering that she never had any problem holding her tongue before.

  In the past, the four of them had gone on expeditions out of the castle on a few occasions, but they had yet to do so in this playthrough. But then again, Rey had brought an army of demons to them, so they never had to. Not to mention that everything seemed to be moving in overdrive this time around.

  "We could take one more," Rey said. "After all, why not? Looks like most of the work's been done around here."

  Kassandra frowned at that, and Rey motioned to Filomena with his eyes. Ajay watched the exchange with a mix of confusion and hopeful eyes. Kassandra shook her head slightly as she noted Ajay's expression.

  "Filomena, would you like to come?" She asked.

  Her eyes lit up at once. "Yeah, sure. I was done here, anyway."

  "Awesome!" Rey exclaimed and moved for the door. He slapped Sergei's massive arm. "While I'm gone, you're in charge, big man. If anyone doesn't listen to you, knock them over the head and let them sleep it off.

  "Understood," Sergei said with a smile that sent a slight shiver up Rey's spine.

  He walked out of the castle door to hunt some demons and hopefully rank up. He knew he was asking for a lot, but even one rank would do.

  I'd be happy with even half a rank.