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  Chapter 173 Part A

  At the inn bathhouse the next morning…

  “Err, so…what’s the pn today boss?” Sunghee asked while I’m scrubbing her back vigorously. Right now it’s her turn for all the hard work and loyalty she’s given me. I’ll get my turn in a minute. Plus its fun to reward her, and there’s a feeling of really positive energy and something like an ethereal unity between us now because of how happy and united we both are regardless of her battle stats.

  Is…Sunghee winning the rivalry of the girls for my affections right now?

  Rina is next to us also being scrubbed, but in cat form. Sorry Rina, I’m not into cats, I thought. All of us are in birthday suits and enjoying the soap suds and heated water, though it did cost us extra.

  Somehow it’s become like these two are a duo still, even with the cat polymorph. But that’s a good sign, though Rina can’t talk in cat form she still shows signs of her personality like chasing both of us in circles.

  I use plenty of soap that the inn has provided while scrubbing them. It’s fun to make lots of soap suds while feeling Sunghee’s soft skin. We’re trying to keep it down though.

  Lately there have been too many compints about the wild bunch in our room number. The inn employees are starting to hate us. We get compints about noise at night and threats of extra charges. Luckily the inn has other rooms.

  “Hmm, I wonder…” I said pyfully while still scrubbing them both.

  “As long as we make money it’s cool right? And don’t we want more fun?” Sunghee asked cheerfully.

  She pyfully is trying to tempt me while swinging side ways to make her boobs jiggle in my direction. I fall into watching the hypnotic orbs swaying. This is almost like a hypnotism magic spell actually, when Sunghee does this.

  “Shun, did you know you are like a cat following a mouse when we py this game?” Sunghee giggled.

  “Meowwww,” came a sound from Rina growling at Sunghee probably from jealousy.

  “Eh? That’s not fair!” I protested.

  She giggled.

  “We need to hurry though. We have a time limit on this and need to try to work quickly,” I said.

  “Ah, so something is going on today huh?” Sunghee guessed.

  “Well…something like that. You’ll see,” I said mischievously.

  We cut our morning ‘py time’ short but it’s made both Rina and Sunghee mat at me, I think. They wanted to keep going for some time. The cat form Rina showed it through nonverbal means however. So we left our rented private room and went down to the INN’s lobby and eatery area.

  ...

  First it took us some time but we rounded up three dwarven kids to act as interpreters for us in written dwarven.

  It can’t be helped because that punk Gyle is still being a whiny bitch and avoiding us.

  Maybe I just can’t mix with normal people when surrounded by women?

  The dwarven kids are tested though with their written dwarven.

  We are wary of scams you know?

  To test them we had them read random signs around town and then rat each other out on transtion mistakes. But they all teamed up to negotiate 40 copper each for services for a twelve hour run.

  “That’s too high! Why should I pay that much?” I said.

  “Because we’re underage and could say you are exploiting children,” the smart one said.

  Screw him, he thinks I’ll cave to bck mail?

  I could get a switch and fy his little ass if I wanted to.

  “You really shouldn’t swear at children, even if they deserve it,” Sunghee chided me.

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  “Yeah but you were about too,” she giggled.

  Because of that I wasn’t able to fight back much against their overcharging us. I know for a fact 40 copper is overcharging but at least we got it to 20 copper each. Man dwarven towns suck. All these greedy types are everywhere. We made our agreement with them finalized. And they didn’t realize it was me tricking them.

  So far there’s no sign of Akira or Saiya either or anyone else though I suspect they are around somewhere.

  It takes us a good half hour to walk across town to find the arena.

  But then one of the kids protested. “EH?! My pops won’t let me go in adult brothels!” He tried to look innocent.

  “Hey you little asshole, that isn’t a brothel!” Sunghee protested with a red face.

  “We can’t go in brothels either!” another kid joined in.

  Nearby suddenly other adults are turning their heads at the misunderstanding.

  “This isn’t a brothel for the st time, you idiots. Do you think I’d bring kids to an adult pce!” I said angrily and hurriedly before others act on their misinformation. Any sane adult would see it’s a misunderstanding but sometimes people act without thinking.

  This is rebellion, faking with arrogance and fake virtue signaling to get out of work!

  The kids are trying to cheat us and embarrass us enough to let them keep the money and run! Dwarves are SNEAKY!

  They are trying to get out of work and keep the wage. I’m sure he did the misunderstanding on purpose. And he did it next to other adults to try to get us to cave in through shaming us.

  Because Sunghee is wonderful and beautiful she easily expined it as a misunderstanding to witnesses but it took a minute.

  This is the st time I pay anything up front. I’d given them 10 copper up front but I guess they don’t want to work for it. They haven’t even been on the job for an hour jeez.

  “I guess I’ll tell your dad you took money and ran out on a job. Wonder what he’ll say about that,” Sunghee finally said the right thing.

  The kids faces pale and one of them rubs his but remembering the st time he cheated someone.

  “No wait please!”

  “No don’t tell!”

  “We’ll be good I promise!”

  They are now begging to not get beaten by their pops I think. At least I’m pretty sure dwarven parents don’t have a hands off approach when it comes to discipline. Plus dwarves are sturdier even as kids compared to humans.

  …

  They have pained looks.

  Finally we start to go to the arena. Strangely it’s OK to have kids over 12 years old at an arena though I think that’s weird too. You would think it would have simir rules as a casino right? It doesn’t and is even more pse than one.

  It’s a huge area surrounded by tons of people. There are people selling stuff like medicine, herbs, bandages, elixirs that are probably mostly fake, and food stands with a ton of foot traffic, and warriors of all types going in and out. Most people come here to watch the fights. Some people are fighters in the arena, and others are doing support industries that help either the audience or the fighters enjoy themselves. There are as many non-dwarves as there are dwarves to a pce like this. Some of them even cim their items give special powers but I can’t feel any magic coming from them so I’m sure it’s a few con artists and hoax people.

  For some reason Sunghee looks terribly excited about the arena.

  “Oh Shun! This pce is amazing!” she cried out.

  She isn’t into bloodshed much, but she is into crafting skills and protecting herself. She’s been working hard to be able to protect me so this much should be expected for a reaction.

  It has a huge tall rounded roof and a sort of oval shape to the very long coliseum style building with a pavilion outer ring that covers the shops with magic light globes everywhere. It also has checkpoints with a shit ton of city guards here since technically this is a pce where gamblers and mercenaries fight in exchange for money.

  In other words because tons of money goes through here, it gains extra guards even though there are armies camped outside the dwarven fortress. Even dwarves are weak to greed after all.

  “So what do you want us to do here again?” One of the kids is scratching his head.

  “My dad doesn’t want me pick pocketing people anymore. I think I need to go home,” one kid said. He tried to walk off but Rina grabbed the back of his shirt colr.

  Wait, what? He thinks we are trying to pimp him out to pick pocket? I need to discipline him. Another cheater, trying to get out of the work.

  “Hey you little fucker, did you think we’d let you steal our money without doing the job?” she asked.

  Everyone is looking at this little guy. Dwarves hate thieves so even if he’s a kid everyone is instantly against him. And speaking of which, it raises questions about what activities his parents were having him do for them too.

  “We don’t want you to steal,” I said.

  “Oh…”

  They look confused. After we said that other people lost interest.

  “We need to figure out how they pick who matches up with who in the arena for bets. We want you to observe and help us figure that out,” Sunghee expined while smiling really big at them.

  They are instantly infatuated with her pretty face, glorious smile, and of course the huge boobs. I should have had her be the spokesperson from the very beginning huh?

  It’s almost like their eyes sparkle watching her. “Oh the pretty elder sister will you marry me?”

  What the fuck? Even this young, he’s trying to cock block me?!

  He’s like ten or twelve I think. Some ten or twelve year old kid just tried to NTR ME?! I resist the chance to murder him. His parents would notice if he disappeared. All gloves are off now from here forward if he tries it again.

  She crushes his dream with rejection instantly. I can still hear his sniffling fake ass crying from depression a good ten minutes ter. Actually I relished in it.

  We study the board for awhile while we get our bearings. We also have the three kids are sent to look after each other and look up close on the betting boards but still stay in sight of me and scout out information of any kind that’s useful for us. With more eyes and ears listening we hope to gain more advantage on all of our goals really. We also have a cover too of Sunghee covering and watching them and each other while I keep all of them in sight. This way no one can grab the kids and take off, which was a worry I’d had.

  I have catform Rina stored in her soul crystal however, since it would be easy for something bad to happen to what appears to be a strange stray cat here in public.

  All three of those little dwarven boys is trying to not get stepped on while observing. Dwarven kids are smart. So this is actually a good deal to get them to help us find clues.

  I hope they can help us find the answer…

  But can they do it in time?