Sam woke the next day, on his own accord for once. Sadly that was due to the need for the bathroom, but it was still incredibly nice to wake up with Dia wrapped around him rather than waking up in that horrible place, on the stone floor, expecting to get into a fight in a few minutes. He wasn’t able to slither out of her grasp without her waking up, this time he even tried using his Psyhands to gently move her arms and legs, but she woke nonetheless.

  “No, Zar no leave. Dia come with.” She looked angry and sad at the same time like she was afraid he was going to suddenly disappear again.

  He didn’t have the heart to force her to let him go, so she came with him instead.

  Leaving the room he found it a bit strange that last night’s intimacy wasn’t affected by the sapient snake in the room. Elara spent the night with Sam and Dia this round, though not a problem it was still a bit odd in hindsight.

  Even though he once taught Dia how the toilet worked by showing, for some reason it was incredibly awkward not being alone right now. Even though they were recently intimate this just felt... oddly wrong.

  It wasn’t like she sat there and stared at him, she was more attentive to her hygiene and was grooming her fur, but it was just odd having her there. That was over fast enough, as he was done and went to wash his hands, she came with him like a russet shadow, something he was going to have to get used to.

  However, this all changed once they were done with morning bathroom stuff, she started sharing everything and anything she had been through the last two months. Jumping from topic to topic like a kid with a billion things they want to share and not being able to decide where to start.

  “Janik said it was snow, white cold stuff. Is fun digging into, large piles, can make tunnels!” Using her hands she mimicked digging as she talked about it, seeming to have loved the snow. Being quite agile he could imagine her darting through snow tunnels without much effort. She continued to explain how she had fun with Janik’s kids, how she struggled with snowballs, the kids were much better at it than her.

  This transitioned into her rapid-fire explaining random things she had been doing, focusing only on the positives. Sam only sat there and smiled, taking in her excitement, as he marvelled at her impressive grasp of English in this relatively short time.

  During their talk there was a knock on the door, it was only a minor disturbance as it was the staff returning with his gear. He got another cart with his stuff on it, and they picked up the other cart not in use with the food from yesterday.

  It didn’t take long after that for Sam to get a text, asking when Janik should pop by. Replying that whenever was fine he returned to talking to Dia. After continuing with her adventures with Janik, going into Aetheria now and then for some runs and spending time with Janik’s squad. Elara got the focus eventually, as she had a much calmer personality so she was somewhat overruled by the excited Dia.

  Elara had spent most of the time with Grace, she didn’t go with Dia and Janik to Aetheria. And though she did envenom some throwing daggers for Janik, she didn’t know if that helped them or not. She also did not like the snow, at all. Too cold. She learned quickly that she liked radiators a lot, Janik made a small nest for her near one which solved all heat problems when Grace wasn’t around.

  The talks changed and turned towards Sam, though he didn’t have much else to add than he explained with Janik yesterday, he went into as much detail as he wanted to at the time. Not feel comfortable sharing just how he changed over the time he was in there. How he took enjoyment in almost torture-like methods of killing the creatures in there, after all; ‘they were only dungeon mobs’. At first, this affected him due to Dia, but eventually,y there was a stark separation between the two and he was able to just go nuts.

  At first, this also caused some thoughts and moral issues in his mind, but that also faded as time went on. He found more and more effective ways to kill, to affect targets non-lethally but with brutal effect.

  “Come to think of it.” Sam broke out of his spiral into negative thoughts, remembering his time in the last Solo Dungeon. “You keep calling me Zar. I kind of know what it means but why don’t you call me Sam, or something else?”

  His tone was curious more than anything. He knew the word meant something like love, husband, or some other designator for your significant other. But he didn’t know why she hung onto it even now that she was learning English.

  Dia’s expression changed, still happy just being around him but there was a bit more shyness mixed in. “Zar mean Mate. Important.”

  Sam’s expression turned more questioning. “But why are you saying it in your language? I don’t intend to force you to change it, I just wonder.”

  Dia pondered for a moment, seemingly looking for the correct words. “It important in my people...” Looking upwards with a slight squint she was thinking of something. “Culture! It important in culture. Mate is important, using Dia language feel better. Feel more important.” Placing her hand on her chest when referring to herself, her determined expression solidified that this was important to her.

  “Hmm... I suppose that makes sense. There’s a lot about your culture, and you, that I don’t know. What happened the day I found you, why were you in the cage?” Sam asked, not sure if it was a sensitive topic or not.

  Her ears sank, hinting that it wasn’t a fun topic at all. “Dia was curious about Human, tribe not like. Dia also have two tail, Dia different, tribe not like. Dia live alone, no mate. Mate is important. Dia out, look at Human, learn to fight. One day, Human see Dia, capture, put in cage. Human... not nice, no food, no water, hurt for fun, human forget Dia and move. Goblin show up, Goblin want to eat Dia, but Dia angry, Goblin stab with pointy stick, wait until Dia weak. Then Zar show up, save Dia, help Dia.”

  Her explanation started with her ears dropping, she looked down and away from Sam as she explained, it got worse and she sounded more depressed as she mentally relived the events until her rescue. But as she got to the end of Sam showing up, her ears and eyes perked up, and her tails started wagging weakly.

  Pondering this for a moment a lot of things became clear. She was living on the Island, and of all people to meet they weren’t exactly the best, generally. It was interesting that she seemed to have learned the basics of Martial Arts by stalking humans, she probably triggered something that let her learn it. Being looked down on for her interest in humans and her two tails could also explain why she was captured and not killed like her tribe most likely was. When Sam cared for her, it might have started as a rescuer syndrome thing but given that this could be one of the few times in her life she had been given care, it was easy to see why she refused to leave him.

  Sam didn’t mind having her with him now. From his side, this started weird and was just someone to spend time with while on the island, but her devotion to him seemed to have worked out over the relatively short time they had spent together.

  Continuing to talk, even though Dia was somewhat of an outcast due to her interests and her extra tail, being branded ‘different’, she still was heavily influenced by her culture. This put Sam on a strangely high pedestal as far as importance goes. Even though she could fight, and easily take care of herself, especially now that she knew English, she still considered herself his second in anything. The fact that he was a good fighter only made things even better, he was providing for her and caring for her, and these things alone made him a very good mate.

  This put Sam in a strange spot, like most people he liked compliments but it felt weird getting them listed and bluntly explained like this. He didn’t know what to say but a simple few words of gratitude seemed to do wonders.

  The rest of the time, until Janik arrived, was spent having Dia teach him her culture and language. Picking up a surprising amount of words as they didn’t have grammar at all, their language was more contextual. Rather than having a different word for hunger and hungry, it was the same word, but the context and situation made it a statement or question. There were also not many pleasantries like please or polite words, it was more to the point and factual.

  These facts made the language surprisingly easy to pick up, he just needed to learn the words and the major context differences. He was also able to confirm that the words he already knew, were surprisingly on point. They were off by a slight meaning but as a general gist kind of thing. His showing interest in her culture and language made her ecstatic, to the point of her tails wagging back and forth like a small storm as she excitedly corrected his pronunciation.

  They also used a bit of time to try on the Armour that Sam felt worked better for Dia’s style, it was an armoured vest crafted from an eerie, vaguely translucent fabric that shimmers faintly as caught in twilight. Its edges almost ripple with a vague haze.

  [ Phantom Vest - Mid-end C-rank

  Defence: 60

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Spectral Step: +10% evasion

  Shadow Veil: +10% stealth in low-light conditions

  Ghostly resilience: +10% damage reduction against ranged attacks. ]

  During this time he made sure to use as much of her language as they got the armour fitted for her, based on her wagging tails it seemed like it was very positively received.

  After the armour was properly fitted, he took the feathery hairpiece he had been wearing in the Dungeon and placed it on her head, something she seemed to like almost more. He had no idea why these things hit so well compared to other gear, he would have to ask her more about her culture later.

  He ordered someone to come and appraise the rest of his gear to take that off for sale. The men that came up to do this registered everything and took it away, having Sam sign off on having $1 491 000 covering the gear. This had him wonder, he hadn’t checked his account after he had sold the load of Aether Stones he hoarded over all that time. Taking a minute to log in he saw that the total balance was now $8 601 824. This caused him great pause as he stared at the number, confirming it again and again.

  There was a note attached, checking that out he found that he sold 6986x Aether Crystals, as well as 34x Mana potions. It explained the sum but it was... a bit much... In a way. He was getting used to the large values of things but this just nuked that perspective.

  “Zar? Zar Ok?” Dia asked with a worried tone from the side.

  “Oh... yeah... yeah, I mean... I am... Just a bit surprised.” Sam answered honestly. “I knew I had a ton of crystals but didn’t properly consider their worth when I was in there, and now I can probably retire... had it not been for the System fucking with me.”

  Retiring with this money sounded pretty good at the moment. Had he been in Janik’s situation he most likely would have, but he was in a rather... peculiar position...

  Parts of him immediately wanted him to blow money on S-class stuff, but he had to consider a bit. On one hand, he wanted to gear up his party as that would increase general survivability when they push on, but on the other hand, the next time he’s pulled into a Solo Dungeon, he’s going to be alone again, he needed to prepare for both.

  There was also the thing about training he wanted to do before he was sucked in the last time. Though he... got training, it wasn’t what he was after. He wanted structured training. His time in the last Solo Dungeon had taught him a lot, though... shenanigans that should not be named, he had found out, or re-confirmed, alternative ways to attack or defend. But there were things he wanted to test, things that were best to test with a willing partner or a dummy.

  The first logical thing he decided to do, was to test his invisibility. He hadn’t tested it at all so far, was too caught up in... other things.

  “Dia, I’m going to test a skill, I’ll go invisible but want to see how well it works.”

  Dia nodded but tilted her head a little bit.

  [ Activating Invisibility - 5 Energy ]

  He decided to activate it on half power for now, and as expected he went translucent. He became entirely seethrough and looked like a ghostly shadow of himself. Dia jumped a little as the effect was instantaneous. A countdown started in his vision with some information once he had activated it.

  Looking at himself it was kind of strange. He was happy to notice that the entirety of ‘him’ was invisible, clothing and gear, but not in a separate instance so his clothes didn’t go seethrough, showing him under it.

  [ Activating Invisibility - 10 Energy ]

  Like before, Dia jumped a little as he activated it, now he wasn’t able to see his arms or body anymore, no matter how much he moved them around in his vision. Interestingly enough, if he closed his eyes he could still see because... his eyelids were transparent. This made him wonder how he could see at all, but it seemed that it just worked.

  “Can you see me?” Sam asked Dia, who jumped at his voice.

  “N... No... Zar is.., Gone... I hear you, I smell you, but not see you.” She reached out her hand towards where she sensed him. Stepping to his side she looked at him as he moved, her ears twitching and moving as he moved, eventually, she made contact which seemed to calm her down a bit.

  “Dia touch Zar, Hear you, not silent. But not see.” She confirmed as she took a step back.

  Wanting to test one more thing, he deactivated the ability, coming back into view right away, the timer seemed to reset as it again startled Dia.

  He could re-activate it on a new timer, seeming that the limit was only how long ‘this’ cast lasted. This felt like it was designed for Mana users, as mana would be consumed. He could just re-cast it as much as he wanted as all his Energy was restored after he deactivated the ability.

  “This is a good skill.” He smiled to himself. He still had things he needed to test, like attacking with his hands vs the Psyhands, what worked around that and such. But in either case, this was amazing.

  Sit down on the couch, Dia snuggled up against him he started browsing the TAC market on the room-tablet. There might be something that stood out and with his massive budget, he could at least get something. He had planned to rest for a few days, just take it easy, but his mind was high on preparation. Now that he was able to take a whole night to rest, comfortably, as well as just chill with Dia like this, there were ideas based on his experiences he wanted to test out, right away. To the point that he kind of didn’t want to sit still.

  This put him in a very annoying situation, his body wanted rest, but his mind wanted to rush and go right away! To almost force him to think about other things, he decided to have some fun with Dia. She seemed to like being petted by his Psyhands, so he decided to use all of them. Starting with placing one hand on her head, she seemed content with that, then he proceeded to add more and more hands until all 40 were petting her, this turned from content purring with the first few hands to distressed confusion with all of them on her, having him stop with a small chuckle.

  He did, however, keep one of them on her head, which calmed her back down, though she had a questioning look towards Sam for a few moments once he did so.

  The rest of his hands were used for other things, since his mind wanted to do stuff he might as well use that to try out things. Using the Psyhands he mapped out the room, making a sort of remote-touch mental image of what was around corners, the ceiling, shoes near the door and everything. He had realised that his mind was holding him back in many cases, where he wanted to do different things with different hands, but his mind could only keep track of so many different activities at once.

  He needed to either find a way to get used to doing different things with different hands or find a way to give some of them a sense of autonomy. And without anyone like an expert to ask, he would have to test and try. In the end, he had various things going on, a few hands were tying and untying shoelaces, and others were reorganizing things in cupboards, a few were dedicated to petting Dia, others to massage his shoulders.

  This worked surprisingly well, though it was a calm and controllable situation, however, he decided that this might be the best way to do it for now, perhaps he’d just get 40 fidget toys and see if he could handle that. But as soon as he thought about that, he realised that he kind of had. He had quite a set of weapons, all of which had sheaths. Changing his focus he started unsheathing his weapons, moving them and the sheaths around in other angles, and trying to re-sheath them at as random timings as he could. This was surprisingly straining and felt like just what he needed.

  All of this was interrupted by a knock on the door, which ruined his concentration enough that he stabbed multiple of his hands, luckily they didn’t take damage but that could have been bad.

  Reaching over with a Psyhand, he opened the door. He expected it was Janik but if it wasn’t, this was horrible timing for any opponent to come in the door if it came to that.

  “I brought Pizza!” Janik’s voice stated through the door as he entered, looking around confused for a second before he found Sam on the couch snuggled up against Dia.

  “Ah, your hands, that makes sense.”

  Janik placed everything on the table before he took off his coat and shoes. “So, what are we doing today?”

  Sam was going to enjoy this, and though his mind wanted to do all the things, it was good to just take some downtime as well. He’d ask Janik about some good thoughts, skills or items at the same time.