"I'm holy not looking forward to camping tonight," Faith said. "I know we're in a fake indoor spaot the real outdoors with bugs and snakes and shit, but... Well, I've been spoiled by living inside a van that's haual apartment I grew up in."

  We'd gotten through Floor 2 after another few hours of incredibly tedious children's puzzles and two somewhat-less-tedious fights between Summer and illusory people, but we were starting to fg, and I always knew what time it was these days, so I'd told everyone we'd make camp on Floor 2 befoing down to Floor 3.

  "Eh, we're camping with a Wizard who specializes in pocket dimensions," Talia said. "We'll be fine."

  "The Ranger's Guild oftehese things called 'hammocks,'" I said, pulling o of my pocket. "It's a sort of tightly-wove, suspended from two ends, and it's an easily-portable solution to sleeping somewhere other than the bare ground. I've slept in one a few times before, and they're actually pretty fortable, you've just gotta lie in it at an angle."

  Talia blinked a few times, as she realized that, no, I was not about to reveal that I had a sed portable house in my pocket. While I may be a good enough Wizard to personally create small taihat are rger on the io the extent that they tain a house, the problem here wasn't that we didn't have enough space- this room retty big- but that we didn't have furniture, and as it turned out, furniture costs money.

  "...Okay, we aren't fialia said, grimag. "Shit. Do you really not have real beds in there? Just camping hammocks?"

  "I'm fug with you, yes," I said, nodding as I put the hammock away. "Got some inftable mattresses, which I've ented for maximum fort because why the hell wouldn't I?"

  "How much shit do you have in those pockets?" Summer asked, as I pulled out a fold-up bed frame, and begaing it up.

  "A whole hell of a lot," I said, snapping hinges into pce. "If you see some solution to a puzzle that I don't, that you think could be solved with some random tool or object I might possibly happen to have in my pocket, go ahead and ask, and I'll either have it already or just make a o buy one for ime."

  "Is this... Should I be stog my bag of holding like that?" Summer asked, looking down at her cleavage.

  "Holy?" I said, tilting my head to the side. "If you afford it? I'd say go for it."

  "Well, I do have some money now from this delve..." Summer muttered, grabbing the bck vas duster she'd gotten from the Floor 2 loot chest, which had been ented with a mixture of armor charms and quality of life charms. It wasn't quite "ented by an a master Wizard" quality like mine was, but it retty good heless.

  "Holy, I'd reend you keep the duster," I said, gesturing at the coat she was wearing, making her look a lot like me except with cleavage. "ces are, The Abyss will give you a loot chest full of s, but only at the end of the dungeon, because money isn't useful in a dungeon."

  "Fair enough," Summer allowed.

  "Also, I just go ahead and put some bag of holding charms on your duster so you don't have to keep everything in your cleavage," I added.

  "But I want to keep everything in my cleavage," Summer pined, befrabbing her own tits in both hands. "It has pockets!"

  "I uand pletely," Talia said sagely.

  I put up some tents around the beds, for privacy reasons. It did feel a little silly, sidering that everyone here had at least shared a bed with some of the others before, and most of us a bit more than that, but all the same, people still deserved privacy.

  "Joseph?" Emily asked, poking her head through my owent fp. " I talk to you in private, please?"

  Also, Emily was still a little shy, so.

  "e on in," I said, closing my book and putting it away. "What's up?"

  Emily closed the tent fps behind her, letting them snap closed with mags and activate the privacy charms.

  "I just... I'm..." Emily paused, before taking a deep breath, and sighing. "Should I have slept with Summer?"

  "If you want to sleep with her, you still do that," I said. "If you don't? Then don't worry about it."

  "I... I mean, doesn't she get stronger from sleeping with people?" Emily asked. "Wouldn't she get some Healer skill from me, if I, um..."

  "Those are true statements, but they don't actually matter," I said. "We aren't actually responsible for Summer's personal growth and development. Sure, I've been ag like I am, because I've been stuck with her and helping her out gives me something to do, but you, Emily Redwater, are not obligated to do a goddamn thing for Summer."

  "I mean, as a Healer-"

  "You are not currently obligated to do goddamn thing for Summer," I amended. "If she was injured, you wouldn't be here right now, you'd be at her side fixing her up. So, stop thinking about this in terms of what you should be doing, and ahe following question instead: do you, Emily Redwater, want to have sex with Summer?"

  "...Maybe?" Emily said. "I... I don't know, I just..."

  "...Would you like some more cuddles?" I asked, holding my arms open.

  "Please."

  Emily gingerly sat down on the air mattress, before crawling over and into my arms.

  "...Thank you," Emily said quietly.

  "Thank you," I said, gently squeezing her. "You're exceptionally cuddly, and I'm very gd you like me enough to cuddle with me."

  "Mmm."

  I hummed quietly, as she pressed herself against me more firmly. 'Exceptionally cuddly' was the polite way to describe Emily, sure, but the ho way to describe her was 'exceptionally curvy,' and I would be lying if I said I didn't both notid appreciate the way her chest squished against me as she curled up around me, even going so far as to throw one of her legs over mine.

  "...Are you happy with this?" Emily asked, after a few long moments. "Don't you... want more?"

  "Emily, I got paid ten thousand dolrs to take care of you," I said. "The part where I get to hug you is, as far as I'm ed, a nice bonus."

  "You did get impaled on my at."

  "And you give me free healthcare. I think we're even, no sex required." I shrugged. "Of course, if that's what you want, then go ahead and say so, but..."

  Emily opened her mouth as though to say something, but then stopped, sighed, and closed her eyes.

  "...Thanks for the cuddles," Emily said quietly, as she disentangled herself from me. "Goodnight, Joseph."

  She crawled out of the bed, and I carefully sidered the versation we'd just had as she walked back out of my tent.

  The fps snapped back closed as she left, and I sighed. "Volex?" I asked, closing my eyes. "Please expin to me how I fucked that one up."

  "That one wasn't actually your fault," Volex said, poofing out of her reliquary- she'd been absent for most of the day's dungeon-crawling, and I was reasonably fident she simply didn't want to participate. I didn't bme her; this whole affair was unimaginably tedious, and I was w how the fuyone enjoyed dungeon-crawling. "She was raised by more than just Amelie, after all."

  "That doesn't expin anything," I said.

  "Hikaano womeaught to think of sex as a thing they're not allowed to want," Volex said. "Sex is something they only accept, when imposed on them by a man for whatever reason he so chooses."

  "...So..."

  "Emily suggesting that she owes you a blowjob is the closest she e to admitting she wants to sleep with you."

  "Great. Fuck." I sighed wearily. "And, of course, there's also the ever so slight plication of the fact Melody sucked my dick that oime, and, well..."

  "Wait, she what?"

  "Did I not tell you?" I asked, opening my eyes. Volex was looking at me like I'd just shared the most insane piece of gossip she'd ever heard, which... well, okay, maybe I had. "Yeah, Melody Redwater, Emily's mom, sucked my dick. And, um. Well, I'm not sure how to tell Emily, either."

  Volex just kept staring for a few long moments. Her eyes were a pure, inky bck, with a slight sheen in the right light, but in the ter, where a real eyeball had pupils, hers had little white pips that burned like the fme of a dle.

  Volex then burst out ughing, and I groaned, rolling my eyes and then my whole body, turning my ba her.

  "No, Joseph," Volex said, cag. "There's no polite way to tell the girl who has a crush on you that you fucked her mom."

  "I hate my life," I said to nobody in particur.

  AnnouAs always, if you like Iro and wao keep making it, the best way to do that is to leave a ent, here or on my discord server.

  Also, I'm taking suggestions for publius chapters iween books. The ideas I've currently ge from "The remaining Kings of Hell react to the political upheaval caused by Paimon's death" to "Joseph Iro visits a neighbor and pys dominoes." Anything goes.