Lisa watched as Jeff applied ointment to his legs for the bites he received during the day. He learned the hard way why it pays to have a higher perception and not rely on expensive gear, especially when he does not tuck said gear inside his boots so a random dungeon squirrel does not climb up his leg.

  “ So, what did you learn today?”

  Jeff eyed the stick with the well-tenderized chunk of meat on a stick over the fire with glee.

  “ I hate squirrels.”

  Lisa snorted a laugh at that.

  “ You do know I know of one beastkin that is a squirrel, right?”

  Jeff blushed in embarrassment to that and Lisa laughed again at his expense.

  “ I would not want to be around her either, she works on the red street and has a habit of nicking anything loose on her clients. That and she is a hoarder. Worse than a dragon, except for everything, even trash.”

  Jeff blinked at that, and a faint memory cropped up before vanishing. Lisa saw the amusement on his face before it shifted to one of worry.

  “ It happened again?”

  Jeff nods to this as Lisa releases a sigh.

  “ Your memory loss sucks.”

  Jeff shrugs at this as he takes some seasoning from his pack and puts it on the meat before taking out a wine bottle.

  “ I appreciate the empathy. Other than remembering what killed me and the few others who came here from my old world with me, I don’t remember anything anymore except in brief flashes. Do you remember when I told you about those entertainment shows?

  “ Yes, seems somewhat extravagant to do in my opinion, but different standards as you said.”

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  “ Well, one of those shows was about hoarders, Who live in homes filled with trash that comes up to their chests or higher. I thought that squirrel girl would be appropriate for it.”

  Lisa snorted again but then thought more about what he said.

  “ I guess she would, though I would not call anything she does as appropriate.”

  Lisa then looked away contemplating how close her own life came to being a lot worse than it is now. Seeing the shift in the mood, Jeff decides to bring it back to the original topic.

  “ I am going to have to get new boots. The ones I have do not go very high up my legs so I can not tuck my chainmail and pants into them. An oversight I will have to address with each of my sets of boots.”

  Lisa looked back at him and nodded.

  “ True, but you are missing something else other than a flaw in your wardrobe. Demons come in all shapes and sizes, typically you see them at the size of adults but do not forget they have killed infants as well. And some species infants are smaller than the squirrel that went looking for your chestnuts. Especially, right after being born. Most front liners have some kind of aura ability that causes a low amount of continuous damage to deal with such enemies. You and your summons do not.”

  Jeff thought about this and then had a thought.

  “ So how do you deal with lots of annoying pests?”

  Lisa laughed and shook her head.

  “ I had a charm that causes indiscriminate damage at a fixed amount to everything in its area of effect. It is one of the ones that big warehouses use to keep pests out of their goods, Except, I do not have the thousands of them in a grid with a powerful dedicated mana source to keep them continuously supplied. So it only lasts a minute at most, and if things move through it fast enough, they can survive no matter how weak they are. It was an oh shit button for when I was younger for just that situation. I kinda lost it when I lost my home.”

  Jeff looked at the nearly cooked mess of a ruined squirrel sorry to hear that again.

  “ Did you... lose anything important when you were screwed over?”

  Lisa was about to laugh before seeing how serious Jeff was and slowly shook her head.

  “ Important, no, I don’t own anything I deem to be important. But some of my stuff was valuable. I definitely got screwed over there. screw my landlord and screw that squirrel girl as well. May I never meet them ever again.”

  Jeff smiled seeing Lisa’s mood rise as he took a drink from the wine bottle.

  “ To not seeing people we do not care for ever again.”

  Lisa raises her mug of water and downs it when Jeff takes another drink.

  “ So what about you, you told me about your priestess friend, but not of your enemies.”

  Jeff seemed to sober up to this and it was immediately noticed.

  “ Sorry, that bad?”

  “ It’s not your fault they are pricks. It does not take a genius to see what they planned and it was ironically simple as well. They wanted to take control of all the summoned under them. Basically enslave us even after our slavery is over. I suspect most of us, like many that did surcome, would have been stripped of our potential to feed their own. My friend and many others were captured by them. We became fast friends and were quickly becoming something more, but after it happened...”

  Lisa sighed and put aside her dinner and moved to behind Jeff to hug him.

  “ Are you still friends?”

  Jeff merely nods to this and Lisa hugs him harder.

  “ Then you have nothing to worry about.”

  She then stood up again and moved back to her spot before picking up her own chunk of meat and biting into it.

  “ Now, back to what you did wrong and how to fix it...”