Escorting the two went smoothly, aside from the maid’s constant apologies. With the pair in the safehouse, I went to have my missive signed by completing the phony delivery. With that mess finally taken care of, I headed to the dungeon to make the most of the rest of the day.

  As I completed my ten dungeon runs, I called the twins and invited them for another lunch next day. Then I waited for night to fall so I could go and handle the second request I received from Cora. This one was to remove a man from the Outer district who had supposedly taken advantage of a woman. The quest had a detailed description of the man’s schedule and the exact location of the place he lived in.

  To avoid sticking out like a sore thumb in my expensive clothes, I threw on a black cape with a hood, and left to begin the hunt. Upon leaving the city via the southern gate, I turned east. It started about half a kilometer away from the road and stretched all the way to the eastern gate, mirroring the same layout between the other gates.

  The houses here were a stark contrast to the ones inside the city. Instead of the well-organized, clean architecture found within the walls, here outside it was just chaotic rows of wooden shacks. There was no lighting and no proper roads—only beaten, muddy paths.

  Most of the hovels were shabby; if you kicked one, it looked like it would collapse like a house of cards.

  And the smell—the whole district stank of piss and shit, it made my bowels churn just trying to breathe.

  What surprised me was how many people lived here. There were hundreds upon hundreds of shacks, most of them housing entire families. Whores were standing in front of random shacks with kids poking their heads out from the dwellings behind them, groups of ruffians beating a man, and thugs fighting each other. I could not wait to leave this place.

  The target was easy to find: a well-made wooden house, small but sturdy-looking. It even had a proper chimney. Smoke curling from it. Something about that didn’t sit right with me. I stopped and hesitated. Alrune reacted right away.

  “What is going on, Vic?”

  “It just feels weird. How is it that a drunk and a rapist has the nicest house in the slums?”

  “So, you also noticed. Let’s just speak to him; I will be able to tell if he lies.”

  Nodding, I walked up to the door. Several seconds after I knocked, the door drifted ajar. That was my clue. I shoulder-tackled him through the door, sending him sprawling across the floor. Then I closed the door, pushing my hood back.

  Once inside, I had a look around; the house looked nice and cozy. Everything was tidy. The man was cowering on the ground repeating, ‘Please don’t kill me, I have nothing!’ It seemed highly unlikely that this was a person who would do something like that.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I mumbled.

  “Not sure, but he is not playing—his reaction is genuine!” Alrune said.

  I pulled over a wooden stool and sat down. “Relax! Nobody is going to kill you, but don’t stand up. No quick movements. Answer my questions truthfully, and if things are like I think they are, I will leave.”

  The man slowly sat up on the ground and nodded, visibly scared. “O-ok!”

  “Firstly, I came because a person named ‘Mathaniel Bothrick’ created a request for your life at the bounty hunter’s guild. He states that you raped his wife.”

  “BULLSHIT! It was my wife before he stole her from me!”

  There was no reaction from Alrune, so I knew he wasn’t lying. “Tell me the whole story.”

  “Me and my wife, Livette, lived here in the outer city together and worked near the northern gate. We were slowly saving money to move inside the city—at least that’s what I thought we were doing.” The man took a break for several seconds, trying his best to not start crying. “One day, when I came home from work, I found her already at home, with our boss. They let me know that she was leaving with him. She took all the money, and he kicked me out of the job. I have no clue why he’d want me dead! He already took everything from me!”

  “He's telling the truth!” Alrune assured me, and my blood started boiling. Fury surged from deep within—ancient and unpredictable as the ocean, bordering on madness. It felt like someone striking a half-healed wound. The difference was that it wasn't my body aching—it was my soul, and I had no clue why.

  The worst part was that my mana started reacting; it began churning and gathering, readying a blast that would sweep away my worries. Feeling this, with my heart still filled with pure rage, I started to panic.

  Noticing the changes to my psyche, Alrune promptly reacted. She drowned me in her love and obsession once again.

  Her love washed over me, a warmth that steadied my chest and cleared my mind. My pulse slowed, the churning mana following and dispersing in obedient response. The storm inside me quieted, leaving only a lingering heat in my chest. The sharp edges of rage dulled, replaced by a quiet, simmering awareness of the injustice—and the sudden shift felt almost surreal, like waking from a fevered dream.

  When she retracted it several seconds later, I was able to speak to the man without my emotions tipping the balance.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “I trust you, but you should be more careful. Bothrick is most likely worried that the whore he took from you will come back running to you. That’s why he ordered this hit. Don’t open the door to strangers and make sure everything is properly locked and closed, always!”

  The man just nodded, still processing the information. I decided not to linger any longer; I stood up and left the shack. I entered the city and started to wander around, not sure where I was going. That was when Alrune’s voice, serious and worried, sounded in my head.

  “It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it, but what happened to you in that shack?”

  I shrugged. “Hell if I know. I was perfectly cool, but then out of nowhere, when he explained to me what they did to him, I got unbelievably angry. You know that I am divorced and that I was bought out from the family business before we met?”

  “Yes! Your brother took your sloppy seconds and paid you out!”

  “Basically. It was the first thing I experienced in this body, and I didn’t care. As the memories of this body flooded in while I was sitting there, I saw everything. He wasn't interested in either the business or the woman; this was something he had been hoping for a while. So I was able to remain composed. But here, with this guy... a seething fury from deep in my soul engulfed me entirely. I don't know why. Thanks for having my back.”

  She chuckled. “Honestly, I am just enjoying the fact that me letting go of my restraints and showing my true feelings to you is what soothes you down. I was worried it would smother you.”

  “I wouldn't mind feeling it all the time, but it would make it harder to interact with other people.”

  “Don’t worry, I will let you feel it anytime you want.”

  As I smiled, an unbelievable warmth spread across my body and soul.

  “Do you think it is related to the feeling you get with women?” Alrune asked a few seconds later.

  “It can be. Maybe something from a previous life?” I paused for a moment, thinking, but ended up shrugging. “Well, it does not matter. I have no memories of my previous life, so there is no way to know. The only thing I am sure of is that it is nothing I know about!”

  “What are you going to do with that piece-of-shit couple?”

  “Me? Nothing, for now. I want to report everything to Cora and see what she has to say. I am not a vigilante, or a murderer.”

  “Good! Let’s go to the inn. I will let you feel all of my love as we sleep!”

  I smiled and headed towards the inn with hurried footsteps, looking forward to a beautiful night. I felt so comfortable wrapped in her feelings that I fell asleep in seconds and had the absolute best sleep I could remember. When I woke up I felt stronger, more composed, and fresher than ever. It was like not only my body, but also my soul, had finally gotten to rest.

  “We need to do this every night!” I mumbled, waking up.

  “I am all for it, Vic!”

  After such a good night, I didn't rush anywhere. I just lounged around until I had to leave for lunch with the twins. When I arrived, Juliet was once again wearing clothes that barely covered the essentials, flaunting her assets at me—even trying to flirt openly every chance she got. Cora, on the other hand, acted shy and embarrassed. She mostly kept to herself and let Juliet do whatever she wanted. But this dynamic changed drastically when I spoke.

  “Cora, I wanted to speak to you about one of the jobs you gave me.”

  “Don’t tell me that escort was a scam! Did they want you to fuck that daughter?”

  I shook my head. “That one was a phony job, yes, but it turned real and everything went fine. It’s possible that Quenly will request me personally.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “The other one. I talked to the target and I am sure he is innocent. The asshole who posted the job just wanted to tie up loose ends after he stole the guy's savings and wife.”

  Both women turned serious. Cora was the one to break the silent tension. “You sure? Can’t he be lying to you?”

  I shook my head. “Did you forget who my tether is? Alrune is the soul of a mythical Valkyrie; she talks, she looks at the world through my eyes, and everything. She is very good at reading people; she can tell if somebody is lying or not.”

  Cora grew silent for a long while. Then, after a long silence, she let out a breath and began.

  “I will freeze the request and have it investigated. Plus, I will inform the guard captain and put the requester on the blacklist. Guard captain will look into it if I tell him it’s from you. We may deal with killing people, but ordering a hit on an innocent person is too much. How did it even get through? All requests are meant to be verified!”

  Juliet was the first to react. “Outer district! They most likely just stamped it seeing that the target lives there!”

  “Fuck those discriminatory cunts!” Cora uttered under her breath. She looked up, her eyes apologetic. “I am so sorry that I offered you a job on an innocent person.”

  I shook my head. “No worries, it’s all good. The request should have been properly verified before it was posted. It’s not your fault.”

  With the tension broken, we leaned back in our chairs, the clatter of dishes and murmurs from other tables filling the silence. Juliet nudged Cora playfully, and the energy in the room shifted.

  This brought back the relaxed atmosphere, letting us enjoy the lunch. I managed to close out the quest I had completed, grab a new one, and sell all the loot I had gathered. We finished the lunch with Juliet returning to her open flirting while I fended her off.

  After this, I settled into a nice rhythm: running ten dungeons, taking quick bounty hunter jobs, then cycling back to dungeon runs. I had lunch with the twins every other day, fending off the advances of one, while the other watched us both like a hawk.

  I even became a dedicated bounty hunter for Rebecca Hobsley and Baron Quenly, handling all their fake escort missions—mostly just quick, well-paid delivery jobs. There was one more person requesting me specifically: the captain of the guard—the officer who had pointed me towards the Healing Heart Orphanage. He asked for me for every slave-related issue that wasn't really fit to be handled by the guards, explaining that he liked the way I handled Selah and that he trusted me.

  I took a break every Sunday to check on Selah so I could take her out of the orphanage for a day. Sometimes we went shopping, sometimes for food, or just to play in a park with the foxes. Each outing seemed to make her expressions more animated. She still refused to speak, but she drew and wrote freely—one drawing even showed the two of us with foxes, titled ‘My family’.

  Alrune ended up being grumpy all day from not being in the picture. I had to listen to her grumble the whole day until I promised her that I would tell Selah about her soon. The real prize was watching Selah play with the foxes; those two little rascals really brought out the best in her. It felt good. It felt like having a real family. Maybe because it was.

  Every night, Alrune wrapped me in her love as I slept. I'd never felt more rested.

  The only interruption to this cozy rhythm was when I reached my 100th run of the Overrun Catacombs. I was worried about what would happen once I completed the hundredth run, but to my luck, the dungeon didn’t close immediately—it just let me know that the dungeon would disappear after forty-eight hours.