As the first rays of light glimpsed through the lone window, stealthily making their way towards the grand bed that dominated the already impressive chamber, the time to awaken had arrived for the Overlord of Death, the last Master of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, Ainz Ooal Gown. Except since they were underground, the light was entirely artificial. And also Ainz hadn't slept a wink.
The original customizable weather conditions had initially been a feature of the Tomb, but since they cost money to run Ainz had chosen to disable them ever since they arrived in the New World. It was only due to Medea's ingeniousness that they had managed to rework the system to substitute gold consumption with MP (or mana, as she insisted to be called), so they could once again enjoy such simple luxuries. Honestly, without the Witch of Betrayal's support, he didn't think Nazarick would be able to run at even half the capacity. If only he hadn't found out about that particular moniker, he would have honestly considered her a trustworthy ally.
Realizing he was once again lost in thought, he reticently started to properly get out of bed. The promise of a mountain of responsibilities and stress that awaited him threatened to pull him back into the silky cushion's warm embrace, but he resisted the temptation. He had already decided that he would take a couple of hours off every night, even if he himself didn't need to sleep anymore. Mental fatigue was as serious a problem as a physical one though, that was something that any salaryman understood deep in their hearts. While he technically couldn't work himself to 'death' anymore, he found out that a bit of time when no one bothered him did wonders for clearing up his head. He only had to be careful not to stay in too long, or else before he knew it he would end up as a NEET. He already did way less work than anybody around him thought he did.
Before getting up he made sure to sneakily slide the book by his side back into his pocket dimension. While most of the time he would be left alone during the night, he could never be sure any of the NPCs weren't secretly watching him. Which had been the case on more than one occasion. At first, he thought maybe they were surveilling him, suspicious of his true colours, but after a while, he realised that they just liked to watch him sleep for some reason. Especially the little Hassan, that one really creeped him out. The little purple-haired child never said anything, never even blinked, just continued to quietly observe him from a dark corner of the room. Ainz was pretty sure that he had watched horror movies that started like that.
So his solution had been to pretend to sleep while reading one of his books under his pillow. A small part of him felt embarrassed of having to hide away like a 10-year-old past his bedtime, but with titles like 'Ruling for Dummies' or 'How to become the #1 Manager in your company' he couldn't afford for anybody else to see what he was reading. Those holy scriptures did help him a lot though. His latest lecture 'Fake it 'till you make it ' by Buggy D. Clown, had been especially eye-opening. He had never felt such a strong connection to an author before, it really felt like he could completely relate to his experiences, almost to a frightening degree. He could really feel like his genius-menacing persona was getting more realistic with every turn of the page.
As he was putting on the fluffy shoes that rested on the side of the bed, however, he felt something squirming around inside his body. It was a weird feeling, the closest thing he could associate it with was liquid bouncing around his stomach, except as he was now he was lacking that particular organ. Or any organ, for that matter. Looking down, he couldn't help but jump in surprise as he was greeted by a messy blob of grey hair peeking through his ribcage.
"Uhhh..." the tiny figure groaned in a sleepy manner. It seemed that his sudden movement had woken up the other resident assassin. As they lazily stretched around in their signature-tattered cloak, her eyes made contact with Ainz's. Her lips curled up in a smile that took over her entire face. "Good morning Mommy!" they cheerily greeted him, their previous fatigue immediately melting.
Ainz had never found children particularly endearing, yet he still felt the full damage of their assault. He quickly scrambled to control himself though, he didn't want Emotional Suppression to activate because of Jack's overwhelming cuteness.
"Ah, Jack?" he coughed into his fist to gather his thoughts. "Since when have you been in there? And why are you calling me your mother? Shouldn't Atalanta be a better fit for the position?" From what he could remember, they were already playing as a pretend family anyway.
Having finished climbing out of his ribcage, the bright-eyed NPC was now sitting cross-length on his bed, swinging around from side to side. At his question, their head tilted in a confused manner.
"Mommy is Mommy. Mommy Atalanta is mommy Atalanta," they answered matter-of-factly, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Ainz managed to suppress a sigh. He felt like he should chastise himself for still not getting used to the NPCs' 'eccentricities'.
"I see. But why were you in there?" he changed his line of questioning, pointing to his now empty chest.
"We like it in there. It's not as warm or comfortable as we remember, but as long as we are close to Mommy we are happy!" they responded, looking longingly at the place they just crawled out of.
Ainz felt a sudden desire to cover himself, wrapping around his night robe so it could cover as much bone as possible. It wasn't that he did not feel touched by Jack's declaration, but that did not mean he could ignore the several problems that came with that statement. He was starting to grow a sense of disdain towards Presence Concealment, it did not matter how useful it was for their operations if the trade-off was that it allowed people to crawl inside of him without him noticing.
"Jack, please let me know if you want to sleep here in the future! I do not mind, in fact, I would love to read you a bedtime story beforehand." Literal stars appeared in the small child's eyes at that declaration. "But you have to promise me you won't try to climb inside my ribcage while I'm sleeping" he sternly added. The light in their eyes was immediately extinguished.
"Okaaay! We promise!" they answered, doing their best to look away. He would have found it endearing, if not for the implications that came with that. It seems that the ability to slit people's throats did not help improve their lying skills. He was going to need to start casting warding magic before sleep.
"So are you going to play with us now?" they asked excitedly. Ainz couldn't help but chuckle faced with such earnest purity. Before he knew it, he had already started ruffling their hair, earning himself a satisfied giggle.
"I have some business to attend to now, but I'll make some time for it in the afternoon," he promised them. "In the meantime, I have a very special job for you. Do you think you can handle it?"
"Yes, Mommy!" they answered, putting their face to their temple in a clumsy military salute, no doubt trying to imitate some of the Neros. That earned another laugh from the skeletal overlord.
"Do you know the small Hassan that's around your age?" Pausing for her to nod their head, he carried on. "The other Assassins told me she would like to join you and Alice sometimes, but she is too shy. You're the only one who has a chance to find her if she starts hiding, do you think you could invite her to play with you?"
"Yeey, a new friend!" they exclaimed, jumping off the bed. "We're on it, Mommy!" they boastfully declared, before disappearing into thin air, so fast even Ainz couldn't keep track of them.
"I know she was created that way, but I still can't think of her as Jack the Ripper. Was that the reaction Bukubukuchagama was going for when she designed her?" he mumbled to himself as he headed towards his drawer.
"That is the nature of a Heroic Spirit whose identity was never revealed." Kiara answered "The Grail simply finds a suitable vessel that could fit the container, a 'possibility' of someone that could have been Jack the Ripper. But to think it was possible for it to manifest as a child, I cannot imagine what cruelties must have burdened that short life of hers... Or was it theirs?" she pondered.
"Uh, Kiara?" he asked, without turning back to look.
"Yes, Master?"
"Why are you under my bed?"
"Whatever do you mean?" her face was the split image of innocence, despite the damning position of the rest of her body was in.
Ainz didn't say anything in response, opting to quietly step out of the room.
While the Overseer of the Tomb traditionally didn't have a corresponding floor, usually operating in either the Throne Room or the Council Area, that didn't stop Moriarty from taking over and redecorating one of the rooms that had gone out of function for one reason or another. Ainz had to admit, if the old man decided he got bored of being a college professor or an evil mastermind, he could quite easily make waves in the world of internal designing.
The entire space has been refurbished to look like it belonged in 19th-century Victorian England. It wasn't particulary flashy or luxurious, but everything, from the mahogany wooden tables to the brown tapestry that covered the brick walls, was clearly of quality make. Despite being almost brand new, it gave off a feeling of age: the old gramophone subtly tucked in the corner, the weary-looking books, covered in only the thinnest layer of dust, the small chandeliers that illuminated the room, everything was perfectly thought out to add the establishment's atmosphere. Too bad said atmosphere was currently being ruined by the pair of NPCs, currently passed out on the bar's table.
Ainz felt the need to pinch the bridge of his nose, his fingers sliding across the hard bone. The sight of his knocked-out Floor Guardians wasn't something he wanted to get used to, but luckily this time it was more than likely just the effect of alcohol, judging by the twin empty cups beside them. As he approached them to shake them awake he was, however, he was stopped by Moriarty, coming out from a nearby storage unit with a fresh bottle in hand, his outfit as impeccable as ever.
"You best leave them be for the moment, Master." He said, stepping behind the bar and gesturing to the pink-haired woman and the man covered in tattoos, both still unmoving as ever. "These two are frequent customers, but they happened to get a bit rowdier than usual last night. So I deemed it fit to let them try my newest concoction." he proudly showed off the bottle in his hand. "They should be out for only a couple more hours, there's no point in having them cause a ruckus now. Still, colour me impressed, I never imagined they would manage to down a whole bottle, Servants they may be."
Ainz didn't think what to say about drinking on the job, but he had to agree that it would be best to let them sleep for now. As far as NPCs went, those two were definitely in the more troublesome category. Honestly, he had expected the Fourth Floor Guardian to give him more of a headache than these two, but that one had been surprisingly docile. 'As long as nothing gets him angry. That's a whole other can of worms."
"Oh, excuse me, I do not mean to waste your time. I very much appreciate you coming down to my humble establishment, instead of your usual accommodations. " the bartender thanked him with a deep bow.
"Think nothing of it, I appreciate the change of scenery." Ainz waved him off.
"Alright then, feel free to sit anywhere, I will be right back with your work for today." The skeleton's mood instantly soured.
It would be awkward to sit near the two drunkards, so he settled on a nearby table. Waiting for Moriarty to come back, he started to play around with the darts sprawled around on it. He aimed them at the nearby dartboard, on which a photo of a handsome man with blue, perfectly slicked-back hair, was plastered right in the middle of the target. Aiming without the use of skills proved quite challenging, but by the time his assistant came back with a mountain of paperwork he had just managed to hit the picture's right eye.
"Excellent shot!" Moriarty chuckled.
Ainz felt his momentary sense of accomplishment fade away as he stared down the behemoth of processions and requests in front of him.
"It is quite a slow day, so you should be done by lunchtime. Would you like something to drink while you work?" Moriarty asked, pointing to the impressive collection of bottles neatly seated on the shelf behind the bar. Where did he get them from, Ainz had absolutely no clue.
"That won't be necessary." he politely declined. After a bit of testing, he found out that he indeed couldn't eat or drink anything with this body without it spilling out of him. That was a particularly hard blow to take, almost harder than being suddenly transported into another world.
"As you wish." Moriarty got back to his barkeeping duties, no doubt in his mind that his Master would ever need his help. He even turned on the gramophone to play some relaxing ambience music.
Ever since he started adventuring as Momon, Ainz's administrative duties had shrunk down considerably, so the amount he still had to go through was a testament to the sheer amount of work that need to be put into assuring the smooth running of the Tomb's operations. Moriarty mainly took on the finer details of the core functions, such as supplying or maintaining an information network, Ainz's job was mainly to set the overall goal moving forward or to approve of any new plans or shifts in the already established ones. Or at least that's what he thought he was doing, it wasn't like he understood what he was actually stamping his seal of approval on. He once pocketed a paper to study it in the leisure of his room, and it took him almost forty minutes to understand that it was a request for new undead for farming purposes. There was no way he would ever get through all of that at such a rate! So he was content to simply pretend to go through everything and bank on Moriarty inadvertently letting him know if something particularly important needed his attention. Which, to his credit, had worked splendorous so far.
The trick to thoroughly convince everyone that you're working diligently though was to pause meaningfully from time to time, appearing to be deep in thought. Then you'd ask for clarification and word things as vaguely as possible so that Moriarty would give him the answer himself. That man was too smart for his own good. Stopping randomly at a page, his eyes picked up the words 'Gorgon' and 'trap' from the report. That was a situation he was thankfully somewhat familiar with.
"Moriarty." he addressed him, trying to sound as dignified as possible. "About the plan involving Gorgon, are you certain about this course of action?"
The old Overseer paused from polishing the glass in his hands, his eyes zoning out as he tried to derive the hidden meaning behind that question. Not that there was any to begin.
"I understand your concern, but from the information we obtained from that meeting, I believe it is in our best interest to continue to stall out the Hoy Kingdom as long as possible. At the same time, this is a prime opportunity to try to test out the strength of our 'unseen' enemies. With Hassan now infiltrating the Theocracy, it is only a matter of time before the mastermind shall have its identity revealed." Ainz nodded in approval, gesturing for him to continue. "I understand this poses quite a setback for the 'Momon' plan, but I surmised that there is no need for urgency at the moment."
He had no idea what meeting he was talking about, but Ainz knew that the 'Momon plan' was actually his idea to spread his name as far as possible in order to find any potential comrades that might have also been transported here. Going as Ainz Ooal Gown was a bit risky considering the enemy knew about their existence, so he would have to use Momon for that purpose. He was supposed to be the one to 'defeat' Medusa and become a hero for it, but apparently, that wasn't happening anymore. He understood Moriarty probably had good reason to put the operation on hold, but his shoulders did slump a bit at the news.
"I see, it can't be helped then. I shall proceed as usual. With a bit of luck, maybe I will stumble across another legendary beast and we can work from there" he lightly joked.
"Oh?" Moriarty inquired, a cunning glint in his eyes. "As expected of my Master, you already have a contingency planned for such a case." Ainz imaginary heart got stuck in his throat. "What do you have in mind?"
'Dammit Moriarty, stop putting words in my mouth!' He desperately scrambled to come up with an answer, but he was drawing a blank every time.
"Well...you see.." thankfully he didn't need to continue, as a resounding bang echoed from the floor above them.
'I've never thought I'd be glad to hear something blow up inside of Nazarick' he thought to himself with a sigh of relief.
"Av for fanden!Hun er en fandens god danser!"
While there wasn't that much actual space between the rooms, the fact that the sound of the explosion managed to travel so well despite the thick walls that stood between them was actually quite a feat.
"Din satans nar! Luder nonne!"
Ainz had been expecting many things when he had teleported to the scene of the crime. The sight of a whole room covered in pudding and a small author yelling in something resembling a northern language wasn't in his top predictions.
"Bare vent, I will take a piece of paper and jam it down her throat!"
The fact that Hans had switched back to Japanese wasn't particularly comforting for the overworked skeleton. As a veritable army of Nero maids burst into the room, cleaning products in hand, Ainz couldn't help but marvel at the thoroughness of the havoc wrecked. Not a speck of the original room had remained visible; walls, windows, furniture, everything had morphed together under layers and layers of the sweet, gelatinous desert. The result was a sea of delicious fluffiness, a sight that would make any child squeal with delight. If it weren't for his inability to experience taste anymore, he had no doubt his own mouth would have been watering by now.
Standing aside to make way for the hurrying workers as they struggled to carve their way inside, Ainz turned his attention to the other two people present, the victim and the culprit. In perfect coordination with his living space, Hans was also covered head to toe in the creamy substance, to the point where his only remaining discernable features were his eyes, which had been shielded from the assault by the pair of rectangular-shaped glasses, and his voice, who was still in the process of spouting profanities.
Pulling a fresh towel from his interdimensional pocket, he handed it to the up-in-arms author.
"Please give us a moment, I want to talk to her myself."
"As much as I take offence at the idea of a story rebelling against its author, I have no interest in the puerile grudges of a make-believe child." he bit back, as he started wiping himself off. "No, the one I want is that irritable cow, I know she's somehow behind this! Next time I see her I'll take this book and show it right up her..."
"Andersen! I said to give us a moment." Ainz interrupted him, harsher this time.
The blue-haired NPC looked like he wanted to continue, but with a slight grimace, he managed to close his mouth shut and left the two to their devices.
"Now," Ainz kneeled a bit, coming face to face with the perpetrator himself. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Can I have some of that pudding for dessert at lunch? It's very naughty to let food go to waste. Plus, it looks really yummy!" Between her big eyes, unblemished skin, and frilly lolita outfit, the child in front of him felt less like a human and more like a porcelain doll. Her long hair which usually flew unrestrained alongside her back was now tightly combed into pigtails with ribbons on their end, no doubt Atalanta's work. All in all, she was the perfect image of innocence; nobody would believe such mischievousness would be hidden behind her pure, adorable smile.
"Alice..." A prank or two would be expected at her age, he himself had given his parents quite the headaches when he was younger, but this had gone way too far. He needed to make her understand that there was a clear line between what was acceptable to do and what wasn't; and that she had jumped into a triple backflip right past that line. "Why did you fill Han's room with pudding?"
"I thought he needed something sweet to offset that terrible bitterness in his writing," she answered serenely, with only the tiniest drop of her venom on her tongue.
"Do you have something against him?" Ainz knew that the writer's sharp tongue often put him at odds with his fellow NPC's but, barring one exception, there wasn't any real animosity between them.
"Not really." she shook her head, accidentally brushing her pigtail across Ainz's face. "I just have a few complaints about some of his stories. Seriously, why does he have to end so many of them so depressing like that? Children's stories are supposed to have happy endings!" her pouting face might have made Ainz understand why Atalanta was carrying a photo camera with her at all times, but that didn't mean he would back down.
"So you thought it was a good idea to do that to his workshop?"
Finally realizing she was being scolded, Nursery Rhyme dropped her eyes towards the ground and started fidgeting with her hands.
"I only wanted to make just enough to drop on his desk!" she sheepishly defended herself, a bit of colour starting to gather on her cheeks. "Then the nice nun lady came in and said she would love to help me, but we accidentally ended up making way more than we needed."
"I'd rather not tell Hans that Kiara was actually behind this, he might actually try to assault her next time he sees her." Ainz didn't see the point in trying to scold that woman either, he had the slightest feeling any punishment would not have the desired effect on the resident nun. Remembering the hungry, lusting flame that sometimes crept its way from behind the woman's eyes was making his thoughts hazy, so he stopped that trail of thought.
"Even so, you and Jack have the position of Floor Guardians, which means you are entrusted with a lot of responsibilities. I have a lot of trust in the two of you, so I don't want you to be bothering your fellow colleagues, understand?"
Alice nodded her head ever so slightly: "I'm s-sorry" her voice was barely more than a whisper.
"Good" he petted the bonnet on her head. " As for your punishment, you will be getting no desert today!"
He had expected the small girl to start crying, or to throw an angry fit. He was definitely not ready for the empty look he was given, eyes so lifeless as if her soul had left her vessel. His knees suddenly felt weak.
"B-by today I mean lunch! O-of course there will be a desert for dinner!" Some people might call Ainz Ooal Gown a coward for backtracking like that, and he himself would be inclined to agree.
As he watched some light return to Alice's face, he had managed to recover from her last attack. Now was the time to deliver a powerful speech, that will forever be ingrained in the girl's mind and will remember every time she tried to do something naughty again.
"You see, sometimes we as people...AAH!"
He was interrupted by a sudden blob of dark and violet rushing past him, using his arched back to propel herself forward. Not a moment later Jack followed suit, stopping to pick up Nursery Rhyme by her feet.
"Good timing. We can't manage to corner her by myself, Alice, I need you to use the forest thingy to trap her!" they quickly explained, fixing her friend on her back with no apparent strain.
"Okay!" the strawberry-haired kid cheerfully answered, the memory of her scolding quickly getting replaced by the thrill of the new game. "You have to get closer to her!" she egged Jack on. In just a moment, the two had disappeared behind a corner.
'Well, that's how kids are nowadays, I suppose,' Ainz thought, trying to cheer himself up. He planned on writing his speech down later, he was sure there will be another opportunity to use it.
Off to the side, the Neros were still in the middle of their fierce battle with the ravaged room. Ainz was starting to suspect that some magical proprieties were added during the pudding's making; no matter what the small sailors tried, the viscous substance refused to be scraped off. They had already lost a couple of their numbers to the overwhelming enemy in front of them, some of them becoming stuck in the sticky delight.
Hans, on the other hand, had been largely more successful. With the help of one for his summons, a frosty woman with a white crown on her hand, he had managed to clean himself off, for the most part. The downside to this was that his scowl was all the more apparent now.
"Do you think the manuscripts from the room could be saved?" Ainz inquired. It wasn't just about salvaging the author's work, the NPC's magic was directly tied to his writing. He was a little unclear on the exact mechanics, but from what he understood the higher quality the story produced, the greater the boost he could give his allies. That was what made Anderson so valuable, his performance was never consistent, but in the right conditions, he could very well become the key factor in ensuring victory.
"There wasn't anything of value to recover from there in the first place." Hans half replied half growled. It seemed even he himself wasn't excluded from his brutal retorts. "Ever since we got here I've been wracking my head day and night but everything I write barely passes for a sixth-graders English assignment! Even at my lowest points when I was alive, I was managing to think of something better than this garbage."
True to his word, Ainz could see the huge dark bags under his eyes, even though NPCs' didn't actually require any sleep. Even the air around the small adult was different, his detached and professional aura was nowhere to be seen; he was practically oozing with frustration. Ainz had wondered why the altercations with Kiara had been more frequent than usual.
"Such an affair of states is currently unacceptable! I, and Nazarick as a whole, are in need of you at your peak performance, therefore I shall personally see that you have a more proper environment to stimulate your creative process!" Ainz declared, fixing his posture a bit and trying to speak with a more authoritative cadence.
Andersen just gave him a tired look.
"As much as your habitual third-rate acting amuses me usually, I am not quite in the mood, Master." Hans's eyes widened as he saw the skeleton tense up. "Wait, you didn't actually think you were fooling me with such a pathetic excuse of a performance? Are you really such a thick-headed fool? That's just too precious!" The sound coming out of his throat sounded more like snorting than an actual laugh, but the intent was the same.
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The alerts kept resounding inside Ainz's head like Christmas bells, struggling to contain the massive torrent of emotions that assaulted Ainz at that moment. They were the only reason he hadn't collapsed on the spot from the phantom pain in his stomach. That was it. Game over. All his work so far was for nothing. Everybody was going to find out he was just a clueless idiot and they were going to dispose of him for lying to them. 'Touchme-san, Bukubukuchagama-san, everyone, I'm sorry I failed all of you!'
Even if in reality his face's expression barely changed, Hans was able to sense his inner turmoil:
"For goodness sake Master, you really are such a spineless person!"He sighed, shaking his head in exasperation "Do not worry, even if seeing you act so pathetic sickens me, you are far from the worst Master I ever served. You could even say your idiocy is quite endearing if you look at it from a certain light. Not to say, I have respect for the Master-Servant contract itself, so I will continue to obey as I have for as long as this version of me exists."
At that moment, Ainz could swear holy light emanated from Hans' person. It was salvation itself, and it was the most beautiful sight he had ever witnessed. He could distinctly hear the angel's harps in the distance.
"So you won't tell anyone else about this?" he asked incredulously, not able to trust his nonexistent ears.
"As long as you don't want me to" he simply answered, adjusting his glasses.
"THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" the sheer euphoria of the moment made Ainz pick up the little author and start twirling him around in circles, despite his heavy protesting.
"PUT. ME. DOWN," he demanded, half from anger half from humiliation. It was a good thing the Neros were too busy with their war on pudding to notice the whole debacle.
"*Ahem*" Finally gathering his bearings, Ainz put down Andersen, whom he couldn't quite look in the eyes anymore. "I apologize for that. Let's pretend that it didn't happen. Where were we again?"
Hans looked like he didn't want to let the issue go, but his own problems made him tamer than usual.
"We were talking about my complete and utter lack of talent as of late?"
"Ah, yes, that." Ainz put a hand to his chin, trying to focus on the matter at hand. He was still feeling a bit awkward talking to someone who knew how he was in reality. "How about taking a tour outside? To explore a brand new world is bound to stimulate your writing more than being cooped up in here all the time." It was also a good idea to put as much distance between him and the nun as possible. He still didn't give up on the idea of making them get along with one another, but with each passing day it seemed more and more like that idea was more dream reality. It did slightly bother him though that most of his solutions consisted of either him or an NPC getting away from Nazarick for a period of time. Not that it hadn't been effective so far, he had Lizzie as living proof of that.
"A world where magic and fiction had become commonplace once again? For me, it simply looks like a different shade of the same colour, at their core they are still plagued with the same issues and burdens as back home. I doubt I would find something like that enticing enough to attribute it any value." Hans retorted, before pausing to ponder for a second. "Then again, I will take anything at this point than having to see that cow one more time; and if the experience with Dickens proved anything, it was that I do have a tendency to overstay my welcome sometimes."
Ainz had no idea who Dickens was exactly, but he decided to run with it. "I'm glad you enjoy that idea, I'm sure a breath of fresh air is just what you need now."
"You just want me to get out of your hair because having me here makes you too uncomfortable to show off your circus performance, right?" Hans pointed out.
Ainz flinched. He'd be lying if the thought hadn't also crossed his mind.
"I-I have no idea what you're talking about!" he weakly protested. Hans on the other hand simply sighed, pulling out a handkerchief to clean out the last traces of pudding from his person.
"If you desire it, I guess I have no choice. Just be sure to pack enough coffee for me on the road." he relented with a tired slump of his shoulders.
'YESSS!' He hadn't said the last part outright, but the small author still glared at him as if he did.
Author's note:
Happy Holidays everybody! This is a very busy time of the year for me, so expect updates to come out slower than usual. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go put myself in a food coma now. See ya next time! (also if you don't know what happens between Hans and Dickens, google it. It's really funny if you imagine Fate Hans in the actual one's place)