Fifty

Fifty

“Wait, what?” I asked, confused.

“You know what!” Karen-chan snapped. “That girl is clearly underage. She doesn’t even look old enough to work, never mind be your colleague. And you are plying her with alcohol, even hard stuff like whiskey? I’ve sorely misjudged you. No doubt when her guard is down you’ll take advantage of her and do all sorts of criminal things.”

Uhh... shit. Didn’t see this one coming, but I guess I should have.

Ignoring Shaeula, who was looking at the situation with interest, I hastily explained. “Hey, you have it all wrong. I swear she is older than she looks, she’s twenty, she really is! Besides, she is my colleague; she helped out a lot in the big project we just finished.”

“Yes, we have certainly won a great victory, have we not-not?” Shaeula said proudly, drawing a quizzical look from Karen-chan, whose hands had paused on her phone.

“She’s foreign, so while her Japanese is really good she does say odd things occasionally, but please don’t hold that against her, after all, she’s learned our language, which is more than we usually do, right?” I explained her comment away.

“Twenty?” Karen-chan looked sceptical. “She’s so cute and small if she was in a high school uniform she wouldn’t look out of place. Maybe even a middle school one.”

“I won’t deny she’s very cute, but I’m not doing anything bad to her, I swear! I’ve not taken advantage of her at all, I wouldn’t even think it.”

“Hmph. I should say not, or my noble father and my siblings would have you executed, as well you know-know!”

The tense atmosphere was suddenly cut by a burst of giggles from Karen-chan, her tense face loosening. “Oh my, she is just so hilarious. Executed!” she laughed more. When she regained her calm she looked at me. “Sorry about that. But you can’t really blame me. Anyone would think that you were imprisoning a young girl in your room and keeping her occupied with games, ready to get her drunk and have your way with her.” as I nodded to accept her apology she turned back to Shaeula.

“Sorry about that. It’s nice to meet any colleague of Akio-kun’s. My name is Watanabe Karen, but since we’ve met under such circumstances I think you can just call me Karen.”

“Very well then Karen. You may call me Shaeula. I am not from your country, so these... honorifics ... do not sit well with me-me.”

“I’ll do my best.” Karen agreed. “Shaeula. That’s a pretty name. Your eyes are a really unusual colour as well. You could be a model with those looks. I’m not sure why you would want to work in IT, you could do better.”

Now that the conversation was moving into safer topics I relaxed. Though I shouldn’t be too relaxed. Shaeula is smart enough to not say anything too weird, but she doesn’t have a full understanding of how the Material world works yet to know everything that is weird... to distract them as they chatted I pulled out the bottles of sake and whiskey, opening up the expensive single malt I had purchased. The rich aroma filled the room, causing Shaeula to stop her embarrassing explanation of how great the feat we had just achieved was and to turn to me, eyes bright.

“That smell... it is rather divine. Is it better than your beer-beer?”

“That’s an adorable verbal tic you have there Shaeula.” Karen giggled. “So cute!”

“I do not understand quite what you mean.” Shaeula answered primly. “I talk with perfect grace, as befits my noble status-status. But enough of this. I was asking you about the drink, Akio.”

I also took out three whiskey glasses which I had also purchased, made from rather nice patterned glass, and slowly filled them up with the amber liquid. Once I was done I handed a glass to each of the women, keeping one for myself. Lucky the glasses came in a set of four or I’d have been embarrassed here.

“Of course not.” I scoffed. “Though to be honest I did really kick their asses.”

“You are like some kind of action hero. I’m jealous. I wish someone would do something like that for me...” Karen-chan continued, emptying her glass and waving it for a refill.

“Yes, Akio is quite the warrior in battle.” Shaeula agreed, also draining her own glass. “His recent performances have been encouraging to me-me.”

“Are you sure?” I asked Karen-chan, ignoring Shaeula’s praise. ”You’ve had quite a bit.”

“Don’t be stingy Akio.” She said without an honorific, though whether that was intentional it was hard to tell. She looks a bit drunk. She has been downing it quickly... “A glass more won’t hurt, and it isn’t often I get to drink the good stuff.”

“Well, if you are sure. Don’t blame me if you are horribly hungover tomorrow though.” I topped up their glasses and left them chatting as I continued to cook dinner...

********

Shaeula finished her glass, lying on her back, looking up at me. “That was most pleasing. We should do this more often. As a princess I am accustomed to such luxuries, poverty does not suit me-me.”

“Sure. If we continue to succeed we can.” I said, gulping down the contents of my own glass. Beside us the bottle was three-quarters empty, and an empty bottle of sake that we had drank with dinner accompanied it. The soft snores of Karen-chan who was lying in my futon were a background noise to our quiet conversation. I knew she drank too much. I didn’t have the heart to move her. Let’s hope she doesn’t wake up and think I did anything weird to her though. I was a perfect gentleman. Not that I could be anything else with Shaeula watching...

“This one was rather amusing. I have not known many mortals, but they are certainly... passionate indeed-indeed.” Shaeula commented. “I feel some shame I was so dismissive of their value-value.”

“Well she’ll probably be really embarrassed about this in the morning, but it seemed she enjoyed talking with you. And you didn’t let anything too weird that I couldn’t explain away slip out, so we are all good.” I began to clean away the remains of dinner, impressed at the volume the two girls had eaten.

“Of course I would not. I am as wise as I am beautiful.” Shaeula boasted, her face flushed.

And as drunk as you are cute, too. Shaeula could handle her drink, whether that was due to her Material body or natural talent I couldn’t be sure, but even so she was feeling the effects. As for myself, my head was feeling a little fuzzy and I was pleasantly buzzed, but I felt fine otherwise. Guess my superhuman stats help my body take care of the alcohol.

Once I had finished tidying and taken the bottle of whiskey away from Shaeula before she finished it all, I turned on my PC and opened up the roulette application. It only took twenty or so minutes to recover the funds I had spent on all of the shopping I had done today. I continued for another twenty, adding a few hundred more Pounds to the pot, before closing the application.

“No need to get greedy. I’ll try again tomorrow.” I turned back to Shaeula. “Well, we may as well head to the Boundary for a while. With the way Karen-chan is snoring I doubt she will wake up any time soon.”

“Very well. I am curious to see if those musclebound idiots have managed to understand your orders. I would not be surprised if Grulgor has done something foolish-foolish.”

“Nah, I think it’ll be all right. Your sickle-weasel is there to keep an eye on him anyway. In any case, we need to take as much advantage of the etheric tide as we can before it ebbs out. I want to continue our training as well, it is really helping, and I feel a breakthrough is near.”

“In that case, shall we go?” Shaeula asked, and with that we entered our Territory, leaving me feeling vaguely uncomfortable that my Material form would be sleeping next to not one, but two women. I guess this is my time in the sun. Now if only it didn’t make me so stressed...