By the time Sincir comes down with Eleanor, Esme, Ena, and Rez are already almost done eating.

  Esme and Ena turn to stare as he enters the kitchen with the nephilim closely following, while Rez seems too busy stuffing her mouth with food as fast as she can to really notice them.

  Sincir smiles lightly at the two girls as he takes his pce at the table, then begins to fill a pte for himself.

  Eleanor doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes, and her cheeks are visibly red; He all but had to force her to come down for dinner.

  “…I felt you using magic,” Ena eventually says, breaking the tense silence, “Did something happen?”

  Sincir shrugs. “There were shouts, and I didn’t want to bother the rest of you… Don’t worry, Eleanor and I were able to reach an understanding, in the end.”

  Hey, technically, he isn’t even lying.

  “Shouts?” Ena asks, gncing at Eleanor as she does so, who maintains her gaze carefully aimed at her own pte, “What were you even arguing about, anyway?”

  “You know, the usual,” Sincir supplies, “I told her she was being too much of a bitch, she disagreed, and so on and so forth… Anyway, how is Rez doing? I see she enjoys your food quite a bit.”

  The half-goblin gnces up from her pte for long enough to realize he wasn’t addressing her directly, then goes back to it, while Ena narrows her eyes at him, before shifting her suspicious gaze to Eleanor.

  “He must’ve really whipped you this time, for you to say nothing after being called a bitch to your face,” Ena tells her, causing Eleanor’s spoon to freeze mid-air.

  Sincir groans. “Ena, are you trying to get us to fight again?”

  “…It’s fine,” Eleanor murmurs, “We need to talk about this sooner or ter anyway, so it might as well be tonight. Ena, do you still remember what you promised me in returning for agreeing with bringing Rez home?”

  Ena rises an eyebrow. “Sure, I remember; And as promised, I’ll listen to you. What is it?”

  Eleanor shakes her head. “After dinner, we’ll have a private talk; You’ll understand everything then, so leave Sincir alone for now.”

  Sincir chuckles. “You know what, Ena, maybe I did over-whip her a bit.”

  Eleanor throws him a dirty look which Sincir ignores as he swiftly steals a piece of meat from Esme’s pte, who had been eating quietly up to now, with a tired look on her face, but now widens her eyes in his direction.

  “The fuck?! I was just about to eat that!”

  Sincir winks at her, teasingly pcing the meat piece in his mouth as he does so.

  “Sincir! I can’t believe you actually ate it!”

  “Didn’t eat it yet,” he corrects her, “But if you want it back, you’ll have to take it by force…”

  Having said as much, Sincir raises his eyebrows suggestively at her, whose indignant expression grows even further; And since they’re sitting beside each other, Esme has no trouble leaning over, grabbing his shirt, and pressing her mouth against his…

  ...Sincir pyfully resists her stealing attempts for a moment, chuckling through their kiss as he does so, but he allows her to have, it in the end.

  As she pulls away from him, Esme smiles triumphantly, ignoring the look of disgust Ena is now aiming the two of them with.

  Meanwhile, Rez seems to have been dumbstruck by the scene, her own spoon having stopped beneath her slightly open mouth and widened eyes; However, once Sincir turns to stare at her, she quickly pulls her pte out of his reach, making it clear the kiss is not what she was shocked by.

  …Cute. And a little sad.

  Around the table, Eleanor’s gaze suggests she might’ve been the only one who caught up on his successful attempt at diverting the conversation from her, though her expression isn’t exactly grateful; Instead, she stares at Esme with an unreadable look on her face.

  Dinner proceeds mostly peacefully, from thereon. Ena and Esme make some small talk about their jobs, Ena asks if she has chosen a room for herself yet, to which Esme nods, saying she just about finished setting it up with the things he brought her, plus a couple of borrowed utensils.

  Eleanor remains mostly silent, while Rez runs off once she is done eating, probably back to her basement, if Ena’s eye rolling is anything to go by.

  “Sincir, could you help the girls clean their rooms ter?” Ena asks him once Rez runs away, pressing her hands together pleadingly and smiling at him as she does so, “Esme aside, I know I promised to care for Rez myself, but your spells make cleaning really convenient…”

  VSincir sighs, then nods as he pushes away his pte and rises. “Sure, I was done eating anyway. Esme, want to help me with the basement first?”

  She grimaces, but also pushes away her pte. “Sorry, Ena, I know I was a bit of a freeloader today, but I promise I’ll help with some of the chores tomorrow.”

  Ena smiles at her. “It’s fine, Esme. You were basically dragged here against your will. And don’t worry about the chores, Rez is supposed to take care of them from now on… Though it might take a while before she can manage,” Ena finishes with a murmur while gncing toward the mess of crumbs Rez left around her pte and seat.

  “I’ll help to watch her during the day, then, while you guys are out adventuring. It’ll give me something to do, and we can manage the house chores together.”

  Ena’s eyes all but sparkle over Esme’s suggestion, as she quickly rises from her seat, then essentially tackles the other girl with a hug.

  “Would you really?! You’re awesome, Esme! Sincir doesn’t deserve you!”

  Sincir grimaces. “I don’t know if I’d go that far, but if you’re done being gay…”

  Ena sticks her tongue at him; On the other hand, Esme seems too busy blushing to respond.

  Once Ena pulls away from Esme after another murmured, happy thanks, Sincir beckons the brown-haired librarian, aka his first girlfriend on this side, to follow him toward the basement, whose entrance is below the staircase leading up.

  Now that the girls are on their own, it’ll the perfect opportunity for Eleanor to have her talk with Ena, though if she’ll be able to bring herself to tell the truth or not, Sincir can only guess at.

  “…So, for how long have you been fucking behind Ena’s back?” Esme asks once they’re in front of the basement’s door, and out of earshot range from the girls.

  Sincir chuckles; Honestly, he is not surprised Esme caught up on it, given the entrance they had tonight. Gncing at her over his shoulder, he says, “Eleanor has a slight problem with her libido, and I’ve been helping her with it, as of yesterday… For the record, I wasn’t trying to hide anything, either from you or from Ena, but in this case, it’s best if Eleanor is the one to bring it up.”

  Esme doesn’t look fully convinced, and she doesn’t try to hide it either, rolling her eyes exasperatedly. “Of course she does… Is that what their talk is going to be about?”

  “It should, but again, Eleanor is probably the one who should do it, and I don’t know if she’ll pull through in the end.”

  “How convenient for you, to be left out of the whole thing,” Esme murmurs drily.

  Sincir smiles at her, shrugging as he does so. “I’m not being left out of it. What do you think will happen, once Ena is made aware of what is we’re doing? There’s a decent chance she’ll never speak with me again.”

  Esme gives him a measuring look. “Look, as a fellow pervert, I know it must be hard, living with two young, hot girls, without making any moves on them… Let alone the fact you’re supposedly a literal sex demon, but if you knew so many problems would come from this, why not hold it in your pants, for once? I know for a fact you have no problem finding partners elsewhere.”

  Sincir grimaces. There are so many things he could say to that… First of, he did keep it in his pants, for a whole five years, no less, and he thinks he deserves some credit for that; Second of, Eleanor is the one who jumped him in the end, making it all but impossible for him to refuse.

  “…I’m gd you have such a high opinion of me,” Sincir ends up saying, having decided for a more neutral approach, “But if you knew Eleanor, you’d know she is terrible proficient at getting what she wants, and unfortunately, I’m not exactly immune to her charms.”

  Esme rises an eyebrow at him. “You mean she is the one who made a move on you?”

  “Is it so hard to believe? Had you not been forward yourself, we’d still be nothing but fuckbuddies… Also, I wasn’t lying about her libido issues; If you don’t believe me, just ask her when you have the chance. She’ll kill me for having told you, but like I said, I’m not really trying to hide anything from you or Ena, and I think Eleanor could use a couple of friends.”

  Esme still seems unsure, but Sincir can tell she is trying hard to find an excuse not to believe him, most likely since he is the man in the situation, which defaults for being the bad guy, more often than not.

  “…I guess I have no real reason to doubt you,” Esme admits, after a moment of facing his gaze, “And I can’t really bme you for giving in to a girl like Eleanor.”

  Sincir smiles at her. “For the record, I’d have refuse her, if we were monogamous.”

  Esme snorts. “I’m sure you’d have… Don’t worry, I knew what I was signing up for, demon identity aside.”

  Staring into Esme’s brown, pyful eyes, Sincir almost steps forward and kisses her right there and then… But he stops himself this once, nodding toward the basement’s door instead.

  “Lets go; I’m curious to see what our pet goblin has been up to, down there.”

  “Hey, don’t call her a pet!”

  Sincir chuckles as he finally opens the door and begins to head downstairs.

  Their basement is rge, dark, and it didn’t have much of anything in it, other than old furniture, before Rez moved in. While descending into the darkness, Sincir grabs a mp from the corridor, lightning it with a small fire spell before calling out to Rez, to let her know they’re coming down... He guesses the half-goblin must be able to see in the dark, since she has not bothered to lit a ntern down there, already.

  The noise of something rge being dragged is hearable as the basement becomes illuminated by his ntern, and Sincir immediately spots Rez, struggling to push a couch, while groaning softly under her breath… Toward some sort of furniture tower?

  Is she making a furniture cave for herself?

  After a moment of staring at the struggling half-goblin in astonishment, Sincir chuckles and shakes his head exasperatedly.

  “Rez, I think that might not be a good idea… It’d be dangerous for you to sleep under all of that weight.”

  Rez stops for long enough to throw him a gnce, red eyes widened as her pupils shrink under the light, then shits her gaze toward her half-finished furniture cave. “It… It fine?”

  Sincir snorts. “No, it’s not. Look, it’s falling apart already…”

  As if on cue, a precariously pced chair slides off the top of the pile, falling over loudly.

  To Sincir’s surprise, Rez curses out loud, then kicks the coach she was dragging, before slumping her shoulders in defeat.

  ...As they both finish descending the stairs, Sincir exchanges a look with Esme. Then, pcing the ntern on the ground by the entrance, he approaches Rez, clearing his throat softly.

  “Missing your old home?” he asks, motioning Esme to begin dragging things onto a pile at the back end of the room, from where Rez took them from, as he does so.

  After a moment, Rez slowly shakes her head. “Rez home long gone… Don’t miss. But cave safe and warm... Keep danger away, keep Rez hidden.”

  Sincir hesitates, but ends pcing his hand over her lowered head, patting it softly as she throws him a surprised gnce over her shoulder.

  “Don’t worry. Esme and I will help you build this pce into a home tonight… I can’t promise it’ll be like a natural cave, but it’ll be warm and clean, so hang in there, okay?”

  Rez swallows, and her big eyes fill with tears as she quickly steps away from his hand, shaking her head. “Why…? Why help Rez…? Rez just… Rez not understand…”

  Sincir throws Esme a look for help, but the girl is too busy trying to carry three chairs at once (and failing miserably at it) to notice him. Seeing he’ll receive no help from her when it comes to this, Sincir sighs as he shifts his gaze toward Rez once more, meeting her eyes straight on, as he realizes she is actually only slightly shorter than him.

  “Well, Rez is a cute girl, and Ena couldn’t bear to see you living your life that way, so she convinced us to bring you home… And since you’re here now, you’re a part of the family.”

  Well, he’d like to think Ena would’ve helped Rez even if she was a boy, but he isn’t completely sure.

  “…Cute?” Rez asks, cocking her head slightly in confusion.

  Does she not know the word?

  “It means pretty,” Sincir tells her, causing Rez eyes to widen as she quickly shakes her head again.

  “Rez no pretty! Rez… Rez monster...!”

  Sincir blinks as he realizes she is shaking slightly; Then, with a small sigh, he steps forward, gently grabbing her hand, and causing her to freeze as her eyes lock against his.

  “Sorry; I guess the humans around haven’t treated very well thus far, have they…? I know we haven’t spoken much yet, so why don’t we start from the beginning? My name’s Sincir, and technically, we’re both monsters, so let’s try to get along, okay?”

  Rez sustains his gaze for a moment... Then, her muscles seem to rex, if ever so slightly. “Sincir... Monster as well?”

  Sincir smiles at her. “It’s a long story, but yes. And like I said, we’ll help you build a new home in here... But not out of rotting furniture. Come, let’s drag these things back to where you found them.”

  Now that Rez is living here, they’ll probably need to have a talk with their ndlord about removing this furniture for good, but for now, letting it in the corner should do...

  Together, Sincir, Esme, and Rez spend the next half an hour dragging stuff around. Once they’re done, Sincir begins to cast water and wind based spells around the basement, in order to clean it, process which has both Rez and Esme watching with widened eyes…

  He confesses he might’ve made the spells fshier than necessary in order to impress the girls, and at his current level of power, the cleaning takes a good amount of his mana; Furthermore, it is a lot more work than one would think, but it does leave the basement spotless, and much cleaner than the house above, ironically enough.

  As for insects and such, he rid the house of them as soon as they moved in, since Ena absolutely despises the small - if admittedly annoying and disgusting - things.

  Staring at the now clean, though otherwise mostly barren basement, Sincir nods to himself.

  “Wow…” Esme murmurs, “Now I get why Ena asked you to clean it; It’d have taken us a full day of work to do this much.”

  Sincir smiles while watching the half-goblin run from one side of the basement to the other, clearly beyond herself with happiness. Counting her bath, he doubts she has ever seen this much cleanness in her life... Still, he isn’t about to let the girl live in some empty basement, and luckily, the floor down here is made of hardened dirt, posing no impediment to some basic earth magic.

  “Esme, can you do me a favor and run up to tell the girls I won’t be training with them tonight?”

  “Sure… Right now?”

  Sincir throws her a look, then rolls his eyes. “When else?”

  She sticks her tongue at him, but does run up the stairs.

  Meanwhile, Sincir sits on the ground, leaning against the basement’s wall, and takes a deep breath, closing his eyes as he does so.

  The day has been long, and he’s exhausted. Also, doing any more than this will require him to recover his mana for a while…

  “Sincir…? Sincir hurt…?”

  A few moments after having closed them, Sincir opens his eyes to find Rez crouched in front of him with a concerned, yet slightly hesitant look on her face.

  He manages to smile at her, though he imagines he must look about as exhausted as he feels, right now. “Don’t worry, Rez, I’m not hurt... Just tired. I’ll need to rest for a bit, before we can finish your new home.”

  Rez eyes widen slightly. “It… It not finished yet…?”

  Sincir snorts. “Of course not. There’s not even a bed for you in here yet, so how could it have been finished?”

  “Oh…”

  Rez shifts her eyes from him to stare over the rest of the basement, most likely trying to imagine what they’re going to do with it, still.

  “You’ll like the final result, I promise,” Sincir reassures her.

  Really, the only question at this point is if he can pull it off or not... Earth magic is far from his specialty, and he’s even less of a builder, but Sincir figures he could put together something simple for Rez… Probably.

  “Hey, why are you looking so down again?” Sincir asks the half-goblin, once he realizes she seems to be sulking.

  Rez shakes her head. “Sincir and Ena and Eleanor and Esme done so much for Rez already… Rez not know how to give back. Night time... Rez worry about stocking food for winter, avoid human hunters, and keeping warm…”

  Sincir smiles at her. “Do you want to help?”

  Rez slightly point ears perk up at that. “Rez help! Yes, Res want to… But Rez doesn’t know how.”

  Staring at her intense, serious-looking expression, Sincir almost feels bad for what he is about to do, but really, there isn’t much she could help him with right now, so he’s out of options…

  He doesn’t even have to pretend his hesitation as he releases a small sigh and averts his eyes from hers. “Actually, the truth is, I think Rez is really cute… And I’m so tired right now, I can barely keep my eyes open… But if I could pet Rez for a bit, it’d really help me recover my energy...”

  Having said as much, Sincir throws Rez a coy sidelong gnce.

  The half-goblin blinks. “But… But Rez no pretty…”

  Sincir sighs. “I guess it was really too much to ask for…”

  Seeing his disappointment, Rez’s eyes widen, and she quickly shakes her head. “N-no, Rez… Rez have Sincir recover in no time!”

  Sincir smiles. “Thank you, Rez… It’ll really help.”

  For Rez’s credit, she hesitates only slightly before doing as instructed, once he tells her to approach him... Seeing as they’re basically the same size, it takes a bit of effort to find a comfortable position where he can pet her from, but they manage in the end, with her head lying against his chest.

  Sincir can feel Rez’s heart beating fast as he first begins to pet her head, her red eyes visibly widened, so he takes it very slow with her petting at first, barely running his fingers through her long, messy bck hair...

  “Rez needs to rex, or it won’t work,” he tells her.

  Rez swallows. “Rez s-sorry. Rez not t-touched... In l-long t-time.”

  “Breath slowly, then rex,” Sincir says, “Don’t worry; Nothing bad will happen, I promise.”

  Sincir closes his eyes again as he continues to listen to Rez’s fast heartbeat... It takes a while, but she does begin to grow less stiff against him.

  “Sincir… Sincir smell nice…”

  Sincir smiles. “Yeah? And what does Sincir smell like?”

  “Sincir smell like mating... And Eleanor…” Rez murmurs.

  Sincir coughs, then ughs somewhat forcibly. “I-is that so? Sorry, I did clean us both after we were done pying, but I guess it wasn’t enough to rid myself of the smell completely…”

  “It okay… Rez like Eleanor… And mating, too...”

  Sincir blinks, but then he members she is actually not as young as she seems, and that she is a goblin... Who are basically supposed to be horny little demons, according to Eleanor.

  ...In any case, Esme sure is taking her sweet time up there, isn’t she?

  “...Sincir?”

  “Yes?”

  “It… Rez really scared about leaving home… But now Rez gd she did it... Ena’s food really good…”

  Sincir smiles tiredly. “Is that so? Then make sure to tell her you liked it, tomorrow…”

  “…Sincir?”

  “Yes…?”