Shopping doesn't take long, but that's because this isn't Twenty-First Century Earth. There's no department stores with their own dressing rooms for the Minor Goddess he's currently guarding to slip in and out of as she tries on multiple outfits. Thankfully.

  The corner of Oren's mouth curls up slightly at that errant thought and he shakes his head in amusement even as he waits patiently for Sophia to finish getting dressed. Just because there were no dressing rooms didn't mean a goddess of all people was going to be willing to change in some back alley or out in the woods.

  Luckily, they'd won more than enough off of 'the Gentleman' to be able to purchase a single room at an entirely different tavern on the other side of Amberwell, even if they probably wouldn't be staying the night. Indeed, by playing things close to his chest, Oren had been able to ultimately sweep that card game, just as he knew he would.

  Should he have told Sophia the plan ahead of time? Perhaps. It wasn't like he took any pleasure in making her think he was risking her freedom on a single hand of cards. That was why he'd tried to bet his own services to begin with, after all. Oren had certainly noticed the way Grays was looking at Sophia and recognized the lust in the other man's eyes… but he was never going to let anything happen to her. Not while he still drew breath.

  Truthfully, the real reason Oren hadn't told her just how much of a sure thing it all was… was because he didn't want her to get attached. She already had some level of affection towards him for saving her life, but it was tempered by the knowledge that he was an Otherworlder, something of a boogeyman in the eyes of a goddess like her.

  It would be even worse if she found out he wasn't just an Otherworlder, but the God Killer who killed her father and everyone she'd ever known and loved. Obviously, Oren wasn't intending on her finding out, but it nevertheless made him feel rather scummy to keep such a secret from her. Escorting her to safety was part of his penance… but making sure she had little reason to like him just felt like good sense.

  After all, he wasn't going to stick around once they made it to the refuge. Once he was certain she was safe and nobody was going to find her, he would make his excuses and depart… likely after finding a way to turn down any rewards she wanted to give him. And that would be the end of it.

  Until then, Oren would do everything in his power to prevent Sophia from developing any further affection towards him. He would-

  The door he's standing guard in front of suddenly creaks open, disrupting Oren from his thoughts. Blinking, he turns to see one of the Minor Goddesses' unnaturally brilliant blue eyes peeking out at him.

  "Ah… I'm done changing."

  Oren raises an eyebrow, causing Sophia to blink and then blush lightly before pulling the door open further. He steps inside of the room and lets her close it behind him before turning to regard her.

  "Well? W-What do you think?"

  He thinks… this will have to do. Gone is the tiara and jewelry of course. Those are still in their bag of winnings with his supplies. In place of the tiara, Sophia's previously flowing blonde locks have been pulled up into a bun and hidden under a somewhat unattractive brown cap with ear flaps to protect from the cold. This is good because Sophia's shade of blonde is not a natural mortal hair color, not back on Earth and not here in this world either.

  Going further down, the white sleeveless dress she'd had on with its low cut and plenty of cleavage has been replaced by brown as well. Wearing a leather brown vest over a leather tunic, Sophia's somewhat prodigal bust has been hidden away, though the size of her chest is still obvious to anyone who sees her from the side or spends a few moments staring at her. It is what it is.

  Likewise, down below the goddess has switched to brown trousers too, and brown boots instead of those high heels she was wearing previously.

  It's… a lot of brown. But then, that's sort of the point. Before, Sophia was so obviously a goddess it was honestly painful. Not just because she naturally exuded an unnatural divine beauty, but because her garments and jewelry were clearly out of this world in terms of quality.

  Now though… well, the unnatural beauty is still there. Sophia's face is still perfect, her eyes still inhumanly bright, and her body sculpted in a way that's meant to draw the eye like nothing else. But without the unearthly garments, she's mostly just very, very pretty instead of unnaturally gorgeous.

  "I think you can go out in public without the cloak like this."

  Sophia brightens, puffing up in pride as if she's pulled off some grand disguise… instead of simply exchanging divine clothes for mortal ones and hiding a couple of her more prominent deific features. Oren holds back the urge to snort derisively at her pleased expression, even as he moves to gather up her shimmering white dress and heels and tuck them away in his satchel.

  His charge watches him do so in silence for a moment, but once he's done she starts to speak.

  "So what-?"

  But before she can get the word 'now' out, Oren stiffens up and twitches, his head turning to the side as his hearing picks up voices on the street outside of the tavern. Sophia picks up on his shift in attention immediately of course and falls quiet even as Oren frowns and makes his way over to the nearby window.

  What he sees outside… well, he wishes he could say it was surprising, but it's not.

  "What is it?"

  "The Gentleman's men have been alerted to our presence here. They seem to be setting up a perimeter."

  Sophia gasps in shock, even as Oren considers their options for a moment before nodding decisively.

  "Come here."

  "What… what are you going to do?"

  To her credit, Sophia does as he says and hesitantly walks over to him even as she asks that question. Once again, Oren considers telling her the plan… and once again, he tosses that idea aside in favor of maintaining the slight disdain he's been trying to foster in her since they began this journey.

  Instead of words, Oren answers with actions, reaching over and snatching Sophia by the waist even as he makes sure their things are hooked over his shoulder securely. The Minor Goddess yelps but falls silent as he proceeds to open the window in front of them… and then leap through it with his hand covering Sophia's mouth.

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  The jump does cause an abortive scream to erupt from the goddess' lips, but its mostly muffled thanks to his forethought and a moment later the two of them land on the roof of the building across the street from the tavern. Oren doesn't stop there, keeping them moving so nobody down below has a chance to see them (hopefully) as he proceeds to jump from roof to roof.

  Amberwell really is a decent town in spite of its lack of a fighting pit. The buildings aren't tightly packed together or anything like that… but for someone as strong as Oren, it doesn't matter. He's like a fucking superhero… a genocidal maniac of a superhero.

  After a couple minutes of roof hopping, Oren finally reaches his destination… the edge of town. Specifically, the edge of town that has a stables sitting on it. Leaping down behind a building out of view of anyone, Oren finally removes his hand from Sophia's mouth and lets go of her, tilting his head to the side.

  "Sorry."

  He really is sorry, though he makes sure his tone is just a little off… just a little fake. He's expecting the goddess to be mad at him and is ready for her to either launch into a tirade or decide to give him the silent treatment. What he's NOT expecting is for her to look back the way they came with a contemplative expression on her face.

  "… You could have killed those men without breaking a sweat both back at the card game and then now again at the tavern. And yet both times you avoided conflict as best as possible… this second time far more fervently than the first."

  Oren raises an eyebrow, feeling like he should be a little insulted.

  "I don't necessarily want to engage in wanton slaughter if I can help it, Goddess."

  Of course, even as he delivers those words in as dry a tone as he can manage, he internally winces. Given his past… well, saying something like that was rather hypocritical, wasn't it? And yet, Sophia eats it up. She even looks guilty and goes so far as to bow her head in his direction.

  "O-Of course… apologies, I'm beginning to realize my biases towards Otherworlders are unfairly coloring my perception of you, Oren. I will strive to do better going forward."

  Oh for fuck's sake. On the one hand, he supposed he was stupid for expecting anything less from a Minor Goddess of Wisdom. Introspection and self-awareness were kind of her bread and butter, weren't they? But on the other hand he can't help but be annoyed that his plan to make her hate him is somehow backfiring on him. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

  Not sure what to say at this point, Oren just grunts instead and turns his attention to their next objective… namely, acquiring mounts so they can get out of town and back on the road.

  "Come on. Let's get some horses and get out of here before the Gentleman's men find us and force the issue."

  Sophia blinks at that and looks over at the stables they're within spitting distance of as if she's just now realizing why they're here. Blushing, the goddess bites her lower lip and fiddles with the bottom of her leather vest.

  "Um… I've never ridden a horse before, I'm afraid. We didn't have much need for them up in the Heavens."

  Oh for the love of…

  "Fine. One horse. You'll have to ride with me."

  Better that than risking the nigh-powerless divinity somehow falling off her own horse and getting trampled under its hooves. Good lord, who knew trying to keep a single deity alive after killing so many of them would be so fucking hard?!

  -x-X-x-

  Gentleman Grays was not a man who was used to being told 'no'. Nor was he a man who did not often get his way. He wasn't the mayor of Amberwell… but that was only because the position was entirely too much work and he much preferred to be the power behind the 'throne' so to speak.

  That was all to say, it had been a long, long time since he'd been disrespected in his own 'house'. Somehow, that man must have cheated. You didn't just win it big like that right at the end with everything on the line. This wasn't a damn storybook, somehow he'd pulled a fast one on Grays. Normally, Grays would be impressed by someone pulling off such a high stakes con… but since the victim in this case had been HIM, he was just infuriated.

  Unfortunately, he'd been so shocked by his loss that he hadn't reacted until the man and his woman were already out of the room. And neither had any of his men either, the idiotic lot of them. They'd just… let those two go, like it was perfectly fine for a stranger to walk into HIS tavern and sit down at HIS table and win that much of HIS money.

  Fortunately, all was not lost. Grays had eyes all over Amberwell, and his men had been able to locate the pair in no time. First, they'd tracked their trail down to a store that sold all manner of goods, where the shopkeeper had informed them that the strangers had bought clothes for the woman of all things.

  Then, from there, they'd managed to follow the trail all the way to another tavern on the other side of the town, where the tavernkeeper had assured his men that both the man and woman were still upstairs. As soon as he'd received word of that, Grays had sent orders for them to be taken and brought before him.

  Sure, maybe he should have waited until it was nighttime to at least keep up appearances… but these were strangers. Nobody in Amberwell knew them and nobody would miss them if they… disappeared. Besides, Grays wanted his money back. Immediately.

  Any moment now, his men would walk through that door with the man and woman in tow. Any moment now, he would have his coin back… and get to decide what to do with such a pretty woman to boot. Yes, any moment-

  The doors to his tavern open up and Grays' lips curl up into a wide smile… before immediately dropping back down when his men troop in with heads down and nothing to show for their troubles. Snarling, Grays smashes a meaty fist into a nearby wooden pillar before stomping over.

  "What the fuck is this?! Where are the two I sent you to get?"

  "They… t-they weren't there, boss."

  What? Grays zeroes in on the one foolish enough to speak, moving to tower over him.

  "Excuse me? I gave you orders to subdue them immediately. What the fuck do you mean they weren't there?"

  Swallowing nervously, the man looks around for help… but nobody meets his eyes.

  "W-We went up to the room as soon as you told us too, boss! Promise! But by the time we got up there… it was empty! The window was open too!"

  Another thug pipes up.

  "I'm tellin' ya, I think they climbed up out of the window and up onto the roof!"

  "We CHECKED the roof, numbskull! There was nobody hiding up there! And we had our perimeter up as well, so there's no way they climbed down in the back and ran off that way… we would have seen them!"

  "Yeah I ain't saying they did! After they got up onto the roof, they leapt to another roof, obviously!"

  "The jump to the nearest roof was thirty fucking feet away! That's not possible!"

  "Well then you tell me how they got away!"

  "I don't fucking know, I-!"

  "ENOUGH!"

  Gentleman Grays' bellowing voice stops the building argument in its tracks. He glowers at his men, more than ready to dole out some punishments for their sheer incompetence at this point. Especially since it sounded like his actual prey was well and truly in the wind. However… before he can speak, an unfamiliar voice suddenly cuts through the silence like a blade.

  "Interesting…"

  Everyone turns towards the man dumb enough to speak after the Gentleman has called for silence, including Grays himself. What he sees is someone cloaked all in black, covered in it from head to toe. The hooded figure tilts his head to the side.

  "The trail leads here. A man and a woman came through here, didn't they? From the sound of things, they left quite the impression. Tell me about them."

  Tch, Grays didn't know who this fucker thought he was, but he wasn't about to be disrespected in his own damn establishment twice in one day. Still, from the sound of things, maybe he could make use of this. Stepping forward, he spreads his arms wide in a friendly greeting.

  "Welcome, friend! Sounds to me like to we might have business with the same people. Perhaps-urk!"

  It happens so fast that Grays can't even track it. One moment the hooded figure is a dozen paces away… the next he's in Grays' personal space and all the Gentleman knows is pain. Looking down, he sees the end of a dagger thick enough to almost be a shortsword before him… the rest of it buried in his throat.

  The newcomer yanks his blade back and Gentleman Grays falls back, choking on his own blood and holding a hand to his neck to try stave off death.

  "Tell me about them."

  This time the question is directed at everyone else in the tavern… and much to Grays' impotent anger, rather than rush to his defense or to avenge him, his men fall all over themselves telling the stranger everything they remember, every detail they can think of, including the man and woman's description.

  … Not that it saves them. The last thing Grays sees before he dies is this new stranger cutting through his men like a scythe through wheat, slaughtering them all. As the Gentleman's vision fades and so does his life, he feels some small amount of satisfaction that at least those ungrateful, unfaithful idiots got their just desserts…

  A/N: "Someone else trying to take my position of minor antagonist? I don't think so!" - Shadowy Figure, presumably.

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