Chapter 47

It was pretty inconvenient being spat out in a random pocket-realm after finishing a shard. As far as ‘enjoyable game mechanics’, Zoey would give that one a zero out of ten.

The good news was, the exit-realm was usually in the vicinity of the entrance-realm, for a loose sense of ‘vicinity’. As in, it wasn’t likely they’d be spat out halfway across the world—though apparently possible—but rather a short distance, perhaps a half-day travel from where they’d started, on average.

Fitting to that norm, the trip back to Treyhull took about seven hours. They set off early, just after eating breakfast, accompanied by a golem-woman who wasn’t a tenth as talkative as Zoey and Rosalie’s first guide.

Which was fine. They made conversations themselves, the tall, bulky woman setting a quick pace, with the three of them trailing behind at enough of a distance to have privacy in what they were saying. Zoey appreciated the lack of mindless chatter, honestly.

The trip was less exhausting than the first. Zoey still needed to lean on stamina potions to some extent, but not half as much. Her feet got sore slower, as did her muscles. Her progression through advancements—to second, now, technically—had come with benefits. Though her class wasn’t focused on physical durability or speed, she’d grown stronger passively. To a lesser degree than a class like Rosalie’s or Delta’s would’ve provided, but noticeable nonetheless.

Plus, a mundane sort of growth. She’d been on her feet constantly since arriving in this world, and partaking in all sorts of ... physical activities. She’d grown passively more durable, and acquired better mental endurance, too—she could push her aching muscles to the back of her mind.

In the meantime—during the walk—Rosalie and Delta haggled how the loot split would work. While final decisions couldn’t be made until they’d had the items appraised—both for price, and effects—they could still work out plenty of the details in advance.

Wasn’t that hard, even, since Rosalie kept her stance from earlier: she didn’t care about low-level loot, beyond selling it for supplies. By the sounds of it, she had enough coin on her person that wasn’t particularly concerning, either.

And, knowing Rosalie’s social status—even if not specifically—money wouldn’t be a problem for her once she returned to her family. So the whole thing, Rosalie didn’t care much for.

She still bickered and haggled, but Zoey got the sense she did it to annoy Delta, and out of an ingrained need to ‘stay even’—to get what she felt she was deserved.

Zoey’s and Delta’s splitting of loot was the trickier one. Initially, Delta had claimed she cared about practical loot, and that Zoey could have all the lewd items. Unfortunately, she seemed to be reversing that opinion.

Which was good news and bad news. Good news because Delta taking a higher interest in sex items was ... well, Zoey wasn’t going to complain. Bad news, because Zoey wanted all of the lewd items; pretty much all of them seemed fun in some way or another. It was implied she and Delta would share them as available, but ‘ownership’ status needed to be doled out.

Zoey hoped Delta stuck with the team for ... well, ever? Until the world was saved, whatever that meant? ... but Delta was more practical than to take her continued presence in the party for granted. So, well-defined bounds of who owned what, should the party split. It looked like they’d be sticking together for the short term—maybe even medium and long term—but anything could happen.

Zoey got all the alchemy reagents. She also got the panties of holding. Delta had wanted them too, because they worked for a pussy as much as a cock, but Zoey actually needed them; they were convenient for when Zoey had to keep her secret ... well, a secret.

And sure, she’d made the previous determination to keep her secret ‘on display’ on the off-chance someone saw and took interest, but for situations where Zoey legitimately did want to keep her equipment down-low on the down-low ... say, for example, when Zoey finally met with Rosalie’s family ... the panties became less convenient and more a necessity.

So Delta parted with them reluctantly. She did, however, extract a promise that Delta got to ‘have Zoey’s cock’ when they’d been identified and declared safe by Fe. She was ... surprisingly tight-lipped on what, exactly, she planned to do with it. Knowing Delta, Zoey was about as scared as she was excited. Zoey suspected ‘taking it around town’ to use as a living strap-on might be the smallest of plans Delta had.

Rosalie hadn’t been pleased about that—about not getting to be the ‘Keeper of the Cock’—but Delta had sneered that Rosalie ‘would get her turn, too, blondie, so chill out’. Rosalie seemed satisfied by that, which, uh, also concerned Zoey, honestly. Not as much as Delta ... but still concerned her.

Not that Zoey was complaining, per se. Just, a bit conflicted about what ‘free use’ of Zoey’s cock meant, without her being present. Or a two mile radius, even.