Chapter Text

Trading Places

A man and a woman sat on a bed of a certain inn facing away from each other. Both were barely clothed yet covered by either a large towel or a cloak to preserve their modesty. Their eyes moved as if they were reading something in the air that only they could see. And indeed there was something only they could see as the man raised a hand and flicked something to the side.

“I’ve done what I can, let me know if this is fine with you,” he said.

Something shimmered in the air around the two, a barely-visible floating window—or perhaps a screen—arcing through the path the man flicked towards until it settled in a haze in front of the woman. She looks over it with aplomb, a finger dancing in the empty air without pause, and then she flicks the unseen screen towards the man.

“I’m good to go with this. Hope you don’t mind me throwing something extra~,” she drawled out to him.

“That fast?” he sputtered as the hazy screen stopped in front of him, “No, wait, what do you mean by extra? Wait, wait, wait—why are you giving me this Skill?”

“Well~,” she drew out her words as the man flailed behind her, “You’re helping me out like this and I don’t really have anything else to pay you with. Besides,” she posed a hand in front of her left eye in a classic peace sign, “it’s not like I can’t [Find] more of them in the future.”

Unseen to the man, the woman’s left eye flickered gold for a brief moment. Her lips widened into a knowing smile.

The man sighed at her unseen antics, still able to feel her move around on the mattress behind him.

“I can’t deny that you couldn’t, not with that absurd Skill of yours,” he said, reviewing the unseen screen, “But you’re really okay with this?”

“I’ve already told you, right?” she shoots back, “There’s definitely other ways to go about this, but it’s more fun to throw them off this way.”

The man paused in his review.

“‘Fun’, huh?” he muttered to himself, “I can’t say I understand… but I can’t deny that I’m curious at how this’ll go.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and took a fortifying breath. When he opened them, he now had a determined look in his eyes.

“Let’s go.”

The man stabs a finger into the empty air, where the unseen screen floated… and nothing happened at first, until something coalesced in front of his finger. A screen, a pop-up.

[ Status Restructure Trade Between “Regis Harrow” and “Alice Redburn” Complete! ]

[ Executing Process… ]

The two doubled over immediately with matching groans as the skin visible from their respective coverings rippled.

Seemingly already taller than him despite their seated positions, the woman’s body expanded underneath the thick towel covering her. In fact, she straightened up, dropping the towel entirely as her shoulders broadened, the muscles becoming much more defined even as her pale skin drew just a bit more taut against her body. The rest of her body followed suit, becoming more sculpted, more defined, more masculine than what it was before.

She let out a yelp in a voice deeper than what it was before and crossed her legs as a certain new sensation caught her off guard. In the meantime, her short bright-red hair lost all its color, smoothly shifting into a pitch-black.

Behind her, the already short man seemed to become even smaller as he curled up into a ball, all but disappearing into the cloak covering him. His body shrunk even more, bones and muscle shifting around in a way that melted away the hard edges and sharp angles he once had on his dark skin. What little muscle definition he had disappeared under the redistributed fat. His body became softer, rounder, more feminine than what it had been before.

He let out a low groan in a voice higher than what it was before as he crossed his arms around his torso, not able to process the internal restructuring taking place. With his eyes shut, he doesn’t notice his long hair, long enough to reach his lower back, lightening into a rich bright-red from its original dark coloring.

The inn room was quiet save for the two’s heavy breaths, the voices coming out from their mouths now the opposite of what they once had.

Time passed while the two recovered from the ordeal. Then, with the moonlight peeking through the blinds, the woman(?) got up from the bed. She did some stretches, letting out pleased noises of effort.

The man(?) stayed quiet, still curled up under his cloak, which completely dwarfed his new body.

“Mmm, that was a rush!” the woman(?) said out loud while glancing towards the man, “I know you said my Skill was broken, but I think yours is ridiculous in its own way, Harrow. This’ll definitely throw off anyone that’d bother to look for us for a while, so, thanks.”

“Mrmglble…”

Alice Redburn chuckled at the reply, pausing for a moment to marvel at her own reaction, before shaking her head.

“I’ll get out of your way now, but really,” she started walking out of the room, picking up a bundle of clothes on a nearby desk as well as a half-empty bottle of red liquid on the way out, “Thanks for this. When we meet again, I’ll give you a lot more stuff to pay you back. Ciao~”

The door to the room quietly opened and closed, leaving Regis Harrow alone and shivering under the cloak he(?) was under. Then, he slowly sat up, the cloak finally sliding off him yet still large enough to smother his lower half while it pooled up around him.

He(?) trembled in place, arms crossed around his belly yet unable to see them due to the new additions to his chest obstructing his vision. There were tears at the corners of his eyes, but the massive blush on his face that rivaled the new redness of his hair told a different story.

There was an emotion tumbling around inside him that he didn’t want to acknowledge. Not now, not ever. So he did what he knew best and cast around his thoughts to distract himself with.

How and why did he end up in this situation?