Joji stayed wary, even with the donkey’s jolly swagger. The creature stood upright like a man and he was abnormally large, nearly four ters tall, with shoulders that could have blocked a doorway.
Joji felt his aura stir, ready to flare on instinct. A hoof caught his hand first.
"I am a huge fan," the donkey blurted, gripping Joji like a zealot eting a saint. "I followed your cooking and gaming channel. You are the true chad I look up to."
The hoof pumped up and down with frantic strength. Joji returned the shake, eyes never leaving the donkey’s face.
"Do you mind telling your story?" Joji asked.
A deep sigh rolled out of the donkey.
"I was a survivor of Type Two Osteogenesis Imperfect in my past life," he said, trying to make it sound casual. "Basically, my bones were brittle for real. Like, life had on handle with care. Twenty four seven."
He waved a hoof as if brushing off the details, but his ears twitched.
"I could only watch videos with nanny assistance. Like, I had a whole support team just to hit play. Still, it was a pretty good run." He swallowed once.
"Then one day the doctor hit with the no machine can support you anymore talk, so I was like, cool."
"Ti for the classics. I’m binging on so Green Ogre and Donkey, and I start spiraling. Like, this guy is living. Free. Bagged a dragon wife. So I close my eyes, make the wish, and boom. Now I am here."
Joji kept his face neutral, but sothing in his chest tightened.
"So you are saying all your life you were staying in a hospital?" Joji asked.
"Nah, fam," the donkey said, and the bravado cracked at the edges.
"Mom and Dad were loaded. Like stinking rich. I stayed ho. Got my own place and everything. I just hope they are alright, though. I am thankful for the nineteen years of care."
He turned his head as if the angle could hide the wet shine gathering in his eyes.
The Lady of the Swamp drifted closer, curiosity tugging her forward. She looked at Joji as if he were the translator of a strange language.
"I have never heard the words this creature keeps uttering," she said. "But it feels true. I can tell when people lie, and he is not lying."
"He also seems able to wield magic and aura. He keeps saying he will be aura farming. I do not understand what that ans. But it seems you do," she said, innocent and plainly curious, more interested than suspicious.
Joji did not reply to her query. It was a secret he kept close.
He had read enough stories to know how quickly a place could turn on a transmigrator once the word got out.
Still, he understood Rizz was one of his kind, and chances like this did not co every day.
A man from Earth, dropped into a beast’s body. That could beco a disaster, or it could beco an ally.
The donkey did not carry the slick rot of a predator. He carried the hunger of soone who had been helpless and never wanted to be again.
Joji had t plenty of ugly souls in his past life, people who wore charm like perfu and only waited to strike you on the back when you slipped.
This one felt different. If the donkey had truly spent most of his life confined, protected, managed, then he was a blank slate in the ways that mattered.
Dangerous, yes. Also moldable. Also loyal, if treated right.
No mount in this cave would match a mount that could talk, think, and fight beside him.
Joji made his decision without dragging it out.
"I will take him," Joji said.
The Lady of the Swamp lifted her brows.
"Oh? Are you certain?" Joji nodded, then caught himself and softened the motion.
He stepped closer and glanced at her neck. The muscles there looked tight, stiff in the way of soone who carried stress like jewelry.
"May I?" he asked, pointing at her neck.
She gave a small nod, still annoyed at being handled, and Joji’s fingers pressed lightly along the side of her neck, more like a physician than a flirt.
"You are tense," Joji said. "I still owe you. And I am not naive enough to think a mount like him cos cheap."
"Here is my offer. In exchange for Rizz, I will give you what we call adjustnts. One session. Right now."
The Lady’s eyes narrowed with interest.
"What thod is this adjustnt?"
"No tools," Joji said. "Hands only. You set the price after you feel what it does?"
She studied him for a long mont, weighing risk against hope.
Then she looked at the bald man’s calm confidence and decided it was worth trying.
With nothing to lose, she nodded once.
"Surely you need sothing else for this procedure, is that correct?"
"Just a bed," Joji said, steady. "And you."
Behind them, Rizz had already started packing his scattered books and drawings, muttering to himself in that too modern rhythm, as if he was afraid the mont would vanish if he stopped moving.
"We will be back, lil bro," Joji said.
"Aight. I will just be here," Rizz replied.
On The Lady of the Swamp private chambers.
"Lay flat on your stomach," Joji said.
The Lady of the Swamp obeyed and stretched out on the bed, face turned to the side, platinum white hair spilling over the pillow.
It would be the first ti she let a man touch her like this. She clung to one simple excuse to keep herself steady.
He was a doctor. dical practitioners had one bottom line, cure the patient and nothing else.
"I will start with a massage," Joji said.
He set both palms on her shoulders. His weight leaned in, pressing down in a steady rhythm, then easing off with control, like he was teaching her muscles to stop bracing.
The tightness under his hands resisted, then began to yield in small, stubborn incrents.
A sound slipped from her lips before she could stop it.
She bit down on it, cheeks flushing with annoyance at herself.
"Relax," Joji said, calm and matter of fact. "Breathe. Let the sound out if it cos. That is part of the treatnt."
She did not answer. Her fingers clenched the sheet anyway.
Joji worked his fingers along the edge of her shoulder blade, kneading in slow circles.
Pressure shifted bit by bit, not stabbing at one knot, but coaxing the whole band of muscle to soften.
Each ti a hard spot gave way, her foot straightened and her toes flexed, a reflex she could not hide.
He ran his forearm along the muscles beside her spine, starting mid back and moving upward, firm but asured, pushing tension outward instead of driving it deeper.
Her breathing changed. It grew heavier, slower in places, then caught again when he found a knot that had been living there too long.
Her eyes glazed with relief and exhaustion in equal asure.
"I am starting the adjustnt now," Joji said. "Do not fight it."
One hand cupped the side of her jaw. The other settled at the base of her skull. He waited until her breath finally went out, then moved.
A sharp crack snapped through the room.
Her whole body jolted. A broken gasp escaped her, then turned into a shaky exhale.
The relief that followed was imdiate and brutal in how clean it felt, like a door inside her had been jamd for years and soone had finally kicked it open.
Joji did not linger. He guided her down, turned her with practiced ease, and placed the heel of his palm between her shoulder blades.
His other hand braced her arm. His posture stayed precise, controlled, professional.
Then ca a firm thrust.
Pops echoed in quick succession, hard and dry, like brittle wood splitting. Her back arched on instinct.
Another moan tore free from her throat. This ti it was a scream of pleasure.
The tightness that had chained her spine seed to break apart in pieces, each release sending a fresh wave of breathless relief through her ribs and down into her hips.
Whatever poise the Lady of the Swamp had brought into the room slipped away.
Her eyes rolled back for a heartbeat, her breath turning ragged, and a shaful warmth spread between her legs, dampening the sheets before she could stop it.
Then he noticed the change.
It was subtle at first, the way her body settled into the mattress with less strain, the way her hips did not sit so aggressively wide.
Fabric that had looked stretched now looked rely fitted.
A little of that exaggerated weight seed to have retreated, as if the curse itself had loosened its grip in response to sothing it could not argue with.
Her hop joints even gave a small, quiet pop on their own as her posture relaxed.
Joji reached up and closed her rolled up eyes with two fingers.
"Rest," he said.
He sat on the edge of the bed and watched her breathing slow, already calculating what this ant, and what it might cost him later.
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