Earth's SSS Pornstar to SSS Combat God in Another World-Chapter 39: Another Man from Earth

"That is indeed the case. Come. Follow me," the Lady of the Swamp said.

Joji hugged the stomach of the mineral armadillo to his chest like a peerless treasure.

It was rare, even for her, but the way he held it went past gratitude. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The Lady watched him for a heartbeat longer than was polite, then shook her head as if scolding herself.

Maybe she was seeing too much again. Maybe he was only valuing what she had given him.

One of the lotus flower buildings had a staircase that should not have existed.

Natural limestone, yes, but shaped and fitted and rebuilt by magic until it became steps that looked like they had grown there.

They descended. The purple glow from the petals faded behind them and the air cooled.

Joji expected the stink of animals to hit him in the face.

It did not. No urine. No wet fur. No old blood.

Nothing but clean stone and that faint sweet scent that seemed to follow the Lady like a veil.

The beasts came into view.

Instead of cages, there was a wide cave room lit by soft lamps that gave no smoke.

No bars. No chains. No visible wards. The beasts stood or lay where they pleased, free.

Joji’s heart dipped anyway.

The first creature looked like a nightmare given muscle and teeth, like a lion dragged through hell and stitched back wrong.

Jagged fangs filled its mouth. A scorpion tail curled behind it, the stinger thick as a dagger.

Batlike wings folded against its ribs, twitching now and then as if eager to unfold.

Even standing still, it felt violently alive, eager to tear into anything.

It was bigger than a warhorse, two meters at the shoulder, more than four meters long.

"This is an infant manticore," the Lady said, almost fond. "Very loyal. It does not fear death. It will protect its master until its last breath. How about it?"

Joji was not a man moved by beauty, and ugliness did not scare him either.

He stepped close and patted the creature’s shoulder. Its coat was warm and coarse.

The manticore watched him without blinking, breath slow, as if waiting to be told who to kill.

"You are telling me the good," Joji said. "What is the bad?"

The Lady’s smile turned sharp.

"Manticore are extremely rare. Only a few strong men own them. Many people look for them. Not to admire."

Joji understood. A mount like that was not only a beast. It was a sign. It would paint a target on his back before he had the strength to wear it.

He moved on. The next beast stood in the shadows like a warning.

An undead horse.

Its face was skull and empty sockets. Blue corpse fire poured from the gaps in its bones and licked along its ribs as if the animal were burning from the inside without ever becoming ash.

It looked like a herald of plague and battlefields.

"I would highly suggest this for you," the Lady said, voice warm with certainty. "It takes time to train such a steed. But everything good comes from hard work."

Joji reached out and touched its neck.

Cold bit his palm. The horse jerked, then neighed with a grating sound like rusted iron dragged across stone.

Even Joji felt a thread of fear, the honest kind that crawled up the spine.

"Do you like it?" the Lady asked.

Joji almost nodded.

Then he felt it, that old intuition, the one that had saved him before.

A tight little warning in his gut that said agreeing too quickly would leave him poorer later. Not in coin. In options.

"I will keep it as a candidate," Joji said instead, and forced his voice to stay casual.

As Joji walked deeper into the illuminated cave, he heard a voice that did not belong in this world.

"Six seven."

It was not a chant. It was not a prayer. It was the kind of muttered counting he remembered from Earth, the exact cadence, the lazy compression of syllables that only made sense if you had ever lived around internet slang.

Joji almost told himself he was hearing things.

Then it came again, clearer.

"Six seven."

He followed the sound past the beasts and the soft lamps until he found a door.

A real door. Wood. Hinges. A latch. Not a curtain of vines. Not a stone arch.

Something that looked like it had been built by a person who liked privacy.

Joji stopped in front of it and looked at the Lady.

"What’s behind this?" he asked.

She smiled like a woman deciding how much trouble to share.

"Would you believe me if I said a talking donkey lives behind that door?" she said. "We need to knock first."

She raised her hand and rapped on the wood.

"Rizz," she called, voice bright. "We have visitors. Can we enter?"

From inside came a voice, flat with practiced confidence, and far too modern to be born here.

"Alright, miss built different. Do not be too attractive, okay? I am trying to survive today, not catch feelings."

Joji went still. The words hit him. Not because they were rude. Because they were wrong for this world.

Because they belonged to Earth. Because only one kind of man talked like that.

A transmigrator.

The Lady opened the door.

A bed sat crooked against one wall. Books lay everywhere, some open, some face down, some stacked like they had been thrown.

Papers covered the floor. Drawings. Sketches. Half finished figures. Scribbled notes.

Joji’s eyes caught on one drawing by the wall, and his stomach tightened.

It was him. Not Joji the knight. Joji from Earth. The version that had lived in other people’s screens.

A fitted blue shirt. A playful smile that knew it was being watched. Hands clasped. A sideways, cheeky glance, the kind that had been turned into a meme a hundred different ways.

Joji stared at the drawing a beat too long, then looked toward the donkey.

Broad shouldered and absurdly confident, the muscular donkey lounged on the bed like a swaggering rapper.

His sleek dark coat and chiseled chest sold the pose, and the oversized meme shades gave it comic bravado.

What was worse, the donkey wore cargo pants. Too modern for this age.

His grin was broad. His eyes were lively behind the lenses.

Not refined. Not elegant. Yet he carried himself with such unearned confidence that it circled back around into charm.

The donkey looked Joji up and down with boredom at first, like this was another visitor to be endured.

Then his head jerked. His jaw fell open.

His gaze flicked to the drawing on the wall, then back to Joji’s bald head and armored shoulders, then back to the drawing again as if his eyes refused to accept the new version.

"Everyman," the donkey murmured, voice suddenly small. "World’s most talented man."