Tia looks up and as if coming out of a daze she spots Mary and the others as well as their crowns. It immediately dawned upon her who she was sat before. She quickly got up and kneeled before them.

“Your majesties.”, she says, bowing her head.

They all looked at each other in amazement. Although she could not communicate with them, this act of kneeling before demi-humans almost served as proof that the hypnosis had worn off.

Claire kneeled alongside her.

“Please your majesties. Allow me to look after her, I’ll get all the relevant information about what's going on in the human planes and what the hypnosis was like to see if there's anything more, we can learn.”, Claire pleaded.

“Come on Claire, you know you don’t have to be so formal with us. She doesn’t seem hostile or under any hypnosis from where I’m sitting. So, we will leave her in your capable hands. With one condition. Teach her Demilang. Her testimony will be important for when the Elves and Dwarves arrive.”.

“Of course.”, Claire says smiling.

“Speaking of, i recently received word back from north nations. They have stated that they will arrive in the Southern beast tribe with some of their strongest warriors in 6 months' time. However, they won’t bring their entire forces here naturally as to not leave their homes weak to possible invasion. That being said, Ray, how was your talk with your friends.”.

“Well, I only made it to the one when we ran into Tia here. But he agreed to helping us, he will continue to increase his own strength as well as his army and will partake in the tournament as well.”.

“Perfect, I look forward to meeting him.”,

The meeting wrapped up shortly with that. They had learnt quite a bit from this experience, that the hypnosis could be broken from those with a strong mental fortitude, and it was more effective from a fellow human. Not to mention Tia will be in the hands of Claire who should be able to inform her on everything that has accrued as well as making sure she recovers properly. It would also be nice for Claire to have a fellow human around, due to them not going public with the existence of demons yet, Claire has had to remain in the castle grounds but now she will have someone to keep her company when the others aren’t there.

Ray scavenged around the castle looking for Leo and the others yet there was no sign of them, hell, he couldn’t even find Kay and Arnold. As he wondered around Ray ran into Regi, Luke and Arthur.

“Where are the kids?”, Ray asked walking over to them.

“Ah right, they’ve all started school now, so they won’t be here apart from the weekends.”, Luke stated.

“I-I see.”. Ray was happy the kids were able to go to school now, however he was going to miss not having them constantly around.

“Oh yeah, the vampire, Alex, was it? He stopped by not long ago to see how you guys were doing but you weren’t here.”, Arthur states.

“Really? How was he doing?”, Ray asked excitedly.

“He was good, he seems like he's gotten stronger already.

Ray smiled, if he wasn’t careful, Alex would leave him completely in the dust.

“Luke, how soon can we start that training?”, Ray asked eagerly.

“All preparations have been made; we can start as early as tomorrow morning.”, Luke says winking.

“Perfect!”, Ray says aloud. This is where things got serious again, a whole six months of training, taking job quests, exploring and levelling up awaited.

“Well see you guys.”, Ray says as he turns around however, he is stopped by 3 hands on his shoulders. causing him to freeze.

“C-can I help you.”, Ray says slowly turning his head to look at the 3.

“Let's have some guy's time.”, The 3 of them state.

“Guys time?”, Ray asks confused.

Luke and Arthur put their arms over his shoulders and begin to escort him towards the giant swimming pool sized bathroom, with Regi walking slowly behind them.

As they walk past Lilly, Anna and Mary, Lilly asks a question.

“W-where are they taking him?”, Lilly asks concerned.

Mary and Anna giggle.

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“Well, those 3 have been eager for Ray to return so they can have sine guys time with him”, Anna informs her daughter.

“Guys time?”. Lilly says confused.

“Yeah, which consists of lounging around, drinking and gossiping like women. Though they’ll never admit that”, Mary says chuckling.

“Wait... so how do you 2 know that?”, Lilly asks concerned.

However Anna and Mary simply giggle.

“let's have some girl time later. We can invite Claire and the new girl and talk about love and how me and your aunt courted your father and uncle.”, Anna says giggling.

“Oh my, that takes me back.... though I don’t know if she’s ready for that.”, Mary says also giggling.

And with that the two begin to walk off giggling together.

“W-wait I want to know.”, Lilly says reaching out.

“We’ll see you later then”, They both say, still giggling.

The bathroom was absolutely amazing. The room was made entirely out of a sand-coloured stone. Out of the walls were sculpted dragon heads that spewed water into the tub square tub, there was also an area to rinse off before entering, where you would fill a small wooden bason full of water and splash it over yourself before entering. There was even a dissolvable stone that when dropped in the water turned the water pink and bubbly.

Arthur, Luke and Regi sighed as they let themselves relax in the bubbly tub. Ray looked over to them, towel around his waist. He had tried to refuse; however, it fell on death ears as they marched him in here.

“Are you going to come in or not.”, Luke asked Ray, comfort evident all over his face.

“YOLO.”, Ray sighed to himself as he hung his towel up, filled the bason full of water and dumped hit over himself, completely drenching himself in lukewarm water. When Ray had first used the bath, he was surprised that it was not cold, but it had probably been heated up in preparation for this.

As Ray walked over to them the others looked over at him. Their jaws dropped.

Arthur put his thumbs up.

“Oh my.”, Regi said in shock.

“S-stay away from my daughter you beast.”, Luke said, his soul leaving his body.

Ray was confused at first but then he realised what they were talking about.

“Shut up.”, He said as he walked over and stepped into the bath, sitting down and relaxing himself.

He grabbed a cup of wine and chugged it

“That's the spirit.”, Arthur said following suit, then followed by Regi and Luke.

“So, what are we doing in here?”, Ray asked.

“Drink, gossip and drink some more.”, Arthur said, filling up another cup and downing it.

“So, how was your little date with Lilly?”, Arthur asked nosily.

It was now clear to Ray that this was the special occasion that led to this.

“YOLO!”, He once again thought to himself as he downed another cup of alcohol and delved into his date.

Arthur bursts into laughter.

“A kiss on the cheek that so juvenile. What are you 7?”, Arthur snickers.

“Oh yeah, well what about you huh? How did you get to marry the queen?”.

“Now that's a good story. As you know my father was the king and Luke over there was the heir to the throne, so I had a lot of freedom. Well dad and the previous king of the south were old friends and so we used to come and visit often. We’ve known Mary and Anna for years and years, Anna was actually Mary’s best friend, she was always around the castle especially when we were due. I think from the first time she met Luke she was obsessed with him.”, with that, Luke smirked, “So whenever me and Luke would come and visits, we would spend time with the girls in the castle and well as we grew older and our bodies and feeling changed our relationships with them also changed.”.

“R-really? Like how?”, Ray asked curiously.

“Well... the girls would often spy on us whilst we were in the bath, and we would so the same. We would sneak out of the castle and go to the tavern and the clubs. All kinds of things.”.

“You kids were quite the mischievous group.”, Regi said laughing.

“Eventually as time went by, I started dating Mary and Luke started dating Anna and from then on, we’ve been together.”.

Ray was completely flabbergasted and taken aback by what he said. These guys were a group on degenerates. Was this normal teenage behaviour?

Ray slumps himself down on his bed, freshly washed and ready for bed. He thinks about what he had just heard about how Luke, Arthur, Anna and Mary were as youths.

“If Lilly is anything like them, I may be in for a wild ride.”, Ray thinks to himself as he slowly sinks into a deep slumber, ready for the next day when his training would finally begin.