“Growly and Nicky, so nice to see you again,” Mrs. Ferpaw greeted them as soon as she saw them.

“Good morning, Mrs. Ferpaw,” Nicky said with a smile.

“Hi mom,” Growly was being Growly, as usual.

“Good morning, Mrs. Ferpaw,” Ileena said, appearing from behind Growly.

“Good morning, Ileena. Wow, you look gorgeous today,” Growly’s mom said, touching her cheek with one hand before gasping when the others entered the shop after Ileena. “Flavia and Flamiris, and Emilia, oh my. You all look so pretty today. I wonder what is the occasion?”

“Good morning, Mrs. Ferpaw,” Narias entered the shop last.

“Oh, I guess I know the answer to my question now. Good morning, Narias. It’s been a short while since you visited our shop. Are you taking your girlfriends on a date?” Mrs. Ferpaw asked, knowing the answer to her question.

“Ah, yeah,” Narias couldn’t hide it, embarrassment dressing his face.

“Narias came to see dad, mom,” Growly interrupted whatever his mom was about to say next.

“Oh, yes, of course. I completely forgot about it. My husband and his friend are expecting you, Narias,” Growly’s mom said. “Let me tell him you are here.”

“His friend?” Narias wondered, but Mrs. Ferpaw was already gone.

After a few short minutes, Mrs. Ferpaw returned to the shop floor, accompanied by her husband.

“Now that’s a real royal escort you have there, kiddo,” Growla commented upon seeing everyone before he even said hello.

“Ah, hello, Mr. Ferpaw,” Narias said, throwing one hand behind his head. His girlfriends, including Growly and Nicky, greeted the bear blacksmith one at a time after him.

“Hah, my apologies, youngsters,” Growla laughed. “Good morning, everyone. Now, I hate to say it, ladies, but I’ll need to borrow your man for a few minutes. I have someone wanting to meet you, but we can’t talk out here on the shop floor. If you’d like you to come with me, Narias? It shouldn’t take too long.”

“Ok. I’ll be right back,” Narias said to his girlfriends.

Growla took Narias to the back of the store and into one of the rooms that looked like a living room of a normal house with a man waiting for them there. The person looked to be around fifty years of age, had white hair and a white moustache, and was wearing blue with yellow ornaments robes that looked like a magician’s robes for the most part.

“This is Mr. Remund. Bomrus, this is Narias Talrone,” Growla introduced the two.

“Good morning, Mr. Remund,” Narias greeted the man with a bow of his head.

“Good morning, Mr. Talrone. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the man greeted Narias back politely.

“Narias has a few ladies waiting for him, so let’s not waste any time. Bomrus Remund is a Jewelcrafter and is highly skilled in extracting crystals from various ores. He could help you with extracting the Althyme Crystal from the ore that you’ve got, Narias,” Growla explained.

“Yes, Growla told me that you have found a piece of Althyme Ore. It would be my pleasure to assist you in this matter, Mr. Talrone,” Bomrus said.

“Right, ok. Let me just take it out for you, Mr. Remund. Dungeon Locker,” Narias opened his magic storage to take the ore out.

“Amazing,” Mr. Remund didn’t show it on the outside, but he was impressed with seeing Narias use his Dungeon Locker ability. “By the heaven’s bliss. This is definitely an extraordinarily big chunk of Althyme Ore. I honestly had my doubts to believe you Growla and now I owe you an apology for this one.”

“Hah, don’t worry about it. I knew you wouldn’t believe it until you saw it,” Growla told him with a laugh. “In any case, what is your take on it?”

“Let me see,” Bomrus leaned down at the table where the Althyme Ore was placed on to take a better look. “Hmm... I’d say I could extract at least two pure Althyme Crystals from this piece of ore. I could try and get three out of it instead, but the quality of the crystals might suffer. It won’t be a fast job and it won’t come cheap, however.”

“Narias said he could pay with the leftover Althyme Dust that’d be left after the crystals are extracted, didn’t you, kiddo?” Growla turned to Narias.

“Yes, that’s right,” Narias confirmed.

“You’d be willing to part with the leftover Althyme Dust, Mr. Talrone?” Mr. Remund was surprised to hear that.

“Yes. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have enough money to pay for the job anyway,” Narias admitted.

“I see. In that case, I’d be more than happy to do the work for you. Now, Growla said you have someone waiting for you right now, so I wouldn’t want to take too much of your time. Why don’t you visit my shop at your earliest convenience, Mr. Talrone, so we could get the work started? I will leave all the details with Mr. Ferpaw here,” Bromus Remund explained.

“Certainly. Thank you, Mr. Remund,” said Narias, placing the Althyme Ore back into the Dungeon Locker.

“By the way, kiddo, the Crystal Hornhead’s Armor is finished, but it will take some extra time for me to craft the weapon. That piece of horn from the Crystal Hornhead that you’ve brought me is a material like no other. I’ll need to take my time to work on it,” Growla informed.

“That’s ok, Mr. Ferpaw. Thank you for letting me know,” Narias didn’t mind.

“Great, appreciate it. I’ll walk you out now,” Growla turned to leave the room with Narias. “I’ll be right back, Bromus.”

“It’s fine, Growla,” Bromus spoke, bowing his head.

{during the time while Narias was gone}

“Your dress looks absolutely amazing, Emilia,” Flavia complimented her.

“Thank you, Flavia. You look very pretty in your dress too,” Emilia complimented her back. “Ileena and Flamiris, you look very beautiful as well.”

“Thank you, Emilia. I suppose all of us went out of our way to make the best impression on Narias,” Ileena commented, adjusting her glasses.

“I usually hate wearing skirts or dresses, but I guess I could wear one now and then, considering how Narias reacted when he saw me looking like that,” Flamiris admitted reluctantly, redness dressing her cheeks.

“Hah, it’s gonna be a blast today. You just wait, I will win most of the games at the Magic Dome today,” Flavia couldn’t miss the chance to slide in a possible competition into her date.

“We’re here to have fun and spend time with Narias. You don’t have to turn everything into a competition, Flavia,” Ileena said, shaking her head mildly.

“As much as I’d love to show off my skills, it’d be a little difficult to play many games while wearing this tight skirt,” Flamiris wasn’t against it really, considering how competitive she was in general, but she was also right in regards to her skirt slightly constricting her movements if they were to play the more physically demanding games.

“Boo, you’re no fun at all,” Flavia complained, pursing her lips.

“How about whoever wins the most games gets to spend the night with Narias tonight?” Emilia suggested all of a sudden.

“Huh?” Ileena, Flavia and Flamiris looked at one another then quickly exclaimed all at the same time. “You’re on!”

“The girls seem to be very cheerful today,” Mrs. Ferpaw said, standing next to Growly and Nicky.

“They haven’t seen Narias for almost two weeks, so we decided to go to the Magic Dome to have some fun today. Or rather, it was Narias’s idea, actually,” Nicky told her with a wide smile.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Wow, that’s wonderful. I wish you to have a great time,” Growly’s mom said.

“Thank you, Mr. Ferpaw,” Nicky added.

It didn’t take long for Narias to come back, and since they didn’t have any more business at the shop, Narias, his girlfriends, Growly and Nicky left right away. The group would’ve gone straight to the Magic Dome, but playing games on an empty stomach wouldn’t have been very fun, and most of them haven’t eaten any breakfast in the morning. So, the next stop was the first restaurant they could come across, so they could to have something to eat.

As it was to be expected, Narias and his girlfriends attracted quite the attention. Majority of the stares were directed at him, however, and it didn’t matter if the whole group was walking down the street or during the time they were eating at the restaurant. The students were accompanied by the smiles from most of the adults, especially women, but when it came to younger people, the envious stares were evident. Jealousy was felt mainly from the young guys who weren’t exactly hiding how they felt about Narias walking past them with four beauties accompanying him. Growly and Nicky were walking slightly behind them, and even though Nicky was looking very pretty herself, wearing a green, frilly dress today, all the attention was on Narias and his girlfriends.

But of course. I should’ve known. Narias rolled his eyes, trying to pretend he wasn’t noticing it. Hopefully it won’t be that bad when we get to the Magic Dome.

However, Narias couldn’t have been more wrong. The Magic Dome was full of people, which was to be expected of course, but Narias and his girlfriends stood out from a mile. The majority of the people who would come to the Magic Dome would come to play all kinds of games that were available there, which also meant they’d be dressed in a more casual style too. In contrast, Ileena, Flavia, Emilia and Flamiris had put a lot of effort into looking the best they could, easily making them stand out from the crowd. Heck, Narias himself looked extravagant and flashy, attracting the attention of more than a few girls and young women visiting the Magic Dome as well. That just made all of his girlfriends want to cling to him closer, making other guys, especially the guys who didn’t have a girl with them, trying to stab him with the most jealous stares they could muster.

Right, let’s just go play some games. All Narias could do was to turn his focus on some sort of activity.

“How about we start with this one?” But Flavia beat him to it, pointing at one of the games with her hand.

“No way. I can’t play that game dressed like that,” Flamiris protested after seeing what kind of game was Flavia suggesting. Being Flavia, she wanted to play the game which required smashing targets using your hands and feet.

“Flamiris is right. We cannot play that game dressed the way we are. We need to choose the games that all of us are comfortable playing,” Ileena agreed with Flamiris.

“Easy for you to say. I can’t use magic like the rest of you,” Flavia argued, crossing her arms in front of her.

“That wasn’t my point. We can play games where we don’t need to use any magic, but it has to be something that all of us can play without overexerting ourselves,” Ileena explained.

“By the way, we haven’t yet agreed on what the winning condition is,” Emilia reminded the other girls, sounding very determined.

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t think about it. Well, I intend to win anyway, so it doesn’t matter really,” Flamiris said, adding a confident smirk.

“How about the first one to reach three wins is the winner?” Emilia suggested again.

“Works for me,” Flavia instantly agreed.

“It can be five or ten wins and it still wouldn’t change the outcome,” Flamiris declared, brushing her flaming red hair to the side confidently.

“You are unusually competitive today, Emilia,” Ileena noticed it.

“Am I? Well, I... I just thought since we’ll be playing games today, it will... it will add some more excitement to it,” Emilia had to pause a few times to think how to respond in regards to Ileena’s comment.

“But you don’t have to make it into a competition, you know. We can simply play some games to have fun,” Narias joined in the conversation after being quiet all this time.

“Yes, we do!” His girlfriends protested.

“Ah?” Narias almost jumped, surprised by how serious all four of them were. “Ok... So, what are we competing for then?”

“You, doh...” Flamiris rolled her eyes.

“Huh?” Narias became confused.

“What Flamiris was trying to say was that whoever wins the most games can choose the place where we go to eat at the end of the day,” Ileena intervened, offering an explanation.

“Yes... what... Ileena has said,” Flamiris added, scratching her cheeks with one finger while looking away.

“Ah, right, ok,” fortunately, Narias bought Ileena’s explanation.

“Hey, Growly and I want to go that way to play some games that we enjoy playing. How about we meet later before going to eat?” Nicky asked.

“Yes, sure,” Flavia said, with everyone else agreeing to it as well.

“Ok, have fun all of you,” Nicky wished them.

“See you,” Growly added.

And so, the competition to win who will be the one choosing where to go to eat had begun. Well, Narias didn’t think much of it, because he didn’t really mind what place anyone would choose to go to eat at. Of course, he didn’t know that the girls had already decided on the place where they would be going ‘to eat’. Narias simply didn’t know it just yet. And an additional caveat to it was was, there’d be only two people going and there most probably would be a very specific food on the menu too.

Narias and his girlfriends had to walk around to find some games that all of them could play, however. The Magic Dome was huge and offered all kinds of entertainment. Apart from the physically demanding or purely magic infused games, there were plenty of other type of games to play too. One type of those games were the board games. Narias was surprised to find board games offered here, but he hadn’t explored the whole of the Magic Dome during the few times he had been here together with Flavia. However, board games were perfect for them right now, considering how all of them were dressed right now.

“I believe all of us can play board games, can’t we? It requires neither magic nor physical abilities to play them,” Ileena made a sound argument.

“Hah, this will be easy,” Flamiris showed a menacing grin.

“You won’t scare me. Bring it on,” Flavia was feeling pumped.

“Yes, I think board games would be the best choice,” Emilia agreed to it, a suspicious smile entering her lips.

“Wow, I didn’t know they had board games here. This looks like fun,” Narias became excited.

“So, which one do we start with?” Flamiris was eager to start playing.

“How about Narias decides?” Ileena suggested.

“Yes, that would be fair if Narias was the one to decide,” Emilia agreed.

“You want me to decide? Well, ok,” Narias wasn’t against it. “How about we start with something simple? Like... that one?” He pointed at the game that looked like checkers game from his previous world.

“Alright, let’s go,” Flavia marched forward.

The game definitely resembled the checkers game from Anthony’s previous world. However, it was played a little different here. You would get a certain number of game pieces and you’d have to play them to get the highest score possible. You would get points by taking down the opposing ‘checkers’ with your own game pieces, but you would have limited number of moves to make and there were rules on how you could move your pieces too. In short, the more opposing game pieces you take down, the higher your score would be. One thing was, you wouldn’t be playing against another person, but against the board itself. The game was set in a way that there were way more opposing game pieces than your own, offering many different ways to earn points.

{after a short while when everyone played a game each}

“Boo... I should’ve known Narias would win,” Flavia complained.

“Ah, sorry, I just followed the rules,” Narias didn’t know how to explain himself.

“It’s ok. There are plenty more games we can play,” Ileena didn’t mind Narias winning once.

“He’s definitely a real Mastermind. I couldn’t have even thought about the moves that he did to get extra points,” Flamiris said, not feeling upset about it. Probably because if Narias wasn’t playing, the win would’ve gone to Emilia.

“How about we go play the next game now?” Emilia suggested, the group agreeing to it.

The group moved from one table to another, playing two more games each and each time Narias came out as a winner. The girls started to become worried that if this keeps up, they won’t be able to get any points to see who will be the end winner among them.

“Would you mind sitting this one out, Narias?” Ileena asked right before they were about to go to the next table.

“You... don’t want me to play?” Narias was having fun and didn’t expect to be asked to not play.

“That’s... not it, Narias. We just... want you to cheer us on,” Emilia came up with an excuse.

“Yes, that’s the reason, partner,” Flavia added to support Emilia’s words.

“Some gentleman you are, not letting the girls win even once,” Flamiris on the other hand, didn’t bother being tactful.

“Ah, s... sorry about that. Yes, you are right. I’ll just watch and cheer you on from now on,” As direct as Flamiris was, her words hit a home run and Narias agreed to step down from playing.

“Thank you, Narias,” Ileena said.

I guess I became too excited about playing these types of games. I should hold back and let them have some fun instead. Narias was mulling over the situation in his head.

The games continued and that’s when the heat was really turned on. Ileena, Flavia, Emilia and Flamiris went all out and they were very serious about winning as well. Too serious even. The sparks were flying left and right at the table where Narias’s girlfriends sat down to play. The battles were fierce, each girl collecting a win one after another. Not only Narias, but other people, swept by the enthusiasm at the tables the girls were playing their current games, were coming to watch how they battled it out too.

Wow, this one was really close. Narias could finally breathe normally when the winner finally emerged after yet another game.

“Congratulations, Emilia. It was only one point, but you still managed to beat my score,” Ileena congratulated her.

“Thank you, Ileena,” Emilia said, looking happy and relieved about her win. She now had two wins, while the other girls had one each.

“Phew, that was intense even to watch. I think I need a drink,” Flavia let out a deep sigh.

“Good call. I’d like to have something to drink too,” Flamiris was in favor of it.

“I think I need to go to the bathroom first,” Emilia said.

“Yes, I’d like to go to the bathroom too,” Ileena said.

“Ok then. We’ll get something to drink for you two as well,” Flavia said.

“I can help you with the drinks,” Narias offered.

“No, no. You stay here, partner,” Flavia insisted.

“Here?” Narias became puzzled.

“Yes, this is our meeting place. So, you wait for us here. You don’t want any of us to get lost, do you?” Flamiris told him, pointing her finger at him.

“No,” Narias said, but he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t go get the drinks together with Flavia and Flamiris.

“Good. Wait for us here. We’ll be right back,” Flamiris sounded like she was issuing an order.

“Aah... Ok,” and Narias knew there was no arguing with her.

Oh, well. As long as they are having fun. Narias thought his girlfriends having fun was all that mattered, so he stayed to wait for them right where he was.

“What a pleasant surprise meeting you here, Narias Talrone,” Narias heard a male voice speak to him from behind after a few minutes of waiting.

“Huh? Who...” he turned around to see who it was. “Oh, good day, Mr. Louneus Vilmanos. How have you been?”