Aralen awoke in his bed alone, the warmth of Penora missing as he rubbed his eyes sleepily, looking around for any sign of her. The clothing she had shed the previous night was still on the floor, and it didn’t look like anything bad had happened, so he decided she must have been called in by Selene or something of the sort. He slowly got dressed, mind not on anything in particular, and went down to the dining room for breakfast.

To his surprise, Penora was standing in front of the stovetop, the scent of flowers and fruit strong in the air as Sam stood beside her, gently consoling her. He approached slowly, wondering what was wrong before he spotted the pan, with the burnt remains of… something still sitting inside it. The dryad looked distraught, her eyes watery and lip trembling, and Sam was murmuring something into her ear, but when she spotted Aralen, the dam burst as she leaped at him, her arms wrapping around him as tears streamed down her face.

“I-I’m so s-sorry, D-darling! I w-wanted to make you s-something sp-special after last n-night, but I ruined it!” Her ability to speak died as a new wave of tears flowed out, and she buried her face into his chest, her tears leaving little wet marks on the fabric. The elf was caught off guard at first, his arms spread wide as she clung to him, but he slowly reciprocated the hug as he stroked her hair gently. He was still confused, of course, for he had no clue why she was so upset over burning a meal, but he comforted her all the same.

“It’s okay, Penora. You didn’t ruin anything,” he whispered softly into her ear as Sam nodded behind her and started to clean up the mess. It didn’t help much, as her sobbing continued, but she calmed down just enough to be able to speak.

“I-I’m so b-bad at cooking, now y-you’ll never want me as your w-wife! I’m so s-sorry!” she wailed, and his confusion only intensified. That's what she was upset about? Her ability to cook had never once been under scrutiny for him, and he pulled her in tighter.

“Penora, I don’t care how good or bad you are at cooking. I’m very happy that you tried to make something for me, but I’m not upset that you made a mistake. It’s normal to make mistakes.” Her breathing calmed down slightly, and she looked up at him with wet eyes and deep, ragged gasps.

“You d-don’t mind that I r-ruined breakfast for you?” she asked quietly, and Aralen had to stop himself from laughing at how pitiful she looked.

“No, of course not. We can just make more, after all, and I can even help you out with it. We can do it together.”

She seemed somewhat mollified by that, even if she did let out the occasional gasping breath. Sam gave Aralen a big thumbs up before vaporizing away, leaving the couple alone in the kitchen. The dryad pointed out the recipe she wanted from a book, a classic Estelian breakfast that Aralen had seen his mother make countless times growing up. It wasn’t particularly easy, which explained some of Penora’s failure, but it was clear almost immediately that she hadn;t been lying about her cooking skills. She had a complete disregard for measurements or ingredients, preferring instead to wing it entirely, and using heat to cook things was completely foreign to her. He soon learned that she had been living off of fruits and vegetables exclusively up until he took her from the forest, and had never made a meal more complicated than putting berries in a bowl in her life.

Still, he stayed patient, and despite her inexperience they managed to make an edible meal, a great improvement over Penora’s solo attempt. She seemed a lot more cheerful as they sat down to eat, and though she still had the occasional sniff and her eyes were still red, she was smiling widely as he took his first bite of the food before she followed suit. It was good, the Syla leaves wrapped around the seasoned eggs, potatoes, and roasted veggies all coming together wonderfully. He was glad that she was in a better mood, even though she still didn’t contribute much to the meal, but he would have to teach her properly in the future if cooking was something she really wanted to learn.

They ate the rest of the meal together as more people filled into the dining room. First was Rylei and Jyce, who still looked tired but overall much better than after their dungeon raid. Then Selene, who smiled knowingly at Aralen and Penora before taking a seat and sipping on a cup of tea that had appeared out of nowhere, then finally Lithael who for some reason looked even more tired than Jyce did.

“Did you two have fun last night?” Selene teased, causing Aralen to redden slightly, but he owned up to it with a nod.

“Good. I hope you two don’t mind if I run a few tests on you, right? I’d love to see if there’s been any effect on you in particular, Aralen.”

“And when you’re done, I’ve got a couple jobs I think you might be interested in, so head to the training room after all that,” Rylei followed up.

The tests in question were much of the same, with small dollops of his blood being extracted and examined by the Auralin while Penora sat nearby, examining the numerous silver and golden instruments Selene had scattered around her study. Aralen still didn’t understand exactly what Selene was seeing in the random colors that appeared and disappeared during her tests, but it seemed very engrossing to the healer, and it was a few moments before she gave any sort of explanation to him.

“You do seem to have been accruing some small amounts of Demonic Aura the last few days, but it’s capped out at the levels I normally see in men after high amounts of exposure to monster girls. Even you two having sex again hasn’t changed your levels much, though that might be because you haven’t had as much sex as normal monster couples. Penora’s assimilation into society may also be the cause of that, as her own corruptive levels are very low currently. Overall, it doesn’t seem like there’s much more that you two being together will change,” Selene finished with a rather glum face, though it quickly changed to her usual gentle smile. “It appears you’ll have to run into another monster girl for me to get any more data, I’m afraid. I believe Rylei’s training should help you with that, yes? And Penora, dear, could you stay here? I have some more tests I’d like for you to take.”

Understanding that he’d been dismissed, Aralen made his way out of the plush study and made his way to the training grounds, where the cyclops was waiting, her single green eye noticing him right as he stepped out of the lift.

“There you are! Ready to get your training back on track?” she shouted from across the field toward him. Aralen nodded in response as he jogged over to the equipment rack and readied up, spear in hand and wearing his leather armor. The training dummies sprung to life again, and he spent an hour or so practicing fighting while Rylei shouted advice from the sidelines. Afterward, while he sat on the grass gulping water from a canteen Rylei had handed him, she brought up potential adventures for him to take.

“So, I’ve been looking around, like I said I would, and I found a couple options posted by some people nearby. A couple of them are here in Alvode, some are in the surrounding villages, a few in Alugala. You can look through them all and take your pick,” she said while handing him a handful of papers, each with a job listed alongside reward, description, and location. A lot of them were the usual stuff, with people asking for help retrieving stolen goods or collecting resources for them, but a few were slightly more interesting. Some involved clearing out monster or bandit nests around the surrounding villages, but the most interesting to Aralen was the one in Alugala. The job itself was nothing special, just protecting one of the farms on the outskirts of the city from some kind of creature killing their livestock, but the thought of taking a quick trip to his home city was appealing, and he quickly made up his mind.

“I thought you might pick that one,” Rylei said with a nod. “It’s a good one for beginners, too, which is great since we can’t go with you on that one. We’ve got our own job coming up in Coqueiroste that we should attend to soon. Are you good with leaving tomorrow?”

Aralen nodded in response, and after the rest of the training session was finished, they discussed the details of his upcoming job. Selene’s Tower had several low-power warpstones that she used to travel across Eteri, and one happened to lead to Alugala, and she would be able to use the warpstone in the capital to bring them right back. Avoiding the multiple-day-long journey back and forth from the capital was wonderful, and Aralen once again found himself in awe of the magical capability of Selene. Even having lived with her for over a week, he still found himself surprised by all she and her tower were capable of.

Jyce’s lessons were next, and he spent a few hours going over different Magic Realms in Estelia. He had heard of them before, of course, but mostly mentioned in passing by the odd adventurer or as the settings of hard-to-believe stories. They weren’t very impactful on most people’s day-to-day lives, so they were left for adventurers to deal with. Now that Aralen himself was an adventurer, though, it needed to be known. Learning of Realms such as the Skyfall, where gravity was inverted within its borders, or the Abyss, a seemingly endless hole filled with who-knows-what, was fascinating, and realizing that one day he might be delving into them was both exciting and terrifying.

Luckily, as Jyce stressed to him throughout the lesson, Magic Realms were typically the area of expertise of more experienced adventurers, and Aralen was unlikely to have to worry about them anytime soon. Still, it was a fascinating session, and the elf found himself fantasizing of different magical places once he was let go. He almost missed the door to his room, lost in his thoughts as he was. Only Penora, who also seemed to be returning to the room, stopped him from walking right past.

“Darling? Where are you going? Our room is right here.”

“Oh, sorry. Thanks, Penora.”

“What are you thinking about?” she questioned, her head tilting cutely.

“Um, nothing important. Just my lessons. But I did want to let you know that I’m heading to Alugala for a job, if you want to come with me.” She did want to come with him, as she practically bounced around the room with a wide smile as Aralen started preparing his gear for the next day. The addition of the dryad’s abilities were sure to be helpful in his mission, and not going into it alone was nice as well.

The next morning, Aralen awoke full of energy, ready for the return to Alugala. With all that had happened in the last couple of weeks, he felt bad that he hadn’t been updating his mother on his activities, and going back home would be the perfect opportunity for that. At the back of his mind he wondered how his mother would react to Penora, but given her past experiences with monster girls he doubted she would find issue with it. Lithael made her way into the dining room as the couple was eating breakfast, and Aralen realized that she had the same break that he had.

“Hey, Lithael, I don’t know if you’re busy or not, but I’m heading out to Alugala today. Selene said she’ll portal us there and back, so I was wondering if you wanted to come.”

She only shook her head. “I’ve got some business I need to take care of here, sorry. Thanks for the offer, though.”

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Aralen nodded in understanding as he went back to his meal, even though mentally he was a bit confused. He was fairly certain the elf captain lived in Alugala as well, though perhaps she still had obligations with the Trading Company that she had missed out on during her stint as a kidnapee. Regardless, he felt like it would have made sense for her to return to the capital just to let someone know what had happened to her. He shook the thoughts of her out of his mind and focused on his own trip instead.

The job did have a deadline in a couple of days, but that was just when he needed to go to the farm itself and meet the owners, so he had a bit of time to relax and visit his family. He figured the first thing he would do would be introducing Penora to his mother, then he’d check in on his own home in the city just to check in and relax for the rest of the day. Tomorrow would be when he visited the farm and investigated the attacks, so long as everything went to plan. They finished their food and got ready to travel.

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If Aralen had disliked the regular portals Selene used to link the various parts of her tower, he despised warpstones. Instead of being stretched out, like how a portal felt, the warpstone instead caused him to feel like he was getting crushed into a tiny ball, all senses compressed into one point with no sight, sound or smell. It lasted for several seconds, before he expanded in a completely jarring manner, the return of vision and hearing stunning him momentarily. His senses slowly returned as he took in his surroundings, the light wooden walls and stone brick floor appearing before him.

They stepped out of the wooden shack that was the destination of Selene’s warpstone onto the bustling streets of Alugala. The salty scent in the air, the swarms of pedestrians around them, the towering buildings lining the streets were all welcome to the elf, while the dryad was simply in awe of everything around her. While Alvode was by no means a small city, it was positively dwarfed by nearly every aspect of the capital, and Penora was taking it all in.

Aralen smiled at her reaction to his hometown before looking around to see where they were. Despite having lived in the city for over forty years, he still didn’t know every street or building. Luckily, it seemed that Selene had chosen a location on the southern side of the city, near the residential district where both Aralen and his mother lived, and with that he pulled the awestruck dryad with him down the street.

As they walked, he pointed out some of the more interesting aspects of the city to Penora, such as the aquamarine-colored rooftops that capped each of the buildings, or the Mage Lights that hung dormant over the streets until darkness fell. She listened with rapt attention, and it distracted them both enough that the walk to Aralen’s mother’s home passed in the blink of an eye. Soon they were standing in front of a quaint home, a cute blue door standing out from the white walls and matching with the turquoise roof, multiple flowers growing from various pots and planters across the facade which Penora appreciated greatly.

He knocked on the door and awaited its opening anxiously, suddenly feeling a lot more nervous about introducing the monster girl to his mom, but he took a breath and readied himself. The door creaked open just a crack, and he could see the bright pink eyes of his mother peering through it at him.

“I don’t want any, thank you,” she said through the door before closing it again, causing Aralen to sigh and knock again.

“Mom, it’s me! Open up already!” he said through the door, exasperated, which prompted the door to crack open again.

“Go away already!” she said, but Aralen was sick of it. Before she could close the door again, he pushed it open and stepped inside to the surprised face of his mother. The surprise evaporated as a grin grew on her face before she lightly pushed him backward.

“You’re just going to barge into an old lady’s house like that? For shame, Aralen! I didn’t raise you to act like that.” The faux disappointment on her face only served to draw a smile out of Aralen, and he moved in to hug her, which she returned gladly.

“Hi Mom. Don’t call yourself an old lady, though. It makes me think you’ve stolen this house from some grandma,” he said, eliciting a laugh and a smile from her as he said exactly what he knew she wanted.

And his words weren’t undeserved, either. Though Emeria Wilaen was well over three hundred years old, she looked little older than a fifty year old elf would, her shoulder-length, wavy hair without a hint of gray, and her face wrinkle-free. The only indication of her age were the scars that sparsely covered her body, with a few visible on each limb and one larger mark reaching from under her ear to her chin, as well as her slightly out-of-date fashion style. She chose to wear the slightly thicker, slightly longer dress that she claimed was popular hundreds of years ago, the ruffled skirt flaring out rather than hugging closer to her body, and her arms covered in long sleeves. The top of her blond head only barely reached the younger elf’s chin as she stood, arms on her hips as she appraised her only son, brows furrowed in mock concentration.

Her concentration dropped when she noticed the dryad standing meekly behind Aralen, and she let out a surprised gasp. “Aralen, you know there’s a dryad following you around, right?”

“Yes, of course I know. How could I not?” he said, though the concern on her face didn’t go away. “Actually, how did you know she was a dryad?”

“Come on, did you forget how much experience I have with monster girls? I can spot one a mile away, even with your little disguise,” she chided, before turning to inspect Penora. The dryad didn’t seem to set off any alarms in her head, though, and she warily let the pair into her home.

While from the outside, Aralen’s mother’s house looked like it could belong to any number of people, the inside was a different story. Lining the wooden walls were dozens of monster trophies, from massive skulls taken from dragons to sheets of fur taken from some beast. A giant, spear-like horn hung above the fireplace, and a wreath of frozen feathers adorned the front door. To most people, like Penora, it was an awe-inspiring sight, but Aralen had lived in the house for years and knew the stories behind every one of them. Ignoring the dryad’s gasps of amazement, he went straight for the lush couch and sat down, his mother taking the armchair across from him and Penora, realizing they had sat, hurried to take a spot beside him.

The first thing his mother wanted out of him was the story behind Penora, despite supposedly sensing her passive nature already. To explain that, Aralen had to go through the whole ordeal of the past couple of weeks, starting with his guard job for the trade caravan. The story of his capture by Penora, which caused the dryad in question to blush fiercely, the discovery of his immunity by Selene, the quest to find Penora and then to find Lithael, all leading up to him returning to Alugala were regaled by the elf, and his mother listened carefully and only asked questions when appropriate. When he finished, she simply sat with a thoughtful expression, a hand on her chin.

“I wonder…,” Aralen heard her murmur out loud, but before he could question her, she jumped up from her chair and tackled her son with a hug.

“I’m so proud of you! I can’t believe you’ve already become such a capable adventurer. Taking after dearie me, huh?” She ruffled his long, blond hair as she said this, causing Penora to giggle quietly and Aralen’s face to redden, before she backed away.

“Penora, sweetie, I’m delighted to have met you. I’m sure you can tell, but I’ve been monsterized before so I know how it is, and I’m very happy that you’re managing to keep your instincts under control. I do hope you’ll take good care of my son.”

“Of course, Ms Wilaen! I would never dream of doing anything else.” His mother only laughed at her response.

“Oh, call me Emeria! I don’t like being called ‘Ms,’ it makes me feel old. Now, that story took quite a while to tell, huh? Let me whip up something yummy, my treat.”

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Aralen had no reason to be worried after all. His mother accepted Penora immediately, even letting her help cook for a moment before disaster struck, then elegantly taking over while letting the dryad retreat without humiliation. And though breakfast the previous day had reminded him of his mother’s cooking, nothing could compare to the real thing, as he scarfed down his home-cooked lunch in the blink of an eye. Even though it hadn’t been long since he visited his mother, it felt good to be back with her, if only for a moment, especially after the chaos he had experienced recently.

The time flew by quicker than he anticipated, however, and soon he was bidding farewell to his mother, with a promise that he would return after he finished his current job. Stepping onto the afternoon streets with Penora, he smiled in contentment from his visit before starting the walk to his home. His own house was similar to his mother’s, without the trophies of course, with simple wooden walls and a clean, stone floor. Nothing seemed to have happened to it during his extended absence, and he comfortably settled back into familiarity.

After a quick dinner, they went to bed, Aralen intending to rest up before he visited the farm tomorrow, despite Penora’s pleas to go on a walk through the city. He did promise her a date after the job, but for now his first priority was getting some sleep.

The next day, after a bit of confusion on where the farm actually was, the pair began their trek to the farm. It was outside the city walls, requiring a tense run-in with the guards positioned there. A pair of elves, one armed and the other wearing a fancy dress, were not the most inconspicuous thing exiting the city, and if it weren’t for Aralen’s position as a Trading Company guard, he may have had to explain Penora’s lack of any identification. As they left the guardpost, he resolved to get that fixed as soon as possible, despite having no clue how to accomplish it. Maybe Selene would know, or maybe Rylei or Jyce, he thought as they walked down the muddy, unpaved roads outside the city toward the farm.

He could tell as soon as it came into view that it was the one described in the job advert. While many cattle still roamed the penned area, a sizable group of them lurked around the back of the farmhouse, wrapped in bandages or lying in the mud, watching the pair mournfully as they approached. More startling though were the burn marks scattered about the field, with small craters of displaced mud and burnt grass pockmarking the area. It was hardly a second after they knocked that the door flung open, and a wiry, middle-aged elf greeted them with baggy eyes and an exhausted air about him. His short, graying hair was disheveled, his green eyes were bloodshot, and his tough-looking leather clothing had burns on the cuffs and pant legs.

“Finally, someone’s here. Sorry if I’m a bit gruff, but I’m tired from dealing with this mess the last few days. You’ve seen the damage already, I assume,” he said as he led them into the farmhouse, ignoring both a younger elf who watched them warily as they passed and a similarly aged woman washing soot out of a jacket in a tub. Deeper into the dusty farmhouse they went until they reached a mini warehouse of sorts, where bags of grain and stacks of empty buckets lined the walls, among other things. The farmer seemed to be most focused on a patch of linen cloth on the back table, however, and he slowly unwrapped it to reveal a patch of scales, seemingly from some kind of reptile.

“Do you know what these are from,” Aralen asked as the farmer presented the scales to them, but he only shook his head.

“I’ve tried to stay and watch, but they can tell when I’m out there, I reckon. They only attack when we’re all fast asleep, and we wake up to fires burning and our cattle missing or injured.”

“Maybe it’s pseudodragons, or salamanders?” Penora offered, but Aralen shook his head.

“Salamanders don’t live in this part of Eteri, and pseudodragons don’t attack cattle. But I can’t think of what these could possibly be from.” He looked up to address the farmer. “Don’t worry, though. We’ll figure it out and make sure your cattle are safe from now on.”

After the farmer offered his thanks and left them to plan, Aralen dug into his back for his notebook from Jyce’s lessons. Learning about the different types of monsters that lurked in Estelia and Eteri as a whole was a big part of the instruction, but he couldn’t find anything specific that matched. Fire drakes, incendiary serpents, and lizardwolves all fit the bill to an extent, but none of the evidence present distinguished them with certainty.

With a sigh, he closed his notes and made his way out to inspect the cows. As he looked over their scratches and burns, none of which helped his investigation at all, he figured they would simply have to camp out and see for themselves that night. Given what the farmer had said, it didn’t seem like they would be able to stay there physically, but Penora’s vines deployed strategically would likely not alert them to the creature’s senses.

With the plan more or less set, they spent the rest of the day preparing their trap and readying themselves for any potential combat, Aralen still spending any opportunity to review his notes for any hints. None revealed themselves, and he resigned himself to facing the unknown, but he knew with Penora beside him, no matter what threat showed themselves that night he would be ready to fight them.