The open wall of the dining hall gives us a great view of the clear night sky and the sea of mist coming from the Eia plants that covers the entire town. I'm really fond of this town, and this view is one of my favorite things about it.
We take our seats, and Poosh starts playing soothing tunes with her flute, which goes really well with the soft trickle of running water from the small water channels that cross the dining hall.
A moment later, our two guests come in with linked arms. Hermann looks a bit nervous, but Ahren guides him in, though the smaller boy's steps are also quite stiff. While Hermann's clothes are designed to show off his muscular build, Ahren is wearing delicate, androgynous robes. Honestly, if Ahren were to dress himself as a trap, they'd make a cute couple.
Hermann is younger than him, but he actually looks older than Ahren, who has the same curse of babyface as I do. In Roxanne's eyes, they're like the perfect gay couple from the women's novels she used to read.
Then some embarrassing memories surface in Yunia's mind, and she holds back her own blush.
Of course, Roxanne doesn't miss this opportunity and immediately grips onto the memories so that she can show them to everyone, but I close my mind's eye and forcefully ignore them.
"Wow…" Lina quietly breathes through [Bind] as intricate BL drawings flash through her mind. Someone put a lot of love into those drawings, or so she believes.
"You damn fujoshis," I grumble internally as even Aoi's mind is corrupted by the gay.
"You honor us with your invitation for this meal," Ahren politely announces and bows as he subtly pushes Hermann to bow as well.
"No need for this amount of reverence. You're our not-blood-brothers, so consider yourselves family," I smoothly reply, and the girls snap out of their daydreaming.
Mimi comes in next, and her usually fearsome gaze softens into a girlish smile when she sees her brother, then she quickly approaches the couple, her very high heels making muffled loud sounds as she rushes across the grass carpet, which draws their attention.
"How did you like your mansion, brother?" Mimi asks with a teasing smirk that's so incredibly similar to Hana's.
Hermann's nervousness starts to clear away as he brightens up and replies, "Stupidly big, but it doesn't even compare to living in a castle." Then he glances at Hana with a smirk.
"Ah, sweet Sommer child," Mimi hums softly and lands a hand on one of his shoulders. "Have you seen the penises on the walls?"
Both Hermann and Ahren blink blankly as they stare at her.
"I'm sorry, what did you say…?" Ahren politely asks.
Mimi softly shakes her head, and her dark, undulated hair shakes along just like Hana's red mane. "Never mind, then. Just know that this castle isn't a safe place for either of you, but also," -she gives Ahren a sober stare- "don't ever let your sister come here unaccompanied."
"But I don't hunt men," I protest and pout at Mimi.
She stares back at me with a pleased smile, her intense stare challenging me to engage in a bout of banter. "You're not even going to deny the rest?"
"They'll know the truth soon enough," I calmly accept.
The confused couple shares a look, but Hermann seems to have a better idea about what we're talking about than his husband since Hana's suggestive grin gives it away.
Mimi sighs softly and continues on towards the table, her alluring, long, dark legs peeking out from the sides of her elven dousnadeia. Her lean body is perfect for elven clothes. "Do you want a Title? Because that's how you get a Title. At least try to deny it."
I grin as I fuck her with my eyes. "I simply refuse to feel any shame for it."
"Wolfy's prowess is something that we're all proud of, so we, too, want to see him share his gift with others," Alissa tenderly states.
Mimi shoots a questioning look at Ciel, who just shrugs in return. "You should try it. He's actually really good," my Star of Hope pimps me up, and she hides her ensuing embarrassment very well.
"Noted…" Mimi mumbles then takes her seat.
"Sit down, you two lovebirds, we don't bite," Hana teases with a fearsome grin and motions to the chairs.
Ahren looks a bit intimidated by her, but Hermann sighs and squeezes his hand reassuringly, then they unlink their arms and sit down.
Since our guests are from Sommerland, we wanted to impress them with elven cuisine, which is somewhat similar to theirs (though Yunia strongly disagrees), so the chefs prepared a feast.
The table is filled with a wide variety of delicate veggies prepared in all sorts of manners, and there's also a nice selection of smoked meats that creates a mouth-watering aroma for the carnivorous among us.
It's almost like a charcuterie board due to how they're made to be savored individually instead of as a proper, complex dish. I'm also quite partial to the dried not-tomato salad with smoked bacon, greens, and grated cheese.
There are even fresh glowing veggies that are considered old-people food due to their very exotic flavor. Though Roxanne is a bit of an exception, we, as well as most Young elves, don't have much exposure to this sort of weird food, so it's an acquired taste that normally only old people would have.
"This is pretty good. The flavor of the mana is also nice," Aoi comments, all of her large white teeth now glowing purple. These are the veggies that illuminate the dark parts of the High Forest, and since it's currently night, their glow has dimmed and changed color.
Lina takes a very small bite and shudders. "This burns my tongue," she whines and uses [Spirit of Gaia] to cleanse her body of the poison.
Roxanne takes a bite and delicately covers her mouth with her hand to remark as she chews, "It's a bit tingly…"
Yunia simply stares at her with a deep frown. She hates these glowing veggies with a childish passion, which I find rather endearing.
I take a bite of one and feel my nose burn with the harsh smell of horseradish, but the taste is quite agreeable, and my tongue only feels slightly prickled. It's like pickled onions with a bit of an herbal freshness.
Then the feeling of burning quickly fades away as my nerves wilt. Not literally.
Our three guests also show a sensible degree of aversion to the glowing veggies, so I get a little curious.
I use [Bind] to sense what the other girls feel when they eat it and notice that only Aoi and I can taste the pickled onions. The rest only feels the horseradish burning their mouth and nose. Roxanne doesn't feel the burning, but she also barely manages to detect the taste of pickled onion.
"Gih," Gify chirps happily as she chews. This is magical food, so you need to have a high affinity to magic to fully appreciate it.
"Right, [Mana Body]," I mumble, and Ahren lifts his eyebrows in surprise.
"You have that skill?" He blurts out, then clears his throat awkwardly and reigns in his excitement.
"Yeah. A lot happened, and I woke up with this skill one day," I eloquently explain and grin at him.
The way he immediately breaks eye contact and glances at Hermann is kind of cute. The shy demeanor of the gay little boy makes the idea of teasing him that much more delicious.
I glance over at Osaria, and her smug smile unnerves me.
It's totally not gay to tease him!
"Before we start retelling that long story again, I want to hear Hermann's story first," Hana interrupts us, then turns to her brother and presses him.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Hermann smiles with a small amount of pride and starts, "W-well, after we were separated, the Grosshils immediately took me in. They knew that I wanted to become a knight, so they didn't hold back on my training."
"He's a natural with weapons," Ahren chimes in, beaming with pride.
"Of course. He's got dragonkin blood within him," Hana states matter-of-factly as she nods with crossed arms.
Hermann grins and starts to become enthusiastic. "Even with a negative soul potential, my skills continued to level up, so they let me go with the soldiers to soak up some 'Experience' in hope of quick level-ups."
"Then he took down an Orc Striker by himself!" Ahren exclaims excitedly.
"A lucky strike, really," Hermann tries to diminish it as he puns.
"But you did it again sometime later," Ahren insists and pouts at him.
Hermann smiles wryly and shrugs. "That was after I increased my skills some more."
Ahren's right eye twitches in annoyance. "By then, you were already taking on old Orcs."
"Because I was given proper plate armor," he deflects again.
Ahren stands up and wraps his hands around Hermann's throat, then playfully shakes him. "Just accept my love!"
"I already did, husband!" He shouts back and grabs his waist.
"Oh, my," Osaria coos, and her perfectly measured teasing tone is enough to make them blush as they touch their foreheads together.
"I don't even need to say anything…" Roxanne remarks, impressed at the capability of the couple to embarrass themselves.
"So, I take it that you were impressed with his martial prowess and fell hopelessly in love?" Yunia calmly questions Ahren.
"Something like that…" He quietly replies and swallows heavily.
Yunia approves of them since it's kind of similar to our own story.
"Anyway, I guess I have a new sparring partner, then," Hana comments and sends her fearsome glare towards her brother, who receives it head-on and glares right back.
For once, there's someone who can go toe-to-toe against her domineering aura. I don't count since her submissiveness towards me has already become firmly ingrained within her.
"I take it that the only thing he inherited from Father was his face," Mimi comments with a fake depressed tone.
"He definitely inherited Moms' love for dick," Hana teases.
The stunningly beautiful sisters share a mirrored look. "And to think that her sex lessons actually helped him more than us."
Hana snorts and flashes me a smirk. "Speak for yourself. She definitely didn't prepare me for the amount of abuse Wolfy gives my asshole."
"And your throat," I quietly add.
"And my throat," she repeats with pride.
Mimi stares at her sister annoyedly for a second, then clears her throat and continues the teasing, "Anyway, I'm at least glad that she taught us how to practice anal safely."
Then Hermann sinks his face into his hands in resignation.
"I-is this normal talk for a meal?" Ahren hesitantly asks, a slight edge in his tone.
"No, but we're definitely not normal, so it fits," Osaria replies matter-of-factly.
Mimi puts down her glass of not-wine and starts lambasting us, "The Ryders all have the touch of a succubus within them. They know no shame or chastity, they feed on embarrassment and sexual fluids, and they exude an aura of mischief and sexual predation, so remember to not feed these demons."
Dayum…
"Please tongue my cunt like you just did our pride! HNGH!" Roxanne exclaims and moans out loud.
"Hana really didn't change that much, huh?" Hermann dryly comments, then shoots his sister a smirk.
Ahren looks with concern at his husband and frowns. "I understand my father's warnings, now," he breathes tiredly.
The ribbing eventually dies down, and the meal proceeds peacefully.
As we retell our journey to the couple, they become increasingly excited, eager to participate in our legend.
"Pff… as if we're going to take you two with us," Hana immediately dismisses their dreams.
"I-I'm part of the clan, am I not? We'll always be ready to give you our support!" Hermann eagerly announces, and Ahren nods energetically in agreement.
"And you'll support us with simple little tasks where you can't die by stumbling and falling on a sword," she harshly retorts.
Ahren frowns and defiantly glares at Hana as he announces, "I must express my dissatisfaction with this policy. We're certain to grow more powerful than knights, one day."
She grins, savoring his resistance, and casually retorts, "'One day.' Until then, you'll keep your precious little pair of jewels on your seat."
"Hanaa~…!" Hermann childishly whines, then turns a disbelieving look to Mimi in search of help.
"I'm not a warrior, don't look at me," she immediately evades.
"Hermann, Ahren," Yunia calls their attention and they tense up, struck by her beauty and charming voice. "We aren't saying that you'll never come with us, but you'll have to grow a lot before we can rely on you. We're all almost level sixty, so it's currently impossible for you to keep up with us or our veteran servants."
The excitement of the couple quickly deflates back down to the proper, appropriate level for their age, then the meal finally ends a short time later.
For this evening, I take care of Alissa's fur, going all brushy brushy on her while Poosh waxes my tail and hums an angelic tune.
My fluffy sheep lets out a breathy hum that sounds pained, "♪ Daughter, Godspe~ed. ♪"
She follows with a slow, gloomy hum. "♪ I set my sail. Fly the wind, where it takes me. Towards the dream of a new home. Sweet home. ♪"
Then her voice gains vigor and grows more chipper, making her sound dreamy. "♪ I lay on my back. I see the clouds make a way for me. Follow the stars, the glowing path. My Fate. ♪"
And then she slows down, sounding soothing. "♪ I've found my place. I'll wait in case you want to come down. This is my role, my home. Mother, I'm he~re. ♪"
Her short, little song has been translated from the Southern Maokai language, so Roxanne knows the original, and she approves of Poosh's localization.
Her song sets the mood for a wonderful, comfy evening. An increasingly rare moment of respite in the hectic days of our rule. In fact, there's still so much for us to do that I can't even straighten out our priorities to figure out what we should do first.
The girls play with the two game tables we built, and I try to come up with ideas about what else I can do to increase the number of recreation activities we have available.
I could make arcade games with [Golemancy]…
I sigh and hug Alissa's fluffy tail.
I want to study golems, but I'm always so busy!
Tomorrow, there's Ciel's parents' visit, and after that, it'll be Roxanne's, and then we need to go to the capital, and also help Gnomeria to get coffee, but we also need to continue the mana circulation training, and leveling up, and increasing our skills, and building the Institute, and organizing the knights and Officers, and improving our territory, and answering the calls from the other Lords, and scheming against our enemies, and fucking my harem, and researching stuff in a dozen different areas, and making connections with the other nobles, and meeting with the Elder Council, and, and, and, and, and…
Yunia suddenly hugs me from behind, and I melt in her arms. Her enthralling perfume and lovely breasts are like a sneak attack on my anxious mind, and then her drills fall on my back, and I enter Paradise for a moment.
"How about we take it one day at a time?" She softly asks, her hot breath tickling my ear.
"Alright…" I mumble with a sigh, then I let go of Alissa's tail and lay down so that Poosh can wax the scales on my legs.
Yunia and I start going over our priorities and what we should do next, then I remember something.
We still have to wipe out Dawn of Fire…
"Gify, has Cereleia recovered yet?" I question my little white griffin.
She tilts her head, then Yunia senses a pulse of Life coming from her and going down towards the forest. "Gih… guh gih!" She answers negatively.
"Damn. Why do Dryads recover so slowly?"
"Guee gih…!" She accuses me.
And I smile apologetically. "Oh… I'm sorry."
A dryad's soul isn't stable enough for that level of intense soul-fucking, so Cereleia has a lot of "soul-bruises" to deal with.
Yunia gently runs her hand through my hair, and though it's very soothing, her actual feelings right now are like those of a master petting their dog.
I won't complain, though.
For some reason, I get a boner, so Alissa pulls down my pants and starts playing with it.
Yunia's voice caresses my ears again as she continues, "Anyway, as soon as Cereleia recovers and give us the details on their hideouts, we should attack."
What we got from Vanea was enough to formulate a plan to take them down, but now we just need an update to confirm that things haven't changed too much since Vanea "extracted" that information.
Poosh continues waxing my scales, then she massages my horns the way I like. Hana gets interested in what she's doing, and my lovely sheep teaches my red dragon how to massage Roxanne's horns.
Poosh's thigh pillow, her jiggly breasts, and her fluffy wool all envelop my head while I get a calm helping hand and a horn massage, bringing me closer to Paradise once again.
Shortly after, I end up falling asleep.
Today is the 19th, Nev, day of Spirit. An unofficial holiday where people spend their day with the ashes of their dead ancestors and even talk with their spirits, if they still roam the land.
Poosh wakes me up. Having slept with us in our bed, the girls decided to give her the honor of freely using me until I wake up.
"Thank you for the meal, your Highness," she politely gives her thanks with a gentle bow.
I clutch her pale face and pull her closer, then I kiss her forehead and caress her spiral horns. "Thank you for being such a loving and caring person," I warmly reply.
She smiles brightly, and I feel her cheeks getting warmer in my claws. "Your words give me a glimpse of the bliss from Paradise."
"Awn…" My heart melts, and I hug her tight, then I cover her face with kisses.
After giving my wives their morning kisses twice as intensely as usual to compensate, we head down to have our breakfast.
First, I prepare the bread by drizzling on some not-olive-oil, then I add a bit of not-onion with a dash of not-oregano, and then I lightly toast it with my own, weak fire breath.
Now that it's warm, I add three slices of bacon, followed by a few slices of not-tomato, then I top it with a leaf of not-lettuce. To finish it all up, I spread a small amount of mayo and not-mustard on the opposing slice, then I close the sandwich and take a bite.
The crunchy outside and the soft inside of the sandwich are in perfect balance. The oily and savory bacon, the moist and faintly sweet not-tomato, and the fresh and slightly bitter lettuce make for the perfect combination. The added condiments just gives it a nice after-taste from the smooth mayo and the light hit of spice from the mustard.
I hum as I savor the divine meal, then I take a sip of my beloved not-earl-gray to wash it down and reset my palate for another bite.
This isn't just a sandwich, it's a work of art.
"Wolfy, please," Alissa whispers, with Ciel gently agreeing with her sentiment. They find it calming to listen to my thoughts, except for when I start with my silliness, but that's just too bad because today, I've created the supreme sandwich with my own two hands, and I'll be damned if I don't savor it properly!
After another pleasant breakfast together, we get ready to visit Rabanara. I ask Klein if she'd like to come with us, but she doesn't know anyone there, so we just go with the usual escort with Azador leading them.
We arrive in Rabanara at the Lord's Hall in the commoners' area because I want to take a look at the town's charming architecture again.
This is one of the few places that I could say smells like "home" to me, and I'm happy to be back.