First things first. After I "reward" the maids who accompanied us for a job well done, I go to Osaria to apologize. She's in a meeting with the Mayor, whose name I still don't know, so I decide to wait until they're done.

A "Royal" like me waiting for someone else? It'd be inconceivable if I were dealing with anyone else, but she's someone I love. Of course, it'd be pretty snobbish to just demand that any random stranger stop whatever they're doing to pay attention to me, though Yunia says I'll have to do it eventually to keep up appearances, so I might try to find a way out of it by coming up with an excuse, or something.

I just send Osaria a message and wait in the castle. Their meeting isn't long, so she gets back before long.

She comes in walking sensually, smirking as she gives me a predatory gaze. "You called for me, my love?" She whispers slowly, delighting herself in calling me that.

I smile warmly and hug her waist, getting a handful of her cheeks while squishing her breasts against my chest. "I just wanted to apologize for not coming back yesterday," I softly reply and peck her lips.

She chuckles softly and returns a long kiss, then she caresses my horns suggestively. "How considerate of you, but you don't need to worry about me like that."

I shrug. "Eh. Treating the people you love with respect never hurts, right?"

"Hm-hmm…" She hums in agreement, grinning happily, then we kiss deeply, and our tongues slowly savor each other.

But we both still have work to do, so we eventually stop each other before we get too aroused. It's hard to stop at just a "quickie" with someone as ravenous as Osaria.

We break the kiss, and I fondle her large, soft breasts for a moment as I ask, "Klein is already in a dungeon, right?"

"Yes, and this time, she has called for the cute gay couple to join them," she hesitantly replies.

"Hm?" I look up and raise an eyebrow at her.

Then she tactfully continues, "I assure you that she hasn't laid with him, but they're starting to get along."

I sigh softly, but I'm not really as sad as I thought I would be. As long as Hermann doesn't persuade her into being exclusive, then I think we'll be fine, even if she marries him.

Fucking someone else's wife does have a special allure to it, after all.

Osaria turns up the massage on my horns, and I realize that she's learned a thing or two from Poosh. "Don't let this get you down. I'm sure that making her fall unconscious on your dick in front of the boy will make it all worth it," she tries to console me.

And it kind of works as I stare at her bemusedly. "Speaking from experience…?"

She grins cheekily. "Maybe…"

"Well, I was kind of thinking the same thing, anyway…" I admit with a shrug, and we both laugh like villains.

After the moment passes and we start to stare at each other lovingly, I remember that there's something I want Osaria to do.

"If you're not too busy, please take some time and level up a bit. You can even go with Klein's squad so that she can gain experience in protecting my loved ones," I kindly suggest.

Osaria's eyes open wide, and her luscious lips part in surprise. I'm basically giving her more years to live, and that seems to be quite the powerful show of love in this world.

She suddenly hugs me tight, seemingly trying to suffocate me with her delicious, dark breasts. "Thank you, my love," she whispers heatedly, and I hold my breath for as long as I can.

Today's mana training routine is held on the balcony of our bedroom because Yunia wanted to do it while looking out at our city.

Now that the emotional roller-coaster is over, I eagerly welcome the peace of training and meditation.

But there's someone who seems quite eager to meet with me again.

"Geh ge gei gah," Gify chirps, and my cock stands up at attention.

I turn my eyes to Alissa, and we both smile in sync, then we head out to our Eia plantation.

While at first, I was excited, the sight of the Eia plants quickly smothers my enthusiasm because of how freaky they are. They're "half-sapient" plants, and they look strikingly similar to elves.

They have an elongated, bulbous green head with two dark slits where the eyes of a humanoid would normally be, and a long, horizontal slit crosses their entire head, acting as a freakishly wide mouth.

They're South Park's Canadians.

Yunia becomes quite offended at my comparison, so I put it aside and stare at our biggest source of income with a bit more awe, as it deserves.

Their wide, humanoid-shaped bodies are made of leaves like Cublends, the bush-people, but their arms are as long as they are tall, and they're also made of much thicker wood than the branches that support the rest of their body. Bear hugs are both their way to kill prey and also how they show affection. Their roots grow in all directions, including up, and as we get closer, they start to shake in our direction, then the plants slowly turn their creepy heads towards us.

After a moment of silence, the closest plants start buzzing and shaking softly, which then spreads to the other plants behind them, and soon the entire plantation is softly humming.

[Animal Tongue] gives me a faint understanding of what they're doing, and I get the sense that they're just greeting us. To understand more, I'd have to "commune" with them since they communicate mostly with their roots through exchanges of Life.

One of the plants stops humming and starts coming closer to us. Its leaf body slides along the floor as a trail of small roots pushes it forward like a caterpillar, then it stops before us and extends a single root towards me.

"It's asking to commune with you, possibly because of your nature spirit, but I would advise against it if you have any important business in the next hour," our guide explains.

Yunia says that her first "communion" was quite overwhelming and not that unlike an hour-long Ravaging, though more spiritual in nature.

"You've been fucking plants your whole life, and this is the first time you tell me?" I question her through [Bind].

"Wolfy, please. It feels similar to it because it overwhelms your senses, but there's nothing sexual about it," she tiredly retorts.

"You're the one who compared it to a Ravaging," I reply with an internal shrug.

"I… alright, 'touché,'" she dryly admits.

"Don't encourage him to meme," Alissa interjects, pouting internally.

I gently push the root down, and the plant seems to catch my meaning as it retreats to its previous position, then the loud humming dies down to a very faint buzzing.

"Gih," Gify informs us, so we ask our guide to stay, then we stroll into the plantation.

As we walk and push our way through the leaves, the plants slowly "stare" at us in a very robotic fashion, though they don't really have eyes, then I notice that they're slowly starting to give way to us, and I begin to understand why they're said to be "half-sapient."

Most of the time, they act robotically, in the same way that insects do, but together, their interconnection with each other serves like a brain, and they seem to be able to slowly learn things. They're precisely in the middle of the gray area between plants, insects, and sapient beings.

The way they connect to each other and communicate with Life must be why the Eia pill has the effects it does. The elves have found a way to concentrate their means of "communication" into the pill or into Eia extract, which is why the "buff" from ingesting it is called "Heightened Connection to Life."

According to Yunia, [Weaverism] is all about "connecting" things, so the pill must provide a direct boost for the skill.

As we reach the center of the plantation, we spot a clearing up ahead of us, and I make out Cereleia's gorgeous, stern, elvish face as she stands among the creepy heads of the Eia plants.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Once we reach the clearing, we notice that she's surrounded by green, chubby children who are playing around, the elusive Children of the Forest.

"Oh… are those, uh, my children?" I stiffly blurt out.

Cereleia slowly turns her face down and looks around at the chubby children as they play around her. "No, these aren't yours," she softly replies, then turns her gaze back towards us.

Alissa smells a flowery scent coming from Cereleia's beautiful, swept-back vine hair, which is covered in pink cherry blossoms, and I notice that they seem to be extra bright today. Even her perfectly balanced body seems even sexier than I remember.

In her hands, she's carrying something that seems awfully like a wooden, moss-covered printer. It even has a piece of A4 paper sticking out of it, and I notice that there seems to be something written on it.

"Gih," Gify announces, then she stands up and *pop*s out of existence, only to re-*pop*s onto a Child's head and start playing tag with them.

"Greetings, Lord Ryders," Cereleia's warm voice graces our ears.

"Greetings, Guardian," Alissa and I reply in kind.

"I've prepared the communication device." -She presents the not-printer- "I took some inspiration for its design from what you've given me, Lord Wolf."

"Uh?" We hum in unison and tilt our heads to the side.

Her lips curl in a subtle, smug smile. "Your 'spirit touch.'"

"Right!" I immediately exclaim and tense up, then I lower my head briefly in apology. "I'm sorry for doing that to you, only later was I informed how that kind of 'touch' is considered part of your marriage ceremony."

"Hm…" She hums softly, and her eyebrows knit in slight confusion. "But we didn't marry, I didn't give you a piece of me in return."

Alissa and I share a look. "What do you mean by that?" I ask, a lot more confused than her.

"You gave me 'a piece' of you, an 'impression' of your soul. We 'communed,' as the elves like to say, though I didn't give anything in return, so the 'marriage' is invalid."

I blink blankly. "Oh… okay… but what did I 'give' to you?"

"An 'impression' of your soul."

"And what's that?"

Cereleia averts her eyes, searching for something, then she spots Gify and her expression brightens slightly. "Nature spirit Gify, how can I explain an 'impression' in a way that the humanoids will understand?"

Gify sighs tiredly and stops playing, then she pops back onto my head and shows me my own soul. I see a blue, sparkly sea; deep, wide, and full of life. At its surface, a huge storm rages as if in slow motion. Huge boulders, trees, dirt, water, and pieces of buildings all float along so slowly that they give an impression of peace.

That's the new me. A calm sea at one moment, yet with a storm at its surface, just waiting to be released to continue raging wildly.

Cereleia nods appreciatively at Gify and starts explaining, "Different from your [Sense Soul], which allows you to explore the details of one's soul, your 'impression' is something more abstract. It's the 'outline' that it leaves when it touches another soul."

"Sounds more like it's the 'essence,' a 'summary' of what I am," I counterpoint.

She shakes her head, making the tapestry of cherry blossoms that is her hair to whisper softly as it moves about. "Perhaps 'summary' could fit, but not 'essence.' Someone else has found a way to transmit the 'essence,' and it's very different from what Gify or you can do."

"Oh?" I hum curiously, but she simply flashes a smile.

"Do you wish to receive my 'imprint' and complete the marriage ceremony?" She calmly asks, forcefully changing the topic, and her question catches us by surprise. This is a bit too serious to trigger Alissa's fetish, so we both decide to tread carefully.

"What does 'marriage' mean to you?" I stiffly ask.

"A promise of partnership and companionship, but it's far 'looser' than the usual marriage is for you humanoids," she answers matter-of-factly.

Though Yunia encourages me to make this "connection," I'm not so sure that I want this.

"It conflicts with my own definition of 'marriage,' so I don't think I want to go through with this, at least, not yet," I politely explain.

She gently nods. "That's understandable, but our 'agreement' could already count as 'marriage' if you see this as more than just the continuous exchange of your seed for a favor."

And I smoothly decline, "I'd like to get to know you better before I consider that."

She smiles subtly, faintly pleased. "We'll have the entirety of your life for that."

Right, because she's basically immortal.

I nod cordially and gesture to the not-printer. "We will, but right now, I'm curious about what you're holding."

"This device will write down any changes that we detect throughout the entire High Forest."

So it really is a printer.

My tail starts swaying slowly in curiosity. "How did you come up with it?"

"When I was designing it, your 'impression' in my soul reacted, so I followed what 'felt right.'"

Both Alissa and I raise our eyebrows in surprise. "I wouldn't have imagined that just an impression could be capable of that," I remark wryly.

And Cereleia grins suggestively as she sultrily explains, "It had been imprinted quite deeply within me."

"Do you wish to deepen my mark on you today?" I boldly ask as I mirror her tone, my cock already straining to burst out of my pants.

She narrows her eyes and softly licks her lips as she looks at my bulge, then she raises her eyes and shakes her head. "The imprint? No, but I do wish to extract more of your seed. It's quite delicious, and it has the nice effect of stabilizing my soul."

I guess this is why the Chimeras love me so much.

I un[Equip] my clothes and stride forward. "Then let's get this started."

Cereleia kneels and sets the "printer" down beside her, then she eagerly waits for my cock with her mouth slightly parted.

Okay, without using my spirit touch to keep her off balance, she becomes the ultimate cum extractor, and my MP is far from enough to last for long against her.

After being fully drained, I return to the castle and have Sandoro and Almaria look over Cereleia's detection system. They need to set it up in a special location with a Life connection to the rest of the forest, but the connection mustn't be any larger than is absolutely necessary. So far, we only know of Dryads using the Life network as a highway, so we have no idea of what else could come out of it, but we can guarantee that nothing big will be able to ride the connection if it's too small or flimsy.

Then Alissa and I return to the castle, and we continue with our mana training routine, which gives me some time to rest my body.

A little bit before lunch, Sandoro and Almaria finish setting up the detection system, and we start receiving information about everything and everyone moving throughout the entire High Forest, so we go check it out.

The intelligence room is deep below the earth and far from the castle, so we have to take a [Gate] to get there. It's a spartan, stone room with comfy chairs set out for us, a table with a very detailed map of the High Forest, and enough room for ten of our men to read through the paper that continuously grows out of the "printer."

We sit at the table and wait while the soldiers do their work. They filter out anything that's too minor and try to interpret Cereleia's description of the rest.

The first thing that catches my attention is the fact that there's a wide, town-sized object slowly moving above the treetops, circling around our city. That must be the Grantorefortdisabis, the secret fortress of the Elder Council.

They also seem to have fourteen small mobile outposts spread out across the High Forest, nine of which are in our territory.

It's a bit chilling to know that they're watching us so closely, but Yunia says that unless we've misread them horribly, we're definitely not in any danger of being overthrown.

Then the soldiers mark a considerable number of hidden bases and war parties. The locations of the two Dawn of Fire bases match the information we have on them, but it seems that there's quite a lot of movement around the larger one.

"If they're smart, they must be evacuating that base in fear of our retaliation," Sandoro points out.

"Which is the correct choice since we're going to wipe them out," Yunia states matter-of-factly, and Roxanne grins in delight since she holds quite the grudge against them.

The fact that they hurt Roxanne, Osaria, Klein, and even Anton makes me quite angry, too.

"Let's wait and see where they're going so that we can wipe out their new base, too," I deviously suggest, and both Sandoro and Yunia smile evilly, quite pleased with the idea.

"I'll inform Teresina of our intentions and ask if she wants to take part," Ciel volunteers. I'd like to talk to Teresina myself, but there's someone else who I want to meet with this afternoon, someone Yunia isn't that eager to see again.

There might be a small group of bandits stalking the northern part of our territory, but we'll wait until someone reports them before we make a move. It'll be quite suspicious if we start catching bandits the moment they enter the forest.

Feasting on delicious food from a new culture each day was awesome, but there's nothing like having Krysta's imaginative cooking along with comforting elven veggies and their delicious smoked meat.

After a filling meal, we spread out a bit, and each of us starts doing our own thing.

Alissa trains her [Illusion Magic] along with two of Nocturna's spells, [Daydreaming] and [Sleep], but she just wants to rush to the next spell, called [Dream Veil], which would allow her to change her body as she wills it to with illusions.

Roxanne is paying a visit to the RRRI, which is being "grown" out of the old [Weaverism] school. Since the entire town is made of wood, it's possible to change anything simply by using [Grow] in the right spots, though commerce really dislikes if we change the location of things because it makes things harder for them, so we use this ability sparingly.

Hana is training with the Lordsguard since she's eager to level up her [Draconic Body]. She'll also pay a visit to the ships and see how the men over there are faring. Once our crystal refinery is done, we'll put the Carrier and Winch back to work again.

Ciel is meeting with Teresina and strengthening our relations with the Temple. I could do that, especially with the priests who worship the Goddess of Love, but it'd be a different kind of "strengthening."

Lina, Aoi, and the golems are all busy at their forge, working together to build a lathe. Their focus is on recreating an example of a manufacturing plant to mass produce rifles, which will, later on, be re-geared to mass produce the airplanes that the Chimeras are currently researching.

Yunia is meeting with Mimi, Sandoro, and Istante, our quartermaster, to discuss things like our income balance and the mothballing of our Chimera planes since they don't have much use in our current warfare doctrine.

Since I don't have the same stamina as Hana does to train all day, I decide to perform a quick "inspection" of the Companions, but it's interrupted by Sainalai, who has some business with me. The cute, brown-haired loli is definitely high on my target list, but I haven't had the chance to flirt with her as much as I've wanted to.

I put on my pants again to make myself presentable, stopping my "inspection" of one of the Companions, but I leave my writhing tentacles inside the others.

Sai walks in and looks quite amused at the scene. She's been dealing with the Chimera spirits for a while now, so she must be pretty desensitized to things like this by now, though my display of consentacles still gets a reaction out of her.

"Your Highness," she greets with a bow, then sits on the sofa before me.

"You wished to speak with me?" I gently ask as the elf woman beside me screams in pleasure.

Her eyes wander, yet her tone betrays no discomfort or awkwardness. "Yes, Your Highness. May I study the golems? I wish to understand how their souls 'stick' to their bodies."

I let my tail sway in curiosity. "Do you wish to apply that knowledge to helping the Chimeras?"

She brightens up, becoming more excited. "Exactly. There's a rare spirit monster in Lorei Laurelai that can 'possess' objects, and I wish to give the Chimeras a similar ability to help with their day-to-day lives. Also, it could potentially increase their compatibility with their 'battle bodies' or even accelerate their training."

I hum, very pleased with her idea. "I see. You want to create something like a [Possess] spell."

She nods energetically, smiling adorably, like a child. "But now, imagine if they could 'possess' a golem like Jarn."

Ooooh~… fantasy Jarvis!