I spend a long time staring at the ceiling, just reminiscing over and over and over about the amazing experience we've just gone through.

This must be what it feels like to be Ravaged by me.

"Are they okay?" I hear Hukarere's concerned voice nearby.

"Yes, they are," Ted's robotic and monotone voice replies.

"They'll recover soon," Suzy adds.

I begin stretching myself out at the same time that a big, big, beeg yawn takes hold of me, but they're both so intense that it feels like I've been asleep for a thousand years. When I reach the climax of my stretching, I feel so much pleasure that I almost unsheathe, so why not just give my jewels a little extra push?

I easily force myself to release, then my legs quiver, and I groan out loud as a massive one shoots up into the air, then I feel it rain down all around me.

"Yeah, I can see that at least he is alright," Hukarere mumbles with a snort.

My mind blanks for a second due to the intensity, but then my brain registers that there's someone talking about us.

I slowly sit up and see Hukarere and Klein staring concernedly at us, then I notice the carnage around me. White… white everywhere, covering every surface. If it were red, someone would think that we'd all been murdered, for sure.

By the Gods, is that all mine…? No, no, it certainly is all mine, but it's still impressive that it all "came" from me.

I snort at my hilarious pun, then I frown as I look at Roxanne. Her light makeup has been ruined by obvious tears. She's basically comatose, like I was a few minutes ago, and though her expression is blissful, I'm worried about why she cried.

"She cried from happiness," Ted explains through [Bind].

"Because the song was too beautiful," Jarn continues, surprising me since I was expecting Suzy.

"Difference in analysis," Suzy explains.

"She was overwhelmed with emotions," Ted shares his and Suzy's analysis.

Huh… this is the first time the golems have disagreed on something.

Maybe the not-LSD affected the golems, too, but I'll think about that another time.

I check my connections with the wives and realize that Hana and Aoi are on the top deck of the ship… acting like monks?

The hell they doing up there…?

I snort and begin untangling myself from the pile of limbs. At least Hana's in her underwear and Aoi's in her dragon form. I don't want them exposing themselves without my permission.

Gify just watches us from one of the pillows she claimed for herself. Her eyes seem quite judgmental, and I realize she didn't join in on the fun.

"Gih," she chirps annoyedly, and her beak warps in a pout.

"Sorry. We'll be more careful next time," I guiltily apologize.

That experience was a little too intense for her fragile soul.

The rest of the girls start to recover from their daze, so I just watch them slowly stir awake. The two Companions are the only ones who are actually sleeping, but the disturbance is enough to wake them up.

We all took the same pills, but it seems that it had a stronger effect on us than the Companions.

"We noticed a heightened exchange of emotions through [Bind] between all of the Masters while under the effect of the drug," Ted begins.

"Master Lina received the greatest intensity of emotions and became catatonic," Suzy continues.

"Master Hana's puzzling behavior is due to her attempt to control the high influx of emotions," Jarn finishes.

Well, good to know that certain drugs can make us spiral out of control.

But I don't feel tired or sick. On the contrary, I feel so refreshed that it's almost like I was born again!

Things are a bit too bright, though…

But then I realize that the lights are off and the sky is cloudy, so it's not the room, it's my eyes that are super sensitive.

My body starts itching, so I summon a few light-Ciels and order them to [Clean] us continuously, and the slightly chilly sensation of having the spell cast upon our skin makes everyone wake up a lot quicker.

I give the two Companions a kiss, and they immediately drop on the bed again, seemingly a bit exhausted. I guess I Ravaged them both all morning, so that's understandable.

"That was something," Alissa remarks, then stretches and moans cutely while her tail wags lazily behind her.

Lina scurries towards me, then drops herself on my lap, wanting to be held like a baby, and I immediately comply. We're all feeling quite happy and cheerful, so Lina's behavior triggers everyone's need to cuddle, and I'm soon entangled in a mess of limbs once again.

Ciel's stomach suddenly growls, and she blushes while we chuckle softly.

"What time is it?" I ask out loud.

"One hour past midday," Ted immediately answers.

Well, shit…

"Wake up Hana and Aoi so that we can go eat," Roxanne cutely requests with a pout, then kisses my chest.

"Alright…" I mumble back and start poking them, but they don't react at all.

The lightning bolts falling on them have become stronger since we're in the middle of the Thunderplains now, but they still aren't strong enough to even begin to damage their HP. I guess I'll need to be quite forceful if I'm to pull them out of their trance.

"Hana, Aoi…" I call them through [Bind], but they still don't respond, so I increase my volume. "Hana, Aoi… Hana, Aoi…! Hey…! HEY…! HEY!"

I'm starting to get a bit annoyed now, so I stop holding back and fully assert my will over them, but then I'm shocked by what I see.

What the f-…

Flashback – Hana

I can't! This is too much!

I feel like I'm losing myself, like my essence is being drained, then morphed into something I no longer control.

It feels amazing, yet it's also frightening. I want to surrender myself to it, to enter this Paradise right in front of me, but I also don't.

Where's my collar? Where's my leash…?

Where's my Master?!

I can't enter it; Master didn't give me permission.

I stretch out my hand as the radiance of Paradise draws me in like a moth to a flame, but I suddenly pull it back as my training stops me.

Shame, shame, shame…!

The sound of a thunder strike grabs my attention.

Master…!

I go after it.

Master…! Punish me, please…! I'm a bad c-msl-t! I almost let myself go!

I run up flights of stairs, then I come out into the open.

PUNISH ME, MASTER!

A bolt of lightning strikes me, and I unsheathe, but I shouldn't. I need to be punished, not rewarded!

I sit down, and another lightning bolt hits my head, but this time, I hold it within me.

I'll be a good c-msl-t! I'll c-m only when you tell me, Master!

Flashback – Aoi

I float in a sea of pleasure as I watch over everyone's experiences, but everything is overlapping, bleeding into one another, as if multiple canvases were somehow stitched together and their paint began to mix.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

And the picture that they create together is beautiful…

But someone's calling to me.

I turn my eyes away from our little piece of Paradise and see something that I don't understand.

Lines, thousands and thousands of lines going from anywhere to anywhere, dying and being reborn, flaring with life as a flash of light courses through them, then becoming weak and faint again.

The storm… it calls to me.

Hana rushes out of the room, seeking to control herself, then she comes out on top of the ship, and her presence seems to draw all the lines towards her. Suddenly, they all flash with life and guide "power" into her body.

Power… yes, power, energy, might.

I breathe in deeply and sense something odd. The air outside feels like it's "charged." It's full of mana, of intent, of power. It's heavy with tension, at the brink of release, close to the apex, just a second away from an unsheathing.

The source of power calls to me again, and I give in to curiosity.

I fly out of the ship and land beside Hana as she meditates, then my body is hit with the energy, and I feel a small amount of pain coursing through my spine. It's so weak that it's laughable, yet the power that I feel in the air is so vast that it keeps me silent.

I try to follow the lines, but they're simply chaotic, yet I sense that there's method to the chaos, and random memories from Wolfy that I once took a peek at flood my mind as I try to understand what's happening.

Long fields of grass, intermittent breeze, static energy, an endless source of water, strong evaporation, clouds, magical winds from afar, a constant storm. Countless words flood into my mind, most of which I don't understand the meaning of, yet I feel like it all makes sense, but I can't connect them together to make a phrase that explains what I feel.

I sense the air change. It's not "charged" anymore, then lightning strikes me again, and the air returns to normal again.

I calm my breathing as more lightning falls upon my head repeatedly, and I discover something. The air… it seems like it has two types: the "charge," the source of the power, which feels "heavy"; and the "lure," the target, which feels "tense."

As the air around me becomes thick with "lures," the lines start pointing towards me, their other ends somewhere full of "charge." Once the differences "align," the lightning strikes me.

I desire… to know more…

Though I see many lines around me, most of them seem to be far above us, their exact position obscured by the dark clouds. I try to look harder, but my vision is blurred by the rain falling on my eyes, so I close them and use my other senses.

Water… clouds are full of water in all of its forms, so I conjure a ball of water, then I turn it into a mist and spread it out as I push it upwards, but the moment my mist merges with the clouds, I feel like my hold over it is ripped away from me.

I saw a glimpse of… something.

I conjure another ball and repeat my attempt again, again, and again.

The single second that I can see inside the clouds is painted inside my mind, and with each time I try again, another second is added. Little by little, a bigger picture is formed.

A picture of chaos, so much chaos that I can't even fully understand it, but perhaps, I can mimic it.

The only thing I know for sure is that clouds are made of water, a mist of water so thin that they must be individual Primordial Particles, or rather, "atoms," as Wolfy's memories tell me.

And if I can make my mist thin enough, then all I need to do is to add chaos myself.

I spread my mist wider, thinning it further and further, then I just let the wind push them in all directions.

More water, more mist, more chaos. More, more, more!

Yes!

The chaos calls to me. The power, the storm, the clouds, the water, it all calls to me.

Give me your power!

I see the lines aligning above me. All of them. All of them.

GIVE ME…

Flashback end.

-is she doing…?

"...YOUR POW-… WAH?!" I hear Aoi's internal voice shout in fury, but then she gets scared by my presence and "slips," losing her grip on her spell.

"GWAAAAH!" Hana, Kyora, and Aoi all croak in pain as a massive lightning strike hits their and also Jarn's heads. The strike is so loud and strong that the entire ship trembles, and then the three immediately pass out.

I scream internally and summon them, then Ciel and I immediately jump forward and cast [Heal] on them. Jarn seems okay, so I ignore her for now, but both Aoi and Hana are smoking from burns all over their heads and upper bodies, and their skin and scales are marked by extensive root-like patterns caused by the lightning that ran through them.

They've each lost 50 points of HP, and though they're far from death since they have more than 100 HP, such a sudden loss can only mean extreme trauma. Fortunately, our rapid-fire of [Heal] brings them back to full after a couple of seconds, so I switch to [Regeneration] to fix any remaining damage.

Jarn seems to have received little damage, if any at all, so I just add her to the [Regeneration] to top her up.

"KYORA!" Ciel suddenly shouts and instant-casts [Holy Spirit], which wastes not a second before darting up through the ship to aid her Templar friend.

Once the little glowing spirit reaches the top, it sees multiple char marks all over the canvas, not just where the three girls were, and the tips of the three lightning rods are faintly glowing from heat.

The hell…?

A few knights rush up to rescue the passed-out Templar, but the Spirit [Heals] her first.

A few seconds later, Aoi wakes up with a groan and a massive headache.

Her large draconic head looks around in confusion, then she notices both our concerned looks and the worried emotions emanating through [Bind].

"Oops…" She moans and gives us a toothy grin as she chuckles.

I don't even ask and just dive into her memories to try to understand what she was doing, but all I get is some weird trip about "lines."

"I vote that we don't take this 'candy' again without better safety measures," Alissa dryly proposes.

I look away guiltily and slowly nod along with the other girls.

"We were too focused on the life signs of the Masters," Ted begins.

"And we didn't realize that Master Aoi was doing something dangerous," Suzy continues.

"We failed our duty," and Jarn finishes.

The girls and I all shake our heads. "Not your fault, really," I reassure the trio and chuckle tiredly.

What a trip.

Kyora wakes up a few seconds later, feeling completely fine, and after we explain what happened to everyone, we embarrassedly go to the mess hall to have our late lunch.

"You didn't have to wait," I stiffly remark as I sit down. This time, it's a normal elven meal that was pre-cooked for the trip.

"Yes, we do, Your Highness," Nohopu slowly replies with a teasing, well-measured tone. His smile may be funny, but his smug grin is infuriating, for some reason, while Alcander's, Silvano's, Kurii's, and Caterina's subtle smirks just add to the embarrassment.

Aoi walks up to Kyora, the large, blue-haired dragonkin, who eyes her warily. The two each have a naturally menacing look to them; Kyora is wider, taller, and less feminine than Hana (but still a prime specimen for snu snu, which makes me wonder how her halfling husband is still alive), and Aoi is… well, a dragon, so it's an interesting sight seeing them both face each other.

But Aoi's slow, respectful nod, immediately disarms the other. "I'm sorry for hurting you. I was doing something dangerous without realizing it due to the drug I took," she calmly apologizes.

Kyora frowns and crosses her arms, a bit annoyed. "Hmph… It hurt like the spit of a Poisonous Yuureigumo, but I'm fine now, so I guess it's fine." -She suddenly snorts and shakes her head- "I didn't even notice you were doing something, so it's a bit impressive that you knocked me out," she confesses with a shrug.

"What were you doing, exactly?" Alonso, the auburn-haired halfling boy/man, asks with a frown. I believe he was nearby, yet he also didn't notice what Aoi was doing, even though he's a mage.

"I don't really know. I was just drawn to the storm and wanted to control it," Aoi honestly replies, a bit confused about her own memories.

But Alonso frowns skeptically. "I only sensed Water-attuned mana leaving you, and none of it had any 'flavor' related to storm or [Electric Magic]."

I already took a peek at her memories, so I have a vague idea of what she did… but how are thunderstorms created again?

Ted's robotic voice surprises us all as she begins her explanation, "Small particles of water vapor and ice crystals bounce against each other repeatedly inside a cloud."

"These impacts end up charging particles with positive and negative charges," Suzy continues, as always.

But then it goes back to Ted, "Which then begin to separate, creating large differences in potential between the lower, mid, and top part of a cloud, and also the ground."

Then back to Suzy, "When the potential becomes higher than the air resistance, a lightning bolt occurs."

And Jarn finishes, "Master Aoi mimicked that behavior by using her own conjured water, but the lightning she produced was still partially magical, as one fully-physical lightning strike is strong enough to kill a considerable number of people."

I think the golems know more about science than I do at this point. It's all kind of blurry to me since I rarely need to recall this kind of knowledge anymore.

And then Roxanne puts the last nail in the mystery, "Since she was born as a monster, she has a natural affinity for a type of magic that's quite different from the well-structured spells we normally cast."

"Ah, I see…" Alonso hums in understanding.

Aoi turns back to Kyora, who just blinks blankly and stares back as this whole conversation must've gone completely over her head, so Aoi just returns a toothy smile, then turns around and walks to her seat.

Kyora shrugs and sits down. "Right, well. The only thing I want to know is why you people eat," she grunts to the Captain and his XO.

"It's very depressing to not eat anything all day," Nohopu immediately answers.

"It's impressive how important food is for our mood," Kurii adds as she fills her plate.

The Chimeras eat very little in comparison to the average soldier, but they still need to drink MP potions to recover their strength after exercise, so the expenses to employ them are a bit higher than for living soldiers. To compensate, they, theoretically, don't "die" as easily.

All our senses have been enhanced, so the food feels extra good today, and after we finish, we retreat to our Suite again for the best cup of coffee and chocolate cookies that I've ever tasted.

It's almost like we're tasting these things for the first time again.

Though Aoi still feels "drawn" to messing with the weather, we don't really do much while we just rest from the intense experience.

After about an hour, one of the scouts spots the Throne of Ascension far, far ahead of us. It's a thin vertical line that rises into the clouds, partially shrouded in the blue mist due to how much atmosphere lies between us and it thanks to how far away it is.

We're in the last leg of our short journey, and everyone starts to get excited.

The wind has been in our favor ever since we entered the Thunderplains, so we watch the Throne approaching us quite quickly, though it still takes a few hours until we can discern more details.

A few airships pass us by. Three of them are imperial warships, the vertical, metal eggs, while the others are actual water ships with just a [Fly] gem inside, so our blimp-like ship really stands out as something different.

One of the warships seems to be on a vector to intercept us, but then it suddenly stops and turns in another direction, then flies away. It could be a coincidence, or maybe they're purposely avoiding us.

The road between Mistcross and Mac Gantus is pretty straight since this is all open grasslands, so we also fly close to a few inn towns, which increase in the size of both their urban areas and the farms that surround them the closer we get to the capital.

These towns are all similar to Escanso. They're circular and divided into rings, with the center being where the nobles and the Lord live, while the rings are for the commoners, where the closer to the center they are, the higher the class. The farms are all outside the town walls, surrounding it entirely, and are only protected by a wooden palisade.

The farms are surprisingly small in size, but the Thunderplains is known to be fertile, and I guess magic might make them more productive than Earthling industrial farms.

The rain and clouds start to give way to a harsh afternoon sun, and after another hour, we begin to see the edges of Mac Gantus, which are actually quite far from the Throne.

Little by little, we get closer to the wide, sprawling city, and the sea of green grass gives way to the yellow bricks and orange clay roofs of the capital.

Then the Bay of Three Kings appears at the edge of our view, a long, circular beach filled to the brim with ships of all kinds and sizes.

But once we get closer to Mac Gantus, we notice something odd. Countless little lights dot the town, and I get so curious that I have Alissa borrow a telescope from a scout to get a better look at them.

Those are effigies, effigies in the shape of dragon heads, and they're all burning.

I'm too stunned to speak, so Roxanne chuckles nervously and jokes, "Is that our welcoming party…?"

Alissa looks further and notices that, while dragon heads are the most popular, there are also effigies in the shapes of other monsters, and I breathe out a sigh of relief.

After some more scanning, she then notices that the townspeople are dancing and drinking around those effigies, and we finally realize the truth.

The entire town is having a little party.