I step through the [Eternal Gate] and breathe in deeply to enjoy the fresh smell of my home. It's the most comforting air I've ever breathed, with the occasional earthy scent of moss, or the bright aroma of flowers, or the intoxicating perfume that the elves love to use.

I happily greet my Lordsguard as I walk through the Network's Hall, then I exit into the Hub inside our castle, and I'm faced with a small welcoming party.

"Welcome back, King Wolfy," the group of scantily dressed women suggestively greets in unison.

My luscious milf, my fluffy sheep, my bare cat, my young maid, and a few other thirsty maids and Companions. Everyone gets a deep kiss from me, of course, and once I'm done, I breathe in deeply again, this time savoring the perfume of the women surrounding me. Now this feels like home.

But I don't have time for even a quickie.

I cup Kaatohe's tight ass cheek with one scaled hand and Osaria's juicy cheek with the other, then I turn to Poosh and order, "Call Sandoro and Oritiki for a special meeting. There's something I have to tell them, and you and Osaria too."

Poosh's gentleness is instantly replaced with stoic obedience as she notices the seriousness of my tone. "Immediately?"

I nod. "I'm acting as bait, so I might have to leave for battle at any moment, but the bait will only be effective for a short while, so I can't stay here for too long."

Everyone's mood instantly cools down, and I feel guilty for ruining this moment, but the plan always comes first.

I smile bitterly and look at each of the women as I earnestly soothe them, "Thank you for being here to welcome me. It makes me really happy that you all missed me, and the Gods know I need the distraction seeing how tense I am today, but we'll have to postpone the 'party' until there's a better opportunity for it. Don't worry, though, I will show everyone my 'appreciation' for this welcome."

And my new level in [Spicy Charm] shows its usefulness, for my claw touching Kaatohe immediately feels her bits warming up from my words alone.

Poosh nods, then turns around and wordlessly orders the maids and Companions to disperse. After a few sad waves, I'm left with only Osaria and Kaatohe, but before we head off, I turn to my bare, bronze cat.

I grab her waist with both hands and stare her in the eye while I cautiously explain with a deliberate tone, "What I have to say to them is related to one of my secrets, and only those who have committed themselves to me are allowed to hear it. I don't want to force you to make a choice right now, so, I'm really sorry for this, but you can't come with us."

Her cat eyes stare at me for a short moment as she processes my words, but then she quickly nods and coolly replies, "I don't know what to do with myself, so I don't expect you to treat me seriously either. I understand that 'concubine' is a clear position, and I'll respect its importance."

There's… so much to unravel in her words. As expected of a noble, they have a reluctance to be pragmatic as they revel in the complexity of relationships, but I don't have the patience to play these games, so I might as well drag the dere out of her and force her to confess her love to me.

Unfortunately, now's not the time, so all I can do is warn her, "We'll talk about this later, but I feel like you're thinking too much about the wrong things."

"Just give in to the dragon," Osaria comes in with such a gleeful tease that I almost feel like chastising her.

"I'm simply more in control of my urges than certain people…" Kaatohe coldly replies.

But I interrupt the ribbing because I have no time to waste, "You two can do each other later when I'm gone, so let's just go to the meeting room, already."

Osaria cheekily waves to the bronze woman as I pull her along with me, and I give my cat one last loving look.

"Good luck, Your Highness," she calmly gives me her blessing, but I notice a hint of bitterness in her tone.

"Thank you. Until another day."

Less than a minute after we enter the meeting room, Poosh arrives with Sandoro and Oritiki in tow. I'm actually surprised by how fast they came, and Poosh's slightly flushed skin gives me the comical mental image of her running around the castle to find the two.

"Your Highness," they greet in sync with a soft bow. Then we all sit at the large round table, with the four of them sitting on each side of my large white chair as I want a more intimate discussion.

To give time for Poosh to catch her breath, I observe the beautiful carving at the center that depicts the entirety of Escanso. The artist tried to make the difference in size between the castle and the town as big as it is with the real thing, so the little tree-houses look absolutely tiny next to the bush-like castle. Even I still have problems grasping how massive the difference really is.

With great power comes great responsibility… and also great rewards.

Considering what I'm about to tell them, this table puts into perspective how far I've come. The Impostor Syndrome is still there, but I feel like I'm gradually faking it less and less.

Poosh swallows heavily, and I think that's enough time, so I raise my head to them and begin, "First, I have to ask this: what do you all know about Realms and Cycles?"

Oritiki looks confused while the other three all make suspicious expressions as they immediately start to make the connections in their minds.

Poosh promptly answers, reliable as always, "The Realm is the land that we inhabit, and all of it is under the authority of the Humanoid Gods. But there are other lands, other Realms, that are beyond our reach and that of the Humanoid Gods."

Osaria casually adds, "A Cycle is a collection of Realms, and all of the Realms within a Cycle are supposed to be similar."

And Sandoro immediately goes for the hook, "Your research into [Otherworldly Summoning] likely tapped into other Realms, did it not?"

"Other Cycles," I soberly correct. "That's why the being that came through it was so… difficult to comprehend."

Then we turn to Oritiki, who still looks a bit confused.

"Are you following us?" I gently ask.

Her cow ears flick as she blinks, then she slowly nods. "I think so… I just never heard about Realms and Cycles before."

I hum and explain, "It was confirmed by the Humanoid Gods, so you shouldn't know that much about it. This Realm is called Rupegia while the Cycle is called Reigurando."

She crosses her arms, bunching up her massive and delicious, bare, black pillows, then nods in understanding. "The [Otherworldly Summoning] research is about that 'incident' that happened with you and your soul, right? The one where you called the Alteration mages?"

"Correct."

And her non-existent eyebrows knit in concern. "So you were 'tapping' into other Realms? You were trying to summon something from them?"

She's assuming a bit too much, so I clarify, "I didn't create [Otherworldly Summoning]; we were just exploring the spell, which I discovered through my Gift."

She exhales loudly and nods again. "I see. I think I understand it now."

And the four of them stare at me intensely, already predicting what I'm about to say.

I smile bitterly as I finally reveal the secret, "My interest in that spell comes from the fact that I'm not from this Realm. I was brought here not long ago by a God, most likely the God of my Realm, which is called Earth."

Sandoro snorts softly and pats his puffy beard, his eyes out focus as he reflects upon my words; Osaria blinks in disbelief and starts chuckling with a silly smile, looking like she needs a drink of some Eia; Poosh remains completely impassive, showing no significant reaction; and Oritiki simply looks at the other three, a bit confused and unsure about how to react.

Poosh's reaction concerns me the most, so I glance repeatedly at her, which prompts her to explain, "Forgive me, Your Highness. I understand this revelation is important to you, but I don't have the perspective necessary to understand its significance." Then she readjusts her large, circular glasses on her bubbly face.

"Same for me," Oritiki hesitantly joins and flashes a guilty smile.

Osaria holds back her chuckling and quickly explains, "That's the point. We all thought that he was a Hero chosen by the Gods, but to think he comes from another Realm, sent by a foreign God. It makes him even more special than he already was to the point that we… don't know what to expect anymore."

Oritiki grins. "Well, I guess you two finally understand what Lady Armanpoosh and I are feeling, then."

"Doesn't change much, though. I just find it amusing," Osaria offhandedly remarks and starts chuckling again.

"It also gives some context for a few things…" Sandoro rather grimly adds.

"But that's not all…" I interject with a severe tone, making everyone instantly fall silent. "There's a high chance that I'm not the only one who was brought here. I've received word that a group of people appeared in the Sky Lands in almost exactly the same circumstances as I did… and I used to be married before I came here, her name is Lily Singh."

"Oh…" Osaria blurts out while Oritiki raises her non-existent eyebrows, and the other two remain unmoving, but then Sandoro's expression becomes sober.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"You wish for us to find them?" He astutely assumes.

I nod. "She's short and very slender, just a bit smaller than me, with black, straight hair that stopped a bit below the shoulder, a very athletic body, and light brown skin like those from Wideberg. I was made younger than I used to be when I was brought here, so she could be my age now, but we were both adults back on Earth."

"I knew you were older than you look," Osaria mutters wryly.

Then I turn to Oritiki and order, "Oritiki, I want you to take the Carrier and lead a diplomatic expedition into the Sky Lands, but your real goal is to secretly search for the other Earthlings and make sure they're being treated well. They're likely Gifted as I am, so they'll probably be hidden and protected by the Chimeras."

"As you wish, Your Highness," she promptly replies and lowers her head respectfully.

Osaria is our diplomat, but she's too valuable here as she deals with a ton of smaller problems herself, so Oritiki will have to represent us.

I sigh in relief as our foray into the Sky Lands can finally start, and I feel my shoulders begin to hurt again from the tension, but I can't relax just yet. "I understand that you might have questions, but unless it's really important, I think we can leave them for later as I need to return to Mac Gantus as soon as possible."

"Will you return to your Realm?" Osaria blurts out, a rare weakness in her tone that's so apparent that she immediately reels back in embarrassment at her own insecurity.

"No, never," I assuredly affirm, and that immediately appeases her, though she might still be feeling a bit of guilt, so I add, "I have too many ties here to ever consider leaving, even if Lily asked me to."

And she breathes in deeply to recompose herself, and my seductive milf quickly returns as she gives me a heated stare, promising a very intense "welcoming party" when I finally come home for good.

Lastly, I give her the information we collected on Katasko to help her negotiate with the Gartanias, then I return to the capital.

The girls finally begin to relax when they see me enter our room, but that just means that Cleinias hasn't taken the bait, so we're still waiting for his assassins to attack.

Now that we know which nobles belong to Katasko, the golems and the Companions start to pour through the public records from the Imperial [Eternal Gate] Network to find out where these cockroaches have fled to.

I jump onto the bed and bury my head in Ciel's outrageous valley, but then I remember something and cast [Telekinesis] on her so that she stays glued to my face as I inch towards the edge of the bed.

"W-w-what?! Wolfy!" She protests and slaps my horns, but I ignore her and sit up, then I open a [Gate] to Cleinias' home so that Alissa can check it out.

The foxy infiltrator touches the black circle and gets teleported away, then she focuses on her [Sense Presence], and after only a few seconds, she determines that neither Cleinias nor Alki-Alki have returned, so she uses [Redirect Mana] to erase all evidence of the [Gate] and returns.

None of us feel like checking in on the chained monsters again, so I quickly push them out of my mind, and with the regular check done, I throw my back on the bed again and let Ciel's bodyweight squish her pillows against my face. She just sighs and gives up, then starts running her fingers through my hair, helping both of us relax.

Since I've stolen Lina's wife, she's left without her usual partner, and just to make things interesting, I force everyone to switch it up. Yunia comforts Aoi, Lina comforts Roxanne, and Hana comforts Alissa while I have my fill of massive chocolate pillows.

Gify then joins Yunia in comforting her friend, Aoi, but I think that's too much favoritism, so I order the little griffin to comfort the ones who are doing the comforting.

"Gih!" She protests haughtily.

"Well, we're tense because we're about to go into battle, so you could help us out a little bit, right?" I slyly request, but my mouth is full of pillows, so only a muffled cry comes out, forcing Gify to read my mind.

She rolls her little amber eyes, then sighs exaggeratedly, making her white wings flap, then she begrudgingly agrees to do it, "Gih…"

Well, would you look at that, Gify is actually becoming courageous! But I won't denigrate her help. One more pair of eyes watching our backs will never hurt…

We relax for a good half hour, but then we start to become alert again from the anticipation, and we suddenly hear the sounds of swords clashing.

After the initial surprise, we discover that Nikolas and Penelope are sparring with sabres in the large patch of hardened grass grown specifically to resist the regular stomping of people working out.

While Lina, Aoi, and I would love to spend the whole day cooped up in our room, the rest of the girls have neither the extreme introversion nor the same draconic urges to make a nest, so they feel like joining the two guides, and we follow them, because of course we would.

The outside of the mini High Trees is somewhat similar to the inner gardens of our castle: large sections of exotic plants creating unique and private environments as they're mostly covered in shade from the canopies of the High Trees and separated by tall hedgerows. There are areas with running water to wet our feet, fragrant flower beds for us to smell, lawns of fluffy grass for us to lay down on, and many others.

The duo of adventurer guides are right next to our High Tree, training without a care for the tension in the air. Once they notice our approach, Lolo pales a bit while Nikolas simply crosses his arms impatiently.

"You're not a bother, please continue," Ciel immediately calms their fears.

The duo nod obediently and resume their sparring. They seem to be using dull swords, but they're still metal, and they leave behind painful welts whenever they slide against the skin.

Big black wolf man seems to have a bit more skill than the sprightly, thicc bunny girl, and she tries to compensate for that with her very high "Speed," thanks again to those thicc thunder thighs, but her "Endurance" isn't as good as his, so he manages to outlast her.

In a real fight, she might be able to disable his arms or legs by cutting a muscle, but this is just a bloodless spar, so she's at a disadvantage.

"How about a casual spar with me?" Alissa requests, feeling like competing against Lolo in speed.

"Aren't you an archer?" The bunny girl replies as she raises an eyebrow.

Alissa grins challengingly. "I have a few levels in [Sword Use] for self-defense."

And Lolo just shrugs. "Sure."

Of course, Alissa is far from being able to compete through skill alone, so it becomes a contest of "Speed" and "Endurance," and Lolo plays along.

Nikolas takes a few steps to the side and stands beside me. "You're awfully calm considering what's coming," he wryly remarks.

You two are the ones playing outside when you know a fight is about to break out.

I just shake my head and dryly reply, "Such is the life of a Lord."

He stares at me from the side of his eye for a moment, then we turn our attention to the two hot girls as they play.

Lolo has tied her long, floppy ears back like a ponytail, and they follow behind her as she bobs and weaves. Alissa's fluffy tail behaves similarly, though hers is more mesmerizing as she tenses it up to help her quickly move sideways, like how real tails are used.

"Lolo got lonely these last couple of days while you were off doing Lordly things," Nikolas remarks with the most casualness he can muster, which isn't much considering he doesn't have [Acting].

Hana struggles to hold back a snort while the other girls take a few steps away to not get involved in what's coming, and I just give him a brief draconic glare to warn him against this sort of provocation.

The lack of [Acting] also makes his flinch quite obvious, and he quickly qualifies his statement as he realizes that he's about to step on a mine, "What I mean is… you can't always be there for her."

I simply continue to watch the hot girls as I assuredly reply, "But when I am there, I give her what no other man ever could. That's what makes me special; my presence is addictive."

The two kemono girls giggle as they fool around, using their dull swords like sticks to poke each other with rather than weapons to fight. They ignore [Parry] completely in favor of using [Dodge] to its limit, and even [Sword Use] stops being useful with their reckless stabby behavior.

"'Addiction' isn't a positive word like you think it is," he solemnly retorts.

I thought I'd made some progress with him at the loli brothel, but I guess it just gave him a boost of confidence to confront me.

I remain silent for a moment as I carefully think over my next words. This C-ck thinks he knows what's best for Lolo? She's living her best life, so why the hell am I the one at fault here?

I stare at his striking, red eyes as I state with poise, "Don't judge where she finds her happiness. She isn't looking for what you can give her, so don't intrude and ruin what she has."

He makes a thoughtful expression for a second, then he frowns and turns to the giggling girls, staring at them intensely while he thinks, but his mood only grows worse.

Scantily-dressed cute girls bouncing around while sweating is quite the vanilla entertainment considering my usual hobbies, but it's still pretty great, nonetheless. A whole genre of anime is just "cute girls doing cute things," so of course there'd be quite the large audience for this sort of thing back on Earth.

"Fight me," Nikolas suddenly growls.

The lack of an overtly spicy atmosphere between them is a bit disappointing, really, but it makes for a nice change of pace to have something so innocent and fun before my eyes. Though, I can easily imagine Alissa eating Lolo out, so I can easily get into an enjoyable spicy mood with just a thought.

Wait, what did you say…?

I turn to Nikolas, a bit bewildered, and he repeats, "Fight me. No magic, sharp blades, shortswords only."

Final destination…

To ask a hybrid Lord to fight him in a damn sword-only duel takes some balls.

So I smirk challengingly. "Alright, you audacious bastard, you're on."

He has a small arm reach advantage, but I have thirty damn points in [Sword Use] and a well-balanced build. I don't need magic to win. I'm a damn juggernaut, baby.

He takes his shirt off, revealing his athletic build. Then we point our swords at each other, and Ciel gives the signal, but I just stare and dare him to attack first.

That angers him, and he goes for a bold downward and diagonal attack, performing a perfect slicing motion by using his elbow to spin the blade, just as expected of someone who uses a sabre as a primary weapon.

But we're fighting with straight swords, so slicing isn't as effective as thrusting, and I just spin my blade with my wrist to avoid it getting batted away by his swing while I take a step back to prevent his attack from reaching my head.

This allows me to keep my sword pointing directly at him, keeping him from getting close to me. And now we slowly circle each other as he tests my defenses with a few more sabre slices.

We seem to be matched in skill, which I find suspicious, but then he suddenly surprises me with a quick slice by spinning his wrist, and he finally manages to bat my sword away.

Before I can pull my weapon back in, he immediately advances with blinding speed as he uses [Muscle Explosion], his sword pointing back and down with my blade near his hilt, giving him the leverage advantage to keep my blade away.

I see his free hand form a fist and shoot towards my face, but instead of avoiding it, I flood my body with mana and activate [Mana Body]. This doesn't count as magic since it's an inherent part of me.

The skill lets me change my body at will, but it's not just for adding extra swords with studs, I can harden myself, boosting my "Stats" at the cost of mana, and so I catch his punch with my draconic hand, then twist his wrist. The bastard lost his advantage the moment he decided to get within grappling range of a motherclucking dragon.

He yowls but doesn't lose his focus, and he immediately spins his other wrist, using the push back from my sword to enhance the speed of his attack as our blades unbind. The tip of his sword whistles as it cuts the air with great speed, and I'm forced to lean back and rest my body against my thick tail to not get chopped in the head.

But now my sword is free, so I just lightly chop his ribs, opening a shallow wound, but due to already being in pain, he doesn't notice it and continues the fight, following up the chop with a stab into my stomach.

Now fueled by both mana and anger, I grab his sword hand by the wrist and twist it, forcing him to release his sword. Then I give him a headbutt, hitting him so hard that his head whips back, and he falls flat on his back as he grips his (now likely broken) nose.

The chilling sensation of having a blade in my gut is horrible enough that I immediately start to pull the sword out, but then the pain strikes me, and I let out a growl. I hate pain so much that I feel like headbutting him again for what he did.

"You do know that the average Lord would likely kill you for doing what you did, right?" I snarkily grumble as I glare at him.

He groans loudly in pain, then grumbles back, his voice muffled by his (now confirmed) broken nose, "You're no average Lord…" Then he slowly gets up, still visibly dazed from my attack, and starts making his way to Ciel.

I shake my head and [Heal] myself, then I collect both of our swords with my tentacles and [Clean] them as I reflect on whether or not I should've raked his throat with my claws.

Wait, I didn't even feel anything from that headbutt. How hard is my head…?

"Feeling better, now, you angry pup?" Lolo sassily teases as she and the other girls give him amused smiles… Well, Yunia wants me to headbutt the insolent dog even harder while Alissa wants to bite his head off herself because he stabbed me, but the rest are kinder to him in their thoughts.

He clicks his tongue and turns his head away from her like a tsundere, but he seems to have lost all the defiant bravery that drove him to challenge me. Maybe now that he's had the fight he wanted, he'll calm down again.

I look out past the hedges as I walk away from the center of the grass field, and a chill of anticipation goes down my spine. Things are too calm. Is Katasko really going to let us go after so visibly killing their dog and then taking a shit in their front yard?