We land on the barren ground, then I open a [Gate] back to the embassy.

The maids help us freshen ourselves up, and then we quickly move towards the entrance to receive our guests.

Alissa almost breaks into a run with how excited she is, and, of course, her fluffy tail wags uncontrollably, something I always love to observe with how entrancing it always is.

Then we reach the main hall, and two orange blurs collide.

"Sis!" Allura shouts happily as she hugs the other blur tightly.

"Allura…!" Alissa struggles to reply, her sister's higher "Strength" surprising her with the bear hug.

Allura doesn't seem to notice that she's killing her older sister, but she quickly loosens the hug. Then they stare at each other in the eye as they smile, and an odd atmosphere starts to form between them. Alissa's heart immediately starts beating rapidly as her mind goes crazy with crazy fantasies.

Then they both suddenly move their heads forward, and they kiss, right on the lips.

Ofilia squeaks in surprise while Jacques sighs loudly and facepalms, but Léonne remains silent as she stares at the two sisters. I, of course, almost have a heart attack as my blood instantly rushes downstairs, and the Sentient Weapon attempts to break free from my pants.

The kiss is criminally short as the two sisters grin, then release each other.

"I thought you'd back off!" Allura exclaims and laughs out loud.

Oh, gay chicken?

"You don't really know me if you thought I'd back off from that," Alissa smugly states, her fantasies becoming so real in her mind that she starts to get hot.

The younger sister turns her head to Roxanne, the naughty succubus who did her when she decided to take a bath with us, and the two share a rather meaningful look. "Right, my mistake," Allura quietly replies, most likely reminiscing about the bliss Roxanne gave her.

"No, no. You can kiss your sister as much as you want to. It's certainly not a mistake," I charismatically assert and walk up to her.

Allura's eyes fall upon me, and if her exchange with Roxanne was meaningful, then with me, her gaze becomes so heated that she looks like she's barely keeping herself from jumping onto me. "Wolf…" The tall almost-woman purrs seductively.

"Allura," I reply in kind. Then Alissa backs off, allowing me to pull the young girl into a gentle hug, though the way that my claws grip her ass is decidedly not gentle. I pull her head closer and tiptoe so that I can whisper into her furry ear, "The moment the Gods allow me, I'm going to make you bend over to my spiky club."

She breathes in and cusses, "Fuck…" But I steal her lips, silencing her reply, and then I leave her hanging as I pull back before it can escalate further.

Jacques seems to become even more displeased, but he's just gotta deal with it, so we simply continue the greetings while Allura recovers.

Alissa hugs her father first, who mellows out a bit. Then she hugs Ofilia, the jade-like beauty, but once she goes for her mother, the milfy fox holds her back.

"What about my kiss? Do you have the same love for your sister as you do for me?" The stern woman asks straight-faced.

Alissa's mind halts as she tries to process what she just heard, but I'm not letting this one in a million chance go to waste, so I take over her body and force her to kiss her own mother.

The sweet taste of Léonne's lips floods my mind with bliss, and I memorize every curve of her tight body as the two women press against each other, but I shall only ever dream of the taste of her tongue as the mother breaks off the kiss before I can escalate further.

Then Léonne calmly turns to me, her expression a complex mix of resignation and mild amusement. "How did you turn my diligent and loyal daughter into such a sl-t?"

Alissa almost lets out a lound sound in delight at being degraded by her own mother, and I glance at Hana and Roxanne, the two who helped me the most to bring the "true" Alissa out. They'd love to give a reenactment of it, but we aren't in that kind of relationship with Léonne… at least not yet.

"You really want to know?" I suggestively ask with a grin.

The fox matriarch glances at her husband, who seems to decidedly not want to know. "Perhaps another time."

My handshake with Jacques is tense, and I feel like the big, red, furry man really wants to crush my hand, but he's polite enough to hold back, and I'm smart enough not to provoke the beast.

Alissa goes out to greet the Sworn Hunters, and she gives Montague a tight hug, making me mildly jealous as he's Nenvieu's older brother, but the man is like a fun uncle to her, so I keep it out of my mind. And while she has her fun, we sit down and have some tea with the tired Verners. They aren't sweaty or dirty because they traveled in their fox forms, which are fake, magical bodies, but they're all pretty tired from running all day for three days.

Then we talk about how things have progressed while they traveled.

"How much do you trust Vanea Anara?" Léonne suddenly asks when we get to the part about Apeiltik. "Aside from you wanting to do her," she dryly adds, making me smile, but Allura makes a concerned expression.

"We have some history, but we don't actually trust her very much," I casually answer.

Then Léonne promptly states matter-of-factly, "She used Apeiltik to push Katasko against you."

That makes me feel conflicted. Now that she puts it so plainly, it's obvious that Vanea and Apeiltik gave Katasko info on us, but the problem isn't even that she did it. She's manipulative and untrustworthy, but she's damn good at what she does, and that's what makes it hard to cut her off.

Yunia already expected something like this, so she's even more nonchalant about it. "After what we did to Dawn of Fire, it was simply logical to believe that we'd go after Katasko too, so she didn't have to work very hard."

Léonne shrugs. "As long as you understand the kind of ally that you're keeping around."

"Yes, unfortunately, we do," I begrudgingly admit.

Then we move the conversation forward, and we mention our plans to grind monsters in the Trox Mael event.

"I believe someone encouraged those adventurers to flock to Trox Mael to get in our way," Yunia sourly affirms.

"How predictable was it that you'd be there?" Léonne inquires.

I smile bitterly. "Very. It's the closest settlement to where we slaughtered the horde while the second closest is in the opposite direction and much further away."

Though it's annoying that someone is plotting against us, Yunia already has a plan forming in her mind, which she promptly begins to lay out for us, "We only have our knights and a handful of Lordsguard here, but together…" And the Queen grins slyly. "Are you up for bullying some adventurers?"

The fox matriarch turns to her furry husband, who snorts like a bull being challenged. "Our men aren't called Hunters just for show," he boldly declares.

The girls and I return to the dungeon. There, we fly into the settlement, and the Imperial soldiers under us notice our approach.

We just ignore them and land near the Not-Throne, out of sight of the adventurer mob. Then I open my [Gate] again for Alcander, who opens his own so that everyone else can cross through.

A small squad of Imperial soldiers turn the corner, and they immediately freeze as they see the small army gathering up before them.

"You!" Palo shouts as he jogs towards the tense soldiers. "Take us to your commander!"

The youngest of the group blushes as he stares, in awe at the size of the huge, glorious elf, but then the oldest swallows heavily and takes charge, "Yes, Sir. You… uh, follow us, and we'll take you there."

Palo motions for them to go ahead, and the men make way for them. It's just that their path goes right through the middle of our group, forcing them to get very close to the one hundred, mid-high level soldiers, and at the end, there's the group of Lords, with the hulking figures of Aoi and fox-Jacques dwarfing everything.

The soldiers pale and start to walk robotically, but the senior soldier at least has enough composure to make sure that we're following before continuing forward and not looking back ever again.

I feel like mounting Aoi like Léonne is doing with her elephant-sized fox husband, but my little blue dragon hardly ever acts as a mount, so I don't feel like introducing her to others like one.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

While we walk, Léonne showcases her levels in [Equipment System] by [Equip]ing her various weapons. "This is a remarkably useful skill. I'm impressed by how easy it is to learn considering the complexity of the concept behind it."

"When a brilliant person meets another overflowing with knowledge, incredible things happen," Ciel warmly affirms.

You're actually going to make me blush.

"I have a feeling I know which is which," Léonne dryly replies and glances at me.

But Allura tilts her head in confusion in an adorable way that's just like how Alissa does it. "What do you mean?"

"Your kit love is actually a man full of mysteries," Léonne deadpans perfectly.

Allura glances behind her, towards the teasing smirks of Ofilia and the Sworn Hunters, and her skin starts to match her reddish hair. "Mom!"

"You're the shameless one, my daughter. Endure it," the stern mother dismissively replies.

And Allura goes silent to not aggravate her shame further.

But then Jacques gives Aoi a few glances, which catches her attention, and her inquisitive gaze makes him feel compelled to ask, "Did you get bigger?"

"Yes," she happily hums back.

His furry face wrinkles in a frown. "It hasn't even been a month since we last met."

"I eat, I grow. I'm a dragon, so I never stop growing," Aoi cheerfully replies, her voice surprising even the Sworn Hunters.

Then Jacques snorts. "I actually forgot that you were born as a monster."

And that makes Aoi happy, though she herself doesn't understand why.

The mob of adventurers is close by, so our stroll is very short, and the moment we turn the corner, the murmuring of the crowd dies out, so we stop and wait.

While Jacques is eye-catching, Aoi is far more striking. These people are all experienced adventurers, people who either dream or have nightmares about dragons, and here's a huge one. Not even a small "adolescent" dragon, but an almost fully adult one, the kind that not even dragon hunters would hunt without a heavily enchanted dragon-killer ballista to help them.

"Major Belligax!" The younger soldier shouts, then rushes into the crowd, which lets him through without complaint, too distracted by Aoi to mess with him.

But Major isn't a rank of someone who fights on the front lines. Major is the first "strategist" rank, the kind that sits in a tent, crowding around a map and moving units like it's an RTS, but they certainly were once like me, someone who leads by example.

A few of the adventurers recognize us, and they taunt us with shit-eating grins, but we remain stone-faced and silent for a long and awkward half-minute.

"Make way! Make way!" A gruff soldier shouts, and the adventurers start to move.

The crowd splits, revealing four people walking towards us. A dragonkin Gandalf, Bojack Horseman, a black amazoness goddess, and a dirty blonde, Viking-looking weredog, the only one who's not wearing armor but a red velvet uniform.

Soul Info

Name Belligax Uxello Race Weredog Level 59 HP 100 MP 2,360 Magic Power 920 Strength 18 Endurance 23

The adventurers are all around level 40, and none of them seem particularly important on their own.

The group stops when they're just a few meters away from us, and an awkward silence settles in, but Belligax seems to get irked and glares at the young soldier beside him.

"Well… who are our guests?" He sternly questions the tense boy.

Who becomes deathly pale as he whispers, "We forgot to ask…"

Belligax breathes in deeply to calm himself, and I give him a small mercy by motioning for Palo to take over.

"Oh, shit, is that Silvano?" An adventurer suddenly whispers excitedly.

But before the murmuring can start, our Chad Thundersword loudly announces, "You are before the Royal Crown Lords of the Western High Forest. Their Highnesses are…"

Then a Sworn Hunter continues. "And you're also before the Chiefs of the Misty Low Forest. Their Lordships are…"

And I find it funny how some of the adventurers exaggeratedly roll their eyes at the pompous introductions.

Then the other side introduces themselves.

"I'm Gandalf, and we represent the Hunter's Guild," says Gandalf, but Alissa yanks on our connection.

"I'm Kashikoe," the dragonkin impassively greets. He has the air of a kind old man, but the dragonkin savagery is skin deep.

"Armaars'r," the horsefolk says with a polite nod. He's unremarkable, aside from the long face.

The amazoness with a ponytail grumbles, "Fran." She has a strikingly cute face, but also a tight and muscular body to do (and also mess up) anyone who underestimates her.

Just needs the bunny ears and the hair.

She's entering the "milf zone," finishing up the perfect combination for a partner for Osaria as c-m sl-t mommies.

Then the weredog pompously announces, "Senior Major Belligax Uxello." A "Daddy-type" who gives Roxanne the tingles, and I make a mental note to assert my dominance over her later.

Our knights make some space, then I pull out the portable home with a *poof.*

"Let's talk inside, shall we?" I politely suggest.

Just to flex at them, we un[Equip] our armor before we sit, and the Verners and Ofilia follow our lead. It feels nice to be so in sync with them.

After enticing the four guests with the delights of our hospitality, Yunia uses this perfect moment to begin, "So, what is your purpose here?"

The adventurers aren't experienced in the art of discussion, so they take a moment too long to answer as they hastily swallow, but Belligax gives them a freebie, "We were negotiating an agreement about Trox Mael. It's a complicated matter to organize the defense of the settlement."

"And that's what we've been trying to say. We don't need to defend the settlement, just the Great Steps!" Gandalf immediately exclaims, his powerful voice booming through the room.

I'm calling him Gandalf, Alissa, and I don't care about your complaints of copyright infringement!

Belligax narrows his eyes, and his pointy ears twitch. "We have enough men to defend the walls," he sternly replies.

"The monsters don't attack the walls equally, so some people will lose out on Experience," Bojack calmly retorts.

"And now, we also have to share it with these guys," Fran adds, and my friend deflates at her unfriendly tone.

Belligax sighs and tiredly explains, "We came here to train in town defense, not to gorge on Experience."

Gandalf lightly hits his fist against the table in frustration. "We were here first! And we'd have started Trox if you hadn't rushed in with your people."

And the Major's displeasure increases. "I had my scouts here all day."

But the old mage grins like a bastard. "Yeah, but you only came here with the rest of your people when we appeared so that you could leech!"

"I came because you were about to start the Trox, like you just admitted to!" The weredog exclaims, starting to lose control of himself, and the silent imperial officer standing behind him puts a hand on his waist, right next to his sword.

Yunia and the Verners share a concerned look about this tiresome problem. Neither of them really expected this situation, and they don't seem eager to fix it.

Before things can devolve further, I interject, infusing my voice with a bit of [Godly Language] to make it hard to ignore me, "Oh, I see, so that the problem is that there might not be enough monsters for everybody?"

"Damn honeyed voice," Gandalf grumbles, apparently already familiar with the skill.

"What do you mean?" Armaars'r asks, ignoring his comrade. I'm not going to call him Bojack anymore since he seems to be reasonable.

And I smile cordially. "One group wants to defend the walls, and the other wants to defend the Steps, but we can do both. We just need enough monsters to overwhelm the defenders at the wall. It'd be quite the effective training, no?"

"And where are you going to find so many monsters?" Arma Bro politely inquires.

"Oh, shit… you want to do that shit again," Fran grumbles with an angry frown.

"We'll bait the monsters using an array of long-range [Monster Repellent]s," I confidently declare, ignoring her.

But the amazoness is really starting to ask for it. "You're damn insane."

It's quite disappointing that she doesn't seem to have any warm feelings towards us.

"A group of idiots tried to do that once… most of them died," Gandalf adds with a mockingly wise tone.

"Getting overwhelmed would gravely endanger my men," Belligax states, and he seems to turn all of his antipathy towards us. His tail is hidden in his clothes, and his pointy dog ears are perfectly still, not showing even a hint of his true emotions, which is kind of a bummer.

Neither Lolo nor Nikolas had any problem with the idea, so I'm skeptical of this rejection. Especially because Arma Bro is silent and hiding his true feelings.

I swallow my displeasure and retort, "We've done this once already, and we didn't even have the Verners with us."

Belligax gives me the most unveiled glare ever as he states, "We're here to train safely."

"The steps are-…" Arma Bro begins, but he's interrupted by Fran.

"Lordling, you're a bit too young to be trying so hard to level up."

"The steps are defensible," is what I believe Armaa wanted to say, something that we'd already noticed.

"Your lack of respect is starting to become tiring," Yunia warns her with a dangerous tone.

"You're going to get our men killed," Belligax states with a sharp edge in his tone, though he's getting better at hiding his anger.

"You're being quite cowardly when we have such an easily defensible location," Léonne harshly states, concentrating her stern glare solely on him. Allura, on the other hand, is trying to do her best to mirror her father's impassive expression, but she seems to really dislike Fran.

Not-Gandalf butts in again with the subtlety of a fart, "With all due respect, this shit is damn stupid. You can go to another settlement if you want to try out those ideas." It's really jarring to see an old bearded man with such a foul mouth.

"You're threading a dangerous path," Yunia warns him, and the tension at the table quickly rises as everyone starts to struggle to not show their fangs at each other.

"I don't give a shit," Gandalf grunts back, his anger starting to cool, but his words have become imbued with venom.

"You represent the Guild," she retorts, in disbelief at his foolish audacity.

But he just leans back and smiles smugly. "I do, so I know you can't just kill me."

And her tone becomes ice-cold as she hides all emotions from her gorgeous face. "We'll flog you in front of everyone."

He shrugs. "Then good luck convincing the adventurers that your plan isn't going to get us all killed."

"It's our right to be here, so they'll mess you up before they let themselves be bossed around by a pisser," Fran states, mirroring his smugness.

"Stop provoking them!" The Horse Bro hisses at them, and they seem to tense up, stopping the aggravation of their insolence.

"Your offenses are piling up. I advise you to consider your future after this encounter," Yunia delivers a threat, and the adventurer trio don't even dare to react.

I feel like they're daring us to mess them up, and I'm quickly reaching a point where I think that I really should take them on that dare.

"You're being unreasonable," Belligax softly retorts, his tone just polite enough to not worsen the situation.

"If you can't really defend this settlement, then you should resign from your post," Léonne harshly lashes back. She still doesn't give a damn about the adventurers.

Belligax's right eye and pointy ear twitch, and he needs a second before he retorts, "You're being too optimistic about the cooperation between our three groups."

Fran shakes her head, her ponytail following a second later, then she turns to Bell. "You know they'll do anything to get their way."

"I won't let the nobles force our hand," the Major makes a bold and stupid claim.

Holy shit. They've united and turned on us fast!

But Léonne is out for blood, "Think carefully on your next words, boy. The Imperial Army won't miss a moronic pawn like you."

Bell-end's officer glances at Aoi, the perceived biggest threat here, but if they think she is the one to watch out for, then it's a clue that the four stooges may be in over their heads.

If someone's really scheming to get in our way, we won't be able to convince these bastards here with words alone. They aren't going to die, but some drastic measures need to be taken.