The Scottish highlander dude doesn't put on a kilt, but he does take his shirt off and show his manly, hairy chest, which I'm only mildly jealous of.

My goal here is to put the fear of Lords into everyone's hearts, so I make my tentacles look as disgusting as possible. I turn them into slimy, purple, exposed muscles that twitch and pulse with my heartbeat. And I absolutely love how his smug, defiant smirk gradually turns into a stiff grimace.

I point my sword at him and taunt huskily, "Come to daddy, and bend over so that I can shove my draconic club up your ass. I'll even give up my shield so that I can clap your feminine ass cheeks." Then Gify teleports to Alissa's shoulder with a chirpy sigh.

Luckily, the Highlander isn't the kind to get excited from this type of banter, so he scowls angrily and takes a threatening step forward as he draws his longsword.

"You're quite literally asking for the gays to crowd around you when you act like that," Roxanne wryly points out through our connection.

"But it's a pretty effective way to taunt the non-gays," Hana adds.

"And women like me love it when you act domineering," Alissa chimes in, and Yunia agrees with a nod. Aoi likes to submit, but she's neutral to degradation. Then they all turn to Ciel and Lina, who remain awfully quiet.

Anyway, as Alissa has previously shown, it's hard to level up weapon use skills past level 40 as they reach the physical limits of the body. But this means that by level 10, you could potentially compete with a noble in melee combat by focusing all of your soul potential into a Weapon Use skill.

It's rather impractical, yes, but adventurers are crazy people, and the world is large enough that there could be a handful of them who've decided to follow the path of Weapon Use while sacrificing the flexibility that other skills give.

And this dude has the vibe of someone with a stupid build.

We circle around each other as we launch probing attacks, trying to gauge the other's skills, and he quickly realizes that my warhammer tentacle is by far the weakest as I don't have any skills related to hammer use.

So he bats the hammer tentacle away while lunging in for an attack on my left now that it's slightly exposed.

I attack with my spear, but he simply gives the shaft a light hit with his sword, deflecting it just enough so that the point simply slides across his shoulder, which shows that he has quite the [Parry] skill, and possibly a pretty good level in a Fighting Style.

But my highest skill is with swords, so I easily parry his attack and follow up with my halberd towards his left.

He pulls back his weapon and again parries by merely hitting the shaft with the base of his blade, killing the momentum of the halberd. Then he notices the dagger I'm sneaking towards his left leg and spins his sword clockwise, the tip making a long arc downward.

His weapon is now in an odd position, so he makes an awkward, backhand slash upward with only his left hand, slicing the tentacle. Then he immediately grabs the hilt with both hands again to bring it to his right to parry the spear again.

His [Parry] is high, very high, but he doesn't seem to have a single level in [Dodge].

His sword continues to make circles as he wildly swings it around to defend himself from my attacks as they come from opposite directions. He's clearly on the back foot, and this war of attrition is heavily in my favor, so he'll probably try to do something drastic any moment now.

Suddenly, his pupils widen, and then he takes a step forward and becomes rather… still. Then I get the sensation that I'm dreaming as my attacks simply slide across his skin, and though the halberd and the dagger make shallow cuts, the rest would've needed more momentum to do any actual damage.

"[Enhanced Reflexes] for a perfect dodge," Alissa explains through [Bind]. When everything is in slow-mo, it should be relatively easy to dodge with minimal movements.

But this technique is so surprising that it breaks my rhythm, putting my mind in brief disarray, and now he's within my guard, so he chops down with his sword.

I raise my hand and catch the blade between my scaled fingers, but he's still using [Enhanced Reflexes], so he has all the time in the world to come up with a counter.

He raises the hilt up, and now the tip of his longsword is pointing down, so he just thrusts, and the blade slides in between my right ribs. After all that training I did with Yunia for the Lordship Ceremony, I'm rather confident in my ability to avoid having my heart pierced.

Though I dislike ruining my elven shirts like this, I'm finding it to be quite an effective tactic to let someone enter my guard. It's easier to rip them apart when they're within reach of my claws.

I use my tail to propel myself forward while I activate [Muscle Explosion], and not even [Enhanced Reflexes] is enough to avoid this, so I successfully manage to grip his right arm with my scaled hand and go for a slice at his right flank with my sword.

He immediately tries to pull back, but my claws dig into his skin, and I stab his left flank with the tentacle-dagger.

His eyes open wide as he realizes that he's kind of screwd, and he suddenly jumps as he releases his sword and uses both of his boots to hit me in the chest, forcefully expelling all the air in my lungs.

We both fly away from each other, but my claws shred his right arm, and the halberd cleaves into his right shoulder as a parting gift.

He falls onto his back, but I use my tentacles and tail to recover faster than him, and I'm not one to waste opportunities.

He immediately jumps to his feet, but before he can do anything else, my spear pierces through his lung. He grabs the shaft and stares in disbelief at the long, long, stretched tentacle, making me grin.

I pull his longsword out of my chest and give it to a new tentacle. Then I cough blood and immediately charge forward.

"UOOOOOH!" He roars like an enraged beast as he rips the tentacle off the spear, then pulls the weapon out of his body just in time to parry his own longsword.

His right arm is nearly useless now, so he immediately lunges forward in a hail mary and swings his arm, throwing his blood in an arc, which hits me right in the eye.

Damn piece of shit!

I feel my halberd, dagger, and warhammer connect with something, but he's still advancing, so I make a new tentacle directly out of my chest and expand it like a shield.

He crashes against it, giving me a perfect outline of his entire body, so I slash at his belly, cutting my own tentacle off in the process, while I dodge the spear aimed at my heart.

I feel the blade bite deep into his skin, and I don't even need to see it to know that I've just done massive damage to him. Ciel decrees the duel over through our connection, so I push the Highlander away, and I hear the crowd groan in disgust.

I [Clean] the blood off my face and see that he's on the floor, his good hand over his belly to keep his guts from spilling out even more.

The tenacious bastard then stands up, and he actually seems ready to continue fighting. Though he's not completely out, even with the gut wound, his disabled arm means that he has no chance against me now.

"Do you want me to put you down for good? Learn your limits, and give up," I sternly warn him.

"Hell yeah, Lordling!" An adventurer in the crowd shouts excitedly.

Oh, Gods, no. I don't want that nickname!

The Highlander clenches his one good fist, then throws the spear towards me, so I throw his sword back at him, and he catches it in the air.

Ciel sighs and walks up to him. She'll give him some healing, but not to full since he was a dum-dum and didn't know when to stop, so he'll have to deal with some pain until the HP potion finishes fixing it up.

I turn to the crowd and open my arms wide as I grin. "Anyone else want to bleed for me?!"

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"You fight like a monster, Lordling!" Another adventurer shouts.

And I have my tentacles take a particularly phallic shape. "This is what you have to become to conquer a dungeon!"

"Hell yeah, Lordling!" A couple of adventurers cheer, and the crowd starts to get excited.

"Well…?! Who's the next idiot that's going to challenge him?!" Hana backs me up.

"Those tentacles are unfair. Lordling's power is too insane!" An adventurer complains.

"I'd rather keep my guts inside!" Another jokes.

"Lordling is too strong!" A third follows.

"Then how about you challenge me?!" Hana shouts as she hits her chestplate with her armored fist. Then she summons her wings, flies into the bloody dueling circle, and un[Equip]s her armor, exposing the curves of her body through her tight-fitting elven underclothes.

An imperial walks forward and scans her tight body up and down. "Bitch, I might. How strong are you compared to the Lordling?"

She covers her upper body with steaming, emerald scales, then shouts proudly, "I'm fucking invincible!" Copying my favorite catchphrase.

The imperial raises his hands in defeat and takes a step back. "Shit, girl. At least the Lordling bleeds!"

A slender incubus demon man walks forward and draws a longsword. "If you promise to be gentle, I'll let you spank me good," he seductively affirms, and I immediately notice the bulge in his pants.

Ugh, here we go…

Thankfully, this one isn't gay, so he didn't walk forward when I was the one doing the taunting.

Hana lands and [Equip]s her own weapon. "Take out your little friend first, and I'll make you squirt through your ass," she orders with a fearsome grin.

I roll my eyes as he promptly obeys, and then they immediately start their duel.

Now that the tenser moments have passed, the crowd starts paying attention to other things than the blood sports. And with my duel over, Gify teleports back to my shoulder, her rightful place, not that she dislikes Alissa's shoulder.

"The hell is this…?" An adventurer quietly asks Gandalf and motions to Ted with his head.

"One of the Lordl-… Lord Wolf's summons, I think. It's for communication," the old dragonkin answers, trying to hide his discomfort.

The adventurer gives the teddy bear an amused glance. "[Summon Small Golem]?"

And Gandalf shrugs. "I think so. He is a summoner…"

"So, this is the agreement we got…" Fran mumbles to her fellowship sullenly.

"It seems that… we didn't get everything that we wanted," a large wereape hesitantly remarks.

"It's called compromise," she snappily replies.

Her fellowship senses that something is definitely wrong, but the ominous presence of Suzy behind her keeps them from asking any further questions.

While Bell-end talks to his officers, the men keep stealing glances at the metal Bimbo in a dress behind him.

"It's an earth elemental. For communication," his aide explains, though the imperial man refuses to look at the golem, seemingly afraid of her.

Roxanne walks up to me, and I get a handful of her cute, small cheeks while we watch Hana flay the incubus alive. This fight isn't as gory as the disembowelment of the Highlander, but it's taking on quite the… spicy tone as the incubus keeps making sounds with his hard frined out, and blood is getting spilled everywhere to the point that I have to take a step back to not get splashed by it.

The sadist I'm molesting is holding herself back from jumping onto me. She does have a thing for blood sports, but she doesn't want to get her fair skin soiled with blood. She just enjoys watching men displaying their masculinity through combat and making the other submit. And the recent euphoria from getting her eyes fixed has also given her desire a kick, too.

"Cut off his thing," Roxanne begs through [Bind].

But that'd be a faux pas since the masochist demon didn't agree to it beforehand, so our sadistic wife just fantasizes about it as best as she can. I sneak my hand through the opening at the side of her dress, then slide it down.

Allura comes to stand on Roxanne's other side, and she unashamedly stares at my hand under my spicy wife's dress. This girl is so thirsty she's giving Hana a run for her money.

"I used to be worse than her," Hana wryly comments through [Bind] as she casually has her fun with the demon. Then she sends me images of the spicy shit she did to herself… and to others.

Now even I'm getting excited.

The fight doesn't last long, but it's just enough time to give Roxanne one bliss, and the adventurers around us seem to notice. I don't know whether they can hear her soft whispers, smell her, or notice her odd twitching, but their excited stares make it obvious that they know.

Allura sighs deeply, then rubs her legs against each other, but not even she is shameless and sl-tty enough to do it in the middle of a gathering of sweaty, rough, and muscular adventurers.

I take my claw out and lick the faintly sour, white cream on it, then I end these silly games, "You've all had your fun, right?! Let's not waste any more time; we have monsters to kill!"

While everyone finishes preparations, we enjoy a little history lesson.

The Trox Mael is called the Cursing of the Land.

During the time of the Dawn of Mankind, there were no monsters, dungeons, levels, stats, skills, or any sort of large civilization. Man was just plopped onto the barren world and told to make do with what they had.

They fought with nature, cultivated their food, manipulated the land, built up their homes, and lived their lives in relative peace. But the God of Destruction didn't allow that to last. They cursed the land with monsters, causing the Realm to go through a dark age.

Historical records that survived the Dawn are sparse, but every civilization that rose after it mentions the horrors of the Trox Mael. The first Men were strong and self-assured, but the monsters were their worst nightmares made manifest, and what could such powerful people fear? In Earthling terms, the Apocalypse.

Lina stops before the first of the Great Steps, which is a mere slab of gray concrete, but at the center of its forward face, there's an inscription in ancient Andraste.

Orer a p'rer.

Rise or perish.

The God of Creation did everything that They could to allow Their creation to grow, and so, it was time for Man to carve out their own place in the Realm.

Our amateur historian touches the carving with her little fingers and appreciates the craftsmanship. It was done through magic, and she can even sense the remnant particles of mana in it, possible evidence that this is an actual, legitimate recreation of the real Great Steps, not just an "embellishment" by the dungeon.

The calligraphy looks as if someone wrote it with finger paint. The words are pointy and simple, like bundles of sticks thrown about, and remarkably similar to Germanic runes. Before skills, language used to change over time just like it does on Earth.

Palo approaches us, then salutes when we turn to him. "All groups report that they're ready," he announces.

I pat my little girl's silky black hair, and she does the honors.

"Orer," she whispers, then the lights go out.

[Light Magic] didn't exist in this time period, so our [Spirit Light]s are snuffed out. Though, mercifully, [Heal] and other spells still work.

But it's impossible for us to fight in absolute darkness, so Change gives us all the first Blessing: Light.

Our bodies become our own sources of light, and the wall surrounding the settlement glows as one great band of hope. Then the darkness takes hold of the barren ground outside, turning everything not touched by our light into a void-like pitch black, and now we're completely isolated from the dungeon. The only way out is through a [Gate] or by surviving the event.

And the sad poem of Trox Mael is written with light under the carving.

Witness our brilliant accomplishments, Creation;

Sharpened intelligence as a weapon;

Molded cunning into armor;

And use pride to incite.

Ashes to sow the fields,

Ruins to build our homes,

Flesh to feed our bellies,

And wisdom to teach us.

Nothing to be wasted.

Our humble prayer ends here,

and here begins the first stand.

Our light was taken,

sinister horrors approach,

now fight on, my child.

The "first stand" of many, the first battle of the eternal war between humanoids and monsters.

"This hits a bit differently after everything we've gone through in the last few days," Hana wryly comments.

"To 'hit differently,' you'd need to have first known about it beforehand," Lina annoyedly retorts.

And the dragonkin awkwardly rubs an emerald scale on her cheek. "You get what I mean…"

"What would Man say to us if they knew of our disposition towards monsters?" Yunia asks rhetorically.

I glance at Aoi and shake my head as I reject it completely, "I don't want to think about that. They're all dead, and times have changed."

"Is there a history lesson to be had here?" Léonne asks out loud as she approaches.

"One that nobody wants to hear," Ciel kindly answers.

It is mildly vexing that we're the only ones who care about it.

"Tell me more about it," the fox matriarch softly replies.

Lina quietly explains, "Mankind fought a desperate battle against monsters. Every work of art from that period was about self-determination, growth, power, overcoming insurmountable odds… and survival."

"And then rebuilding," Léonne adds, then looks up at the Great Steps. "Though they had quite the puzzling taste."

"How would you know what beauty was if you'd never seen it before?" I question philosophically.

And Hana comments thoughtfully, "All they had was faith, and I know that godly power feels… massive."

Roxanne snorts, and we smile too.

"I swear, that wasn't a sword joke."

We disperse, and each of us [Fly] towards our respective sector.

As I pass by a tall, cement box, a female adventurer calls out teasingly, "Lordling, I'm scared! Hold my hand!"

I stop and turn to the source of the call, and I see a group of female archers on the flat roof of one of the gray "houses." The one who shouted is a slender and gray werecat archer, and I predict that she'll be in my bed tonight.

There's no way I'll miss an opportunity like this, so I smirk as I land before her and grab her rough hand. "Have no fear. I'll take care of every single one of you," I huskily reply. Then I kiss the back of her hand, and her powerful fingers grip my claws.

She glances at her companions, and they chuckle, the pitch of their voices remarkably high, which is clear evidence of my level 2 [Spicy Charm] doing its thing.

"Watch out for me, and I'll watch out for you," I gently state, then I [Fly] away towards the wall.

I land among my men and nod at Nohopu and Kurii, then I turn to the two awkward Lordsguard before me.

"How are you two enjoying the armor?" I gently ask them.

"I can't complain," Lolo replies with a shrug. For someone who used to fight almost completely naked, she's adapting quite well to the full-body, nearly impervious elven armor.

And Nicky remarks in kind, "Me neither. And it's better this way since our reputation will definitely take a hit if we tell them that we're working with you."

I roll my eyes and sigh. "Yada, yada, you grumpy bastard."

Then he snorts while Lolo flashes him a glare.

"Lordling! Speech! Give us a speech!" An adventurer shouts from down along the wall.

I climb onto the crenelation of the wall and reply spiritedly, "You fuckers don't give a shit about speeches! You just want me to embarrass myself by speaking bullshit!"

"That's already a speech!" One of them shouts back.

"Good enough for me!" Another adds.

And then the hollering quickly dies down as the first enemy appears at the edge of our light.