"W-wait, we have to meet up with Osaria tonight," Roxanne says with a strained smile.

Hana glares at her and growls. "Tomorrow will be worse, then."

I look at Alissa and she grabs Ciel's and Lina's hands. "We'll deal with it, together."

"Good," Hana says in a low growl and the two other girls look each other in the eye.

"I can help!" Aoi says and raises her little claws.

"Even better! Let's see how long an original dragon's endurance lasts." Hana's eyes burn with fire.

"Aoi has already admitted to being under you, in more ways than one, so you should really focus on 'training' her," Roxanne says, completely jumping on her way out of this situation.

Hana rolls her eyes. "Well, I wanted to break you, but if you are that unwilling to have some fun with me, then I'll go for Aoi." Her tone turns dramatic and her mouth distorts in annoyance.

Roxanne pouts. "I love you," she says and Hana's farce melts off of her face.

They kiss while I'm still between them, making me feel like a third wheel.

"So… are we doing it?" I ask once they break apart.

"Gently," Roxanne says and starts to intoxicate me.

I get out of the bath -.

"What got you to change your mind about Osaria?" Ciel asks Roxanne, who immediately turns awkward.

"Well, I… thought that she didn't seem like a bad person, so why not?" Roxanne plays with one of her horns awkwardly.

Lina goes over to the ice box near the bath and pulls out a small yellow drink.

"You are still uncharacteristically uncertain about this." Ciel smiles smugly.

"She's too prideful to admit that she likes Osaria," Alissa says and smirks.

"Of course I like her. She's a fun person," Roxanne protests.

"Ahn! You are breaking, me apart!" Aoi yells.

"Do you want me to stop?" Hana asks.

"No! Harder!"

Now that is a sight…

"Yeah, but you were completely frigid to her flirting," Lina says.

"Even you…" Roxanne glares are Lina who returns a smile for a moment. "I'm rather suspicious of such aggressive flirting, so I didn't give her much attention. But then I saw her wounded and I realized that I couldn't hold back those feelings."

"So, what do you feel about her?" I ask.

Roxanne becomes a little awkward again. "I wouldn't mind if she were to join us."

We sit near the edge of the stone bath; the stone is heated, so it's quite comfortable.

"She seemed to be looking for something casual," Alissa says.

Roxanne shrugs. "It would still be fun to have her around."

We go silent and calmly watch -.

Lina dangles her legs adorably at the edge, splashing the water with her cute little feet. I'm starting to think that some of the things she does are deliberate; she's far too cute for it to all be natural.

I look at Alissa and she smiles mischievously. She goes down on all fours and prowls towards me like a cat. Then she deposits her head on my lap and looks up at me with expectant eyes.

"Have you taught Lina those moves?" I ask.

"I only taught her how to be so cute that you wouldn't ever think of abandoning her," Alissa answers with a smug grin as her tail sways wildly.

"Eh?" Lina turns around and looks at us with uncertainty.

"Seducing Ciel was a nice side-effect of my 'coaching.'"

"I'm not one to complain," Ciel says.

"Me neither," Roxanne adds.

The two stare at each other and a few sparks fly between them.

"Learn to share," Alissa says and the situation calms down again.

Aoi finally collapses and lays on top of the water, using her wide wings to help her float. Hana sends our "little" blue dragon towards us and I cast [Heal] and [Refresh] on both of them.

"We have to be careful to not get hurt," Ciel suddenly says.

"From…?" Alissa looks at her questioningly.

"Klein and Osaria. I know we have been spending too much time with Klein, so much in fact that I think that saying goodbye to her now would be very hard."

"Oh… I didn't think of that…" Hana says and her expression turns pensive.

"That's nothing new," Roxanne comments.

"I just let my desire flow…" Hana ignores the insult and climbs out of the water.

"We all kind of did…" Ciel says with a cringe.

Hana becomes so dejected that I grab her arm and pull her into a hug. Alissa gets out of my lap and hugs her from behind.

"I know you like her as a friend and maybe something more, but we will deal with it, together. I'm also starting to get affected," I say.

"Group hug!" Roxanne exclaims and Aoi jumps out of the water to join in.

Gify turns on his "massage" and the mood becomes a little better.

We get ourselves dressed up in our best clothes and start making our way towards the Canto Ornado. The elven attendant is extremely helpful in giving us directions now that he knows how much money we have.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

A few taverns closed off parts of the small roads so that they can have some open-air music and drinking, a custom that starts in the last month and lasts until the Turn of the Wheel.

"The bards are better over here," Hana comments and even Aoi nods.

"They are a little boring, though," Lina says.

We turn to her and look at her oddly.

"There's no party like a dwarven party," she says and smirks, making Hana scoff. "Have you ever actually seen one?" She adds and glares at Hana.

"No, but it's hard to imagine a bunch of cute little dwarves reaching the same level of debauchery as a true dragonkin party."

"I'll show you how cute we can be," Lina says, threateningly.

"I would actually love to see that," I say and we have a light chuckle.

The Canto Ornado takes the baroque pompous architecture and turns it up a notch. The building literally shines due to the gold on the walls. Every single surface is so overly detailed that my eyes get tired just from looking at them for too long.

"Are we sure this isn't one of the emperor's houses?" Roxanne asks.

"The Throne of Ascension isn't covered in gold, that's just a tale," Ciel says in a tired tone.

"If it is, wouldn't that make it even better that we're going to dine in here?" Alissa asks.

"Yes!" Aoi exclaims happily.

"Don't bite the walls," I warn her with a smirk and she puffs a small smoke cloud.

We head inside and get a table, then we wait a little bit for Osaria to arrive while eating some croutons and drinking not-wine as a snack.

"Well, it tastes nice, but this is juice," Roxanne says and Lina nods.

"A few more cups and I bet you'll get drunk," Hana says.

My heart nearly stops when I see Osaria come in -.

She's a work of art.

"You have to take off your sash," Hana says, noticing Ciel's slight frustration.

"Oh, I wish I had more makeup," Alissa casually comments.

"Your wish is my command," I respond without thinking.

"Oh, wait! It's not a necessity," Alissa tries to take it back.

"Too late, we are buying you makeup."

The fragrance of the girls' perfume is overwhelmed for a short time when Osaria comes over to us smelling like a goddess.

"Good evening, Helios," Osaria greets us and smiles sensually.

"H-hello," Lina absentmindedly responds.

I manage to retain enough composure to get up and pull out a chair for her, right between me and Roxanne.

As Osaria sits down, I draw the curtains for our table and we become isolated from the world.

Klein really understands what we like.

We touch the gem on the table and a waitress comes to deliver the menu to us.

As we choose what we're going to eat, Ciel starts up the conversation, "How's the healing? I can see that you recovered your eye."

"We went to the temple and had to call on every priest there to heal us. They even had to use [Mana Transfusion] to feed the healers more mana, such was the cost of healing us all," Osaria answers.

Lina's Trivia: that's [Nature Magic]'s level 35 spell.

"How's Klein?" I ask.

Osaria chuckles. "Literally jumping around, the priestess that healed her almost lost her mind."

"Understandable. Klein, I mean, not the priestess," Hana says with a small smile.

"Then Anton woke up and started doing push-ups. The priest that healed him started groaning out loud."

"Oh, I know what that's like," Ciel says and sends a withering glare to Hana. "It's like people don't want to rest. They only make things worse by exercising right after being healed."

"In this line of work, we trade our health for coin. If we can move, we can fight," Hana says.

Ciel starts to pout. "Maybe you shouldn't literally trade your HP for coin. Take it easy sometimes."

"I'll rest when I'm dead," Hana says.

"That's exactly what Anton said," Osaria says with a smile.

"He's the one who told me that." Hana winks at Osaria.

"I didn't think Anton was that eager to fight again," Alissa says.

"Eager to work, not to fight. He doesn't want to be pitied."

"It's why we love him so much," Osaria says and smiles suggestively.

Hana turns to Osaria and looks at her curiously. "You like to play with fire, don't you? There was a moment when I thought that Krista was going to stab you."

Osaria hides her mischievous smile behind her hand. "I adore Krista, but she's so selfish. A big boy like Anton would benefit from getting more experience."

"Maybe he doesn't need to. Krista might be much more flexible than we give her credit for."

"Well, Klein did inherit her 'endurance' from someone," I say and we three smirk.

I'm pleasantly surprised by the wide selection of pastas with not-tomato sauces. I order a nutty salad mix and a pan-seared minotaur ribeye steak to accompany my sweet and mild taglierine sauce.

"I hardly ever see you drinking," Osaria says to me as she sips her not-wine.

"Imagine if I got into a drunken brawl," I say.

"He would kill me in bed, he nearly does when I ask him to go hard," Hana says.

"If we both got drunk, I could end up dead," Alissa says.

Osaria seems a little impressed. "Clearly you do not go easy on each other."

I smile warmly, "I'm willing to do anything to make them happy. I, myself, don't even enjoy it that much."

"Uh huh." Roxanne says. Ciel and Lina look at me with doubt.

"I see… but you could still drink a little," Osaria says.

I smile bitterly. "I just don't really enjoy drinking."

The conversation switches to clothing after that. I give my humble opinion on my preferences.

Osaria gushes a little and says, "You are all so cute. I wish I had someone that would dress me up like that. Rande isn't much help in that regard, Nito and Oura are too girlish for that, and… my husband never took interest in those things."

"You co~uld dress up for us," Roxanne says, tentatively.

Osaria smiles endearingly but shakes her head softly. "After this is done we might never see each other again. It's best to leave it that way."

"We would rather enjoy ourselves as much as we can before separating," I say.

"You may have the energy for it, but I can't handle anymore of that… pain. Tonight is all we have." She smiles bitterly.

"Then I'll make it worth it."

She sends me a sharp glance. "You'd better."

We finish the main course and call for desert. Osaria lays her hand on my thigh while we wait.

"You know, these cakes are a little too sweet for me, I prefer something a little more… bitter," she says and smiles mischievously.

-

The cake soon disappears and we lay back in our seats, our stomachs filled to the brim -.

"I think it's time for us to go," I say.

-

We walk out of the restaurant in an eye catching procession. Osaria is on one arm and Roxanne is on the other. The other girls are walking closely behind us.

This town is much more lively than the others we've been in, so Hana ends up having to walk in front alongside an earth elemental to keep the way clear for us.

We enter our light blue cozy room and Osaria raises an eyebrow. "Are you all going to sleep here?" She asks.

"Together, always," Aoi says.

"Ara ara, how adorable."

Oof.

Lina is heavily affected too and I see her smile brightly at me.

We make our way through the beds and sit down at the edge.

-

Today is the 21th.

-

Osaria pulls out some spare clothes and tries to stand up, but her legs wobble and she collapses back onto the bed. "Hahaha, I can't walk! We did it so much that I can't even walk!" She exclaims and sighs in satisfaction.

"[Refresh]," Ciel casts.

"[Heal]," I cast.

"Ooh…" Osaria moans -. "Oh my, I've never felt so much pleasure before, and I really needed that. Staying out of town for so long without a proper man beside me isn't easy, you know."

"We are always available," I say with a smirk.

"No thanks, I won't be thinking of sex for a day-cycle, at least."

Hana snorts and says, "Yeah, right."

For the first time in the last two days, I take a look at the girls' stats: Hana leveled up to 38 and increased her [Tatesomu Style] by 1 (now 6); Lina increased her "Sanity" by 1 (now 13); Roxanne increased her "Endurance" by 1 (now 10); and I increased my [Nature Magic] by 1 (now 3+18).

I feel very hungry, so I end up sampling one of everything from the extensive selection of fruits for breakfast.

Alissa glows with happiness and clings to me like glue. I use the [Bind] to guide her so she can feed me properly, which just makes her even happier.

With our bellies full, we stretch and laze around for a little while.

"I think it's time for me to go," Osaria says with a slightly sad tone.

"Oh, okay," Roxanne says, lowly.

"Maybe when we reach Goldport we can repeat this, but don't count on it. You're all so 'energetic' that I'm starting to feel old," Osaria says and smiles wryly.

"We are just abnormal," Ciel says.

"That much was obvious since the first time we met."

Roxanne and I kiss Osaria's hand and she takes her leave.

Once she's gone, Roxanne visibly deflates and looks at her plate with disappointment.

"You liked her that much?" Alissa asks.

"I… uh, I don't think so. I just… feel a little disappointed that she left," Roxanne answers, lowly.

"We always knew that was going to happen," I say.

"Yeah, but… I still feel disappointed. It was good, really good, but I still feel… disappointed." She shrugs in frustration, not able to find the words to express herself.

"I don't think you have a good mindset to fully enjoy casual sex," Ciel says and pats Roxanne's back.

"Yeah, I guess… It does remind me of the time I was alone and had casual partners, but it's not really a pleasant memory…" Roxanne hunches over and awkwardly touches one of her dark horns.

We work a little to cheer her up again and then head to the temple to meet up with Klein.