We make our way back to the hangar, where the golems are still practicing with Jonu coaching them. He wasn't very pleased with the damage we caused to the ships, but he knows very well how to repair them since this isn't an uncommon occurrence.

We apologize and pay for the repairs, then we take a small break so that we can discuss the girls' "rewards." We sit near the walkway of the hangar so that we can have a better view of the galaxy-like sky and colored clouds as we drink our tea.

Aoi takes her reward right now - I drink some not-earl-gray and eat a fluffy not-vanilla cake that Alissa prepared.

"Wolfy, can we go naked?" Hana asks.

"Underwear only, but nothing transparent," I immediately reply.

"You should go naked -," Roxanne requests of me with a mischievous smile.

I look around, and the girls shrug, but Lina and Hana seem to like the idea.

Our guides each raise an eyebrow in confusion. Soon after, Aoi takes a break to eat her pie, and I use my [Soul Manipulation] - to show them what I can do.

Ririmu falls into a fit of laughter, but Hukarere remains quiet and apprehensive.

"What… how did you do that?" She asks.

"It's just a spell similar to [Materialization], it's not real, but I can still feel pleasure through it," I answer.

"Amazing…" She mutters as she stares intensely -.

The girls start taking off their clothes, but Ciel and Lina hesitate.

Ririmu can't stop himself from discreetly glancing at Hana's perfectly sculpted body. This makes me feel a mix of jealousy but also pride. He's too afraid to stare and offend me, but he's also entranced by her beauty.

I take my clothes off, and although my body doesn't have impressive muscles, the scars quickly become something that Hukarere shows some interest in.

Impatient with their hesitation, Alissa undresses Lina with a smirk. At the same time, Hana undresses Ciel -. The sight - is just too stimulating for Ririmu, making him turn around to avoid - it.

After this short break, we wander through the town. Being so exposed makes us feel a little chilly, so we use simple robes to keep the cold away. The few humanoids and less furred Chimeras also do that -.

I still don't have the courage to walk around naked -.

I'm already used to going to the beach while only wearing swimming trunks, but the girls don't have that kind of experience -. Also, underwear is different from bikinis and swimming trunks; it feels so much more "personal," enhancing the experience.

Our guides take us to one of their public parks. It's a small and dark grove where people go to have some private time with nature.

Gify absolutely loves it. The adorable city nature spirit misses the green scenery of the forest, the place where half of her soul likely came from, but that doesn't mean that she misses the actual life that exists inside a forest. Gify seriously reminds me of those suburbanites who want to "reconnect" with nature and do things like yoga under a tree. Not that that's "bad," but there's always that weird mix of spiritualism and relaxation activities that puts me off.

Gih.

Nah, you're ten times more like a "Karen" than a mom.

Her beak deforms into a pout.

Giih!

Oi, don't start.

"This place used to be filled with nature spirits, but after the Calamity, they also disappeared," Ririmu comments, then sighs.

"One of them touched me once, but the fluffy little bugger simply disappeared one day," Hukarere sadly adds.

"Gih."

"Oh, that's unfortunate; we use the Vengeful Spirits to protect ourselves…" Ririmu says in a sad tone.

Nature spirits are extremely sensitive to aggression, so they'll never go anywhere close to something like a Vengeful Spirit. Though, I believe the reason that there aren't any nature spirits here is because we're inside a dungeon, since that means that there aren't enough spirits of dead animals or humanoids for a nature spirit to form.

Alissa is quite pleased with the dark, mossy grove. She misses the musky smell of nature and the quiet of the forest from her birthplace. The High Forest is nice, but she always feels like an ant near the ginormous trees, so she prefers "normal" forests like this one.

Hana starts retelling some stories of our travels very truthfully. Yep, she's totally, completely faithful to the truth. While Hana boasts about our adventures, our guides aren't as well-traveled as we are, obviously, so their stories aren't quite as epic, but a life in the military will get you many, many stories about the craziest things you could imagine, which they share with us.

"He almost cleaned his mouth with his personal [Beam] magic tool!" Ririmu exclaims and facepalms. "I've seen people who are terrible at [Sense Mana], but he must be in the negatives with that skill. How can you mix up an annihilation tool with a cleaning tool?!"

"Even the drill master was stunned; he saw someone almost commit suicide," Hukarere says and snickers.

"Please tell me that they changed the training schedule after that?" Ciel asks as she massages her eyes.

"Not quite…" Hukarere answers and snickers again.

"Let's just say that no magic tools are given to the recruits anymore during their endurance training," Ririmu says.

Ciel sighs and says, "Honestly, that's as good as a town's guard is going to get."

"Your opinion of them is quite low," Yunia says, slightly surprised.

"I spent most of my life near them, healing their wounds, and not all of them were from battle," Ciel says and starts chuckling, giving up when faced with the stupidity of humanoids.

"You'd better start elaborating on that," Roxanne says and hands her a cup of not-wine.

Now it's her turn to tell stories. She's certainly faithful to the truth, but the excitement from her tales isn't as intense as Hana's. It makes me torn when I try to decide who's the better bard. Heh, perhaps it's neither.

"I knew it. You land-dwellers really need to learn how to cast [Fly] like us," Ririmu says with a toothy grin.

Ciel shakes her head while smiling and says, "To be fair, you people need to learn how to fly just to survive. It's not every day that the watchmen get drunk on the ramparts and decide to play horsey."

"One thing is definitely true for every race: soldiers are no better than children," Hana says and downs her cup.

"I think I once heard something like this: the most dangerous weapon… is a bored soldier," I say, and they nod in agreement.

The sun starts to set, and the time for us to leave arrives. We return to the Golden Docks and make our way to our ship, then, soon after, Oritiki comes to meet with us.

-. I'm not sure who I want more, her, or Hukarere. Though it's quite obvious that the wolf woman is interested, I'm not sure about Miss Fun Bags.

She walks along the retractable bridge, then jumps onto the deck, making me smile. "I see you had fun," she comments.

"We're grateful for your choice of guides. They've served us well," I say and nod respectfully.

"It felt more like a day off than anything," Hukarere comments and grins. Ririmu snorts, and she raises an eyebrow at him.

"Well, then. My duties for the day are complete," Oritiki says and walks forward. I motion to a chair, and she pulls out her personal blanket, then sits. "As you may have noticed, we don't have inns here anymore, but you can rest at my estate for as long as you wish."

I smile gently and say, "We'd be delighted to, but we have a base in an islet not too far away from here that we have to return to. We'll spend the night there, then retrieve our equipment. But we'll gladly accept your offer tomorrow."

No fucking way am I missing our meeting with Osaria and Klein.

Oritiki raises her eyebrows in surprise. "Oh… well, how're you going to do that?"

"I have a spell that lets me teleport us to a number of places that I've been to before," I answer.

"Ah, the Domum specialty."

I nod. "Precisely."

She crosses her arms, and her tone becomes a little more serious. "Can you… teleport us to the Sky Lands?"

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"I'm afraid that it's too far. It would cost many times more mana than I currently have."

She relaxes and nods gently, a little disappointed. "I see. Nothing magical is truly free." She chuckles and looks at us warmly.

That's a mage's saying.

I stand up and give her a quick bow, then I say, "We must be going, Dame Oritiki. Packing up our camp will take a while."

She and the guides get up, then nod.

"Until tomorrow, Ryder family," she says and leaves.

The guides give us a short bow. I share a look with Hukarere, and her tail sways gently, then they leave too.

Tomorrow, I'll have to prepare an opportunity for us to get "closer."

"Let me do that," Alissa says in my mind space.

I poke her soul, and she squeals in delight.

We watch them leave, then I store the golems and open a [Gate] back to our home in Goloria.

Bath is quick because Klein and Osaria are about to reach Campo Verdante, so we don't even play around, a first in quite a while.

Now that we're fully cleaned and smell absolutely pretty, we quickly enter the Eternal Gate Network, then cross through two gates to Campo Verdante. We exit into the Lord's Hall of the Nobles' Quarters.

We go outside, and I experience the freshest air that I've ever breathed. There are tree-buildings as far as the eye can see, spread over the hill that the city was built upon. The low-rise of the houses gives us an open view of the blue sky and the setting sun, which is still roasting the simple red brick of the streets with its heat.

Tanned silver elves are walking everywhere, calmly going about their day, only to have it disrupted when they see the slightly flamboyant ensemble of our group walking by. For them, it's rare for so many different races to be together in a single place, so we must be quite the attraction. Also, we're all wearing our best clothes, which are fit for a Lord, making us stand out. Then there's Aoi, who's proudly walking beside us in her large size, like the cherry on a cake.

After spending so long staring at beautiful, fully nude people, looking at these semi-nude elves is actually a bit stimulating. The secret to sensuality is not in exposing the interesting bits, but in how cleverly you can hide them.

We ask for directions and head to the east gate. Outside of the Nobles' Quarters, we see a very humble town, smaller than Ostodos and Ostoum. Someone like Root Lord Ricardo would rule over a town like this.

As the last of the sunlight fades, we reach the wall. It's made from thick red bricks and red mortar. It's imperial, but the walls of the Nobles' Quarters are made of the usual black elven bark-wall.

We see a few soldiers wearing the imperial red, so there's a light imperial presence here. I don't understand why, though. This town may be rather close to Heretic's Rest, but it isn't a land controlled by actual heretics. Perhaps it's a remnant from the aftermath of the secession attempt.

We exit the town and wait in the grass. Klein's Holly saw farms all the way to the horizon, each planting a different crop, creating a wide variety of colors and textures when seen from above. Now, we can only see darkness, so my eyes are drawn to the long line of dotted lights slowly approaching the gates.

Several long minutes pass until we recognize the first people of their group. Rande is driving his personal horse-driven carriage with Klein on the roof, Osaria is peeking out through the window, and Anton is walking beside them. Surrounding them are the usual guards led by Julien, the brown-haired rogue-like man.

Klein finally notices us and jumps off the carriage, then makes a mad dash towards us, turning her into a brown blur. Her "Speed" is pretty high.

I smile at her, but when I look into her eyes, my [Battlefield Perception] triggers. I've seen that kind of gaze before: she's about to tackle me like my dogs did.

"K-Klein, no!" I yell to no effect.

I brace for impact, and in the next second, a brown mass of pure love and energy collides with me.

I crash into something jelly-like, stopping us from falling to the ground, then a pair of large arms wrap around us. Hana has prevented a disaster, then she gives us a bear hug that lifts our feet off the ground.

"I MISSED YOOU~!" She bellows, but we can't say anything in response since all of the air has been forcefully ejected from our lungs by her hug.

Mere seconds before we pass out, Hana lets us down onto our feet. We both gasp and gather our breaths for a short while, then, suddenly, Klein grabs my face and shoves her tongue down my throat.

Her sweet taste, her energetic tongue. Oh, how I've missed her.

Before Hana gets jealous, Klein breaks the kiss so that she can give one to her, too. I see Klein's anguished face as she plays with Hana's tongue. The destruction of the Innocent Nymph must've been gnawing at the back of her mind ever since she heard about it.

"You've both fallen in love with her," Alissa's echoes in my soul space.

"We did…" I admit.

"We already agreed. She'll never only be yours."

"She won't…"

"She's still afraid about getting too involved," Hana says as they break the kiss, then Klein buries her head in Hana's large balloons. "I missed you, too."

I hug Klein from behind, and together with Hana, we crush her with our love. She has a mildly alluring scent of sweat mixed with her faint citric perfume. This pleases me a lot; I've always liked a hard-working woman more than a delicate princess.

"I got really worried…" Klein mutters.

"Sorry about that," I apologize to her.

Her long brown tail wraps around my waist, pulling me closer to her.

"I don't want you to go back to that dungeon…" She mutters again.

"It's still going to take some more time for us to conquer it," Hana says.

"And now, we have an actual reason to go there. We have a promise to fulfill," I say.

Klein nods weakly and pouts like an obstinate child, then we break the hug, and she turns to Yunia. Her pout disappears, and she becomes a little anxious.

"I've heard about you, Miss Klein," Yunia says with a gentle smile.

"I feel for your loss, Dame Yulania," Klein says and bows.

Yunia's smile becomes a bit pained as she says, "I'm just a Blood Slave, so you don't have to bow or call me a Dame."

Klein shakes her head emphatically. "You'll be a Crown Lord one day, so I should at least show you some respect."

"And if you're still interested when that day comes, then I want you to be our knight," I say.

Klein nods and smiles gently. "I will," she says, her voice wavering with emotion.

I pull her into a hug so that I can play with her round, fluffy ears. Alissa comes up and gives a peck on Klein's lips, then the other girls come over to give her a short hug.

"I'm pretty sure that your dragon wasn't anywhere near that big before," Rande comments as his carriage gets closer.

"Eating dungeon monsters seems to be very nutritious for dragons," I reply.

"Uh-huh…" Rande mumbles, sounding a bit skeptical.

"Dungeon monsters are very tasty," Aoi adds.

"What's 'nutritious'?" One of the guards whispers to Julien.

"I have no idea," he whispers back and smiles.

The carriage stops, and Anton, Julien, and the other guards come over to greet us. Anton's giant hand completely encloses mine as we share a handshake, then he grunts in satisfaction.

"I can see that you grew some more. Not your height, I mean, it's just that your eyes are a little more savage," he says.

I raise an eyebrow and look at him oddly, making him bellow out a laugh, then he continues on to greet the others.

Rande hops down from the carriage, then Osaria, Oura, Nito, and Krysta emerge from inside.

We finish greeting the guards. Hana shares a brutal handshake with the two burly soldiers; Ciel has a brief and awkward greeting with Julien; Roxanne shares a wicked grin with the joker; and the elven sisters give me a short hug, pushing me into their modest breasts. Laertes, the husky weredog archer, gives me a small nod as a greeting, then moves on along with the other caravan guards that we aren't familiar with.

Rande comes to greet us next. He gives me a wide smile, forming deep dimples on his tanned face. He appears to be the same mass of muscle as usual, though his armor now seems to be of a much higher quality than before.

"Time only makes us stronger, it seems," Rande says and offers his hand.

"We're still far from our prime," I reply and take it, giving him a strong squeeze that he returns.

His glacial blue eyes gain a hint of wildness to them. "Working together, we'll be able to grow so much more."

I nod, and he releases my hand because there's someone else that's anxiously waiting to greet me.

I walk up to Osaria and hold her soft hand, then interlace my fingers with hers. With my other hand, I hold her cheek and look up into her alluring, red eyes. She gives me a gentle smile, and I pull her face down to mine for a kiss.

I savor her juicy lips, enjoying the sweet taste of her lipstick, then I eagerly search for her tongue. I've missed her dearly, too.

I release her hand and pull her into a hug, squishing her juicy, semi-nude body against mine. Our tongues rub against each other as if they wanted to be joined together forever. Well, I certainly wish for her to remain at my side forever.

Our kiss soon ends, and her droopy eyes stare into mine, brimming with affection and anticipation.

She leans towards my ear and whispers seductively, "Tonight, I want you." Her voice caresses my soul, making my mind spin with ideas -.

I gently suck on her earlobe, and she giggles in delight.

"I'll make sure that you get your fill -" I whisper back.

She licks her lips seductively, and our hug ends, then she immediately goes over to Yunia and hugs her tight.

"My niece. I'm so happy that you're well!" She exclaims, barely holding herself back from becoming overwhelmed with emotion.

"I'm grateful for the mercy that was given to me. I won't squander this second chance," Yunia responds softly.

Osaria stares into her blue eyes, and her face trembles a little with sadness. "I've always held great respect for your father. I don't blame him for banishing us. Rico died as a Wicked in disgrace, as he deserved."

Yunia's lip trembles and she glances at me. She's not using [Mask]. She takes a few seconds to gather her resolve to say, "Father wanted to bring you back, but he never had the courage to do so. Then he started defying the Elder Council, and you escaped from his thoughts."

Osaria shakes her head gently. "I never expected, or wanted, to be allowed back into the castle. After Rico was gone, Rande and I decided to rebuild our lives by ourselves."

Yunia sniffles. "Yet your Thread of Fate is more entwined with ours than we expected."

Osaria touches their foreheads together. "Yes. Fate brought us together, once again."

They hug tightly again for a moment, then they let go so that Rande can greet her.

"Cousin," he says and nods respectfully.

"Cousin," she says in the same tone.

He grins at her. "I've become a lot better with the sword."

She narrows her eyes dangerously, letting him feel the full force of her stern gaze. "You'll never be able to overcome my [Precognition]."

His grin becomes a little wider, and his dimples increase in depth accordingly. "Oh, you learn so many things by fighting all kinds of warriors like I have. I'm sure that we'll have a lot of fun together."

She smiles, and her eyes soften. "I'm sure that I will."

They share a quick hug, then Oura, Nito, and finally Krysta come to greet us. The young trap boy blushes when we share a handshake. His hand is so delicate that I almost can't tell it apart from Lina's. Krysta gives me a light hug, happy to see that everyone is doing well. Oura quickly runs up to Lina and kneels down to hug her.

"We all heard about the Innocent Nymph, so we were very worried about you," Krysta says to me.

I nod at her and say, "We should all go to the same inn to talk."

"That's a given," Osaria says.

"You two can go on ahead, I'll take care of the customs," Rande says to Osaria and Klein.

"Thank you, my love," Osaria responds, then takes our hands and pulls Klein and I forward.

Ciel rolls her eyes, and the girls follow.

"Take us to the best inn in town. I'll pay," I say to Osaria and kiss her hand.

She smiles and wraps my arm around her waist. I motion for Ciel to walk beside me, then wrap my other arm around her, too. I grab a handful of both of their asses and squeeze them lovingly as I lick my lips.

Tonight is going to be a great night.