Earth-Lina goes back to get the rest of our clothes, and I summon two more so that they can help us get dressed.
Our cuddle puddle is centered on Ciel since everyone wants a piece of her. Lina stays on her lap while I hug her from behind with some thick, long tentacles. I can't safely use my hands just yet, so this'll have to do for now. I'm also feeling a bit lonely, so I make sure that I'm touching all of the girls with the tentacles to appease my thirst for skinship.
After our emotions die down a bit, and the tears stop pouring out, Roxanne asks Ciel the question that's on everyone's minds, "So… didn't you… die?"
"She's definitely alive," Yunia immediately states.
Ciel looks down and hugs Lina tighter as she goes through her memories. She finally speaks after a short while with a wistful voice, "I remember getting swallowed by the slime, but after that, my vision went dark, and I felt as if I were just sleeping for a long time… then I dreamt about Macht and woke up here."
"It was a test. Arreira was playing with our feelings again," Lina somberly adds and frowns angrily, casting a shadow upon her pretty face.
Roxanne calmly examines me and speculates, "You looked as if you were wasting away when we met you in the tunnels, and since you're back to how you were before, I'm fairly certain that it was all just some sort of illusion or dream."
We all accept that as the most likely explanation. There's no way that Ciel would've been so easily "revived," otherwise.
Ciel sighs and pats Lina's head. "We'll just have to ask the Dungeon Master, then."
We all hum in agreement, then their attention turns to me.
"So, what happened to you?" Alissa asks worriedly. She gently grabs one of my draconic hands and inspects it.
"I don't know… I honestly don't know…" I mutter dejectedly.
Alissa fiddles with one of the mirror-like scales and cuts her delicate fingers on the edge. They're extremely sharp.
I grab her fingers and give them a kiss as I cast [Heal].
"That looks like a malformed transformation," Aoi confidently states.
Alissa gives her a confused look. "How do you know…? Ah, right, you were a woman when we first saw you, and that wasn't an illusion, correct?"
Aoi nods excitedly and gives us a toothy grin as she narrates, "I was stuck somewhere and wanted really badly to become human, so I enveloped my body with my mana organ and forced the transformation. I failed horribly, and my entire body became deformed, but the gray platform healed me completely, so I tried again and again until I succeeded.
"Wolfy's new look is like my half-successful attempts, when something changed, but not everything. But those attempts hurt so much that I cried, so I don't know how he's so normal." And she gives me a curious look.
Through [Bind], we get a vague idea of what Aoi went through as she lets her feelings pour through the connection, and it really wasn't pleasant.
I flex my fingers in thought and even manage to make my scales twitch. "It doesn't hurt, though it does feel weird and sluggish to move," I casually respond with a shrug, then something dawns on me. "Oh… I do remember feeling a horrible pain after I met with the shining black tiger."
Alissa knits her eyebrows in thought and requests, "Wolfy, give me [Sense Soul]." I obey, and she looks intensely at my arms. "When I transform, my soul doesn't change, but it seems like Wolfy's did, so I think he's more like Hana than me, now."
"Nice!" Hana shouts and gives me a painful slap on the back. "Did your sword change, too?"
I look down and make it twitch. "Well, no, but I'm feeling something strange…"
I open my "Status" and discover that I have two new skills: [Dragon Transformation] and [Mana Body], both of which are "innate." The latter seems to have replaced [Mana Genitals], but the skill is only at level one.
"The hell is [Mana Body]?" I question out loud, then Alissa, Yunia, and Roxanne raise their eyebrows in surprise at the same time.
"That's a really rare skill," Roxanne excitedly comments before the others can recover.
"Is it… good?" I ask, frowning worriedly.
Roxanne adjusts her glasses and starts lecturing me, "Everything magical will be easier for you, but you'll also be more vulnerable to magic. You could potentially sustain yourself with just mana, but that's extremely inefficient mana-wise, so it's easier to just use [Conjure Bland Meal]. You'll be able to increase your physical stats similarly to [Spirit of Gaia], but you don't have the passive bonus of [Stonebody]. I recommend that you never touch emellanat again, though."
"Sounds nice…?" I say tentatively.
"I could potentially kill you with [Disruption Field]," Yunia soberly states, making us all frown worriedly.
"Well, shit…" I mutter, then I sigh and try to massage my temples, but my claws hit my horns, and I curse under my breath. "How… difficult would that be?"
"It's like an inverse interruption battle. If our 'Magic Power' is equal, then it's nearly impossible for me to kill you, but if you're trapped by someone moderately more powerful than you…"
I feel a slight chill run through me. A [Gate] scrubber is already a death sentence for me, but now I'll have one more thing to worry about. "Can I develop a resistance to it?"
She narrows her pretty blue eyes in thought. "Not sure, but that's a possibility…"
Alissa interjects, "The more powerful mages or Lords learn this skill to help them when their bodies start to decay from old age, so I'm sure they've developed countermeasures for that."
"We could ask the mages of our court," Yunia adds reassuringly, but she immediately frowns in concern. "If there's anyone left…"
I scratch my horn awkwardly, not entirely convinced. "Well, there are many 'innate'-type skills that I can't see, so maybe someone created a skill for that…" -I get an idea that gives me hope- "Oh! Is it reversible?"
Yunia smiles gently and nods. "Yes. I believe the Chimeras are the true experts in this field, so they should be able to tell us more."
I sigh in relief, and Aoi chuckles when she sees my tail starting to sway. "We're not so different anymore," she happily says.
I use [Sense Soul] on her and see something amazing.
Soul Info
Name:AoiLevel:1Race:Azurite DragonHP:200MP1,250MP300
Strength18Endurance22
"Dwarven beard!" Ciel exclaims once I show everyone what I'm seeing.
"Oh…? Oh! I forgot about that…" Aoi mumbles, then starts laughing heartily.
"How… could you forget something important as this?!" I exclaim, exasperated.
Her tail sways as she gives me a subtle amused look. "Well, losing [Bind] was so painful that I forgot about everything for a while."
A bucket of cold water pours over me. "Oh…" Then I remember a weird dream that makes me feel a bit confused.
"Can you show us once again how you look?" Roxanne asks, almost salivating.
Aoi nods and immediately starts to glow, then her body becomes thinner, and the drop-dead gorgeous woman from before takes her place.
"Hot damn," I sigh in amazement.
Roxanne extends a hand and caresses Aoi's ethereally perfect skin, trembling with barely contained excitement. "Wolfy's sword…" She mutters under her breath, using my friend as an idiom. "Can I kiss you?"
I whip a tentacle at her hand, making her yelp, and forcing her to pull it back, then she rubs the reddened skin and pouts at me.
I look around with narrowed eyes and an imperious expression. "I claim all of Human-Aoi's first times. Nobody is to touch her before me," I announce, then I lay my eyes on the blue-haired beauty.
She's exquisite. Another Goddess to stand among her sister-wives. Her body was painstakingly crafted by herself, using all she knew about cuteness and allure to forge the perfect vessel for my dragonator.
Hana crosses her arms and stares intensely at Aoi's pink, delicious bits. "Couldn't you have given yourself a bigger pair?"
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"Dragons don't have them," Aoi innocently replies.
"Yeah, but… y,ou know?" Hana eloquently argues.
Aoi gently touches her soft, small chest. "This is who I am in human form. I didn't choose this shape the way you think I did."
"It's possible to change your transformed self through diligent mental exercise, but not everyone can do it," Alissa quickly lectures.
"Hm…" Hana hums in understanding and rubs her chin as she scans Aoi's body up and down, then she snaps her fingers and turns to me. "Oh, right. What about you, Wolfy? Didn't you say that you're a 'Weredragon,' now? Can you change into one for us?"
The eyes of the girls gleam at the idea, though not all of them would admit to it. They quickly make plenty of room, and I feel a bit lonely for a moment as my tentacles stop touching them.
I search inside my soul space for a while, then I find the new "button," and it seems to be just begging to be pressed, which I happily oblige.
Every single muscle feels as if it's being flexed, then an uncomfortable amount of pressure is applied all over my skin as it starts to glow, followed by the weirdest feeling I've ever felt. It's as if I were being licked with a bumpy tongue across every single part of my body, even inside my flesh.
My posture changes, and it becomes hard to remain sitting, so I go down on all fours. My arms shorten, and my legs bend, then I feel two new limbs emerging out of my back, my wings.
The girls start to become bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and…
Wait…
Giant-Alissa squeals, then she scoops me up into her arms and hugs me tight. "Wolfy, Wolfy, Wolfy, WOLFY! WHY ARE YOU SO CUTE?! HNNGHHHH! I WANT TO SMOTHER YOU!" She shouts and spins around while squishing me against her chest. I keep my claws clenched so that I won't accidentally cut her.
"I-I want to hold him!" Ciel pleads and tries to stop Alissa.
"NO! Wait your turn!" She shoots back, then rubs her face against my snout. "Ow!" She yelps as my pointy horns stab her cheek so deeply that they draw blood.
I extend one claw and cast [Heal] on her.
After Alissa gets her fill, the girls pass me around so that everyone can get a turn. I keep myself stiff while they play with my body, both too nervous and too embarrassed to react, but I do enjoy it very much when they pat me. I also need to keep my mind focused on my draconic shape, otherwise, I feel like I'll shift back into a human… well, Weredragon.
Wait, does Alissa call her normal shape "human"?
"No, we just call it 'normal,'" she reads my mind, literally.
I've gained a few more spikes along my back, which is a masculine trait for dragons, making Aoi and Hana really excited about getting pounded by my huge, spiky, dragonator… when I manage to level up the skill enough to grow a bit larger.
Something tells me that this is a really bad time to get horny, so everyone contributes through [Bind] to extinguish the flames of draconic desire flaring inside us.
It's too tiring to stay in this form for long, so I eventually change back and return to cuddling with everyone.
"Awn…" Ciel moans sadly. "You reminded me of when Aoi was small and cuter."
"Hey, I'm still very cute," Aoi protests.
"Hehehe… baby Wolfy…" Alissa mumbles and giggles girlishly.
Hana clears her throat awkwardly and excitedly announces, "Well, it isn't as cool as what happened to you guys, but I learned how to do this."
She activates [Draconic Body], and her entire fist glows for a second, then it gets covered in thick brown leathery skin and emerald scales. It's like a gauntlet, but it fits her perfectly, allowing her fingers to move with much more dexterity than they'd have with normal armor.
"Wow…" We whisper in unison. Those scales are shiny… but mine seem shinier.
"Hey! Don't brag!" Hana angrily exclaims and gives me a fearsome glare, but I just smirk at her.
"So, can you cover your entire body with it?" Roxanne curiously asks and inspects Hana's hand.
"Nope," Hana happily answers, and Roxanne rolls her eyes. "I can only do this for a minute or so, but I also feel like it's boosting my 'Stats.'"
"Oh…" We coo in wonder.
"I actually punched a [Meteor] with this and survived," she proudly states and thumps her chest, making her balloons jiggle.
I blink blankly and ask, "Wait, what?"
Ciel cups her cheek so hard it makes a slapping sound, and she exclaims, "Ah! So that's why you were covered in burns when we found you."
Lina slaps her forehead and lets her little mouth hang open in surprise. "That's so stupid! Why would you do that?!"
Hana shrugs and laughs. "That was my trial. I just did what the Dungeon Master wanted."
I feel like something's off, so I probe her mind and examine the memory of her punching the [Meteor]. Just before she hit the spell, it halved its own size so that she wouldn't be blown into a red paste.
"Holy shit, you'd have died if the spell didn't purposely become smaller," I chastise her.
She raises her hands, showing me her palms in a gesture of non-aggression. "Hey, hey, hey. Didn't we agree that the trials were all in a dream, or something?"
Yunia snorts and concurs, "Yes, it was most likely all a dream… but you could've tested it beforehand with something smaller than a Godsdamned [Meteor]."
Hana is unfazed as she retorts, "Everyone already knows I'm dumb. The trial was just a bad match for me, so we should blame the Dungeon Master."
"Nah, we can blame both of you," I quip and smirk.
"Screw you, then. I mean, I do want to plow you, but I also want you to plow yourself," she harshly states, then she starts chuckling with a dark tone as she grins evilly. "The best thing about this is that it removed my 'Enhanced' skills, so I have quite a few free points to level up [Draconic Body]. I'll be damn invincible soon enough!"
Roxanne grabs her hand and gives her a fake smile as she deadpans, "I feel safer just from hearing that."
Hana narrows her eyes dangerously, trying to determine if she's being made fun of or not. She probes Roxanne's mind and immediately tries to grab her, but Roxanne was waiting for that and jumps backward, then she uses her wings to float away and up out of reach.
"I'm going to do you first!" Hana shouts and summons her wings, but we stop her with [Bind] because she's dead serious about doing it right here, right now.
"There's someone waiting for us behind the last door," Alissa soberly announces, and the two mischievous little kids stop playing around.
"Well, it seems that the rest of us didn't gain anything significant, but I don't think any of our trials were easy," Ciel gently says as she rises to her feet, then she looks around, giving each of us an angelic smile. "I'd like to talk with everyone about what we went through, but first, I think we need to talk to the person behind that door."
We all turn to it and hear a click as the door unlocks and opens just a crack, unleashing an uncomfortably bright ray of light upon our sensitive eyes.
Ciel casts [Heal] on each of us, which helps a lot to get our eyes used to the brightness.
"Our sensitivity to light is evidence that we've been 'asleep' for a long time," Yunia whispers, and we all agree.
We stand up and walk towards the door, our muscles strong enough now that we don't need the assistance of earth-Lina anymore.
The fact that I named the earth elemental "earth-Lina" worries my little dwarf while also warming her heart. She's really unsure about how she should take it.
I grab the handle of the door and push it open, revealing a huge elven office. There's a golden carpet in front of us, flanked by dozens of statues, fountains, springs, and rivulets. Birds are bathing in the fountains, Gatuns are sleeping on the grass, owls are sitting on the statues, and frogs are hiding in the rivulets. The sound of running water whispers in our ears along with the occasional purr of the huge, totally harmless cats.
The carpet leads to a set of comfy chairs made of leaves, which are all facing the huge tree-throne where an impossibly beautiful elf stares at us with a bored face. My heart starts beating faster as if I were in love, but my mind clearly tells me that I'm looking at a very manly man.
His face looks chiseled like the statue of a Greek God. His golden hair is styled in drills, just like Yunia's, but his lack femininity, their stiffness giving the impression of a crown. However, his actual crown consists of three sets of tall, pure-white, and pointy antlers arranged in a circle.
He's wearing dozens of loose sheets of golden silk with beautiful silver embroidery, and they cover most of his skin, but the narrow openings reveal a perfectly sculpted and very muscular body.
Without even opening his mouth, he speaks directly into our ears, almost giving us an "eargasm" in the process. "Do my eyes deceive me? Have you all finally stopped chattering and decided to grace me with your oh, so, divine presence?" He flippantly asks, then leans forward, rustling the leaves cushioning his throne, and rests his chin on his hand.
His voice is impossibly alluring, making me question myself for a split second, then my tail stiffens and stands straight up as draconic rage starts to boil within me, immediately counteracting his ridiculously high "Charisma."
"He's dead, he's a spirit," Yunia solemnly tells us through [Bind].
"The Dungeon Master," Ciel whispers worriedly.
"Arreira," Lina finishes, her voice dripping with bitterness.
"After everything you've done to us, yes, we deserve some private time together," I retort and give him a fake smile, mirroring his tone because I feel like standing up to him right now.
His tone goes flat as he says, "Let me remind you all that each and every one of you agreed to go through these trials."
"Wait, what?" I reflexively ask, and we're all taken aback.
Before we can properly respond, we're all overtaken by a strong feeling of deja vu as we remember a dream we had. We don't remember when we had it, but… we all had such a similar dream that it's impossible for it to just be a coincidence.
"Ah… the golems! Where are they?!" I shout, filled with hope, and take a step forward.
Arreira waves his hand, and the three golems appear before us. "Interesting conversational partners, if anything," he dully comments.
We run across the carpet, and the golems meet us halfway.
"Greetings, Masters," the three of them say in unison with a higher pitch than usual.
Are they trying to sound excited?
I ignore that thought and hug Ted while Ciel goes for Suzy, and the rest of us crowd around Jarn.
Yunia's twin is now complete, with her steel skin shining and polished like a mirror, elven patterns adorning most of her visible skin, and a durable-looking elven bikini hiding her lewdest parts.
"How are you, Ted? How was your time here with Arreira?" I gently ask my teddy doll and pat her with my tentacles.
She raises her head and extends her cute little arms towards me, so I pull her closer, and she wraps them around my neck. "We've missed you, Master." -My heart tightens even though I know she's saying it specifically to comfort me- "And we've finished our mission. We've entertained Arreira, learned as much as possible from him, and trained when time allowed, all so that we could serve you better."
Arreira's voice temporarily breaks me out of our precious moment, lighting a small flame of anger inside me as he comments, "I may not be a great teacher, but the golems are extremely 'dense' students. I don't think they've learned much in comparison to what a humanoid student could've in the same amount of time."
I snuff out my anger and hug Ted so tightly that I feel the steel skeleton under her fluffy skin.
Ted's voice becomes more monotone, and she loosens her hug. "I apologize, Master. We lack creativity, which greatly slowed down our learning."
"It's fine, it's all fine… I'm proud of you three," I whisper reassuringly, and pat her head a bit harder, then I snap my head towards Arreira. "Gify?" I ask, hopeful.
*Pop!*
"Gih!" The cheeky little griffin appears in front of me, and her familiar presence settles into the back of my mind again.
I start chuckling and hold back my tears, then I pass Ted to Lina and snatch Gify from the air with my tentacles, which I promptly use to smother her.
"I really missed you…" I whisper gently.
Gify struggles and squeezes through my mass of tentacles like a cat, then her head pops out, and she gives me a smug grin. "Gih!"
I pout and squeeze her tighter, almost making her eyes bulge out. "Screw you. I really do love you…"
*Pop!* *Pop!* Gify reappears on top of my head and starts making a nest out of my hair. "Gih…" She chirps tenderly and goes to sleep. We're all so overwhelmed with emotions right now that Alissa will let this slide, but only this one time.
I sigh in relief as things start to make sense again, then I shoot a subtle glare at Arreira as I recollect my memories "So, I… lent you the golems? And we agreed to go through the trials?"
He nods, still bored, and answers in a monotone, "Precisely. It may seem like a dream, but that's just a side-effect of your short-term memories being wiped. We'd met a few times before that, but they were such brief meetings that you might've completely forgotten about them."
This leaves us feeling very conflicted about how to take all of this. Alissa, Lina, and I have the greatest amount of hate for Arreira, but we also remember that we agreed to go through these trials, so we can't place all of the blame on him for the pain we went through.
He sighs and sits up straight, then his handsome face becomes serious. Almost as if he's reading our minds, he calmly states, "Whatever you might feel about me doesn't matter. You've all passed, and now it's time to go over your evaluations."