"My Lord?" Dokkan asks tentatively, and I snap back to reality.
"I'm indisposed. We'll continue later," I announce and walk out of the hall.
Yunia and Ciel excuse themselves from their meeting. Mimi's there, and she's capable enough to negotiate with Oritiki and the few other Chimera aristocrats who want to argue further.
Alissa grabs my hand, and that forces me to calm down since I need to keep some focus on padding the claws that she's tightly grasping onto. With just a simple probe into her thoughts, I immediately get a positive response. She wanted to see precisely this reaction from me. She knows me too well.
I take an [Eternal Gate] to our bedroom and walk out onto the balcony, then I grip the railing with my free hand and crush it.
Just a few moments later, the rest of the girls join us.
I stay silent so that I don't lash out, just waiting until the dragon stops roaring. Over the course of a minute, the boiling rage cools down into "a shower like this would burn" temperature.
"You received both a 'Message' and a Gift. A normal humanoid couldn't have summoned you with that spell," Ciel explains before I even open my mouth.
I get a bit annoyed that they're reading my thoughts so thoroughly, but I can always punish their flowers later. Though, maybe not Hana's since she enjoys that a bit too much.
"He's thinking about 'plowing fields'; he's fine," Roxanne blurts out and giggles.
"I wouldn't recommend engaging in extraneous activities right now," Ted suggests, her tone entirely neutral and clinical.
"Master might seriously hurt the more delicate women," Suzy adds with the same tone.
I get annoyed that I didn't notice the girls talking about me with the golems. The rage can be a bit too all-consuming with a dragon-Palpatine inside my head egging me on.
"You may use me as a rape toy. A soaped sponge will serve as a temporary replacement for a vagina," Jarn suddenly offers herself.
My restless tail immediately freezes in the air as I turn my head to stare at her. "'Rape'?" I ask, completely bewildered.
She nods diligently, and I swear that her tone has a hint of pride in it as she explains, "Some dragons are known to use rape as a stress relief mechanism, and master Wolf has already shown himself to enjoy such a flavor of roleplaying."
"Touché," I give up and look out into the distance again.
"Anyway… it was one of the Gods that brought you here; not even the emperor has the power to give Gifts," Ciel brings the conversation back on track.
"Gih," Gify assures me. The same goes for Gecynd.
"What about the heretics? They have enough power for a [Meteor]," Lina suggests. Her face is stern as she shares some of my anger. She's as protective of me as Alissa, though in a different way.
"If they did, we'd all be dead," Ciel retorts, and her argument kills all others about that.
Seeing that this topic has reached its end, Yunia broaches a different one, "This 'limitation' of your Gift, do you understand it?"
I frown in thought as I go through my memories. "No. Maybe…" I whisper and sigh tiredly. "The first time was after I prayed, asking for strength, and then the limit of my Gift was raised to thirty, allowing me to summon elementals. The second time, it was raised to forty after I met with Gecynd and we had visions of our future, which was when she mentioned the dungeon 'Legado.' And now, this is the third time that the limit has been raised."
"You can see spells up to level fifty, then?"
"Yes. I can add skills as high as my soul can tolerate, so only the spells are limited."
"There doesn't seem to be any predictable pattern to it," Ted observes.
"And since the Gods are thought to control the Gifts…" Suzy alludes.
"It's likely to be completely arbitrary. That is, subject to their judgment," Jarn concludes.
I've missed their synchronized manner of speech. I think it's cute, for some reason.
"And now that you've committed yourself to staying in this realm, the Gods might've deemed that it was time for you to see this spell," Yunia says out loud what we're all thinking.
"It'd have been a terrible temptation if I knew about it sooner," I bitterly admit.
"And what do you want to do, now that you know about it?" Alissa asks, her tone deadly serious with her orange eyes staring intensely at me. For once, none of the girls want to probe my thoughts.
"Nothing. I hate that it exists," I grumble. It's several marriage proposals too late to make me reconsider my life in this world.
"Why?"
Godsdamnit, Ciel is rubbing off on them.
I open my "Magic" tab and stare at the spell's "button" hatefully. "It's a Pandora's Box. There are too many unknowns and hidden dangers for me to even think about studying this spell, but I'm still very curious about it."
Roxanne suddenly chimes in, "[Summoning Magic] is an incomplete magic school, where nobody has even heard about this spell before, so maybe there's a reason why. It also happens quite often from what I was taught: the person who created this magic school died from their experimentation with it. This is clearly a dangerous spell."
"If you are the one saying it's dangerous…" Lina mumbles and leaves the thought in the air because nothing more needs to be said.
We chuckle softly, lightening the mood, then Alissa joins Roxanne and sternly cautions me, "Remember how much mana the Grim Giant took? If you tried to summon a Fay Leviathan, [Heal] might not be enough to save you from death. [Summoning Magic] is full of hidden dangers."
"I could interrupt it," Yunia suddenly proposes.
We all turn to her, and she tries to hide how delightfully smug she feels at our surprise.
"[Disruption Field] could interrupt any spell that isn't instant," she adds, and I hum in wonder.
Alissa sighs and grumbles. Now she understands very well what "Pandora's Box" truly means.
My reservations start to wash away as my researcher's curiosity starts to blossom, and I start to deliberate, "Even if it's an instant-cast spell, I can hold it back for a short time before releasing it, and spells with a high MP cost always take some time to prepare."
"Alright, but why would you even try to cast that spell if you hate it so much?" Hana interjects.
"I want to understand what it does, but…" -my heart suddenly tightens, making me frown confusedly- "but I still feel like it's 'evil,' somehow."
Ciel narrows her eyes in suspicion and asks, "How did you get the idea to raise your [Summoning Magic], specifically, to level fifty?"
"I felt…" I start to think back on it, but then it all strikes me as extremely suspicious. I suddenly had a nearly irresistible "itch" to do something very specific that revealed a mind-blowing spell.
The "itch" didn't seem to come from either my draconic or human side, and now that I think about it, I feel like it was "foreign."
"Did the Gods mess with my head?" I ask Ciel concernedly.
She smiles proudly but feels a little awkward since the Goddess was decidedly not subtle with the way she "guided me." "You have a Blessing from the Goddess of Knowledge, and it kind of fits that she'd 'guide' you towards this spell," she speculates.
"She might've been frustrated that you hadn't noticed it yet and decided to 'help' you," Alissa adds with a wry smile.
Ciel nods in agreement. "You have a rather high 'Piety,' and that makes it easier for the Gods to reach you."
The "evil" feeling suddenly flares up within my heart, so I get Hana to massage my horns because my head is starting to hurt. "Okay, I'm feeling very conflicted about this spell now. I want to study it, but I'm also becoming increasingly fearful about it, and I'm not sure why."
Ciel takes a step forward and caresses my cheek as she gently advises me, "Focus on the feeling that you don't understand and try to find out where it comes from. The influence from the God of Order and Destruction sometimes makes it difficult for the average commoner to interact with the Humanoid Gods when they don't have enough 'Piety.'"
Okay, so the Goddess is messing with my mind. She really just can't not make a mess, so I guess I can't entirely blame her.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
I groan tiredly and start trying to calm my heart. [Bind] makes itself useful again with the girls reaching through it to comfort me. Their vivid memories flourish in my soul space, and they make me melt under Ciel's and Hana's caring touch.
The dragon curls up and goes to sleep while the human has a mind-gasm, and post-mind-nut clarity helps me to focus on the Goddess' influence.
I feel like there's a warning siren blaring inside my mind, and it gradually becomes louder and louder until it's pounding in my head, giving me a headache. I also see red flashing like emergency lights, and it becomes increasingly brighter until all I can see is red. The two senses fuse together into one clear feeling: terror.
Then the eyes of the Unknown open up and stare back at me. They're boundless and infinite, making me seem like not just an ant, but a tasty ant. There's a predator before me, with only a thin barrier separating us.
The spell isn't just 'evil,' it's Wicked. It isn't just "dangerous," it's "I can't even put it on a scale"-dangerous. The person who cast it definitely died because of it.
But can I study it?
The feeling instantly vanishes, leaving me with nothing but empty darkness, then I feel something change within me.
I open my "Status" and discover that my "Piety" has increased by 1 (now 18).
I open my eyes and smile wryly as I say, "I guess that as long as I don't actually cast it, we can study it as much as we want."
We each return to our previous business as if nothing happened, and I take the request from the painter that I don't move as an opportunity to reflect on what we just learned.
A realization strikes me as rather worrying, though. The system automatically gives someone the knowledge for how to cast a spell once their level in the skill reaches the required level, so if I start sharing my knowledge of [Summoning Magic] with the rest of the world, someone, somewhere, at some point in time, might end up stumbling upon [Bind] and [Otherwordly Summoning].
If this spell is as dangerous as the Goddess of Knowledge thinks, then shit's bad.
It seems like this magic school took a turn towards somewhere pretty dangerous after [Summon Monster], for some reason, but nobody knows much about it, so we might be the only living people who are even aware of these spells.
Following the researcher's line of thought, he might have eventually tried to create a spell like [Divine Summoning], or something like that. Lina says that there's already a spell called [Divine Descent] in the [Light Magic] school, so it's not like it's 100% impossible.
A brilliant idea suddenly lights up inside my head. The system gives out the most commonly used form of the spell, which is usually the safest, so if we "alter" the spell into a safer version, then we effectively remove the dangerous spells from the skill. This might be the real reason why the Goddess "guided" me towards this spell.
Wait… this can't be the reason that I was brought to this world, can it? Or maybe there's someone else who, in the future, might stumble upon this spell and cause a doomsday scenario, and I was brought here to stop it…
I focus on myself, but no other "guidance" is provided for me. There also isn't a sense of danger or urgency aside from the warning to not finish casting the spell, so I'm not entirely sure about the "doomsday" theory. And it fails to neatly explain why all the other crazy things have happened surrounding me, so I drop it.
Our preparations for the Ceremony are almost done, anyway, so we can afford to do a little experimentation with [Disruption Field] to test the waters.
Alissa's protectiveness wants me to not touch the spell with even a ten-metri pole, but since it apparently came from divine guidance, she's feeling very conflicted about it.
Ciel and Roxanne agree with the idea to test [Otherworldly Summoning], but only after they deem the safety measures to be good enough, and they want more than just [Disruption Field] as an assurance that the spell won't trigger.
I think we can use emellanat shackles and [Spirit Magic] alongside the Field to ensure interruption, but what's actually starting to concern me is how much these measures will hurt. [Mana Body] means that all these things will affect me too, so we also have to make sure that I don't die from having my heart "interrupted," or something like that.
The painter finishes his portrait of me, but I remain seated on my throne, deep in thought until someone comes in, sent by Osaria. It's an elven designer, and she wants to talk about our heraldry.
I turn my eyes to the mature elven woman, and she seems to hold her breath when I look her in the eye.
"Greetings, Tista, I'm Wolf Ryder. This matter will require my wives to be present, too, so we'll talk about it later," I respond sympathetically, and Tista nods in understanding, but her wide eyes make her look like a puppy, so I decide to entertain her a bit. "How about you start presenting me with some ideas, instead?"
She brightens up and nods repeatedly, then clears her throat awkwardly as she blushes.
I smile like a wolf before a herd of sheep and decide to change seats, moving over to her sofa so that we aren't so far apart.
She flinches when I sit down, and covers half of her face with her drawing board, as if she wanted to hide behind it.
I wait for a moment in silence, then press her, "Well, then?"
"Y-yes!" She squeaks, then scoots closer and starts drawing examples with a magic pen.
Osaria chose Tista because she's discreet, but I think that she's simply too shy to blabber about us.
Her thin, delicate hands show a high "Dexterity," forming complex drawings with such ease that it actually annoys me. I never forgot how bad my grades were in Art class, and this woman reminds me of how un-artistic I am.
As a completely new noble family, we don't have any previous symbols to build upon, so the most obvious choice for us would be to choose a motif that best represents our family. In our case, it's quite clear what it should be about: dragons.
There are multiple elements that compose the full heraldry. The most important is the flag, where the colors of the house and its main symbol are represented; there's the rallying standard, a ceremonial banner or symbol that's a more ornate version of the flag; then there's the seal, used for official documents and missives, which has a small symbol and sometimes a motto; the achievements book, which is used to record the Titles gained, special skills, battles won, rare monsters killed, and the Lord's level before death; there's the lineage tapestry, where only the Lords and their direct Descendants are depicted; and there's the noble composition, a piece of painted artwork where all the symbols are combined into one beautiful picture.
All of these elements can be styled and physically represented as we wish, but it's required of us as new Lords to have an official drawn version of them for record-keeping.
Tista speaks with energy even though her overall demeanor is still shy, which shows just how much she really loves talking about heraldry. She reveres the prestige of all the symbols surrounding nobility, and it's heart-warming to see someone sharing their love for something so earnestly.
I soften my gaze and try to engage with her, which helps her relax. She's just like Lina was when she was still an innocent, shy little angel.
Lina's gloomy, wounded pout appears in my soul space, and I chuckle internally. Of course, she's still my little angel, but there's just no way that she's "innocent" anymore.
I scoot closer to Tista and increase the intensity of my staring at her just a bit to push her back into "prey mode" again.
We're now so close to each other that our arms almost touch, and her gentle perfume smells like a fine meal being served before me.
I hear her breath gradually speed up as her face flushes. The meat is almost done and ready to be eaten.
Her discomposure builds up so high that she suddenly loses her train of thought and becomes completely distracted by my scales. "I-I can see my reflection…" She breathes in wonder.
I lower my tone, giving it a bit of a alluring rumble. "A dragon's scales always represent something. Do you know what mine are?"
"No…"
"They're made of Okross, the unbreakable metal." I wave my scales, and she flinches in surprise. "And they're so sharp that you can cut yourself just by touching them."
Her long, thin finger moves to touch my scales, but she hesitates. "They're beautiful."
"Go on, touch them," I encourage her warmly.
She cutely bites her thin lip and finally touches it gingerly with her fingers, her mouth open in amazement just like a thirsty succubus would when she sees my dragonator armed and ready for action.
She tries to feel the edge of a scale, but I've removed the padding, so she cuts herself and winces in pain. She pulls her hand away, but I grab it with my (padded) claws and hold it in place.
I stare at her with gentle eyes as I open my mouth and take her cut finger in.
My tongue rubs over her wound as I use a bit of my spirit touch, and I feel the (surprisingly delicious) taste of her blood, then I cast a [Heal] through my tongue, and a sexy moan escapes her lips.
Her mouth trembles, but she's too stunned to say anything. She remains entranced by my eyes as I suck on her finger and give her a small taste of real pleasure.
With perfect timing, Alissa enters the hall since the artists have already finished with her.
I remove Tista's finger from my mouth and put it inside her own so that she may taste my saliva.
She remains frozen for a second longer until she sees Alissa approaching, which makes her wake up and try to hide her wet finger, and then she looks around in a panic, searching for an exit, but Alissa's gentle smile sets her at ease.
Alissa sits down on her other side and lays a hand on her bare thigh, which is exposed by her thin elven dress with its many fashionable holes, then I lay my clawed hand on her other thigh.
The shy elf looks back and forth between us, still slightly fearful, but not enough that she wants to run away anymore.
Alissa sports her best seductive look and gives Tista's thigh a gentle squeeze as she offers, "Would you like to have tea with us somewhere more private?"
The mature woman is too flustered to speak, but she nods vigorously.
Dokkan doesn't need me to be present for this part of her work, so we lead the designer to our bedroom balcony.
The sight of our beds makes her start to seize up from the anxiety, so we get her to talk about heraldry again to help her relax.
I'm kind of miffed that it won't actually make sense for us to put in a wolf somewhere. The damn Gods just had to make me into a damn dragon instead of a damn werewolf, but I guess "Ryder" can still be referenced.
We want to show the influence from all of the girls in our heraldry, so we look at the quirks that the heraldry from other races tend to have.
Imperial Lords like to write their achievements in murals and draw extremely detailed borders, while dwarven Lords enjoy depicting their achievements with epic carvings, so we might go for the dwarven style while keeping the imperial borders.
While we can dedicate a corridor to making murals about our achievements, we don't have much in that department yet, so they won't be too extensive for now.
Werefox Lords enjoy adding cute little drawings into all elements of their heraldry, making their tapestries the most beautiful you can find by far, so we'll put ours in the main hall, replacing the huge family portrait above the door to the Hub Room. They also like to carve their pillars with these drawings, and that's something that our Nature mages might love doing all over the castle.
Dragonkin Lords love spiky rally standards, so ours will be in that style. They'll be carried by our troops into battle, making them one of the first things that the enemy sees when they face our front line, so their design must be menacing to intimidate them.
Rabanarian Lords are very reserved, so there isn't much influence from Ciel's background in that regard. If we consider her as Sommerlande instead, then we could use vibrant colors, but that's still a "meh" reference.
Since she's a priestess before being a Rabanarian, we could add a religious motto to our seal as a reference to her.
Elven Lords love their family trees, which is clearly evident from all the statues of past Lords in the main hall of the castle, though they're more concerned with achieving celebrity status among the commoners by plastering their faces on the Shell for all to see. For the depiction of the lineage tapestry, we could use an actual (drawn) tree where the leaves are the faces of our ancestors, though it will be mostly empty for now.
Succubi Lords have a tendency to prominently display the "body count" (i.e. how many people they've plowed) of their Lords, which might be something we do just for me. They also love phallic imagery, so I'm sure that we can add some of those in somewhere, like in our composition.
Tista loosens up and lets out high-pitched giggles as we talk about all the different motifs we want to add to our heraldry. The idea of having a literal penis as a rallying banner sends her into a fit of laughter, and she relaxes so much that she starts to play with my scales as we discuss draconic motifs.
Alissa and I share a look. The seasoning is complete, and it's just about time for my meal. Ciel and Yunia are still stuck in their meeting, so we have some time to burn.