After retrieving the mana crystals from the goblins Neri killed, which wasn't hard considering their head was either smashed open or turned to mush, we discuss what our formation should be and proceed to head toward the next floors to find stronger enemies to test things out.
We encounter a pair of goblins and quickly finish them off before found the familiar wooden door with a metal frame, signifying the entrance to the boss room connecting to the next floor.
Repeating the same tactic as last time, I send out a ball of light in the front to illuminate our path. As we enter further into the narrow cave that only allows for four people to walk side by side, Neri switches to her shield and hammer for close-quarter combat.
Suddenly, a piercing sound ring out from ahead before witnessing two arrows flying out from the dark toward my ball of light. I immediately form an ice shield and send the light down further to the source.
With the light illuminating further in, we spot a group of goblins consisting of two archers, four spearmen, and the leader in ragged leather armor with a rusted sword.
Seeing our target, we speed up our approach and charge towards them under the cover of my ice shield and Neri's iron shield while Faris takes cover behind us.
Once we closed the distance, I send my ice shield flying and Neri shield bashes the closest goblin to her. Faris takes the opening we create to enter their lines and rushes straight to their archers.
Against these ill-equipped goblins, it doesn't take long before we finish them off.
That was a bit rough but at least we didn't get in each other's way while fighting.
We reach the end and find the Weycorus statue to the second floor.
On the second floor, the difficulty doesn't change much, prompting us to focus on rushing to the next floor as we easily make short work of the goblins without needing much teamwork.
"Master, we should take a break," Faris whispers to me after having finished collected the mana crystals from our freshly killed prey.
I look over at her questioningly, trying to figure out if she is hurt or feeling unwell as she shouldn't be tired after fighting something of this degree. In response, she only looks over to Neri.
With Neri not being very vocal, I haven't noticed that her breathing is starting to get rough as she stands still trying to minimize her movements to catch her breath.
Damn, I should've noticed earlier, I still have a lot to learn about being the leader of a party.
"Let's take a break before continuing, it's not like we're in a hurry." I loudly declare.
Neri quickly moves over to sit down and lean back against a tree without a word while Faris and I walk over to join her.
"Huff...our party's pace is certainly fast. Don't you need a break to recover mana, master?" Neri speaks out after having caught her breath.
"Master can keep going almost all day." Before I can respond, Faris answers for me in a matter of fact tone with some pride behind it.
Neri stares over at me with that reply but remains quiet as if in deep thought.
That's right, your master is awesome isn't he? Admire your master as much as you like.
"Then... if it was just the two of you before with a dexterity enhancer and a mage that doesn't need rest, you guys must have collected over a hundred mana crystals a day!" Neri exclaims as if she thought of something amazing.
"We usually average about 200 a day if we hunt in the more densely populated fourth floor," I explain.
"WHAT!? 200 A DAY!?" Neri suddenly outbursts, a bit out of character compared to her usual self.
"Hm? That's right."
I answer back a bit confused while Neri looks over to the nonchalant Faris for confirmation.
"What's the matter, Neri?"
"What's the matter? The matter is I can't believe you guys hunted 200 mana crystals every day, that's 200 you know, 200 kills on monsters. The average parties should get about 60 to 70 a day given the difficulty and monster density of this dungeon, maybe about twenty percent more or so if they focused solely on hunting instead of progressing. But you guys triple that!"
Were we that amazing? I didn't think we were that much stronger than other adventurers from what I've seen. Definitely still within normal ranges and not the type that screams, we have triple efficiency of the average adventurer party.
"Really? I didn't think we would be earning THAT much more than the other parties." I say while looking over at Faris, questioning if she knew.
"Errr... I don't really know much about the average adventurer party, master. Maybe I wasn't paying attention back at the slave trader's place, I was entirely focused on training to become stronger... I did know that master is amazing though." Faris guiltily answers while trying to make herself smaller.
"Sigh... It's probably because master is a mage that is an anomaly that doesn't need to recover mana and also acts as the frontline. Combine that with a dexterity enhancer that can recover their stamina quickly in between battles, you guys can just bulldoze your way through without stopping. It may be fine on the lower floors but you should stop that method from now on, and not only because I will need rest."
"Then why?" I can't help but interrupt to ask.
"You may have noticed it by now, after taking breaks in between battles, monsters become harder to find. That's because they sensed the battle and bloodshed and they may have already gone over to investigate and found traces of an unknown threat, scaring them off from the area. If you continue on without rest like you've been doing on the later floors, you'll be swarmed by monsters one after the other and it can become dangerous."
"So we were doing something dangerous... Was how we operate really that different from other adventurers?"
"Yes! The frontline members are usually strength enhancers that wield and tug heavy equipment around while fighting like me, which means we will need rest much more often and for longer periods of time compared to dexterity enhancers. Normal mages will also need to rest often to recover mana so that leaves dexterity enhancers to go scout ahead and be on the lookout while the party rests."
Neri has really gotten more talkative with us when there is no one else around, I'm glad.
"I'm sorry Neri, I didn't mean to work you so hard and put us in danger, please feel free to let me know next time if you need a break."
Neri nods at my words. Her face is a little red, it must be hot to be fighting in that armor, I'll make sure she stays hydrated from now on!
After a fifteen-minute break, we continue aiming to reach the next floor. There isn't that many monsters like I normally see after the break, did the nearby goblins notice the scent of blood of their comrades and ran away or something while we rested just like Neri said?
At least this will conserve Neri's stamina. I should really start getting used to this slower pace from now on, I can't push my companions and expect them to keep up. I'll need their strength in top condition once we face stronger monsters.
---
It is around noon that we finally found and cleared the boss room to the third floor, the guardians were easily swept away once we got close and their arrows couldn't even pose a threat to us with our armor, we would have to let our guard down pretty hard to fail.
"Just about time, let's stop here and head out for lunch."
With my lead, the three of us exit the dungeon and start heading towards this not-ramen place that I've taken a liking to.
Looking around while we walk to our destination, it's apparent that there has been quite a decrease in adventurers around the area. They must've all went to take on requests from the guild to take advantage of the opportunity while the kingdom is at war, just like Lawrence said.
The entire atmosphere can still be considered lively but it has definitely dropped down a notch or two.
The only commotion I see is some young guys arguing about something while one chased the other. The only reason I even noticed is because of their hair color, it's black just like mine, it surprisingly stands out among the myriad of colors in this world.
Arriving at the not-ramen place, I found a piece of reassuring news, the ramen is on discount, only 25 copper coins per bowl! Hey, even though it may only be a few coins, taking advantage of discounts still makes me feel gratified no matter what world I'm in.
After having lunch, we resume our dungeon diving straight from where we left off, the third floor.
Just like before, we don't plan to idle on this floor as we focus on searching for the door leading to the boss room. To save time, we only hunt down the monsters in our way and ignore all the others we find in the distance.
Following Faris's lead, we are able to leisurely stroll across the forest without having to worry about traps so before we knew it, we cleared the third floor and have found the door leading onto the fifth floor.
"Let's take a break before entering, assuming the boss monster is the same, we'll be fighting with that annoying giant demon wolf again."
"Yes, master." Both my slave's voice overlaps.
Having gotten used to it, Faris and Neri proceed to find a safe place to sit down and monitor our surroundings.
We've been taking breaks after every three or four encounters so our pace is completely different than before but we still are able to reach the boss room on the fourth floor thanks to how easy is it for us to bypass goblins and their simple traps.
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We take the spare time to discuss our strategy against the large demon wolf we will be facing as this will likely be our new default strategy against large monsters for now.
Once we are ready, we open the large wooden doors with the Weycorus tree engraved on it and walk down the narrow corridor after my ball of light.
As I expected, the narrow pathway ends and connects us to a much wider room, as if we just entered into the base of a bottle through the bottleneck.
Knowing what is to come, I ready an ice shield as we move into positions in the formation we planned, with Faris in the back and Neri near me.
"AWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
A loud howl echoes within the cave as something walkout from within the shadows, evidently something large judging from the slight vibrations from its steps.
Once I am able to make out its figure, I quickly cast an ice lance at it and draw its attention.
The figure moves agilely and dodges to the side and starts charging over at me as its figure becomes more clear to us once illuminated by my light.
Yep, the same as last time. An oversized wolf standing at five-meter tall with dark fur and bright yellow eyes.
Having been provoked by my attack, the wolf charges straight at me without hesitation as I bring my ice shield in between us before I start casting on another spell.
The wolf tries to crush ice shield with its strong jaws only to suddenly stiffen and come to a stop after making contact with my shield through his teeth.
I cast an electric current to run through my shield so the moment it made contact, the wolf is paralyzed from my electric magic.
"Now!" I yell out.
As if knowing even before my signal, the two girls take advantage of the opportunity and launch out their attack. Faris jumps out to aim for the eyes while Neri winds up to slam her war hammer into one of its legs.
But before their attacks connect, the wolf regains control of his body and swiftly roll off to the side, dodging both their attacks.
Damn, I guess the electric current wasn't strong enough after passing through the ice.
The wolf warily keeps a distance from us after having been caught off guard by the trick with my ice shield.
I fire off ice lances after him to keep him on the move as we wait patiently for the next opening.
Seeming to be annoyed by my constant harassment, the wolf decides to once again charge at me. I bring my new ice shield up in between us once I think he'll lunge out at me but this time, being more cautious, the wolf jumps over the shield.
Don't think I didn't expect that!
I had already moved closer to my shield so when the wolf jumped over, it gave me the chance to stab out at his belly from below.
I quickly release my control over my ice shield to cast explosion to help propel my spear into the wolf's flesh. I focus on the image of electricity running in a circle as fast as possible before making contact with a small ball of ice I conjure to superheat it and cause a steam explosion.
My spear manages to stab in through the skin and into its belly but a wound of this size isn't enough to be a fatal wound so I quickly channel electricity into its body through my spear.
The wolf stiffens up once again and lands down on the ground as I try to keep myself close to continue channeling electricity into him while avoiding being crushed.
This time, I don't even need to signal for my teammates and they come to finish the wolf off.
Faris stabs at its eye while Neri delivers a devastating overhead blow down on the wolf's head. Even from here I can hear the sound of bones cracking and feel the vibrations of their attacks through my spear.
Neri makes another blow in the same manner before I decide that the wolf should be dead and I release my magic.
Phew, this time I didn't have to waste mana on a lightning bolt spell, I'm glad to see proof that our party is indeed now stronger with a heavy-hitter like Neri.
"Good job you two, and nice finishing blows, Neri." I head over to my companions and unconsciously start patting Neri's head, it can't be helped, she's at the perfect height for it.
"You too master, nice job stopping the wolf's movements." Faris eagerly responds.
Neri remains quiet as I pet her though her face is starting to redden a little, is she tired or is she actually blushing?
"It's about time, we sure made it pretty far, all the way to the fifth floor in one day but it's time for us to head back." I declare after Faris hands me the medium quality mana crystal from the wolf.
Today's harvest, 78 normal mana crystals, and 1 medium quality mana crystal.
It's a lot lower than before due to the frequent breaks we took and fights we avoided but we accomplished our goal of the day to acclimate ourselves to fight as a team.
---
"Cheers!" The three of us happily cheer as we clunk mugs.
To celebrate our first day fighting together going smoothly, we went out to a place near our place.
This time, I make sure Neri drinks moderately though it isn't hard considering she is the only one drinking among us so she isn't in the mood drink that much.
By the time we are done, the sky has almost fully darkened, but thankfully our place is nearby.
We proceed to finally take off the gear we've been wearing all day and start to perform maintenance on it.
Having gotten used to it, it doesn't take long for either me or Faris to finish while Neri is still fumbling around.
It is new gear after all, and she was apparently from a wealthy family so I doubt she has much experience with it.
"Faris, would you help out Neri?"
"Of course master, you did tell me to order me so don't worry, I'll teach her the various things she will need to know while serving you, master." Faris proudly proclaims and walks over to Neri.
Well, I'm glad she's enthusiastic about it...
I head over to prepare the bath by conjuring hot water, seeing that they will probably take a while longer, I wash myself off and plunge into the hot bath to relax.
I'm glad we got another member now but we are still missing three from a full party...
Then once we Neri gets used to the party, our next goal is to focus on making money. Do to that let's lo---
The door to the bath opens and interrupts my thoughts, I look over to see Faris holding Neri by the shoulder as they walk in.
"Master."
"...Master."
The girls greet me before wiping themselves clean with a wet towel and joining me in the bath. Faris assumes her usual position, sitting down to my left while Neri takes my other flank.
This is the first time I've been so close to Neri, well, conscious at least.
An awkward moment ensues as Neri stares down with a blush on her face and Faris looks on with a grin while I struggle with to come up with a way to dispel the awkwardness.
"So you guys finished doi---"
Before I can finish my sentence, Neri suddenly closes the distance and overlaps cover my lips with hers and invades my mouth with her tongue.
I almost wanted to push her off for a second from surprise but the weight from Neri mounting me dissuades me.
Well, isn't this just what I wanted? No point pussying out now.
I reciprocate her kiss while hugging her closer against my chest, she may be petite but her chest is still decent sized relatively, probably about a B cup.
Suddenly, I feel something soft and warm nibbling on my ear.
"Master... we will serve you." A seductive voice whispers.
Is this all because of Faris? She did say she will teach Neri how to serve me but... Nevermind, good job Faris!
While I make out with Neri, Faris's tongue explore my entire face, nape, chest, and continues to move down on the side. Eventually, Faris gives Neri a signal to get off me as she tells me to sit up on the edge of the bath with her eyes.
"Neri, this is how you do it."
With my little brother already at full attention, Faris skillfully brings him near her mouth, doing a demonstration to the blushing dwarf who seems to be paying full attention.
In a practiced manner, Faris carefully stimulates my member with her tongue and wraps it around. She then starts brings it into her mouth while keeping up the caresses of the tongue. With my hand's direction, she pumps her head up and down, seeming to want to suck everything out.
Faris then disengages and looks over at Neri who is still staring on in a daze.
"Your turn."
At Faris's heeding, Neri grabs onto my shaft and slowly brings it closer to her mouth. She tries to replicate Faris and starts to bring out her tongue to meet the head of my penis.
Sorry, but with Faris lighting up my fire, I don't have much patience.
Having found new stimulus after the previous interruption, I am unable to hold back and urges Neri to take it in with my hand. After a brief moment of hesitation, Neri faithfully tries to Faris's earlier movements.
I sit back and look down at the latest member of my budding harem, watching alluring deep blue hair start to drape down her face as her movement quickens. Her movement is obstructed from her hair, prompting me to help hold her hair for her.
She looks up at me, conveying her thanks before continuing. Fuck, she's too cute.
While I am lost in pleasure, Faris casually takes hold of Neri's hair from me, freeing up my hand, before she buries her head between my legs as well.
I can't see much besides the back of her head but I can definitely feel Faris's warm tongue caressing my balls as I let out a groan.
Have I really been living life before without having experienced this?
A shiver travels up my spine like lightning as I feel that I am close.
I move my hand from caressing Neri's face to the back of her head as I push out my hips in. Neri continues sucking as if in her own world, bringing me to the edge.
"Neri..."
I let out a sigh of satisfaction at the same time I let out my seed.
"HMMMMM" Neri tries her best to keep going as I continue to release into her.
When I finally finish, I sit back up straight and have my little brother escape from Neri's mouth but he was intercepted immediately by Faris who seems to be trying to suck out anything left.
I watch Neri try to swallow the contents I left in her mouth with a strange face, making me start to feel reinvigorated.
"Let's go to the bedroom." I declare eagerly.
We quickly wash up and dry our bodies before heading over to the bed. Feeling like a king with two naked beauties in my arm, we reach the bed.
"Master, I want a ring as well...just like sister Faris." Neri bashfully requests.
Of course, I haven't forgotten as well, promptly producing a ring I had bought earlier at the auction. I carefully help Neri put on the ring.
"Thank you, I will carefully treasure it," Neri says, almost breaking out into a tear.
Hmm? Why does she look so moved? Does the ring signify anything? Whatever, I'll think about it later.
Seeing how cute the beauties in my arm are, I toss the two onto the bed before diving in myself.
I'm going to thoroughly enjoy this.
Our flesh wrap around each other as countless kisses, touching and caressing goes on while we entangle ourselves with each other.
After who knows how long, I find member unable to endure any longer and find myself positioned before the two girls, one laying on top the other.
They are both laying on their backs with Neri on top and their legs spread. Faris seems to be spreading Neri's opening for me to see while Neri blushes and struggles to look in my direction.
"Neri, I'm going to do it, it's your last chance if you want to back out," I warn while lining up my member to her cute pink opening.
"...It's fine... enjoy my body master."
With her consent, I give her a peck on the lips and enter into her small opening. It's tight.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH." Neri cries out, obviously in pain.
I stop halfway in to let her rest and cast a healing spell, not sure how effective it is but better than nothing.
Meanwhile, Faris nibbles on her ears and uses her hands to caress the spot above where Neri and I are connected. Following her lead in an attempt to soothe Neri, I lean down to kiss her while my hands wander around her.
Her lower body's tight grip on me soon loosens as Neri gives me a signal with her eyes to continue as she moves her legs around my waist to brace herself for what is to come.
Seeing how hard she is trying for my sake, I can't help but caress her head while I move slowly deeper into her.
Neri smiles comfortably at me in response, breaking down a part of my rationality.
"Master, do it," Faris whispers from beneath Neri.
That's the final straw.
Taking advantage of how much wetter Neri has gotten, I plunge into her with my all, prompting Neri let out a part of her scream she desperately tries to hold back as her all fours tighten their grip around me.
Fuck this feels nice, it feels nice with Faris too but this is a totally different sensation. I managed to put my entire member in but it still is so tight, it feels like she's trying to keep me in her forever. The most satisfying part is our perfect fit, the head of my member is pushing up against something soft and squishy, making me feel like I'm almost at the peak.
"...Neri, you're mine from now on, I'll be sure to make you happy."
I instantly start pistoning, not giving her a chance to reply. I feel like I've turned into an animal as my mind blanks, focusing only on kissing the head of my penis with her cervix.
I don't know how long I've been thrusting my hips at her but at this point, Neri's voice has already retired as she can only press her face against my nape and suck hard onto me, it's starting to hurt a little too.
Feeling near the peak of pleasure, I push down even harder down the pile of flesh below me while I move my face down to meet Faris's so I can enjoy entangling our tongues.
Faris, noticing that I'm close, playfully breaks the kiss and shifts my head into her nape.
"Go ahead master, be sure to let everything out," Faris whispers into my ear.
Her words send a tingle throughout my body, creating a chain reaction. Like a dam breaking through, I act on her words and start letting out everything with all my might.
I stifle my groans as well by copying Neri, sucking onto Faris's nape as I continue to pump out everything I can while my penis is nudged up against the squishy wall at the end of the tunnel.
After a full minute, I prop my upper body up and look down on the people I truly trust in this world. There is a clear visible hickey on Faris while I can feel mine.
I look over Neri's clear white skin as she lays there breathing heavily, she needs one too, it's only fair. While remaining connected, I lean down towards her nape.
You're mine, I'll be sure to treasure you too and make you happy to the best of my abilities.
Admiring my handiwork that greatly satisfied my sense of possession, I start to exit Neri and lay her down to the side and raise a blanket over her, as I turn my gaze over to Faris who is also staring back with passion clearly in her eyes.
I'll let Neri rest for tonight but you, I don't plan on letting go.