Rupegia

Chapter 88: Reunion – Part 4

I stand in front of the door to the Eternal Gate Network, my head resting against my personal red-headed breast pillow.

This situation reminds me of waiting for the plane to land when Lily was coming back from visiting her parents. At least when it was an airplane, there was a predicted arrival time, so I knew how long I had to wait, and I also had a phone to entertain me in the meanwhile.

I suddenly feel the need for a brain massage, so I pull out a sofa and get Hana to sit down, and I lay my head on her lap.

Lina studies how to enchant our special [Materialization] into a gem for the Chimeras while I cast it repeatedly on a small tentacle for her. With the burst of levels we just received, she now has enough points to increase her [General Enchanting] to ridiculous levels.

Ciel cuddles with my little dwarf, watching her intently with pride and warmth. We both agree that Lina looks adorable when she's concentrating so heavily on her work.

Yunia quietly talks with her brothers, both of them very surprised about how I nonchalantly pulled out multiple sofas for everyone to sit on and a bit scared about my tentacle. They don't know that we can all hear them through Yunia, so it's amusing just listening to them talking about us.

Confiel, Luz, the gold-elf, and Lua, her silver-elf sister, sit on their own comfortable chairs with a subtle wry smile on their faces. I really don't give a fuck about looking proper right now. This is still my first day out of that hell hole of a maze, and I've played the proper noble more than enough to last me for quite a while.

I gaze into the [Eternal Gate] leading towards a beach house, and the happy memories of Goldport flood into my mind. Things haven't become bad after the [Meteor], they just became… different. I guess we were too carefree before… no, we were more carefree, we still are. For as much as we mention my "destiny," we still aren't that worried about the future. Not that we aren't preparing, just that we aren't stressing over it.

Technically, Ciel and I already died, and now I feel an odd sort of "peace" whenever I think of the possibility of truly dying instead of an unsettling dread. Maybe this is why Arreira had us both "die," and if it wasn't the main reason, then at least it was a convenient side-benefit.

The sun over the beach starts to turn orange, and I notice how the sunset over here lags behind it by a bit. Through some of the other [Eternal Gate]s, the sun lags even more.

Fascinating…

My mind wanders, and I start to feel drowsy as Hana's strong hands press all the right spots to shut off my mind.

The door suddenly opens, and I bolt up with a jump aided by my thick, scaly tail.

One of Confiel's knights comes through the door to the Network, and he's followed by Klein and Osaria.

My cute, brown monkey girl. Her adorable, round monkey ears flick when she sees us; her cropped shirt presses in around her little cushions and exposes her toned midriff; her long, furry tail trails behind her as she runs forward; her short brown hair bobs with every step; then her athletic arms wrap around me and squeeze, supported by her strong back muscles from being an archer.

"WOLFY!" She shouts, then Hana squeezes us both. "Ow! Ow-…" Klein gets prickled by my scales, but I cover all of the sharp edges with a soft cushion, then we both start to suffocate from Hana's draconic hug.

The hug only lasts for a short while, though, because Klein gets mesmerized by my horns, and there's still Osaria waiting for her turn.

My dark elven milf has a genuinely happy smile stamped on her face. My letter may have kept them from assuming the worst, but it was still months without contact. After confirming her as my concubine and hearing of her fears, disappearing inside a dungeon immediately after was rather cruel of me.

She anxiously holds her silver hair in front of her, partially covering her extra large chest. Her droopy red eyes look at me with pain in her gaze, but her juicy lips radiate absolute happiness. As usual, she's wearing her not-bikini and proudly displaying her luscious body, even daring to only cover a small part of it with a few sheets of transparent cloth.

I give Klein a loving kiss, making sure to greet her tongue with mine, then Hana demands her turn, and I release Klein to greet my Osaria.

I make sure that all my pointy bits are safely padded, then I pull her in for a hug. My claws sink into her juicy ass, and my tail wraps around her waist, nestling itself between her cheeks, then I feel her legs faintly quiver from my gaze.

Her hand touches one of my horns, gently inspecting its rough texture. She seems awed and a bit frightened. I was already a bit "rough" and aggressive before, so now that I actually have some sort of dragon inside me, she might be imagining how hard I'll have her bend over for me.

While I do have draconic fuel in me now, I feel like my two sides are fairly "separate." Though I do have a desire to regularly unleash it, I don't think I've changed that much.

While one of my hands cups a feel, I use the other to caress her cheeks, then I pull her towards me and steal a taste of her.

The sexual predator inside of her wakes up, and her tongue quickly takes control, playing with mine as if she were playing with the head of my cock. I feel Hana kiss Klein through [Bind], and the double delight sets my mind at ease.

While I'd have no problems fucking Osaria right here, right now, there's something we need to discuss, so I reign the dragon in by myself with a surprising degree of ease. It seems that I'm learning how to control myself.

I end our desperate kiss, and a bridge of saliva connects us for a second before it breaks.

I look around and finally agree to move on to the discussion, "Alright, let's talk."

Confiel takes us to their meeting room, and I immediately answer the big question that everyone's just dying to ask.

I pull out our own Inspection Crystal, courtesy of Arreira, and make sure that only what I want to show them appears on the tablet, then I pass it around.

"So you've really conquered the dungeon… and changed into a new race?" Confiel asks, disbelieving his own eyes, then he passes the tablet on.

I just smile and sit down. "We'll get to it, eventually," I casually answer, then I let Alissa and Yunia explain what happened.

We start from the door riddle since Confiel and his wives didn't hear about that. We're fairly light on the details since they're not that relevant now, and they listen in silence, though they seem a bit disappointed about how the riddle was solved.

When we get to the Chimeras, Lua lights up and interrupts, "Oh, yes, I've heard of that town. It was said that Arreira's expedition reached Whakamutu and then turned around to head home, but nobody ever mentioned anything about Chimeric spirits being brought back."

Confiel nods seriously and contributes, "That's for a good reason. The Chimeric Sky Lands would've certainly taken offense to have one of their towns looted of so many powerful weapons and even airships."

I present a counterpoint, "These Chimeras hardly consider themselves part of the Sky Lands. Their aristocracy is more likely to demand subservience from the Sky Lands than to accept being 'returned' to them."

"Well…" Confiel starts then hesitates as he tries to make sense of things. "Now these land-bound spirits have… become your subjects?" He tentatively asks.

I simply nod and smile. "We'll get to that."

We get to Hihiriwa's betrayal, then we start talking about the red sands and glowing, fake elves. Now that I think about it, they might've been Arreira's experiment with [Golemancy].

Yunia describes our battle with the Orc Lord, and Confiel raises an eyebrow in amusement when he hears our strategy. "I didn't know you were such an accomplished strategist," he amusedly compliments Yunia.

"I'm not," she answers with a subtly smug tone, and I just smile when he turns to me, but I stay quiet.

After that comes the trials, and Osaria hums in understanding as we reach the part where I dispel the summons.

They touch briefly on the trials, but nobody besides Aoi seems too eager to talk about it, so we soon reach the part where I "die."

I'm the only one who can really talk about it, so I start to describe what happened, "As is obvious to all of us, I have a Gift, and Arreira conducted an experiment on me to determine if I truly had some sort of 'divine force,' or whatever he called it, guiding me forward. To test that, he disconnected my soul from my body and 'wiped my ego away,' or something."

Luz's eyes sharpen, and she leans forward. I think she has some sort of knowledge about spirits or Threads of Fate since everyone else just zones out a bit instead without much of a clue about what this all means.

I show my large, ultra-sharp claws and wave my scales. "Right as I 'died,' I tried to transform into a dragon as a final, desperate move. I had a good idea of how to do it, but I'd never actually tried it, so I only half-succeeded, I believe. Then, when Arreira put me back into my body, it seems that the Gods made the half-transformation permanent and gave me a new race…"

Confiel clasps his hands and touches his lips with his index fingers, his expression completely serious. I notice that the feeling of "danger" that I usually had when I was near him in the past is entirely gone, and the same goes for his wives. None of the girls can feel it anymore, either.

The two elven sisters also become serious, Klein and the twins blink blankly in confusion, and Osaria seems to be pleasantly surprised.

"So… you can change into a dragon?" My elven milf eagerly asks.

"Yes, a very cute one," Alissa answers before I can even open my mouth, then they both smirk mischievously.

"My [Dragon Transformation] is at level one, so I can only shift into a hatchling," I annoyedly answer and smile wryly.

"Now that we're talking about it, we should also announce that Aoi has acquired a system and levels, and that she can transform into a human, now," Roxanne casually adds and grins internally when she sees the Rincipios visibly tense up. Confiel coughs as he chokes on his spit.

Yunia smiles evilly and joins in, "Arreira has made us his successors and inheritors while also disowning any living royal by name. We're the new royals of the High Forest. Long live the Ryder dynasty!" She lifts her cup of alcohol in cheer then gulps it down.

Luz immediately copies her, and Lua gets up and walks out of the room. Confiel fails his "Willpower" Saving Throw, joining Klein and the twins as their daze gets upgraded into a stun, and their jaws drop.

"So, the Chimeras are the first subjects of your new kingdom?" Luz confusedly asks, not fully believing her own words.

"We haven't been 'crowned,' and the Chimeras are just like any commoner under a Lord. We haven't made them swear to serve us or anything," Yunia assuredly explains, feeling a bit guilty about trying to brag.

"Oritiki pledged her loyalty to us, but only as long as we protect the Chimera spirits," Ciel adds to help appease Luz.

I join Roxanne and [Equip] Patrono, then I feed it some mana, and it glows with a pure, almost divine light. It fills us with hope, energizes our bodies, clears our minds of evil thoughts (but it doesn't even touch my sadistic tendencies), and humbles us all at the same time.

"This is a Heavenly Weapon," I announce with a proud smile, and Luz gasps in awe, then I pull out the writ with a *poof*. "And this is Arreira's writ about us, for which I'm ready to pass through a Seeker of Truth to prove its authenticity!"

An [Eternal Gate] suddenly opens, and a tall, dark-skinned woman in a fiery dress immediately comes rushing out of it, followed by Lua smugly strutting back into the room.

"HANA!" The unknown woman yells with a crying face.

"MIMI!" Hana answers, then literally leaps out of her seat and summons her wings so that she can sweep her sister off her feet into a hug.

"Holy shit…" I mutter.

The two of them tightly hug each other, but Mimi's slightly muscular body almost matches Hana's, meaning that she survives the draconic hug with ease.

Lua stops in place as she notices Patrono, and her jaw drops along with the others. "Holy shit…" She mutters, her eyes entranced by its holy shine.

Mimi pushes Hana away so that they can look each other in the eye as Hana slowly lowers them both back down. I extinguish Patrono's shine, and Lua snaps out of her trance, then she silently returns to her seat, a bit embarrassed about her behavior.

Mimi grabs Hana's face and exclaims, her voice a mix of both happiness and concern, "We found Hermann, too! But he's become a knight, so we couldn't find something worth enough to trade for him, but the noble that has him asked for a suspiciously high price!"

They touch down on the table, and Mimi looks around. She's a beautiful woman with a strong jaw and a fearsome gaze that mirrors Hana's almost perfectly. I haven't seen her grin yet, but I barely need to even imagine it to see the similarities between their expressions. Her hair is long and dark, its shape undulating wildly and almost making it into a mane like Hana's. Her thin dress hugs her (a bit disappointing) modest chest, but her long, strong legs that peek out from behind the slits of her skirt are as delicious as Hana's.

Wild fantasies run through my mind, but when her eyes meet mine, I feel the sharp intelligence and cold determination behind them. While Hana's are wild, hers are cold, and they remind me of Yunia's a lot.

Mimi, or Mizushina, which is her real name, feels a bit awkward with all the eyes on her and decides to get down from the table, dragging Hana with her.

She gingerly jumps down, her very high red heels clacking loudly with every step, then her eyes lock with mine again.

"Wolf Ryder, I presume?" She coolly asks, her husky voice sounding pleasant to my ears.

"Precisely," I collectedly answer with a gentle nod.

She lowers her head respectfully for a moment. "Thank you for taking care of my sister."

I smile and send a loving glance towards Hana. "You're welcome, but I can definitely say that she also took great care of me. We certainly wouldn't be here without her."

Hana's massive chest increases in size a bit more as she puffs it full of pride, then Mimi pulls her hand down and both of them take their seats at the table.

"How have you been…?" Mimi asks in a low voice, and the two sisters start talking in hushed whispers.

Confiel silently serves his wives and himself plenty of alcohol, and they all immediately take a big gulp.

Outwardly, Yunia seems very pleased with herself, but inwardly, she does feel a bit bad about dumping all of these things on their heads at once.

I un[Equip] Patrono, impressing Lua, who seems to be very curious about this spell. It's actually pretty rude of me to suddenly cast an unknown spell in front of nobility, but it seems like they don't mind.

Things go awkwardly quiet as nobody seems to know where to resume the conversation from. Technically, we already shared all the news we intended to, so I guess we have to discuss how we'll proceed with assuming our positions as Crown Lords.

"Many eyes will turn to the High Forest in the coming days…" Confiel soberly comments.

"Filled with a lot of surprise and curiosity, I hope," I add and smile cheekily.

Confiel chuckles faintly, and his long elven ears twitch. He truly seems concerned.

"Let's start at the beginning. We want to take over our positions as Lords," I pull the conversation back on track.

He nods in agreement. "Do you want to do it immediately?"

"Is there a reason not to?"

Lua smiles bitterly and admits, "We'd all expected that it'd take a lot longer for you to complete the dungeon. As a consequence, you'd build fame among the adventurers and perhaps even the populace along the way."

Yunia's sharp gaze returns as she says, "I understand the benefits of what you're saying… but the Chimeras can't wait."

Luz nods and agrees, "Yes. We'll support you in your ascension, but you should expect some unrest." Then she turns to me and gives me a gentle gaze as she asks, "From what I've understood, you aren't married yet, only engaged?"

"Correct," I confirm with a nod.

"Then we suggest that you perform the Lordship ceremony before your marriage. We're almost certain that the more unruly Lords will try to challenge and undermine your rule before you can get your base stabilized."

I hum in understanding and nod. "I'm going to marry Aoi, so I guess we don't really need more uncertainty ruining such a precious moment for all of us."

Confiel silently pours more alcohol.

"The Lordship ceremony is ours to control, so we can make whatever plans we want," Yunia states with a tone dripping in delight, and an eager look graces her striking, blue eyes, then they turn sharp, and she glares at Confiel. "But first, I want Escanso back, immediately."

The twins suddenly come back to life now that their home has been mentioned, and they both smile so brightly that Yunia's stern face slightly softens.

Confiel stands and adjusts his tight, thin shirt. "I thought you'd demand that, so I had them begin the preparations for that," he smugly states.

We leave the meeting room and meet Bastico on the way. He's fully armored in an ornate, shining, and pure white set of wooden plate armor since he just came back from a dungeon. Side-by-side, father and son look remarkably similar, though Bastico seems a lot snobbier than Confiel with his softer features that give him an androgynous look.

Yunia and Luz get him up to speed, and he soon loses his natural elven smugness, which is replaced with shock.

He suddenly turns towards Alissa, his face becomes deadly serious as he asks, "Miss Alissa, have you been writing in your diary like we discussed?"

Alissa nods, and her fluffy tail wags as she responds amusedly, "Yes, I have, though I haven't written about our trials yet since there hasn't been any time to spare."

He takes a step closer to her, his eyes intense and anxious. "You must write these events down. If you forget even a single detail, the whole realm will lose out on the epic story of your lives."

"Bastico…" Luz censures him sternly.

He turns to her and faces her with bravery. "Mother, it's true. If we publish their lives as a book, I'm sure we'll all make a fortune."

Luz turns to glare at Confiel, asking him for help, but he just pretends that he isn't hearing any of this.

"I believe your son is right, Luz. King Ryder's life story is sure to become a masterpiece of literature," Osaria comments and smirks at me teasingly.

I just smile back at her as I plan my revenge, which will definitely involve a very thick tail and a very tight entrance.

"I never took you for a writer, son, but I must say that you'll be a good merchant," Lua comments, trying to hold back her grin, then she ignores Luz's glare just like Confiel is.

We cross through the [Eternal Gate] Network and exit into Escanso's castle.

Men are hastily running about from the castle towards the entrance. A few of them are yelling out orders for the men to gather because a proclamation will be given soon. They all stiffen as they recognize Confiel and slow down, then they quickly bow to him and march away as fast as they can without actually running.

This is it, we're about to be announced as Lords. Though it won't be "official" until the Lordship ceremony, this is effectively the beginning of our rule.

These men and women are still Confiel's Lordsguard that have been lent to us to keep the castle safe, but Yunia's heart is burning with determination. We'll quickly recruit our own Lordsguard and achieve our independence as soon as possible.