Today is the 9th.

-We start the morning kisses. Yunia gives me a morning kiss of her own will, even though I wasn't going to ask her for it. I guess that it would be awkward if she was the only one not doing it, except for Gify, who only gets a morning pat.

Yunia learned [Earth Magic] with one point, though she still can't instant cast.

-

I look outside the window and see the faint streaks of a light rain hitting it. The day is cloudy and gloomy, but for me, it's relaxing. Then the glass starts to get foggy as the air conditioner heats the room.

"If we're going to the dungeon today, then I think that we should all meet my brothers before we go," Yunia says.

"Yes, that'd be for the best," Ciel says.

Hana turns to Yunia. "Should we expect something?" She asks as she smiles gently. "I know that my own brother might challenge Wolf for my freedom when they meet."

I raise an eyebrow at Hana, and she chuckles.

"He's very protective and very grumpy," she adds.

"You'll be fine. Well, at least I'm pretty sure that something like that won't happen," Yunia responds and shakes her head, then she smiles wryly. "I coddled them, so they may seem… immature for their age."

"Oh, that's alright, we can deal with young boys, no problem!" Ciel exclaims excitedly. Then Yunia looks at her oddly, and she hurriedly adds, "Not in that way!"

Yunia lowers her head, a little embarrassed and says, "Oh, I'm sorry, it's just that-…"

Ciel interrupts her, "Yes, I know. We are a family with a few sexual predators, so I don't blame you." Then Ciel glares at Hana and I for a moment.

"But you are a pedophile," I say.

Ciel groans for a second and stares at me with a scowl. "So are you!" She accuses me.

I smirk. "Yes, but I don't sleep with underage boys. Only girls who look underage, like Lina."

"They aren't underage-…" Yunia tries to chime in.

"And neither do I because I don't sleep around with men," Ciel continues.

"So you sleep around with women?" Roxanne asks, grinning evilly.

"N-no!" Ciel denies.

"You've actually slept with more women than I have. That loli harem you had at the Nymph inn was impressive," Roxanne comments innocently.

Ciel glares at her. "But have I slept with more women than you have with men?"

"No," Roxanne calmly admits.

Ciel grins maniacally. "A-ha! There!"

"But would you sleep with boys who look underage if our agreement didn't say 'no men'?" I ask and stare at her intently.

She stops and leans back a little, not wanting to answer. Then she puckers her lips, and her face turns redder as she admits, "Yes. I'm a pedo, you said so. I love young boys just like I love young girls!" Then she sinks her head into her hands.

Lina taps Ciel's shoulder repeatedly. "There, there, you've finally admitted it. Wolfy will grow old, but I won't. Even then, we can always get halfling or dwarven prostitutes for you," she says in a gentle tone.

"I'm not like that~…!" Ciel moans, her voice muffled by her hands.

"But you can be. If you're happy, then I'm happy," Lina responds.

"Maybe we can make Wolfy de-age in her eyes with [Illusion Magic] one day," Alissa suggests.

"I'll make that my graduation project if we ever take that offer to study at the Kabara Magic School," I say and nod in agreement.

Ciel sighs and reveals her blushing face, then glances at Yunia worriedly. She's looking in Ciel's direction, but her striking blue eyes have lost focus a long time ago.

We call the servant to arrange a few things for us. Osaria and Klein will enter a town connected to the [Gate Network] in a few days, so we send them a message saying that we'll meet with them there.

Then we make our way to the castle grounds' middle ring. This is the area that divides the inner and outer grounds, and also where the barracks and the armory are located.

The guards finished their breakfast a long time ago, so the area is quite empty. There's only a few men around, standing guard, and a few squads training.

The armory is a big building, different from the others as it has no windows and the walls are as thick as the Shell. It's a high-security place where some of the most powerful weapons of the entire region are stored, so this amount of security is understandable.

We pass through a dull hall and approach a locker-like room. I look at the plaque above the entrance and nearly freeze. I barely know anything about Ingua, but I have a pretty good hunch that the plaque says "female locker." I notice that even the guard escorting us is female.

Ah, fuck it.

We enter the room, and fortunately, it doesn't smell like an Earth locker would. Inside, we see a well-dressed female elf, a few older elven women who look like commoners, and many elven proto-maids wearing much less clothing than everyone else. Behind them, there are over a dozen stands displaying a variety of full sets of wooden armor.

"Greetings, Ryders. I am Assistant Quartermaster Istante," the well-dressed woman says and bows. She's a tall and slender woman with a square face, an impressive jaw, and a slightly smug smile. She could definitely be a model back on Earth. She straightens her posture and asks me with a gentle smile, "Sir Ryder, do you mind changing in front of other women, or would you prefer to go to the men's changing room?"

"I'm fine," I say and nod.

"Very well. Also, if any of you, Ryders, would like privacy to change, that can be arranged." The girls nod, but no one says anything, so Istante continues, "We've prepared armor for all of you, as requested."

The proto-maids come towards each of us, and I let Aoi down from my shoulder. She grows into big-Aoi, and the maids freeze for a moment, then their training kicks in, and two maids guide her towards a stand in the shape of a dragon that's nearly twice her size.

Three of the common elven women join Aoi and start taking measurements of her body. They must be armorer mages.

"It tickles," Aoi says and chuckles gently. When she's in her large size, her voice gains a low rumble that frightens those who are unprepared for it, but her chuckle is so innocent that the women around her quickly recover from their shock.

The other maids provide sets of folded white clothes for us. The material has a bit of stretchiness to it, reminding me of Yunia's not-yoga pants.

As we receive and inspect these clothes, Istante says, "These sets of clothes go perfectly with our armor. They're very resistant to wear and tear, while also providing a lot of comfort and ventilation, increasing the effectiveness of [Breeze]."

Then I see that there's also underwear.

-

The maid looks disappointed when I put on the set of clothes, obscuring my body from her - eyes.

-

Then the maids start to bring us the armor and help us put it on. Meanwhile, the armorers cast spells on Aoi's armor to shrink it enough to fit her properly. Yunia is the one most comfortable with this situation; she's like a queen getting ready for battle.

First, we receive padded black dragon scale jackets and pants. The padding is rather thick, but more comfortable than what we had before. I don't have points in [Armor Appraisal] right now, so I don't know what they're made of.

These scales are smaller than the emerald scales on our previous armor, and they're also stronger. Both of these characteristics make them less fragile to blunt impacts.

Then comes the plate armor. Its color is a dark brown, with many thin, parallel black circles all over it. This wooden material feels and sounds exactly like steel, except that it's a better heat insulator than metal.

There's a thin padding under the armor to reduce the noise that it makes, and the same goes for the dragon scales. Thanks to that, the high pitched jingle of walking around with this amount of armor is gone, so now we can sneak around far more effectively while fully protected.

I finally get a neck guard, called a bevor, and a sallet-type helmet. This whole armor set reduces my range of motion, but even with my style, it's better to be protected than not since my defense isn't perfect, which Mavel's [Blink] clearly showed.

Now, the only vulnerable spots are the armpits, crotch, and a few slits where a blade could possibly stab through. But since we have the black scales and the padding underneath the plate, there's very little that could actually hurt us. Perhaps a [Rush]-boosted blade could pierce through, but I know that it won't pierce all the way since I "tested" that during our fight in Escanso.

The weight has increased, but not that much since it's distributed over my entire body. I can deal with it, but we have to be careful with stamina now since long battles could be the end of us, except for Hana, who has ridiculous "Endurance."

Roxanne's armor is lighter than ours, but it doesn't get in the way of her casting anymore, so she's gained a small power boost. The advantages that elven armor has over imperial metal armor are that metal slightly disrupts casting and that the elven wooden armor is lighter.

Aoi's armor is the same as ours, but there's a saddle on her back for someone to ride her and straps to tie the rider down. Now that it's smaller, it might be a little awkward to sit on it, but it's doable, especially for me… who's smaller than the average elf…

Aoi looks curiously at herself in the mirror, then she strikes a heroic pose and exclaims, "I'm beautiful, yay!" And flaps her wings, sending a gust of wind through the room. "Oh, sorry."

The armorers chuckle nervously. They seem to have problems accepting that Aoi can speak.

"You're always beautiful, armor or no armor," Hana says and slaps Aoi's back, but they are both so heavily armored that neither of them feels anything.

An armorer goes over to Lina and shrinks her armor to fit her properly. Even though they have smaller sets of armor, they still aren't at the size of an average dwarf. There may be many halflings around due to Confiel's reforms, but that doesn't mean that any of them have joined Confiel's elite guard.

The last armorer checks each of us and adjusts the armor to fit us perfectly. She casts [Grow] and an inverse version of the spell to shape the wood at will.

"I actually feel quite snug inside this armor," I say.

Alissa pulls out her bow and tries it out. Hers has a flat chest so that she can fire arrows while ours are convex. However, she'll rarely use this plate armor since she isn't supposed to be in melee combat, and the same goes for Roxanne. But, knowing that they do at least have some heavy armor to use brings me great comfort.

Aoi pulls her metal halberd out of her [Item Box], scaring the shit out of her armorer, and strikes a menacing pose.

"RAAR!" She roars. "Hahaha!" Then she shows a toothy smile, and even the proto-maids start sweating cold.

"I've never thought that Aoi looked threatening, but now that I see these women cowering around her, I realize that she is quite threatening," Hana comments through [Bind].

"That's right!" Aoi agrees.

"I want a male dragon to curl around me, then cover me in his wings," Roxanne says and sighs.

"Wolfy, work harder!" Hana demands.

"Enough mind conversations. The others can't join in yet," Alissa warns them.

After a little while longer, the fitting is finished, and we undress again.

The proto-maid in front of me helps me undress.

-

"Maybe another time," I whisper to her, and she nods shyly.

-

I smirk at her, then she suddenly freezes again and looks towards my wives. Alissa's wide smile and empathetic nod calms her down, and she looks at me again. She's a pretty, young girl with a bony, oval face, thin lips, narrow red eyes, a cute and small nose, and braided, long golden hair.

Alissa suddenly nudges me through [Bind], and I blurt out, "We are going to conquer a dungeon to become True Nobles, and we are looking for loyal servants to join us when that happens. If you ever feel interested in serving us, we'll gladly negotiate a position for you." I let Alissa's words flow through me, but it takes all of my effort to maintain my smirk and to not look at Alissa.

Recruiting another Lord's servants so openly could be considered rude, right?

The maid looks at me with a blank face, completely caught off-guard.

Before I can say something to salvage this situation, she nods repeatedly and says, "Y-yes, I'll think about it." Then she smiles shyly and blushes again.

Istante raises an eyebrow in curiosity, but some of the other maids don't seem pleased with their fellow co-worker. Not all elves are so accepting of non-elves, and some would even find it "beneath them" to lay with outsiders like us.

The maids help us get dressed again, and I store all of our armor. They know that I can use [Gate], so it's only logical to assume that my [Item Box] is as large as my thunder cock.

"Thank you for your help, Miss Istante, and the others, too," I say and nod respectfully.

"It's our pleasure to aid future nobility," Istante responds and bows.

"Tell Lord Confiel that we appreciate his support," Alissa says.

"We shall," Istante says with a nod.

Then we leave, and a servant takes us to the castle's [Eternal Gate] hub.

We cross through a portal and exit into a grassland atop a hill. There's a tree-mansion almost fully surrounding us. Down the hill, we see a small elven town with many colorful farms around it. After a few rings of farms, there's only green grassland as far as the eye can see.

"Glorampina…" Yunia says, nostalgically.

"Yunia!" A youthful male voice exclaims.

We turn around to the mansion and see two blonde boys rushing towards us. Yunia smiles warmly, nearly all of the usual sternness of her expression gone. She bends her knees a little and receives the two boys with a wide hug. They bury their heads on her neck and rub their wild blonde hair all over her.

"Tutu, tata," she whispers.

Antares glares at me briefly with the side of his eye and hisses at her, "Don't call us that!"

"You didn't complain when I did so a half-cycle ago," Yunia responds.

Both of the boys look up to glare at her and Arturus whispers, "Not in front of them!"

Yunia chuckles evilly and smiles smugly. "Ohohohoh… don't be so shy in front of them. They don't bite, well, some of them don't."

The boys calm down, and they break the hug. They straighten their postures and stare at us with intense eyes, reminiscent of Yunia's.

"I'm Arturus," says one boy.

"I'm Antares," says the other.

Looking at them this closely, I notice how androgynous they are.

Since they don't offer their hands, we bow shortly and introduce ourselves. They are still nobility, so a short bow is the precise amount of respect a young noble deserves.

They get surprised by Aoi's ability to talk, but quickly get over it to continue glaring at me.

"So you're the one that…" Antares starts talking but loses his motivation.

"Antares," Yunia says in a dangerous tone, looking down at him with stern eyes, and I notice that she's using [Mask] again.

The three of them have such similar eyes.

He bites his lip in anger and turns to glare at her.

"You didn't have to do this. We'd gladly take up being a Blood Slave in your stead," he says.

Arturus turns around and stares intently at his sister, adding to his brother's intensity.

I feel a cold determination in Yunia's voice as she says, "I made a decision that was mine to make. Now you have to make the decision to keep the Este name alive or not."

They start a staring contest that Yunia wins after a few seconds as they avert their eyes to look down.

"Perhaps you three should spend some time alone to talk," Ciel suggests.

Yunia shakes her head and responds, "We came here to talk to them."

"And we will have our entire lives to do that. But what you need to talk about with your brothers can't wait," I say, then I stare into her eyes, threatening to break her [Mask]. She looks away after a mere moment to save her spell from me.

I don't really like it when she uses that spell in situations like this one.

The twins nod towards her, also agreeing with us.

"Hmph, fine," Yunia accepts and points her chin up snobbishly.

They grab her arms and almost drag her towards the mansion.

"We'll be waiting back at home!" I yell.

She turns her head to the side and smiles brightly. "Understood!"

I take this free time to make a quick stop at the hunter's guild to sell off the corpses of the monsters we killed in Legado: four Leixe Campi, seven Storm Chargers, two Criatuas, one Sky Stalker, one Legado-type Giant Centipede, and five Legado-type Feral Goblins. All of that together nets us four gold coins.

The Chargers and the Sky Stalkers are worth more due to how dangerous the first level is and how difficult it is to kill a Sky Stalker. The Symbol of Decay is worth four gold coins by itself due to how valuable its goop is, but it's even more valuable to us, so I don't sell it.

When I get back to our mansion, I practice juggling with the tail-hands. I need to learn to use those tail-hands as if they were limbs themselves, so for now, I'll always keep a tail and two horns active. I'll also try to use them as often as possible.

Roxanne is the one who agrees with my idea the most emphatically, then Aoi comes in at a close second.

"Horns are handsome!" She exclaims. Male dragons have horns and spikes while females generally don't, so I get why she likes them.

Yunia spends the rest of the morning with her brothers, and I don't blame her. We're about to enter the dungeon again, and even though I can still use [Gate] to take us back out on demand, who knows what might happen?

She comes back right on time for lunch and gives us a genuine smile.

"Did it go well?" Ciel asks.

Yunia nods and whispers, "Thank you."

I pull up a chair for her, and we eat our lunch.

We all put on our new armor and get ready to continue our adventure.

Confiel included Yunia's weapon in her luggage. It's a beautiful gray wooden longsword with four colored gems in the cross guard. These gems hold four enchantments: [Extend], [Bleed], [Dead Zone], and [Searing Blade].

Confiel was kind enough to give us her sword, but he couldn't give us her armor due to how valuable it is. Once he deposed Mavel, he could only take a limited number of valuables out of the Este family coffers as compensation for his losses, but that couldn't cover the many rose coins that Yunia's armor is worth.

I interlace my fingers with Yunia's, and we recite the words, "We swear to share our war and our soul and to always keep each other's company." Now she's finally part of our fellowship, and we can all feel her direction and distance from us if we concentrate on her.

Now that we're ready, I finally open a [Gate] to the door riddle, and we teleport there one-by-one. At this distance, I can only do one person at a time, so it takes a while for all of us to pass through.

We are back on the dirt island. A dark place, but a little cozy since the humming of the storm outside of the tree is quite calming. Also, these gigantic trees that the elves love so much have been growing on me.

Alissa's head suddenly snaps towards a direction, and someone appears out of thin air.

"Hello, Helios," Ervo says as he dispels his [Invisibility]. I notice a hint of anxiety in his tone.

"Hello, Sir Ervo," I greet him back.

"It seems that Confiel is still very interested in this location," Alissa comments.

Ervo nods and responds, "But of course. Not even the Lords have managed to pass through this door. Anyway, I'll give you some privacy. Excuse me."

He fiddles with a magic tool, then a few seconds later, a [Gate] opens in front of him. He vanishes through it without another word, and we are finally left alone.

Just to make sure, though, I order our Shads to scan the area.

"Now then," I say and grin towards the door. "Let's finally open this."

"Hm… the suspense is making me anxious, too," Ciel says as we walk towards it.

"Nothing like a little mystery to get the blood pumping," Roxanne says.

Hana frowns and says, "I don't think I've ever heard that saying combined with 'mystery' before."

"Of course, a muscle brain would never understand the thrill of a good mystery," Roxanne responds and shakes her head while Lina nods emphatically.

"Bitch," Hana mouths.

"I know," Roxanne whispers with a wicked grin.

I clear my throat to silence the girls, then I state out loud, "You, God-King Arreira, sacrificed your dream to end the war with the Avgi Empire. But your fellow elves didn't understand your reasoning, so in the end, your death failed to accomplish what you wanted: to have the High Forest learn from the Empire while also teaching the Empire what they could, an exchange that would only benefit both nations."

Nothing happens.

"Uh…" I grumble.

"Well, shit," Hana says.

"Heh, I thought it was too easy," Yunia says.

"Confiel did say that he must've read an entire history book to the door, and nothing happened," Lina says.

"So… it's not a history riddle?" I question.

Lina shrugs and says, "I guess, but I don't know what it is, then."

"Try other variations of what we know about his history," Roxanne says.

While she and Lina try out different phrases, I stay silent, deep in thought.

What is the answer, then? Is there some obscure book out there that tells us what Arreira really wanted? Is there something else, something deeper to his dream?

Gih?

Yes, of course! What is the point of this riddle? "A test of someone's historical knowledge"? Or "a test of someone's interpretation of history"?

This is a gauntlet, not a tomb, it's a place full of trials to see if we are worthy of Arreira's "Legado." This is how games get it wrong; an arbitrary logical puzzle doesn't say anything about someone's "worth." A riddle tailored to judge our personalities wouldn't be "passed" with a technical answer, but through a heartfelt one. Or whatever that means, I'm just letting my mind go wild here.

I stop the girls and spill my heart out. "To me, it seems that you accomplished all that you could. You saved the High Forest with the ultimate sacrifice: your life. Hardly anyone will ever be able to fulfill their dreams, and even you, a God-King, is powerless before… I don't know… destiny? Your Thread of Fate? Whatever. If you look down on yourself because you couldn't help the elves become something better, then you're kind of a whiny bitch since it's hard to see how that would trump fucking saving your whole nation from destruction!"

"Oh, wow…" Yunia mutters.

I look around at the girls. "Go on, say it, spill your heart out. Let's see how this goes."

"I agree with Wolfy. You did what your people expected of you: you saved them, even though they might have not understood its significance," Alissa says.

Roxanne is next, "Maybe you could've struck a deal with the Emperor and survived somehow so that you could rule from the shadows. Then you could've fulfilled your dreams without committing suicide. I think your sacrifice is noble, but I don't agree with it."

"Didn't know you were this much of a schemer," Ciel comments.

Roxanne shrugs. "I'm smart, I just don't feel like acting like it."

"In my book, that still means that you're dumb," Hana says.

Roxanne glares at her and crosses her arms. "Fuck you."

Hana smirks. "With pleasure."

"I think he did the right thing. It'd be risky to try to fake his death with all of his generals watching," Ciel continues.

"The book did say that he was crushed by a ravine created by [Fissure]. Nobody ever actually saw his body," Roxanne says.

"There are other ways to know that a person is dead than just seeing their body," Alissa says.

"Fair enough," Roxanne responds and shrugs.

"I hate stupid deaths like this. He let the loyalists die, okay, that helps weaken the power of the warmongers, but maybe he should've fought his generals and died there. It would've made more sense," Hana says.

"Elves despise fighting each other. Him attacking his own generals would've turned the commoners against him," Yunia says.

"Then fuck them… Argh. I get what you mean, but I still think that it would've been better if he'd tried to remove the rebellious generals," Hana says and looks down while pouting.

Lina is next, "I think he should've prevented the generals from hating the Empire to begin with. He's the one who put those generals in power in the first place. It's his fault that they turned against him, too."

"Yeah, the generals betrayed him," Aoi says and puffs smoke, displeased.

Yunia looks down, deep in thought. "There were only wrong choices…" She says in a low tone, then her deep blue eyes pierce each of us. "So many mistakes, so many things that could've been done differently. He saved the High Forest, and the elves are changing. Even though the speed is slow, it's irrelevant, they are changing. His dream will still come true one day, and that's what matters."

I nod and look towards the door.

Nothing.

Now I'm getting angry. "What is all this for?! We are all grave robbers, no 'righteous' person would ever come here. We all need your legacy, your power, and that's it! That's why everyone's here! Let us in, you fucker. Let us in! Or at least give us a sign that you're listening!"

The entire island starts to glow, just like when the teleport for the next level is charging up.

"OH! WE DID IT!" I exclaim.

Alissa glares at me and growls, "You just offended the Dungeon Master, so why do you think that 'it worked'?!"

Oh, shit.

Then we all lose consciousness.