"Oops?" Adam gives me an apologetic look as a notification appears in my vision and the Second Avatar of the Rat God collapses to the ground.

[Hills of the Rat God: The Second Avatar of the Rat God] Completed First Time Completion Bonus: 20% Experience [Hills of the Rat God] Completed First Time Completion Bonus: 20% Experience Small Party Completion Bonus: 20% Experience

Adam punched the Second Avatar of the Rat God in the stomach, and the force was apparently enough to kill it. That was also supposed to be part of him getting its attention on him without killing it so that I could get a few hits in, too.

"It's okay, Adam," I say. "It's probably better it died faster, I'm still feeling light-headed from blood loss. Resting more will be better than fighting and moving around."

"Okay," he says. "Come on, let's head to the safe zone."

We walk to the stone archway and pass through it. Rather than entering the forest as we do, we find ourselves in a stone chamber with four doors set into the walls and a table covered in food of many varieties. If any particular food is fully removed from its serving dish, more will appear on it. I found that kind of neat when we entered the previous one and can understand why we're not able to take any food out of here.

There's basically an unlimited supply of it. Adam mentioned before that removing a lot of food without actually using it is a recipe for disaster, as the System will punish an entire party for someone doing that. How it can tell the difference, I'm not sure, but it suggests there might be a living mind behind the System.

"You eat food, I'm going to go wash up," Adam tells me.

"Sure, leave the wounded person all by himself," I tease.

Adam suddenly turns serious and inspects my arm.

"Bathing can wait," he says. "I'll stay with you."

"You know I was teasing, right?" I ask.

"Yeah," he answers. "But I still want to stay close just in case. You did lose a lot of blood and are looking rather pale. The place is enchanted so that even my hearing can't catch you collapsing if I'm in the bath."

"Okay," I say. "I suppose I'll have to bathe with you, then. As much as I'm not looking forward to that. Ugh."

Skill Assessed: [Acting] is Level 3

Adam gives me a strange look as I dismiss the notice, only mildly surprised there's a Skill for that. I'm not surprised that I have a decent Level of it even without that bonus to Experience back on Earth. Dealing with my siblings and parents built up a fair bit of acting talent… for when I actually care to use it.

"Your tone is absolutely serious," he says. "And even your breath is matching this, suggesting you do actually find the idea of bathing with me disgusting. But your heartbeat isn't one of someone who is disgusted. This is confusing me."

"That's because I'm teasing you, Adam," I snort.

"Oh!" He laughs. "If you weren't injured, I'd thump you in the back of the head."

"I'd thump you back."

"Yeah, but it'd feel more like a tap."

I'll show him a tap… once I'm stronger.

We sit at the table and begin digging into food. There are stews, steaks, roasts, various types of chicken and duck dishes, fruits, vegetables, salads, desserts, and more. A dish consisting of grilled cubed veggies is one of my favorites, especially after I add cut strips of meat that had been grilled with some sort of sauce to it.

Adam mostly eats meat, but he does eat some nuts, berries, fruits, and some bread as well. I don't realize until he mutters under his breath that I keep sneaking veggies on his plate as well.

"Sorry," I apologize. "I'm used to needing to do this with my siblings. Some of them really avoided eating veggies if they could, so I'd sneak some onto their plates anytime I got close enough to."

"You've mentioned your siblings before," Adam says. "A few times. I find it strange that you had to raise them rather than your parents. How many did you have?"

"Erm," I say. "My dad had a wife and four girlfriends, and between the five of them, they had twenty-three kids."

"So you had twenty-two siblings?" He asks. "How many were younger?"

"Twenty-three."

"The math doesn't add up."

"I'm a bastard from a sixth woman," I clarify. "Born several years before any of my siblings and who my dad was not in a relationship with. She dumped me on him when I was born."

"Ah."

"And my dad and his lovers," I continue. "Were all irresponsible adults. They basically did enough so that I'd know what to do, then left it to me to care for the others. When I was little, I'd thought that was normal and I had to do it. I was a little kid, it didn't cross my mind that it wasn't my job at all."

"Oh," he says. "What about now?"

"If I stopped this 'duty'," I say. "I'd lose my home. Without any money of my own, I'd have nothing. Sure, I could actually sue – it's illegal where I lived to evict a child once they turn eighteen just because they're an adult. Parents are actually required to let them stay until they're nineteen unless they go through a process and certain circumstances are met. However, getting money from the suit would take months, possibly years, and I'd still have nowhere in that time. So it was easier to just keep doing things, even if I was being treated as a glorified servant."

"That sounds awful," he says. "And there was no way out?"

"I was researching lawyers in secret," I admit. "Legal aid to see what we could do without giving my dad a chance to kick me out. Theoretically, I could file a suit for unpaid labor and child labor on top of that. The trick would be not doing anything that would result in my siblings being sent into the foster care system, as they'd be split up."

"You actually cared about them?" He asks.

"Yeah," I shrug. "Some of the older ones have been helping me take care of things recently, so they'll probably step up to the task now that I'm gone. I just hope things don't get screwed up enough that they end up getting split."

"So you wouldn't return, even for your siblings?"

"Nope," I answer. "I love them to death, but this world seems a lot more fun. Plus, there's this attractive guy I met here I'd like to stick around with a bit more. As long as he eats his veggies."

Adam grumbles a complaint, but digs into the grilled veggies despite the fact that he had to have known I was teasing at that point. He does make sure to stuff his face full of meat for every bite of veggies he takes, which is kind of amusing, especially because it causes his cheeks to puff out a little.

After we stuff ourselves with food, Adam and I head into the room marked with what looks like a drop of water with steam rising up from it. Inside is an area for cleaning clothes, one for scrubbing ourselves clean, and another for just soaking in hot, steaming water.

We strip off our clothes, and I take the opportunity to examine the scales on his sides. Just as he said, they fade into skin after just a couple of inches past his waistline. I really want to touch them and feel the transition, but don't want to be that fast.

The agreement was to wait until after we finish the Dungeon to decide things unless there's a strong reason for us to decide against it before then. Even if he knows I've mostly decided already, I can't tell if he wants to remain as a team after this.

One of the first things I do while cleaning myself off is checking my injury, which has begun to scab up. I'll need to be careful not to agitate it while cleaning, and bind it again after the bath. Keeping it out of the water when I go for a soak will be important, too.

Adam spends a few minutes to quickly work on scrubbing and soaking his clothes, then he joins me in scrubbing himself down. I make no effort to hide that I'm checking him out as he does, finding that he's doing the exact same. He's also extremely hard, giving me a good view of his 7.8" long, 1.8" thick, uncut dick, his foreskin completely covering his head.

"Just curious," I say. "But are you just large, or is that Demihuman (Dragon) thing?"

Snorting, Adam gives a pointed look at my dick, which is 8.5" long and 2" thick, also uncut with enough foreskin to keep the head covered. I'm even bigger than he is, and I know I've got a monster. It's actually got me a little worried, since I know that bigger dicks are really only better visually after a certain point and I'm at the point where a guy might not want it.

"I know I'm abnormal," I say. "Unless this world has a larger dick size than mine, but your gaze suggests otherwise."

"Averages tend to be the same regardless of world," he tells me. "And between all humanoid species, outside of a few things. Average dick length is about five to five and a quarter inches, despite what people want others to think. For thickness, a little less than an inch and a half. This is true even among Deminhuman (Dragon)s."

"Ah," I say as we rinse ourselves off. "So yours is a bit on the thicker side. I take it that means finding someone who'd actually take it is a bit more difficult?"

"I could say the same to you," he says. "Considering you look about as thick, if not slightly thicker."

"Probably," I shrug. "I'm barely eighteen and have never tried. I'd imagine so, though, considering there's a point where it stops being pleasurable and more just eye candy."

"Maybe for humans," he says. "Among the clans, though, a larger one is more attractive, even if it's at the point it's uncomfortable. Despite having the same average as humans, we value bigger dicks more. It likely began due to the sizes of dragons and the fact that we're descended of them. We don't view it any differently between species, though, so even a human with a big one is considered appealing to us."

He puffs out his chest.

"I had the biggest in my clan," he tells me. "Never did anything with anyone before, but I had more than a few who'd have liked to. You'd probably have half the adults wanting you because of that."

"Not my stellar good looks?"

"You're attractive," he says. "But not that attractive."

I snort, then walk over to one of the baths and lower myself into it, feeling the heat seep into my body more thoroughly than the heat from cleaning up did. This feels really good, and my muscles start to relax. A good sleep after this will be nice, though I doubt I'll get eight hours' worth considering how long we've already been in here and the probable need to be awake before we leave. Or at least, it's probably better if we are.

"So," I say as Adam joins me in the bath, sitting across from me. "You're really only attracted to my dick, huh?"

"What?" He gives me a baffled look. "I mean, damn if it isn't appealing as can be by the standards of my people, Jamie, but you are attractive. Just not, like, stunningly hot. I'd say mildly hot. You don't have good abs."

He's an abs guy, huh?

"You have good abs," I tell him as I allow my gaze to wander across what I can see of his body. The heated water is too cloudy for me to make his abs, but I can make out other things. My gaze settles on the scales on his shoulders. "So are all dragons black? Or just some? Is there a difference between the types of dragons by color?"

"Dragons can be a variety of colors," he answers. "All dragons can use fire magics, and that's what being a Demihuman (Dragon) gets us a bonus for. There's also a hidden passive bonus to our affinity with the type of magic our type of dragon is, too."

"Black dragons are shadow?" I guess at his hidden affinity.

"Yeah," he answers. "But I'm not actually descended of a black dragon, I'm of a rarer variant."

Before I can ask what he means, Adam becomes completely covered in scales everywhere he has skin. They're as black as the rest of his scales, and I remember that he mentioned he has a Skill to cover his body in them. His scales, whether when fully-covered or not, are as tough as the scales of dragons, making it an effective defense. However, the Mana cost for the Skill is extremely draining for him.

A second passes, and he reverts back to his normal form. When the extra scales fade away, his normal ones turn dark blue. The rest of him looks as it did before, including his black hair.

"I'm a breed," he tells me. "That can change its type at will, within a few selected ones. Every time I use [Dragon Scales], my type shifts to the next in the series after I revert back. Black scales give me the affinity for shadow magics, blue for water magics, purple for magic – that's the spells classified under the [Magic] category in your spellbook, not magic in general – and then red for fire magics. The cycle goes in that order, all of them darker."

He reaches up and touches his hair a little.

"This doesn't change as it's related to my human side, not my dragon side," he points at his eyes. "Most dragons have orange or gold eyes, though there are a couple of variants with purple or silver."

"Don't you primarily use fire magics?" I ask. "Why not stay with the red scales?"

"I look cooler with the black ones."

"I think you look neat with black or blue," I tell him. "And probably with purple or red scales, too."

"Thanks," he says. "I still like the black ones."

I snort, then close my eyes and relax. Once I start to nearly fall asleep, I exit the bath and dry off, examining my injury as I do. Thankfully, I remembered to keep it out of the bath, so the scab didn't soften up and pull away. Just to be safe, I bind it up again before pulling on the pair of pants Adam left out for me.

Dressed and barely staying awake, I head to one of the two bedrooms here, both of which are marked with a bed icon on the door. Adam told me in the first safe zone that the number of doors always depends on the number of people who actually made it this far.

The bedroom is basically a square room with a bed resting against one wall, the bed itself rather comfortable. I climb onto it and tuck myself in, quickly falling asleep.