{Elisa}

At the end of the day, as bittersweet as it was, Elisa was still a noblewoman.

That meant that, on occasion, after her training and her classes, she would routinely find herself back in her old life. The same life she'd lead once this "indulgence", as her family called it, was over. This was why was currently in a pristine room full of gaudy decorations and expensive paintings, dining with both her family and the family of her fiance.

"Have you heard?" A woman, her fiance's cousin, asked at the other end of the elegant table that everyone was sitting around. "Cradle's taxes just went up again!"

"What?" A man asked, baffled, as Elisa looked down at the food on her plate and tuned them out.

She was currently eating some eldersen meat, the remains of a Rank B monster found far to the north, seasoned with garlic and presented to her with a side of ordinary mashed potatoes, all to be washed down with some sweetwater, drinkable flavored water found in random ponds northeast of Libera.

This dish alone cost a little over a hundred silver varols. To others, it would have been like eating something that was made in the Divine's Holy Realm itself. To Elisa, it was flavorless at this point.

This feeling was made worse by the fact that now because she'd begun training as an adventurer, she understood the incredible danger that went into acquiring this sort of thing. She wondered how many of the others around the table had thought of this.

"...lisa."

[Hm...] As per usual, nowadays, Elisa daydreamed about how she'd perform in her next fight.

In a very short time, she'd fallen in love with combat. When she'd first arrived at the Academy, she had an idea of what she wanted to do, but she wasn't sure if it could be done. However, in the last month, Maria had helped her accomplish that goal.

The goal was to fight out in the wilderness with dual greatswords. The reason why she had wanted to do this was simple: because she could.

Elisa had been born with a great amount of natural strength. As "unrefined" as a lady it made her, no one could deny that. This was why she was even allowed to study at the Academy by her family, to begin with. Here, she got to perform limit-breaking more often, whereas before she'd only gotten to do in the monthly training sessions that her parents had paid for as she'd grown up.

As impractical as it was, the results during her missions hadn't disappointed her. Elisa was cleaving kobold's heads off left and right on her handful of excursions, and she loved every bit of it.

"Elisa," her aunt spoke up louder beside her, and the sunlight-hared woman blinked.

"Hm?" She turned toward Carliah.

"Your fiance just arrived," she stated, and Elisa nodded.

Knowing that, and knowing the role she needed to play for the sake of her family, Elisa straightened up, cleaned her lips up, and checked to see if there was any meat in her teeth with a hand mirror to her right.

She could hear his footsteps coming from the hallway ahead, slightly muffled, and she already felt tired.

One, two, three seconds passed, and suddenly, the door swung open.

"Ah, Marvain, finally," her fiance's cousin said. "What took you so long?"

Marvain of the Ta'lin family. A rich, young, handsome man with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a body that was fairly in good shape, that Elisa absolutely could not stand.

[... Just don't choke him out in front of everyone,] Elisa told herself, [and another day will have gone by peacefully.]

"How is everyone doing?" Marvain asked, avoiding the question, "I trust the chef did not disappoint?"

"Never," Carliah answered to Elisa's left. "You pick the very best, every time."

"I am glad to hear that," he replied, making his way over to them. Elisa turned toward him and smiled kindly.

"How were your travels?"

"Well, I got caught up, unfortunately. A few... mutts wanted to be invasive, but they were promptly dealt with," he said, waving a hand. "I am here now, however, next to you, my wonderful, beautiful bride-to-be, and that is all that matters."

"Aw," one of his family members said at the opposite end of the table. "What a charmer!"

"Yes, I am rather lucky," Elisa said in response, and, without warning, Marvain pulled her in for a firm kiss.

Just as he also placed a hand on her left tit and squeezed it in front of everyone. It took every bit of restraint she had not to slap him. That wasn't to say that Elisa was a prude, but, even she, a woman who, by all accounts, wasn't very picky, understood the concept of there being a time and a place for things.

She found that her restraint was well-tested with this man as a partner.

"I must say, my beloved," he whispered to her, placing a hand down on her thigh. "If you've had enough of this dinner, I could very well use some stress relief at this moment."

"... Now?" Elisa asked.

"... Did you go deaf momentarily?" Marvain asked with a smirk. "Yes, now."

Elisa held back a sigh and instead, nodded, standing up from her chair.

"My apologies," she told the others, "my stomach did not quite agree with the food today, I wish to take my leave."

"Ah, how unfortunate. Well, it was lovely seeing you again, Elisa. Same time next week?"

"Of course," Elisa bowed.

And, with her fiance trailing behind her, she exited the room as he said:

"I will see her to the taxi, and then I will return. Just a moment."

With that, both of them were out. The taxi, however, was parked just outside Marvain's home where they currently were, but they did not go in the direction that would lead there. Instead, Marvain hurriedly pulled Elisa up some stairs and all the way to his room, as their feet paced hurriedly along the carpeted red floors of this place.

As soon as they were in Marvain's chambers, the man took no time at all in pulling his pants down, as Elisa stood by the door.

"Oh, goodness," he said with a long exhale, "I tell you, those wolf-ears are lucky we even allow them in this city with how brazenly they covet that which we have," he stated before turning toward her, his dick out and proud with his pants laying by his feet. "Well?" He said. "Don't just stand there, come 'ere."

It was almost hard to believe for Elisa that there was once a time she would have been doing this of her own free will with him. He was, after all, not a bad-looking individual at all, and, honestly, there were two specific kinds of people that Elisa had a weakness for.

The cute, somewhat meek types, and the cocky types who know exactly how much they're worth. However, very quickly into this arranged marriage, Marvain had taken Elisa's disposition towards this sort of thing to mean that she was, effectively, a mouth and a pussy on-demand, for his convenient use.

And, unfortunately, as the D'Ana family wasn't in the best financial state at the moment, he was mostly right about that.

So, Elisa walked forward and wordlessly got on her knees.

"Finally. Please, put those lips to good use already. It's been a while."

And, the noblewoman did just that.

---

Later, Elisa was exiting the building with her aunt by her side, as Marvain and his family said their goodbyes.

"Always a pleasure," Carliah told them.

"Do stay safe, dear," Marvain's mother said, walking up to her and kissing her cheek, and then Elisa's. "Go with the Divine."

"Go with the Divine," Elisa echoed, bowing.

The two of them then hopped into the taxi together, as Marvain and his family retreated inside. Of course, as they didn't care, no one questioned why Elisa was still around after announcing that she was going to leave.

"By the way," Carliah said to her as their driver quickly got the vehicle moving. "Next weekend, one of the Ta'lin girls is having her Rose Party."

[Oh, damn,] Elisa thought. [Been a while since I went to one of those.]

"You may bring two guests. As per usual, don't do anything to embarrass yourself or your relatives, and, aside from that, you can engage in those unnatural and disgusting activities you so love. However, I advise you," Carliah said before Elisa cut her off.

"Yeah, yeah, cut it out and stop before I get married, I know."

Carliah was, of course, referring to her trysts. Especially the ones she engaged in with others of the same sex, as these were viewed as unnatural and, well, gross, by those of the higher tax brackets.

She was *allowed* to do what she wanted, at least, until she got married, but it was still discouraged.

Funny enough, however, one woman quickly came to Elisa's mind. A certain amber-eyed classmate of hers, who she hadn't quite gotten to know as well as she'd like.

One who, apparently, was keeping some sort of a secret from her, as well. After a night of silent glares, the thought of this girl did bring a smile to Elisa's face.

Rin was just kind of fascinating like that. One of the main reasons being, and there was no way of overstating this, she was a woman whose beauty rivaled that of anyone Elisa knew who had apparently traveled all the way to Libera from Dren, without a name to pair along with those looks. And, if her limited wardrobe was any indication, without any money either.

They had a saying for this sort of thing, in Libera. It was as though her beauty had been stolen away from the Divine's hands.

[... You know what,] Elisa smirked. [Why not? Maybe this could bring us a little closer. I'd love to make one more friend before I officially become that man's sex slave. Just one friend, outside of those golden walls, and everything that comes next in my life could be just a little easier to do.]

---

{Rin}

When the play was done, Rin and Xhez walked out of the theatre, and the adventurer grinned as Xhez was absolutely glowing next to her.

"That was so strange!" Xhez said. "E-Even though they did not let me see their memories, it almost felt like I could view it all!"

"Uh, yeah, that's what it's like. They did a good job," Rin replied, still holding that bag full of all the potions she'd bought.

"And, the singing!" Xhez noted as well, referring to some scenes where a choir played as the action happened on the stage. "It was so... melodic. I have not done anything like that!"

"Really?"

"Yes, mostly, all I do is hold a single tone, but... Wow!" Xhez stood in front of Rin. "I would like to try it!"

"M-Maybe later," Rin replied, as citizens gave them weird looks. "We're sorta in the middle of the street, and all."

Side-by-side, the two of them began the walk down the street, back to Rin's house. She was glad Xhez was liking Dren, so far, and already, she was trying to think of the stuff she'd show her tomorrow. Maybe the two of them could take a trip down to her old school, or maybe she could show her a bar or two.

However, as she and the sprite walked up to her home's front door, it opened before they could reach it.

"Thanks again, but, you didn't have to," Rin's mother said, as a young man walked out.

"Pfft, it's no trouble, Mrs. Asahiro!" The boy replied, and Rin froze up. He turned toward her, and the two saw each other. When their eyes met, just like her, he remained perfectly still.

A second passed, though, and, soon, they were running into each other's arms.

"Felix!" Rin yelled out happily.

"Rin! By the Divine!" Felix replied as the two smiled at each other, and Rin tried her hardest to keep the bag in her hands from thrashing around too harshly. "Lyn told me you were here b-but, I..."

"It's..." Rin paused, taking a deep breath. "It's so good to see you."

"You too!" He said, and then, his eyes went over to Xhez, and although he still looked happy, he looked confused now, as well.

"Uh," he said. "Are there two of you now? What the fuck?"

At that, Rin chuckled a little.

"Yeah, you wish."

"Felix," Rin's mother called out. "Would you like to come back inside? If you and Rin want to talk, of course."

"Yeah, yeah," he said, grinning before turning toward Xhez. "It's nice to meet you though, Rin Number 2. Name's Felix," he stated.

"I am Xhez," the sprite said, bowing before everyone walked in.