Chapter 154

“Maybe I shouldn’t be too critical,” she murmured, unable to hide her frustration. “After all, even for ... someone ... like you, you have worked hard.”

I was amused by her sense of entitlement, assuming herself to be my clear superior even after I had saved her life twice. “As you wish, your dragoness,” I said as I gestured the tunnel. “Please, ladies first.”

But before she stepped in, she gave me a suspicious look. “Shouldn’t you go first, you’re the one that knows the route.”

“If you can handle dismantling the tunnels without alerting the enemy as we move forward, making sure our enemies don’t catch us, all without actually triggering the traps I had embedded, I can go first,” I said with a smirk.

She clearly didn’t appreciate my glib answer. Frustration danced over her face for a few seconds, making me wonder whether I was pushing her a bit too much. But when I looked up worriedly — a fake worry, of course, as the opponents had long gone away, tricked by the little scene I had created — she decided that little digs or the sequence of the walk were not that important.

She started walking down the tunnel, and I followed, stretching my mana to slowly and carefully destroy the tunnels, making sure that not only I didn’t let out a flare of mana, but also making sure that if someone noticed the fake nature of my gift and tried to dig down, they wouldn’t be able to trace the path correctly.

Of course, I didn’t destroy every tunnel with the same skill, as if someone had already arrived down here, searching for a clue about our destination. I made sure to destroy the tunnels that were pointing away with much less care — or a different kind of care — so that if they had actually arrived at this point, them following a fake path would give us the time to retreat.

It was a boring, tedious task.

Luckily, I had the perfect view to give me some enjoyment. The deliciously thick hips of my new companion were dancing back and forth with each step thanks to the ridiculously high-heeled shoes she was wearing. And while she was short, her curves were just delicious enough to compensate for it.

And the rough floor wasn’t helping any, making her stumble occasionally. She didn’t fall down, of course, not with her supernatural agility, but the occasional stumble was impossible to avoid. Still, that hardly helped my enjoyment of the show.

“What a shoddy tunnel,” she murmured.

“Sorry, your dragoness,” I said with exaggerated seriousness. “The next time, I’ll try to find some high-class marble to dig through.”

“Don’t call me that,” she said, turning just enough to give me a stink eye.

“Well, I don’t have your name yet, your dragoness.”

“And you won’t have it if you act like this!”

“As you wish, your tall and imposing majesty,” I answered, even though I received another punch in response.

[-52 HP]

She let it slide with one punch, falling silent as she walked, while I smirked, happy with the short discussion. Her responses gave me a lot of clues about her background, and the levers I could push.

It would be nice to talk to someone other than the headmistress about the Eternals, especially since the dragon didn’t hold any power on my only base, unlike the headmistress, who hold the power in my only power base.

She might be a dragon, but clearly, she was also some kind of noble, at least in terms of societal expectations, which guaranteed at least some kind of accuracy in terms of the information she might have. And despite that, her immature reactions were far too emotional for her to be any kind of dedicated agent, making her weak to subterfuge.

The skill she had shown against the combined assault of the Eternals was significant, of course, especially considering she lacked the extremely efficient shortcut provided by the system. However, her skill didn’t have any implications in terms of her social status, especially since I had no idea about their power balance.

Apart from her magical skills, the ease she transformed, and the quickness she had changed into her dress and her shoes, implied that it wasn’t a rare affair for her to use this form on social occasions, which had an interesting number of implications.

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6226 / 6324 Mana: 6831 / 7750 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

Expert Craft [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]