Chapter 65: The Last King – Part 3

Chapter 65: The Last King – Part 3

Today is the 9th.

Ciel wakes me up, and 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.

Yunia quickly adapted to the "naked breakfast" rule. Being able to gaze upon such a perfect, naked body surely improves everyone's morning.

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.

Yunia is the first to get completely naked due to how easy it is to undo the ties of an elven not-bikini.

Then all eyes fall on her. Istante is a beautiful woman, but neither she, nor any of the other elves can compare to Yunia. They all stare at her without a hint of shame and also with a lot of desire, then two of the proto-maids lick their lips in hunger.

Hana and I are the next to get naked. The maid aiding her sighs while staring at her abs, and the maid aiding me has her eyes drawn to my dick. Since I'm a grower, I keep it at 3/4 mast, so it's at a respectable length, but still pointing downwards so that it doesn't get in the way of my clothes.

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

Alissa gets naked next, gaining confidence in herself when she notices my stare.

Roxanne, Ciel, and Lina get undressed last, all three of them feeling rather shy. I know that Roxanne wants privacy, but she's enduring it because of how much it pleases me to see other women salivating over her body.

What a good girl; I need to reward her later.

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.

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.

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