Chapter 126: Among the Clouds – Part 1

Chapter 126: Among the Clouds – Part 1

"Don't..." Alissa immediately stops me with a low hiss.

I bite my lips and grin.

I want to say it.

"Don't..." She repeats, more forceful this time, and her dazzling orange eyes stare into my soul in warning.

I want to say it!

"Am-..."

She covers my mouth with her hand, muffling my words, then she sinks her nails into my cheeks. "You cheeky bastard," she hisses again, trying not to smile, then releases me.

I grin like a fool and relax in my seat. My future-dad job of annoying my wife was a success.

Caterina stares at us, her refined face inexpressive, but her gaze betrays a hint of confusion.

"Ignore them, they're just two fools in love," Yunia dryly calls us out, and Alissa blushes just a little bit, then Caterina slowly nods, and they go back to talking about heretics.

I grab Alissa's hand and start caressing it as I turn my attention to the view. The bridge is a glass dome to improve visibility, but it also makes it the best spot for sightseeing in the entire ship.

The High Trees are all more or less the same height, and their crowns' shyness leaves only centimeters of open air between them, so at this distance, all we see is a blanket of green with the occasional hole, where a village most likely exists.

We're at the height of the lowest clouds, so we occasionally pass one by, making it seem like we're avoiding fuzzy icebergs.

"Let's get closer to the glass," I suggest, and Alissa silently nods, already calming down from my domestic "abuse."

The bridge is mostly silent. There's the constant, low humming from the three propellers at the back, but besides that, we can only hear Yunia's and Caterina's whispers, and the occasional report from the crew.

Alissa's eyes give her a better view of the sky and the sea of green below us, so I use her to look around.

"W-would you like to use my scope, Your Highness?" The scout beside us kindly offers.

I look at the cute, tomboyish imperial woman and smile. "Why, thank you. I'll only use it for a few minutes to not impair your duty," I huskily reply and notice her take a deep breath.

I'll remember her face and then invite her one day for some "socialization."

I take her scope and use it to look around. It's quite potent and probably expensive, but it's also slightly blurry, so it's not that well-made.

As I look around, I spot a few black dots in the sky, which seem to have a dragon-like profile and appear to be slightly larger than average Dragolites.

There aren't many flying monsters above the High Forest because the thick canopies hide all potential prey, and diving into the dark forest is practically asking to be ambushed by the many monsters that skulk about.

On the other hand, the skies above aren't regularly patrolled for monsters, so whenever we find one, it's most certainly going to be quite large because the smaller ones are easily picked off in this rather hostile environment.

With the scope, I actually manage to take a look down through a hole and find the little elven houses inside it. It's a bit too blurry and unstable to see the ant-sized people moving about, but I use my imagination to fill in for what I can't see.

After having my fill of that, I return the scope, and then Alissa and I leave the bridge.

We enter the main body and pass by the large enchanted tanks full of magical floating gas. There are a few of the crew about, making periodic checks on them to make sure that they're at the appropriate levels and fill them up when necessary.

The Chimeras don't have perfect air sealing technology, so these tanks slowly leak the gas. Rubber is expensive, even for elves, but maybe it might be worth investing in improving the sealing to save on the crew's MP.

We walk through the entire ship, then enter the chamber for the propellers, and our ears are assaulted by the loud humming of the magical engines. Lina and Aoi are inside, inspecting both the engines and the room because they're making plans for how to better muffle the noise.

Let's see... sound is air molecules vibrating, so to reduce that, the energy needs to be absorbed by something.

Acoustic panels are generally made of foam or other soft material because they can vibrate along with the sound and better absorb the energy in the wave, so perhaps we could soundproof this room by covering it with either moss or grass.

I summon a nature elemental and use her to grow a pair of mufflers for Alissa's ears. She's kind enough to stay with me for the Blessing, so this is the least I can do.

I call our mages, and after convening with them, we decide to cover the walls with a specific type of wool-like moss. Thankfully, the room is made of wood, so it'll be simple to grow it.

We have three mages with [Nature Magic], but I don't want them to waste all of their mana on this. This is going to be delicate, but simple work, so I just summon fifteen nature elementals, draining most of my MP, and then I order them to use all of their mana on growing the moss while the Nature mages guide them.

Since we're not needed here anymore, the girls and I retreat to our Suite, and we notice the humming of the engines gradually becoming more and more muffled over time.

When we enter our private room, I suddenly get an idea.

Alissa smiles warmly and hugs my scaled arm against her thin shirt. "Bonding time?" She hums happily.

"Bonding time," I whisper back and grin.

I pull out our collection of elven hair and skin products, then we all strip and make a circle. It's time for a not-orgy of caressing.

Human Aoi caresses me while I caress Lina, who caresses Alissa, who (teasingly) caresses Ciel, who caresses Roxanne, who caresses Hana, who caresses Aoi.

The golems wish to participate, but they don't want to get in the way, so I tell them to magically manipulate the brushes so that we can focus on our caressee's skin.

Like a cherry on top, Gify pops into existence at the center of the circle and kindly activates her "massage," making us feel like there's water flowing through every inch of our beings as if we were in a soul-Jacuzzi, which brings us close to pure bliss.

"We're just missing you," Ciel calls for Yunia, and my soul space bursts with chatter as all of the girls call for our elven queen.

She fakes a sigh and finishes her conversation with Caterina, then she quickly, but with restraint, makes her way back to us. Her pace is right at the threshold between walking and jogging.

When she finally arrives, she just about throws her heels and not-bikini away, then joins us, taking a spot on the bed between Hana and Aoi.

I tease my little girl's body with my claws, running their tips along her flanks while my tentacles massage her back, spreading magical elven oil all over her perfect, unblemished skin.

At the same time, Aoi's pale, slender fingers play with my body. She mimics my delicate touch and gently tickles my inner thigh, and the feeling of it is enhanced by Gify's "massage," making my cock twitch from the non-sexual stimulation as it wants to get hard, but lacks the proper motivation to do so.

Alissa teases Ciel with her subtly lewd touch. The former is letting her cheeky nature take over while the latter is simply too weak to the fox girl to say no to this kind of caress. If only Alissa could also grow tentacles, I think Ciel would've also asked her to marry her.

"I wouldn't-... ahn~...!" Her angelic moans resound in my soul space as Alissa casually rubs her sensitive dark nipples.

Ciel's arousal slowly seeps into her caressing, and she begins fondling Roxanne's slender body, who quickly becomes wet, but she's too strong to fall to mere not-foreplay, though she does channel the energy of her arousal into a stronger touch.

Hana gladly joins in the fun and begins molesting Yunia, who then begins salivating over Aoi's slender and supremely feminine body.

And so, the cycle begins. Our arousal seeps through [Bind] and feeds off of each other's, but we practice some self-control and stop just sort of tipping over our partners and making them request an actual fuck.

As we leave our minds open to outside influence, the golems' single-mindedness begins to infect us, drawing us all into a sort of trance and aligning our wills in a way that the Gestalt training never could before.

The temperature of the room drops a few degrees just from the heavy weight that the Punisher puts in her words. Previous friendly behavior means nothing to her in the face of Wickedness.

But Yunia categorically replies, "Our men have too much loyalty to us for them to go against our orders without extreme discouragement."

And the Punisher sighs in annoyance. "Bold of you to admit such a thing to me, but at least you understand then the importance of upstanding leadership?"

I share a look with Yunia, and we exchange some quick mental words.

Just to fuck with her, I assume the same demeanor as Yunia and respond, "Indeed, we do. We have a reputation to maintain, and we have complete trust in our Commander's integrity to uphold our values."

Caterina's thin golden eyebrows slowly knit into a frown as her eyes dart to me. "You delegate that responsibility to the Commander of the Lordsguard?"

And Yunia immediately finishes, making Caterina's gaze dart back to her, "Yes. We're too close to our soldiers to judge their actions without bias."

"Hm..." She hums softly, and her posture relaxes. It seems that this final answer has pleased her. "I heard some rumors. It seems that the Ryder family's harem is much larger than previously thought."

It's a bit jarring how fast she can switch between hot and cold, but nobody seems to want to linger in the grim mood.

I grin smugly and agree, "I don't know what those rumors are, but yes, it's most likely true."

Then the conversation quickly returns to being casual again, but I pity Nohopu and Kurii a bit because they have a hard time relating with the Templars.

After we have our meal, we go spend our time leisurely atop the Floater. The ship uses a [Fly] gem, which creates a bubble around it to reduce drag, so the exposed upper deck is protected from strong winds, making it quite the popular spot for the crew.

At most, we can feel a breeze from the small amount of air that's allowed to pass through the magical bubble, and in this hot weather, it's quite refreshing, though I still pull out a tent for us since the sun is pretty punishing.

We don't feel like training anymore today, so when Lina pulls out a book to read, I immediately put my lap loli on her rightful throne, then I look over her shoulder and listen to her inner monologue as she reads.

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