Chapter 288: 108: Possibilities – Part 1

The cobbled paths, the crooked buildings, the mixed architectural styles, the odd houses that look like they were sliced in half then rebuilt with a different design, the fondness for statues. Though Escanso is more colorful, Rabanara has a lot more charm, and I just love walking through these streets.

The wide variety of different races here makes for a nice sight as the demon race has fewer inhibitions than the average human, and though they aren't as fond of showing skin as the elves, they're a lot more flirty.

Most of the demon race women that pass by, and especially the succubi women, seem very interested in my horns and tail.

"But of course they are. It's like you're walking around with a big cock out at full mast," Roxanne explains through [Bind].

"You think someone would be up for a quickie?" I ask back as we walk past a succubi runway model that winks at me.

"Well, we aren't as promiscuous as the Chimeras…" She replies with mixed feelings.

"Promiscuous, no, but I'm sure you'd win at thirst," Hana comforts her internally, which restores some of her pride.

Her heart suddenly bursts with energy as she declares in my soul space, "That's it! If we rub my tail, then there's nobody out there who can gobble up as many cocks as I can!"

I grab her thin tail and lightly bite the dagger-like end.

"HYAH…!" She lets out a weird shriek, then silently recomposes herself and readjusts her rectangle glasses. "If we rub my tail, then there's nobody out there who can lick as many pussies as I can!" She quickly corrects herself.

"Better…" I quietly praise her.

I see Hukarere's eyes soften for a moment under her snout-shaped helmet. The rest of the Lordsguard and Azador also glance at us, and after they confirm that we're just playing around, they resume watching our surroundings for potential dangers.

Yunia is the only one of us who doesn't have some nostalgic memories about this place, but she can still join in our moment by opening herself up to the emotions that bleed through [Bind].

So that they aren't left out, I pull out the golems to let them enjoy this place since Ted and Suzy were literally born here.

We walk towards the Temple, which is quite close to the Lord's Hall we arrived at, and the distance is short enough for Roxanne's precious little feet to not get tired from it.

Ciel asks Aoi to change into her humanoid form to avoid scaring the temple-goers, which was an excellent idea since the very moment we enter the Temple grounds, we cause a little commotion anyway as the orphans point and shout.

"Elves!"

"Wow!"

"Their armor is shining!"

"Is it really wood armor?"

"Beastfolk!"

"Dog!"

"She's mean-faced, so she's a wolf!"

It seems they're mistaking Hukarere for a Beastfolk. Aside from a few preteens (mostly boys) getting stunned by the sight of my wives (mostly Yunia), they mostly focus on my exotic snow wolf.

But a single word is enough to instantly shift the mood. "Ciel?"

"Sister Ciel!"

"CIEL!"

Then they swarm us, and Azador begrudgingly lets them pass.

"Woow, what is this dress?"

"Floating dolls!"

"Are these elven clothes?"

"So pretty!"

"Look, a Metal Lady."

"Ah! The Masked Fox!"

The thick cloud of perfume created by having all of my wives standing close together starts to affect them, especially the boys, who quickly become charmed by my chocolate angel's aura of kindness. Not only that, but my wives are so gorgeous that they're to die for, so they all end up charming the kids.

We all have high "Charisma," so even I stun a few little girls with my presence, but I get more coos of awe due to my shiny draconic features.

Ciel tries to calm them down, but then a few priests notice that we're nobility and come to chastise the kids, but then they recognize Ciel too and make more noise, drawing in even more priests. The situation snowballs from there until there's a crowd of people cheering around us and a very stressed knight trying to find a way to get things back under control.

I infuse a bit of [Godly Language] into my voice as I yell, "Please, give us some space!"

Then Alissa casts [Mesmerizing Butterflies] enthralling the children and the weaker-willed priests with the rainbow-colored illusions while the rest momentarily forget what they were doing.

That allows the Lordsguard to properly surround us while Ciel goes towards the front of our formation to talk with the more Illusion-resistant priests.

Then a familiar voice that tickles our ears draws her attention, "Ciel…!" And we turn to the approaching priest.

His figure is unmistakable. Arantos, the rotund and bald middle-aged man, quickly makes his way through the still charmed crowd, completely unaffected by Alissa's spell.

Ciel takes a step past the Lordsguard and receives her unofficial foster father with a tight hug.

"Hahahaha! You're back, you're finally back!" He shouts and laughs out loud.

"It took us a while, but we finally had the time," she replies with a trembling voice, suddenly feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Then they break the hug to look at each other.

"I didn't imagine that you'd come back so fast, though," he comments with a very wide grin, his beady eyes shining with pride from behind his half-circle glasses.

She smiles wryly as she replies, "Yes, even for us, it was unexpected and a bit sudden."

He raises his eyebrows and gives us an amused look. "'Even for us.' That phrasing means you've already accepted how extraordinary your life is."

She closes her eyes for a second in annoyance but continues smiling. "Y-yes… I just can't lie to myself now, can I?"

He chuckles happily and pats her shoulders a few times, then releases her. "Now, let's not leave all these people charmed forever. I'll help you organize this into a more orderly greeting event, and then we can talk inside the temple after."

Alissa dispels [Mesmerizing Butterflies], then Arantos starts yelling at the crowd until the people that want to greet Ciel have formed a proper line.

After almost the entire Temple has exchanged a few words with the famous Queen Ciel Ryder, the Star of Hope, we follow Arantos towards the temple.

"Weird shaepe," Hukarere quietly comments as we walk, her Reo accent making a rare appearance.

The marble half-sphere that is the temple is quite unremarkable aside from its unusual shape. It's just a symbolic representation of the Realm, though the land we walk on is more like a flat Earth than an actual spherical planet, as far as we know, that is.

"You won't find anything exceedingly beautiful inside the temple itself. It's a place for solemn meditation, not artistic expression," Ciel sagely explains.

"Still weird," Roxanne whispers, earning herself a glare from my angel.

The cheeky succubus glances at my white wolf, and I see Hukarere's eyes smile under her helmet.

The inside of the temple is just a wide circular hall where the statues to the sixteen Humanoid Gods are arranged in a circle near the wall with the large sphere representing the Genderless God of Existence in the center.

It's Hukarere's first time inside a temple, so I make a mental note to tell Sandoro to have the Chimera soldiers be taught at least the basics of religion.

"[Are there any Chimera Gods?]" Hukarere asks excitedly in Reo.

"[No, there aren't…]" I quietly answer, and I pity her as her excitement is replaced with a somewhat depressed look.

"Your nation was gone long before the first Humanoid God Ascended," Ciel explains, and Arantos gives us a curious look, but keeps walking.

As we cross through the second floor towards Arantos' office, we pass by Logan, a former adventurer who became a scholar.

The big black man seems to recognize us and waves absentmindedly out of shock, then he notices the Lordsguard and cowers for a second until he remembers that he used to be a tough guy. Lina is a bit fond of him, so I'll tell her to go find him later.

Then the Lordsguard and Azador remain outside while we enter Arantos' office.

It's quite roomy, but it really doesn't have anything that's truly luxurious, though it does look comfy. There are a dozen small windows all across the back wall letting beams of light in while a simple landscape painting decorates each side wall. One of them is suspiciously similar to the Windows XP background, though. There's also a stick of incense burning on his simple desk, filling the air with a calming scent that thankfully doesn't bother Alissa's sharp senses.

Arantos motions to the simple cushioned chairs and smiles as he politely declares, "I hope that my humble office isn't too disagreeable for guests of your station, though it is a bit small for the number of people here."

"It's fine, we're all former adventurers, anyway," I assure him.

"Well, technically not all of you." He glances at Yunia.

I flash a smile. "She's not haughty enough to complain."

But she is annoyed enough to briefly glare at me.

Alissa serves us tea and cookies, and the reversal of the supposed roles amuses him.

He eagerly takes a sip of his high-quality not-earl-gray and starts, "The whole Avgin temple has been raving about all of you so much that I'd bet that half the priests across the entire realm have heard about your exploits by now." His gentle and amused tone makes me smile unconsciously.

"We can imagine," Yunia coolly replies.

And Ciel anxiously blurts out, "I'm sorry, Arantos, but I don't want to imagine how things are. Even the head priest of Escanso seems distressed with our actions." Then she covers her face with her hands as she becomes overly conscious of her own fame.

"I have a feeling that Teresina isn't usually as docile with others as she is with me," I brag a bit with a grin.

Arantos' face strains to hold back manic giggles as he admits, "Well, I, on the other hand, can't imagine Teresina of the 'Black Sunrise' being docile, except with children."

Okay, now that's a pretty cool title.

Then I give him a follow-up, "She's actually quite a nice person, all things considered, and I didn't even call her on a purging date yet, so there's still a lot we can do to get closer to her."

"'Purging date'…" Arantos mumbles and starts chuckling.

Ciel frowns and pleads, "Arantos, please, that isn't funny. Don't encourage his silly jokes."

He clears his throat and tries to control himself. "It isn't funny… it's hilariously ridiculous!" Then he fails and starts chuckling again.

"You at least heard about Ciel's new title, right?" Roxanne slyly asks.

And his chuckles now grow into hearty laughs. "Oh, yes, yes, yes! Queen Ciel Ryder, the Star of Hope of Escanso! That's amazing!"

Ciel sighs in resignation, then breathes in and puffs up her jiggly, large chest. "I'll take that title with pride! It's evidence that people are looking up to me, so I won't disappoint them," she boldly declares.

Arantos quickly gets his chuckling back under control, then he dries the corners of his eyes and sighs. "And we're all proud of what you've achieved," he softly replies, his gentle voice tickling our ears again.

Ciel nods energetically, not letting herself be affected by the teasing.

Lina grabs her hand and suddenly declares, "Her title is evidence of her kindness. The intention behind it was to inspire hope instead of fear."

Her declaration surprises us a little, and Ciel gushes with happiness and pride.

"Indeed. It's a good Title," Arantos gently agrees and gives Lina an affable smile.

"Compared to mine, yeah, I'm a bit envious," I mumble with a slight pout.

"Good Luck" is from a joke, and "Shapeshifter" carries a hint of fear, so I'd like it if my next one was kinder. Alissa and Hana don't have particularly good Titles either since they're both earned from feats that don't invoke particularly good memories, especially in Hana's case.

Arantos clears his throat and changes the topic, "Anyway, I've heard a lot about your adventures, but I'm actually quite curious about you, Lord Aoi, or should I use another honorific?" He shifts his gaze to my stunning and slender blue-haired wife.

"That one is fine, but I don't care about honorifics as long as you don't call me 'it,'" Aoi calmly replies with a friendly grin.

"But only in private," Yunia quickly adds. "In public, you should use Royal Lord or 'your Highness' since we wish to make sure that everyone recognizes us as royalty."

Arantos raises his eyebrows in surprise. "'Queen' wouldn't suffice?" He confusedly asks.

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"We're royals, but we haven't been crowned, yet," she soberly replies.

"I understand." He nods respectfully. "But as I was saying, I'm very curious about Aoi. I did not expect Wolf to do something as ridiculous as converting a monster. Is it true that you, Aoi, have a system given by the Gods?"

"I don't know if it's 'Gods-given,' but I only have a 'Status' and no skill system for now," Aoi answers, then turns to me. "When will I gain one?"

I use [Sense Soul] on her and inspect the outer layer of her soul. Her soul is like a half-peeled orange in comparison to a normal monster's, and she lacks both the instinct to kill humanoids and the protection against [Bind] that normal monsters have.

Right now, it does seem like the "peeled" part of her soul is smaller than it was before, but I think it's about halfway to being fully "healed."

"I don't know, but I'd guess we're about halfway there," I answer with a shrug.

"How, exactly, did you do it?" Arantos questions me, his tone suddenly becoming deadly serious.

I smile diplomatically to disarm him. "I can't answer that now, but one day, we will reveal it."

He stares at me for a moment, and a pout slowly grows on his round face, then he turns to Ciel. "I assume it isn't anything objectionable?"

"It isn't. There are a few secrets around it that we don't want to reveal," she answers factually.

Arantos raises one eyebrow bemusedly and turns back to me. "Well, I should've expected something like that from you. But there's something else I'm concerned about." -He turns to Aoi- "How old are you?"

"I'm two years old!" She happily answers.

Arantos blinks blankly, a bit disconcerted. "And… and that's long enough for you to become an adult?"

She looks down at her own flat chest and frowns as a small hope for getting big boobs suddenly sprouts within her, but she knows for a fact that she's already an adult, and that immediately squashes that hope. "I could have children if Wolfy took off his Ring of Fertility."

"She's a breeder-type, so she was born with enough intelligence to build a civilization," Ciel explains, appeasing Arantos a little.

But that's not enough for him. "Still, her growth is surprising, even for a dragon," he presses on.

"I ate a lot of different monsters, so I grew quite fast," Aoi happily explains, and he hums in understanding.

"Somewhat like 'Experience,' then. Killing a variety of monsters earns more growth than killing the same type repeatedly," he theorizes.

"Exactly," Aoi confirms.

And Arantos sighs in relief. "That's good. I was worried that Wolf and Aoi might have had an 'improper' relationship, so I had to question you about it."

Ciel nods in agreement and tiredly admits, "That's understandable. His reputation really isn't particularly good, so it's better to confirm things."

"And whose fault is that?" I annoyedly reply, then we turn our heads towards Alissa, who does her best to ignore our gazes.

"Not entirely mine," she quietly comments and smiles smugly.

"True," Ciel whispers and glances at me.

Arantos chuckles softly at our antics. "As long as you live a happy life, you shouldn't feel ashamed of what others think of you," he sagely advises.

"Oh, I'm not ashamed, just annoyed," I calmly state.

After a few more simple questions, Arantos suggests that we visit his wife, Alana, but their house is a bit too small to host everyone at once. I suggest that we split up so that we can all meet our friends in town, and then meet up again for lunch.

But I have one last matter that I want to talk about with Arantos. "Before we leave, I'd like to do some research on it if the temple has any sort of knowledge about traveling between the Realms or Cycles," I request.

"What a curious topic," Arantos replies and subtly narrows his eyes in suspicion.

"We stumbled upon something related to it, and we think the Gods want us to learn more about this topic," Ciel stoically explains.

"Hm…" Arantos hums as he thinks and readjusts his half-circle glasses. "I assume you can't tell me more about your reasons for this request."

Ciel gently shakes her head. "No, and this time, we might never be able to."

Arantos sighs and massages his neck. "Well, what you want isn't forbidden knowledge, just extremely peculiar."

"We'd be grateful if you could keep it private," Yunia politely requests.

He nods in understanding. "I'll ask Logan to compile it since he already knows most of you, so he should be discreet about it."

"Thank you," she softly replies.

Alissa, Hana, Roxanne, and Aoi will meet with Selina, my first crush in this world; Ciel will search for Bitar, her old friend; Lina will visit Gimbo, her Enchanting teacher; and Yunia and I will go meet with the Ryzeks.

Before we split up, Arantos takes me to the library, where Logan spends most of his days.

His large and wide back is instantly recognizable from among all the small and nerdy other scholars, which is a somewhat comical sight.

As we pass one of the priests, I notice an incredibly familiar device.

A large, wooden rectangle the size of an open tome, large buttons marked with either the symbols for one and zero or the basic arithmetic operations, and small lights that turn on or off based on input.

This is an electric binary calculator.

I stop in my tracks and stare as I interrogate the girls. They're absolutely sure that the most advanced calculator they'd ever seen before was a mechanical one made by dwarves that we have in our treasury.

But this one is definitely electrical.

Arantos looks back at me confusedly. "Hm?" He hums, then he follows my gaze and grins. "Ah, that. That's our own homemade version of the electric Lylanine, a computer that Lyle Rizek invented. It's built using a peculiar invention he named Wolf's Gate, and it uses another of his inventions, Lylean Logic, as the theoretical basis to form these electrical circuits. About a month ago, he all of a sudden completely shook the field of Mathematics with his inventions."

"We were still inside the dungeon, so we didn't hear about that…" I mumble, still a bit stunned.

The scholar using the "Lylanine" notices my stare and raises an eyebrow in confusion as Arantos approaches me.

He stops beside me and grins like an excited child as he continues, his gentle voice sending a chill through me, "I heard that you were the one who guided Lyle towards his incredible discovery, which just furthers the mystery of 'who in Hell and Paradise are you?'"

"I did…?" I blurt out.

"Wait, you're the Wolf Ryder?" The scholar suddenly asks in disbelief.

"The very same," Arantos answers for me and chuckles mischievously.

The scholar looks at the calculator, then back at me, and suddenly exclaims, "You're the one who guided Lyle Ryzek with your Blessing! Do you have any insights to share related to the calculation of the position of the moons? My calculations are correct, but the results don't line up with reality."

I did WHAT…?!

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