Chapter 84: 45: Mercy – Part 3

Today is the 13th.

Hana wakes me up, lovelier than normal due to the attention that I gave to her yesterday.

Lina's "Sanity" also increased by 1 (now 12). It seems that she's also improving and adapting to her new lifestyle.

The morning is slow. An uncomfortably cold breeze passes through the camp and the people repeatedly glance at the darkness beyond. A faint noise can be heard; it's so faint that it's hard to discern what it is.

"E-excuse me," a male human commoner approaches Ciel as we leave for breakfast. "How much longer until you can kill those Weepers?"

"I'm sorry, they are too far for us to even see them," she softly says to the man. She puts a hand on his shoulder and motions to the light elemental nearby. "Why don't you spend some time near her? The elementals help a lot with the nightmares."

"Understood. T-thank you…" He bows lightly to her and scurries towards the patrolling elemental.

"Why did he go to you instead of me?" I ask.

"My 'Charisma' is higher than yours," Ciel says with a shy smile.

"Yeah, just 'Charisma'…" I pout exaggeratedly.

Ciel rolls her eyes and summons her [Holy Spirit], then she has it follow my light elemental.

Breakfast is simple and quick, the Weepers are already affecting our appetite.

"Say, Wolf," Rande calls to me, "You can't see the Weepers with your summons?"

"They are all being used to keep the bandits from escaping, so I don't have any of them scouting right now."

He clicks his tongue. "You think you could find them if you had your scouting summons?"

"Only if we are lucky, Weepers are very good at hiding."

He sighs and leans back in his chair. "I would take a horde of Corpse Stealers over uncomfortable days with the Weepers stalking us."

"Only because you have us to deal with that horde," Hana says, with a smug smile.

"Only because the Lords are overburdened with their duties," Rande shoots back with a scoff.

"You can't act like you don't rely on us after everything you told me."

He smiles at her and continues without even glancing at me, "That was just common elven courtesy, if you can't differentiate between casual flirting and heartfelt praise then I overestimated you."

She gives him a fearsome smile and starts a staring contest, "'Casual'? You think that was 'casual'? I know exactly how much money I drank that day; I know my alcohol like I know Wolf's dick, and let me tell you, I suck a lot of dick."

"Didn't you say that the flirting was decreasing?" Ciel whispers beside me.

"I did…"

Laertes frowns and looks at me. "What's the matter with you all? It's like everything you do revolves around sex," he says.

"Because it does," I say, with a grin.

"Well, he does have five wives. How do you propose he satisfy them all if not by having sex all the time?" Osaria chimes in.

"It's not like he's always the one who needs to do it," Roxanne comments.

"I would prefer if such things weren't discussed over breakfast," Anton says with a frown and sends a glance to Klein, who's very interested in this conversation.

Osaria leans to the side and softly puts a hand on Anton's shoulder. "Oh, don't be shy, Anton, we should all be very proud of our bodies and of the people we love," she says in a sultry tone that tickles my ears.

Krista puts her hand over Osaria's and gives it a light squeeze. "Yes, but we should always keep in mind that different people have different ideas of love."

Osaria withdraws her hand with a cheeky smile and sends me a wink. "Even among elves, very few people have different views from what the Goddess of Love teaches. Love is to be spread and taken without prejudice."

"Love is not the same thing as sex," Laertes says.

"But it can be," Hana interjects. "It is the most pleasure you can give to your partner, so it makes sense for them to be so closely tied together."

It figures that she's the one who thinks like that. Wait, that actually means she loves me quite a lot. Awn…

"Well, you don't have to be the one giving your partner pleasure, you can even leave that to others," Alissa says.

"W-what…?" Anton looks at her in disbelief, his eyebrows are finally far apart from each other.

"Giving pleasure to your partner is part of what love is, but it doesn't have to be you, specifically. You can just be the cause of your partner's pleasure while another does the deed."

Both Anton and Krista become speechless. Their eyes inevitably turn to me and I just give a wry smile.

"I agree. It's much easier on my body if I let Rande do as he pleases," Oura says and I see Nito, who's sitting at the corner of the table, turn away and blush heavily.

Alissa nods repeatedly. "And it's also a show of trust. Wolfy can have sex with whoever he wants, but he can only make love with us, his wives."

Oura gives a lovely smile to Alissa and says, "There's much more than just sex that Rande gives us. Now, if someone tried to take that away from us, then I would be very angry."

Ciel starts to look uncomfortable.

"I also feel that if it was only me then I wouldn't be enough to make him happy. Especially after he started to gain skills, then his appetite flew high like a bird."

"I can confirm that. He might be even hungrier than me, lately," Hana comments.

Oura nods in understanding. "I tried to learn the skills to help me with that, but Rande has way more skills than me. It would be a waste of skill points to learn them when he can use someone else for that." Rande smiles proudly at himself and keeps quiet while Oura sends him indirect praise.

"I have some, but they are nothing in comparison to his. What is it with men and sex skills? It's like they learn them so easily by comparison, it's not fair," Alissa says and sends me a playful glare.

"Maybe they have some dragonkin blood in them," Oura says with a shrug.

"I can say that Rande's 'appetite' runs in the family," Osaria says.

"He says he only became like this after he met us," Alissa says and Osaria sends me a hungry glance.

"Then it's love," Oura says with a chuckle.

"So much love he would have broken me if I didn't have help."

"Can we please talk about something else," Laertes pleads.

"Like what?" Osaria questions him.

"I don't know, the journey to Goldport?" He shrugs.

"We already talked about it until the leaves dried."

"The bandits we captured?"

"Too depressing, we are not proud of having to kill our brethren that turned to thievery to survive."

"Monsters?"

"Too boring, not even Anton likes to talk about them."

"It's just a job, I'm not proud of killing monsters," Anton comments with a shrug.

"Weather…?" Laertes asks tentatively.

Osaria rolls her eyes. "What weather? It hardly ever changes at the ground level, only the elves living among the tree crowns can even feel it."

"Then politics, I mean, we are feeling the effects of Lord Este's policy."

"Politics is a good way to start a brawl," Rande comments.

"Then the fights at the arena!" Laertes excitedly exclaims, his shy tail shoots straight up for once.

"You only watch the imperial ones," Rande says with a snort.

"Archery competitions are not exciting."

"Says you, and you're an archer yourself. Now you are the one who doesn't like to talk about it."

"If we don't have anything good to talk about, then maybe we should all just stay quiet," Anton says through gritted teeth.

Osaria pouts playfully and the conversation dies down.

Rande barks orders and the caravan stirs. With 30 potentially dangerous prisoners to take care of, nobody wants to be out in the open any longer than necessary, so things proceed quickly. I use my nature elementals, the light elemental, and Ciel's [Holy Spirit] to slowly heal the wounds of the bandits. I don't have mana to spare, and because the earth elementals have to stay out as security, I can't use [Heal] on the bandits.

I summon a single Holly and order her to circle around the caravan at high-speed, so my security perimeter has no holes.

The soldiers look a little tired. They had to keep a much larger night watch due to the bandits, and the lack of scouting from my summons made them a little warier. I unsummon two earth elementals and summon two more light elementals so the commoners and soldiers feel more comfortable.

The elven elder commoner comes towards us and calls for my attention. "Excuse me, Mr. Ryder, correct?"

"Yes, you can just call me Wolf. I'm sorry, but I don't know your name."

"I am Rudito," the old man bows lightly and I return it from atop my horse.

"How may I help you, Rudito."

He smiles at my courtesy and strokes his short, straight beard like a stereotypical kung-fu teacher. "I would just like to thank you and your fellowship for your work. You are doing quite a lot for us and it's making this trip very pleasant for us all."

"You are welcome," I say softly.

He extends to me a small fresh-looking letter. "If your fellowship is in need of help, look for a Tribunal of the Commons. We may be small, but together we can offer aid for a variety of problems."

Lina's Trivia: The Tribunal is the elven alternative to the Avgi temple. Dating back to before the empire even existed, the Tribunal helps the commoners with their problems.

I receive the letter with a smile. "Thank you very much for this, I really appreciate it."

"We are always looking for allies, devoted followers of Avgi or not. The only thing that matters is their consideration for us, the commoners," he smiles back and leaves.

Once Rudito is out of earshot, Lina guides her horse closer to mine. "That's a good ally to have, but I don't think they have spies that can counter Katasko's," she says.

"Or Darean's," I say.

"Darean is a commoner, they could find a way to track him, depending on who he's associated with."

"Well, he's involved with bandits, so it's possible."

"What does the temple think of the Tribunal?" Alissa asks Ciel.

She shrugs and says, "It depends on the town, but they don't speak badly of them. It would make sense for them to be allies because the temple is not very influential in the High Forest, and so they would definitely try to at least maintain friendly relations with them."

We spend the morning hunting goblins and Miasmatic Gambos, small rat-like men who have a very keen sense of smell. The amount of blood spilled yesterday is slowly attracting these monsters; they pick up the scent of the caravan and follow us. The commoners keep their children close because these monsters will kidnap anything smaller than a dwarf, making them terrifying for halflings and gnomes.

"[Firestorm]!" Roxanne casts a small version of the spell on the monster.

"[Wind Storm]!" Ciel casts a harmless version of the spell and pushes the hot, smelly air away from us.

"Done?" Alissa asks me through the [Bind].

"Yep, you can come over now."

"I would rather not… the corpse still smells horrible."

"Gih."

"Gify?" I and Alissa ask in unison.

"Gi-ih?" He asks back playfully.

"Since when can you do that?"

"Gih."

Since now.

"Congrats, I guess?" I say.

"Gih!"

"You never showed your knowledge about magic before."

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"Gih."

"Well, you could stop being such a lazy ass and help us more."

"Gih!" And he pops off of my shoulder to go… wherever spirits go.

"Is this what it's like to have him inside your mind all the time?" Alissa asks.

"Yes."

"Are you sure you're not a masochist, too?"

Considering how I loved Lily, maybe…?

"I will not answer that."

A little before midday, we pass by a patrol and the commoners rejoice. Fifteen soldiers, most of them mounted on Gatuns look at us like they are seeing aliens.

"You defeated seventy bandits… with around thirty men, and didn't suffer a single casualty?" The patrol leader asks.

"Defender's advantage," Rande proudly states, then his confidence deflates only a tiny bit. "And powerful elemental summons."

The leader looks at the caravan and sees the light elementals. "I see…"

Rande pulls out the large pile of bounty plates, both from the dead and the captured bandits. Most of them have only a theft or two registered while the rest haven't committed enough crimes for a bounty to be posted for them.

"Can you handle them?" Rande asks.

The leader notices the numerous bandages on the bandits. "They are wounded? And you healed them?"

"We have three good healers, so it wasn't that difficult."

"Good, the Tribunal hates when small bandits die to wounds. Very well, we can bring them back to town. Take the bounty plates and the town will give you your reward."

I unsummon the nature and earth elementals, and the patrols shackle the bandits with wooden manacles and ropes.

The scout that I tortured raises his head and looks at me. His eyes look sad, but I see no anger; instead, I see a hint of elven pride coming back.

A mage of the patrol heals the worst wounds of the bandits to help them walk faster. The patrolmen write down the names of those involved and asks everyone what happened, including the bandits. The questioning was quick, they were mostly checking Rande's story for discrepancies.

With the patrol leaving, I unsummon everything so I can cast [Swift Foot] on the commoners, then I summon a light elemental again. But even with that, the patrol is faster than us because they force the bandits to jog.

The time for lunch comes by and we sit down to eat.

Krista sets out on the table in front of us a large tray with an Uspidor tentacle. It's a roll of meat surrounded with a crunchy, fried pork rind, dripping with fat. This tentacle is only for me and the girls, and another tentacle is given to the others.

"Ooh…" Anton coos, his eyebrows so high they could almost be considered part of his hair.

"I'll pass, too much fat for me," Osaria says.

"Not like she needs any more fat on her," Aoi says in my head.

"You think she looks delicious?"

"Yes! Wait, not in a sexual way!" She says with a chuckle.

"Do I look delicious, too?"

"Yes, in both ways, hehe!"

"Not sure if I should be glad."

"Muuh! You should! I don't feel like this for any other humanoid man!"

"Awn… thank you, I will."

"Hmph."

The Uspidor tastes a bit like pork but it has a much stronger flavor. The acid they produce gives the meat a slightly acidic taste, too.

The rest of the meal is a slab of expertly roasted cow ribs and sirloin with the fat still on it. As a Brazillian, I know how to properly barbecue and I must say, Krista knows it too. The scented logs she used to roast the meat added a faint taste of the wood to the roast, improving the flavor. We barely ate any salad; between the Uspidor tentacles and the cow roast, we even had enough to share with the soldiers, which improved their morale.

A few hours into the afternoon, we finally reach Ostoum. The first thing we see is a long ramp supported by thin (by the High Forest standards) trees that take us up to the town suspended above the lake. Hundreds of vine-like plants hang from the bark "shield wall"; they suck the water up from the lake and bring it to the farms.

The commoners cheer and Rande turns around; his face is stern. "We are leaving tomorrow morning, at the same time. Get as much rest as you can," he says and the soldiers and commoners alike moan in frustration. "We are behind schedule. I'm sorry, but I have a tight schedule to follow. A small effort won't hurt when you have all been having it easy with Helios' [Swift Foot]."

The complainers quiet down and I see Rudito chuckle softly.

We reach the gate after a familiar killing-corridor.

Once we dismount, Hana approaches Klein and asks, "Any Inn recommendations?"

Klein seems to be brought back to reality by Hana's words and stutters, "Y-yes! There's a good one that should be quite cheap right now. It's not the same level of comfort as Flor's, but it's still pretty good."

This time Klein can't escape and Krista comes along to arrange their accommodations.

The town has four levels. The first two are farms and we can see what they are cultivating: glowing plants of all kinds, creating a rainbow of colors that light up the entirety of the two levels. From what I know, these plants produce mana and are actually one of the main sources of potions for the High Forest.

I see a few small nature elementals walking about. The nature spirits seem to find the leaf-like hair of the elementals to be very comfortable beds; this makes the lolimentals look ab-so-lute-ly adorable.

Gih!

"What is it? You were always adorable, Gify," Alissa comments.

"Kweh? What are we talking about?" Aoi chimes in.

"I might have to keep all of you out of my thoughts or my mind will become a tavern," I say.

Guh.

The elves have a proto-elevator for us to use. It works by using the overflow of water brought up by the vines as power. It's limited to only people, though.

We exit the elevator at the top level, then we breathe in the fresh air and see the beautiful, clear night sky. Lina seems to be the most pleased to be here.

"Are you getting used to being so high up?" I ask her.

"Wolfy… don't remind me of that." She looks down and frowns. "I'm just happy we aren't in the damp forest anymore."

"Oh, you didn't like it there?"

"Kind of. The air down there is too stuffy and humid, it's not good for the skin."

"Really?" Roxanne turns to her and questions with a serious tone.

Lina nods twice, "Air has to be fresh and circulating. Otherwise, your skin will become too oily and then it gets blemished."

"The elves must need their plants to keep their skin from getting ugly, then," Alissa comments.

"Hmm, I guess this is why every elf has a garden," Krista adds.

The town has a gloomy atmosphere similar to Ostodos. Though, a thin mist seems to be forming and making the town even gloomier.

"Hmm…" Lina starts to look at the mist apprehensively.

"It only appears on the colder nights," Krista says with a wry smile.

The inn we arrive at is simpler than The Red Leaf: it's smaller, the walls are warped, and there's no carpet. It has a "Rabanara vibe" to it so I like it a lot. The innkeeper is an old golden elf man that receives us without much enthusiasm; though, at least he doesn't look displeased.

We go to our bath and I choose Ciel as today's body to drown myself in. I occupy her mouth with mine and squeeze her ass cheeks with my hands. Her large nipples rub on my skin and her softness squishes against my chest.

I don't hold back and clear my mind. As if I'm entering a zen state, I can make myself cum faster than normal; and with someone like Ciel to fuck, I easily cum inside her repeatedly. [Enhanced Sexual Stamina] is a waste of skill points, [Enhanced Semen Recharge] is what every man should invest in.

I drain myself inside Ciel and she looks at me in surprise.

"You, uh, filled me up, huh?" She says with a wry smile.

"I'm going to get you addicted to my cum," I say.

"As if we aren't already," Hana says as she continues breaking Alissa.

I keep myself inside Ciel while we rest and she continues slowly swaying her hips.

"Are you enjoying this trip?" I ask her.

She doesn't stop moving while she answers, "Why wouldn't I? Well, some elves can be annoying, but they are mostly neutral to us and a few are friendly. The towns have been quite endearing and I'm sure that if we make friends, like you did with Rudito and Tribunal, we would be easily accepted." Alissa's screams become loud enough that Ciel has to increase her voice.

"Scream louder," I order Alissa's soul.

"AAAAAAHNN!" She instantly orgasms, the feeling is so strong that it spills over the [Bind] and causes both me and Aoi to orgasm, too.

"Holy shit…" I mutter as I fill Ciel even more.

Aoi coughs water and complains, "Kweh…! That was, too sudden!"

Alissa collapses and becomes catatonic; such is the power of her orgasm.

"[Bind] seems to be a bit dangerous, we could get too addicted to the pleasure," Ciel comments.

"More than we already are?" Roxanne adds and pinches Lina's clit.

"Well…"

Dinner is a very tasty Arracacia with Dragolite soup. We have some crunchy fried not-potatoes and a not-tomato salad as side dishes.

Oura sends us a small wave as she enters the Inn with the others. Considering how she's a bookworm, maybe we can push for her and Lina to become more friendly.

After dinner, we retreat to our room to practice a little. Lina is making a lot of progress on the second [Wind Shield] enchantment by using the broken shield we got from Vanea; next, we should teach her how to use [Earth Magic] to glue herself to the ground so that she doesn't get punted by a heavy attack. Alissa plays around with her [Illusion Magic], seemingly trying to use it to create butterflies or something similar. I teach Roxanne [Warp Space] to see if she can use it to improve her explosion. The little golems diligently observe us and practice their magic alongside Roxanne.

Hana and Ciel are practicing wrestling techniques, then Hana gives a playful kiss on Ciel's lips. After that, it devolves into them making out on the ground and Hana trying to get Ciel naked.

Suddenly we hear a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" Alissa asks.

"It's me. Can I come in?" Klein replies.

Hall of Fame of Patrons.

The patrons who support Rupegia shall have their names sung by the bards for they deserve the glory and honor. Their names are:

Oracle Maximillian Hübner.

Lord Andrew Meyers.

Lord Hope.

Lord Samuel Lim.

Lord Cody Weigel.

Lord Bill.

Lord Novgarod.

Lord DJ.

Noble Salty Panda.

Manasong

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