[DCI] Chapter 56 – Establishing Hierarchy (Patreon)

“You were a killer too?!” Lulu squealed with an utterly stunned face as tears began to well up in the corners of her eyes.

Aisha snorted and jabbed Levia lightly in the side with her elbow. “Told you. It’s my win.”

I sighed softly and nodded at our Witch friend. She dispelled the magic and the array underneath Lulu slowly faded away, freeing the imp girl from her restraints.

“Eh?” Lulu glanced at her arms as she noticed the change.

Crouching down, I extended my hand to her. “Don’t worry. We aren’t killers. Well, if you consider the recent situation, I guess we are. You can be sure that we don’t intend to harm you, though.”

“What?” She looked up at me in confusion, her body still lacking strength after the initial shock.

I wrapped my arm around her small waist and helped her up. “Sorry. You were quite suspicious so we had to make sure that you aren’t dangerous too.”

“Thankfully, it turned out that you are just an idiot.” My drakan mate smirked.

“You didn’t have to be this rude.” I shook my head while fishing out a simple stamina regeneration potion from one of my pouches.

“I only told the truth.” Aisha shrugged “It’s a miracle she has survived up to this point with that airheaded personality of hers. What else do you call someone who makes so many stupid choices one after another? I guess her lust must have eroded her brain. Are dicks the only thing left in that empty head of yours?”

I took a peek at Lulu’s face and found a quite surprising sight. The pink was clearly much deeper and more intense over her cheeks as she directed her gaze to the ground. She didn’t seem angry or furious at the insults Aisha sent her way. She was more embarrassed, I’d say.

“Aisha is right. Her foolish decisions and thoughtless actions could have led to her demise multiple times over the course of this assignment. If we are going to cooperate together with the aim to finish this Dungeon, she needs to do better.” Even Levia supported the Berserker.

“Cooperate?” Lulu raised her face to meet my eyes.

“It’s as she says. We still need to wrap things up here in about ten or eleven days. Half of the mission’s duration we’d been allocated is already gone due to the issues with the murderer. We haven’t really done anything notable besides destroying two or three pylons on the highest floor. There’s not much that we know about the depths either. Even a single pair of hands can make a huge difference. We will definitely need your assistance since half of our group is now dead,” I explained.

“Well, technically, there are four of us here right now so it’s almost as if we’ve just begun,” Aisha said. “With this Dungeon being a four-man, just our trio makes up the majority of the clearing force. I don’t think the people who assign Defenders to a Dungeon would take familiars or slaves into consideration to an extent as high as to count them as separate players.”

“She is not wrong this time either.” Levia made a gentle nod. “Even though the difficulty was certainly expertly considered with everyone’s prowess in mind, they should have based the level of the assignment on the core Defenders since removing the master would most likely remove their subordinates from the fight too, no matter how strong they are.”

“Exactly.” Aisha snapped her fingers at the shorter woman. “So, we should be able to deal with it without any major problems even without this little punk. We make a good team too.”

“The Seed of Chaos Dungeon was technically a solo one and you remember how close it was,” I pointed out. “There’s no need to take unnecessary risks when we do have comrades to spare. So, how are you feeling right now?”

“I’m alright now. Thank you.” Lulu took a quick glance at my face and looked away, making Aisha snort.

I withdrew my arm and released the imp girl from my support. She took a deep breath to compose herself and sheathed her weapons since the battle was now fully finished. All of us turned toward the beheaded culprit pretty much at the same time. Before any of us brought up this topic once more, Lulu spoke first.

“I’ll try my best to be of use to you. I get that I might not be very smart when it comes to deceitful things like this but I’m a much better fighter than a thinker. If I leave myself in your hands, I should be able to do my best.” She made a small bow.

“There’s no need to bow.” I raised her shoulders with a smile. “You can leave strategizing to me. I’m already used to one musclebrain so two won’t make that big of a difference.”

“Hey!” Aisha protested from the side but I could sense the tiny grin on her delicious lips.

“I can confirm that Master is indeed skilled in leading brutes.” Levia nodded repeatedly.

“You too? I’m surrounded by traitors.” My beloved drakan lady clicked her tongue.

She then chuckled alongside me while Levia showed a faint smile. It looked like we were slowly becoming friends with the quiet and calm Witch and she wasn’t uncomfortable showing a little bit more of her emotions to us. Hopefully, she would be able to grow relaxed enough to be fully open around us.

“Anyway, what now?” Aisha took a few steps and tapped the deceased Priest with her foot a bunch of times.

“He is going to disappear, right?” I asked, scratching my head.

“His soul should have already left his body, and depending on his choice, he either joined the pool of available servants or perished completely. As for this pathetic lump of flesh that was left behind, it will either rot naturally or the Dungeon will absorb it. Considering what the nature of this Dungeon is, there might be another option, which is turning into a Zombie or a Skeleton if left untouched,” she explained.

“Let’s pray we don’t stumble on him during our selection.” I glanced at his staff and other pieces of gear. “What about his equipment? Does it stay behind?”

“What else would it do?” She raised a brow at me. “Ah. Right. It might have been different in that game of yours. So yeah, things usually remain where the corpse lies but there are cases where the higher-level Dungeons absorb them too, or even collect them for later use. Monsters can obviously pick it up too.”

“Thanks.”

“You are welcome.” She winked at me. “Do you want to collect his items?”

“If there’s no reason to avoid doing that, I don’t know why we shouldn’t. They are going to be of much better use to the living than the dead. No pun intended.” I snickered lightly.

“Shall I dispose of the corpse afterward, then?” Levia suggested.

“That would be smart,” Aisha agreed. “Less risk of his body becoming some kind of Dark Priest and surprising us with a back attack later in the raid.”

“I guess we should take care of Ashmel too. Shame.” I sighed.

“Yeah. A real shame. He seemed like a rough but still nice guy,” Lulu commented.

“Unless he was a murderer in hiding too,” my draconic mate said as she knelt by the man’s remains.

“Why would you think that?” Lulu frowned. “Did you suspect everyone in this delve?”

We exchanged glances and answered in unison. “Yes.”

It threw Lulu off a bit.

“First of all, he lied about his Class. And while I can agree that it’s natural, we were trying to share our private information with each other to build trust. He certainly had something to hide,” I continued.

“What? How did you know that?” The pink-skinned girl became even more confused.

“Trade secret.” I smiled at her slyly while pressing a finger to my lips. “I have a way to guess someone’s Class under specific circumstances. They usually have to cooperate, though.”

“What was his Class if not Rogue, then?” she asked.

“Assassin,” Aisha replied in my stead. “Quite fitting for the situation we were in, wasn’t it?”

Lulu’s eyes widened briefly once more and it was clear that she hadn’t expected something like that after spending some time by Ashmel’s side. They had in fact experienced a few battles together according to what they’d said earlier.

“I’m done. We can move. Or do you want me to bring these items back home real quick?” Aisha added after a moment.

I turned my gaze to the ground and almost choked on empty air. “Why is he naked?”

“Because I took off his equipment, duh.” She snorted, pointing at the few bundles made of the man’s clothes by her side.

“Sure, I can figure out that much myself, but why did you even take his underwear off?”

“He didn’t have any. He was running all dingly-dangly under that robe.” She shrugged.

I froze for a moment. “What? Why?”

“Dunno. Maybe to be ready for a quick discharge. Maybe he was into it.” She grinned.

“Unimpressive. Typical human,” Lulu commented randomly while staring at his body.

“Yeah. Can’t even start up to Lucas’s,” Aisha agreed, causing the petite imp to direct her curious gaze to my crotch.

I smacked my face and slid my hand down. “Levia, please?”

Something flashed faintly behind me and the nude body of the Priest burst into purple flames. They quickly burned all of him, leaving nothing behind, not even any ashes. I glanced over my shoulder at the mysterious Witch.

“Purgatorial Flames. Best against flesh and bones. They do not create smoke so indoor use is not troublesome,” she answered before I even asked.

Aisha tied the small packages to her hammer and rested it on her shoulder. “Next stop, the Assassin?”

“I think we should first check if this bastard was just lying about the pylon or not. If it really is where he said, it might be the last one on this floor. We should take care of it since we are already in the area.” I brought up the illusory display of the path he’d led me through from my watch and started examining it.

The girls didn’t have any objections to that course of action and we followed the line made by Zeke’s map and quickly navigated through the stone hallways. There were no issues with the turns and everything had been properly registered earlier. We obviously were out of bounds, but just this drawing function was so useful.

We reached the chamber we’d met the traitor in and continued forward according to his map. A few stray Skeletons riddled our path but Aisha and Lulu didn’t play around, wrecking the weak monsters into pieces. I really hoped that we wouldn’t get the repeat of the Woodman Dungeon where most of the floor enemies had been not that impressive but the Boss had been a huge pain in the ass. With the emphasis on huge.

After following about two-thirds of the route, we found a bit more opposition. It could be a sign that we were heading the right way so we pressed on while raising our guards up even more. If it was truly the last pylon, something might have changed around it, perhaps more monsters had come to protect it, or the Priest hadn’t lied about the barrier.

Soon, we stumbled on an entrance to a bigger chamber and stopped in its close vicinity. Rose volunteered to scout it for us and we waited outside for the brave Pixie to bring us good news. In less than a minute, the adorable sphere of pure joy flew back and began conveying what she’d learned, making plenty of cute motions and wiggles, causing Lulu to giggle constantly.

“Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Got it. Thanks. You did great.” I patted the energetic orb to reward our little friend.

“What did she say?” Lulu looked between the two of us in wonder.

“The crystal is in there and it, fortunately, doesn’t have any barriers around it. It’s the same as the rest, most likely. There are quite a lot of Death Knights, Skeleton Mages, and Skeletal Beasts. The pylon is pulsing heavily so I assume it’s constantly trying to raise more now that it’s all alone,” I repeated what I’d learned in simple words.

“Let’s use the midget as bait and deal with the pylon quickly. They should all fall into pieces right after it’s destroyed anyway,” Aisha suggested, removing the bundles from her weapon.

“What? Why don’t you go yourself, you veiny goliath?” Lulu yapped her way.

“Obviously, because miniatures like you are much more suited for running around like headless chickens than actual, tall warriors.” Aisha snorted back.

“Enough. This won’t be of any help with our fights. The opposite, pretty much.” I stopped them before things escalated further. “While the idea is worth considering, the way you presented it could have been a little better, Aisha.”

“My sincerest apologies, Master. I forgot that child labor is something condemned in your homeworld.” The drakan lady made an exaggerated bow.

“I could be your grandma, bitch!” Lulu shouted back.

“Behave,” I stated coldly, raising my voice a little, and glanced between the two. “Both of you. No matter who started.”

“I should be able to strike down the crystal with the arcanas we recently made together,” Levia said with her usual, slightly sleepy tone. “There should be no need to lure the monsters around that way.”

“Are you sure about that? I don’t doubt your abilities and power, but it does require a good smack from up close.” I turned to her.

“I am confident.” She nodded firmly. “It will take about half of my mana at my current level but it should not be a problem if the enemies all disappear after the spell hits. I can raise its output more if we want to be completely sure about its strength.”

“I trust you. You are free to use more mana if you think it’s necessary. We will protect you afterward.” I smiled at her warmly. “But, let me help you recover quicker after the attack if you don’t mind me touching you.”

She scanned my expression for a brief moment while not showing any specific signs or reactions on her pretty, blue face. I gazed into her charming, deep violet eyes until Levia made a faint nod.

“I trust you too,” she replied, without moving even in the slightest.

I pondered for a second if that was an actual agreement and nodded back at her. She observed me casually as I walked up to her and moved behind her back.

“Just relax. It will be nice. I promise.” I smiled once more as she looked at me over her shoulders when I put my hands on them.

After Levia returned her gaze forward, I began a gentle massage. Trying to be considerate, I delicately kneaded her muscles in a similar way to what I often did for Aisha now and then. Since Touch of Love was a very useful skill, I’d revised most of what I’d learned during that forced course back in my old job to be able to give even better treatment to my beloved companion. Plus, Aisha had allowed me to experiment on her a little with what I’d self-studied from a few internet lessons so I definitely was somewhat better than before.

The silent Witch closed her eyes and exhaled softly. A single wave of shivers passed through her body and I could feel her relax under my fingers. Lots of tension left her muscles as I properly ran my palms over them with utmost attention and care. I was trying to be as thorough and affectionate as I could without making it improper since we hadn’t really grown that close, with my goal being to secure the highest possible value for the buff coming from this activity conducted on a Subordinate.

After three minutes, I paused my motions and withdrew my hands. Levia let out a blissful sigh once more and glanced at me over her shoulder. I could discern a barely noticeable tinge of deeper blue over her cheeks. Her body temperature might have risen a tiny bit as I’d helped her circulation.

“You have my thanks. I feel very refreshed and revitalized now.” She delicately rubbed her neck.

“Let’s see if it worked properly.” I brought out my smartphone and checked her buffs and ailments.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

CURRENT CONDITION

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Minor Vitality Recovery Boost (2h)

Minor Spiritual Recovery Boost (2h)

Minor Fatigue Recovery Boost (2h)

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“Alright. This much should be fine.” I nodded to myself. “We are good to go whenever you are ready.”

“Not so fast. My turn now.” Aisha walked up to us and wrapped her arms around me from the front, grinning impishly.

“Do you really need it?” I raised a brow at her.

“You never know when things will turn ugly. You should keep your Subordinates in perfect condition, isn’t that right, Master?” she purred seductively with our noses almost touching.

I smirked at her and joined our lips together. The soft peck quickly turned into a heated, passionate exchange as our tongues started battling each other for control and dominance. My hands slid down Aisha’s strong back and found their targets too. The left one firmly grabbed a piece of her tender ass while the right one began intensively rubbing the underside of her incredible tail.

Aisha hummed delightfully as I worked her up by caressing the good spots. She raised the ferocity of her kisses whenever I stumbled on one of them, giving me hints about what she enjoyed the most. She took a hold of my left hand and guided it into her underwear from behind but I strayed away before she brought it past her belt. She clearly wouldn’t mind others watching but we still should retain some shreds of decency.

Plus, I was sure she just wanted to mark her territory in front of the thirsty imp girl.

Before things grew too heated, I pried her lips off mine, sending her away with a small love bite, and stepped back. She nibbled on her bottom lip exactly where I’d nibbled her with an elated expression. I could see the tip of her tail wagging happily.

Trying not to be entranced by that bewitching woman, I pulled up her status too.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

CURRENT CONDITION

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Regular Vitality Recovery Boost (6h)

Regular Spiritual Recovery Boost (6h)

Regular Fatigue Recovery Boost (6h)

Attributes: +20% (16h)

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“We could have done better.” Aisha playfully clicked her tongue with an alluring grin.

“Is kissing that much more efficient?” Levia asked curiously while peering at the screen from next to me.

“In my case, yeah, but in yours, you might have gotten maybe one more hour on your buffs,” Aisha answered. “It’s only natural that the mate gets better benefits, isn’t it? You should see them after he pounds me with all his heart.”

“Focus on the battle. We still have things to do.” I pinched the shrewd drakan’s tail, causing her to jump a little.

“What about me?” Lulu asked from the side. “Shouldn’t we all be prepared?”

She tried to look like she hadn’t been attempting to sneak a peek at the display from a respectful distance, figuring out enough to understand that I’d buffed the two women.

“In your dreams.” Aisha snorted and turned to Levia to give the Witch a hand in her preparations.

“Unfortunately, that ability won’t work on you. It’s exclusive to my companions,” I explained properly and noticed how she slightly deflated as her excuse to get closer to me vanished.

Less than a minute later, we moved closer to the entrance and peered inside once more. Nothing much changed so Levia positioned herself at an angle allowing her to aim her spell at the pylon while still outside of the chamber. Thankfully, the walls weren’t as thick as to obstruct the view and the crystal wasn’t too close to the boundaries.

Holding the chosen arcana between her pointer and middle finger, she channeled her spiritual energy into the metal card. The amount was so impressive that we could spot traces of whitish mist traveling down her slender arms as the patterns on the silvery surface glowed bright white. I recognized them as the ones we had come up with together when Levia had been listening to my pointers and improved the previous design accordingly.

After a while, her eyes shot open, gleaming with profound, purple light, and she thrust her palm forward.

“Lament of the Moon Goddess,” she whispered and chills ran down our spines.

Almost instantly, white light came from the chamber in front of us. Covering our eyes with our arms, we tried to spot the cause in that blinding brightness, and managed to do so without much issue. A massive orb of pure white hovered above the pylon. After brief consideration, I was pretty sure that it was a depiction of some moon.

Then, black blades materialized all around the floating globe, surrounding it with a ring of swords in a horizontal line. There were six of them and they were equally big as the moon. I was pretty sure we all had guessed the next part, where those swords stabbed into the sphere, but the agonizing wail that came after it took us by surprise.

I still managed to observe the weird phenomenon as the unbelievably white liquid flowed out of the wounds and ran down the spherical shape, gathering in the very middle of the bottom side. It began quickly dripping onto the pylon in an almost constant stream and I watched the tough crystal melting under it like sugar.

Before the monsters could react, the pylon already had a huge hole in its structure and a few trenches ran out of its base. The weird blood seemed to melt only the crystal and nothing else. It spilled over the stone pedestal like any other common liquid. But, it did its job properly and the skeletal army lost the animated bits of life that were keeping them moving.

The white sphere dissipated alongside the swords and Levia sighed heavily. I stepped closer to her to make sure that she was alright and offered my elbow to the small Witch. Even though she didn’t look like she needed it, Levia accepted it appreciatively and supported herself on me for a moment.

I noticed a weird stain on the stone floor and realized that it was metal, still slightly heated but cooled down enough not to glow. The power of the spell must have been so great that the base material couldn’t withstand it. That was quite something. We’d tested many spells to verify the durability of the cards and only a few had any effect on the steel we’d chosen.

As expected, Levia was just on another level whenever she put her all into it.

“Great job. Looks like we will have to find better materials for your personal-use arcanas.” I chuckled softly.

“That might be necessary. Thanks to your adjustments, the spiritual output of these circuits is many times greater than before. It was a wise decision not to include the modified ones in sales.” She reciprocated it with a cute, tiny curl of her delicate lips.

“People would kill for those,” Aisha commented, patting the Witch on her back. “I’m glad you are on our side, hah.”

While we shared a moment together, with our pink mascot circling above our heads, Lulu was still taken aback by the spectacle she’d witnessed. Confirming that everyone was alright and that all the monsters had been disabled, we moved into the chamber and collected the pieces of crystal.

The spiritually corrosive liquid eroded the entire base of the pylon after creating a thin tunnel from the top to the very bottom so it was easy to remove it from the platform. We had to crush the places where the clamps held it down but it was much more brittle now that it wasn’t operating. Levia’s spell must have been incredibly strong to literally ignore all its defenses and destroy it like it was nothing.

Aisha once more suggested transferring all the goods and I agreed. Since we had quite a few bundles now, we pondered on how to fit them all, but Levia came to the rescue. She instructed Aisha to lie on her back and literally arranged all of them on top of her body. It was a genius move and even worked perfectly, without a single item being left behind.

While my lovely drakan mate sorted everything properly in our storage, the three of us made our way to Ashmel’s body, guided by our cute, pinkish guide. And no, I didn’t mean Lulu, obviously. Rose was much better at directions, having memorized pretty much every single path we’d taken.

I was starting to wonder if she wasn’t by some chance a Navigation Pixie or something. I waited for the day she would suddenly hit me with a “Hey! Listen!” out of the blue and scare the living shit out of me.

We respectfully took off the Assassin’s equipment, this time leaving the man in the clothes he wore under his armor. Since I had already taken everything from the Priest, we offered some of the loot to Lulu. She felt a bit conflicted at first, but I managed to convince her that she deserved her share and that it would be much better for Ashmel to put his gear to proper use just as he would if he hadn’t died.

Aisha returned soon after we were done distributing the items and we were on our way, deciding to take a break for today so that all of us could relax a little bit after the quite intense events from the past few hours. Especially Lulu looked like she needed it. We had given her a slight scare earlier, that was a fact.

We escorted her back home, agreed on the hour the next morning, and returned to our own little nest. We all sighed in various levels of relief after stepping past the doorstep and wandered deeper into the apartment together.

“I guess we should see how our masterful plan to take over the business world is progressing.” I stretched with a loud groan. “But first…”

Pulling out my phone, I opened the section with the notifications and chuckled wryly.

“Gods, this will take a long while…”

I’d felt my wrist buzz almost constantly since the moment the Priest had gone down so I’d muted the notifications for the remainder of our trip, but it might have been a huge mistake.

Lots of reading awaited us.

And hopefully, lots of good news.

★━━━━━━━━━━━━Author's Notes━━━━━━━━━━━━★

Apologies for this chappy not making it on Thursday. We might be able to have 2 more today, making it up to 3 this weekend. Wish me luck and lack of distractions or family emergencies.