DD 202 Ch 3 (Patreon)

Chapter 3

An adventurer that wasn’t part of Haylon rushed forward to snatch the loot as our efforts were focusing on resurrecting everyone.

I still had my stacks rolling and moved far faster than they could, collecting all of the loot and stepping back. “Des, a table please. Listen up, everyone. We didn’t discuss loot beforehand.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to hog it all.” The man pointed an accusing finger at me.

“Which is why I am not.” I said as patiently as I could. Sometimes randoms in the dungeon could be worse than monsters.

Des pulled a table out of her CID, and I laid out the items.

“However, we are going to discuss how it’s divided. Your group was here first.” I told the man as he and the few behind him nodded. “Yet it is a much smaller group and portion of the contributions. So, you get the first pick of the five items.”

Between the adventurers present and my stacks still rolling, I could have forced them into any deal I wanted.

Yet, once again, this ability felt like a heavy mantle. What would I do with all of the power I now held?

I liked to think I was a fair person and would operate accordingly.

“Pick the staff, Rick.” A woman behind him encouraged him. “It’ll sell really really well.”

“You’re just going to sell it?” A girl from Class B huffed. “We are here trying to get stronger to survive.”

“Not our business what they do with it.” I picked up the staff and offered it to the man I now knew was Rick.

He took it and hurried back like I was going to steal it before his group surrounded him and they left.

“Great, now Class A, B and the Seniors. We have four items and three classes.” I tapped on the table.

Ren shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. We are going to get what we need eventually. Sounds like we are going to be running this raid for a while. Just get the healers as decked out as we can first to minimize losses.”

I nodded at their statement. “Perfect, we’ll do that then. These two are healer items, this is a tank’s armor and finally, fairly general movement increasing boots.” I handed off the healer robe and belt to Harley. “Make sure these go to someone other than your party. Best not to favor them too much.”

Her budding healer harem looked at Harley’s role with shining eyes. Everyone loved loot, and I was going to help Harley where I could.

“Not a problem.” Harley grabbed the loot from me and started skipping back over to a cluster of students. “Healers, gather round! We have loot to share. Show me what you’ve got, and we’ll upgrade the person with the weakest gear.”

I knew she would handle the task well. As flippant as she could be in most situations, she was reliable when it mattered.

The tank armor didn’t matter for Fayeth who referred to find less cumbersome pieces of loot.

“Not going to foist this on someone who won’t use it. Who wants it?” I held up the chest piece.

All the tanks started to scan the item and look at their CIDs.

A few sighed. Others shook their heads.

Penny, a girl from class B and a tank standing next to Ren all raised their hands.

I glanced at the armor; It seemed it wasn’t that popular. “1, 2 and 3.” I pointed at each of them and then showed my CID as I put in a random number generator for 3 and hit enter.

A big 1 flashed on my screen and I handed the armor to Penny. “Now don’t be stingy and let others get things before you go for your second item.” I warned her, largely for performance.

Penny was a very softhearted woman, despite being a tank and having frost magic. She also had a giant crush on me that I had yet to acknowledge. Though most of our class knew by the fanfiction that she wrote.

“Of course.” She took the armor with a slight blush, putting on the white and gold piece right in front of everybody. It was a little more weighted towards strength than most of the tanks wanted, but Penny needed that to parry since she tanked with a long sword rather than a shield.

The style looked a little heroic on her as she pulled back her chin length blue hair to make sure it didn’t get caught in the collar.

“Looks great.” I smiled at her, giving her a thumbs up.

She blushed all the way down to the armor’s collar and probably further.

“Now, the boots. Who needs movement speed?” Dozens of hands went up.

“Alright. Know that after you get this, I’m not giving you another piece until everyone has had a shot.” I warned and half the hands dropped before I counted them off and rolled a random number generator for 29 people.

It went to a senior dressed in a monk's robe who happily put them on. She tried them out by doing a dance routine and the rest of her group started laughing with her.

For a group suddenly thrown together and were all pushing to get ahead, dividing up the loot went surprisingly smooth.

Des poked my cheek. “They all respect you so much that no one is even going to fight your decisions. Well, among this group. The randoms might have, but you did a good job pacifying them first.”

I swiftly took her hand and kissed it. “It seems my schemes have been seen through by you.” I played along.

Truthfully, I’d just done what seemed natural and fair to me, not considering that my show of power had earned me enough respect that they’d follow along regardless.

But I was glad that Des saw my moves as fair.

“Doesn’t help that The Harem Queen is walking around singing your praises.” Des gave me a half lidded look. “If I didn’t know better, she was smitten. You are certainly up to the standards of her harem.”

“Not a chance.” I playfully swatted at Des’ backside. “You all keep me busy enough as it is.”

“Don’t forget it. You also owe me a little busy time with a princess.” Des replied, ever having her priorities straight.

“Who knows? She might show up this semester. It sounded like it was still all up in the air, but that she wanted to come. She can’t exactly abandon the throne until her father gets back.” My eyes slid to the side as Felin sauntered up to the two of us.

“Is it time to go back and nap? That was quick.” The Nekorian gave me a toothy grin. The Nekorians were a little more cat-like than some cartoon character. She had the ears on top and the tail along with some heightened senses and reflexes. Her smile always had a predatory edge with a set of large canines on top and bottom.

She also loved naps and stole my clothes for her little nap nest she had previously made out of the couch.

“We’ll head back. We can surprise Crimson with how quickly we cleared this and then probably get scolded and come do it again.” I shrugged, estimating how Crimson was going to react.

“At least we have you to blaze through it.” The Nekorian grinned so wide that her eyes pinched closed. “Maybe we can set a number that she wants and then take the rest of the day off.”

Des winced. “That’s not how Crimson works. By ‘rest of the day off’, you mean intensive physical exercise?” Des turned to me. “Unless you can fix that for us?”

“Hmm? You do realize that she’s just going to make me fight her until I’m able to match her speed and then push me harder.” I knew that Crimson desperately wanted someone who could match her in the lowest floors of the dungeon.

I was that person.

I looked at Des, the fear of outstripping the rest of my party flaring up once again. I didn’t want to leave them behind; they were my heart. Even if it was normal to change up parties when an adventurer out progressed the rest, I wanted to bring this party with me.

“You have a serious frown.” Des kissed my cheek as we walked out of the event. We had a little time; at the very least it would be a bit before the raid reset. “As much as I love that handsome brooding look, you should tell me what’s going on.”

Felin had moved ahead, pouncing on Fayeth. The two of them got along well, both strangers in our culture.

Charlotte, however, was moving on a collision course with us. “Why’s he brooding?” She read my face too. “Did you reinjure yourself?”

“We were just going to get an answer.” Des held my arm in her cleavage and Charlotte wrapped her arm around the other one as we walked.

“It’s stupid. Completely stupid.” I sighed.

“Doesn’t matter. Let us help.” Charlotte spoke softly.

I kissed her cheek. “Love you too. That’s part of the problem.” I realized that answer was a horrible way to start and the rest spilled out as I tried to recover from that blunder. “The new skill. It’s so much more than I expected, which means I’m going to be progressing even faster. I’m worried that I’m going to outstrip you all, except there’s no one else I want in my party.”

“Aww.” Des squeezed my arm harder. “He thinks he could escape. Charlotte, what do you say we get Fayeth to run interference on Felin for a little while we remind Ken why he’s sticking just where he is.”

Charlotte blushed, but she tapped on her CID while she spoke. “Ken, there are plenty of groups with an extra strong member. Think about what almost happened back there.” She paused from texting Fayeth to glare at me. “Where you almost got yourself killed.”

“Huh? No. I had it in hand.” I scratched my cheek, being a terrible liar. “Okay.”

“You always need a group to have your back.” Des smiled. “Who better than us? Besides, as far as levels go, you are going to be helping us level too. We just might have to take more breaks and work on our stats.” She drew a lazy finger across my arm and looked up at me through her long lashes.

We both had abilities now that could help us improve our stats through less than conventional means. Des could help me and the others train our stamina, and I could help all of the girls work on their magic while working on my own mana.

As for strength and agility, Crimson could work me to the bone any day of the week to push those forward.

“Good. Less broody.” Des planted a tender loving kiss on my jawline while I looked ahead. “Now, is operation ‘distract the kitty’ in play?” She asked Charlotte.

“They are going to cook.” Charlotte replied. “Fayeth thinks she could get her to fall asleep by the bonfire.”

“Perfect.” Des nearly skipped as she pulled me faster towards camp. “We need to keep practicing our attributes or we’ll fall behind! Ken, maybe you should put your focus on training for that demon sealed inside of you. I bet he has some more goodies inside of him once you crack him open.”

I nodded. Demon Lord Snu Snu certainly had more to give me.

“Yes, become stronger. You’ll just be the ace of the party.” Charlotte reinforced what Des was saying. “It’s like some of the best groups out there, you know? They have that one member that is clearly the leader. Like the Harem Queen. No one really talks about her harem, but they are there and support her. It’s a win win for everybody. We would let you know if we weren’t okay with the situation.”

“Huh.” I replied, making it back to camp and wondering if Heather might actually have a teaching moment somewhere in how she ran her harem.

Des, however, pulled my mind away from other women with another soft kiss. “Hmm. Think of me and Charlotte. Whyever would you think you’d outstrip us, huh? You don’t think we’d hold you back, right?”

Charlotte blushed. “Though you’ll need to use that ability on us, for training.”

I grinned at the thought. My chances to use the ability with Dr. Charlotte keeping me from doing much with the mana burn had been scant. Yet, images of Des enjoying it flitted through my mind briefly.

It had earned its name ‘Delirious Pleasures’.

We made it back to our tent, only to find Crimson and Heather laying on our bed watching a sitcom together.

“Back already?” Heather asked. She was in a paper thin slip like she was about to go to bed. For a moment, I saw much of Helen in her, only without the anger complex.

I shook the thought away. That would never happen.

“Ken here blew the event away.” Des patted my shoulder. “We were hoping for a little time in our tent.”

“Oh, join us. This is a good episode.” The harem queen patted the bed between her and Crimson with the kind of offer that would melt any teenage boy into a puddle of love on the ground.

Crimson popped another chip. “It is a good one. This is the one where Diane realizes that Boss might not be so bad.”

“Yeah, but they just tease those two the entire series.” Des said, moving to join them.

I squinted at her.

“What? They are right. It’s one of the best episodes.” Des shrugged. “Besides, that promise is certainly good for a few hours.”

“What promise?” Heather’s face was the picture of innocence as she kept her eyes up on my face while Crimson dipped down to look at my pants and grin.

“I don’t know what it could be. He walked in with both of them arm in arm. Not to mention, do you see how red Charlotte’s face is?” Crimson scooted over. “Come on, join us.”

“Pass, I’ll sit in the back.” I brushed away the invitation, not wanting to encourage their teasing.

“Can you believe someone denied being pressed between the two of us?” Heather kicked her feet idly. “If I didn’t know better, you’ve lost your edge Crim.”

“Ha. Says the Hag Queen.” Crimson shot back, not even looking away from the ongoing show.

“I’m not a Hag.” Heather shifted to look at me as I tried to get behind them on the bed with Charlotte and Des still holding onto me. “Really, I thought I was always up there with Diane. God, that woman is a fiery redhead. She really dominated that era.”

“She was the person for like every beauty product ever.” Des said, finding her spot. “I just wonder how she found the time.”

Crimson rubbed her thumb and forefinger together over her shoulder. “Money. You’d be amazed how quickly people find time for money.”

“That was just at the beginning of the dungeon opening up.” Heather said, rolling back over to watch the show.

I pointedly kept my eyes away from her. “Bet she would have loved to go in and get some vitality rather than rub whale fat or whatever on her face to make herself young.”

“I don’t think people ever used whale fat.” Des corrected me. “But I bet Bellaire would know. She probably uses all the things.”

“Why?” Crimson shrugged from where she was watching the screen. “At this point, we’ll probably live to be several hundred years old and look like a smoking hot twenty something for the majority of it. Heck, Bellaire came in and got some level. She will probably get some more out of her deal with Silver Fangs too.”

“Bellaire is hot.” Heather agreed, earning a few looks from everyone. “What? I can appreciate a good looking lady. Not my speed, but I’m not in denial.”

“Pretty sure you are in denial about a few things.” Crimson kicked her feet. “Like the fact that you are getting old.”

“I am not.” Heather tried to kick Crimson off the bed, but the other high level adventurer just shimmered for a second and the kick missed.

“Slow too. Shame. You are getting old enough to match those wrinkles.” Crimson continued to taunt Heather.

“Why did I come here again?” Heather narrowed her eyes.

“I wasn’t sure. My best guess was masochistic tendencies, but you can never be sure with old people. They might just be lonely.” Crimson shrugged helplessly.

Charlotte leaned to whisper into my ear. “Are they friends or enemies?”

“Both.” I answered.

“They are rivals in a sense. Each of them understands the other a lot better than anyone else would, yet they seem to compete in everything.” Des said.

“And I win every time.” Crimson flashed a smirk over her shoulder. “Come on, Heather, why don’t we do a little training? I think your joints are getting stiff with age.”

In a flash, the Harem Queen was off the bed and in an outfit far more suitable to fighting. “Well, I shouldn’t turn down an offer like that from The Crimson, even if she’s going to be passed by soon.” She tossed her hair and marched out.

Crimson smiled at the three of us. “Have fun.” She winked and bounced off to bed to continue antagonizing Heather.

I squinted after them. “Wait, was that an act by the two of them, or did Crimson just seriously wingman me?”

“Does it matter?” Des pushed me down onto the bed. “Charlotte, dear, it seems Ken is due for his reminder of how much he wants to keep us around.”