DD 202 Ch 15 (Patreon)

Chapter 15

“Hmm?” I turned.

The man’s antics behind us at the bank had not really interested me before, but now his accusations had my attention.

He was accusing us of being carried by Crimson. Taking away the credit of our hard earned loot.

“Yeah. I knew that would hit a nerve. The truth always does.” The prince continued. “As for my father, he's been busy with work. The SJS Financial group is one of the largest businesses in the world. It not only backs the Royal Academy, but the UG too.”

I didn’t miss the relation he had to another of my problems, only making me dislike him more.

Felin made a noise of understanding. “So he wasn’t a good hunter, and when he couldn’t hack it, he went to be a builder?”

I burst out laughing. “You are exactly right, Felin.”

Prince Albar narrowed his eyes on the Nekorian. “What is the cat even doing here?” Even if he didn’t understand, it was plainly an insult.

Fayeth stopped Felin cold with a heavy hand on her shoulder. “It isn’t worth it.”

“She’s part of my party. Also, in case the Royal Academy doesn’t have a broad curriculum, she’s a Nekorian. You know, a friendly race in the dungeon? One with substantial strength. Also, she’s a shaman, which means she’s important enough in their hierarchy that your words can have an actual impact.” I sighed as if he was such a bother. “Really, you buy your levels and your gear, does someone take your tests too?”

Des raised an eyebrow at me, surprised with how much I was willing to verbally spar with him.

His assumption that Crimson had farmed all of the gems for us had really gotten to me.

As for the poor UG guards, they were paralyzed, unsure if they should intervene.

“I thought you were taking her out.” Des pointed a finger past the prince, ignoring him.

“Your betters are talking.” Prince Aldar snapped.

Des scoffed. “Careful. You are talking to Haylon students. Which one of us doesn’t have a parent of note? At least the Renard Family earns their levels.”

Her parents were certainly more famous than most. And I was slowly learning that her mother had a fairly nefarious reputation for those who crossed her.

“Excuse me. Please follow us.” A guard gestured for the Royal Academy student to leave.

She choked on a scoff and huffed at us.

“No need. I’ll escort the fine lady.” Prince Albar smiled as his face continued to twitch.

“A dog like that is fitting for you.” Felin piled on fanning in front of her face. “Though, I thought dogs had better noses. Oh well, let’s get some money to buy cream and drink until we forget these stinky people.”

Crimson gave the other group a pitiful smile.

“That’s it!” The prince snapped. It seemed that Crimson was a bit of a thorn for him. “We’re making a bet.” He pointed a finger at me.

“You don’t have anything I want.” I shrugged.

“Bah. Everyone wants money.” He threw a wad of cash at me that unfurled and green paper fluttered around me.

“And what is so important that you’ll write me a blank check?” I narrowed my eyes.

“I want to bet that the Royal Academy will beat your pitiful class in the raid this year.” Prince Albar had a very punchable smile on his face.

It seemed that this encounter had worn off any semblance of civility from him.

But that was fine.

“We were already going to win, so what are you going to give me as a prize? You never told me what it is that you wanted.” I had a suspicion, but I wanted to make him say it out loud.

“Crimson!” He pointed at her. “If you lose, you’ll give me her.”

I stared at him flatly. “Uh…” I shifted my gaze to Crimson to see if he was about to get painted onto the walls.

She wasn’t even paying attention.

“I cannot offer Crimson. She’s a person, after all.” I sighed, what an ass.

Crimson laid herself over me. “What do you mean Ken? When you take me to bed, you tell me I’m nothing but your tool to use as you wish?”

Prince Albar was shaking with rage as he heard her.

“This collar is your symbol that you own me.” Crimson snapped her choker and whispered in my ear for me alone. “If I put myself up for the bet, just how hard can you work to make sure it doesn’t happen?” Her voice had some barely contained excitement.

Fuck me. She was serious, wasn’t she?

Either this was playing into her kink or she was going to use this to push me even harder in training.

Perhaps it was both.

I sighed. “Fine. Crimson is beyond valuable though…” I trailed off, wondering how much to ask for her.

“Twenty billion ren.” Prince Albar threw out the number like it was his betting money.

My mouth went dry at that number. It wasn’t inaccurate to say that was enough for me to stuff in long term investments and then run all of the Clan Nagato and Silverfang operations off the yearly income it generated.

Crimson nudged me. She was going to go through with this if I didn’t. Besides, it wasn’t as if he could hold onto her if Crimson had other ideas.

“Deal. Hey, UG guard.” I motioned to the group still watching. “Can we get this written up and the UG as witness?”

“Ah. Let me go get the director.” The mentioned guard rushed off.

I didn’t blame the guard. I wouldn’t want to get in the middle of what we were doing if I weren’t already..

“Alright, when you are done, can you give me your CID?” Fayeth held her hand out.

I pulled it off and quickly handed it to her. “The items for sale are already separated.”

“Hey, you still had cream!” Felin shouted and then grumbled as Fayeth pulled at her ears.

***

We settled up our accounts at the teller and then the contract with Prince Albar.

Crimson was all smiles and whistling afterwards as we headed to the UG store.

The doors opened up and Felin stopped dead.

Her eyes opened abnormally wide at the sight.

Row after row of glowing equipment in a pristine white, brightly lit warehouse expanded in front of us.

Unlike some of the earlier floors, the magic glowing off each piece of equipment was brighter to the point that all of the colors gave off a faint rainbow that reflected off the gleaming floor.

It made it all that much more impressive.

“Come on. It’s just the UG. There’s nothing impressive here.” Fayeth threw her earlier words back at her. “What, do Nekorian’s not have shops?”

“Shop? This isn’t a shop. This is a dragon’s hoard.” Felin looked around as if expecting some great dragon to pop up and swallow us all.

“This is the power of human builders, except it isn’t just one or two. It’s a whole army of them.” I explained and held her arm lest she get lost.

“So I can buy things with what we turned the mana crystals in for?” Felin asked, her eyes stopping on a glowing staff and jumped over to grab it before she hissed. “This is high level. You can buy it?”

“It’s expensive.” I pointed to the tag. “Even if we all pitched in together, we couldn’t afford it. Come this way. The shelves are arranged by level, so we should go to our level’s area.”

“There will still be good stuff, but level appropriate.” Des urged her forward when she planted herself in front of the high level staff. “There are also lots of skill books.”

Felin let out a growl similar to that when she hunted and stalked after me.

“So, why did you bet Crimson?” Charlotte asked, Bun-bun chittered on top of her head. “Don’t say that, it’s rude.”

“I will cook you,” Crimson warned the rabbit.

He shrank down and covered his eyes with Charlotte’s hair.

“She wanted me to bet her.” I sighed and glanced at the woman again. I didn’t like it. “Crimson, do you want to share with the class why?”

“Because it’ll push you harder.”

“Aren’t you worried about making him snap after a certain point?” Fayeth asked, looking at a shelf in passing.

“No. Ken won’t snap. At least, not in a way to worry. If he gets too mad, I’ll let him take it out on my body.” Crimson fanned herself.

“That makes sense.” Felin nodded. “She’ll pay the price, so it’s okay, but what happens if Ken loses?”

I rolled my eyes. “That won’t happen. She all but ensured that I will train like a demon until the raid and then give it my all. I’m not going to lose Crimson, especially to that prick.”

“At which point he breaks and then I have to sacrifice myself. Really it’s a win-win for me.” She pulled out a bag of chips. “Gotta get some calories in me before then.”

“Is that just an excuse to eat more chips?” I squinted my eyes at her.

Crimson just shrugged. “You’ll never know.” She moved fast and I missed stealing her bag of chips. “Don’t even try that without thousands of stacks. I don’t let slow people touch my chips.”

Des turned us down an aisle as Felin ran ahead to the bookshelf halfway down the aisle. “Wow, so many books.” She pulled out several scrolls from her leather pouch. “Going to take a while to get through these.”

Charlotte took off her CID, scanned the books, and then handed it to Felin. “More human builder things.”

Felin blinked and tapped on the screen, scrolling down the list. “This is what they use those mana crystals for?”

“Among many other things.” Charlotte patted her on the shoulder. “I’m sure we could get you one to store things in and use to look things up.”

“Like Neighbors?” Felin perked up. “I want one!”

I shook my head. But again compared to what we were spending on other items, it wouldn’t be hard to get her a CID. “Fine. Let’s look through the skills for anything we need though.”

“What are you looking for?” Felin had the list up and was scrolling through it.

“My kit feels fairly full. Mostly, I’m interested in multi attacks and another elemental buff I can put on my weapons. Lightning perhaps? I don’t think I’ll be able to use more than one at a time, but it's for if I ever meet anything that’s immune to shadow damage.” I explained as I picked through.

“What, no need for new more powerful spells?” Charlotte asked.

I shrugged. “There might be a few direct upgrades I could utilize, but generally speaking, my combat style has solidified.”

“Arming yourself with a thousand abilities won’t make you more powerful at this point.” Des agreed. “Honestly, you probably have so many skills at this point that you forget the important ones are critical junctures.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “Nope. Definitely not.” It may have happened more than once.

Still, I was interested in another elemental buff to my weapons. If I ended up fighting something with shadow immunity, my damage would tank, even with [Liminal Speed].

“How much more equipment can you use?” Des asked.

“Besides the blades, the rest of my gear is heavily dated at this point.” I picked at a belt and a heart guard that were dozens of levels behind me at this point. “I could probably pick up two pieces of gear around our level.”

“We should make sure we are as kitted out as we can be.” Fayeth stepped away from the skillbooks and looked at a rack of necklaces. “The thirties are where monsters start to scale fast enough to the point many elves struggle to keep up with monster levels.”

“Humans too.” I remembered the lessons. In the thirties, most people washed out. The average monster’s stats double from thirty to forty. They aren’t small to begin with. Even though they doubled from twenty to thirty as well, the five stat points per level helped keep up. Now, they barely counted. Less than ten percent of what an adventurer needed to keep up with the growing strength of the monsters on each floor would come from the free points when you leveled. Meaning, it had to be managed with gear, skills and training.

For those that lacked one of those, it could be incredibly difficult.

“I know you’ve been focusing on Charlotte and Fayeth’s gear, but maybe we should help the damage dealers too.” Des grinned. “After all, if the monsters die faster, they do less damage. Really, we are more important than tanks or healers.”

“Just very replaceable.” Felin said distractedly before she shot to her feet as Des took back Charlotte’s CID. “Hey.”

“No CID for you. No neighbors for you.” Des taunted her. “I can’t believe you’d say Ken was replaceable.”

Felin jumped up to try and snatch it back, but Fayeth grabbed her waist and her fingers dug in and started tickling her.

“H~ey!” The Nekorian started to giggle.

Des tossed Charlotte her CID and joined Fayeth in attacking the Nekorian with wiggling fingers.

Bun-bun sighed and shook his head.

“They are teasing her. It’s a good thing.” Charlotte patted the rabbit.

Felin cried out for help as Des tickled her into submission on the floor.

“We are in public.” Fayeth chided the two on the floor.

“You started this.” Des’ fingers weren’t stopping, but Felin was growing resistant to her continued tickles and launched her own assault pushing Des onto her back and tickling the Demonic Mage in turn.

Yet, the purple haired beauty just moaned and let out steamy breaths as he face became flushed.

Felin paused. “Wait, it just arouses her?”

“Everything arouses her.” I answered and helped Felin to her feet before helping an amorous Des that used the opportunity to re-latch onto me. “Let’s get back to shopping. If you don’t want abilities, let’s look at the equipment after restocking up on potions. What about you Crims… Where’d she go?”

Crimson had disappeared while we’d all be focused on Felin and then Des wrestling and tickling each other.

In fairness, it was quite the sight.

“Who knows?” Des shrugged. “She’s a big girl and she can do what she wants. Let’s go find you some new clothes and see if there are any sexy warlock outfits. Ehem, ones with good stats. I’m not Harley who picks what they look like over how they perform.”

“After, how about we find somewhere to eat as a party?” Charlotte suggested.

I flashed the adorable druid a smile. “Consider it a date. We’ll find a place with meat for Felin.”

“Yes! I’ll eat your meat.” She proudly proclaimed without an ounce of awareness before she paused, a flash of guilt across her face and glanced at Des.

Des was on my arm and a sinister smile was slowly spreading across her face. “Hmm? You’ll eat Ken’s meat? Do you even know how? Let this one teach you all about it later.”

Felin’s guilt disappeared. “No thank you. My tongue is too rough.”

Des pouted and then turned to me. “You owe me some meat then. Let’s go shopping.”

I gave Felin a thumbs up behind Des’ back as the demonic mage led me away from the rest of the party to go potion shopping.

“So, you and Felin?” Des bobbed her brows. “You never did give me the full details of the hunting date you two went on. Now she’s all about tail hygiene though.”

“You didn’t ask.” I wasn’t keeping my relationship with others from her by any means, but a date with Felin was still something of a private matter.

“Fine. She seems to be fitting in better to our pride-slash-harem-adrel. You really have made this overly complicated with three different races. If I didn’t know better, next thing you’d have one of those dwarven queens or a naga princess.”

I shuddered at the thought of the naga. They were more monster than man. And the dwarven queen, hadn’t been ugly necessarily, But I also wouldn’t call her attractive.

“Oh you are actually thinking about it.” Des poked my cheek and filled up her basket with a bunch of tickets for potions.

“Not really. Just the horrors of what a naga would do to me. But who knows there are bound to be more races in the dungeon. We have no idea how deep it goes.” I shrugged. For all we knew past the naga threat there could be all sorts of new races. “Yet, our focus right now should be on the raid.”

“Wrong. Worry about your little family project you picked up.” She glanced around to make sure there were no other shoppers near us. “We can work on the raid after that. Crimson has found an excuse to push you harder. I’m almost positive she’s off shopping for new weights she can strap to you and make you work twenty times harder. That woman…” Des trailed off and shook her head.

“What?”

“She really wants you to catch up to her. If power leveling you wouldn’t completely ruin the concept, I’m sure she’d already have you down in the 50’s absorbing levels every day.” Des shrugged.

“I want to catch up to her too, but I want the rest of you along for the ride.” I picked up Des’ hand and kissed the back of it. “Let’s continue to enjoy our time at Haylon.”