DD 202 Ch 24 (Patreon)

Chapter 24

By the time Des returned, Crimson looked completely satisfied and snuggled up against me on the couch.

“Ah. You didn’t have to wait up for mw.” She glanced at Crimson who was in bright red sweatpants. “Or was I not the reason you are still awake?”

“Just wanted to make sure you were okay. Crimson got me a little caught up…”

Des pouted. “I wanted to play with her.”

“Can’t.” Crimson said with her eyes closed. “Too tired.”

“Aww. You did her good.” Des plopped down on the couch next to me. “I brought the grandmas back. Everything was fine.”

“Good. We encountered a little trouble…” I went on to detail her about the event with Prince Albar and our sudden concern to stall him.

“That’s good.” Des nodded. “Hemi said some high levels entered the safe at the end and called it quits. She took everything with her and said it would be fine. They have some people in the clan sorting through everything.”

“We’ll only get a cut. Half will go to the clan. We’ll split the rest.” I said.

“Not like I’m dying for money at this point.” She reached over and poked Crimson’s cheeks. “She really did all that? Sounds like she went a little overboard. No wonder she needed you to tire her out.”

“Don’t mind her. She’s faking it. I don’t think I could actually wear out the famed Crimson.” I looked down at the woman nestled up against me.

“Mentally tired from seeing you hurt and then happily rewarded.” Crimson didn’t open her eyes. “Besides, I like this spot.”

Felin threw open the curtain to the tent and marched in proudly with a platter of steaks. “Welcome back Des. We went and celebrated a hunt. Hic.” Felin hiccuped at the end. “There’s also this delicious cream they introduced me to.” I noticed her tail hung low and her ears were a little droopy since she’d been back from drinking.

Des’ gave a wry smile. “Don’t tell me they let you have the famed Irish cream?”

Felin nodded rapidly, a little heat in her cheeks. “It’s so good.” She slurred. “Is it my turn for a post-hunt celebration?” She glanced at me.

“Probably not now. I need to be at the top of my game the first time. A man has to put his best foot forward.” I said.

Her ears shot up and her tail started to twist back and forth. “That wasn’t a ‘no’, but a ‘later’. I’m being accepted into the pride. A pride that hunts together, loves together.” She said happily and ran back out to grab more food.

Crimson sniffed before peeking her eyes open and then opening her mouth wide. “Ahhhhh.”

I stared at her.

“Feed me, Master.” Crimson brought a little of her play out of the bedroom.

“Just think how those people from the bar would react to seeing this?” Des teased.

“Don’t care.” Crimson puffed out her cheeks like a spoiled brat and hugged me tighter. “Ken’s the one who doesn’t want to make a big deal of it. If all those fuckers knew, they wouldn’t have touched him.”

I patted her head and reached forward to get a steak and used a knife to cut a thin slice. “If people knew, I’d have a thousand angry men trying to kill me quietly.” I pushed the steak up to her mouth and she opened it eagerly, sucking the meat down.

“So?” She chewed. “Good training. Ah.”

I slowly cut more strips and fed them to her one by one.

Crimson was being a little clingy, but after watching me almost die, I decided it was warranted. I’d go along for tonight.

Felin came back in, this time with Fayeth and Charlotte in tow. All of them were carrying trays of food.

“Glad to see Crimson let you go.” Fayeth said, glancing at the woman in question as I fed her steaks. “I didn’t get a chance before, but thank you for stepping in Crimson. Chances of Ken staying dead were very slim, but he was probably about to die.”

“I would have revived him.” Charlotte nodded with absolute certainty.

The movement of her head caused a fluffy and rotund Bun-bun to fall from her head, bounce on the ground. He paused before deciding it was too much effort to get up. He rubbed his stomach and went back to sleep under the table.

“That rabbit.” I shook my head. “Well, we certainly achieved our goal of putting on a show for everyone. I would go as far as to say it is impossible for someone to say we were anywhere but that bar tonight.”

Fayeth started cutting up a steak for me and putting it on a plate so I could operate with one hand. “Then, what’s next?”

“Me.” Felin grinned.

“For the party.” Fayeth clarified.

“Training. I think just a lot of training. The DPS competition isn’t far out, and I want us all to be prepared to put on a good showing there.” I knew the whole class was chomping at the bit to get into the raid and get out of training.

Yet, I didn’t quite think we were ready.

Any time we sank into trying, and failing, the raid was time we’d be falling behind another class that chose to train. Until we were ready to clear the thing, spending too much time in the raid would just put us on the back foot.

“Are we going into the raid after that?” Charlotte voiced the question that was likely on everyone’s mind.

“I don’t think—“

Des cleared her throat and waited for me to stop before answering. “I’m sure Crimson is going to cover this in the lessons that she’s certainly not avoiding by training us all half to death. However, most raids get split. There’s probably a standard split for this one. We identify three waves of difficulty in the raid.”

“Ah. Do a few easy ones to get everyone invested?” I asked.

“Something like that.” She tapped her cheek as she continued. “There will be high quality gear to help us. It’s also a chance to iron out teamwork, work out kinks in communication and leadership.”

“It’s practice.” I nodded, just a different sort. “That makes sense. If our class’ DPS numbers come out at a point where it makes sense for us to take on some of the bosses, then we can start looking at the easiest bosses after the damage competition.”

Charlotte made a noise of agreement. “That’s good. Our classmates will be happy to put some of their hard work to use.”

“We are still a person down from a 25 person raid.” Fayeth pointed out.

“Think the princess would come for a day if I used portal? Crimson could portal me there first so I could create them.” Des offered.

I thought about that for a moment. “She’d love to, but I’m not sure if she’d be able to though. Then again, her Censors work hard to make sure she gets training every day. Perhaps we could get that time, this is a type of training after all.”

“We could use her availability as a limiter on how much time we give the raid.” Charlotte added.

That was a fantastic idea. Though, I knew Ely would try to join us as much as possible if she could. It did require someone’s cooperation though.

“Crimson, would you mind portaling us to the elven world soon?” I asked her.

She made a sound of contemplation and I fed her steak. “Sure. Why not? After you do… twenty hours of weighted sparring with me in the next two days I’ll portal you.”

“T-t-twenty?” I hesitated. At most we were doing two hours a day. At top speed, I wasn’t lasting much longer than that.

“Stamina.” Crimson said sleepily, nestling in against me. “We need to keep working on your stamina.” She started snoring softly.

Huh, she actually fell asleep on me.

“I’m impressed.” Des nodded. “Do hard work for us the next few days. We’ll all be doing our hardest to get ready for the damage testing. Because once we tell the others that we could potentially start the raid if we do well enough, that’ll really kick them into gear.”

“Today was hard enough. Let’s fill our stomachs and talk about everything else tomorrow.” Fayeth dismissed any further commentary and I let it happen, as I stopped feeding the glutton sleeping on me and filled my own stomach.

Today had been a hard one.

***

I shot forward, my training blades flashing at Crimson, Neldra and Miriam. Purple lightning crackled around me like the eye of a storm.

“What is this freak?” Miriam scowled at me and drew a fist back before punching with such concussive force it didn’t matter if I tried to dodge because anyone in the vicinity would be blown back. “Ha. Can’t touch me if—“

I was behind her like a ghost appearing and smacked her in the back of the head.

She spun, the heel of her foot destroying the floor of the training area at the Elven Palace. “Come fight me to my face.” She threw the back of her fist to the side.

I had to dodge out of the way, my mouth tasting dirt as it hung open.

She had actually predicted where I’d attack from.

“Don’t look surprised. She’s spent more time fighting than you’ve been alive.” Neldra chuckled at my expression. “She’s old as dirt.”

“You’re one to talk, Blunty.” Crimson had her bag of potato chips held to her stomach as she munched on them with one hand. “That gray hair is quite nice though, for an old lady.”

“It’s silver.” Neldra scoffed but glanced dangerously at Crimson’s chips and shifted her sheath away from her. “You’re the one who keeps trying to break all of my swords.”

I rapped my swords all over Miriams body before jumping back as she stomped. The Royal Censor was freakishly strong. She was also entirely mercenary, Neldra had to bring up her contract and pay to get her to spar me.

Crimson had insisted that I try to fight someone with a different style.

“Fine. If you want to try and play cat and mouse, don’t blame me. Blunty.” Miriam chuckled using the name. “You have a revive ready?”

“Don’t break him too badly.” Neldra tried to sneak a potato chip while Crimson was watching and had her hand swatted away.

“I think I’ve got a hand on your speed.” Miriam smirked. The woman was wickedly beautiful and had almost been my enemy. She raised a fist and slammed it hard on the ground, creating a shockwave that prevented me from getting close and then kept pounding the ground.

The earth beneath my feet quaked and cracks formed as the earth shifted. Wind and dirt scraped at my face until I raised my arms to block it.

It just kept going as she pounded the ground repeatedly.

Each blast of wind pushed me back and I didn’t have a chance to get close to her.

“You see!” She shouted over the noise she was making. “All I have to do is keep you away long enough for that speed to fall off. It isn’t the first time I’ve seen a stacking buff. Those sorts never last too long.” Her face was a manic mask of delight as she stared at me through the dust in the air.

I snorted. It was a sound strategy. But all I had to do was keep hitting her occasionally and I could keep the stacks going forever.

[Shadow Ambush] and [Shadow Phase] activated at the same time as I came out of her shadow and nicked her, using my speed to my advantage and jumping from one piece of broken earth to another, trying to avoid too much damage as I hit her several times.

Miriam’s smile only grew wider as she howled into the air and a bright golden light was the last thing I saw before I woke up in Crimson’s lap with Neldra standing beside her.

“Got you.” Miriam flashed a smile as she fixed her hair. “Powerful skill, but if that’s all you got, it’s going to be a long time before you can actually challenge me. Brute force wins most battles, even if people don’t like to admit the fact.”

Blunt as usual.

“Did you know she was going to do that?” I asked Crimson.

“Nope. But as someone who’s trained to one extreme and has a ton of experience, she likely has a strong counter for someone who’s too fast for her to hit.” Crimson grinned. “It’s good for you to fight people like her too.”

I relaxed on Crimson’s thighs. She’d brought Des and I here before sending the Demonic Mage back disappointed when we had to wait for Elysara to finish up her own matters.

We did drop in on her rather suddenly.

“You still did good.” Neldra poked my cheek. “She’s level sixty-eight. That you lasted as long as you did is a win. The princess can’t last that long.”

“What was that about me?” Elysara burst into the training room, glancing at the shattered floor and then at me in Crimson’s lap. “Who fought Censor Miriam?” She asked, slightly annoyed looking.

“I did.” I raised my hand, feeling still a little weak from being obliterated by whatever that last area attack had been.

Her face softened immediately. “Oh no. You hit my adrel?” She glared at Miriam.

“Crimson and Censor Neldra wanted him to experience a different fighting style. He lasted quite a while with me.” Miriam didn’t back down from the princess.

Ely snorted and sat down next to Crimson before scooting me over to her lap as well. She was radiant as always. Her hair was a bright red that only highlighted the warmth in her sun-kissed skin. Elves didn’t wear very thick clothing; their world was swelteringly hot. They built their homes under the shade of Great Trees.

Thus, her gauzy blue dress did nothing to stop me from feeling her skin on me.

“That’s better.” She started to run her fingers through my hair. “I’m very happy you’ve come to see me, my adrel.” She smiled sweetly down at me, her blue eyes pinching closed with how wide the smile was.

This was heaven.

I relaxed a moment in her tender care, letting our souls harmonize after being apart for a while.

“It’s been lots of training.” I told her. “Though, I came partially because I wanted to steal you away for our class’ event. We are doing a raid on the 32nd floor and we are still down an adventurer. One classmate stopped diving after being revived. The friend that helped them to the surface never came back either.”

“Ah. The other spot is the Nekorian that Neldra told me about?”

I nodded. “It was my hope to invite you to some of our raid attempts. I think we still need to largely focus on training, but we’ll pick the easiest bosses and start to work on them soon.”

Ely hummed for a moment and swayed with a hand on my head to keep me still. “Tish, tell my father that I’m going to start working on the raid with Ken. I’ll need to take you, Neldra and Miriam with me as guards. Convey that it is vital for me to not stop my diving because he wants to play war hero. Crimson clearly destroyed the current threat.” She put on an imperial air as she spoke.

Her words were not to be denied.

“Don’t get in a fight with your father over me.” I warned.

She shrugged. “He doesn’t get to decide my future.” It seemed they had fought recently. “Besides, we married in front of the Elven people and our souls are in harmony. Just this small moment brought us back together.” She brushed my hair back. “So if you want me to come join you for a raid, how could I possibly say no? Do you have time for dinner? Or are you in a hurry to head back.”

I thought about Des likely panting for the princess to join us and shrugged. “Dinner sounds nice. Once we go back, there won’t be a lot of alone time for the two of us.”

“You can tell me all about your adventures over dinner.” Elysara grinned and helped me to my feet.

Tish had already disappeared and I suspected this was just an excuse for Elysara to force her father back to the throne.

I hooked my arm in hers feeling a warmth spread through my chest as I reconnected with her. My mind wanted to make up a dozen reasons that weren’t soul harmonization that the elves believed in. Yet, another part of me wished that was exactly what I was feeling.

“And you’ll have to tell me all about what I’ve missed here.” I started up what would likely be a long intimate dinner conversation and a sleepless night.

AN - MB I was running out of chapters, missed posting yesterday and was at family's for most of the day. So, no chapter yesterday.