Chapter 3

For the first few trips into the Dungeon, we were accompanied by one of the higher-level adventurers in the Loki familia, just as Finn had accompanied us the first time. I don't know if it was standard procedure - given how irritable Bete was about it, I doubted it was. It was probably because we were a fresh batch of five adventurers with various unusual statuses or abilities and Loki didn't want to lose us in some stupid way. (Except Noriko, who was learning to be a good supporter in what seemed to be record time. But perhaps that was just my own personal biases speaking.)

After that, we pretty much were given free reign in the Dungeon, though it was clear to me that Loki expected us to remain on the uppermost floors for a while unless somebody accompanied us. Even if Erza was a powerhouse who could probably have easily broken through to the eighteenth floor at least, I guess she really didn't want to lose us to something stupid.

We actually didn't wind up going into the dungeon together all the time. Some of us - Erza and Cass - were complete training maniacs who would gladly spend eight or more hours in the Dungeon if given the opportunity. Julia seemed driven more like me: with the concern that this was a dangerous world, and she needed to level up. Noriko pretty much just went along with whatever. The end result was that Erza and Cass were often in the Dungeon while the rest of us were above ground, going about our respective days.

Julia was surprisingly independent. I should really say distressingly independent, given what I knew about her, but there were no reports of dead bodies with bullet holes in them, and she had a very distinctive fighting style for this world, so I had to hope that her bloodlust was sated with the Dungeon, and that she was instead busying herself trying to find some canonical character who she wanted me to fuck. She actually knew this world, unlike me, so she could list out the best girls: Ryu, Tione (she had seemed quite smitten with Finn, though I guess he didn't reciprocate), Ais (kind of an airhead, but apparently a real dedicated protector of the weak?), Haruhime, Ranye, Aisha, Artemis, and Cassandra. Apparently. I knew all of two of those girls; one of them was going after another guy extremely clearly.

She'd given me the run-down on all the charm points of the various girls, and - besides Tione - they all clearly fell into one of two categories: the ones that were self-sacrificing for the sake of some higher principle (even if that higher principle could be summarized with "fuck you"), and the ones who were cutely shy. I guess those were her types. Or, not her "type," since she was 100% straight, but the kind that she most wanted me to fuck.

(Her actual type was bishounen, traps, shotas, and me.)

Noriko, on the other hand, was an introvert. Not in the sense that she wanted time to herself, but in the sense that she wanted to spend lots and lots of time with me, specifically. Some with Julia or Cass or Erza too, but she just had no interest in expanding her social circle or going out into the world to do things on her own. She was either with one of us, or in the familia library, quietly reading away.

Since I didn't have much else better to do - and honestly, I was the same kind of introvert - I decided to take her out on a date. I'd gotten a basic awareness of the layout of Orario in my time there so far, so I had a few good ideas for nice places to go.

* * *

Cass walked right next to Erza. They were on their way to the Dungeon, and Erza was talking about some quest she had gone on, back in... Cass struggled to remember the name. Ma...? She had a hard time following stories like this, but she did her best to listen anyway. Erza certainly seemed animated as she recounted this or that part of it. "It was so gargantuan, it was as tall as three of that building!"

She didn't know what 'gargantuan' meant. Big? But why not just say big? She just quietly nodded, not wanting to interrupt Erza's flow.

There was a woman looking at them, she realized with instantaneous precision, her eyes immediately homing in on the silver-blue haired woman in question. She was wearing... a maid outfit. "Ah!" The woman cried out, as she realized she'd been noticed. She didn't have any violent intent, but there was something off about her, Cass knew that as she approached. "I'm sorry, but I think you dropped this," she lied as she held up a small magic stone.

"You do us both a kindness," Erza said, with a warm smile. "Thank you for your honesty."

"She's not... being honest..." Cass said, making Erza and the woman both freeze. "It's not... our stone."

"It's not?" The woman asked, pretending like she didn't know that. She pouted her lip in an attempt to win her favor. It didn't work. She was lying to her. It wasn't... a nice lie. She wasn't trying to hide something that would make Cass unhappy to be nice... she was trying to trick her. "Are you sure? I'm pretty sure I saw it fall behind you yesterday, when you were coming out of the Dungeon..." She chewed her lower lip in feigned innocence, every last word that she had just said a complete lie.

Cass didn't like this. She didn't know what the girl wanted, but she knew she was lying, constantly. It wasn't the lying that bothered her. It was the not knowing why. If she had been trying to lure them somewhere to stab them, that would have bothered her less than this. "That... didn't happen. You're lying."

The woman shifted her posture, then, having realized that she was well and truly caught. "Ahh, I admit it! I'm sorry! I just see you passing by here every day, and I wanted an excuse to talk to you!" She pouted. "I spent a bunch of money to buy this stone." That was... not quite a lie, but the money didn't matter to her as much as she was pretending. Or at all. "You're both so beautiful."

Erza smiled at that. "If you wanted to speak to us, there was no call for such deception." She put one gauntleted hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Eheh." The girl let out an awkward laugh, blushing lightly at the contact. The blush was half-affected: a display of an emotion that she could have easily suppressed, not the awkward, uncontrolled thing she was feigning. "Sorry. I don't meet new people very often. Or, not as interesting people as you two! Just boring customers at the Hostess of Fertility. That's where I work." She pointed behind her.

There was lots lying beneath the surface there, deception layered together with honesty in a way that was hard for Cass to disentangle. She just quietly stared at the other girl, frowning faintly. "Perhaps we could visit you during work hours, after we finish our stint in the Dungeon?" Erza suggested. By the way the other girl lit up, that was the entire reason for this whole thing...

"That sounds nice! I'll be looking forward to it." She glanced over at Cass, and let out an awkward laugh at the look she was giving her. "Is something wrong?" She asked innocently. Faux-innocently. Something was wrong, and she knew it, just like she knew the stone wasn't theirs.

"Oy! Syr!" Called out a female voice. "I don't pay you to lolligag in the middle of the street!"

"Ah!" Syr replied. "Sorry, I have to get back to work!"

"Ah - does your restaurant serve cake?" Erza asked, sincere concern in her voice.

"It does!" Syr offered with bright eyes.

"Then we shall see you this evening," Erza reassured her, before letting go of the other girl, who promptly rushed back to work. Her boss's body language was off, too - not quite the boss scolding an employee. More like she was play-acting the role? That she knew she couldn't actually punish Syr?

It was strange. There was something she didn't understand about it. She didn't like that.

Fortunately, she was soon in the Dungeon, and able to lose herself in training.

* * *

"This food is very delicious, darling," Noriko said, as she took another bite out of her burrito.

I had one of my own. It was something that I hadn't even thought about when I came over to this world, but I had a really terrible food allergy back in my own: nightshades. (If you don't know, that's tomatoes, potatoes, paprika, and every kind of pepper except black; there are some others but those are the big ones.) It had come in bad enough that I had to stop when I was in college. Before then, I had been gladly eating bean burritos slathered in hot sauce every day. Now that I was in a new world, a new body? I could chow down with relish on my hot sauce-slathered burrito. It wasn't quite what I used to eat back home, but it was still fantastic, enjoying the succulent flavor, the spiciness... "It really is," I breathed out, enjoying it myself. "I'm really glad that I can eat it. Especially with you," I added.

She turned a very light shade of pink at that, her porcelain skin looking beautifully dyed that color. "Thank you, darling. I am also glad that I can enjoy this meal with you, darling."

* * *

Loki watched the lovey-dovey scene with increasing incredulity, her lips curled into a frown as she saw her child happily talking away with her other child. Bete stood a foot or so behind her, his arms crossed to show that he was an unhappy boy. "I don't get it," she said, at last, shaking her head and pulling back. "What does she have that I don't?" She prompted Bete.

"Well, for one, she's not stalking him," he said. "They're also literally married."

"They aren't," Loki protested. She knew that he had been lying when he'd said they'd been married, and she was pretty sure they hadn't had a ceremony or anything since he had said that.

"Whatever," Bete replied. "Why do you even care?"

"He said he had to wait until he'd gotten done with her before getting to me!" Loki replied, stomping her foot. It was obviously an attack on her pride! Now, maybe if you were a pure tit man then the others could be justified purely on the basis of your own shallowness, but Noriko was flat as a board! What did she have that Loki didn't?! She had to know!

"You're actually interested in him?" Bete asked.

"No!" Loki replied with a scowl. "I just want to know what the hell this girl has that I don't. You wouldn't understand. You just rely on that chest of yours to seduce people," she said, poking him in said chest - then tilting her hand into a grope of his pecs. Of course, he responded when she'd barely had a second to enjoy it, simply grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her hand away. "Anyway. I'm always trying to improve my seduction skills, whatever trick she's using, I have to add it to my repertoire."

"Maybe he loves her or something," Bete said, with a long sigh. Loki stuck her tongue out at such a ridiculous explanation, then turned back to watching the two's date.

* * *

"We have finished our meal," Noriko noted, as I licked my fingers clean of the last bits of hot sauce. "Do you have more events planned for our date, or would you like to go to the Twilight Manor and have sex?" I heard someone choking in the distance at that, my head swiveling around to find them - but they seemed to stop a second later. Maybe another adventurer helped them out or something. Adventurers could be crazy fast, at higher levels.

"I was thinking of taking you on a little shopping trip, my treat. But if you'd rather go home and have sex, we could do that instead."

She stared at me for a long few seconds, and I could almost hear the gears turning behind her eyes. "I have a significant quantity of funds from our repeated expeditions to the Dungeon. Therefore, I would rather have sex with you than go shopping."

"Great," I said, smiling down at her and easily hefting her up onto my shoulders. She let out a small noise of surprise at the movement, but settled into place fairly quickly, her hands coming to run through my hair for a second or two before she decided to press her weight against her knees instead.

Once we were home, I laid her out on my bed, peeling away her clothes quickly and thrusting into her without hesitation. She let out a soft gasp as I filled her up, and it made me pause, some concern at the noise that came so quick, given how normally quiet she was. After a couple seconds, she blinked owlishly up at me. "Are you done, darling?"

I just let out a little laugh. "You're not normally that noisy during sex," I told her, starting to thrust inside her properly now, my fingers sliding up to find her hands, lacing my fingers together with hers. I leaned down over her, finding her lips with my own, my tongue hungrily sliding into her cute little mouth, playing with her gums and tongue. The inside of her mouth was warm like her pussy, and wet like her pussy, and tasty like her pussy - the girl was pretty much literally created for sex, and fuck if she wasn't good at it. My hips thrust deep inside her with each movement, and I just lost myself in the moment.

Her own tongue slithered into my mouth, finding the back of my gums and rubbing up against it. She'd discovered that spot on our third day together, and ever since, there wasn't a kiss that lasted longer than a few seconds without her rubbing up against it, making goosebumps run across my flesh as she teased me there.

* * *

Noriko did her best to please Drake. He had saved her from her abusive father by bringing her to this world. He stated that she was actually a 'fork' of the original Noriko, who had gone on to a happy life. It was difficult to imagine that a happy life had awaited her original self, but she chose to believe him. In either case, whatever happy life she may have been destined for, this Noriko had gotten to begin hers earlier, as she had become the object of affection of a highly-attractive and caring man, who also had arranged for her to acquire superhuman abilities.

As such, she did her best to squeeze his cock inside of her vaginal walls, exercising the muscles down there in a consistent milking pattern. Simultaneously, her tongue worked at the back of his gums, causing him to shiver in response to the sensation, the occasional noise of pleasure escaping his throat. He paid her back with a rhythmic pounding all his own, while her fingers trailed across his bare chest, gently gliding across each and every muscle that she could feel there.

Despite her hard work, she orgasmed well before him, and much more often. This was not true of his other girls, or at least, not as consistently and trivially true. "Cass" would often make him come before she orgasmed herself. Erza and Bitch would orgasm between zero and three times before he ejaculated. Bitch tended to have fewer orgasms of the two, as she was being denied penis-in-vagina sex in order to "satisfy her humiliation fetish."

Contrary to these excellent lovers, Noriko rarely managed to have sex with Drake wherein she orgasmed at a less than three-to-one ratio. Although he lavished her with praise and affection, she naturally did her best to pleasure him as quickly as she could, learning what techniques she could from the other three. When Drake broke off the kiss with a wet pop, she began to use 'dirty talk' techniques she had picked up from Bitch, whose dirty talk appeared to be the most erotic to Drake.

"I am a lowly woman who does not deserve your cock inside her, but is receiving it anyway. As such, you may use my body however it pleases you, darling. Please continue to fuck me, darling. Thank you for penetrating my vagina, darling. I do not deserve such good treatment." His pace accelerated atop her in response to her words, suggesting she was doing quite well. Unfortunately, his intensifying pace also made her come, a little noise escaping her throat as pleasure ran through her.

By the time he finally ejaculated inside her, she had only orgasmed three times, which was a very good number for her. She would work to make him come even more quickly in the future. "Please, allow me to clean your penis of my filthy juices with my own mouth," she said, though in truth the cherry-strawberry flavor of it would be nice.

"You're talking a bit differently," he said.

"Yes."

"Why? Are you feeling... inadequate? Because I love you very much, Noriko."

"No, darling. It is that I think that these words arouse you, based on the speed of your ejaculation this time, as well as your behavior with Bitch. Am I incorrect, darling?"

He just let out a small laugh and shook his head. "Go ahead and suck me off," he said, giving her head a quick pat before rolling over onto his back.

She promptly moved to fellate him. Unfortunately, since her mouth was otherwise occupied, she could not use dirty talk to intensify his arousal, and she ultimately came six times before he orgasmed in her mouth.

* * *

————— sat down with her conversation partner once more. Once more, she had prepared a cup of tea, even though ————— had told her that she had no interest in tea. She only drank teeth-rottingly sweet soda, and they didn't have any soda here, much less the good kind. Pepsi.

"It's nice to see you again, Princess," Sanjouno Haruhime said in a soft, affectionate voice. "It is nice to have a conversational partner. Men ask for conversation, but it is generally merely a prelude to the rutting."

————— wasn't sure if Haruhime was like her canon counterpart, in that she had never had sex before. This was a real world, and that was a story contrivance. On the other hand, Loki remained the incorrigible lesbian pervert barely tolerated by her familia, also a story contrivance. "It's nice to talk to you, too. Do you want me to tell you another legend from my homeland?" She perked up immediately at that, tail swishing happily behind her, and ————— smiled. "I'd like to do that too. I'd like to tell you stories every day. Do you know what the price would be, for me to purchase you?"

The look on Haruhime's face, the curling downward of her lips, the drooping of her ears, the falling of her tail - it all spoke to the obvious conclusion. "I don't believe that you could, Princess."

"Ah... goshujinsama would really like you, I think. That fluffy tail of yours is so sexy." Haruhime blushed at that, her emotions at least shifting away from depression to embarrassment. "Imagining it curling around goshujinsama's cock is so sexy..." she licked her lips, almost trembling at the thought of the innocent, shy Haruhime avoiding looking directly at Drake while she jerked him off with her tail. Haruhime's cheeks were turning beet red, and ————— drew herself back down to what she was here for. "That's a very nice collar," she said, reaching out for it, fingers running across cool black metal. "I was thinking of getting myself one and surprising goshujinsama with it."

"Oh, I don't... know where it comes from," Haruhime said, her mood lowering again.

————— shifted her weight, rising to her feet. Haruhime looked up, concerned she'd said something to offend her. ————— spoke in an ordinary volume, testing to see if anyone was listening to them. "I want to take you away with me, have goshujinsama rape you every day, just despoil you in every hole, over and over, make that cute blush of yours when you're embarrassed be replaced with a lewd look, make your whole body tremble in pleasure as you bounce on his cock, salivating hungrily for the chance just to feel it in between your tits, never ever coming back to this horrible place, thanking me for kidnapping you."

No one came. She settled back down, smiling gently at the furiously blushing Haruhime, whose gaze was currently firmly focused on the tea in front of her.

"Have you ever heard of something called a killing stone?"

The girl's fingers trembled around her cup, her gaze briefly flicking up to meet —————'s. She shook her head quietly.

She definitely had. "I guess not. I was just wondering. I heard they were very expensive and hard to get your hands on," ————— said with a shrug. "Are you sure there's no way I could buy you? Having you as my sister-slave to goshujinsama would be really nice..."

"It's impossible."

————— let out a playful sigh, like she didn't know exactly what Haruhime was going through. She wanted to get up and just start shooting Ishtar familia members, but she knew that Aisha had been mindbroken when she'd tried to protect Haruhime, and all the rest of the terrible things that went on in this terrible familia. Many of the Amazons were as much victims as sweet Haruhime, and she couldn't separate the wheat from the chaff. "Ah well. Hmm. What story should I tell you today? How about the tale of the Evangelions? Great, titanic beasts, controlled by sorcery and artifice by young men and women selected for the task, protecting the world from destructive threats..." Haruhime smiled and nodded, her tail beating once more.

Death was too good for Ishtar.

* * *

Loki had gotten in a good grope or three on Erza Scarlet when she'd updated the girl's falna. She hadn't expected the level of boost she'd seen, but it had been a pleasant surprise anyway. Her Strength was up to I81, and her Endurance was even higher, at H103! Her other stats lagged behind, though her Magic was a respectable I77. All that, after less than a month in the dungeon! At this rate, she might just break Ais's world record for fastest leveling. Loki grinned wickedly and gave the woman a slap on the ass before sending her on her way. Completely oblivious, still! It was great!

The... Loki inwardly grit her teeth... Prettiest Princess came into the room next, quickly pulling her shirt off, just showing those gorgeous, exotic dark orbs, the lovely black of them making her tongue flash out past her lips involuntarily, but she did have to actually do her job.

Strength: I0 → I89

Endurance: I0 → H128

Dexterity: I0 → G252

Agility: I0 → G216

Magic: I0 → I0

Essence: I → I

Skills:

Glorious Carnage Typhoon

Relic Weapon Enchantment

Fivefold Sensory Exercise

Splinter in the Mind's Eye

Loki just stared at the truly tremendous and insane growth rate that Princess had managed. No, she'd also gained two new skills?! Loki's entire thought processes were simultaneously stalled and running at high speed, as she tried to figure out the utter impossibility displayed by the falna in front of her. Erza growing a bit faster than her Ais, sure, she was incredibly strong already, had good potential, all that - but it only took a single D-rated stat to hit Level 2, and at her current rate, The Prettiest Princess would hit that in her Dexterity in another month.

She suddenly had a cruel and vicious vision of the other gods deciding to give her child her chosen title of The Prettiest Princess, just to truly make Loki grit her teeth.

"Am I done?" The girl in question asked.

"Do you know what Fivefold Sensory Exercise and Splinter in the Mind's Eye are?" Loki asked.

"Nope!" She replied with a grin. Truth.

Loki just let out a sigh. She'd guessed as much. "Alright, get on out of here and put your DAMN SHIRT ON THIS TIME!" She screamed the last few words out as 'Princess' was about to walk right out of her room wearing nothing up top. She pouted in a very sexy way and grabbed her bra, pulling it back on, making Loki inwardly scream as she realized she'd missed another great chance to grope a topless black beauty!

Maybe she could contrive another opportunity? Well, there was Cass, who wouldn't let her grope her, and Noriko, who didn't have anything to grope, and Drake, but she might get a bit of groping in on him. After all, he'd been all "oh, I'm so sorry Loki, I want to ravish you, but I can't! I'm married!" She actually bounced her head from side to side and made talking hand motions in the air, despite the fact that she was alone and not actually talking. "Next!" She called out aloud.

* * *

Cass's scores were even more absurd than Princess's. Everything except Magic was at least a G; her Dexterity and Agility were Fs. Noriko's felt goofier despite the fact that they were lower than Cass or 'Princess's', since she knew for a fact the girl pretty much was a pure supporter who maybe occasionally stabbed a goblin in the eye or shot a crossbow bolt at an approaching enemy - despite that, she had scores similar to Erza's, ranging through the high Is. Was... was Noriko going to beat her Ais? No, that was too absurd.

Drake... Drake had a new Skill too. Unnatural Many-Stepped Stride. "Know what that is?" She prompted.

"I honestly don't recognize the name, but I'm pretty sure I know what it is." He stood up then, and she got a chance to gawk at that nice, firm, muscular backside of his, her tongue flashing along her lips - then she suddenly realized he was taller than before. She jerked a bit as he got even taller right before her eyes, and her eyes finally managed to (lamentably) peel themselves away from his bare torso to notice his feet, hovering over the ground. "I'm pretty sure it's the name of this technique. I can actually teach it to Bitch - or anyone else with Essence."

"Well, literally nobody except you and..." Loki let out an exaggerated groan, "your girlfriend has Essence." She looked him over, eyeing up his bare chest, and he did absolutely nothing to stop her. Ha. He was just pretending not to be into it. A tsundere, like Bete. She pushed the thought of what had happened the last time Bete had caught her crawling into his bedroom while he slept into the back of her head. It was irrelevant. "Do you know why she got two skills to your one?" It was really just making conversation to keep him shirtless in front of her.

"I don't have the faintest." Lie.

"Oh? You've got a clue?" She leaned forward, fixing him with her eyes sharply. "What is it, come on?" He actually seemed a tad embarrassed, which was a real shocker.

"I've been trying to work for something specific because I wanted to do something special for Bitch."

"For... your girlfriend, specifically?" Loki was a female Casanova, she'd never stoop so low as to crudely call a woman a name like that. Or at least, not unless she had already gotten her fingers into that smooth dark flesh first. "Why?"

"No reason." Lie. There was even a faint squirm to his posture. "Is that it?"

"I need to know!" He was grabbing his shirt, though. Noooo! What was the secret!? If there was one thing Loki hated even more than ungroped boobs, it was unsolved mysteries!

* * *

The reason was that I had spent so long just fucking Julia's face and ass that any vaginal defloration couldn't possibly live up to the build-up, but there was one particular Charm - Skill, in this world's parlance, since they were apparently largely interchangeable - that would help with that: You and Yours Stance. Well, there were others, but that was the most ethical one, since it would just make me insanely, breathtakingly beautiful to look at, and then I could finally just slam it into Julia's cunt and go wild inside her. I honestly kind of regretted keeping up the denial as long as I had, even if her mouth was fantastic and she had no complaints...

Anyway, I couldn't tell any of that to Loki, so I just left her there without answers. She hadn't even remembered to try to grope me.

* * *

Zanis had been on edge for the past couple of days. It felt like there was someone present in the Soma familia headquarters that wasn't supposed to be there. He hadn't seen anything, and nothing had been stolen, either. His best guess was that it had to do with the Ikelos familia, so he'd arranged for them to learn that he felt he was being watched and would be unable to assist them with any business matters. All in a way that didn't make it obvious to his unseen stalker, of course.

He kept himself looking as squeaky clean as he could manage, even dialing down the amount he was squeezing his familia members for more money. If one of the oblivious idiots decided to do something stupid for cash, after he'd been so desperate for donations? Then it would look like it was his fault. It wasn't, though. It was their own damn fault, for falling for that drink's allure.

"Somebody wants to talk to you," one of the lower ranked members said. He didn't remember the woman's name, but she had the same desperate look all the loyal members of the familia had, the one that was desperately questing for the next glass of the good stuff. "She says she wants to buy something big."

After a bit of back and forth, the 'she' in question stood before him. She was wearing a mask and hood, but he wasn't too concerned. People sometimes wanted their privacy, when they bought things from the Soma familia. Particularly in bulk. It was all legal anyway, so...

Once it was just the two of them, she started to talk. "I want to purchase a sex slave for my... master." He could catch the hints of brilliant blue eyes behind her mask as she spoke those words, and he shifted his weight. She held in her hand a bag of valis, which she promptly placed down on the desk. It hit with a resoundingly large thump.

Not a loud enough one, though. Maybe a hundred thousand, at a guess? Certainly a fair chunk of change, but not enough to give up a member of the familia. Not out of loyalty to them, they were just worth more than that when they were scrounging. "That's far too little."

"It's a show of intention. I'm prepared to offer more, but I didn't want to bring it all in, for the risk that one of your ill-reputed members might steal it. The girl I want is named Liliruca Arde. I know about her Special Skill, just like you, Mr. Lustra. You no doubt can figure out why she's so attractive as a sex slave. Name your price."

"Ten million valis," he said, without hesitation. It was the same price he'd quoted to Liliruca when she'd asked to be freed from the familia.

The woman hummed, taking up the bag of valis. "Eight."

"Nine," he said, lazily.

"Fine. Nine. I'll be back with the money, once I've gotten it together," she said, simply stalking back out of the room without another word. He shook his head. It was obvious that she didn't have nine million valis. Maybe she hoped to earn the money in short order? It wasn't really his concern. If she had the money, she could buy Liliruca; if she didn't, then she didn't, and their conversation was pointless, but had only wasted a few minutes of his time.