[DCI] Chapter 69 - A Spoonful of Freedom

We took a moment to look around the ritual site now that things were pretty much safe. Levia had to manipulate her light spell to illuminate the area since the entire circuit and the crystals lost their glow. That included the octahedron, which stopped levitating and fell to the ground, now nothing more than a dark azure shape with a few cracks over its surface.

As for the altar, or rather the coffin, while the structure was fairly intact, the owner, not so much. The massive lid had perfectly threaded the needle and landed with its long edge in the casket, turning the corpse of the evil Witch into paste. If she had anything valuable on her, it was most likely gone. But, I hadn’t noticed anything special back then so there was hope that nothing was lost.

Aisha laughed her ass off when I recounted how this had come to be, cursing herself for not being able to see it. She and the girls had been hiding inside Levia’s protective zone at that point in time, and the number of Skeletons swarming them was so high they piled up one over another and formed the tall cylindrical shape I’d seen after coming out of my temporary prison. That spell really saved our asses out there.

So, we walked around the place while Levia examined some of the sigils and symbols, trying to learn more about the ritual the other Witch had been intending to conduct. It had somehow been able to preserve her body perfectly well after splitting her soul from it and binding it to the cloak, which fortunately, had escaped the fate of its owner and Aisha still had it with her. It wasn’t so lively anymore with the curse gone.

From what Levia was able to gather, the spell she’d used was meant to turn the caster pretty much immortal, something akin to turning into a Lich, without the ugly parts of that necromantic theme. The arrays were meant to gather and capture dark energies from the nearby tombs, thus so many Skeletons that had been raised from their eternal sleep. This entire area had been an immense underground settlement of some race the Witch had used for her own goals, some of them possibly being still alive when she’d begun.

But, something had gone wrong and fucked up. We did not know what exactly happened next, but the Dungeon formed around this place and revived the ritual. Levia insisted that the Witch had to agree to accept the evil energy, perhaps hoping that it would help her finish the ritual and regain her body while also raising an unimaginable army of undead servants.

While necromancy wasn’t pure evil, Levia couldn’t even stand the thought of someone willingly collaborating with the forces of the Void. And I could agree. In the end, the Void aimed for complete destruction. What use would immortality be when you would bring forth the end of the universe through your actions and effectively end that immortality at some point in the future?

Some people just didn’t look far ahead enough, I guess.

But, there was no point in crying over spilled milk. She’d failed her machinations. Twice. And hopefully for good this time. There was no body and we decided to take the cloak away. Maybe we would sell it, or maybe it would turn out to be a nice trinket after checking it out in the Inventory, we didn’t yet know. But, it was better not to leave it behind here.

About half an hour of strolling around later, we agreed to wrap it up for now. We were battered and at least a tiny bit tired. There would be plenty of time to explore before our next assignment. So, we followed Rose, who seemed to know the direction we should go to reach the entrance to this zone. It was a bit annoying since we had to step over an uncountable number of bones littering the floor, coming from all those Skeletons that had crumbled alongside the ritual magic.

I was pretty sure it took a bit under another half an hour before we reached the crumbled spires near the staircase. It looked damn impressive from down here. But, the fact that there was no easy way to climb back up to it persisted. The only way had been turned into a massive pile of debris.

Our incredible Witch let us know that she still had enough mana to cast a few decent spells, including Feather Fall, so we bet everything on that. Aisha pointed towards one of the intact towers, which looked like it extended much higher than the lowest point of the damaged stairs. Seeing no better option, we walked to its bottom gate and started climbing as far up as it allowed us.

Then, as we’d planned, Levia cast her spell on us and Lulu volunteered to be the first one to test the strategy once more. We watched as the short imp girl jumped forth and soared towards the staircase much lower than our current position. She flew, and flew, and flew with a big arc, and almost went past the narrow path, barely managing to stop before plunging into the chasm.

We took notes from her attempt and launched ourselves a bit more to the side so that we would land with as much square surface to lose the gathered momentum. One by one, we made it there in one piece. Aisha kept catching everyone after going second so we had some additional safety. Taking one last look at the breathtaking cavern, we began our journey back up.

Chatting casually about our entire Dungeon run, we took our sweet time to accompany Lulu to her Personal Domain. She tried to deter us with the most common excuses like not having tidied up in decades, it being small and awkward, or that we wouldn’t like the atmosphere, but we insisted. I was curious how her home looked, and of course, we wouldn’t intrude against her wishes.

She fidgeted a little while opening her beautiful dark pink metal door with lots of spiky studs but still allowed us to take a peek into her impish abode. And it was really pretty. Most of the internal structure and furniture were made of dark wood while all the decorative elements like the wardrobe and cupboard doors, chairs and sofas, bed, and so on, were fitted with heart-shaped motifs, often cushioned with pinkish material. It certainly suited the little lust imp. Or love imp, according to her.

Thanking her for the opportunity and help in general, we parted ways for now and headed back to our own home with a somewhat impatient step. Aisha slammed the door open and pretty much danced into our apartment, evoking a warm chuckle from me.

“Nothing beats coming home after beating a Dungeon!” She grinned joyfully. “Especially when you aren’t alone. I would have kicked the bucket sooner if I knew I would get to meet such amazing friends and my perfect mate.”

“Don’t say things like that. Even in jokes.” I shook my head with a wry smile. “What if someone undesirable summoned you because you came into the pool too early?”

“Right. I guess I nailed the timing.” Aisha snorted.

We helped each other get out of our respective armor and piled it up by the bed for now. She was most likely going to clean it up and do some after-battle maintenance on it sometime later, as usual. As I was standing in just my boxers, Rose swirled all around me, fussing over all the little cuts and wounds I had gathered in the recent battle.

“Hey!” I gasped as Aisha suddenly proceeded to cop a feel of my dangly bits. “The hell you doing?”

“Making sure that your most crucial organs are intact.” She smirked at me.

“Have some decency, please.” Levia sighed softly, showing up by our side in just her panties and bra too.

“Yeah. If you have forgotten, Lucas Junior has his own armor now.” I squinted at her while she still kept playing with my little friend.

“Only from the front,” Aisha replied, finally taking her mischievous fingers away. “The pain-nullifying toxin you consumed should still be working. You could have been walking with something missing and you wouldn’t even know.”

“Excuse me, but even with all of that, I definitely would realize I had suddenly grown half shorter.” I put my hands on my hips and winked at her. “Plus, there would be blood. Lots of it. You just wanted to fondle me, nothing more.”

My sly drakan mate raised her hands in surrender and walked away, wiggling her juicy ass and thick tail seductively, falling flat onto the bed. We exchanged amused glances with Levia and went after her, sitting on the edge of the mattress.

“Let’s see all those notifications,” I suggested and brought my smartwatch up, turning on the holo display.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Congratulations!

You have managed to stop the evil ritual and eliminate the source of the contamination, gathering enough experience to strengthen yourself.

Lucas King: Level 13 -> Level 14

Gained Attribute Points: 10

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“As expected. I bet we’ll be seeing a lot of these in a moment,” I mused.

“No new ability? Bummer.” Aisha pressed herself into my back, peeking over my shoulder.

“It might come at Level 15,” Levia commented.

“Most likely. As you all know, the number of abilities you get from levels get lower the higher you go and they mostly turn into the ones reflective of your actions. I don’t think we did anything special during this fight,” I shared my thoughts with them. “Anyway, let’s see yours.”

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Congratulations!

As you push through adversity together, your Subordinate has gathered enough experience to strengthen themselves.

Aisha Erlivyre: Level 13 -> Level 14

Gained Attribute Points: 10

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“Good. We are decently synchronized,” Aisha purred, nibbling on my ear.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Congratulations!

As you push through adversity together, your Subordinate has gathered enough experience to strengthen themselves.

Levia: Level 9 -> Level 10

Gained Attribute Points: 7

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“And our new girl is quickly catching up. Very nice,” she added, winking at Levia.

“This pace is still unbelievable to me,” the quiet Witch said. “To think that I’m already at Level 10 and I barely just have been summoned here. I truly can not believe it. Sometimes, I still wonder if this is not a dream.”

“I assure you that it’s not.” I smiled at her and leaned down to place a loving peck on her blue cheek. “All of it is real.”

“Come on. Check if the rewards are already here. We took a moment to get back,” Aisha hurried me up.

“Chill. I’m getting there.” I snorted and scrolled down.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Congratulations!

You have carried out all assigned tasks and successfully conquered the Beginner Dungeon 02!

Your performance is being calculated. Due to the number of additional variables, the processing time might be longer than usual.

The rewards connected to the Betrayer incident have to be verified by your supervisor’s superior and the block manager so we ask you to have patience and not blame your agent for any possible delays.

Time left before rewards are announced: 00:58:35

The connection to this Dungeon will be severed in: 45:58:35

Use that time to finish all your business inside the current Dungeon and rest before your next assignment!

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“It’s definitely longer than the last time.” Aisha clicked her tongue. “But I guess they have a good reason for it.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “J must have heaps of paperwork due to all this chaos. I bet there is also some inter-guild conflict within such cases. I can’t see anyone being too happy with a murderer running around their contracted Defenders. But, it’s not like I know a lot about these things. Maybe there are full criminal guilds out there that have access to this System. Some organizations are supposedly run by gods and it’s pretty obvious that not all of them are completely good.”

“Unfortunately, my guild didn’t see it necessary to supply us with that kind of information, no matter how high-leveled we were, so I can’t share any wisdom with you regarding that,” my drakan mate admitted. “But maybe yours will be different. We are receiving so much support through these notifications and other messages of yours. And there’s this J. They seem quite open with you. We just need to figure out a way to ask.”

“I have never met anyone who was this close with their supervisor.” Levia glanced up at me with her pretty, calm face. “I am still surprised by all the tales Aisha shares with me about your involvement with that person during your beginnings.”

“Trust me, I was quite surprised too. But, they have been a great help so far and I hope we can somehow show our appreciation to them one day besides just doing a good job here and earning them some bonuses to their paycheck.” I chuckled softly. “A simple thank you that could surely reach them would be enough since I don’t think we’ll ever get a chance to meet up in person.”

“Who knows what the future will bring. So far, it has been full of surprises.” She nodded sagely.

“Right now, the future is going to bring us rewards.” Aisha snickered. “But, we still have time before that happens. Time we should spend well. So, who’s with me to crowd the shower with our sweaty bodies?”

“I could use some refreshment,” I agreed. “Rose would definitely love to take care of us together. What do you say, Levia? As long as you aren’t uncomfortable by that arrangement.”

Our quiet Witch only nodded gently but that was more than enough of a confirmation. Aisha sped to the bathroom while dropping her underwear along the way, flashing us all her secrets from behind. I took a slower approach with Levia, letting our lively draconic companion set everything up properly. When we arrived at the shower, she was already soaking under the hot stream and grinned at us while running her hands down her sinful body, displayed to us from the perfect profile.

The two of us removed whatever attire remained on our bodies too and I assisted the lithe elf lady into the cubicle as Aisha made more space. Still, we ended up pretty much pressed into each other if we didn’t want to rest our backs on the walls or the shower doors.

For a brief moment, I just stood there and admired the two incredible women in front of me, each of them so beautiful and unique. It was a bit funny seeing Levia direct a few lazy glances at Aisha’s impressive tits before looking down at her own, modest chest, but I made a mental note to verify later that she didn’t feel inferior in that regard. I loved her lithe frame as much as Aisha’s massive, thick curves.

The person in question giggled slyly whenever my tail smacked against either of them, which was simply impossible to avoid with us standing so close while facing each other most of the time. I could not avoid reacting to them, and at least one person relished that fact, judging by the amused smirks and grins on her luscious lips and the attention of her vertical pupils often moving south.

Thankfully, most likely for Levia’s sake, Aisha held in her horny mode to some extent. I really appreciated that. We spent most of the time simply washing each other, of course sneaking in a few tender rubs or squeezes along the way, but without anything too serious.

I took care of my drakan mate first, cleaning every nook and cranny of her skin and scales just as she loved, including her bountiful red hair, of course. Then, I lent a hand to my slim elf lover, delicately soaping and rinsing her slender frame. Taking a longer moment while moving over her chest, I made sure to whisper to her long ear how perfect she was, bringing up the tiniest little smile to her pouty lips.

During all of that, Rose tickled us all over with her loving healing bites, often evoking quiet gasps, chuckles, and giggles whenever she brushed against something a bit more sensitive.

After the girls worked together to help me out in turn, we shut the water off and stepped out of the shower to grab some towels. Forming a triangle, we first went after each other’s hair. I took care of Aisha, who took care of Levia, who managed to properly reach my head. A moment later, the girls were having fun with hair dryers while I gladly wiped their bodies for them, to the pure delight of the draconic beauty who saw me admiring them in the mirror. Naturally, they did the same for me after.

We paraded out of the bathroom in full nude, heading for our respective wardrobes and dressers. Throwing some decency upon our scandalous state, we grouped up on top of the bed once more and awaited the big announcement.

Soon, the big moment was there.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Your clear rewards have been fully calculated and approved by your supervisor and their superiors!

Thank you for your hard work, Lucas King!

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Congratulations!

Finishing the job netted you enough experience to raise your levels!

Lucas King: Level 14 -> Level 15

Gained Attribute Points: 10

Aisha Erlivyre: Level 14 -> Level 15

Gained Attribute Points: 10

Levia: Level 10 -> Level 11

Gained Attribute Points: 10

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“More levels. Always welcome,” I commented.

“Yeah, yeah, keep moving!” Aisha shook my shoulders. “Get to the good stuff already!”

I laughed and obliged. “You know you can always see these by yourself on my phone if you are so impatient?”

“Sure, but where’s the fun in that?” She grinned. “Stop wasting time and show us how much they appreciate our work.”

So I did.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Clear Reward: 1000 D$

Betrayer Incident Resolution Bonus: 2500 D$

Time Remaining Bonus: 100 D$

Total Currency Earned: 3600 D$

Current Account Balance: 38756 D$

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“No Perfect Clear bonus this time? Penny pinchers.” My drakan mate scrunched her nose.

“But look at that massive incident bonus. Last time, we had a Bonus Objective and the Perfect Clear and still earned less than today,” I replied, bringing up the archived details of the previous Dungeon on my phone. “And we certainly haven’t fully explored this place before stopping the ritual. There could be something we have unfortunately missed in that lower level. You know how gigantic that area felt. And don’t forget all the spires.”

“Lucas is correct,” Levia chimed in quietly. “Perfect Clear is much easier to achieve in smaller Dungeons as the main requirement to secure it is to wander into every place and simply discover the landmarks or points of interest. Of course, not forgetting to remove all enemies and finish the main objectives. With bigger ones, one or more Bonus Objectives might be hiding around, which are necessary to perfectly clear the assignment. Traversing the entirety of the Dungeon is not the most crucial task in that case, as long as the Defender stumbles on the important areas.”

“Thanks for clearing that up. Neither of us was perfectly sure about that even with our past knowledge and experience. And, as you know, mine comes mainly from a fake simulation.” I smiled at her warmly. “But, does this mean there might be someone in a similar situation as the Pixies out there?”

“It is not impossible, but it is not always about prisoners or other living organisms. It could be that we missed a hidden treasure chamber, a precious vein, valuable storage belonging to someone important, or pieces of lore and hints that could be of use to someone,” she explained and moved a bit closer to rest her slender palm on my cheek. “You should not worry about it too much. Your kind heart is commendable, but it should not be weighed down by theoretical possibilities.”

“What she said,” Aisha agreed, directing a warm, gentle smile my way. “We need that sexy brain of yours to be focused on the current situation, our future, and not some what-if bullshit.”

“You got it.” I nodded at them. “Let’s focus on our current material situation then. I don’t think I have to comment on the fortune that is our account right now. Damn.”

“Lucas King and his royal treasury.” She laughed, smacking me on the shoulder. “And his loyal harem, of course.”

I rolled my eyes at that and scrolled further.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

ADDITIONAL REWARDS

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Residence Upgrade Permit x02 [BONUS]

Subordinate Token x01

Dungeon Shop Discount Coupon -25% OFF x02

Dungeon Shop Discount Coupon -50% OFF x01 [BONUS]

Standard Recovery Potion x05

Standard Mana Potion x05

Standard Energy Potion x05

Set of Stylized Armor: Steel Guardian Theme x01 [BONUS]

Weapon Type Selection Box: Steel Guardian Theme x01 [BONUS]

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“That’s a lot of bonuses.” I whistled. “Those must come from the Betrayer incident.”

“Two permits to expand our comfy nest? Hell yeah!” Aisha pumped her fist. “Too bad there’s only one ticket for Subordinates. You could have doubled your harem overnight, gifting your new girls their dream workshops and stuff.”

“Stop it.” I jabbed her in the ribs with my elbow. “Have some respect for Levia. You know well that I’m not in this just to collect women and bribe them to like me with expensive gifts.”

The blue-skinned lady pulled my palm into hers and entwined our fingers together so I met her enchanting violet eyes.

“I appreciate how much you care for my comfort and my feelings, Lucas. Please, do not let my person stop you from finding more mates you find pleasing to be with. I will be happy to see you attain more happiness, and grow stronger through it. The more females you accept, the safer all of us will become,” she stated calmly, her expression tinged with some traces of real affection.

“All of you is just perfect, not just your lovely body.” I leaned towards her and joined our lips in a slow and passionate kiss, feeling Levia’s delicate mouth curl up just a bit while Aisha cooed behind us. “Both of you know that I will definitely do that, even if for the reason you just presented. Thanks for reassuring me, though. Love you.”

Even the badass drakan lady joined in on our hug and we chuckled quietly together while swaying a little. After a moment, we separated and turned back to the holographic display.

“I did not expect to see more armor and weapons without the Perfect Clear,” Aisha commented. “I can’t wait to open them and see what those supervisors of yours chose for us.”

“Me too. They really went all out with these rewards. Even the common stuff looks to be raised by a tier.” I nodded, moving on. “Now, let’s see what I would dare to say is the most important part of these rewards.”

“Time off!” She jumped up and down on her spot. “That’s something we can agree on!”

Smirking at her excitement, I checked for just how long we would be able to escape the confines of my apartment.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

TIME OFF

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Clear Rewards: 2 hours

Betrayer Incident Rewards: 10 hours

Currently Available Time Off: 12 hours 25 minutes 46 seconds

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“That is an extremely generous quota of free time.” Even the ever-so-collected Levia seemed taken aback by our rewards.

“You don’t fucking say?” Aisha grinned at her like crazy. “Just imagine how many things we can do with this much time on our hands! If we don’t splurge it all out, we might even be able to use it bit by bit until our next assignment is done!”

“There seem to be a bunch of skill-up notifications after this, maybe even one or two new ones,” I mused, taking a quick peek past the Time Off section.

“Fuck the skills!” My Berserker girlfriend pushed my wrist away. “We’ll have our entire lives to check those! It’s now time to celebrate! Rose! Get that little slut here before we begin without her! And if we do, I can’t guarantee we will be wearing anything at that point!”

I chuckled openly and listened to her, putting my smartwatch away. With one nod from me, Rose moved to the door and Aisha ran to open it for the cute orb. She then rushed back to us and tackled me to the bed. We fought each other for dominance for a while as Aisha seemed to have a ton of excess energy to burn while Levia watched us act like kids.

Naturally, I still had no chances against my badass girlfriend when it came to pure physical strength so she won. Or maybe, I let her. With my Overlord powers, I could have cheated a little. But, that wouldn’t be as fun as the real thing.

Afterward, I left her on the bed, begging the seductive vixen to behave with our guest present, and walked with the respectful elf lady to the kitchen to prepare some things for the upcoming event. We could order food and beverages, but plates, glasses, and other utensils had to be set up.

About forty minutes later, Aisha was starting to grow bored and her crimson eyes were beginning to sparkle with distant traces of lust. Lulu was really cutting it close. Just in case, I always kept Levia between me and her. She could easily snatch me away when I wasn’t looking her way.

Another ten minutes later, I felt Rose return and we all came to answer the door. But, we saw no one else besides our spherical friend on the other side. Our cute Pixie bobbed and weaved in all directions, trying to convey her message, which I understood pretty well.

“I see. She didn’t answer the door no matter how much you tried, huh?” I summed it up for everyone. “Do you think she is okay?”

“She definitely looked a bit tired when we walked her home so I wouldn’t be surprised if she just flopped down onto her bed and fell asleep.” Aisha snorted. “She must be a deep sleeper.”

“Lulu was under a lot of stress since the very moment we discovered the murderer in our Dungeon. That kind of mental strain can wear a person out to their limits. We do not know how well she slept in recent weeks. Now that she can truly relax, her body and brain must finally be recovering. Perhaps we should let her rest for now,” Levia suggested.

“Sure thing. It’s not like we are in a rush or anything,” I agreed while closing the door. “But, what are we going to do now, then?”

My brawny mate grinned at me. “What do you mean by what? Now that the third wheel is out of the picture, it’s time for a date!”