CH.255 Lunch and Dinner with Viscounts
CH.255 Lunch and Dinner with Viscounts
“.... good morning.” I said to Alice, when I woke up. She must have already been awake, because she was ‘drilling’ her head into my chest.
“Morning…. you are warm.” She responded, as she got even closer to me.
“... thanks, I guess. … but could you stop pushing your head into my chest?”
“Nope. I like it like this.”
“... just use a bit less force, please.” I said, as I moved my hand to the back of her head and brushed it a bit. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes. I don’t know how I couldn’t, since I was next to you.”
“Well, that’s good. But remember, you can’t just take me. You’ll have to be able to share with Lua.” I reminded her.
“I know. But I know you’ll just make us a big bed, won’t you?”
“... I guess. But it won’t be ready today, or anything.” Well, I probably could make one today with the dungeon.
“That’s fine. Even a small bed can fit all three of us.” As Alice said that, she hugged me even tighter.
“... yeah. I suppose that is true, if you sleep so close to me.”
Knock, knock.
“Miss, Sir, are you awake? May I come in?” After a bit more cuddling, we heard someone at the door.
“Yes. We are awake.” Alice responded.
After hearing Alice’s response, Jenna came into the room. Her eyes widened just a bit, as she saw Alice clinging to me, but she quickly recovered.
“Breakfast will be served soon. Please get dressed up.” Jenna told us, before she quickly left the room.
Running away after seeing something you didn’t want to see? I hope not, because for some reason, I feel like this won’t be the last time Alice will want to do something like this with me.
“So, shall we?” I asked Alice.
“... I do like this… but I’m also hungry. … what to do?”
“We can keep going after breakfast.” I told her, knowing full well that what I said was likely a lie.
“Okay. Then yes.” Alice said, as she let go of me.
We got out of bed and as I was quickly dressing up in my usual t-shirt and jeans combo, Alice was looking at the few outfits she has in her two closets. Well, they were almost empty, as most of her clothes were in her magic bag.
“... Brian, pick one for me.” She then asked.
“Alright. But why not just go with your magical girl outfit?” I asked.
“It takes some mana to stay in it. While not more than I naturally recover, it does slow down my mana recovery.” Alice reminded me.
“... yeah. I kind of forgot that part.” I admitted. “Well, I’ll pick something for you then.”
After going through what Alice had both in her closet, as well as her magic bag, I picked a daily-wear dress with a yellow to orange gradient. It actually looks amazing on her, even if I picked it more as a joke. I just wanted to see a dark attributed magical girl in a bright dress. Maybe I can talk her into making one with her new skill.
After breakfast, we had one more pass through the town. Mostly because I wanted to. We were going to get into Big Core outside the gates anyway, so why not.
Mainly, I wanted to give Alex a Harpie’s Pet Dragon. I opened the trade for it, and he is the 'Harpie Master'.
Finding Alex wasn’t too difficult and after handing him the card, as he was still at the guild. A lot of adventurers were. Perhaps because of how late into the night the party had gone, or perhaps because of the alcohol.
As we were still there, Zay also came to see us, handing me four cards in toploaders. Threatening Roar, Draining Shield, Mirror Force and Spellbinding Circle.
They had been found around the area where Alice had fought the behemoth, and Zay had taken control of them all. I gladly took my cards back, and in return, I gave Zay a Chorus of Sanctuary. Sure that isn’t a fair trade, but whatever. Chorus of Sanctuary just is an alright card that might help in emergency situations. At least I think so.
After we were done at the guild, we headed for the north gate ready to return to Sawyer city. Since there were a lot less of us this time, it was a lot easier to get everyone into the ship so we were quickly on the move.
After we landed, we spent a lot of the day with dumb busy work caused by the nobles still there. Most of them wanted to speak/dine/have tea with the ‘heroes’, so we were basically forced to attend to that. But because of the amount of invites, they ended up being combined into just two different events.
First was lunch with viscount Kramer. And two barons, but they are not important.
With him, we talked a lot about summoning and taming monsters. Too bad I’m not an expert in either. Well, either way. Kramer was especially interested in ways of taming flying monsters, like wyverns, hippogriffs and griffins. Sadly, I wasn’t an expert, but Agunan actually knew some stuff about it. This is because dragons sometimes keep monsters like that as pets. Agunan never did, but some of the other dragons that were with him do.
… too bad his taming method was a bit … brutish, so it wouldn’t work with humans. Dragons would just beat the monster nearly to death, before healing it with magic. If the beast didn’t feel like following them after that, the dragons would either repeat the process, or just kill the beast and eat it.
I could have tried to give some suggestions of my own, but even my ideas would largely amount to something normal people cannot do. I could do something like force a monster to stay still with my cards, giving people a ton of time to attempt the Tame skill on the monster.
The easiest way to look at the tame skill was … well, I guess I can compare it to a Pokeball. Except that you don’t throw anything. When you use it, you have to be actively touching the monster you are trying to tame. Then you send a specific kind of mana into the monster, trying to bring it under your control. That monster will then either fall in line and becomes tamed, or it will resist and doesn’t become tamed.
Laura could actually calculate accurate chances for all of that, based on things like the amount of mana used, the skill level of Tame skill, the monster you are trying to tame and so forth. But she also gave me a nice tip about it. If I were to attempt to tame a monster, I could hold it in place with something like Spellbinding Circle, then attempt the taiming, and then, if the monster refused, I could use Change of Heart to force it to agree to the taiming. And the best part, I could do that with anyone trying to tame a monster. It wouldn’t have to specifically be me doing it, it could be anyone. But I didn’t tell them about that part.
I was offered a place in the Viscounts taming squad, but I refused that. I did say that I would consider coming to help ‘part-time’ as an adventurer, but nothing more than that. After all, having access to my flying summons would help in taming other flying monsters.
The afternoon was a bit more peaceful, so we spent that time just relaxing, with some light magic practice. For Alice, a lot of time was spent getting more used to her new power. Even with Mana’s soul inside her body, she still had difficulty using all of her new powers and had to focus immensely on controlling it. Luckily, her new System Support did help her, so that made things just a bit easier.
Ria and I also had a quick meeting with Mateo Garner. Ria’s test time had already ended and technically her final test should have been yesterday. But we weren’t here, so it wasn’t. Not that Mateo even felt it was necessary. According to him, the last test would generally involve trying to make the dhampir angry, while also having human, or other humanoid creatures, blood in an open container, or even bleeding from a wound. But with the ‘episode’ of Baron Bloggs having happened, and Ria already having been exposed to human blood in her first test, Mateo didn’t see it necessary to hold an official test. Instead, he just wrote the official ‘stable’ papers for Ria.
And now that she had those, Ria could officially become an adventurer. I think we will register her in the coming days. I wonder, can Agunan join? He is a dragon and he also doesn’t have a status.
As I stated previously, we enjoyed dinner with Viscount Hill.
With him, our discussion quickly turned into metals and forging. He was especially interested in the vampiric steel sword I had given to Thomas. I gave him an explanation using my summoned monsters. It just is simpler than telling them that we (Lua and I) have been able to teach True Blood Magic to dhampirs in the nearby village. I don’t want some Viscount harassing them just because they can do that.
After that, our discussions quickly turned to my dungeon made swords. For that, I brought out the mithril sword I use, as well as a handful of other stuff I have in my storage from Paulina going into all of the challenge rooms. Most of them were just alright, not amazing or anything, but alright is still alright. Or I guess in this case I should say they were around intermediate+ in quality, while my mithril sword was good+.
On the other hand, the parasitic armor Ria and I wore were both excellent in quality, while the vampiric steel sword I gave Thomas has been excellent-. For those that want a reminder, item and material quality goes: poor, low, intermediate, good, excellent, flawless. All but flawless can have a + or -.
A bit like with Viscount Kramer, I got a request from Viscount Hills to come visit his workshops, and perhaps help him to make some vampiric steel. And like with Kramer, I didn’t have any reason to straight up refuse, instead saying I’ll think about it.
In the evening, after Alice asked if we could, we opened some packs together.
Because I already opened some The Lost Millenium packs with Laura, Tahlia and Fantasia, I decided to go with some Cybernetic Revolution packs today.
“There is a Hero monster. Are they real heroes?” Alice asked, as soon as she saw the cards.
“Well, kind of. They are based on superheroes. They come from stories from my world.” I answered.
“I see… Could you tell me more about them?”
“Sure. Some other time.”
Other than that, Cycroid is actually somewhat interesting. I don’t think bicycles actually exist in this world, so studying Cycroid might allow for the manufacture of bicycles. And Mad Lobster is something I want to eat. At some point.
Nothing too amazing in this pack. Well, I do like the look of Mechanical Hound. I want to go hunting with it. Drillroid is also alright, if I ever need to dig through a mountain or something.
“Oh? Crystal Core, huh?” I commented as I saw the super rare.
“... is it another airship like that other B.E.S. monster?” Lua asked.
“Spaceship, but yes. It should be.” I clarified.
I wonder, how does Crystal Core compare to Big Core?
And there is also Fusion Recovery and Dragon’s Mirror. Those aren’t bad either.
Oh? Jetroid? I wonder if I can use it as an actual jetfighter, or is it too small for that? There is also Steam Gyroid, but I need the fusion materials for it, and the only thing it really is good for is being a fodder for my fusion challenge.
Well, next.
System Down is nice. If I ever face mechanical monsters, it should kill all of them. I think. Are there even any mechanical monsters in this world?
(Metal golems would likely count as machine monsters, but we would need to test that first.) Laura answered.
Alright. Good to know. Tyranno Infinity also sounds interesting, but I don’t think there is any reason for me to use it. And I don’t think there ever was a Dinosaur deck that focused on banishing its own stuff, so I don’t think Tyranno Infinity was ever really a good card.
“Wow. Power Bond. That’s good.” I commented.
“What is so good about it? What does it do?” Alice asked.
“It's a fusion spell, similar to Polymerization. It only works on machine fusions, but it does double the attack stat of the summoned monster.” I explained. “But it also does come with a huge downside of damaging the summoner.”
“... then it shouldn’t be used, right?” Lua asked. “Isn’t your health most important?”
“Well yes, in some situations. But sometimes it is worth it to give up some of your own HP, so that you can quickly take down your enemy, right?”
“Well, I suppose.” Lua admitted.
Perhaps I should teach Lua and Alice how to actually play Yugioh. That would be fun. Well, I’ll do it when we have the time for that.
Next pack.
Goblin Elite Attack Force isn’t bad. At least I think so. Not that I’ll ever use it, most likely. But I have one.
Next.
Different Dimension Master, huh? I wonder if he uses Dimensional Magic like Cosmo Queen does? He might be helpful in teaching me things. I’ll need to give him a Book of Secret Arts at some point.
(You can just leave that to me.) Laura offered.
(... sure. You can do it.)
Anyway, two more, then I think it will be bedtime for us.
Dimensional Wall is not bad. It could be used as a set card with Wabaku and the other stuff I usually set on people.
Well, one more to go. Let’s hope for something good.
Yeah. I’d call that something good. Even if there is no way I can summon it at this moment, because I don’t have the materials, Cyber End Dragon is ‘something good’.
“Th.. that’s it…” Lua quietly muttered next to me.
“What is what?” I asked her.
“... that dragon…” She pointed at Cyber End Dragon. “... in a dream I saw, you rode on the back of that dragon. At least I think it was that dragon.”
“Really?” I asked. There is nothing strange, well that strange, about Lua having dreams, but this is the first Cyber End Dragon I have, so she shouldn’t have been able to see it beforehand. So how did she dream of it? “What kind of dream was it?”
After I asked that, Lua blushed quite a bit. Then she told us about her dream, but it felt like she cut out at least some information.
The main parts I took away from it was this.
1. In her dream, we were married.
2. There was a dimensional fissure, and Alice and I had gone to deal with it.
3. I had figured out how to keep my monsters summoned either permanently or for long periods of time using something called ‘avatar dolls’.
4. When I returned with Alice, we rode in on what was most likely Cyber End Dragon.
That is interesting. Now normally, I’d just say a dream is a dream. But considering when she said she saw the dream, the information isn’t something she should have known. Not just Cyber End Dragon, but also the dimensional fissure. That also explains why she reacted to the term ‘dimensional fissure’ like she did.
Did she see some sort of a prognostic dream?
The main thing I’m worried about are the dimensional fissures. If they really are popping up multiple times a week, that might honestly be bad. Even if not all of them poop out something on the level of a true behemoth, they do still sound incredibly dangerous.
Well, I guess I’ll ask about that when I get to speak with the Goddess.
Anyway. With the packs opened, it was sleep time for us. We all shared the bed, so it was a bit cramped, but with both Alice and Lua competing on how close they could be to me, we did fit.
I just hope I can sleep like this…