Chapter 60: Volume 1- [ - 61 ]
Goblins — the same corrupted strain, their eyes glowing yellow in the wand-light, their crude weapons raised. Four of them, charging from the left corridor with the chaotic, uncoordinated aggression of pack predators.
Seraphine’s shield met the first one. The impact rang through the corridor — a clear, metallic note that bounced off the stone walls. Her sword came around in a tight arc, the blade catching the second goblin across the throat, and it fell, spraying dark blood.
I raised the Serpent’s Fang. The third goblin was three meters away, mid-lunge, its club raised. I fired.
CRACK.
The bullet struck center-mass. The goblin’s chest caved inward — the ribs shattering, the organs pulping — and the body flew backward, hitting the far wall with a wet sound. The fourth goblin skidded to a halt, its yellow eyes wide, its primitive brain processing the thunder-sound and the death of its pack-mate in the span of a single heartbeat.
It turned to run. I reloaded. Fired. It dropped.
“Good shot,” Seraphine said, and the compliment was grudging but genuine. She had seen the speed — the draw, the aim, the trigger pull, the reload, the second shot — and the warrior in her recognized the proficiency even if the mechanism was unfamiliar.
‘His accuracy is remarkable. The weapon’s effective range in a confined space — at least thirty meters, possibly more. And the reload speed — five seconds, maybe less. That is faster than a crossbow. Faster than anything I have seen. If he can maintain this rate of fire—’
The sisters pressed against me. Sera’s hand tightened on my arm. “Lord — that was incredible,” she whispered, and her voice carried the genuine awe of a woman who had never seen a gun fired in a confined space. “The sound — the way they just — dropped—”
“You are so strong, Lord,” Lira added, her green eyes wide, her remaining leg trembling. “The way you just — pointed and — they died—”
Their praise was not performed. It was the honest, unfiltered admiration of two women who had been trained overnight to see their master as the center of the universe, and every demonstration of his power reinforced the training. The more I killed, the more they worshipped. The more they worshipped, the more devoted they became. The cycle was self-sustaining.
I pushed forward. The dungeon unfolded — room after room, corridor after corridor, the monsters emerging in waves that broke against Seraphine’s shield and my gun. The rhythm became mechanical: advance, encounter, eliminate, advance. Goblins in the narrow corridors. Kobolds in the side rooms, their traps triggered by Elwen’s detection spells. A pack of corrupted wolves in a larger chamber on the third floor — Seraphine’s shield held the line while I fired over her shoulder, each bullet finding its mark in the dim, green-lit darkness.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Three shots. Three wolves. The fourth fled into a side passage, and Seraphine’s sword found its spine before it reached the corner.
“Your shieldwork,” I said, reloading. “It is impressive. The way you angled it against the second wolf — you redirected its momentum instead of absorbing it. That is advanced technique.”
Seraphine looked at me. The compliment had landed — not on her vanity, which was small, but on her pride, which was enormous. She was a warrior, and warriors lived on recognition.
“You noticed that?” she said, and the surprise in her voice was genuine. “Most people do not see the difference between a flat block and an angled deflection. They just see a shield and a wolf and—”
“I have spent my life around fighters,” I said, and the lie was warm, conversational. “The Durren family had a standing army. I watched them train. The angled deflection — it conserves energy and creates an opening for the counter. Your instructor was good.”
‘He noticed the deflection,’ her internal voice was a murmur of pleased surprise. ‘No one has ever — not even my commander in the hero party — no one has ever looked at my shieldwork and seen the technique behind it. They just see the shield. The wall. The tank. But he — he sees—’
The warmth spread. Another brick. Another layer.
Six hours in, we reached the halfway point. A rest chamber — a wider section of corridor where the dungeon’s architect had carved benches into the stone, a small spring trickling from a crack in the wall, providing drinking water. The party collapsed. Seraphine leaned against the wall, her armor rattling. Elwen sat cross-legged, her wand dimmed, her eyes closed. Mirra huddled in the corner, her satchel open, her hands sorting healing supplies with the nervous energy of a woman who needed to feel useful.
I sat on the stone bench. The sisters arranged themselves on my lap — Sera on my left thigh, Lira on my right, her stump resting against my knee. I pulled the bedsheet from the pack — a thin, worn thing, but enough to drape over our laps, hiding my hands as they slid beneath the sisters’ tops.
Sera’s breast filled my left hand. The pink nipple — stiff, responsive — pressed against my palm as I kneaded, my fingers sinking into the warm flesh, the weight of it settling into my grip. Lira’s breast filled my right — the rose nipple, larger, softer, the areola pebbled under my thumb as I rolled the peak between my fingers.
Both sisters leaned into me. Their breathing slowed. Their heads found my shoulders — Sera on the left, her lips against my neck, her breath warm and steady. Lira on the right, her nose pressed against my collarbone, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my chest.
“Mmmh—” Sera’s moan was barely audible, a vibration against my neck, her body shifting as my hand worked beneath the sheet.
“Nnngh—” Lira’s sound matched, a soft, unconscious response to the stimulation, her hips shifting on my thigh.
I sat there. In a dungeon. On a stone bench. Kneading two pairs of breasts while three Heroine-tier candidates sat five meters away, oblivious.
My eyes found Seraphine. She was across the chamber, her armor removed for the first time since we entered — the breastplate on the floor beside her, the under-tunic clinging to her torso, the outline of her body visible through the sweat-damp fabric.
Her breasts were large — larger than I had expected beneath the armor, full and heavy, the kind that would fill both hands and overflow.
Her waist was narrow, her hips wide, the musculature of a warrior visible in the definition of her arms and the taut line of her stomach.
‘Three hundred points per breast,’ I thought, the system’s overlay flickering at the edge of my vision. ‘Five hundred for the pussy. That is a thousand-point woman, walking around in silver armor, and she does not know it.’
My gaze moved to Elwen. The elf was slender — willowy, her body all long lines and gentle curves, her breasts small but perfectly shaped, the nipples visible through the thin fabric of her robes. Her legs were long, her hips narrow, her pussy — I imagined it, the system’s data filling in what the clothing concealed — worth six hundred points.
‘Twelve hundred points, walking around in forest robes, examining my cock with the clinical curiosity of a scholar dissecting a frog.’
And Mirra. Small, soft, round. Her breasts were modest — two hundred points each, the system’s valuation reflecting her lower narrative weight — but her body was warm, her curves inviting, her pussy worth four hundred points.
Eight hundred points of Heroine-tier potential, wrapped in a mousy exterior and a blessing she did not understand.