Rupegia

Chapter 181: Dipping our Toes – Part 3

I actually do get sick of this dungeon quite fast. Mostly because the creepy imagery becomes a lot more disgusting the deeper we go.

There are no obvious signs saying, "go in this direction," so we just pick one and start walking, and no amount of beautiful colors or delusions of grandeur can make excruciatingly detailed depictions of flaying look good.

Lina has some strong opinions about the abominable carvings, but she's not eloquent enough to voice them, so Yunia speaks in her stead, "I'm starting to feel scared about what sort of monster one would have to be to look at such a depiction of Wickedness and decide it's worthy of being glorified and carved in gold."

"Hey, that's a clever pun," Samkelo wryly jokes, though he sounds rather tense.

"We're seeing all the red flags, and we're still walking right into it," Lily quietly remarks in a sing-songy tone that makes her sound sarcastic.

It actually makes me chuckle because I love her sense of humor, but then I poke her back with a bit of banter, "Be brave, Lily. Only we can safely explore this area."

"I fucking hate you," she angrily whispers, and I can just hear the cute pout in her voice.

"I'm more worried about us getting lost," I add as I ignore her.

"Gih," Gify helpfully chirps in our minds. This extra-dimensional space makes her feel uncomfortable, so she's staying in the fortress, and apparently, I can sense her direction and distance, just like with the fellowship bond, if she allows me to.

"Okay, I'm not worried about that anymore," I correct myself and get some raised eyebrows from the telepathically challenged among us.

Urmeie is among them, but she decides to just ignore my eccentricity and move on, "Well… now we just need to find out where we need to go."

So all eyes fall on me and the gnome.

But Kellogs is feeling cheeky, so he grins like an imp as he impudently jokes, "If you'll allow me, Your Highness, I'll shove my thumb up your ass and pull on your Thread again."

"I should slap you for that," I immediately reply, half-serious.

"On the ass?" Roxanne eagerly asks out loud.

So I turn to her and frown. "Really? You're getting aroused by the idea of me fucking him, of all people?"

But she smirks as she seductively replies, "Wolfy, gayness is the only fetish that'll never get satisfied, so we will fantasize about it whenever there's an opportunity."

"That and you fucking another man are fetishes that will never be satisfied," I correct to reinforce in their minds what's off-limits.

She waves her thin, pale hand dismissively. "I don't need another man. That fetish died a long time ago." And then her gaze and black horns both become gorgeously sharp. "What I want is for you to fuck another man."

"Maybe you should fuck a man in the ass to prove how manly you are," Hana boldly challenges me.

"You should also dress them up like a girl first to emasculate them completely," Yunia stoically adds, 100% serious.

Well, I'm already used to it, and it doesn't hurt to let them fantasize, so I calmly refuse, "You girls can fantasize all you want about it, but it won't happen."

"Fine, fantasizing it is," Alissa affirms with a foxy grin, making me roll my eyes.

And then Hana decides to pressure the two Earthling girls a bit with a seductively fearsome tone. "What about you two? Don't you find the idea of two men fighting each other with their cocks pretty hot?"

"W-w-what kind of question is that?!" Chesa whisper-shouts, completely flustered.

She totally finds it hot.

"She totally finds it hot," the girls echo in my mind.

But Lily is not only displeased but also disgusted. "Not really, and I feel like this topic is very inappropriate, considering where we are and how unarousing the scenery is."

"Lily, you're degen; don't lie," I flatly chastise her.

Let's all keep in mind how her Guild Wars nickname was Lolily. She keeps fantasy and reality separate, but we're talking about fantasy right now.

"I really can't think about this seriously right now," she deftly deflects, embarrassed about admitting her fantasies to strangers. So she focuses on Urmeie and tries to put the Princess on the spot, "What about you, Princess Urmeie? Don't you think they aren't taking this as seriously as they should?"

But it doesn't go as planned as the Princess clearly likes us more than them. And she makes a stern, intimidating expression as she answers, "Perhaps, but it's Wolf's summons that will give us an early warning, not the summoner himself and his limited vision." Then she frowns and whisper-shouts as she glares at me, "But we'll definitely be safer if we all stay quiet!"

Okay, she clearly doesn't like us that much, so I gracefully appease her, "Let's tone down the banter a bit, then, but I can't promise full silence."

We (mostly) silently continue our exploration down the creepy and flamboyant corridors and across the suspended bridges of this ginormous cathedral. With [Swift Foot], we can keep a fast pace, but it still feels like we're snails slowly making our way across endless halls.

I've chosen Wind Alissas as the scouts this time because they need large MP pools to use the enchantments for long periods of time, which means that I can't just spam birds or Hollys. Even Shads have trouble moving in 4D, so we're slightly vulnerable to invisible enemies sneaking in close, which is mildly concerning.

But while dogs can't fly, they're good enough to scout the walkable area, so we slightly modify two Lordsguard helmets designed for Chimeras and fit them on the heads of two big Rottweilers. They should be enough to give us an early warning if something tries to sneak up on us.

Before long, we notice how the architecture of the endless cathedral slowly changes the further we delve in. At first, it's colorful and striking with a variety of mildly creepy decorations; then it becomes mostly gold, silver, and white, with some very extreme sadistic decorations; then it becomes darker with lots of blues and purples, and the sadism warps into depictions of despair and tragedy; and then it turns into pure black with sparkles, just like emallanat, and the decorations shift into skulls and skeletons.

We're now just one step from full Warhammer. There's still T-posing everywhere, though.

"Worship of skulls is worrying," Ciel fearfully remarks.

Yep, I feel like that's a bad sign.

"Everything is worrying," Roxanne even more fearfully adds.

"Why? The skulls, I mean," I curiously ask. I just have a personal hunch that it's bad, but I don't know why Ciel thinks it's bad.

"It glorifies death and disrespects the deceased," she quietly answers as she slowly looks around, half-expecting ghosts to suddenly start appearing.

"Exposed skulls? That's how you get angry ghosts everywhere," Alissa adds, her fingers itching to throw a [Mana Arrow] infused with [Light Magic] at a spooky, glowing, blue blanket.

And our spooked, curvy angel scholarly adds, "Cremation destroys the link spirits have with the Realm of the living and encourages them to move on towards Paradise."

"But these are monsters, so do they even have a Paradise to go to?" I curiously question.

"They don't," Caterina suddenly answers matter-of-factly. She seems rather tense, which is obviously worrying.

Ciel nods repeatedly and adds, "We even use monster skulls as decorations, but they're merely trophies, while this is plainly worship."

And then I frown as I notice what's ahead of us through the summons' eyes: a corridor of skulls. From top to bottom, and covering the floor and ceiling, all we can see are skulls, and they don't look like they're fake.

"Weeper's Dream," Yunia blurts out.

"Festivity's balls," Hana quietly curses.

"Wild winds…" a Companion whispers fearfully.

"Give me fervor, Goddess," a Punisher prays.

The fact that the pseudo-orcs have skulls exactly like a human's but bigger makes this corridor extremely creepy. But at least there's no T-posing.

Curiously, the skulls are in 3D, which means that the pseudo-orcs haven't actually ascended into 4D, but since the corridor is in 4D, you can fit so many of them on the dark stone that it creates a dizzying pattern. If you find a single skull creepy, what about millions of them? And who the fuck knows how many more there are down the corridor?

"Are we going into the Death Corridor?" Lily dryly asks and stares intensely at me.

"Y-…" I start but immediately stop. The wives are really creeped out, except for Aoi, but it'd be too many even if it were just one wife feeling fearful, so I immediately change plans. "Maybe we can look around in the other directions first."

We walk back, then [Gate] to the fortress so that we can rest and recharge our MP. Delving there has to be done over multiple sessions as we're all on a time limit.

Then we return and spend a long-ass time in the blue-and-purple, doom-and-gloom area, trying to avoid the black-and-sparkly, skeletons-and-skulls no-go zone. It does feel like we're slowly circling around, but since there's the extra dimension messing with our senses, it's really hard to get an accurate read of the actual geography of the area.

But then our mana organs start to feel strained, so we end the delve a couple of hours before the end of our afternoon. No monsters were spotted anywhere, which makes us more anxious than if we had encountered some.

Pretty interesting day, to be honest. I'm not much of a horror guy, but the scenery gave me chills. Maybe the tunnel of skulls will be like those horror train rides in amusement parks? Just one jump scare after another?

As long as the monsters don't stink, we'll be ready to handle anything they can throw at us. The girls just need to get over the creepiness of the corridor of skulls first.

So we return to the fortress, make our report, and approve the new security plan, then return to our guest mansion for an early rest.

The overuse of mana is getting in the way of my daily Ravagings, so the girls help with [Soul Touch] therapy on my mana organ to make me recover faster. They wash me with their real hands while their spirit hands massage my organ, doubling the usual pleasure.

"How would it feel if I massaged your balls?" Hana suddenly asks as she uses her strong hands to massage my brain.

"Not his Cock?" Yunia questions confusedly as she massages my scaly arm with her juicy tits.

And my fiery dragonkin casually utters something astonishing, "I can't squeeze his balls, so I want to know how it would feel for Wolfy if I did it while using [Soul Touch]."

I actually wake up from my brain massage and stare wide-eyed at her as I exclaim, "Excuse me, but what the fuck? Why are you curious about that?!"

She shrugs. "I don't know. The idea of crushing a man's balls with my hand just feels exciting, you know?" And she waggles her red eyebrows at me suggestively.

"And you wanna do that to me?!" I exclaim again, starting to feel a little concerned about the integrity of my most important organs.

But she rolls her eyes at my "overblown fear." "No, I want to do it to your spirit, but you can't crush a person's spirit like that, so you'd feel nothing."

"Oh, wow, and I was told that wanting to finger a man in the ass was extreme," Urmeie loudly remarks from the bath.

"Come on. It isn't that bad," Hana defends herself.

And something occurs to Yunia that makes her deviously wet… Heels… pointy heels crushing balls.

It also makes me feel things, and inside my mind, I hear the sounds of a fetish unlocking. "Alright, that I'll allow if you do it to Samkelo, but don't ever think about doing that to me."

She nods slowly, her pretty red lips warped in a wide, sadistic grin, and both of us start to feel aroused by the depraved fantasies of torturing and humiliating a simp.

"What about my [Soul Touch]?" Hana impatiently asks.

"You can gently squeeze them, but no crushing," I sternly state.

"Oh, well, that's good enough, I guess," she replies with a shrug but still grins in satisfaction.

And her glowing, light blue spirit hand trails down my chest, giving me a very mild but pleasant chill, and then she stops at my Cock and delicately envelops my Holy Balls. I breathe in as she gives them a gentle squeeze, but she can't physically affect them with a [Soul Touch], though it still provides an exquisite sensation that gives me a hard-on.

And that's another fetish unlocked.

But the best part of getting a [Soul Touch] handjob is that no matter how strong Hana squeezes, it doesn't hurt. Considering how she has a death grip that can rip off a Cock if she sneezes wrong, allowing her to go wild while using the spell feels like when I put my Cock inside a dragon's mouth. The danger arouses me.

It actually feels so good that Alissa barely has to put any effort into giving me an actual handjob, and I'm already cumming up into the air.

"Ah! That's a waste!" Aoi cries as she turns into small-Aoi and leaps towards us.

Alissa and Yunia both just face upwards while leaning forward, and they receive the cum with their faces while Hana uses her muscular back. Just a couple of droplets reach the floor, barely enough to bother Aoi, so she happily licks everything up, but that just makes her thirsty for more.

"You'll have to wait for your turn," Yunia kindly states and pats her little head.

"We're thirsty in here, too," Roxanne adds with a grin as she points to her womb.

While today was very slow and uneventful, tonight is going to end with a massive bang.

I slam my hips again with a grunt, and Yunia's toes curl as her orgasm finally arrives, her legs wrapping around my waist as she's overtaken by her desire to be bred, her mind overflowing with ecstasy. It's too selfish for us to be the only ones to feel such bliss, so I connect everyone's minds, and then we all cum together. Another womb filled up with Holy Seed, another pious whore satisfied, another heart overflowing with love.

But now I need a breather. Fucking in the bath, fucking during dinner, and now fucking all over the bedroom. Keeping a large harem happy isn't easy.

Once her orgasm passes, Yunia releases me, so I slide out of her abused, pink pussy, then walk to the tea table, and Jarn hands me a cup of cold, fruity tea. I slowly savor it to refresh myself as I drip with sweat and cum, and I notice Caterina's gaze.

The gorgeous milf has her golden hair tied in a ponytail and her toned legs crossed elegantly as she reads a book with one hand and drinks elven tea with the other. But my glorious form has distracted her, and I'm certain she's taken a peek at my massive Cock.

"Care to join us?" I huskily suggest.

"No, thank you," she kindly replies, then sneakily glances at my body before going back to reading.

I know I'm making her question her sexuality, so I'll steadily but surely break down her walls, though most of the heavy lifting is being done by Hana.

"We'll fuck her, together," my whorish dragonkin passionately declares.

Indeed, we will.

Today is the 12th, Yn, day of Earth. There isn't much related to us that can benefit from today's Cycle of Mana, but at least it's a comfy day for Lina, and she does need the comfort as her work isn't done.

I'm not talking about her ability to deepthroat my Cock, which might never match Hana's or Alissa's skill, but that doesn't stop her from eagerly attempting it so hard that I wake up to her swallowing half my length.

"Good girl," I gently praise her as I pat her head and cum down her throat.

"Don't you want to join us in exploring the dungeon?" Ciel amiably questions our naked cat.

"I'll only get in the way," she replies absentmindedly.

But Ciel smiles cheekily. "You didn't say 'yes' or 'no.'"

So Kaatohe sighs and lowers her cup of coffee. "If that's what you desire, then I'll join you this time."

I reach forward and grab her hand, then give it a squeeze. "You should see it at least once. It'll be a unique experience," I soothingly encourage her and release her hand.

"But be prepared to be horrified," Yunia soberly cautions.

"We believe an appropriate description for that area of the dungeon is 'hauntingly beautiful,'" Ted helpfully adds.

"Perhaps even 'horrifically beautiful,' depending on your 'Piety,'" Suzy follows.

Kaatohe's whiskers twitch cutely, and she hesitantly remarks as she wryly glances around, "Now I'm curious but also filled with dread."

"'Dreadfully beautiful' would also be a good description," Jarn remarks, and I don't think she's trying to make a joke.

"But keep in mind that 'beautiful' has been used three times," I encouragingly add.

"I will," she quietly replies with a cute little nod.

It seems like we'll have to explore a lot to find the portal to the next floor, so we skip our morning training and assemble the crew, then return to the dungeon. Gify takes the pigeon along with us to show it the fortress and blow its mind, but not literally, though there is literally a chance of that since its little bird brain might not be able to handle an extra dimension.

We just head in the opposite direction from yesterday and start walking. The decorations are different, but not the overall mood nor the progression into horror. We even find another corridor of skulls, and this time, I send a fresh elemental into it.

Our enchantments are a little better compared to yesterday, courtesy of the Sky Lander enchanters, so we can stay a bit longer. Still, I give the wind-Alissa a plank with a [Gate] coordinate so that she can return the enchantment when her MP runs out since I'd rather not give our tech to the enemy.

"You're right. This is hauntingly, horrifically, and dreadfully beautiful," Kaatohe remarks out loud as she slowly takes in everything.

I'm happy that she's… kind of happy, I guess, but then I frown as I suddenly notice something. "Hang on a second… does this corridor feel more threatening than the other?"

And I sense a… pressure coming from the corridor of skulls, almost as if it's a high-level person using their aura to [Intimidate] us.

"Creepier? Yeah, I guess so," Thant hesitantly remarks.

"I think it's the Cycle of Mana. Yesterday was the Day of Light," Ciel wisely points out.

"Oh, that makes sense," I hum and ignore the tunnel again.

Though everyone's less creeped out by the decorations than yesterday, the girls still don't feel like entering the Obvious Trap Tunnel, so we start moving sideways again as we try to map out the area.

Well… emphasis on try because we don't have 4D or 3D paper to map it with, so things are complicated, to say the least. The only solid observation we can make is that the "themes" are arranged in rings, but we don't notice any other striking features of the geography except for the corridors of skulls.

The elemental that I sent to scout also runs out of mana before it reaches the end, so we don't know what lies beyond.

Wait… there's still the plank with the "coordinate" there, so I can just send another fresh elemental and continue scouting.

I'm a fucking genius!

So, I do just that.

And then, after sending the third elemental, it begins to hear a very distant rumbling, as if large rocks were being dragged along the floor, but it stops after a couple of minutes. The elemental was ordered to be cautious, so it still takes a full five minutes before its little flashlight enchantment reveals something other than more skulls.

It reveals that the corridor opens into a dark, endless void, and the floor of skulls turns into a suspended bridge of simple, black, sparkly stone again. But the bridge only goes on for a few dozen meters, and then it abruptly ends.

So the elemental stops at the edge and stares into the void.

But the void doesn't stare back because there's nothing there.

Still, there's the mystery of the rumbling, so there might be something there.