I woke up. It was the final day of the road trip; we had gotten through the plains, and were making progress into the Everlasting Forest. We just needed to get far enough in to find the Eternal Tree, which the elvish capital of Koh'rin was built around. To my understanding Rose had sent a formal letter regarding our upcoming visit ahead of time (using that Mysticism spell that can teleport objects but not people), though she spared details regarding my identity in particular. Apparently nobody would really believe I was the Heir and not just a cultist until I demonstrated a bunch of magic in front of them, and even then it might take some diplomacy on Rose's part. Perhaps she would finally have to reveal her incredibly secret identity as a princess to convince them to let us add one of their royals to our growing gang of buddies. I should ask about that later.

For now, though, I stood up and stretched. Over the past week of traveling I had developed a morning ritual of carefully tying shut the flaps of my tent, then stripping down to nothing to do morning stretches and exercises in the privacy of my tent. Moving around all day, even with most of it being on horseback, was pretty taxing on the muscles, and I found thorough morning stretches really helped fight the muscle pain. Having to strip down to nothing was a bit weird to me at first, but we didn't have any large sources of water to bathe (there were no streams in the plains; one of the things I was most looking forward to finding in the forest) and I didn't want my clothes soaked with sweat.

After my stretches, I wiped myself off as best I could, then put my clothes back on and went outside. Rose was awake and meditating, like usual, while Hilda was still asleep in her tent, also like usual. Hilda always came out of her tent a solid ten or more minutes after I woke up. Funny how we had a pretty consistent order of getting up.

"So," I said to Rose as I sat down and grabbed ye olde classic jerky. "Final day, huh?"

She nodded without opening her eyes. "Yes. We should reach Koh'rin by noon, even at a quite slow pace."

"Feels a bit sad in a way. This has been pretty peaceful, and a big break from the nightmare hellscape I woke up to."

Rose laughed. "It's good that you're appreciating it while it lasts. I can't imagine the elves being happy to see you."

"Oh yeah?"

"I will explain more on the road, but suffice to say the only thing greater than the discord between the three Elf factions will be their resistance to relinquishing the princess to an outsider."

"I'm sure we'll be in-and-out in like a day. Worst case scenario, we rush in, grab the girl, and then wait at the local pub for all the fallout to blow over."

"An inspiring plan. It should only take a number of centuries for them to stop cursing your name on a daily basis, and from there we should get a bit of breathing room."

I finished my breakfast. "Glad you agree," I said, standing up. "Anyway, I'm gonna go back to my tent and pack everything."

Rose nodded, and with that I left.

It hit me, though, on my way to my tent, that Hilda wasn't up yet. She was a bit later than usual, and while we were far from a rush, this was the last day. Didn't want her oversleeping. And so, in an act I would come to regret, I went to her tent instead, and opened the flap to wake her up.

I realized my mistake as soon as the flap was open and the noises inside hit me. Hilda was resting on her side, robes hitched far up enough to completely reveal her pale while legs, between which was stuck a rapidly thrusting hand. I couldn't see it clearly due to the angle, but the wet squishing of her hand digging deep between her legs and sinking into her body left no room for doubt. Further up I saw her chest heaving as she gasped for air, the nipples atop her chest mounds visibly erect to the point of noticeably pushing against even the thick wool of her black robe. Her face was a sight to behold, her pretty features turned beastly by her slack jaw and loosely hanging tongue. She was panting like a bitch in heat as she grunted and moaned, eyes fixed firmly on something ahead of her. I followed her eyes and saw... a screen, as large as a wide-screen television, clearly displaying an image of me.

I recoiled a bit, and the image of me recoiled as well. What the fuck? Is she Soul Spying me right now?!

My mind worked at mach speed, blocking out the moaning and squishy shlicking to focus. She was so focused on the act that she hadn't even realized I opened her tent instead of my own, with the background being a generic enough forest that it was indistinguishable to her. Maybe if she had been in her right mind she would have picked up on subtle context clues like the side of my tent on the edge of the screen, but she wasn't, so she didn't, I guess.

The image of me was incredibly high resolution. The Soul Spy image I made of Rose had been tiny and blurry. This one was massive, with razor-sharp detail. I could only imagine how much soul she would have needed to consume... to... Wait, when did she get parts of my soul?!

Instantly, it hit me how I had been passing out instantly each night despite firmly intending to stay awake. Hilda must have used one of her secret Cursed spells to knock me out, and then... Thoughts of Hilda crawling over my unconscious, half-clothed body flashed through my mind. Visions of her gingerly plucking out hair to eat, cutting off nails to eat, running her tongue along my body to lick up the sweat, and doing who knows what else came to me. A shudder ran down my back, of both fear and sick delight. It was fucked up, but also, every man's dream, in a way.

My thoughts were interrupted by a high-pitched squeal and some sloshing. I looked back down just in time to see an explosion of liquid squirt out of Hilda's crotch onto her sheets below. There was already a massive stain beneath her, and now it got even larger, like the crater of a water ball that had unfortunately exploded right on top of her makeshift bed beneath her crotch. The sickly-sweet smell in the air grew stronger, and it was all I could do to stagger back out and make a quick escape before my eyes got stuck forever on the hypnotic sight of her heaving, voluptuous chest. It felt impossible that she hadn't noticed me, what with her staring directly at my contorting face, but I didn't want to have that conversation right now.

I didn't know what to think as I staggered back to my actual tent. I felt like all my dreams and nightmares had come true at once. It felt like so many mysteries that I hadn't even known were mysteries just got solved. The reasoning for her spell secrecy, or at least part of it. The reasoning for me going to sleep so quickly, the reasoning she got up later than us every day, the... Oh god, my naked stretches. Oh god oh no oh no oh god.

I rubbed my temples, then shook my head. You know what, this wasn't a bad thing. I had been getting too in my head lately. So what if a hot girl is potentially violating me and definitely eating disposable parts of my body while I sleep? So what if a hot girl is violating my privacy and masturbating while stealthily spying on me do naked stretches, then go about my morning? So what? This is a good thing, I say. It's every man's dream, I say. Well, maybe not the part about being knocked unconscious with magic and then not knowing what happens next, but I trust Hilda here. By which I mean, I trust she wouldn't have actually gone all the way, and would have contented herself with just... hair... and stuff. Maybe a little blood.

Thus, I concluded that I was fine with this. I welcomed it, even. I would make no change except try to theorycraft ways to block the sleep spell. Maybe I could surprise her one night, keep an eye open to see what she does. That may have sounded bold, but it wasn't like I could really resist the sleep spell as it stood. Our days of traveling together had strengthened our platonic friendship bond, so I didn't think she would stab me in my sleep unprompted, but I didn't want to stir the beehive and tempt fate. Hell hath no fury like a woman denied her daily shlicking, the saying goes.

And really, the silver lining here was that all my stat ups and physical training with Rose had made me pretty buff. It felt almost like the game was morphing me into the ideal hero; handsome, strong, the works. It wouldn't do to have a stick of an Earth nerd as the Hero. A Hero needed to have rippling muscles, a popped-open shirt, defined chin, etc. If someone was going to spy on me naked, at least I wouldn't be embarrassed of myself.

Aaanyway, I put that out of my mind to the best of my ability (trying to push away the constant flashes of her heaving chest, nipple protrusions, bare white legs, etc) and started to work on taking down my tent. It was fast work, since I was used to it, and before long I was sitting across from Rose again, staring into space.

"Something happen?" Rose asked, ice-blue eyes open and giving me a thoughtful look. The problem with Rose asking questions was that, as I knew well by this point, she often knew the answer already. You had to think not about the question's answer, but about how your reply and body language would be interpreted in context of the actual answer. Simply giving a direct answer was fine, since it gave her confirmation in any case, but you could skip a step and save time by just skipping that step.

"Are heroes fated to be womanizers?" I asked in return, absent-mindedly. Nowadays, it was easy to associate harems with low-quality Japanese media or whatever, but the fact was, they were an ancient historical tradition dating back to the start of storytelling in general. The Tale of Genji is often considered the world's first novel, in a modern sense, and it features the male protagonist more or less going on an epic quest to groom the perfect wife, and in the process fucking an absurd number of women. And to be clear, the Tale of Genji was written by a proper Japanese court woman! It was easy to make sweeping claims about the wish-fulfilling and problematic nature of harems, if you really wanted to, but the fact of the matter was, heroes in stories were just often sexually prolific. It was like fate; the exploits and bravado of a hero brought women to him like busty flies to muscle-shaped honey.

"I suppose so," Rose replied, falling silent with thought.

Ah, crap. I had forgotten all about her "crush" on me. Scare quotes because, really, I was still suspicious of it. I had barely seen any sign of it from her, and there had been no more love point increases over the last few days. That kinda made sense, though; if I were to assume the top tier was True Love or something, then the final points would be a lot harder to get from the first points. Crushes form fast, gradually bloom into infatuation, and only then develop into love bit by bit. Or so I thought, anyway. I was far from a god of romance.

Before I could say anything else, Hilda arrived at the campfire, looking sweaty and content as always. I always thought her tent just got hot overnight, but now I knew her hair was sticking to her face for other reasons entirely. But anyway, if she had noticed me stumbling on her little private time, she didn't make it obvious; she just stammered out her usual hello and sat down to eat.

"Hey, Hilda."

"Mm?" she said, a bit groggily. Before I would have said from sleep, but now I knew.

"Is there a Cursed spell that puts people to sleep?" I asked. God, Rose was really rubbing off on me. Why didn't I just say "I know you've been using Cursed spells to put me to sleep" or something? Why word it as a question to gauge her reply? Oh well. Maybe it was a reflection of my inner desire to know the truth.

"Yes," she replied coolly, digging out her breakfast. Okay, so she knew I had seen, probably wanted me to see, probably upped up the finger thrusting when I went to her tent, and only pretended not to notice because she too was planning to play dumb if I chose not to confront her. Jesus Christ. Was this normal? Are these high-level mindgames? Is this just how interacting with girls is supposed to be? I guess I couldn't complain when I was the one who felt more like keeping up the status quo than risk shattering it all. (Due in large part to the fact that, yes, the thought of Hilda crawling over me at night was honestly more hot than anything. It also gave me plausible deniability, but more on that later.)

"Awesome. Mind teaching it to me?"

It was an Advanced spell called Miasma, and induced a variety of status effects based on the intent of the user. Poison, stun, or indeed, sleep. There were a lot of options, though it was important to note that it couldn't induce immediately fatal effects: no petrification, no insta-death, etc. It was an Advanced spell, which was fairly high, but its main value came in utility and options, not flat-out power. It was worth noting, however, that the status effect creeped towards the victim in the form of a thin grey mist. Easy to miss, but also possible to dodge; you wouldn't be easily stunning people in the middle of a fight if they were observant and mobile.

Anyway, I went ahead and learned the spell. She taught me Shadow Stitch too, presumably giving up on hiding her spells now that the jig was up. Neat. Now I just needed to learn to form an anti-magic field around my head. Something told me I would never succeed in preventing Hilda from stealthily sliding a hand beneath the flaps of my tent.

From there we finished packing and got back on the winding road. As mentioned, we were in the outer parts of the forest now, heading inwards. Chirping birds and wildlife surrounded us in the trees, which grew increasingly dense as we traveled. Rose infodumped me on the elves along the way; we had discussed this before, but admittedly most of it hadn't stuck with me.

"Koh'rin is the capital city of Elven culture; the elves don't have defined borders, exactly, since they live in forests across the continent, but there is no disputing that Koh'rin is the capital. Their way of life centers around the Eternal Tree, said to have been planted by the Goddess at the dawn of time. The Elven Queen is said to have a special communion with the tree, one which allows her to speak directly to the Goddess, but the actual ruling is largely done by the Council of Three. The council consists of one elf from-"

I held up a hand. "Hold on, too much information at once. Let me make sure I'm getting this. Koh'rin is the capital, they worship a tree, the Queen communes with that tree, and there's a council of three rulers."

"Yes."

"Can I ask what Koh'rin looks like?"

"It would be faster to just see, but to my knowledge there is a river that splits around the tree in a circle, and they live largely in ornate treehouses strung together by branches sung into bridges high in the air. To live on the ground is to be lower in status, though all elves carry themselves like nobility nonetheless."

"Branches sung into bridges...?"

"Would you like a lecture on tree singing as well?" Rose asked.

"Forget I said anything."

"Certainly. The council consists of one elf from each of the three primary elf races; the high elves, the tree elves, and the dark elves. High Elves are extremely racist against humans and would like for us all to be wiped out, though this is not official policy for obvious diplomatic reasons. They consider elves the Goddess's chosen people and everyone else a blight on the land. The High Councilman will not be pleased with a human such as yourself having been revealed to be the Heir of the World."

"Great. I can see the drama already."

"For record, the last elven queen passed away recently, and the current elf princess is of high elf blood. She has not yet been crowned as queen, but her coming of age ceremony coincided with the queen's death, and the coronation should be happening before long. Perhaps we will get to see it during our stay, if we do not leave with her first, or get executed as heretics."

"And the other two elf races? What fills out the racism trifecta?"

"Tree Elves are most in tune with the tree; most queens are tree elves, including the last one. They have distinct green skin, and rather than being vegetarians like their High Elf kin, they subsist entirely on photosynthesis. If you aren't careful, you may wander upon one of them sunning themselves naked. Try not to treat it as scandalous; it would be like walking into anyone else eating. They have less reservations about nudity than most."

"Surprisingly not bad. And the dark elves? Do they eat babies?"

"No, but they are carnivores. They have sharp teeth and are the strongest warriors of the elves, due in part to their frequent hunting. Even an elven child will beat most human archers, but the dark elves are something else. They are the fewest in number, however, and are... not ostracized, but some high elves in particular are of the opinion that the dark elves are cursed beings, abandoned by the goddess. Their dark brown skin and silver hair are quite distinctive."

"Okay. Racists, tree huggers, possibly demonic carnivores. One of each serves on the Council of Three. The princess is a racist. Coronation coming up soon. Done and done."

"Memorized it all, have we?"

"Yep. Feeling good about this. The fact they're color-coded will make this a lot easier."

"Excellent. Then we can begin discussing the current political climate. You see, tree elves are deeply in tune with the wildlife, so there is an undercurrent of tension between the dark elves and—"

"Wait, wait," I interrupted, pointing out into the trees. "I lust for more knowledge, I truly do, but it looks like there's a pond over there."

Rose followed my finger. "So there is. Perfect, we can bathe before meeting the elves. I had been a bit worried about that; it wouldn't do to meet them as dirty as we are."

"Right!" Hilda exclaimed, eagerly pushing her horse forward to catch up. Always listening, rarely talking. "We really should bathe. I feel so dirty, like, it's terrible. We should bathe right now. Now."

"It's settled then," Rose said, and with that we navigated our horses to the pond. It was a humble thing, but reasonably large, and certainly deep enough to immerse oneself in. We climbed off our horses and tied them to a nearby tree.

I lifted a hand as I turned to walk back to the road. "Well, tell me when you two are done."

Rose caught my wrist in the air, stopping me. "And where do you think you're going? Have you not spoken often of, and I quote, 'not splitting the party'?"

"I mean... This is different. I'm just going to be like ten meters away. For like thirty minutes."

Hilda shook her head. "That's too risky. Way too risky. You're, um, the Heir! Remember? The Heir! You can't be alone. That's dangerous. Also, do you want to leave us alone? That's dangerous too. It's dangerous either way. Too dangerous! You have to stay. Stay. You have to."

I faltered beneath her barrage of words. "B-But it's just like... right over there..."

"It's an unnecessary risk for both you and us," Rose said firmly. "I admire the logic behind not splitting the party, and I would like you to take your own advice here."

I wrung my hands. "Is there any way I win this argument? Any way at all?"

"No," Rose and Hilda said in unison.

And so it came to pass that I was leaning against a tree and, for better or worse, watching as both Rose and Hilda stripped nude to bathe.

Rose's naked form was breathtaking; perfection in the flesh. It felt like she had everything: perfect legs, a perfect butt, perfect breasts, perfect... you get the idea. She had a tight body from all her training, but the softness was evident, and the muscles that were visible were more shapely than anything. Her smooth, lightly tanned skin was unblemished from top to bottom, and every part of her body just screamed "supple." Even her long, blonde hair reached down the perfect distance, covering her back and just tickling the top of her rounded butt, which was in my mind, the magic length for hair being exactly perfect.

Hilda's body, in contrast, felt like it was attempting to push the realm of reasonableness while still managing to be sexy. The sickly white pallor of her skin took on a creamy complexion out here in the natural light, and without her oversized robes hiding her body, her curves were on full display. She was like at the very border before big became too good; she was as meaty as possible without feeling fat. Her breasts were large enough their sides peaked out from behind her surprisingly slender back even when she was completely turned away from me, and the mere sight of her thick thighs hit me with an urge to wedge my head between them so they could crush my skull to bits. There would be no better way to die.

The water, also, flattened her messy hair, and she had a completely different vibe when it wasn't blown up behind her like a poofy mess; she almost felt sharp and dangerous, like an evil executive, or an honest to god necromancer that meant serious business. Point being, she went from "lazy neet" to "dark-themed main antagonist in a magical girl show" in the blink of an eye.

"Well?" Rose asked, potentially having waited for me to finish staring like a weirdo before speaking. "Aren't you going to join us?"

"That," I faltered, "That was never part of the deal!"

"I am making it part of the deal. We do not have time for you to bathe separately if we are to make it to Koh'rin by noon."

Hilda nodded rapidly. "There's no time. We have to hurry. Please?"

"But..." I began, then shook my head. Fuck it, why not? The main thing making me hesitate was my habits from Earth. Shyness, not wanting to strip in front of people, etc, were all just habits I had from my Earth days. There was no point letting those habits and thought processes control me here. Bathing with them—platonically, as friends—was not a problem in the least. Not to mention, there was probably a cultural gap here. People in this world often bathed in rivers and the like, when they could, and naturally more than one person would need to bathe at once. To me, men and women only bathed together when they wanted to fuck in the shower, but here? Platonic friends surely did it all the time. Just virile men and nubile women, splashing water playfully on each other, laughing without a care or lust in the world. Who was I to reject that culture?

"Fine," I said, stripping off first my leather armor, then the linen tunic beneath it. Rose and Hilda were watching, but I pointedly avoided eye contact both while stripping and while striding into the pond. I got about knee-deep into the water, then sat down to start rubbing the dirt off me.

What happened next was surprisingly tame as it could have been. Rose and Hilda focused on their bathing while staying in the general area, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing up, but never making overt sexual moves. If this had been an anime, Hilda would have offered to use her boobs to wipe my back or something, but no such luck here... Er, rather, that luckily didn't happen here. It was all business; like I thought, this was no big deal to them. Just an everyday bathing session meant to get us all clean and nothing else.

My thoughts drifted to the mindgames as I stared forward and pretended I couldn't see Rose working on cleaning her inner thighs out of the corner of my eyes. It had become kind of a habit for me as of late, despite my best efforts to avoid overthinking things. Mindgames were not my speciality, and I was always terrible at thinking things through. With Rose, though, and I suppose Hilda to a degree, you just couldn't ignore them. Not entirely. There was always, it felt, at least two layers to anything she said or did. What might the second layer be this time?

I thought about it. I considered some possibilities. I dismissed some possibilities. I ignored Hilda walking past me with her huge ass swaying in front of my face. I made some connections, connected some dots, flipped the chessboard, and re-considered previously dismissed possibilities. I looked up at the sky and saw a floating cloud pass by. I looked down and saw my reflection in the water. I looked at Rose, then at Hilda. I idly wiped the last of the dirt off me.

There had only ever been one possibility.

I stood up and left the pond, keeping my front side away from them for obvious reasons.

"Done already?" Rose called.

"Yep," I said back, heading for my clothes. "Remember to hurry. We're in a rush, aren't we?" They laughed, a lovely tinkle and a choking gurgle.

I thought over my revelation as I put on the clothes. It was a crazy idea. It was ridiculous. It was egotistical projection, pure and simple. But it was the only thing that made all the pieces fit together. Nothing else fit quite right. It had to be this. It was the only possibility.

Honestly, I was overreacting. It was silly. Even if that really was Rose's aim, what did it matter to me? Why not just go with the flow? Ulterior motives didn't have to be bad just because they were secret. And really, it was such a simple thing that thinking about it like this in the context of le epic mindgames felt ridiculous. She wasn't pulling some 300 iq multilayered strategy. She just had a simple goal, and was taking simple steps to achieve it. There was no reason to blow it up like this.

Maybe it was just because it was so alien from what I was used to. So unlike how I was used to thinking about these things. I couldn't fathom what state of mind would compel Rose to pull a little ploy like this. How she felt doing it. Whether she actually wanted to do it, or if she was just forcing herself because it was the rational thing to do, long-term. Again, it was presumptuous of me to guess how she felt, and like I said, this was essentially just me projecting. I would need to ask her, head-on, if this was her intention, and then we could talk about it, like adults.

That could wait, though. I was nothing if not a procrastinator, especially when it came to awkward conversations.

Rose and Hilda finished bathing not long after me. I didn't oggle them getting dressed, but I admit I watched Hilda put on her robes, if only to witness the transformation from curvy goddess to unkempt NEET. Thinking about it, her terrible fashion sense (And possible late blooming?) had been what doomed her more than anything else. If she just wore tighter-fitting clothes and brushed her hair, the other mages would probably have been falling over her. I understood, though. Sometimes people (myself included) just don't have the life energy necessary to put effort into their appearance.

It took about an hour of riding from there to see signs of elven architecture, though to my understanding homes were hidden throughout the forest, just not in locations visible from the main path (which never grew into a large paved road or the like; it was a natural forest path from beginning to end, marked simply by millenia of travel). We saw some houses in the trees here and there, some elves of all skin colors, and then, eventually, the trees opened up. An ornate gate marked the end of the path.

Koh'rin itself was well worthy of being called a city. There were fewer trees than the dense forest from moments ago, but there were still plenty, and all that I could see were carved hollow with yet more buildings on the top. It was like seeing a range of tree-shaped skyscrapers, all interconnected at the top through branches that twisted to form bridges in ways that should have been unnatural yet weren't in practice. There was no order to the bridges, no box-like grid structure forming grids, but it all seemed cohesive nonetheless. The buildings at the top looked like ivory masterworks, with branches and the like bent into fanciful decorations. Some buildings formed essential palaces in the sky, reaching far above the treeline, and in the back there was the largest palace of them all, nestled atop what must have been the Eternal Tree. A large river rushed towards the tree, but split into two, forming a circular shield around it before forming again at the front and veering to the side.

It was breathtaking. Easily the most beautiful city I had ever seen, like a Rivendell on treetops. The people were beautiful too; there were elves strolling along the sky bridges and between the bases of trees. I saw green tree elves, brown dark elves, and pale high elves going about their business. Most of them were slender, though I noticed some more filled-out ones, particularly among the meat-eating dark elves. None of them were rushing anywhere; they walked like they had all the time in the world, which was possibly true from their perspective since they were in fact immortal unless killed by outside means. Classic elves.

One such elf, a high elf, noticed us. He had been standing near the gate and came strolling over when he saw us. Before he could reach us, though, it happened.

Autosave Complete!

General Information Attributes Skills Name Malcador Name Value Name Level Species Human STR 460 One-Handed Blades 46 Sex Male DEX 460 Dodging 31 Age 18 AGI 300 Curse Magic 27 Class Hero (Level 9) END 300 Light Armor 22 HP 600/600 (3/sec) INT 321 Athletics 19 MP 642/642 (+3.21/sec) WIS 321 (more...) Elemental Arcana Mystical Arcana Cursed Arcana Restoration Arcana Natural Arcana Fireball Reverse Darkness Ball Heal Waterball Magic Barrier Soul Spy Cure Poison Wind Cutter Telekinesis Blind Ward Physical Rock Shot Miasma Shadow Stitch