"Ready for our last run of the Dungeon?" I ask Drake.

"Yeah," he lets out a small yawn. "Then I'm ready for a shower and bed."

"Same here," I tell him. "Though maybe a little more, first?"

"Maybe," his expression says he hopes for more first.

"Let's go in," I put my hand on the access stone, then send us into the Dungeon for our last run of it.

We appear in the arrivals room, which has an entry on the south wall and the eastern wall, and I can sense treasure to the northeast. It's the first time I've actually sensed treasure in this Dungeon, so it might be more than something minor.

Or, well, something extremely minor. The sense for treasure says it's treasure, but it's not very strong, so it's probably still a lesser treasure.

"Come on," I say. "Let's head this way."

We walk to the eastern entrance, and come across three giant rats in the next room. Drake lunges at the first one, driving his fist into its skull before moving onto the next delivering a heel-drop onto the back of its neck before delivering two swift punches into the third, killing it as well.

The entire fight took only a few seconds. Once again, I'm glad Drake's on my side. There's only a single other entry in here, on the eastern wall, so we go through there, where Drake immediately battles the pair of rats inside.

There's no additional entry in here, so we backtrack back to the arrival room and head south. Drake kills the monsters in the room, then we make our way east, and he continues killing things after we arrive as we continue on our way through east, east, then north through two more rooms, then west.

The final room is west from there, and is the room with the treasure in it. Rather than a wooden chest, however, this one is an iron chest.

"This chest is different," Drake comments.

"Yeah," I answer. "Just a little bit, it means the item inside is worth more. Follow my steps."

Drake waits a moment as I start navigating the traps, then he carefully follows where I stepped so that he doesn't set off anything. We reach the stone platform, and he waits off of it as I approach the chest and pick its lock, then open it.

Inside the chest is a pair of metal cuffs, with intricate designs carved into them, a single, large ruby set into the part that would rest on the back of the wrist when they're worn.

"Shiny," Drake mutters.

"Cheap, too," I tell him. "Not something that would be useful for a dragon's horde. However, we could definitely sell them for a fair few vanri in town. They're made of iron, which lowers the value, but with the rubies set in them, I bet we could get at least four hundred vanri for the pair, maybe even six hundred."

"They're still shiny," Drake says as I send them into my Inventory.

"Yes, they are," I tell him. "Some of your tastes have definitely changed with your form, Drake, but I guess there are some things that haven't."

"I can't help it," he says. "Shiny treasures are an innate thing we dragons like. I doubt any number of form changes would ever change that."

"I doubt it, too," I tell him. "Come on, let's head out."

"Yeah," he says.

I leave the platform, then start leading him around it. We're halfway to the other side of the platform when I hear a light click, then a hissing sound. Immediately, I pull a neckerchief out of my Inventory and press it to my mouth, tying it behind my head.

Looking over at Drake, I realize we've forgotten something important: getting him a neckerchief. Honestly, I trigger traps so rarely I didn't think about wearing one at all times, and I only ever kept it in a pocket before linking into the System, anyway. If I'd been wearing it rather than storing it in my Inventory, Drake probably would have asked me about it, and I would have remembered to buy him one.

It appears the gas is strong enough to knock out someone with 20 Constitution, and Drake drops to the ground like a rock. I'm definitely not strong enough to carry him, so I just sit on the grass and wait it out as the pinkish gas fills the air, obscuring my vision and stinging my eyes.

Jeez, that smells foul. If I'd inhaled it without wearing something to filter it out, it would be even worse, though at least it would have ended quickly due to me passing out. The taste will last awhile, though, and Drake's a bit more sensitive to taste than me, too.

Once he wakes up, he's probably going to make some pretty amusing faces at the aftertaste.

After twenty minutes, the gas starts to disperse, and after another fifteen, the air is clear again. I wait another five minutes before I pull off the neckerchief and send it back into my Inventory, then wait for Drake to take up. It takes another five minutes for him to do so, and he remains very, very still.

"The trap will be disabled for another twenty minutes," I tell him. "You can get up without worrying."

Drake sits up, and I stand, then help him to his feet as he starts gagging and choking on the taste of the gas.

"That's foul," he complains.

"We can wash it out once we leave here," I tell him. "We'll need to take a shower, too."

"Yeah," he wrinkles his nose. "Tasting and smelling. Ugh."

"Well," I tell him. "This was the last room, so we can head out, now."

"Yeah."

Drake and I make our way into the next room and enter the access ring, immediately receiving the 10 CP for completing the Dungeon, as well as the notice that we have completed our final run which awards CP, but that we may continue running it to train or gather resources.

The CP puts me at enough to add another Level to Treasure Hunter, so I bump it up to Level 22, acquiring 0.1 Strength, the last Strength proc for Treasure Hunter I. Only three more Levels before it's time to go for Tier II, and we should be able to earn the needed CP once we hit the city. Even if we max out our runs at the two Dungeons at the next town, we'll not have enough CP to hit Level 25.

Still, though, we won't have enough CP to reach Tier II. It's extremely unlikely we'll be able to earn another 200 CP or so at the city.

Actually, we might. I still don't know how many Dungeons they have there, or how many rooms they have. It's a decent-sized city, so it could be anything from a handful of small Dungeons that just have enough material rewards for them to be harvested regularly to a couple of large Dungeons that are farmed regularly.

The capital is a mixture of both, though most of its adventurers only link into the System and travel enough to get to Tier II in two Classes or Tier III in one, then act as guards of a sort. It is where many powerful families of nobles live, in addition to the royals.

Well, and a Tier II Dungeon. The higher a Dungeon's Tier, the better the material rewards it gives. The Dungeons there are actually enough to bring a new Class up to Tier II, which is part of why people settled there.

But I'm not going that way until after I find a treasure of extreme rarity, so it will probably be years before I make it. Unlike most adventurers, I won't just stop after hitting the end of Tier II twice, I'm going to keep on adventuring and become one of the most famous treasure hunters and explorers of Ruins in the world. I may, after enough years pass, even reach Tier IV twice.

But again, that's for later. Right now, it's time to leave this Dungeon.

I place my hand on the access stone after closing the window telling me my stat gain, then I send us out of the Dungeon, the two of us appearing in the access ring outside, the sun already dropping towards the horizon. We did just spend eight and a half hours doing Dungeon runs, so that's not surprising.

"Nate," Drake says as we begin to walk back to the inn.

And he's doing his thing where he makes sure he has my attention first before asking something. I understand wanting to make sure he has my attention, but he should know by now that he usually does. Or at least, that he doesn't need to say my name to get my attention. Just ask the question.

But he probably hates repeating himself, with as little as he'll say at times. I still can't figure out what determines how much he says or explains, but that's definitely a sign of it. So he probably wants to make sure he has my attention so he doesn't have to repeat himself.

"Yeah?" I look at him, doing my best to not laugh at the fact that he's still making faces over the smell and taste of the gas.

It's adorable, but I do pity him, having to deal with that right now.

"What's going on with your apartment?" He asks.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Are you still renting it?" He asks. "Or are you done renting it? Did you have to do paperwork to stop renting it without an issue? Will you have to keep paying? Will you get into trouble for not paying?"

Maybe I'll never understand what determines how much he says.

"I own the apartment," I tell him. "And I don't have to pay taxes, so there's no issue there. Cassidy said she'd take care of the place, which is basically just her checking in on it and making sure no one tries to break in or anything."

"Aren't you returning to the capital once you finish your own quest?" He asks.

"Yeah," I answer. "But it'd still be nice to have another place to go to and stay, though I guess I could probably stay at the tavern. Anyway, when I moved out here, my dad sent money with me so I could buy an apartment."

"You bought it when you were twelve?" He gives me a baffled look.

"Yeah," I answer.

"Most worlds don't let a twelve-year-old boy buy an apartment."

"Well, this isn't most worlds," I shrug. "I can't say for the others, just for this one."

"Yeah, most worlds aren't this one," he mutters, getting a look in his eyes that tells me he knows something about our world.

Something that he's keeping secret, but I feel like it might have to do with his quest. If it does, I'll learn it eventually due to me acting as his navigator.

We enter the inn, and Isabelle, the innkeeper, wrinkles her nose a little.

"I smell you two encountered a gas trap," she says.

"My fault," Drake mutters.

"Well," she says. "You two go and take a shower to scrub off the smell, if you want to buy dinner, I'll fix it up while you're in there."

"We do, thanks," I tell her. "Come on, Drake, let's head up there."

Drake and I head to our room and strip off our clothes, then I take all of them and put them in my Inventory to clean off later. We enter the shower and just focus on scrubbing off the smell, as much as I'd like to do more while we're in here.

Once we finish scrubbing off, we exit the shower and dry off, then head back downstairs, just in time for Isabelle to finish cooking dinner for us. We dig into it, Gretel joining us for some light conversation, then she clears the dishes when we finish.

I head outside to clean our clothes from earlier off, and Drake follows me, watching as I work, then hang things up.

"You just hang them up?" He asks.

"That's how clothes are dried, yeah," I answer.

"No," he says. "I mean, we're at an inn, and you just hang them up? What if someone steals them?"

"There's not a problem with bandits or thieves in the area," I tell him. "And if someone does try to steal them, well, you've got a good nose. You could probably find them pretty easily."

"You're right," he nods.

That seems to satisfy him, so I finish hanging our laundry up. It's not going to rain tonight, so they should be dry by the time we wake. We return inside and head up to bed, stripping off our clothes and climbing in.

Though I'm horny, I fall asleep almost as soon as I'm in bed, my exhaustion from training all day catching up to me. My dreams are filled with things I love doing with Drake, and when I wake, I find him slowly rubbing my left nipple with his fingers as he spoons me from behind, the two of us lying on our left sides.

My favorite way to wake up, with an additional thing added in – him being awake first. He's probably aware that I woke up, but he continues rubbing my nipple for a bit as I enjoy the feel of him pressed against me, his warmth against me with his arousal obvious.

Drake continues this for just a few minutes before deciding to go further, and we definitely enjoy ourselves with our fun this morning. Once we finish, we clean up and dress, then head downstairs.

Before eating breakfast, we go outside and collect our clothes, inspect them for bugs, then after verifying there are none, put them into our Inventories before returning to the inn.

"Good morning," I greet Isabelle and hold out the payment for breakfast. "Can we get some breakfast, please?"

"Sure thing," she accepts the money. "Give me ten minutes."

Isabelle heads into the kitchen, and Drake and I sit. Ten minutes later, we're served breakfast and drinks, and we dig in. After we finish, I check out, handing the key back to Isabelle.

"Thanks for the stay," I tell her.

"Thanks for the patronage," she tells me.

"Tell Gretel we said goodbye, would you?"

"Will do," she says. "Good luck on your quest."

"Thanks," I respond. "Have a good day."

"You as well," she says.

I turn and leave, Drake following me, and we set off towards the next town. A few minutes into the walk, I can tell he wants to say something.

"What?" I ask, and he gives me a confused look. "You seem confused by something, what is it?"

"You two did a long goodbye."

"Just being polite," I tell him. "Come on, if we don't slack off, we can make it to the next town by dinner."