Tina Morgauss was now an expert wizard.

The crowd erupted in cheers and a lot of her guildmates rushed to congratulate her. Spirits were high and smiles aplenty, yet I remained in a somber mood considering the things I was learning about demons were worrisome. Tina kept looking my way, and I had to fake contentment.

Part of me blamed myself for the mess I got her in, so it was hard to celebrate her achievements knowing that I put her there. If she wasn’t an adept, she wouldn’t have been sent to south Reuland.

Later that night, there was a dinner celebration for her and her father, along with the likes of other nobles, the archwizard, and the guild’s president and vice president. Now that she was a powerful wizard, they pandered to her, or perhaps tried to get her in their grasps.

I didn’t plan on attending it because her father wasn’t exactly happy with my presence, but I couldn’t say no to her either. And since they celebrated her, they couldn’t deny her plus one.

I sat in silence next to some strangers, ate in silence, and effectively crossed myself out of any conversations. The nobles praised her all night long, and even subtly made propositions to her father with several business deals and other “mutually beneficial” relationships they could foster.

“So, what’s been bugging you?” She leaned on my shoulder and we stargazed together after she made some excuse to escape with me after the dinner.

I kissed her. “Congratulations on becoming an expert.”

“Fine, then don’t tell me. Now that you’re done with teaching, will you adventure with us again?” She cuddled into me some more.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

She giggled, and playfully leaned forward to look me in the eyes. “Why? And don’t try to hide it. You already used your ‘it’s a secret’ power for the day.”

Even I had to laugh. Maybe I was overthinking it. “So, there’s this dungeon…” I explained to her as much as I could. In hindsight, that was probably a bad idea.

“I’m going with you,” she said. Her eyes were full conviction.

What in heaven’s fuck am I doing? However, it was true that most of what this world knew of dungeons was very little. But, was it something that a being who had command over a devil should be worried about? Was it reason enough to involve others?

No, no, let’s think about this logically. She got ridiculously strong after beating demons? There’s gotta be some kind of experience system here, which means battle makes them stronger. Doesn’t make sense to pamper them into softness. “We’ll discuss it in the morning.”

We slept together in my castle that night, because why not? The next day, I brought Solina and Adam to the castle as well and we all had breakfast together. “So here’s the deal,” I said after explaining Fyren’s plan to go into the dungeon, “if you two don’t up your game enough, I’ll just go alone.”

Solina was up for it even before I explained anything to them. Adam, being the wary one, told me I was crazy. “The dungeon? We hardly know anything about it! The survivors were injured so badly they couldn’t be adventurers anymore. You really want to go there?”

“So what?” She stamped her foot down like a kid. “Deidre’s the Lich God, Adam.” She got up, stood behind me, and made a spooky ghost sound. “The Lich God!” She sighed. “I don’t want to run away and leave my friends behind again. I want to get stronger.”

Adam looked at all of us, pondered about it, the grunted in frustration. “Fuck’s sake… Fine! But even if we get on Tina’s level, we’re still missing a reliable knight and healer. We can’t just depend on Tina and Deidre all the time.”

“I can get a healer,” Tina raised her hand.

“And I can get a knight,” Solina joined in.

Guess it’d be more fun this way. Just try to enjoy it, Deidre… “Make sure we can trust them. Their skill isn’t as important as their ability to keep their mouths shut.”

Tina went to Perseverance and Solina went to the first town we made contact with after we left the forest of orcs. Later that day, I’d see a familiar face. Dan, the old man from that town, was Solina’s choice. I didn’t know what words of sorcery she used, but he was ready and willing to be our knight.

The new face we had was a young man named Sam, who fulfilled the role of healer. Apparently, he saved Tina’s father once while out on a quest.

I showed them to their quarters in my castle, and tried my best to overdose on the magic powder to see for myself its effects if too much was ingested at once. For the rest of the day, I could literally hear my mana running like a river. I was so sensitive to it that my vision had translucent duplicates of what my natural mana flow looked like. Sometimes I’d catch myself even walking in the same pattern without realizing it. It felt like swimming in the ocean all day and feeling the ebb and flow of the waves even when out the water.

However, there was no side-effects other than a mild headache. I cracked my mental knuckles after Dan and Sam heard our party’s intentions, and agreed to undertake the training.

I upped their dosage to around five times the amount that I gave my students.