“Oh, I am so sorry,” Hugo said and started backing up, “I must have gotten turned around. I didn’t mean to wake you up. I will get out of your room.”

The black haired girl on the bed dryly said, “Ha, ha. Very funny. Just because I fell asleep on your bed doesn’t mean that I think this is my room now. I was just hanging out because you said you would get back today. You didn’t say you would get back this late. It’s your fault I fell asleep on your bed, not mine.”

Hugo smiled and pretended he had been joking earlier. He walked towards the bed and said, “How was I to know exactly when we would be getting back? It’s not like I have ever made this trip before. Besides, it’s not like I told you to wait here for me.” That last part was a wild guess, but he strongly suspected Lina wouldn’t have encouraged an ambush.

“Yeah, well. I couldn’t just wait until tomorrow could I? I have to know, please tell me,” she said.

“Tell you what?” Hugo said casually. He took off his shoes and sat on the bed. It was very comfortable. He could tell why his friend (sister?) fell asleep waiting.

“Oh come on, don’t be like that,” she said, “I’m your best friend, just tell me.”

Hugo looked at his best friend and shrugged, “I don’t know what you could be talking about...” Then he realized and played it off, “Unless of course you are asking if I got soulmarked, in which case, I totally did!” He finished with a smile.

She squealed and jumped into his arms. Lina’s best friend was shorter than most riese and easily fit into Hugo’s lap. She hugged him close and their breasts mushed together.

The contact answered a question Hugo had been having since he woke up in Lina’s body. As his new best friend held him close, he felt a flush rising. His heart beat harder and his breathing grew faster. She was having an effect on him.

He had been worried when he first entered a woman’s body if that made him a woman. There was the question if souls had gender. He had looked at his soul core often and nothing looked particularly masculine to him. But this reaction, the effect of a beautiful woman in his lap, showed that he was still a man inside.

After enjoying the heady feeling for a little while, Hugo pushed her back and said. “I am pretty happy myself. I feel like I have a lot riding on my shoulders and this will fix a lot of problems.”

She hopped up and paced around the room for a bit as she talked, “You are totally right. Totally. I mean, it would have been better if you had awakened The Mother’s gift instead of the Acomarian system, but still. Royalty needs magic, always has, always will.”

That confirmed that Hugo was royalty now. It also raised a question about The Mother’s gift. Riese supposedly had magic of their own. That is where hedge mages learned to predict the future. But they were very secretive about the rest of their capabilities. Hugo’s history classes hadn’t mentioned a single magic skill they were known to have, only that they had powerful and varied magics.

The raven haired girl continued, “When do you think you are going hunting? I know you have to go out again soon, right? You need to have a domain by the time we overthrow the nox, right? Can you take me again?”

The question caught Hugo off guard and he hesitated to answer. She blurted out, “I promise to stay out of the way this time. I even bought my own healing potion. I won’t be a liability, promise. My mom says I need more mana if I am going to unlock The Mothers’ gift myself. I just have to, otherwise I will die.”

“I don’t think you will die without The Mother’s gift,” Hugo said easily and got up.

“Of course, of course. Getting soulmarked is a good plan B. But you can’t say that you didn’t really try yourself. I think you were more obsessed with it yourself before the crone said The Mother would never bless you. Anyway, anyway. Will you take me?”

Sensing an opportunity, Hugo walked to the bathroom and said, “I will think about it. I am going to get clean. If you set out my mother’s favorite dress, I will be much more likely to say yes.”

It turns out, there was a big difference between a human or nox style bathroom and a riese one. Or at least the kind that the princess used. There was a divot in the floor of the bathroom, basically just a depression in the wood, with no visible drain. There were a series of burls on the far wall that Hugo guessed were the controls.

He only knew that they were controls because the four bumps were at just the right height and were regularly spaced. Before he started messing with them he undressed and closed the leaf curtain to give himself some privacy.

Looking down caused him to shiver. He was looking at his own body, which he found very attractive. The cognitive dissonance at that thought hurt his head. He went back to the controls to distract himself.

The one on the left opened up a drain on the shower floor, nice that he found that one instead of making a puddle. The next one sprayed out ice cold water and he yelped in surprise.

“You ok in there?” his friend called from the other room.

“Yeah, I’m tired and I hit the wrong button,” Hugo said.

This time he stepped out of the way of the water and fiddled with them until it was comfortable. After he showered and got clean, he grabbed a towel. He carefully wrapped it around himself, making sure he wasn’t showing anything. His friend probably wouldn’t care, but he did.

Walking out like that still made him feel self conscious. He walked across the room to what he assumed were the closets. A dress lay over the chair at the front of the room.

“Thanks for the dress. And of course I am going to take my best friend along to hunt. It would be so boring without you,” Hugo said with a smile.

“Yay!” she yelled and ran over to Hugo and gave him a big hug.

The surprise attack undid the towel and it fell to the floor. His friend found her head nestled between Lina’s breasts. She froze for a moment.

Once she could move again, she quickly backed away and said, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” She averted her eyes as Hugo grabbed the towel again.

She left shortly after that. That was pretty awkward for the both of them. Hugo didn’t like seeing himself naked now. With Cristain’s and Xhosa’s bodies, he felt like it was just a new form. This time was different. He felt like a pervert looking at his own body.

Hugo was doubly glad to see her go, because the closet he had opened didn’t have any sleepwear in it. He didn’t want anyone to know that he had no idea where anything was in his room.

His previous life he had just gone with the bad memory lie, and that seemed to work alright. They loved him no matter what and were willing to work with him. There were a few reasons why he didn’t think that would be a good idea this time around. His parents were already wary of his strange interactions on the mountain. They didn’t seem like they loved Lina as much as Xhosa had been loved.

Then there was the challenge coming up soon. Any weakness he showed now, could be exploited when it came time to fight. They might choose a complicated challenge just because they knew he had no memory of it. Hugo hoped that the fight wouldn’t be to the death, but he was going to treat it like it was until he found out otherwise.

The bed really was covered in moss. It was a strange sensation, a silky almost slimy feeling. That didn’t stop him from laying down on it anyway. He hadn’t gotten a good night's rest the previous night and was exhausted. He fell asleep moments after he had gotten into bed.

He was woken up the next morning by the sun streaming in through his windows. Which was a bit concerning. The late morning sun was coming through windows that he hadn’t even known were there. Also, he was far outside the city walls. For all he knew, a monster could crawl or fly in at any moment.

After a moment of indecision, Hugo got up and walked to the window. It didn’t seem likely that the riese would be living outside the city walls without any protections. The guards stationed at the junctions couldn’t be the only defense the royalty had. He peered through the window with mana sight active.

Happily, his fear of heights wasn’t triggered. They seemed to be in the center of the tree and the ground wasn’t in sight. Six main branches split from the main trunk and formed a large base to build from. The complex was entirely built from shaped wood and vines. There were several windows in sight, but there wasn’t a long fall beneath any of them. There was even a pair of vegetable gardens nearby. It was a peaceful sight.

There was plenty of magic flowing through the air. It was a style Hugo didn’t recognize. It wasn’t like the anemic magic of the hedge mages, but he could tell it wasn’t formed by the Acomarian system either. It mirrored the natural flows and growth around him. There were even flows of mana through the trees. That made sense, now that he thought about it, trees didn’t get this big without magic fudging the laws of physics.

He stepped to the other window, trying to find a patch of sky or ground. He found one of both, and confirmed his suspicions. The magic was much thicker covering the canopy above and the path below. This must be how they lived outside the city walls. There were several layers of magic keeping the monsters away.

The cost of this complex must be enormous. Hugo couldn’t imagine how many mana stones it took just to power this magic. They might go through a mana core or two a year. It was insane. Still, it took a load off his mind.

He had the morning free, and he decided to spend it in his room. He started by getting Marion’s letter to his family ready. Then he wrote one to his mother telling her that Hugo died. The next letter went to Marius and told him about the impending theft of his grandcryst. Another went to Sofia with a few gold and an admonishment to stop spying on her boyfriend. Xhosa’s family didn’t need a letter, but he wished he could do something that would help them deal with the inevitable heartache they were dealing with. He decided not to send a letter to the sentinels just yet. He wanted to brainstorm other ways to handle them first.

Getting up, Hugo walked back over to the window. It really was a beautiful view. It felt idyllic really. He wondered how many riese got to live like this. If it was most of them, it was no wonder the riese rarely traveled.

While he was staring out the window, someone entered his room behind him. It was a young man, about his age. He was handsome in a way that made Hugo slightly jealous. Why couldn’t he have a body like that? The servant held a tray of food and happily said, “I brought your favorite.”

“Excellent, thank you so much,” Hugo said and turned back to enjoy the view out the window. The perks of being royalty. Someone took the time to make him breakfast and deliver it to his room, even waiting until he had woken up first.

Once the door closed, Hugo turned to go get the food. He found the young man laying in his bed with the tray of food in front of him.

Oh.

It seems this is one of those perks that didn’t require royal blood. This was probably Lina’s boyfriend. And he was giving him a look like breakfast wasn’t the only thing he wanted to eat today.