After she finishes having a taste of me, Elea switches back into her maid mode and washes me thoroughly again while making sure that I get the best possible view of her every nook and cranny as she moves around. At some point, she starts preparing herself to clean that part of my body with her impressive breasts, but I quickly stop her or we would have a repeat of the result of her previous cleaning attempt with her mouth.

We then rest our backs on the edge of the pool and cuddle together in the warm water. Elea is sitting by my side while stealing my left arm from me and drowning it between her soft, chocolate breasts, hugging it tightly to her heart. She lays her head on my shoulder and a content yet elegant smile paints her lips.

I slowly move my right hand to her head and brush a lock of hair behind her pointy ear. She opens her eyes after I gently graze over its edge in admiration, pushing her cheek into my hand as her smile grows wider.

“And to think that I was literally robbing myself out of such bliss for almost two hundred years…” she says to me.

“Are you regretting becoming a Princess?” I ask curiously.

Elea ponders for a moment. Her gaze wanders all over my body, starting at my face and ending at my crotch, where the ferocious beast is currently taking its rest. She squeezes my arm into her boobs even more and looks back up at me.

“While it certainly was hard to live in solitude after some point, I don’t think I regret choosing that path. I enjoyed most of the time I spent tending to my responsibilities. And besides, I’m sure that if I didn't become a Princess and save myself for so long, I wouldn’t have a chance to meet you. In the end, it was surely all worth it. The Goddess sent me the man of my dreams and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.”

She raises herself a little and leaves a peck on my cheek.

“Who would have thought that a Dark Elf Princess would dream of a Human?” I say jokingly.

Elea chuckles. “The fact that I don’t remember the dream doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“Right. Sometimes you just forget them. I guess the Goddess was kind enough to pick it up for you.” I let out a little laugh.

“I still think this is just one of them though… That I’m just lying asleep in a cage, waiting to be delivered for the auction… It’s just too good to be true...”

I move my hand from her ear to her cheek again and turn Elea's face towards mine, instantly diving forward to steal her lips. A little surprised at first, she quickly starts playing an active part in this little show of affection, sending her own tongue to meet mine in the middle. We exchange a few loving kisses and I don’t even notice when she manages to let go of my arm and climb onto me from the front, being the one to assault my mouth from above while holding my face up with her hands.

We finally separate after almost running out of breath. “Does it still feel like a dream?” I ask with a grin as I pant.

Elea chuckles and grinds her breasts into my chest while she looks at me from a little above. “I’m not sure. I think I need to verify it more to fully discern what is real and what might be fake.”

I sneakily move my hand to one of her considerable mounds and gently pull on her nipple, just hard enough to evoke a cute yelp from the dark elf lady straddling my waist.

“And now? They say pinching is the best way to wake up from a dream,” I say as I move the other hand too and give Elea’s pointy tips a few pleasant squeezes.

She catches both of my wrists and pulls them up and to the back, pinning them to the floor over the edge of the pool, presenting me with a full view of the domineering mountains right in my face in the process. Before I have any time to react, Elea rushes for my lips, completely overwhelming me with the fierceness of her approach.

I’m literally being at the mercy of this beautiful, dark-skinned woman as she rains passionate kisses down onto me, leaving me almost no space for breathing. Whenever I catch a window to resupply my oxygen stock, she almost instantly seals my lips like those high-tech pressurized doors that do not let a single atom pass through. I know that she won’t let me suffocate and that it’s pretty much the result of my teasing, so I let Elea ravage the insides of my mouth as she pleases.

When she senses that I’m slowly approaching the limit of how long I can survive solely on my sheer will, Elea gives me the last, insanely deep and powerful kiss before finally releasing me from her sweet torture. I instantly gasp for breath with my mouth shooting wide like a fish out of the water. She also looks winded as hell, but a little better than me. Elea rests her forehead against mine and stares intently into my eyes with a sultry gaze while we both huff and puff straight at each other’s faces without any restraint.

“Haaaah… Haaaah… Are all… Princesses like this…?” It’s hard to control my face in such a state so I’m only able to show a semi-broken, wry smile.

She somehow manages to fit a giggle in between panting for air. “Only those… that didn’t get any dick… for almost 200 years… huff….”

“Truly, that was the most ferocious kissing session I’ve ever experienced, haaaah…”

Elea places one more kiss on my lips and slowly slides down to my chest. “I apologize. It’s really hard to control myself after finally experiencing the joy of being this close with someone.”

I brush through her hair with one hand. “Do you like being the dominant one? I ask playfully.

“I don’t know. It was my first time doing all of this, but… just now I felt… kind of ecstatic seeing you under me like that. I hope you didn’t hate it.” She glances up at me with just a tiny bit of worry in her eyes.

“Hate? No way. Instead, I can’t help myself but imagine how it would be if you went all out on me, hahaha.”

I swear Elea’s heart has just thumped so hard I felt it through her back and in my chest. It looks like there might be something to this actually. So far, all the girls were the types who enjoy more being on the receiving end, so that’s certainly new. Well, besides Safi and Emi. I’m not sure how to categorize them as it’s pretty certain that they would do whatever I told them. That still counts as a sub to some extent, right?

Meanwhile, I feel like Elea is a switch like me, but leaning heavily on the dom side. She definitely enjoyed getting pounded and teased, yet I’m starting to notice more and more details convincing me that she would much more prefer to be in the lead. Even back when we did it recently.

I decide to follow that hunch. “So, what do you say about doing whatever you want to me during our next fun together?” I ask and brush over her alluring tummy with my hand as she lies with her back on me, now directing her gaze forwards. “I’m sure that this little session we had didn’t fill the hole left in your heart by those tough two hundred years of suffering.”

She trembles a little and I can feel her hand slowly making its way lower and lower over my body. I start to think that I might have teased her a little too much and we’ll end up setting that plan into the motion much quicker than I expected, but Elea actually stops her fingers just short of my nether regions and places them on my thigh, squeezing it gently.

“I think I would love to try that, Master Alastair.” I feel a kiss on my neck and her hands move back up to embrace mine lying above her waist. We sit a moment in silence before she continues with a different topic. “I know that you are currently looking for more girls to serve in the brothel—”

“Okay, I’ll have to stop you there.” I interrupt her in the middle of the sentence. “Elea, do you seriously think that I would even consider asking that of you after you have pretty much announced that I’m the one you want to dedicate yourself to after ending your servitude to the Goddess?” I ask her in full seriousness.

“You remembered…”

I squeeze her hand which has been above mine. “Of course I did. This was like an hour ago. You didn’t expect me to just ignore or forget those words like they were some insignificant flattery, did you?” Her soft smile clearly states that she did. “To me, it was pretty much like a vow, or a confession if you would like. I am quite aware that you most likely meant that as devoting everything to me and doing whatever I would ask of you, but as a recipient of such a thing I could never use it against your zealous nature. I’m sure there was a hidden meaning of being only with me somewhere in that, like you were only with the Goddess for all those years. Tell me if I am wrong.”

Elea reciprocates my hold and pulls my arms more into herself. I can feel her being really happy through our bond.

“You are right. I wish to devote myself to you, my Saviour, Master and also lover. I’m sorry for mistakenly bringing that up and I’m really glad you have noticed. Thank you.”

“It’s okay. There will be plenty of girls willing to work in that department with time. That said, as much as there’s literally nothing shameful in having sex with many people because you either enjoy it or it's part of your work or even both and more, at the same time it’s exactly the same with devoting yourself to one person. So, I really hope you will not be feeling down due to all this. Always focus on what makes you happy and follow your feelings.”

Elea giggles a bit. “Ah, sorry! It’s just that, you really are completely different from Humans in this world.”

I shake my head and sigh. “Trust me, it’s not that better in mine. Especially for the girls working in that field. It’s like everyone just forgets they are girls and women too, having full rights to fall in love while at the same time working with their bodies. It’s like being a prostitute crosses someone out from being able to love and be loved by default. But they are people like anyone else. That part is their job, a job they might enjoy, but it’s not even close to having a real boyfriend or someone close to lean on and get together. Just, so many people don’t understand that. But well, that’s just how the world is built. I really hope some of those girls find a guy who will accept them for who they are.”

She wiggles herself a bit and I’m sure she does that so I get a better feel of her amazing body pressing over mine and looks at me with something akin to a proud smile.

“I feel like if you would have opened a brothel back in your world, the girls there would have been the happiest in the whole realm, having someone like this watching over them. I’m now sure that it will be the same here. I bet someone has already mentioned this to you, but here, a lot of races are much less reserved than humans about getting passionate with multiple partners without specifically nourishing deep emotional bonds, so my advice will be, approach them straight up about the subject. You would be surprised by how many won’t mind. But of course, it still depends on the person, like in my case, fufufu~.”

Elea, like the other girls, encourages me to follow through with my idea and definitely tries to get rid of some of my insecurities. I hug her closer and place a soft kiss on her collarbone.

“Thank you for the tip, I’ll keep it in mind.”

“And I will think of ways to help with the shortage of girls too.”

I raise an eyebrow at her but Elea just giggles. She definitely has something in mind. 

“As you wish. Okay, let’s get out, we’ve been sitting here for quite some time. Others will start worrying soon.”

That said, she doesn’t let me move an inch and keeps herself on me. Elea looks up with pleading eyes.

“Could we stay like this for a little longer? It’s so pleasant being embraced from behind…”

I chuckle and fix our postures a bit, enveloping Elea’s body with my arms again. She comfortably rests the back of her head on my shoulder and sighs while relaxing. I decide to use that moment to check our Statuses and other things. First, the bond.

“It’s my second time seeing it, but… Siv’ieanr… It just sounds very royal,” I speak my thoughts out loud.

Elea shivers a little hearing her own surname.

“Oh, sorry, did I butcher that?” I ask worriedly.

She shakes her head. “No, it couldn’t be any better. I just forgot that you can see a person’s true name after you register them as Partners. You really have a talent in languages, Master.”

“Well, I may have learned it earnestly, but I think that I’m able to speak it so well only thanks to the Linguist skill. It kinda feels weird when whatever you say comes out as perfect speech after you completely master a language.” I dive back into my thoughts again after this short exchange.

「So, we start at the second level of the bond. I think it’s normal. We haven’t known each other for long and Elea definitely didn’t get completely smitten with me instantly, even though we did start our journey together with a lot of favourability from her towards me.」

「I can understand the Bond Type, but what’s with that description? From all the previous experiences, I can deduce that it’s how the girl views us, I think. So, in her mind, I’m her destined lover I guess. That’s kinda to be expected with how religious she is. But, in case that it’s not just how my Partners view me, it actually gives me slight creeps to think that it’s the Goddess behind all this. She did create the System in the first place, right? It’s supposed to just show, not affect, but has anyone confirmed she doesn’t actually influence it? I’m quite certain not. You would have to confront her personally to ask and I don’t think that happened like ever. And certainly won’t happen anytime soon.」

Then, I summon both of our Statuses and place them side by side. I make them visible so that Elea can take a glance too. She is aware of what I can do and how it looks in general, but this will be her first time having a full view of it.

First, I focus on hers.

「As expected from her story about becoming a Princess under the age of 100, she definitely served for almost two hundred years if not more now that she is 273 years old. As far as I know, for a Dark Elf, that’s something like almost one-third of their maximal lifespan. To me, it’s quite a lot, but to her, it’s just a small part of her life. It still depends on the person though. The average lifespan in the past was noted as something around six or seven hundred.」

「Her being a Tier 3 is actually not that surprising. She spent most of her life in servitude and it shows from the level of her skills too, but she definitely didn’t see that much fighting while she was tending to the shrine and all the rituals, so there weren’t that many opportunities to raise her Tier. I feel like she will advance with my help soon though. As for her stats, INT is really high, but it seems like she isn’t that good on other ones. No wonder she focused on her talent in magic.」

Elea is intently going through my window so I join her to check the change, although I can pretty much guess the increase with the level of our bond and her base stats.

「And it’s as I expected. An increase of around four points in most areas and like eight in INT. Our connection is too weak for it to have a bigger impact, but even with just this, it’s a lot. I can imagine how the numbers would look if I got with many girls even at the first level of a relationship. Broken. But well, it’s not like I have a way to utilize those stats efficiently besides via skills and spells. I can't jump over the walls that are called Human physique and aptitude. Still, at some point, it’s possible for my stats to get so high the impact will be truly visible in everyday life. I already feel stronger with just this.」

“To have such high stats at such a low Tier… Even some races that specialize in different fields don’t reach these levels early. If not for the Human body this would be amazing,” Elea comments exactly what I was thinking about.

“Yeah, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I’m happy a lot with what I have, though,” I add.

She then averts her gaze from the window, nuzzles into my neck and plants a kiss there. “We just have to find you enough girls to let the sheer numerical increase in your stats overcome the Human limits, isn’t that right, Master?” she speaks in a playful tone.

I glance down at her. “Really now?” Elea giggles, satisfied with her tease.

“So, these bonuses in my window come from all the other girls, right? And I will actually get more the closer we get, yes? It may not look like a lot when compared to yours, but it actually is,” she asks a few questions.

“Yeah, pretty much. But don’t think about it too deeply. It’s not like any of us can force ourselves to like or love the other more on-demand. I’m sure that it will grow fast nevertheless. It’s not like it’s one-sided, my dear Princess,” I say to her with a smile and begin pondering over something while staring at the window.

Elea smiles too at my declaration but notices the change in my expression. “What are you thinking about?”

“Hm? Ah, nothing. Just about how this whole thing works in my case. You know, the whole more Partners and deeper bonds translating into tiering up. I’ve had a few… meetings with other girls since my last upgrade, so I was just analysing stuff,” I answer her question.

“And it looks like adding me to your evergrowing harem didn’t give you enough points to reach the next Tier, huh,” she says jokingly.

I chuckle. “Oh please, you make me look like some jerk who scores girls to get stronger.”

“But that’s true, isn’t it?” She chuckles too. “It’s just how your Class works. Without sugarcoating it. At least the part about you growing stronger with the help of the girls that accept you. And the fact that you are using it with so much consideration for every one of us is just… very lovely… But in the end, pursuing more girls is pretty much your destiny with this Class, isn’t it?”

“Come on, Elea. Next thing you will say is that the Goddess herself picked it specifically for me when I crossed worlds and thus I’m pretty much permitted to go after any girl and they should be happy to be chosen since I’m a Hero.”

She laughs openly and I chuckle too. “I mean, that’s a possibility. We don’t know,” she adds.

I pull her up more and rotate Elea’s body so that we get into a lotus position and I give her a little kiss on the lips. “Right, right. If I ever get the chance to meet her, I’ll ask about it.”

Elea’s eyes widen a little at such a bizarre statement and I actually get a bit anxious for a moment if I didn’t go too far with my little joke, but she quickly switches into a full-blown smile.

“You have to promise to tell me... every... single... detail... about her if that happens.” She breaks the sentence with more soft kisses in the middle, showing me just how much she desires to learn anything about the Goddess straight from the real source.

I nod. “You got it. I’ll even let Cornelia cast Mind Bridge on us so that you can see it for yourself from the inside of my head.”

She jumps at me joyfully and squashes her ample bosom into my chest while embracing me with a tight and loving hug. With her latched onto me, I finally move both of us out of the bath, getting a good feel of Elea’s plump ass on my way to the dressing room. Along with the jittery sensation of her breasts pushing against me with every step. I think I’ve already met the goddess. Of lust and beauty.

We wipe each other with towels next. Elea still keeps seductively making all the juicy parts of her body wobble and sway as much as she can, giggling to herself after seeing how it influences my little friend down there, standing pretty much to attention for the whole process of us drying up.

I get my revenge as I help with her hair, sensually rubbing my hard rod all over her back, poking it forward around her sides from time to time and swiftly escaping her hands trying to get a hold of it for herself. When I’m finally done, she looks completely turned on and a little frustrated. I flash her a smirk and start dressing up. Two can play this game, my naughty Princess.

After we leave the bath, I question Elea about our new friend and she pretty much confirms what I expected by saying that Astrea was very suspicious of her the whole time, but she managed to make her relax a bit and wash her body thoroughly. Her hair was in an especially bad state.

Elea then proceeds to smile at me widely as she explains that while Astrea is currently very thin and malnourished, she will definitely be back up to my standards in a flash with Sirgia’s cooking, and I should wait a bit before getting a feel of her. And she assures me that there definitely are things pleasant to the eye at the catgirl’s disposal. 

I roll my eyes and berate her jokingly, knowing very well that she is just playing with me due to our last conversation. Well… for the most part. I get a feeling that she’s still very much up for believing in my fated mission to bed as many girls as I can in the name of the Goddess. And I don’t think I’ll be able to convince the former priestess otherwise. Why does this idea sound like a plotline to some cheap smut novel? For fuck’s sake…

Nevertheless, it’s not like I’ll have a chance to do that in the near future. Similar to Sirgia, Astrea must have gone through a lot, but in her case, she didn’t use to be a slave for a lot of time and didn’t accept that as part of her life, so it will take time before she even stops looking at everyone here like they are her possible enemies. Not even talking about opening up or reaching the point where she would be fine with getting closer to me. That’s life on the streets for you.

We finally split and Elea goes to check on the other elves as her responsibilities as a headmaid require. It’s quite too soon for me to head to bed yet, even though we spent more time in the bath that I assumed I would. That is if I was alone. 

I send a sensory ping around the mansion to see what everyone is doing. Elea found Roseni and is currently in the middle of a conversation with her. From what I can feel, I’m pretty sure the topic is her recent ascension from virginhood. 

「Nice checking on your subordinates, Elea. The first thing you do is boast about having sex with me to another girl.」

I shake my head and move past them. My slimes seem to be actually sparring with Cinra and Leyne in the underground. Sirgia is obviously working on something in her sacred workshop. Neira is also in her studio, accompanied by Filue, who… looks to be in a slightly weird position in front of the former. She may be holding something in place? I have no idea what the two dark-skinned girls are cooking up together, but I don’t think I should intrude on their work or fun, whichever it is.

As for the rest of the residents that I can actually sense, Teffith is doing pushups in her room. I guess a before-the-bed routine workout or something. She did give the vibes of someone who likes to keep herself in the best possible shape.

The last person I find is of course Cornelia. She sits on a chair in one of the rooms on the upper floor and seems to be speaking. Since she doesn’t have a habit of talking to herself, I can only conclude that she is in the room that was given to Astrea and is currently engaged in conversation with the catgirl, who I obviously can’t sense there.

Out of all of them, visiting Sirgia looks like the only non-intrusive option tonight. Somehow, I keep meeting up with her really often when compared to other girls. I mean, I do like her a lot and I enjoy spending time with my cute dwarf, but I really do hope that other girls won’t take that as showing favouritism. It’s just that she is always alone in her forge! Well, she might be actually busy, but still.

So, I head down, greet the fighting group with a kind smile and a wave of my hand, and enter the artificer’s den. Contradictory to all my previous visits, I don’t find her still huddled on a chair by her desk but I get lightly body-slammed the very moment I pass through the doorstep and the adorable dwarf hugs me tightly while rubbing her face into my chest with a faint smile.

I let her nuzzle to me for a moment before crouching down and giving her a small peck on the cheek.

“What got you so worked up tonight? I sensed you hunching over something just minutes ago,” I confront my lovely shortie.

“And I felt Master coming down too so I ran to give you a hug. Master always waits for me to finish patiently. And besides, congratulations,” she explains with a soft tone.

I furrow my brows a bit. “For what?”

“Master finally did it with Elea, no?” She tilts her head and asks like it’s your daily thing.

My mouth opens a little from surprise. “How did you know? Did you guys plan this like in Cornelia’s case?”

Sirgia shows a faint smile again and shakes her head. “No. At least I knew nothing if there was such a thing. I just suddenly felt warm recently and like reinvigorated or even a little bit stronger, so I pulled up my Status menu and noticed that my values slightly changed. Then I tried to sense where Master is and found you in the bath, also being able to feel Elea much clearer than before, so I assumed that Master had finally made love to her and turned her into a proper Partner,” Sirgia describes her deduction step by step.

I chuckle to myself and slap my forehead.

“Master?”

“Did you also feel that way when I did it with Cornelia?” I ask.

Sirgia nods. “Yes, although, it was stronger at that time.”

「Hahaha, goddammit. So, basically, every time I bone a new girl, all of my current Partners that receive additional stats know about it almost instantly. And I guess they get ‘pinged’ when my Bond Level grows with someone too, which is most likely to happen during passionate time anyway. Why haven’t I thought of that? It’s kinda embarrassing, but also would be really bad if I ever tried to lie to any of them about doing it as they would be aware of the fact beforehand. It’s pretty much forcing the owner of the Class to not hide anything from their Partners, no secrets, no anything. Well, I didn’t plan on having any in the first place, but good to know.」

I scoop my little dwarf into my arms and walk with Sirgia to her desk, patting her head affectionately. “Thanks for letting me know. I wasn’t aware of that. I now understand how weird this might feel to suddenly sense another person inside our little connection.”

She giggles a bit under my hand. “It’s okay, Master. I actually feel a little sorry since it’s like an announcement that you did it with someone while you might have wished to tell us properly after, not in the middle of things, which feels like a huge violation of Master’s privacy. And that other person’s too. Suddenly a lot of people learn that they had sex with Master without them consenting on sharing that information.”

I sit down on her chair and place the smiling Sirgia on my lap. “You are right. It does seem kinda rude when put that way. But I don’t think we can do anything about it so let’s leave this for now. Better tell me what my charming Master Artificer is up to recently.”

She giggles again and plants a quick kiss on my lips before leaning over her desk and unrolling a medium-sized parchment. I instantly recognize the shape of our pendants here and there amongst the sea of scribbles, runes, glyphs, lines, statistical numbers and such. She is still working hard on trying to figure out spatial infusions for them.

“Cornelia is helping me a lot with this project, but it’s a very hard one and the knowledge she can find in the Royal Library is limited when it comes to that subject. It doesn’t seem that Humans are willing to share their crafting and production secrets with others of their kind, that’s if they actually have them. I, unfortunately, lack some crucial information on enchanting and infusing a specific kind of Spatial Magic into crystallized vessels via joint synthesis of aforementioned methods, without having access to extremely expensive and rare junction catalyst called Behemoth’s Scaletear and high-class tinkering appliances with precision guaranteed on at least zero point zero two microunits.”

She sighs really heavily after this whole bunch of professional magiscience talk and looks up at me with an apologetic expression. Seeing my wide eyes from listening to her awesome monologue, she most likely takes it as a sign of disappointment and drops her head down dejectedly, gripping her clothes with her small fists tightly.

“Even though Master provided me with so much… I’m still having so many problems… If only I studied more at home instead of skipping lessons to waste time attempting to create pointless artifacts, I would have definitely been more useful now… I’m a failure of an artificer—”

I quickly place my own hand on her cute fingers and hug her as close as I can, using the other one to gently brush through her cinnamon brown hair.

“Shush now or I will get angry. The only pointless thing here is you beating yourself down over something like this. You are not a failure, you are the best artificer I could have dreamed of. You are way more useful than I would want to admit. I forbid you from thinking otherwise. Is that clear enough?”

I can feel her head brush against my chest in a nodding motion. “Uhn…”

“Good. And I better not catch you repeating this mistake or I will have to punish you.”

I start tickling Sirgia around her neck until some soft giggles escape her mouth. She then takes a deep breath and pulls herself up using her hands which moved onto my vest and leaves a slightly longer kiss on my lips. We stay in each other’s embrace in silence until I get a certain thought in my head.

“Say, Sirgia… have you ever thought about returning home?” I ask.

Her small body jolts a little and she looks back up at me anxiously. I smile kindly and pat her head again to clear her mind out of those completely silly worries that might have just surfaced with my question. And she quickly realizes that I don’t mean to send her away, making her blush shyly from even considering that possibility.

“I… when I was still a slave, I did. Many times. But now… after Master saved me… I… ummmm… I…” The rosiness on her cheeks increases a bit more and she keeps averting her gaze from me.

“You what?” I pry a little further.

“I… it will sound weird, but I don’t want to leave your side anymore… I want to always stay with you and be… Master’s little dwarf… so… I don’t anymore…”

Moving my hand to her cheek, I graze it softly with my thumb. “It’s anything but weird. I’m really happy to hear that.” She smiles clearly. “But, if it was just a visit, having me with you, would you want it?”

Sirgia's eyes widen momentarily and she repositions herself to sit on my lap on her knees while facing me. “Really?” she asks with almost sparkling eyes.

“Of course.”

“Then… then yes! I would love to! I could try to gather as many useful things and information as possible there! It would help us a lot!” she eagerly agrees.

I chuckle and poke her forehead a few times. “Silly. I meant it as having a trip to your birthplace to not keep you holed up in my cellar forever. And perhaps checking on your family and peers. Shouldn’t that be your priority instead of trying to be even more useful to me? I don’t think you have even sent them a letter since your capture, did you?”

“Ehehe~. Sorry.” She giggles embarrassingly. “No, I didn’t. But it’s okay. It’s normal for Dwarves to travel to gain more knowledge and experience so it’s not like they are that worried about me. And I don’t really have anything to tell them about besides being enslaved, so…”

“I understand. We’ll wait until you create something worthy of boasting about to your elders. It’s not like we can depart anytime soon. It was just a thought.”

She nods. “Uhn.”

“Okay. Enough of overworking yourself for today. You are coming to bed with me so I can cuddle all those negative thoughts that remain in your body out for good,” I say, let her down onto the floor and position myself to suggest a piggyback ride while smiling back at her over my shoulder.

She blushes heavily again but after a moment walks closer and hops onto my back, enveloping my neck with her arms and her cute face soon appears near mine from behind. We move to my room and I let her cuddle to me in the bed sweetly before she falls asleep in my embrace first. I wish I could help with her problems, but there's no one better than Cornelia to do that, so I can't really see a way for me to join the struggle. I'll just have to convince my little dwarf to take it slow.

Nevertheless, I get to sleep too. Tomorrow is another working night and I should be focusing on improving everything for it. And preparing for receiving a few new arrivals from Selina the day after. And helping Astrea fit herself here. There's just so much to do. Cornelia is right. I have no chance of covering every single aspect alone.