Toulin forces them to change into their social clothes before we depart for the Nobles' Quarters.

While we wait, I decide to play around with [Summoning Magic]. It's been a while since I last molded an elemental into something interesting.

This time, I use an earth elemental as a base for a carriage, making it out of white marble so that it looks more refined, then I use a nature elemental to add some elven flair, drawing upon Yunia's memories, and I finish my creation off with an air elemental shaped like a horse to pull it.

It looks rather impressive, though it lacks the decorations and fine details to make it truly refined, but just the novelty factor is enough for me.

Then the Gilbiks come out, and Ciel's heart takes a hit as their neat and clean fashion style appeals to her pedo heart. Toulin's red beret and checkered skirt look rather modern, while the male side wears epaulets, giving them a bit of a military look.

Once we get inside the carriage, I remember that it needs cushioning, so I use a water elemental for some bouncy seats and backrests.

"How cute," Ciel happily comments as she gets in.

"How cute," Yunia comments with a slow, deliberate tone, a mix of snobbish and amused.

"Cute," Lina shyly mumbles and drops her little ass on the bouncy seat.

Alissa merely giggles as she feels the water sloshing around, and Gify hogs a seat for herself, forcing Aoi to remain as small-Aoi so that we can all fit.

"Now you're just showing off," Omume grumbles as he enters, and Toulin lowers her head appreciatively with a wry smile.

With the guard women surrounding the carriage and Azador "driving" it, we finally move on. The intelligent elemental needs only minimal commands, so Azador's job is quite relaxed.

 

Toulin hides her face in embarrassment from the all attention we're getting, and we finally find out who Lina inherited her shyness from. Fuda, on the other hand, smiles gallantly to the people as we pass by, instantly adopting a noble-like demeanor, and nobody knows where he learned to act like that.

"I have shome elven inhe'ritanche, I think. Must be becaushe of that," Omume mumbles and sighs.

 

Omume suggests an old restaurant which is famous for being the usual choice of the local nobles. I'm interested in the traditional dwarven cuisine, so I think there's no better choice than a place like that.

The restaurant itself is a thin and elongated rectangle, its wide side facing the hole that the sunlight pours in through. The walls are filled with carvings of festive dwarves, which is very fitting considering the raucous laughter we hear coming from inside.

The entrance is just a patio with a spring, so we don't dawdle and immediately cross through it.

The interior is more of the usual, with a tall ceiling with geometric patterns for decorations, but everything seems waxed and a bit too shiny, and then I notice that a dozen mirrors are strategically spread about, reflecting the sunlight towards the floor, which is what creates this effect.

The attendant that receives us is a dwarven proto-butler who speaks in perfect Andraste but then switches to Norvok when speaking to Lina and the Gilbiks. This catches them by surprise, but Toulin puts on her poker face and replies to the butler without embarrassing herself.

"Isn't it rude to speak in front of us in a language that we don't understand?" Alissa annoyedly comments through [Bind].

Yunia agrees with an internal nod and adds, "Not even elves do that."

"Well, I never expected that the dwarves would out-snob the elves," I joke and share a smile with the girls.

"Most dwarves would see that as an achievement," Lina awkwardly confesses.

The butler earns himself some minus points for speaking in Norvok, but at the same time, he also earns positive points for not pissing his pants when he notices Aoi.

 

One thing I didn't expect is that dwarves eat bugs, gigantic, elephant-sized bugs, but still bugs. There are some crunchy, creepy-crawlies to snack on, but the main course is usually some cut of bug.

Roxanne falls in love with this cuisine instantly, but the rest of us are more reserved, and Yunia is revulsed.

The mean succubus' shoulders tremble as she chuckles internally, then she puts on her mask and starts her act, "The sound these things make when they crunch inside my mouth is so fun, but then they ooze their tasty, slimy, innards, and it's just… hya!" She gushes girlishly, then glances over at Yunia and holds back a chuckle when she sees the elven queen wrinkle her nose.

Omume lets out a hearty laugh and lifts his glass in cheer. "Hahaha, now that's a good woman! Eat to become st'ronge'r! Eat to gain mo're mana!"

Toulin rolls her eyes while Fuda giggles.

Aoi nods emphatically. "Yes! It's best to eat a fresh kill, even if it's raw, so that you absorb as much power as you can from them," she agrees with a toothy grin.

Omume stutters for a second, but then he recovers and doubles-down, "It's ha'rd to eat it raw shince the meat tastes like di'rt, but at least you shouldn't be picky and eat a bit of eve'rything. The Goddess of G'rowth shaid that."

"I advise that we all pray to the God of Endurance first," Yunia comments in a low tone and sighs.

Roxanne's teasing threatened her pride, so she resolves herself to eat the bugs without prejudice even though there is the option to order normal meat like Dragolite or orc.

Feeling pressured by her courage, I also order a portion of bug meat, and it tastes kind of like shrimp, but a bit milder and slimier.

 

After our meal, we get some elven-approved snacks for the guard women, then I have a few of them accompany Lina, and they head back to the shop with the Gilbiks so that Lina and her family can have some time together in private.

Meanwhile, the rest of us take a [Gate] to the ceiling of the cave. It's so high up that few dwarves come up here, so the shops in this area are mostly imperial or from some other nearby country.

We find a cute tea shop that allows us to reserve a corner for ourselves. The view down from up here is quite nice since the shaded part of the town looks like a starry night sky due to all the lights of the houses below.

There's also an imperial playing a gentle song with a hurdy-gurdy, which Lina points out is actually a dwarven instrument. Since dwarves are so small, they don't have the lung capacity for woodwinds, but their small fingers are quite nimble, so they invented most of the known string instruments.

While the girls use the time to relax or read something, I decide to test my [Gate]. Putting all of my points in mana-enhancing skills, I can send a thumb-sized summoned hummingbird back to my office in the castle, but a person is completely out of the question.

I give it a small letter and tell it to find Poosh, then I wait until she sends her reply back through the [Gate].

Once her letter appears on the empty seat beside me, I send her another explaining my plan. I want to establish a messaging system using my [Gate] so that I can talk to them no matter where I am in the world.

It doesn't have to be done right now, so I just tell her to gather the Officers to inform them of my plan and brainstorm something.

 

Lina enters her family's shop and looks around with melancholy. The memories come flooding in, but they are all rather blurred and a bit disjointed. She had just turned eleven when she was sold, so it's been around four or five years since she last saw this place.

She goes around the stairs and crouches down near the corner of the shop, then she brushes her fingers over some crooked carvings that resemble a geometric flower.

Fuda stops beside her and grins.

"I remember this," she mumbles nostalgically.

"You bette'r," Toulin chastises her and pouts, then walks away to the other side of the shop.

Lina turns her gloomy eyes to Fuda and pouts. "You said they'd never notice," she accuses him.

Fuda shrugs and chuckles. "You'r fault fo'r believing me. I was just a kid," he deflects.

"But you're older than me," she presses and grunts annoyedly.

"Only by a yea'r," he calmly dodges.

She slaps his shoulder playfully, having to remind herself not to use [Spirit of Gaia] since she's much stronger than any of them now.

Omume walks up behind them and stops. His silence draws their attention, and Lina notices his conflicted expression.

"Lina…" He starts, but his resolve falters.

"Dad…" She replies with a kind smile, knowing what's coming.

Her gentle voice reinvigorates him, and he decides to pour his heart out, "Fo'rgive me, Lina, fo'r what I've done," he pleads, his voice cracking.

Lina stands up and gives him a hug.

"Fo'rgive me," he pleads again with a faint voice.

"There's nothing to forgive," she comforts him, her tone firm and kind.

"We sho-…"

"There's nothing to forgive," she repeats with more intensity, then she pushes him back to look him in the eye. "You did what you had to. You had the courage to do what was necessary to provide for us."

But Omume's face warps in anguish. "B-but we could've done sho many things diffe'rently-…"

"Father…!" She chastises him. "If you're going to apologize to me, then you'll also have to apologize to every slave that was ever sold."

Toulin frowns as she comes closer and asks, "What do you mean…?"

Lina turns to her, her usual shyness completely gone as she brims with pride. "Slavery is a duty. When the family becomes unable to provide for their own, it's their duty to find someone who can." Then she turns back to Omume and stares at him. "You gave me the opportunity to prove my worth, and through sacrifice, along with a good deal of luck, I came back to return what you've given me many times over."

Omume closes his eyes, trying not to cry while Toulin walks up to them and joins the hug. "It shouldn't be a pa'rent's duty to give up thei'r child," Toulin cries weakly as she struggles to keep her tears at bay.

"It isn't," Lina states, unmoved by their sorrow, and hugs them again. Her presence suddenly prods me in my mind, retrieving specific memories of hers that she shares with me, and then Gify takes them and shares them with the rest of the girls.

A wish merges with an idea, and we all stare pensively at it, measuring its worth.

"This is a noble cause, though it's a different battlefield than the one we usually fight on," Yunia shares her opinion through [Bind].

"I don't know anything about laws…" Lina hesitantly mumbles.

"But I do…" Yunia completes her thought.

Lina nods internally, and the two of them "stare" at each other as they gather their resolve.

"Apotheosis won't be reached by the individual," Ciel sagely recites a teaching from the priests themselves.

"Then may the God of Law guide our path," Yunia prays, and accepts Lina's idea, turning it into a goal.

"We have the power to make it so that no parent will ever have to give up their child ever again," Lina announces and breaks the hug again.

"What…" Omume mutters as he opens his eyes and stares at Lina in surprise.

Then she gives him a pained, but gentle, smile. "We'll spearhead a lasting change. My husband, my wife, my sister-wives, they'll all help. And our family, our followers, our servants, our retainers, everyone who believes in us will give us the support we need to bring about this change."

"We'll follow you whe'reve'r you go. We owe you that much," Omume assures her, matching her smile.

But Fuda still has his head firmly on his shoulders, so he confusedly questions her, "What kind of change a're you talking about, shis?"

"The law," she replies and shows him a proud smile. "We have the power to change it for the better. For everyone."

"You'll… change the laws of slave'ry?" Toulin asks as she dries her tears.

Lina nods slowly, making her bangs sway. "We'll improve them. We'll make it so that no other family will ever have to be broken so that they may simply survive. This will be a long fight, but we have our entire lives ahead of us to dedicate to it."

"And we'll be with you all the way," Omume reaffirms, and Fuda nods energetically in agreement.

Watch us and despair, Americans, for we're going to corrupt this land with the evils of Socialism!

 

After all that emotional talk, they sit down, and now, the Gilbiks are the ones who recount their past years without Lina. They don't have any truly exciting stories to tell, but they do have a lot of entertaining ones.

The girls and I eavesdrop since we've all pretty much lost the common sense of a commoner, and it's refreshing to hear about their idyllic, simple lives.

I sip some of my not-earl-gray tea, then I take a bite out of a big, heavy dwarven not-peanut butter cookie. The pairing goes pretty well, but all dwarven food I've had so far has had a bit too much spice for my mustch tastes, which have been thoroughly corrupted by elven cuisine.

Once Lina's conversation with her family reaches a lull, I turn to the golems and question them regarding something that I've been curious about, "Ted, Suzy, Jarn. Did any of you feel something different during our night out at the elven theater?"

The trio turns their lifeless, beady eyes to me, then, oddly enough, they share a look between them before answering.

"We felt 'alterations' upon our spirits," Ted starts the creepy, but also cute, sequential speech.

"Though we can't specify what it was in detail," Suzy follows.

"We're certain that [Weaverism] connected us with the rest of the crowd," Jarn finishes.

"When did you three find the time to talk about this?" Alissa suddenly questions them curiously.

"While you slept," Ted leads, as always.

Then Suzy follows, as always, "And we watched."

"That's cute," Ciel gushes with happiness, though I get the opposite impression, but I don't openly complain about it since it makes me feel safe just as much as it creeps me out to know that the golems are always watching.

I turn to Yunia and gently grab her hand, nearly startling her as I interrupt her voyeurism.

"Don't make it sexual," she coldly censures me and narrows her eyes dangerously.

I grin cheekily and suggest, "What do you think about using [Weaverism] on the golems?"

Her stern demeanor immediately switches to surprise and wonder. "Oh…? That seems like an interesting idea, though Arreira did say that they were terrible with anything not related to science and logic, which is… very different from the emotional magic of [Weaverism]."

"Yes, but I want to see if it can help them learn what 'feelings' are."

Her long, elastic ears twitch. "Ah! But couldn't you do that through [Bind]?"

I awkwardly scratch my horn. "I'm a bit afraid of using that on them. They're not exactly known for their understanding of 'restraint.'"

The girls become pensive as they suddenly understand what I'm afraid about.

"What are 'feelings'?" Hana sneak attacks my mind.

"Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more," I sing with a shit-eating grin.

Alissa glares at me, still holding on to her grudge from the snowball fight. "You get double negative points because the 'meme' wasn't even right," she berates me and cutely purses her lips in annoyance. "No compliments!" She exclaims and tries to cut our connection, but I open the floodgates and let my overwhelming love for her flow into her mind.

She blushes and her tail wags wildly out of her control as she wants to be mad at me, but can't.

I leave Alissa to stew in my love and finally answer Hana's question, "Anyway, 'feelings' are just chemical reactions to external stimuli. For example: hunger is a response to your stomach becoming empty, pain is a response to your body being overly-stimulated or getting damaged, and happiness comes from your brain releasing happiness-inducing hormones when specific conditions are met."

"What's a 'hormone'?" Hana childishly questions.

"An organic chemical that produces a specific effect when it's released in the bloodstream," Suzy answers first for once.

"They're primarily used for 'communication' between organs," Jarn completes.

"Can I synthesize those happiness hormones?" Roxanne scholarly inquires.

I nod with a gentle smile. "You can, it's just very complex."

"Extracting hormones from animals was the first step to reproducing them," Ted explains.

"Ooh~…" Roxanne coos in wonder. I have a feeling that she might go "mad scientist" on monsters if left unsupervised, so I think I'll have to make sure that she doesn't stray too far and simply continues working on the Draconic Climax.

But Ciel seems very concerned about where this topic is headed. "Wait, if you can make liquid happiness, wouldn't that be bad for our minds?" She warily asks.

And I agree with her, "Indeed, it would. The effect of most recreational drugs is to force our brains to produce these happiness hormones, so you should already understand the dangerous side-effects of 'liquid happiness.'"

"Oh…" Roxanne's excitement deflates, and her waving, excited tail goes limp.

Ciel crosses her arms and frowns in thought as she contemplates, "I'm also a bit concerned about how indistinguishable this 'liquid happiness' might actually be when compared to 'real happiness.' Surely, there must be more to 'real happiness' than just these hormones, right?" With that, she gives me a sharp look.

I ponder upon her words for a moment and start to speculate, "Well, in truth, there isn't, but perhaps when someone consciously takes this 'liquid happiness,' they could feel that this happiness is 'fake.' They might have a sort of 'disconnect' in their mind since they know that they're lying to their body and there's no real reason to be 'happy,' but I doubt that everyone would be able to feel that 'disconnect.'"

Ciel grumbles in frustration. "Still, treating happiness like just another drug feels 'wrong.' The Goddess of Love spoke so much about the pursuit of happiness that bypassing it all with just a drug alone definitely shouldn't be a good thing."

I smile kindly at her and wrap my tail around her waist to comfort her. "It's a complex topic that not even the Earthlings had found a definite answer for, so I don't expect Rupegians to solve it, either." Then I turn to Roxanne and give her a very serious look. "And I really don't think it's a good idea for you to research it too deeply, at least not yet."

Roxanne raises her hands in surrender and smiles cheekily as she gives up. "Alright, alright, I got it."

 

Roxanne and Hana go out to explore the town while I stay with the rest of the girls in the tea shop.

Once the sun starts to turn orange, the town's Lord finally sends a knight and some of his Lordsguard to the Gilbik's home, so we head back to receive them.

"Hail, Crown Lords Ryders," the gray-bearded dwarf greets and bows. I find it curious how most of his skin is tattooed with rune-like patterns. "Lord Tordum is currently out of town, but he sends his regards."

"We thank him for answering our sudden request," Yunia politely replies.

He straightens his back and smiles cordially. "It'd be impossible for us to ignore the request of such exalted persons as yourselves."

After a few more exchanges of pleasantries, the knight informs us that the Gilbiks will be hosted in the Lord's personal home until they're ready to move, which greatly surprises the trio and pleases Azador. There's no safer place than beside a Lord.

Perhaps he's simply scared of us since we're pretty far above him on the social ladder.

And now, it's time for us to say goodbye. It seems like there's no way that the Gilbiks will refuse our proposal, so they'll really only be staying with the Lord until they can close up their shop and organize their belongings. A few days at most.

I'm kind of surprised that they're so willing to abandon their ancestral home, but they seem to favor the God of Change quite a lot, so their piety will probably give them the impetus to accept our proposal.

I mean, there are quite a lot of dwarven communities spread around the world, even as far as Maoka, as Roxanne tells us, so perhaps this will be the start of the first dwarven community in the High Forest. If they decide to live up in the treetops along with the other elves, then perhaps they'll become the first "High Dwarves."