Laying in a sweaty mess on top of Cor, Ari pushed her luck. Asking anything of her Mistress was risky, since she was, to say the least, bristly about her dominance over Ari. Still, it was a request worth pushing for.

“Can I talk to Opal?”

“The slime?” an exhausted reply came. Ari had done a good job with her distraction; dungeon cores weren’t immune to a thorough fucking. Or completely, at least. Cor recovered faster, and was affected less, than most. Something not entirely due to her level, Ari suspected, but a natural composure. “Your partner from earlier?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s gone, already,” Cor said. “I had Cecile ensure she escaped my domain unheeded.” She sniffed. “I keep my word.”

Ari relaxed, even if she was disappointed she wouldn’t get to confirm her situation with Opal. Opal was safe, then, having left the dungeon without incident. She kissed Cor’s cheek. “Thank you. That’s a relief.”

Because she had been concerned for Opal. Ari’s lewd adventures were her own problems to handle. With how her Menagerie followed her blindly, anything that happened to them was her fault. Opal had lost to Cece, and Ari didn’t know if she’d be as happy being ‘enslaved’—not an entirely accurate world, but sort of true—as Ari.

“Yes, yes,” Cor said, rolling her eyes. “Your transformation has thoroughly infected me with this dreadful morality. Have you any idea how much more efficient I could be?”

Ari frowned, which Cor, again, rolled her eyes at.

“Could be, I said. Hm. Honestly, I should be more disturbed you’ve erased my previous self. But I suppose she was more of a force of nature than a person.” She hugged Ari tight, pressing her warm curves in. “This is better, I admit, if less efficient.”

Ari relaxed into her partner. Her worries faded. The future was certainly murky, but her safety—and that of her Menagerie—was at least secure.

From Cor, at least.

“You can see your dungeon, right?” Ari asked suddenly. “The entirety of it? The people and layout?”

Cor tilted her head. Prismatic eyes met her own. Ari didn’t think she’d ever be able to take that in stride. So inhuman. Even that word didn’t do it justice. Otherworldly. Divine.

She’d been fucking this girl, not five minutes ago? This angelic being?

“I can,” Cor said. “You’re worried about your other friends. The leopard, wolf, and bee.”

Ari blushed. Being seen through so easily was pretty embarrassing.

“They’re safe,” Cor said. “As yet, at least. They’re delving through my domain, which comes with risks of which I won’t absolve them—even on your request. That said, my goal is never to harm too many of your kind. It would be ineffective from an energy-gathering standpoint.”

Intrigued, though obviously frowning internally at Cor’s refusal to protect her friends, Ari furrowed her eyebrows at her partner, presenting a silent question.

Cor said, “We—dungeon cores—attract adventurers to harvest energy from. Occasionally, your kind perish in our fights, but that isn’t our ultimate goal. Each of your people’s skills provides us energy. Thus, we seek to push each delver as far as we can, for our own benefit. That said, if nobody perishes, then adventurers would grow complacent.”

Cor frowned, as if displeased at something. Maybe her newfound morality was struggling with the concept of killing adventurers in such a routine manner. Still, she didn’t retract her words. She might have been softened, but had all her edges been rounded off? No. She was still a dungeon core.

Ari could sympathize with the complexity of the situation. It was hard to sort through everything. It made sense, though. And lined up to previous dungeon theories. Dungeons fed off them. And the whole … ‘perishing’ and ‘dying’ business, as so casually stated by Cor. Well, Ari had already confronted, to some degree, the brutal nature of her partners. Though, Cor’s situation was many times more so upsetting.

“You, uh,” Ari started hesitantly. “Earlier. Said something about whether my people could be ‘conquered’?”

Cor hummed.

It wasn’t the most comforting response.

“So?” Ari asked.

Cor raised her eyebrows. Again, she provided no explicit response.

Ari knew better than to push. But what was she supposed to do? Did Cor plan to conquer the surface? Or had that been an idle thought, and now she was teasing Ari?

Seriously, this was all way too much to take in. Ari preferred it when she had simpler problems, like managing a small up-and-coming monstergirl guild. And had a date with Elise.

A date. She briefly panicked, remembering that. In the chaos, she’d forgotten. She relaxed a second later, remembering that Cor intended to release her either tonight, or tomorrow morning. One night every other night—that was her sentence. So, her planned outing with Elise shouldn’t be interrupted.

“What?” Cor asked.

 “Um. Nothing. Just remembered an important event.” At Cor’s curious look, she explained. “I have a date. I was wondering whether I would make it in time.”

“Oh.” Cor seemed briefly contemplative. “A … date. Hm. Explain.”

“Huh?”

“Dates. Or, your world in general. I have all these … memories … but they’re unreliable, lacking context.”

Another way Cor was similar to the other monstergirls.

Ari had already been through this conversation a few times, so she launched into it.