After ass-fucking Julia to high heaven, I'd wound up curling up with Noriko, who in turn had curled up around Julia, arguing that "Bitch would make a pleasant body pillow to hold." At some point post-sex, Erza and Cass arrived back, with Cass cuddling up to my back, and Erza simply cuddling up against Cass's back.

Of course, I slept much less than the other four did, so I wound up waking up in that position, sandwiched between Cass and Noriko. It was very nice, the soft feeling of Cass's breath against my bare skin, the warmth of Noriko's naked body pressing up against my chest, but I didn't plan to lie there for five hours straight, so I tried my best to quietly disentangle myself from them.

My stats had increased thanks to our work in the Dungeon - as a group, we spent somewhere between four and eight hours in it, three to five days a week, at that point, though Cass and Erza spent much, much more - so my body was much, much more flexible and limber than it otherwise might have been. Unfortunately, both Noriko and Cass had increased their stats too, and those increased stats brought increased senses. I don't know which stat actually did it, or if perhaps it was invisible, but in any case, both girls wound up waking up as I was trying to wiggle my way out from between the two of them.

Julia was pretty much knocked out from how hard I'd gone at her, and Erza slept like a rock, so they had an easy time wiggling free once they were awake. "I wanted to... do things with you..." Cass said, as I started to rise from the bed.

"I need to clean up before I do anything like that," I told her. She quietly nodded - but still followed after me as I put on some quick clothes. I didn't tell her not to... and Noriko also wound up following after her and me both. So, I guess I was taking a shower.

The Twilight Manor had sex-segregated showers... but given the time of night, we were the only ones up, and Noriko and Cass just decided to ignore the gender rules regarding them. I knew that they were aware, since this was hardly the first time they'd used the showers in the Twilight Manor.

It was maybe two minutes before Cass spoke up. "Are you... clean yet?" She asked, her fingers reaching down for my dick and stroking it before I could even respond. Naturally, I was rock hard in a second of stroking. Literally the woman I loved most in the world, was softly stroking my cock, staring me in the eyes as her hands slid up and down my length, her breathing soft, her green eyes staring up into mine.

"I-, yeah, probably enough," I managed to get out.

It wasn't Cass who took advantage of the opening, though. Noriko quickly stepped into position in front of me. "I wanted you to let me fellate you, but you were unable to," she pointed out, before getting down on her knees. Cass withdrew her hands from my cock and silently watched as Noriko's mouth wrapped around my cock and she smoothly slid down the length. I could feel the soft trembling of her body in pleasure as my cock rubbed its way along her tongue and esophagus, her eyes coolly staring up at me as her cheeks turned a light shade of pink.

The warm water of the showers continued to rain down endlessly on us all, as Noriko dutifully bobbed on my cock, starting to let out hums of pleasure around my length as it wetly penetrated her throat again and again, as she pushed herself forward and back on my cock. She never broke eye contact, simply quietly staring up at me, her hands gently sliding up and down my thighs.

Cass stared down quietly at Noriko, then, uncertainly, her hand found its way to Noriko's head, softly running through her currently quite wet hair, its normally shaggy appearance now sticking to her face on either side. "It doesn't... feel that good... for me..." she said, softly. Whether it was her mouth or her pussy, sex with Cass always followed one course: insanely naturally talented girl making you come your brains out really quickly and - despite herself being fine with it - making you feel vaguely guilty as she cuddled up to you without an orgasm of her own. "Why?" She asked me.

"Ah, technically," I said, and Noriko seemed to view my speaking as a reason to make me stop, her tongue slithering and slapping at the underside of my cock, an orgasm hitting her system almost simultaneously, her head bucking as she ground her nose into my pubes, her throat convulsing around my length like it was her pussy. "Fuh, fuck, technically, Noriko, is an, alien," I groaned out, grasping Noriko by the back of the head to still her in place as she came, "and their mouths, tongues, throats, are..." I trailed off, trying to find the word for erogenous zone that Cass would actually know, but she just nodded quietly.

"Is Julia... an alien?" She asked, quietly, her fingers finding their way to mine where they rested on the back of Noriko's head, lacing together in this sweet, gentle movement that carried no more meaning than intended. "She also... really likes it..."

"No, she's just, like that," I breathed out, as Noriko's orgasm finally finished, and she started to slide up my length. All the while, her eyes stared up at me, and I gently pet her, my hand moving together with Cass's in a simultaneous assuring movement as she started to bob.

"I see..." Cass said, her gaze turning from me down to Noriko, then kneeling down next to the other girl. "I can make... your pace... just right..." she whispered softly in Noriko's ear, and Noriko simply nodded in assent. Cass shifted around behind her, remaining on her knees, positioning her body so that I simultaneously got a good look at her gorgeous round breasts and her full muscular ass. Then her hands went to the back of Noriko's head, and she started to shift her pace.

It's impossible to describe just how Cass's superhuman body reading skills transferred over into superhuman sex skills. She made Noriko bob up and down my cock, seeming to time it so every twitch and throb of my cock corresponded to a simultaneous movement of Noriko, brushing and compressing and shifting my dick this way and that. Whenever my precum dribbled out of my tip, Noriko was positioned so her tongue could lick it up, her eyes never turning away from mine as Cass's fingers ran through her hair; then she'd be pushed back down, twisting from side to side as she was held in place in my pelvis, giving my cock the most unbelievable blowjob.

When I was about to blow, she actually pulled Noriko up off my cock, making the petite girl breathe for a couple seconds, before she started to speak. "Is my fellatio more pleasing to you with Cass's assistance?" She asked, and I could only nod, my hard cock twitching in the air. It was so, so tempting to reach forward, to stroke my cock the last few bits, to spray cum all over Noriko's cute face... I don't honestly know why I didn't. "Would you prefer it if Cass always guided me up and down your cock? As we are both your wives, this would be possible."

My cock twitched again at that suggestion. "You're great on your own, too, Noriko. I love you." I softly ran my fingers through her hair, and there was just a hint of a smile on Noriko's lips - then Cass directed her back down my length, and I was once more bathed in pleasure, warmth, and spit. At first, it was a sweet, loving thing, her tongue moving up and down on my cock, brushing side to side, flicking this way and that, her pace slow and methodical - and then suddenly it was a rapid slam, Noriko getting frantically pumped up and down my dick, her eyes staring up at me hazily as her cheeks turned pink. She let out a lewd, repeatedly-cut off moan as she orgasmed from the speed we were going.

I couldn't help it. I came too. I gushed out cum, spraying it all over the inside of Noriko's mouth and in her throat, because Cass didn't let up as we both orgasmed like that. We had almost simultaneous orgasms, separated by perhaps a second, if that. I just shook, my legs wobbling as Noriko was facefucked on my cock. Cass wore this tiny, light, unsure smile, like she wasn't one hundred percent that the serendipitous double-orgasm would please me, but it definitely fucking did.

When both Noriko and I were finished coming, the cherry-strawberry scent of her arousal filling the shower stall, Cass rose up to her feet. "Want to... have sex?"

I groaned in agreement, simply pushing her up against the wall of the shower stall, my cock quickly finding its way to her slick sex as her legs shifted and twisted with superhuman dexterity to get at my dick. Despite our positions - my hands on her ribcage, her back against the wall - and me being taller than her, she was the one who actually thrust her cunt down on my cock, squeezing down on my dick as she stared up at me, her lips softly parted as she did her best to ride me in that somewhat awkward position. Her best was still very, very good. If the position hadn't been so awkward, I probably would have come within a minute, if that.

Instead, I slid one hand down her toned stomach, finding my way to her clit. She let out this cute little squeak as I gently pinched it between my index and middle fingers, while Noriko stood up and quietly shifted around to watch the scene, staring at the specific anatomical movements of my cock in and out of Cass's tight pink sex with curiosity. I tried to focus on Cass, though, leaning forward to meet her lips with mine, some part of me hoping that blocking her vision of what was going down in my groin would make it harder for her to decipher exactly what to do to make me come as quickly as possible.

Her hands came up for me, then, sliding along my back, eventually finding their places wrapped around me, gripping my shoulders from below. Her supple breasts pressed tight against my bare chest as we rutted in the shower stall like that, her doing at least as much work as me, despite the way that her legs had come to be tangled around my hips. Cass was absolutely ferocious and relentless in bed, doing everything in her power to please me. It meant that a lot of the time when we had sex, she didn't come, but I was determined to make that not be the case at least this one time.

My free hand slid up from her ribcage to one of her breasts, rolling my thumb against her nipple. I did my best to try to figure out what she liked, which I eventually concluded was a light, teasing touch to her nipples, and my fingers found their way back and forth from one breast to the other, slipping into the sticky space between her breasts and my chest each time.

Noriko clambered up my backside somewhere in the middle of that, eventually tucking her chin onto my shoulder, staring down at Cass. "Do you love Cass?" I nodded, earning a soft noise from Cass, carrying up into my lips and feeling the way her pussy clenched around my dick in response. Fuck. She loved hearing/feeling that. It was both obvious and an incredible turn on. "Why do you love Cass?"

I broke off my lips from Cass's, hoping to use words to bridge the gap in our sex abilities. After all, Cass wasn't exactly going to be writing poetry any time soon. "She's a good and genuine person, who tries her hardest to save and protect others. She's always thinking of others, never herself. She's tough. She's sincere. She's earnest."

"Is she sexually attractive to you in a physical sense, as well? There are many imperfections in her body."

"Her body is fucking amazing," I growled out, upping my pace inside Cass. I could hear her squeak, the blush to her cheeks, feel the way she was becoming less skilled as she lost her way to pleasure. "I love muscular girls, I think scars give them character, and she's so flexible and limber and, fucking, tight," I grunted out the last few words - and Cass came around my cock. It may very well have been my first time managing to make Cass come without her first making me come, her tight pussy squeezing and caressing and gripping and wringing out my cock, a thousand different movements that all added up to my brain melting and my cum shooting out a few seconds later.

When I was completely spent, I heaved for a long few seconds, pressing my forehead against the shower wall. It was Cass who broke the silence. "Want to... keep going?"

As it turned out, I did.

* * *

"It has unfortunately fallen on me to preside over this Denatus," Hermes said, with a small bow to his crowd. It was particularly unfortunate as he was one of the more suspicious parties in the city. Certainly, he did a bit of cloak and dagger work, pushing people to act as his catspaws even when they weren't members of his familia, but he wouldn't have pushed things to this level over Ishtar, much less done it for Soma.

"Isn't this whole thing out of order?" One of the many, many gods of Orario asked. "I was sleeping all day and I get woken up to come out here? This was scheduled for over a month from now."

"You idiot, didn't you hear the gigantic explosion?" Another responded.

"I was asleep."

"Apparently a very deep sleep," Freya said, wryly.

"The deepest."

"Freya probably knows a lot about sleep."

"Oh, she didn't like that comment!"

"Ev-everybody has to sleep."

"That is true," one of the more mind-bogglingly stupid gods said. At times, Hermes wished that there had been some kind of requirement of merit for a god to descend from Heaven, rather than the matter simply being decided by lottery and then by queue. A very, very long queue - ten thousand years or so, when he came down.

"Let's shut up about sleep," Loki snapped in annoyance.

"As the lady says," Hermes replied. "We have called this emergency Denatus because one of our number is no longer among us. Soma, leader of the Soma familia, perished earlier this evening."

"No! Does that mean no more Soma wine?"

"I loved Soma wine!"

"Soma wine! Soma wine! Soma wine!" A chant began to rise from the mass of gods, and Hermes only narrowly avoided resolving to begin making a List.

"The circumstances are being investigated, but the only other casualty was Zanis, the captain of his familia."

"Oh, that's easy then, Zanis killed him and then got killed in turn," one of the gods said.

"I would like to say that is so, but I am afraid it is not." He produced the proof and opened it. The entire room recoiled, very pleasantly in his estimation, since he hated most of these people. To the few he didn't hate, he made internal apologies before drawing it back closed. "A scent bag. The sort adventurers buy in bulk - the most common, cheapest type, in fact. It would be impossible to track down the person who purchased this."

"But?"

"It sounds like he has a but."

"Hermes is just trying to set up how cool he is! He already knows who bought the bag!"

"Actually, I do not," Hermes snapped in irritation. He was smarter than the average god, certainly. That wasn't a difficult feat, as the gibbering mass of morons around him proved. It made him a little sad that Zeus and Hera had been forced into exile, simply because that was two fewer gods with more brains than a mashed potato. The Guild didn't track such transactions by name, simply accounted for them by time and number. There were no particularly suspicious purchases, nor any missing scent bags above normal breakage. If anyone had bought it, they had walked in and bought it, or walked in and stolen one or two. "However, this scent bag is a rather critical clue."

"It's just a scent bag!"

"Boo! Hermes is trying to show how smart he is! Boooo!"

The entire crowd began booing him at that, and Hermes felt his expression tense in irritation before he put back on an affable smile. "It proves that our killer was not Zanis - and that, further, it was not a member of the Soma familia who had ordinary access to the room in question."

"I don't get it."

That's because you're an idiot. "If the murderer were a member of the Soma familia with access to that room, they could simply kill Soma while Zanis was distracted, and rely on the divine retaliation that came with the activation of his Arcanum to remove Zanis from the equation. Their scent being present would be normal, so there would be no need for a scent bag, you see. No, the scent bag was used by the killer to remove his or her scent from the site. Which means it is one of two things: firstly, a lower-ranked member of the Soma familia who did not have regular access to the room in question, thus creating the problem for them of why their scent just happened to be there on that day; or secondly, an outsider."

"A mortal, killing a god?"

"Mortals don't kill gods!"

"Any mortal kills a god, I'll send them to Hell!"

"Indeed," Hermes agreed. "We gods rarely smile on those who ruin our game here. The outsider would have to be acting with the backing of their god, who would have to be someone with quite a bit of clout. Yet, why such an individual would target Soma, of all people, is quite the mystery. Soma keeps to himself, and his familia are cowardly and, yes, treacherous - but there are plenty of other treacherous familias here, who have no doubt earned far greater scores to settle than his."

"Then you're saying, what?"

"Yeah! Seems like a bunch of gibberish to me."

"So wait, nobody killed him?"

"Aha! It was a suicide!"

"I did think that Soma might be depressed, he was always holed up in his familia headquarters..."

Hermes felt a pain in the front of his skull, and sighed. "It was not a suicide. The scent bag, remember?"

"Oh yeah."

Hermes cleared his throat. "Most likely, it was a member of his familia, as I said. I know it is late, but pay attention to what I am about to say." He raised a finger to the air rather pointedly. "There will be a good number of former adventurers looking to join a new familia, now that Soma is gone. Some of you will be interested in these recruits, despite their low levels, simply because they have something. But for the sake of your life here in this world, be sure to ask them, Did you participate in the killing of Soma? Do you know anything about who killed Soma? and do not let up until they have nothing more to tell you."

"Did any members of his familia see an intruder?"

Hermes shook his head. "They did not, neither before nor after the death of Lord Soma. The closest was the report by one familia member that he saw something black fly out of the room, but that's to be expected, when one blows up a room at night. No members saw someone escaping the scene, leaping over the fence, or anything like that. Nor did those who came to render aid see such an individual. I have done my best to investigate all those who arrived on scene but were not members of the Soma familia; none appear guilty, at a simple interrogation."

Freya spoke then. "It occurs to me that your child, Perseus, can make helms that make the wearer invisible. Couldn't she have done this?"

"You can ask her yourself, Lady Freya," Hermes said, with a smile. "I already have, of course, but she has no idea who could have done this. None of the people she's sold her equipment to have any grudge against Soma, and their privacy is rather important to my familia's business."

"Seems a little suspicious that you're the one hosting this Denatus," Loki said, leering down at him with those squinty eyes of hers. "Well-timed, one might say."

Hermes let out a grimace of a laugh. "I thought much the same. Unfortunately, I am. Perhaps it was one of the gods, and they wished to frame me; I can promise you all, I had no interest in the demise of Lord Soma, or his familia, or Zanis. I am as sorrowed by this tragedy as you all." Which was to say, not at all.

"I'm gonna miss that wine. It's really the good stuff," Loki said. "Though I did hear he had even better wine that he kept exclusively inside the familia."

"Let's make the former Soma familia members give us their wine!"

"Yeah! Super Soma wine, here I come!"

"Let's drink, in honor of Soma!"

"Let's drink!" "Let's drink!" "Let's drink!" The chorus drowned out everything else, and Hermes just let out a sigh. Their play in the lower world was a game, to be sure - but just because chess was a game, didn't mean one just started chewing on the pieces.

* * *

I've mostly skipped past my early adventures in the Dungeon because... well, I wasn't very good early on. Not as in "oh, some good basics, but the Dungeon is just harder than I expected." The most fighting experience I'd had was wrestling with my brother as a kid, and watching a few "how self-defense videos are full of shit" videos. I wasn't in danger - I had Erza Scarlet on my team fighting a bunch of goblins and kobolds, she could have stomped all over them trivially at any time if I was in danger, and she would. If one somehow managed to get past her, I could always twist fate around so that I wasn't hit by their attacks. I had a longsword, and knew the gist, but I was mostly using it as a defensive tool, keeping goblins and kobolds from getting close enough to actually hit me, until one of my wives could deal with them.

Now, I wasn't completely incompetent, to be clear. The magic of my Sidereal Exaltation meant that I could bolster attacks and defenses to be much closer, in effect, to somebody with actual training. It gave me a look of a competent person whose fighting style was bizarre or intentionally made to look like I was just "lucky." Or maybe that I was just lucky, but that impression would become impossible to hold onto after watching me continuously manage it. For an Exalted, it takes less energy to bolster abilities that aren't as good - though you don't bolster them as much - so I was pretty much a perpetual motion machine of luck, continuously gathering motes of Essence to tilt the scales one way or the other.

My core, raw, abilities, weren't very good, but I had been focusing on building up my footwork, my technique - and drawing on the vague dreams of the Sidereal Secret Arts from past ages, which manifested in the form of Unnatural Many-Stepped Stride. With that, I had something much better than just fancy footwork. I could clamber up into the sky and leave the goblins down on the ground, frantically screeching and yelling at me. When they first grabbed rocks to throw at me, I had been rather stunned - but then I took their technique and turned it right back around at them.

For whatever particular reason, I found throwing things to be much easier than fighting with a sword. Maybe it was a psychological thing, where I was up high and they were down low, so I felt safer to actually attack instead of focusing on defense. Maybe it was some little booster from my Exaltation - I had noticed I was better at reading people and expressing myself than I had been, before coming to this world. In any case, once I had it down, well, I bought throwing knives and started throwing them from above. I had to recover the throwing knives after each kill, but there was no worry about them getting really stuck in a corpse. Monsters, when their magic stone was removed, just turned to ash after a few seconds, leaving behind no trace whatsoever, save perhaps a drop item or whatever had been stuck in them pre-mortem. Noriko was even kind enough to gather up my knives for me after a battle.

"You have begun to really flourish as a warrior, Drake," Erza said, which felt ridiculous coming from the woman who stomped all over everything she bothered to fight. The rest of us only got to actually fight anything because she let us, really. "Now that you have developed a battle style all your own, I look forward to seeing you develop it further."

"Goshujinsama, can you teach me that technique?" Julia asked. Her tone of voice wasn't cloying or desperate like she often made it, exaggerated in its submission. It was inquisitive, friendly. Normal. In other words, she actually wanted to know, and considered it valuable information. "I attack from a range too, after all."

"Oh," I said, nodding as I realized as much. "Sure, Julia." She blinked blankly at that, turning to look behind her as if somebody else might be there.

"Goshujinsama, who are you-?"

"Sorry. I meant sure, Bitch," I corrected, and she smiled brightly at that.

"Ah, thank you, goshujinsama. I was confused because you said that name, but there isn't anybody by that name here!"

"It is strange indeed, The Prettiest Princess. Drake - did you have a lover before you came here?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it. "No. Anyway, let's focus on the Dungeon." For me, coming down to the Dungeon was like a job, though fortunately not a nine to five. Back in my original life, I'd worked an erratic schedule and the nature of my job - writer - made it all too easy to get distracted by Alt-Tabbing over to my browser. I didn't want to repeat that error down here in the Dungeon, wasting time that could be spent earning levels on idle chatter.

We went back to fighting, and I could feel myself getting better, my understanding of trajectories improving quite quickly as I hurled throwing knife after throwing knife at the monsters.

* * *

When they returned home from the dungeon, she hadn't even gotten to burn off the post-battle arousal. Bete hadn't had his normal friendly tsundere demeanor, as he took her by the shoulder in a way that brooked no argument. "Boss needs to talk with her," was all he'd grunted out. She was dragged into an office, where Finn sat at a desk, his legs idly kicking, Tione standing by his side with a somewhat sympathetic look in her eyes. She was a better person than ————— thought, if she understood what ————— had done and why. Even Loki was there.

Huh. Loki had never touched her breasts, now that she thought about it. She'd caught her looking. Maybe she had a danger sense that meant she understood that ————— was off limits?

Oh well. Life well lived. All those forced slaves and drug addicts of the Soma familia would be free now. She just smiled pleasantly at the people gathered there.

"You know what this is about?" Loki asked her.

"I think I do," ————— said, with a melancholic smile. "I don't regret anything." Loki's brow furrowed slightly at that, then she slapped down on the table - the scent bag, a bullet casing, Zanis's skull with holes in it - oh, no, it was just a piece of paper. With an artist's (poor, it failed to capture her radiant beauty) depiction of... her. It had her old name on it: Julia Jacoby. Well, it was spelled Xulia Xacobi, but it was obviously her old name. She stared at it blankly. No one in the world should know her old name, except Drake, so why...?

"Your mother's been worried sick about you," Bete said, with a level of negativity that she wouldn't really expect from him. He was always cross but that was an act, mostly; this was genuine irritation.

————— blinked a few more times as she tried to understand this. "Mom?" She had been transported to another world. Why would her mother be here? No, even if her mother was here, and looking for her, she wouldn't- what? "Mary Jacoby? Curly dark hair to about here?" She gestured to her shoulders.

"That's the woman. Any reason you haven't been home once since joining the familia? You're not a slave, y'know?" Loki asked.

"Uhm. No." That was a lie and Loki would know it, but the goddess just stared at her quietly. "I'll go meet her. Where is she?"

"She's actually downstairs, we wanted to confirm that it was really your mom, Xulia," Loki said, a hint of smugness to her tone.

————— stared blankly ahead, not responding at all. Great. They knew her old name. She couldn't respond to her old name without invoking the Neverborn's whip. That was what Drake had called them, wasn't it? The ones who had brought her back from the brink of death. She just sat there. "Hmm?" She asked, after a few seconds. "Who are you talking to? I'm the Prettiest Princess."

"No, you're Xulia, and I'm not calling you that stupid name."

"I'm confused," she said, trying to ignore the woman's words. "I know this is a picture of me, but that's not my name. I don't have a name. Though, I think the Prettiest Princess is actually too light a name for me. You can call me, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, Far More Beautiful than Me, Loki."

Loki snarled at that. Bete actually seemed somewhat amused, though he hid it for the most part. "I'm going to call you Xulia!"

"Call who what?" She looked behind her as if there might be a sixth person in the room.

"You! Xulia!"

"Are they invisible? Is there an invisible person in the room?" ————— tilted her head around. "Ahh, I know how to find invisible people," she said, then manifested a flamethrower. While none of them knew what a flamethrower was, they did know that it was a weapon, and took a few brisk steps back, except Loki, who remained seated with iron determination. "Don't worry, I'll get rid of them."

"Loki," Finn prompted, making Loki turn to him. "You did mention something was wrong with her name on her falna; I don't think it's actually a power game."

"It's not a power game," ————— agreed. "I'm legitimately confused as to who you're talking to. Can gods go crazy and start seeing things that aren't there, Bete?" Bete just stared at her, clearly unamused. "Tione? Have you ever heard of anything like this?"

"Whatever!" Loki said, having no doubt spotted the truth of the statement that it wasn't a power game. "I'll just call you annoying, how about that?"

"If you won't call me the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, Far More Beautiful than Me, Loki, then I suppose that's fine. I think that title is more descriptive, though. It's not generic enough, really. Perhaps the Most Beautiful Person in the World, Far More Beautiful than Me, the Person Saying This. Thoughts?"

"I'm fine with princess, honestly," Finn said, in a somewhat bored tone of voice. "Your mother isn't hurting you or anything like that?"

"My mother is a kind and gentle woman," ————— said, shaking her head. "I just thought she was..." she struggled for a moment to find words that would simultaneously be technically true, but imply that she thought her mother was dead. That would work well enough to satisfy them all. "I thought I would never see her again," she made sure to give the comma a chance to breathe, so that this was not technically a lie, "in this world." Everyone's posture shifted at that, as they came to the immediate conclusion that she thought her mother was dead. Finn gave Loki a quick glance to conclude the veracity of her statement, and Loki just stared forward. ————— rose to her feet. "Can I go see her?"

"Go ahead, Annoying," Loki said, not realizing at all that the entire reason she gave people ever more ridiculous titles to call her, was precisely to get that kind of insulting treatment.

* * *

Her mother looked just the same as she recalled, except that she wore clothes more normal to Orario than San Francisco. She rushed up to her, wrapping her in a full-throated hug as she did. "Xulia, Xulia," she whispered out, tearfully. "I thought you were dead, but I- I put up those fliers anyway, and I'm just glad you're alive, sweetie."

There was just one problem... her old name was pronounced Julia, not Xulia. With a "j" like in Jane or Jackie, not an "sh" like in Shine or Shoe. Loki might have made that mistake, but her mother wouldn't. ————— was quite sure she still couldn't respond to it, though. She thought of it as "hers." "Mom," she sighed, wrapping her mother in a hug all her own. "Please don't call me that, okay?"

"Sweetie?"

"No, the- the name. It's not mine."

"Xulia... do you have amnesia? Is that why you didn't come home that night?"

This curse had been far less frustrating in this life, until her mother (?; well, if she wasn't, Loki would have noticed, no? And even if she wasn't, why would she look just like her mother, and know her name?) showed up. "Mom, I'm under a curse that punishes me if I say or respond to that name."

"Oh. My poor baby," she said, tightening her grip on Julia. "It's okay. I'm just glad you're alright - I thought... I thought that you'd died."

I did, the girl without a name thought. "I'm okay, Mom."

* * *

The more time the girl without a name spent with her mother, the more it became apparent that she wasn't quite her mother. Her mom had been born in San Francisco; this Mary had been born on the Dark Continent, a far southern place with little trade with Orario, and brought her daughter with her to Orario when she was six. She spoke, sounded, acted, thought like her mother. The most logical explanation was that the same twinning process that had separated her from San Francisco and dragged her over to Danmachi, had also happened to Mary, but imperfectly.

The real problem was, "I heard from Loki that you got married. She said he was a very nice man, can I meet him?"

Part of her, of course, thought it would be hot if Drake also fucked her mother, because it would be extremely hot. But she was approaching the situation at the moment with an investigative eye, trying to figure out what was going on, instead of trying to make her mother or herself happy, so she just took her mother up to their shared bedroom... where he was currently fucking Erza into the bed doggy style, the girl's pendulous breasts bouncing back and forth under her, his hand coming down to smack her ass as he railed her.

"A-ah! Oh, ahm, wrong, r-room?" Mary asked, glancing at her daughter with the look of a woman who very much hoped that she hadn't just caught her daughter's new husband cheating on her.

"Drake," the girl without a name called out. Drake, naturally, turned to face her. "This is my mom."

Drake just blinked several times, coming to a stop inside Erza. Erza panted on the bed, turning her head to look back at her. "Ah! My apologies. I'm afraid that I did not know that The Prettiest Queen would be visiting, or I would have been more prepared." She had absolutely not the tiniest trace of irony as she called her mother the Prettiest Queen. She pulled off of Drake's cock and quickly Requipped into her armor, stepping off the bed. "I am The Prettiest Princess's co-bride, Erza Scarlet. We both love our Drake very much."

"Oh. I see," her mother said, sounding a tad uncertain. Apparently they were monogamy-normative back on the Dark Continent too. You would think a harem anime would have polygamy as a social norm so that the main character can just marry them all. "I'm Mari." The pronunciation was just a little different too. Mah-ree, rather than Mare-ee. "I didn't realize that this was a... triad that you were in."

Before her mother could say anything more, Erza interrupted. "No, it is no triad. Drake has four wives, of which we are but two."

"Oh." Mari blinked again, her gaze going over to Drake. "Well... as long as you treat my daughter nicely?" She tried.

* * *

I had absolutely no fucking idea what to do in this situation. I knew Mary - Mari? - alright from the work that Julia was from. Gentle and kind and not particularly proactive. There was a trace of conflict between her and her daughter regarding her father, who had disappeared shortly before the story's beginnings, the daughter believing he'd abandoned them after acquiring copious debts, the mother believing he'd been killed. As a consequence of her (late?) husband's death, Mary had been forced into prostitution. The protagonist had fucked her because it was that kind of story. He was actually probably the nicest to her out of any girl, honestly. Beyond that, there wasn't much else.

I grabbed my underwear and quickly got dressed. "I do my best to give your daughter everything she wants," I said, which was true.

"I'm glad to hear that. Is that true, sweetie?"

"Goshujinsama is nice," she said, reassuring her mother somewhat. "So nice, when he-"

I could tell where she was going, so I cut her off. "Noriko is reading with Cass," I interrupted, groping for some excuse to not continue this conversation. "How about I walk your mother home, it will give us a chance to get acquainted? Mrs. Jacoby, you can come back tomorrow and we can all go out to eat somewhere, so you can properly meet Erza, Noriko, and Cass."

"Oh." She glanced at her daughter. "Well, I think I'd rather Xulia walk me home?" Xulia? It wasn't pronounced that way. That was the Galician version of Julia, but... "If it's alright with all of you. But I'd like to go to eat with you all! I'm just happy my daughter is okay and want to speak with her again, and hear about her new husband."

I grimaced at the mental image of Julia getting the chance to 'talk me up' to her mother. Either she would actively try to get her mother to fuck me, or she would just say the most obscene imaginable things possible. I couldn't really see many other options. "Princess, please be on your best behavior with your mother."

"Okay, goshujinsama. Is that because you want to fuck her?"

Don't get me wrong, Mary was a beautiful woman - but even with heightened stats from my falna, there were only so many hours in a day. She wouldn't even have been in my top five girls from the original work to fuck.

Before I could answer, though, Mary spoke, letting out a soft giggle. "Don't worry, Drake. I'm happily married," she said, displaying her wedding band to me. "Oh! Can my husband come too? I'm sure he'd want to meet you. W-well." By the way she said that, she suspected her husband would be less happy about her husband coming along. "No, he'll want to meet you." To beat me up, probably.

I glanced over at Julia, who just shrugged. She clearly didn't have any better idea why her father was still alive than I did.