When Cecil woke up the next day, he felt oddly sluggish. The girls however were still sleeping soundly next to him. He brushed Lucia"s hair and turned to look at Serilla. He sighed and in the end he did the same to her as well.
Cecil was just about to get up and go about his normal morning routine, but remembered that he was still in his human form.
"...Ah, I forgot to tell her," He mumbled.
Since he couldn"t go outside, Cecil decided to just go back to bed and wait for Lucia and Serilla to both wake up.
"Eh? Why is..."
The boy turned his attention to his nether regions and frowned.
"...What the heck?"
Cecil felt oddly excited and his member was actually standing up straight.
"Okay...this is a first..." He marveled at the sight, wondering if "it" was always able to do that.
"Hmmm... kinda hurts..."
It was stretching inside his pants and it hurt a little. He felt uncomfortable so he tried to readjust his body, but when he turned his body over, Lucia"s face was suddenly in front of his.
For some reason, that sleeping face was much more attractive than usual and when Cecil"s eyes wandered to her lips...it was oddly enticing.
"?!"
"What the h.e.l.l am I thinking?"
He pushed back those weird thoughts and began meditating, circulating his Mana and Ki inside his body. Gradually, he calmed down and so did "that". He continued meditating for a while until the two girls stirred awake.
"Hmmm... Cel?"
"Darling?"
Cecil stopped his meditation when he heard the two. However, when he opened his eyes, his face darkened when the two were sleepily clinging onto him.
"...Get up already, and Lulu, put our disguises back up."
"No~"
"I want my darling to kiss me first~"
"Yes, kiss first~"
Lucia and Serilla whined which caused Cecil"s face to twitch. He immediately used Nature"s Shift and escaped from their hold.
"Enough! Hurry and put it back up Lucia!"
"O-okay..." Lucia immediately snapped awake and replied in a quivering voice.
Whenever Cecil raised his voice, Lucia became scared of it immediately. She didn"t want him to yell and be mad at her like before.
She immediately did as she was told and transformed everyone into beastmen.
"Jeez, if you don"t want me to get mad then please listen a little more, okay?"
Lucia nodded silently while biting her lip.
"Listen Lulu, it"s not that I"m trying to sound demanding or anything, but please understand our current situation. We"re literally DEEP behind enemy lines. One slip up and they"ll pick up on our trail. Then...you might have to watch as I get taken away by the Empire, do you want that?"
"N-No!" Lucia exclaimed.
"Good, I don"t want that either. So please, be a little more obedient?"
"Mhm..." Lucia nodded before smiling brightly at him again. Cecil patted her head and this only caused her giggle in delight.
Serilla saw the two"s exchange and smiled.
"Alright, enough with that; let"s go grab something to eat!"
"Heh, I thought you guys still wanted a kiss?" Cecil teased, he smiled a little a bared his fangs.
"...We"ll pa.s.s on that... you look really scary smiling like that darling~"
"Yeah, scary~"
"Since you know I"m scary then please stop asking for those again!"
Cecil had Lucia cast Cleanse on everyone before they walked out of the room and they b.u.mped into another party just as they were walking out.
"Crazy night, hey kid?" The leading beastman said with a meaningful smirk.
"Huh?" Cecil only looked back at the beastman in confusion. "What happened? Was the town attacked?"
Behind him, Lucia and Serilla began blushing furiously, but the beastman only laughed in reply to Cecil"s question.
The rest of the beastman"s party walked past Cecil and all gave him knowing smirks and chuckles while some of the female members whispered something to the girls which caused the two to shout, "No! He"s mine!"
Which only earned them a round of giggling and laughter, and Cecil...he was just clueless the entire time.
Even when they were eating breakfast he received weird stares from the other parties and he began feeling uncomfortable.
"What the h.e.l.l?"
"C-Cel... just ignore them, okay?" Lucia said with a stutter.
"...What did you guys do?" Cecil said as she eyed the two blushing girls. "And why are your faces red?"
"It"s hot?"
"..."
"Ehehehe~"
Seeing as the two girls remained mummed, Cecil could only drop it and quickly finish his food. The caravan was going to head out later this morning so Cecil thought he could get some quick morning training in.
He went over to an empty lot close by the inn and spread out his sense to make sure that no one was close by. It was still very early in the morning so there were still not much people roaming about on the streets.
"I should take another look at the Corruption, Providence, and Perseverance...I don"t want a repeat of what happened back then..."
Cecil took out Corruption. The runes on the blade had turned back into their original golden color and the ominous feeling it gave off during that morning, half a month or so ago, was no longer present.
"Hmm..."
He infused his mana into the sword and began concentrating his senses on his mana.
"There"s only one thing that"s flowing in and out of this thing, and that"s my mana. If there"s anything that could affect my mind then it"s probably that..."
Cecil continued infusing his mana into the sword, but nothing changed. The mana array inside the sword activated as per normal and his mana flowed back into his body with no changes to its attributes. It didn"t even affect his mind or anything.
"?"
He tried doing the same thing to the other Thorns, but came up with nothing, just like with the Corruption.
"...that"s weird...If nothing"s changed...then how was my mind affected?"
Cecil wanted to continue experimenting, but suddenly felt a group of people approach the area. He quickly stored the Thorns back into his ring and used Blink to instantly get back into his room at the inn.
When he appeared inside, the girls only looked at him and smiled. They were already pretty used to seeing Cecil blink in and out of their sights like that.
The boy noticed that the girls were packing up their stuff and he took a quick shower before having Lucia once again cast Cleanse on him. He felt a little dissatisfied at the fact that he didn"t bring that Magi-tech shower with him...not like he could.
The thing was a little big, so it was implausible and inconvenient to bring along. Plus, it would take up too much s.p.a.ce inside his spatial ring.
Speaking about spatial rings, the party needed to play the part of an experience adventurer party. So despite having the rings, they kept the minimum amount of baggage inside their travel bags. It was just for appearances" sake since they didn"t want to look like a group of inexperienced brats going out playing "adventurer".
Their party was Platinum-ranked so they had to at least play the part. Also, Cecil wanted to curb anyone"s greedy desire of their belonging, since after all, spatial rings were rare in this world and no measly adventurer would even possess one of their own.
Mostly, n.o.bles and well-off families would possess one or two and besides, Cecil and Lucia were already familiar with traveling this way since during their earliest journeys when they both didn"t have a spatial ring.
Cecil kept his Adamantium Sword on his waist and pulled out his spear from his ring. He wiped the blade and stored the case. He then wrapped a cloth around it and tied the spear to his back.
Lucia and Serilla eyed the boy and thought he was a little cool like that, but they had to retract the thought when they saw the frightening look present on his face.
"...I really can"t get used to his beastman face..."
"Me too..."
"Hurry up, they"re all gathering down there."
"M"kay~"
Cecil went out first and met up with Yuna and Silver. Yuna was wearing mage robes while holding onto a large steel staff and had Silver in her arms. The dragon girl didn"t really need a staff to give her an easier time to use magic, so instead that steel staff was there just in case she found herself in a melee situation and needed something to swing at her foe.
"Morning, Yuna! Morning, Silv!"
"Wafu!"
"You too master!"
"Good Morning, Cecil. Where are Master and Serilla?"
"Still inside preparing, let"s head out. By the way, I didn"t see you guys this morning during breakfast..."
"Ah, I was teaching Silver something. We already caught and ate our breakfast during daybreak."
Cecil nodded in understanding then asked, "What were you teaching him?"
"How to initiate a pact ritual," Yuna replied with a slight smile.
"A pact ritual?"
"Yes, a pact ritual. I think it"s about time the two of you formed a pact."
"Ohhoh! Well, if it"s alright with Silv—"
"Wafu!"
"What"re ya saying, Master?! Of course it"s alright!"
"I"ll take that as a yes~" Cecil chuckled in reply. "We"ll perform the pact ritual after we finish this escort quest...and when we"re far away from the beastman capital."
"Yes, of course. The pact may cause quite a stir in the surrounding mana, so it"ll attract too much attention if we do it in a populated area."
Cecil raised a brow when he heard this. Didn"t Lucia and Yuna perform a pact in a very populated area themselves? So he couldn"t help but ask.
"Really? But I heard that you and Lucia formed a pact right when you first met? And she told me it was in the auction house, right in the middle of the city!"
"Ah that...well...let"s just say that the disturbance caused by the two of you performing the pact ritual will be more prominent than mine and Lucia"s."
"Why"s that?"
"It"s because of how pure you and Silver"s mana are! Not to mention, Silver himself is an ancient beast, so his pact ritual will be much more different from mine!"
"Oh, okay..."
It didn"t take long before Lucia and Serilla came out of the room fully geared from head to toe. Lucia had her usual leather equipment on with her Shirayuki and b.u.t.terfly strapped to her waist. She did a few readjustments yesterday on everybody"s gear since they were now in different body forms.
Serilla had her sword strapped to her waist and she was wearing light scale armor. It looked pretty sophisticated and Cecil thought that whoever created the armor put a lot of thought and dedication in making it.
Seeing Cecil eye her curiously, she looked down at her gear and smiled back at him and said, "My dad made this!"
"R-really? I didn"t think your father was a blacksmith!"
"He isn"t! He"s only a swordsmith, but he did dabble a little in armor-crafting. This was something he created as my graduation gift, but I found out about it and demanded it from him right away!"
"...Your father sure spoils you a lot..."
"Not as much as my other siblings~"
Next to her, Lucia immediately asked while eyeing Serilla up and down, "How"re the adjustments? Is it okay? I didn"t do anything to the scale armor areas since I"m not experienced with any of that. I only did simple adjusts to readjust the size to your current form, but is it okay?"
"Relax Lulu~ I already tried moving around intensely yesterday while sparring with you, my movements weren"t any different than before, right? And it was pretty st.u.r.dy enough to handle me moving around so recklessly!"
"Phew...that"s good. Honestly, I didn"t think our disguises would change our body shape so much that it was hard to put on our equipment..."
"Don"t worry about that. Besides, my current body size isn"t all that different from when I was a beastkin, although I"m a bit taller, and once we find the humans we can just change things back!"
Cecil and the rest quickly made their way out of the inn and regrouped with the other adventurer parties. Together, they made their way over to the town"s northern gate and met up with the Kil"gor Merchant Company"s caravan.
"Alright, since everyone"s here, let"s set off!" Kil"na loudly declared.