Morgana: Everybody Loves Large Chests (Vol.4)

by Iliev, Neven

  “Hmm… sounds rough,” Keira commented.

  “Not as rough as you’ve had it, apparently. You positively reek of sweat.”

  “Ugh… don’t remind me… I’m gonna go wash up.”

  “Okay,” the elf said while stretching her stiff back. “I’ll get dinner ready while you do that.”

  “Steamed salmon, right?!”

  “Yup. I got a good deal for it at the market earlier. It’s super fresh, too.”

  “Alright!”

  The catgirl bounced off towards the rear of the house and went down a narrow staircase into the cellar. She quickly took off her gear, threw it into a pile in the corner and went into the small bathroom. It was literally carved into the magical hylt tree’s bark, much like the rest of the cellar. A small magic lamp dangled from the ceiling to provide ample light while Keira filled the wooden tub with hot water and started washing herself off. Being able to leisurely take a bath in one’s own home, even one as small as this, was a luxury that only those living in the capital could enjoy. The handmade scented soaps and shampoos, on the other hand, were some of the perks of living with an Alchemist.

  Keira emerged from the cellar twenty minutes later wearing a plain tunic and trousers, courtesy of Rowana. She found that, much to her delight, a plate of piping hot, bright-red steamed salmon fillets was waiting for her. The elf set out another serving for herself and the two sat down to eat and chat about their days.

  “-but then he slipped on some bird poop and fell of the branch!”

  Or at least, that’s what the elf intended, but Keira’s way of explaining things turned every meal into a surprisingly boisterous one. The lively gesturing, random arm flailing and excited tail wagging that accompanied her tales were completely devoid of manners or coherence.

  “Oh my. I hope the poor lad didn’t hurt himself.”

  Rowana quite enjoyed that unrestrained side of her, though. The beastkin girl’s hyperactive, overtly-animated explanations were quite endearing, not to mention entertaining.

  “I thought he was gonna get injured too,” continued Keira, “but mister Faehorn managed to save him with an amazing Power Shot! I didn’t even see the arrow in flight!”

  She had the power to make even the dullest, most mundane event seem much more exciting than it actually was.

  “One moment it was on his bow and the next thing I knew it had already pierced Jeremy’s collar and had pinned him to the side of the tree!”

  “Oh, he’s a good guy after all, isn’t he?”

  “I told you he was.”

  The catgirl finished her story and ate the piece of salmon that had been on her fork for the past few minutes. The way she waved it around sent juices flying everywhere. Even if it was messy and noisy, Rowana much preferred this lively atmosphere rather than the lonely, depressing evenings she had gotten used to.

  “Soo gooood!”

  Keira let out a few squeals of delight as she happily chewed on the delicious fish, then swallowed it with an audible gulp. She then put another piece of meat into her mouth and resumed.

  “So anyway, that’s when the instructor decided to call it quits for the day, since everyone was starting to lose focus. He even let me ride the cart on the way back since I did a good job today! And then- Ah…”

  The catgirl suddenly stopped speaking and cast her eyes downward.

  “Keira? What’s wrong?”

  There was a short pause before Keira swallowed her mouthful, then brought up the issue that she had been made aware of earlier that afternoon.

  “I wish you would have told me about the Nyrie thing.”

  “… You found out about that after all,” Rowana said glumly.

  “So it’s true? There are selfish people out there that wouldn’t approve of our relationship?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  The elf cast her eyes downward and took a deep sigh.

  “I’m sorry, I know I should have told you right away, but you’re just so cheerful and easygoing that I… I was afraid I might scare you off so I couldn’t bring myself to tell you…”

  Rowana had wanted to tell her about this the moment they confirmed they had feelings for each other, but the words got stuck in her throat like a lump. She just couldn’t bring herself to bring that heavy topic up.

  “Then the real reason you don’t want to go out on dates or even hold hands in public is because of that?”

  “Y-yes…”

  Of course she understood this was a terrible, selfish decision, but part of her just wanted to pretend her homophobic countrymen didn’t exist. Not to mention she had no idea how that hyperactive girl might react.

  “Oh thank goodness!” exclaimed Keira.

  “… What?”

  Okay, she may have had some ideas about her reaction, but a relieved ‘thank goodness’ was definitely not among them.

  “I thought maybe you were ashamed of being seen with me or something like that, so that’s why you kept making excuses.”

  “Th-that’s definitely not it! I’d love nothing more than to show the world how much you mean to me! It’s just that… that…”

  “-you’re worried about someone tearing us apart by force.”

  “Yeah,” the elf sighed after a short pause.

  Being harassed by strangers was one thing, but Rowana’s parents were a much bigger obstacle. The Slyth household had always been bogged down by tradition, so there was no chance that her mother and father would approve of the relationship. She hadn’t even told them of her orientation, for fear of what they might do. It was also why she insisted she move out and learn to live independently at such a young age, as if distancing herself from the issue would somehow make it go away. Things obviously hadn’t worked out that way.

  “I see, I see,” the catgirl crossed her arms with a serious look on her face. “Then I must take some rather extreme measures.”

  “Extreme measures?” Rowana raised an eyebrow.

  “That’s right. Don’t you worry one bit, for I have come up with a brilliant, foolproof plan to fix this!”

  “Ahah. You did, did you?”

  The catgirl’s relentlessly cheerful attitude was steadily infecting Rowana, drawing out both a smile and a chuckle.

  “I’ll just become the best damned adventurer there ever was!”

  “… And how does that fix anything?”

  “If I become famous and strong enough, then nobody would dare get in our way! Anyone stupid enough to try to ruin our relationship would be sent running for the hills with just a glare from yours truly!”

  It was outlandish, childish and unrealistic reasoning, but the sheer conviction with which she said it almost made Rowana believe. Of course, even if the outrageous ‘best damned adventurer’ title was a thing that existed, she doubted it would be enough to overcome centuries’ worth of culture and tradition. Admittedly, the elves’ homophobia was nowhere near as bad as it used to be during the time of the Elven Dominion, but the Ishigar Republic that rose up to replace it had a ways to go yet.

  “And if anyone even dares to lay a finger on you, then I’ll send them flying with a single hit!”

  “My, my, is that so?”

  However, rather than rain on her parade, Rowana just happily accepted Keira’s feelings.

  “It is. And then we can be lovey-dovey all we want, wherever we want.”

  “Is the current level of lovey-dovey not enough for you?”

  Rowana leaned in closer to Keira as she spoke in a sultry voice. Their faces were so close to each other that their noses almost touched.

  “I mean, w-well,” the suddenly flustered catgirl stammered. She reflexively leaned back a bit as her eyes darted all over the place. “It’s just that I- Mmmmpf?!”

  The elf suddenly threw her arms around Keira’s neck and sealed those thin, chocolatey lips with her own. The beastkin’s eyes widened in surprise for a brief moment before she eagerly returned both the embrace and the kiss. Both of them moaned quietly as their to
ngues entwined around each other. Rowana pulled her face away from her lover’s after about a minute, licking and smacking her lips as she did so.

  “Lovey-dovey enough for you?” she whispered.

  “C-could use a little more…”

  “Mmmhm. Then shall we move onto the main event?”

  The two of them got up from the table and made their way towards the bed while kissing and caressing each other, whereupon Rowana thoroughly worshipped the smaller girl’s body.

  What Lia had said earlier that day regarding her people’s biology was no lie. The knife-eared elves had no trouble conceiving children, it was just that their libido and desire to have offspring were quite subdued. Rowana had been like that as well, regardless of her sexual preference. She of course felt attracted to beautiful women, but never outright lusted after them. She also knew that her people’s naturally weak sex drive was often a strain on cross-species couples. She was worried it would negatively affect her own relationship with the more primal beastkin girl.

  However, such fears were almost immediately shattered, as there was something about Keira that sent Rowana’s passions ablaze like nothing else could. Although the elf didn’t want to openly admit it, the most likely cause for this was her own nose. Her sense of smell had always been strangely acute, which was vital for an Alchemist since the fumes of a potion-in-progress often gave clues as to how well the brewing process was going. The elf’s sharp sense of smell was then further amplified by her Perception (PER) Attribute as she gained Job and Skill Levels, and currently rivaled that of high-Leveled Rangers. It also had the side-effect of making her thoroughly aware of Keira’s scent when they first met.

  And she smelled good.

  It wasn’t as if Rowana had a vulgar habit of sniffing others, though. It was just that the animalistic musk of the young catgirl drifted into her nostrils all on its own. It was completely unlike anyone or anything else she had ever smelled before, and it had the curious effect of waking up the elf’s wild side. Tonight was no different. In fact, the elf had been ‘in the mood’ pretty much ever since her lover came back stinking of sweat, and had planned on ‘devouring’ her girlfriend throughout their entire dinner.

  She wasn’t sure whether this strangely arousing scent was due to some trait of the beastkin species, or whether she might secretly be a pervert, or perhaps even a bit of both, but none of that mattered to her at this point. The only thing that did, was that this phenomenon allowed her and her lover to share their joy in carnal bliss with enviable frequency. Their compatibility was so good that the elf almost felt like they were made for each other. It was as if their meeting a little over a week ago was fate. Although others might call this a naive or childish notion, those people could go suck on a lemon for all she cared.

  While the two lovebirds steadily worked on staining Rowana’s bed sheets for the umpteenth time, another pair of women were also getting busy in their own way. Namely Xera and Kora, who at the time were roughly two hundred meters below the young couple’s love nest. They were still busy searching the old decrepit sewers under Azurvale for a good spot to establish their Master’s lair, and had just made an interesting discovery.

  “Master, we’ve found a group of R.O.U.S. down here,” reported the succubus.

  This section of the underground maze was much more spacious that the rest of it, much to Kora’s relief. It was shaped like an upside-down half-pipe that was nearly as wide as a street. The middle of it had a shallow trench running through and was probably once filled with water. Right now, however, it was bone dry.

  “What’s an Arr Oh You Ess?” her ignorant master replied. “Doesn’t sound very tasty.”

  “Not particularly tasty, no,” the succubus confirmed without skipping a beat. “They’re basically horse-sized rats or mice. I think one of them’s a chipmunk, actually.”

  “So, monsters?”

  “Indeed, Master.”

  “Nice.”

  It was an unwritten law of this world that a high enough concentration of ambient magical energy would, in time, give birth to the aberrant creatures called monsters. The excess mana would either mutate existing, normally harmless animals, draw in magical beings from afar or bring inanimate objects and substances to life. Regardless of the method, the end result was always the appearance of monsters. The large termites that plagued the surrounding hylt trees were perfect examples of this phenomenon.

  In other words, the presence of these Rodents of Unusual Size was a sure sign that the area around this section of the tunnel was likely dense in ambient mana. Just the sort of thing that Xera and Kora were looking for down here, and also the likely reason why these tunnels were shut down in the first place. A monster infestation took decades, maybe even centuries to set in, but was near impossible to completely clear out after that point. The government had likely decided to cut their losses and seal off the vermin while taking the opportunity to renovate the city’s plumbing infrastructure.

  “How’s the mana density?” Boxxy asked.

  “… I can’t sense it.”

  Xera was both a demon and a Pyromancer, which made her naturally sensitive to the intangible and normally invisible substance known as mana. However, she lacked her Master’s perceptiveness in that regard, so she couldn’t pick up on magical signatures that were too faint. Which also meant that the mana around this place was not thick enough to serve as nourishment for the shapeshifter’s dungeon core.

  “I see. Keep searching and find the source,” Boxxy commanded.

  “Understood, Master.”

  “So, we’re going in deeper, right?” Kora asked while scraping rat blood off the soles of her boots.

  The six R.O.U.S. were a total joke in terms of actual strength and would completely splatter with just the lightest kick. It wasn’t enough to sate her thirst for violence, so she was eagerly looking forward to smashing more of the filthy vermin.

  “That’s right,” confirmed Xera. “Let’s check out the direction these things came from.”

  The dynamic, demonic duo kept advancing through the ruined tunnels, and clearing out the odd pack of R.O.U.S. They couldn’t tell if the mana density in the air was getting weaker or stronger, so they mostly just looked for large concentrations of the overgrown rodents. It took them a few hours, but they eventually made another promising discovery. The tunnel they were in was sealed off completely due to a wall of mossy bark.

  “Master,” Xera reached out telepathically, “I think we’ve found the source of the monsters down here. There’s a gigantic tree root poking through the side of the tunnel, and it has a huge hole in the side of it that’s leaking a good amount mana from inside.”

  “Inside?”

  “Yes, Master. It’s hollowed out and there seems to be a tunnel leading up into the tree’s interior.”

  Boxxy quickly thought back to all the things it had learned from the elves during its stay in the city, especially concerning those trees’ unique biology. It was highly likely that this hole and tunnel were made by a termite colony. If a nest was nearby, then this would be a huge chance for it to obtain the lair it wanted. Well, the place still had to be scouted out, as it wasn’t completely sure whether this was actually the case.

  “How wide is the hole?”

  The succubus looked at the narrow opening that was barely a meter in diameter. The circular wooden tunnel inside wasn’t much wider.

  “Big enough for me or you to squeeze through, but the meat-head will probably get stuck.”

  “Go in and investigate it, let me know if you find a termite nest. Arms will stand by outside the entrance in case I need to use Transfamiliar.”

  “Haah. Understood, Master.”

  Xera sighed in dissatisfaction as she climbed into the tight passage, while Kora grumbled at the fact she was being made to stand around doing nothing again. They would follow their orders, but that didn’t mean they had to like them. Neither of the two demons were keen to stick around these tunnels any longer than th
ey had to, and both of them were quite sure that this task would have been completed a lot sooner if their master actually helped.

  However, Boxxy had no intention of personally coming down there unless it was absolutely necessary. This wasn’t because it was being lazy or somehow felt that trudging through ruined sewers was somehow beneath it. It was just busy raising its Doppelganger Job at the moment, and the method it was using didn’t leave it with a lot of opportunities to go skulking about in a sewer. At least, not quite yet.

  The thing about doppelgangers was that they were infiltrators, which was why Boxxy’s actions prior to leaving Bootlick three weeks ago gave it far fewer Levels than expected. Although the monster still thought of itself as a mimic, which was to say a creature that lived to prey on humans and other enlightened beings, this was no longer the case. Even though it still had its old Job and most of its chest-bound instincts remained intact, its species and Main Job had both changed to a doppelganger’s. Once it thought about it more deeply, the monster realized that doing the same things it did prior to its Rank Up and expecting the same outcome was a mistake.

  The truth of the matter was that not all Jobs progressed through combat. An Alchemist raised their Level by brewing potions. A Laborer would do the same through intensive labor, such as hauling cargo, digging ditches, and chopping wood. A Bard would sing songs, play instruments and tell stories. The Doppelganger Job was also among these non-combatants, requiring that the monster live among people as one of their own rather than ambush, kill, and eat them as a mimic would. Hunting alongside other apprentice Rangers, conversing with people at the market or just shaking hands with someone it met for the first time—any and all social interactions with the unsuspecting elves contributed towards the monster’s next Doppelganger Level. It was a steady stream of XP that meant it could get stronger as long as it maintained its cover.