The Protagonist System

29 The Morning After

I opened my eyes and groaned at the soreness I felt. It wasn't from eight straight hours of working, either. The reason I was sore was the very happy 38 year old sleeping woman in bed with me. I reached down and rubbed my poor abused hips as I remembered what happened the night before.

Apparently, knowing a magic detection spell was really rare and Tsubaki had encouraged me to spam it every time we passed the distance of my 100 foot range. I didn't tell her that I had been doing that ever since we entered the dungeon, just so I could get a feel for the place. It also warned me of incoming creatures and I passed that info to her.

Tsubaki had an absolute ball. The early warnings of incoming attacks gave her time to prepare and she had an easy time moving around with me not slowing her down like she assumed I would. She also tested out her sword and it performed very well and met her high standards, as did the mythril sword she had loaned me.

When we had reached the fifth floor, black creatures called War Shadows were birthed from the walls and they spawned fairly quickly. That was when I showed her the Light aspect of my magic and the mythril sword lit up like a bright sun and vaporized the War Shadows instantly and their magic crystals dropped to the ground.

When Tsubaki stopped blinking the brightness out of her eyes, she squealed and jumped me right there and had her way with me. She had never seen an attack like it before and it made her very horny that it was her sword that did it. That had been the first time we did it during the expedition. I really shouldn't have told her afterwards that I couldn't get her pregnant unless I invested the magic to do so.

The next time we did it was when my detection spell showed a thin vein of precious metals. Tsubaki made a note of it and promised to come back here with a proper support team to harvest it. I pretty much shocked her by taking out my mining pick and clearing out the entire vein for her and stuffing it into my backpack. She didn't hold back as she ravished me for the second time.

The third time was when we reached the eighth floor and had to stop for the night to go home. We had to test going to each teleportation circle and jumped to each floor and moved around a bit to compare to my sketches and proved it was the right floor. When we reached the first floor and explored a little for more proof, a kind of fiery-looking rooster pretty much hit me in the face.

Before I could complain that it felt like being hit with a baseball bat and my eyes would be bruising immediately, I had to laugh as it impaled itself on my helmet's fire-shaped metal top trying to get away from me and the creature seemed to pop into dust and a bright golden egg dropped into my hand.

Tsubaki could barely sputter out that it was called a rare Jack Bird and the thing I held in my hand was worth just over 1,000,000 valis. When I said that we were on this expedition together and were splitting everything, she tackled me and took me again. Goddamn, the woman was insatiable.

We had walked up the stairs to the exit of the dungeon after that and walked all the way to my home at the old abandoned church. It wasn't ruins anymore and I wasn't sure what to call it now. Just a church? I shrugged the thought away and we entered the building and went downstairs to the apartment to tell Hestia about what we did and what we found. She fainted, of course.

When Hestia woke up, she gave me permission to go with Tsubaki to report to Hephaestus. In fact, she chose to come with us. It was about time for her to apologize, apparently. She followed us up the stairs and watched as I made another teleportation circle and the three of us stepped on. I activated it and a flash of light later, we were in the Hephaestus Familia's compound.

A bunch of people came out of the various buildings, including Hephaestus herself, and she looked both surprised and satisfied. Tsubaki gave her report right away, since Familia business took precedence over any other business. Everyone but Tsubaki stared at me after hearing the ore vein and Jack Bird stories, including the two goddesses.

I had showed the egg as proof and opened my backpack to dump out the ore, then half of the Hephaestus Familia members dropped to their knees and bowed to me. I was pretty much a magical divining rod for ores and they appreciated it.

“Hestia, I think you and I need to have a nice long talk in private.” Hephaestus said, her voice grave.

“Sure! I wanted to apologize and...” Hestia started to say.

“In. Private.” Hephaestus interrupted, took her hand, and led her away as she dismissed everyone.

After that, I had spent the night in Tsubaki's bed. She had her fun, then I had fun with her, and she had more fun as she tried the different things I suggested. Thankfully, she had several healing potions nearby and I had to use a couple of them to keep up with her. I had honestly admitted I had never had a woman break my hip while having sex.

Tsubaki just laughed and then gently jerked me off after that as an apology while kissing me slowly and tenderly. She had licked me clean afterwards, thanked me for showing her the best time on our first date, and fell right to sleep.

The thing was, I had to agree. It was a great first date and had probably set the standard for any future dates she wanted to go on. What surprised me was that she wasn't a cuddler. She didn't mind sharing her bed with me to sleep, as long as I didn't get in her way. I thought that was fair and hadn't tried to crowd her.

I climbed out of bed and thought about my Blessing of Fortune and how it had benefited me, even though it hadn't worked out with the Guild. I didn't question it, because that would be idiotic to look a gift horse in the mouth. You just ride that horse until it died and then thanked it for being so good to you.

It was then that I realized my playing with the guild might have been taken as me manipulating them by letting them manipulate me, which might not count or qualify to activate the Blessing. I barely stopped myself from slapping my forehead for being so stupid and chose to take it as an important lesson.

The little blue box that I knew was Fate's appeared. Now you're getting it.

I chuckled under my breath at her confirming I was stupid. Thanks for giving me the golden egg.

You're welcome. The guild really did screw you out of a lot of money for not giving you a cut of the profits. They already started production on better products that uses the mechanical timer as a base.

I used a cleaning spell on myself and slipped on my bodysuit. I knew it would give them a bunch of ideas. I just wrongly hoped that it would let them see me as a good investment, no matter what I proposed.

You forgot one important factor with the teleportation circles. They will cut down or remove almost the entire need to journey through the above floors.

No, I factored that into my calculations. It should facilitate more travelling and more income if the more experienced adventurers can skip over clearing out the easy floors to get where they want to go sooner.

The box showed the word 'giggle'. You're missing my point. Groups of adventurers will no longer need many of the normal services that the guild provides during long excursions in the dungeon, like arranging for support personnel, spare weapons, armor repairs, food drops, and potions.

I froze as that hit me. It wasn't just that silver was expensive to provide, it would be expensive to the guild if I removed a good portion of their income. Well, fuck me.

Another 'giggle' appeared. I told you before, not yet. You have a ways to go before that happens.

I nodded and started strapping on my armor. I'm looking forward to it.

Has anyone ever told you it's weird that you're looking forward to having fate fuck you over?

Nope, because I've never told anyone. I said and picked up my helmet and put it on, then picked up the mythril sword to strap it to my belt. That's between you and me.

The little box seemed to nod. Leave a note for your new thrill partner and go visit your goddess.

That made me chuckle again and I did so, created a dozen roses for Tsubaki, and left them beside her bed. I left her room and walked through the Hephaestus Familia lodgings and cast the magic detection spell. Quite a lot of things showed up in my perception and it was great practice for me to figure out what the things were. Sword, armor piece, dagger, necklace, earrings, more armor, a room full of weapons, a room full of armor, and all of the lights that lit the place up.

I left that building and entered the main one. I knew Hestia would still be there, because she wanted to make up with her friend after their falling out. It was easy to find her magic in the building, since I had it embedded in my back, and followed it through the building to the right room. I knocked and heard grumbling on the other side, then the door was flung open.

“What the (Greek curse) do you want at the ass crack of dawn?!?” Hephaestus snarled at me.

I couldn't stop my eyes from taking all of her in. I had thought her tight pants had left nothing to the imagination and I had been right. It still didn't compare to seeing her heavenly vagina under a light bush of red hair or seeing her fairly large chest unfettered by a tube top or a shirt.

The only detraction from her beauty was the mangled right eye without the patch covering it. Whatever had happened to it had made it a huge mess and it must cause constant pain, because it looked like it didn't get healed properly, or worse, would never heal.

Before I could stop myself, I stepped forward and carefully raised my hands to lightly caress the sides of her face, then I very carefully leaned in and placed a gentle kiss right on top of the torn up eyelid. I also cast a comprehensive diagnostic spell on her and hid my wince at spending 150 points and taking 99 damage.

Hephaestus looked absolutely shocked when I stepped back.

“I was going to the kitchen to make breakfast.” I said calmly, instead of blurting out that her eye was cursed. “Would you like anything special or should I just make whatever I can?”

Hephaestus didn't react at all to my words and kept staring at me with her good eye.

“I'll figure something out.” I said and glanced over her shoulder to see an equally naked Hestia in her bed. I wasn't commenting on what that meant. “There's no rush to show up. The food will keep, so enjoy your rest.”

Hephaestus watched me walk away and I didn't hear her door shut until I was downstairs and entering the kitchen. This one was more modest than the one Loki had, so I had an easier time finding things. I chose to make French Toast this time and I was sure that with the shape of the large loaves of bread and a pile of eggs and milk available, they would come out tasty and wonderfully filling.

Oho, a temporary stasis charm to keep the food hot and the butter from melting, was only 95 points. That's great! I thought as I put two more perfectly cooked large French Toast on the next plate and cast stasis on it. With no real reason not to, and nothing else to do until Tsubaki woke up to come with me to the guild to cash in our magic crystals and loot drops, I kept cooking and cooking.

*

Tsubaki woke up and stretched her arms and legs like a cat, let out a soft laugh at acting so foolish, and rolled over in bed. When her hand met a bundle of something and not the chest of the man that had done her very well, she almost hopped out of bed to see where he went.

She paused when she saw the large bundle of flowers, red roses if she wasn't mistaken, and a note with her name on it. She picked up the flowers that were impossible to be there, because only the rich people of the High District could ship in such novelty items, and happily smelled them as she read the note.

Tsubaki, I woke up early and didn't want to disturb you, so I went to the main building's kitchen to make breakfast. Please join me there when you wake. Your incredibly sore bed partner, Bell.

Tsubaki laughed at him reminding her about how rough she had been. He hadn't complained, though. That had surprised her, as did the thing he did with his tongue between her legs. She hadn't known a man would ever do something that only women did, since they didn't have a dick to screw with. He was damn good at it, too.

She reluctantly put the flowers down just long enough to throw on her outer clothing and skipped the tight wrapping, since she was skipping blacksmithing today. She would do it after she ate. If whatever he made was half as good as those delicious sandwiches he had shared yesterday, she was going to enjoy smooshing his face into her large breasts as a reward.

Tsubaki left her room and quickly made her way to the main building. She hadn't even entered when the smell hit her. Her mouth started watering and she decided that she didn't want to waste any more time before she could taste it and ran. She wasn't surprised to see a good portion of the Familia was already there in the large eating area and were moaning and extolling the virtues of the food.

“Good morning.” Bell said and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “Here's a double helping because I know you need the energy.”

“Thank you.” Tsubaki whispered and drooled over the four large egg-covered pieces of bread that were cooked to perfection. She sat down at the table and dug in without talking to anyone else.

Hephaestus entered the room and everyone stopped, stood to bow to her, and sat back down. “I keep telling you to stop doing that.” She said and motioned to the head of the table. “I need another chair.”

“You can have mine, Goddess. I've finished.” A man said and brought his chair over to place it next to the head of the table.

“Thank you, Welf.” Hephaestus said and turned to lead Hestia over to the spot and sat her down, then sat herself.

Bell served the both of them food at the same time and avoided insulting either of them.

“She actually knew your name!” A few people at the far end of the large table said excitedly as the man returned there.

“I thought he was lying.” Someone else whispered.

Bell sat next to Tsubaki and started eating his own breakfast.

“I will be doing great work today.” Welf Crozzo said, proudly.

Tsubaki barely held in her snort of contempt, because the fool refused to use his family's blood-born ability to make magic swords. She saw Bell notice the look on her face and gave him a curious look in return. He smiled and nodded to her, clearly in agreement. She grinned back, finished off the last of her food, and pulled his head down to shove his face inside her top.

Bell's blubbering and flailing arms, as if he was drowning, made everyone laugh.