Welldark

Me and Esther were, under applause of the impressed parts of the crowd, guided off the stage. It was kind of hard to appreciate the praise of my peers as the continuously reddening bruise on Esther’s cheek kept reminding me of the fact that I had struck her beautiful face. I was of two minds when it came to differences between genders. Politically, we should just all be treated equally and that was the end of the discussion. Socially, however, I thought it quite healthy that there were some different expectations and treatments.

Most desperate and life-threatening situations aside, there were things one shouldn’t do, not even in combat. I kept my hands from punching women in the face, the womb or cutting their hair off. In return, I expected that my balls were off-limits at basically all times. Such silent agreements on the basis of honour and in respect of physiological differences created some common understandings on the basis of which ordered interactions could be had.

By the same logic, I thought that it was on men to make the first step in starting relationships, even if that was as little as offering a cup of coffee. Granted, I was less strict on that guideline than I was one the ‘do not kick me in the balls’ point. Sadly, I didn’t get an opportunity to make a flirting suggestion to Esther in time. We were separated by Derilea, who delegated the raven-haired beauty to another woman, likely another member of Taurus’ Anomalia. 

Derilea ordered me to follow her. Through a tunnel that went out underneath the watcher’s area, she guided me to a quiet backroom. I just assumed that, whatever explanation she was about to give me, her daughter wouldn’t need it. Once she had closed the door to the small, unremarkable room behind us, she spoke up.

“The introduction ceremony has concluded now, so don’t be surprised when you leave and everyone is gone,” the headmaster’s maid let me know. “They’ll be guided to the dormitories and to get their luggage. Even with your assigned mansion, you will still have to get yours from the same place. Now, to get things started, I require to see your Ashod.”

An odd name for an odd tool. The Astral Communication Device, originally shortened to As-com-de, and eventually further shortened into the much easier pronounceable word Ashod. I had no idea who had started calling it that, it must have been long before I got thrown into this three-dimensional world, but the name stuck so everyone called it that.

As someone who had been to Earth more than a few times, I had gotten used to them fairly quickly. They were basically magical smartphones and much preferable to the paper based communications used in Hell. Even if the quill copied the words across several kilometres, it was annoying to get new parchment in the middle of a conversation.

Everyone in the university was required to have an Ashod, since it operated as a wallet, communication device and identification. Which also meant that losing it would be a massive pain. On the advantageous side of things, each Ashod was tuned to the owner’s Astrality Signature, a sort of supernatural thumbprint. That made any data on there as secure as it possibly could be. Hacking into those devices was a nigh impossible task.

I reached for the small hoister on my belt where my Ashod was secured. Specifically, it rested next to the metal buckle on the front, most students carried them that way. In its dormant state, an Ashod was extremely small and fit with the design. It was nothing more than two thin stones of whatever colour the owner chose, framed by grey metal. Personally, I had gone with a nice baby blue, since that fit with my eyes. Together, the stones formed a tall rectangle. The halves were so tightly joined that the fact that they were two units was hardly visible. I let a little bit of my Astral Capacity flow inside and pulled. They came apart without any issue.

A screen of light appeared between the halves and with it came a lengthening display. Despite the look of it, the screen was actually solid and had simple touch input. It couldn’t stand too much pressure though, and broke quite easily. Not too much of a drawback, as restarting the device repaired the screen completely. No permanent damage on the glass, as there was none, only magic. 

Funny and ingenious little inventions, these things. Very versatile and so common in usage that production was pretty standardized and cheap. They still found ways to make better ones every now and again. I had invested quite a bit of money into the model I was holding and its processing power was pretty impressive for its size. It could still be improved by hooking it onto a physical extension.

“Here you go,” I said, handing Derilea my Ashod. Although I only held one of the two stones, the other was fixed in its relative position. She took it and opened the university network program, AppDark, that every student had to install for numerous things, such as signing up for courses. I had the common decency to look away as she put in a couple of codes to sign in as an administrator. “Sure sucks that they can’t analyse your Astral to immediately give you access, doesn’t it?”

“A system that could immediately realize who was holding any Ashod would necessarily be difficult to build, maintain, and dangerously powerful at surveillance. You can remain logged in under normal circumstances, I just need to manually access your device for verification purposes,” my joke fell on flat ears as Derilea took it completely literally and retorted with her opinion. A few moments and inputs later, she stayed her hand. “Karitas Desia… I have never heard of you before… That a fellow half elf would beat that… Esther.”

Her tone of voice betrayed that there was more to that gorgeous woman I had fought than met the eye. Which was impressive, given how much there was to capture the attention of my gaze. I decided no to try and pry anything out of Derilea though, that felt out of place. “I am not a half elf,” I pointed out instead.

Delirea raised a brow and her eyes from the screen, “I see that you are missing the slightly pointy ears, but those can be round enough to be missing in my kind.” She glanced back down at my Ashod, her brow went up even higher, “Your identification has you as human.”

“Genetically, 100% pure human,” I confirmed with a friendly and slightly joking tone.

“Humans don’t usually acquire pure white hair unless they have aged considerably. I fail to notice other signs of aging on you. Neither does your hair strike me as bleached.”

“While I can only hope that my following words reach you in good humour, my good lady, I have to point out the following” I mused in an overly eloquent manner. “Have you ever heard of the white-haired people called albinos? While uncommon, it is a condition to be found among many creatures, not just those that hail from Earth or spawn there to this day, but among all inhabitants of the endless worlds.”

It was meant to sound like a joke, but she took it in a less than pleased way. Her pink lips became a pale line, as she pressed them together and stared at me. Despite my tone, or maybe because of it, she seemed to think of me as smug or, worse, pretentious. It was an issue I ran into every now and again. An expectable issue, given how I liked to elaborate needlessly sometimes. “Albinos normally have red eyes and lighter skin than you,” she pointed out. “You’re at least lightly tanned, that should be impossible.”

“Albinos normally can’t materialize objects from their mind,” I retorted in a chirping tone. She rolled her eyes and handed me back my Ashod. I made a mental note to dial back this kind of behaviour around her. I had my quirks and I wasn’t afraid to show them, but I was willing to bend a bit to get along with people. The least I could do was not annoy reasonable people around me.

“I have activated all the necessary things. You will find a map to your new mansion in the corresponding AppDark tab,” she then moved on to quickly explain to me how I was to use my Ashod as a key, how I could give people temporary and permanent keycodes to my door and where in the program I was to let the administration know once somebody had permanently taken residence in my new home.

“And I can let whoever I want live with me, right?” I asked, just to be sure. “Girls, dudes, whoever I want?”

“Yes, you can let your old friends live with you,” Derilea immediately caught my drift. Not surprising - If I had been the first person to successfully win a mansion to stay with their buddies, that would have made Welldark a very young institution. “We simply require to know where a student lives in case we need to find them. Outside of that, the institution doesn’t plan to inspect your private life. Do you have any further questions?”

“…You wouldn’t happen to know where Esther was guided off to?” It wasn’t a related question, but one I wanted an answer to anyway. Willt and Arlethia I would be able to find with some shouting and waving around. When it came to the beauty with the hourglass body, I had the feeling that she was the kind that would concentrate exclusively on her university work once things started going. At that point, it would require pure luck to stumble into her. The sooner I got her communication data or knew where she was staying, the quicker I could remove Miss Fortune from the equation and just visit her. I did want to follow that tugging on my heartstrings. Flimsy an infatuation as it currently may have been, it was still genuine.

“Zemerina will have given her the same explanation as I gave you and then sent her to the infirmary,” Derilea answered. In other words, chances that I could still find her were basically null. I couldn’t imagine that Esther was staying there longer than it took to fix that bruise. Noticing my downtrodden look, the maid did give me one reason to be cheerful though. “The luxurious apartments are all located within the general first year area, they are just spaced out more compared to the skyscraper that everyone else will live in. You will be guaranteed to find her if you just ring all the doors in the area.”

“I see,” I nodded. Not quite the answer I was looking for, but I liked my odds of success. For the specific instance of finding her, if nothing else. Since there was nothing else I could do here, I respectfully bowed my head. “Thank you for the help.”

That seemed to somewhat take the edge off her earlier impression of me and she rewarded me with a kind smile. “It is my honour and obligation,” she said and then opened the door for me. “I assume you have some friends to find and a mansion to claim.”

Indeed, I had. With some last words of niceness, I was out the door and went back into the arena hall. The crowd there was already mostly removed, leaving me with the somewhat odd experience of seeing that giant room empty. Then I hastened to follow the other students outside.

As expected, it wasn’t too hard to find my friends. Willt and Arlethia were waiting for me by the main entrance and shouted my name the second they saw me. I parted from the tail-end of the crowd. My steps carried me away from the gated arch that signified the entrance of the gothic building. The many clock towers of the university suddenly started ringing. There was a wonderful unity between them, minimal delays made it sound like all of the bells were one and their full, divine notes echoed over the campus. The hour they declared, nine in the morning, a lot less respectable in my opinion.

While I walked, I looked over to the others, hoping that, by a small chance, I would spy Esther somewhere.

The large body of first year students was organizing itself into many smaller groups. Friends, for the most part, but also a fair few gatherings of strangers that got talking. Mostly over the fact that they would be sharing a room soon. Everyone was now looking at the details of their room numbers and who else would be occupying an apartment with them.

I overheard a couple of happy men pumping their fists and bragging towards their friends at being put in with some particularly hot girls. There were pictures attached to the names, after all. The boring, standardized kinds that were usually found on passports and other kinds of identification, sure, but pictures nonetheless. Even with neutral expressions, they revealed the beauty of the women and, just barely, the visual size of their bust. I only got to know all of that since I checked my own Ashod, out of curiosity.

I was out of that system now, but I had been sent what would have been my room already. The girls attached all looked rather attractive, but none were like Esther. Not just because that raven-haired woman was so fantastically gorgeous, but also because they lacked that special presence. That could have been the photos’ fault, to be fair.

“I cannot believe that you won that,” Arlethia greeted me by shaking her head, her red hair flying around. “Like, I was rooting for her to trash you, but there you are, standing smug like always.”

“I am actually feeling rather downtrodden, but why would I expect proper empathy from a demon that feeds on men?” I sighed dramatically and gestured in a long winded motion, “Ah, what have I done to deserve this fate? To meet this woman of my dreams just to be ripped from her, a moment after I had already laid her down beneath me, by the claws of bureaucracy?”

“That’s an odd way to say ‘We got separated after I toppled her over during a showmatch’,” Willt joked, looking at his own Ashod. “We do owe you though, me and Arlethia would have gotten separated after all.” They both showed their screens to me, revealing two room numbers that were several floors apart.

“It would have been astronomically good luck if you hadn’t,” I pointed out, checking out who else they would have gotten put together with. “And it would have been quite funny if you had been and then I lost that match. I would have offered myself a beer out of pity. You look really angry in your photo by the way, Arlethukinia.”

“Stop using my full name!” the red succubus responded, feisty as always. 

“Why do you mind?” I hummed.

“Because it's creepy and we are… you know, friends…”

“Aww, you make me blush.”

“Shut it!” she yapped at me. “And I am oh-so-sorry if I have a case of resting bitch face! Get used to it!”

“Just keep shouting or smiling and I won’t,” I joked and got my response as an attempt to strike my forehead with a chop. Blocking the strike with my forearm, I smirked at her and did my best Christian preacher impression, “Thou shalt not strike thy friend, young lady, lest Satan finds his way into your mind through your violent tendencies.”

“I am a fucking demon!” Arlethia growled but knew better than to try a second time. If she ever were to get me, it would be by surprise. “Fuck it, let’s just go, you have a map, right?”

“Don’t we all?” I mused pedantically, since that thing was installed on every Ashod.

Willt shook his head but chuckled. “Just lead the way, if you tease my girlfriend more, I think she might explode.”

___________________________________________________________________________

 

Welldark was more than a university. It was an entire island floating in its own pocket world. A mass of land that existed in a space that was originally uninhabitable. Only the headmaster putting in some favours with a few gods had changed that. They had helped him with all those pesky necessities to sustain mortal humanoids: gravity, water, air, a floor to walk on, those things.

From the outside, Welldark looked like a snow globe. A perfect sphere, with water in the bottom half, the two landmasses swimming on top and a bunch of air above. None of it escaped and massive enchantments kept it in a steady, self-sustaining flow. Aside from the university at the centre of the entire construction, there were the living areas designated to the five different ranks (Wood, Bronze, Iron, Silver and Gold, all with their extra flavour word), the first-year housing and, finally, Welldark City.

That list could make it sound larger than it really was. In its entirety, the main island was maybe ten kilometres across, with public transportation one could easily cross from one side to the other in about an hour. If I had to take an educated guess, I would have said that there was a pretty loose concentration of roughly 10’000 people on this island. Every year, about 1’000 people arrived and a normal student graduated after three years. That put the average attendance of students at 3’000. Adding to that the inhabitants of Welldark City, responsible for teaching, running the mechanisms, keeping everything clean, providing study materials and so on, and a fair number of tourists, attached families and so on, that’s how I arrived at that number.

Given that size to people ratio, and the fact that most were bunched in at definitive locations, ‘loose’ was maybe even overstating it. If one took a stroll over the expansive green strips, running into someone else was pretty unlikely. Other Cosmic Universities were more comparable to places like Tokyo on Earth, a whole bunch of people crammed into stacked apartments, having little more than cubicles to themselves. Yet others were basically jungles, with camps serving as classrooms.

I much liked the style of Welldark. It was just the right mix between populated and wild for me. There were forests, beaches, grassy hills and even a large mountain, all left alone but tamed enough by intelligent design and the presence of humanoids that there was no true danger present from any of the creatures that dwelled there. Similarly, there was a functioning network of roads, streets and rails that connected the dormitories with points of interest, gardens, water, electricity, inter(dimensional)net. It had a nice mixture of land and city life. Nature and convenience. It was all just how I liked it.

Just another reason to choose Welldark over places like Balelight, which were basically one giant, streamlined palace where everything was orderly cut and glittered. Great for those aristocratic races that liked their pomp, like pure-blooded vampires, angels (fallen or not) and other higher hybrid races. For me, way too uptight. I would probably have gone into Welldark even without the divination telling me that I would have some interesting happenings here.

On this island floating in the abyss, there was no proper way to say where north was. Strictly speaking ‘north’ didn’t exist. However, taking the university complex at the centre, it seemed the creators of the map had decided the first-year housing complex was the stand-in for the north. East of the university was the Wood Division area, settled right next to the water. Between those two locations was the Bronze Area, a slightly nicer and larger neighbourhood. South, surrounded by lots of green, were the Iron Ranks. Southwest was something called the Asylum, the purpose being likely exactly what it said on the box. West were the Silver Knight’s dormitories. Northwest Welldark City and, separated by a channel from the main island, was the Golden Eagles’ palace.

I strongly doubted that it was anything but a deliberate decision, that the skyscraper that served as housing for the new students overlooked the areas of the two lowest and the single highest class. A constant reminder where they would land if they failed to perform at least averagely while also teasing newcomers with the promise of luxury for those at the very top.

We had been approaching the first-year housing along with other student’s for a while now, simply following the map. Now, a fork in the road led me and the couple with me away from it. I was honestly quite happy to stop looking at the boring skyscraper. It was a large, upright rectangle with dark tinted windows panelling every bit of the outside, making it look like a smooth pillar. The only exceptions were vertical cut-ins at the left and right side, travelling up the centre of each floor. The gaps were filled with balconies. They would be a blessing for everyone who liked to barbecue and everyone who didn’t want smoke in their apartment.

“How tall is that thing?” Arlethia was more impressed than me and it was a good question. Its plain design aside, it was pretty impressive, standing taller even than most spires in Hell. Satan’s own palace, of course, eclipsed it by an enormous margin. That one was infernally out of proportion. That the Lord of Hell was a prideful show-off was basically a given.

“About 50 stories?” Willt guessed. “There seem to be two apartments per floor, judging by the balconies, and each apartment should hold ten people. You would need 100 apartments of ten people to hold all of the first and second semesters.”

“I hope they change mattresses between owners,” I added. Seemingly off-topic, since Willt gave me a confused glance at that comment.

 Arlethia answered her boyfriend’s confoundment quicker than I could. “Just think about it, you have usually one guy live with nine girls, all of us are young, we all know there is going to be harem building going on… there must be so much fucking going around…” she sounded a bit dreamy now, “…so many horny young things that could use a bit of a spanking…”

“Sometimes you and Karitas sound pretty similar,” her boyfriend joked and got himself a small pinch in the sides in return. Then they kissed. With only me and his girlfriend around, Willt was less restrained.

The splitting road led us out of the dense forest and into an open space by the water, filled with only a few mansions. Mansion really was the proper word to describe them. Each of the sizable estates had their own garden and pool, something I only saw when passing by the metal gates that interrupted the walls. The pools weren’t just of the small, ‘let’s have an excuse to make the girls wear bikinis’ variety that barely more than a few people could hang out in. No, they were proper pools long enough to get some exercise in, with a shallow end to stand and a deep end to dive. They were tiled with dark grey, a bit brownish, stones that fit nicely with the houses behind them. The surrounding gardens were, although currently empty, just as expansive. Freshly mowed lawns with bare dirt in the healthy dark brown of fertile ground. Only one of the gardens we passed seemed like it was being used at the moment, decorative flowers covering the raw earth.

Although each mansion was built with its own little quirks and extras, all of them had a similar design. Much like the university building, I would have described it as gothic in theme. In addition to the same dark grey stones that had been used for the pool, much of the mansion was walled with black-purple bricks. The doorways and windows had that particular style of arches, rising fairly straight upwards and then bending inwards sharply, meeting in a fashion that reminded of a triangle with two curved sides.

“Let’s see…” I followed the line drawn on my map. Although I would have preferred to pick the mansion myself, just for the sake of freedom, they all were about the same size and, consequently, each far too large for the three of us anyway. Looking at the map closely, there apparently were a total of six mansions. Between me, Aclysia, Esther and whoever had scored highest last semester, that meant almost all of them were occupied. ‘I wonder what would happen if they ever had more winners than houses?’ I thought. 

The chances of that were basically null, since my situation had already been an exception. Logically speaking, at most there should have been four occupied at most at any given time. The two highest scoring students and the two people that won against them. The fifth was probably as far as a contingency as would ever be needed and the sixth just made extra sure all would be in order.

Pleasantly, the one assigned to me was the one closest to the regular dormitories. Although we had opted to take this first trip on foot, enjoying the new scenery and whatnot, it was nice to live just a little bit closer to the train station that got people back to the university. Also, I was looking forward to interacting with much of the student body, preferably the soft, squishy and feminine parts of it. If there was one drawback, it was that we still had to get back to the regular dormitories to get to the cafeteria there.

The gothic mansion, whose fence I opened by holding my Ashod against the lock, was surrounded by tall walls. With its L-shape, the building half-hugged around the pool, a nice veranda separating water and walls. I spied at least four different doors into the first floor and a winding staircase that led up directly to two stacked balconies on the second and third. In the outwards pointing corner of the mansion’s angle was an octangular tower that reached a bit higher. It was way too small to be a proper living area but probably usable as a lookout.

“Unholy demonic father,” Arlethia mumbled when we walked through the door, “It’s even bigger on the inside!”

That wasn’t factually correct, but it sure felt that way. Wooden floorboards greeted us, past the tiled entryway, with their oaken colour. Out of our shoes, we couldn’t hear a single creak from the expertly crafted floor. The walls were painted with a nice, royal purple. The furniture was equally high-quality and lacked any touch of personality. It just stood around, clean and brand new. Empty picture frames adorned the wall. Whoever had lived here before, their marks had been effectively eliminated.

Exploring the house, we found multiples of everything. Multiple living rooms, two on the base floor, one on every other, one kitchen per floor, a total of seven bathrooms (two large enough to house bathtubs big enough for four people), hobby rooms that were basically empty, and bedrooms. As I wanted and expected it, the bedrooms were all sizable, with two beds that were large on their own and could easily be pushed together. There was even one bedroom on the base floor that was basically just one giant bed. It was large enough for about a dozen people to lay on without touching each other. I claimed that one as mine.

On my lonesome, it would enable me to roll around as much as I would like. Not that it would serve me a lot. I was a largely motionless back-sleeper. However,I did plan to fill that bedroom with other permanent residents over the coming months. Willt and Arlethia picked a different bedroom on the third floor, the one closest to the earlier mentioned balcony. It would put more than enough space between us to circumvent awkward noise complaints. Not that we had to be too afraid, the walls were thick.

 “We better get our luggage soon,” Willt reminded us, when we had finished our look around. It came in the middle of a conversation about what to do with all the empty rooms. Personally, I wanted somewhere to work out and somewhere to put the kinkier and larger toys, if I got any. Willt wanted a communion chamber. Arlethia had no suggestion on that front. “Or did they say they would bring it right here?”

“Nope,” I answered, having completely forgotten about the stuff I brought with me to Welldark. In my defence, basically everything I had taken along was spare uniforms, underwear and some sport’s equipment. There was nothing in my possession that I was so attached to that I had wanted to take it with me here. “Guess we got to go to the actual building, huh?”

“Well, let’s do that then, I want to have Mr. Firefluffles back!” Arlethia complained, blushing just that little bit. Even to good friends, talking about the fact that she was still cuddling with a plushie was a bit embarrassing. Didn’t change the fact that she really wanted it back.

This was too easy a tease, even for me, so we headed back out without further commentary. I noticed that the dormitories of the lower ranks of Welldark weren’t visible from here, the mansions were nowhere near tall enough to look over all the trees and see them. The distant palace of Golden Eagles, however, shimmering in the colour of the rare metal, was still in view. It was pronounced even, framed by the forest and underlined by the sea. ‘You basically made it already, now keep at it,’ this location seemed to tell me.

This whole island was designed with an admirable amount of purpose behind it. Under the light of the artificial sun, my eyes fell back on the mansion. With just the three of us, it would be really empty.

‘I wonder how I can gather some lovely ladies as quickly as possible,’ I thought and subsequently had a brilliant idea.

_______________________________________________________________________

 

The crowd of people around the luggage distribution was as dense as could be expected. People stood shoulder to shoulder in an effort to get towards the large trucks that were loaded with their stuff. As much as I felt like a sardine in a tin can, it had to be said that things were moving rather quickly. After only about ten minutes of waiting, me, Willt and Arlethia had made it to the front. Showing our identification to one of the two dozen workers had him quickly vanish inside the storage of one of the trucks and, one by one, hand us what we had left with them earlier in the day.

In my case, I was given a light backpack that wasn’t even completely filled up. Willt and Arlethia, however, had not only backpacks that looked like they were about to burst but also a trolley and a shoulder bag - each. Them being so loaded increased the time it took us to fight our way back out of the crowd and to a less cramped spot on the plaza considerably.

“Don’t you want to be a good guy and offer to take my stuff?” Arlethia tried to persuade me once we had left the crowd. Already, the seductive smile she threw on with those words came along with signs of minor exhaustion. Whatever was inside those bags must have been quite heavy to strain even that athletic and stacked redhead.

“Playing to my gentlemanly attributes, are you?” I asked in a teasing tone, stroking my chin like the bearded sages of days long past. Also of days happening somewhere else at that very moment. When dealing with dimensional travels, setting things as a current, past or future phenomenon was difficult. They also may have had tentacles or steady waterfalls instead of ‘regular’ beards.

Arlethia audibly blew air out of her nose, dropping any cute facade she had put on. “Sure, whatever you want to call it, are you doing it or not?” She held one bag out towards me as if she already knew the answer. Normally, I would have obliged her demand with some more teasing. I didn’t mind the extra bit of weight and serving the ladies, even the taken ones, was just good manners. Not that I wouldn’t have helped Willt, but I would have made more fun of him in the process. Dynamics were just different that way.

Sad as it was, there was an issue with me helping in this particular instance. My willingness to help hinged on me heading to the same location, or at least the same general direction. This was not, currently, the case. “I’ll have to decline,” I informed her and one of her eyebrows, a darker colour than her main hair, darted upwards.

Her suspicion reflected in her question, “What’re you up to?”

“Can we discuss that later?” Willt wheezed. Physically inferior to both of us and equally as loaded as his girlfriend, the young warlock was buckling at the knees. “Or can we discuss it long enough that I can put this stuff down?”

“If you want to stay and watch me recruit new… I want to say roommates, but that isn’t correct… roomsluts sounds a bit degrading… not that I would mind if they let me degrade them a little bit… or a little much...” I was trailing off, as I was prone to do. “Can you imagine, my dear friends, the beauty that is the female form, obscured by naught but an apron? What greater way to see the life-giving first meal of the day prepared could there be?”

“Stop!” Arlethia dropped the bag and it hit the floor with a loud ‘thud’, accompanied by a cloud of sulfuric yellow spreading out like a layer of thick dust disturbed by a stomping boot. It dissipated within moments. “So you want to recruit some room…” she also struggled to feminize the term, “…ladies. How are you going to do that, exactly?”

“Watch and learn, my dearest frenemy!” I announced and closed my eyes. I concentrated, imagined shapes, textures and directed my Astral Capacity to flow into the mental mould I had prepared. What I attempted to create wasn’t among the usual list of items. Thus, it required greater concentration and time. 

Shaping raw Astral Capacity wasn’t easy. I was taking a magical force and using it to create physical shapes without converting it into an actual physical thing. In theory, it would have been easier to make the things I wanted by making them out of ice. I had neither experience in nor talent for ice magic, however, and was quite content with the gift I had towards gravity.

That aside, it wouldn’t have been pleasant for the people if the items were made from something that cold and slippery. Ice could have been quicker, but my Artefact had its advantages in just about all other aspects. 

‘It would all be much easier if I had references for what I am creating here,’ I thought. My Artefact’s power, for all its perks, was limited in many ways. One of them was that making things on the basis of imagination alone was much harder than copying present items. Copying was accurate, relatively quick and overall painless. Even if I had never held Esther’s weapon, I was able to make a copy of it that was largely accurate. Now that it was no longer in sight, I couldn’t repeat that little trick. If I tried to, the shape would be mildly off and things like weight and texture completely subject to my memory. There were some things, like my gauntlets, that I had created so often that I no longer had to rely on that crutch.

A table with two stools was not something I had to create regularly, so it took me about a minute. Despite how simple they were at the face of it, making sure that all of the legs were of equal length did take quite the mental effort. 

When they finally popped into existence, they had the usual look of things my Artefact created. Silver-white, half-translucent and with dots shining within, some interconnected like drawings of constellations. I could modify that look, but only to certain degrees and I usually didn’t bother. In this particular case, the shiny appearance of the magical furniture could only help me with what I wanted.

Although the crowd had been steadily shrinking (most people left to deposit their luggage as soon as they got it) there was still a large student body whose attention I could grab. Several dozen out of the hundred or so people around turned their heads in my direction. Either they noticed the tables or they noticed people noticing the tables, as herd behaviour went. Willt and Arlethia immediately stepped away from me. The former, because he didn’t want to deal with a lot of strangers, the latter because she wanted to get a really good view of the situation if I got humiliated. They were cute like that, with their individual quirks.

I jumped on the table to make myself stand out even more. Raising my voice, I addressed the crowd. All they had to do otherwise was chat, look at their screens and wait in line, so their interest was easily piqued. Everyone would have jumped on a distraction in their current situation.

“Hello all my lovely ladies… and to the guys as well, I suppose,” I jokingly added that last part. “This message doesn’t go out to you, so feel free to just carry along.” The men didn’t, I was just the best entertainment around right now. This could have been because of my dashingly good looks, intense charisma or because I was currently making a fool out of myself. I was very aware that I looked stupid, but that was a sacrifice that needed to be made sometimes.. “I am sure you recognize me from that fight earlier and I, Karitas, want to extend an offer to the ladies out there!”

I pulled some fresh air into my lungs, before continuing, “As you may be aware, I was given better housing than the rest of you. A wonderful mansion…” I let that word sink in. “… just across the forest, to be exact!” At this point, I could see the annoyed eye rolling of some of my jealous peers, who were realizing what I was doing here.

Nature was an unequal thing. Although they may have been better people than me, the fact that I was the highest status male of the first year hierarchy meant that I had a headstart when it came to flirting. Which was, in its own way, just. I had taken the risk and put in the work, now I got to make a potential profit from it. Finding lovers was strangely connected to success in other walks of life.

“It has a garden. It has a pool, and it has a lot of rooms. A lot of very empty rooms. So, if you want to come live in luxury with me and my friends,” I gestured at them and Willt made himself as small as a lanky man could be. “Now is your opportunity! Just form a line if you are interested.”

With that, I jumped down and took my seat on the stool, behind the narrow table, looking at the crowd and the large luggage trucks. It didn’t take long for a small line of interested girls to appear in front of me. I mustered all of them closely.

Although I did act the part of the fool sometimes, and there were times I was actually an idiot, I was not naive. I knew perfectly well what kind of woman would be first and foremost be attracted to an announcement like this. Those that were attracted by a man because he flaunted his wealth, in whatever shape it may come.

Golddiggers.

There were those women that would never be interested in me, but only in my success. Thing was, not every golddigger was a cold-hearted and calculating bitch. Having an attraction towards the successful was only normal and a perfectly acceptable reason to get to know someone. If it was the sole reason someone stayed, that would be an issue. I was aiming to get to know some attractive and at least mildly perverted ladies that could love me just as much as I could love them. There was no other way to do that then to just talk to a whole lot of them. I just had to separate the genuine ones from those that were rotten under the surface.

Problem was that a lot of women (well, people in general) were pretty good at hiding their true selves. Plan was to just entangle all of the women in small talk and maybe, kinda, sorta, hopefully find it out on the way. If they were any good at it, they wouldn’t let the mask slip in the first conversation, but that was a risk I had to take. At least testing for the desired level of perversion was, relatively, easy and straightforward.

First in line was an elf. Given the many sub-species of elf that existed, that deserved further clarification. She had brown skin of a milk chocolate shade. That, combined with the shape of her body, identified her as a wood elf. She was tall and athletic, with a body so clearly weighted towards the bottom it almost made me drool imagining her bend over the table between us. She had the kind of thighs that men would ask to die between, thick, toned and smooth. Having them around my head, my hands on her chocolate bubble butt, that was a dream in which I knew exactly what I would be doing.

With all of the wonderful things that could be said about her bottom half, her chest was rather mediocre. I was a connoisseur of all sizes, the important thing about breasts was mostly whether or not I got to touch them, but I had a preference for things in the upper C to lower E range. I liked having squish to work with and sizes to cup. Hers were, and this was my opinion as a layman who thought of bra sizes mostly as clear-cut categories, somewhere between B and C. Noticeable, certainly, but nothing outstanding to look at.

She sat down without asking or being offered the seat, employing a certainty in her movements that spoke of a certain kind of upbringing. Her long black hair swayed during the motions. It was equally wild and in good condition, with small tendrils of ivy braided into it. A single strand was decorated with black leaves instead of the fresh green that was normally expected of healthy plants.

My attention quickly shifted to her brown eyes. They were as dark as the soil of an old forest and filled with determination. Not to impress me, I got the feeling, just general determination for some goals in life that I did not know about. There was a great deal of drive inside her and it elevated her stunning looks. Elves all had noble features but wood elves mixed theirs with an exotic wildness. They had generally rounder faces, sharper teeth and more athletic figures. This one was a prime speciwoman of those traits.

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she gave me a quick up and down. “Let’s make this quick. I am Inistra.”

I waited for a second longer than necessary, expecting her to give her last name as well. Just because she seemed like the type that would. She didn’t and so I responded quickly, not wanting to leave a bad impression with someone of such a hurried character, “Well then, nice to meet you. As you wish, I’ll cut straight to the chase.” I looked her straight in the eyes, sitting upright, my chest pushed out, my voice confident, “I would like to touch your breasts.”

Her eyes widened, showing that she was taken aback.

“And I don’t mean just some sort of poke,” I elaborated, to prevent any follow-up questions. “I mean proper fondling. I won’t be rough or do anything you would find painful, I guarantee you.” I raised my hands and made some humoristic groping gestures with a straight face. “I have a lot of experience in this field. Maybe some face-to-chest contact as well, if you’d enjoy that.”

“What? No!” Inistra finally reacted, a bit of red mixing into her chocolate tone.

“I would be satisfied with fondling your butt as well,” I offered an alternative. I already saw where this was going, but I was still being honest. “The table is narrow so you can lean over, but I suppose if you sit on it that works as well…”

“Ridiculous!” Inistra jumped to her feet and stomped away all of a sudden. “Perverted dumbass, who does he think he is…” she mumbled, her trolley clacking over the pavement behind her. I looked after her, totally staring at the twin globes that managed to turn even the frilly skirt into a clear outline. Her ass was guaranteed every bit as luscious as I imagined it to be.

By the time my eyes returned to the line, I was met with the sight of all of the women stepping away. I was maximally disappointed. What were they expecting? That they could live together with a guy (or in the mansion of that guy, in my case here) and not have any sort of action going on? I wasn’t about to just give them a nicer roof to be a nice person. None of them needed my charity, so it should have been clear from the start that I made this offer with certain expectations.

“You suck at understanding normal people,” Arlethia mocked me when the entire line had been re-absorbed by the crowd. Worse, I could see the rumour of my demand spreading. I sighed. Even if some of them didn’t mind this particular test, peer pressure would now make it impossible to approach me.

I let my head hang. “Evidently yes, guess you get to mock me on this one,” I sighed, having no idea why everyone was so stuck up about their sex life. Wasn’t the entire point of living to have sex? Like, sure, that was for the procreation sense and I was, currently, only looking for fun but in that fun was the promise to one day find sexy ladies to raise something with, right? “I keep forgetting you boring folk think that getting your sex pleasantly caressed in public is embarrassing.”

“What, you would let people give you a handjob in public?” Arlethia giggled and then suddenly stopped when I looked her way, my expression making it very clear that I was absolutely fine with that. What did I care? When it came to sex I had only three limitations. No cheating, no forcing and not in front of minors.

‘I mean really, what are the women here thinking? They’re essentially here to see if they can become part of a harem and I’m the bad guy for just being honest about what I want? There is a one to ten ratio here, wouldn’t it be normal to act more slutty than normal in order to outdo the competition?’ I exhaled slowly. ‘Seriously, ladies of Welldark, do you expect every man here to flirt ten times as much as normal? You will be single for an eternity in that case.’

At the end of my mental rant I did realize that it was not my serious staring that had made Arlethia stop talking. Instead, she was looking towards the sole figure that now approached the table. Her voice beckoned me sweetly, like a fairies song that drifted down with a mountain wind to the fields of grass in the valley, a bit cold in their discipline, but also soft and a welcoming cool on a hot day. “Are you still committed to this casting effort?” asked Esther, adjusting her tricorne.

It protected her beautiful eyes from the sun rays that mercilessly surrounded her angelic beauty. The blemish I had accidentally inflicted on her had been healed away, easing my bad conscience. Like me, she only carried one bag that seemed rather light. Her curvaceous body had me momentarily distracted, clad in a fresh uniform. I was only brought back when she shifted her weight and reminded me that time was still flowing.

“Uhm, Y-yes,” I stuttered, quickly clearing my throat to recollect myself. Her appearance was too pleasant a surprise to not get a little bit flustered. ‘Thank you, almighty Father,’ I thought earnestly, wondering if the old man even had anything to do with this. Given the scope of things, it was rather unlikely. “By all means, please, take a seat.”

“Rumour has it you begin this by lecherously preying upon a woman’s form,” Esther pointed out as she planted her bubble butt on the stool. It wasn’t quite as fat as the elf’s bottom had been, but between the two of them, I preferred Esther’s. She had a nicer overall balance, which elevated her smaller rump in a more enticing way.

She crossed her long legs and brushed a strand of her wavy hair behind her ear. It must have been absolutely inconvenient for her that it kept escaping from her ponytail in these small ways. Personally, I loved it. The gesture was adorable on its own and the way her large breasts shifted along with it added a sexy note to it.

“It’s been like two minutes and the rumour already bloated to such stupid proprotions,” I mumbled and continued to gaze at her. Eventually, my travels went from the beauty of her body to the beauty of her soul, locking eyes with her intrigued and disciplined stare. I found it quite interesting that Esther had decided to come along despite hearing what she had. Peer pressure apparently didn’t impact her decision making too much. 

The raven-haired woman just sat there, with absolute dignity, waiting for me to continue. No matter how long I stared, her amber eyes didn’t give away what she truly thought of this situation. Mystery veiled her actions, hid what she expected me to say. I shifted on my stool to get my dick a bit more comfortably situated in my pants. Everything about her body and behaviour were things I wanted. My infatuation grew with each second I was exposed to her.

The safe maneuver would have been to deny the rumour outright and tell her it was all a misunderstanding. I had just learned that the average woman around here had not yet wisened up to how things should go in these formative university years. Telling the truth may have turned her away. However, I would not make myself a hypocrite and she was clearly not the average woman. Esther had come despite hearing the worst so now she deserved the plain truth. 

“What happened,” I began to explain, “is that I straightforwardly asked the first girl that came here whether or not I could fondle her breasts. She and everyone else decided that was offensive. The way I see it, I was just being honest about what living with a guy like me would be like.”

“Does ‘a guy like me’ translate to ‘a pervert?” she asked, one of her eyebrows moving up in a fashion that could have indicated mockery, amusement or both.

“I prefer ‘connoisseur of the female form’,” I returned, having successfully gathered myself. “But I’m not offended by pervert. Calling a spade a spade is appropriate as far as I’m concerned.”

“An interesting policy, Karitas.” Putting one hand on the table, she pushed herself up. She rose and so did my lower half. It was the way in which she spoke my name. That naturally velvety voice of hers was formed by those soft, red lips into a series of syllables that was more erotic than the majority of porn I had ever watched. The fact that I was struck by her definitely skewed my perception, but realizing that didn’t change reality as I perceived it. Neither would I have wanted it to. I hadn’t felt shivers like this in my heart and in my spine since first becoming interested in women.

Esther leaned over the table. Her shirt stretched downwards as her large breasts had their firmness contested by gravity. They slimmed slightly from the fall but their sagging was limited to a healthy degree. They slumped only so far that I could be sure they had to be real, while also proving that they were as firm as they logically could be. If there was anything about that sight I could complain about, it was that I didn’t get to see more than a rough outline. Even now, she kept all buttons closed, showing not a centimetre of skin below the neckline.

“To repay truth with truth, I am interested in you,” she continued and I felt my excited heartbeat in my throat. “As I have been informed, we will be neighbours soon, Karitas. Which mansion was assigned to you?”

“Number five,” I responded firmly, looking back at her face. My visual appetite was far from sated, that was a hunger I carried with me eternally, but her face served as much to fill me as her breasts did. Different parts of her just satisfied different appetites. “You?”

“One,” her answer was as direct as it was informative. “The mansion that is placed furthest away.” While the area in which the mansions stood was relatively compact, this still put more space between us than I wanted. Chances that we stumbled into each other on a daily basis were extremely low. “I am dissatisfied with that arrangement,” Esther let me know.

“That makes two of us,” I agreed. The rest of the world seemed distant, all colours dull, next to the amber of her eyes. The slit pupils narrowed a little bit, focusing on me. At that moment, it was easy to read that her interest in me was genuine. I had the chance to deepen our relationship bit by bit and see if this fledgeling emotion I felt for her could manifest into genuine adoration. “You’re more than welcome to join me in my mansion, there is more than enough room,” I said and she straightened up with a small smile. Then, staying true to myself where I perhaps shouldn’t, added, “but the conditions for you are the same as everyone else.”

Esther’s body tensed and she remained still for several seconds, frozen in a position half standing and half bent forwards. Staring at me, only two blinks indicated that she was more than a gorgeous statue. I felt that I might have overplayed my hand. Nevertheless, I wore a confident smile and remained calm. My suggestion was made in earnest and the same logic by which I wanted to test everyone else applied to her. Seeing whether or not she shared more with me than a level of mutual interest and talent was tantamount. I wanted to be myself around her.

In two ways, her frozen state was dissolved. First were her eyes, darting from my face to my pants. I couldn’t have hidden the pronounced, large tent if I had tried and I didn’t have any intention to even attempt it. Faintly, I heard a slow inhale and an equally slow exhale. Then she moved her entire body back down. Leaning forwards, she purposefully pronounced her chest as she stretched it towards me. Her breasts were squished together between her arms, making them seem even larger than before.

At the side, I could hear Arlethia whisper, “No f-ing way.” I ignored it. At that moment, I had much better things to do than engage in another word fight with the succubus.

I didn’t rush things. Moving my fingers and making a relaxed fist two times, I made sure that my hands were neither sweaty nor cold. This was not the time to leave any bad first impressions. I also lightly bit the inside of my cheek. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Some things were almost too good to be true.

More than the situation at large, her breasts definitely fell into that category. Carefully, I reached out to what I wanted to be mine. Through her shirt and bra, I felt their goodness. They were definitely not fake. They were too soft for that. Soft, squishy and almost begging to be fondled by their size alone. 

Barely, I managed to restrain myself from going all out from the start. I had learned long ago that just groping away wasn’t particularly pleasant for my partner, so I started gently and gradually increased the pace and roughness of my actions. From simply pressing my palms against her for a few seconds, I transitioned to pressing my fingers into the soft meat. I moved slowly, methodically, looking for any imperfections and found only glorious fulfilment. All my hands experienced was warmth and softness. I didn’t touch a single rib, leaving her bra to be the hardest thing I felt. Under her clothes, her breasts must have been even larger than my eyes told me. Certainly, they were big enough to wrap around my cock or bury my head between them.

My exploration of her delicious funbags entered the next phase. From simply feeling her shape and firmness, I went to play with her chest. I raised the sizable globes with my hands, fondled them with circular motions and carefully listened for her breathing. I wanted to see just exactly how jiggly they were and how sensitive she was, both tasks made difficult thanks to the bra. Every drop of blood that had been taxed off my brain informed me that I should have torn open her clothes. That went far beyond the permission I had received, however. To get at least an idea, I raised both of her breasts and then suddenly let go. Bra or not, her breasts fell and bounced for a little bit until they assumed the natural resting state. The entire time, I was entranced.

These breasts were firm enough to give a nice resistance against my fingers, big enough to wrap around them with their superfluous flesh and jiggly enough to bounce around even in confinement. There was only one more piece of information I could coerce with my fingers. One more thing that would prove whether these were as absolutely perfect as my impression of them was so far.

Esther must have thought that I was done but, before she could ask or move, my hands were back on her. Cupping the size of both breasts, I concentrated on the tactile sensations under my thumbs. Although her clothes may have succeeded in hiding them from my eyes, my hands and instincts were honed to feel the small bump of her nipples. It only took me a few moments to localize the hardened crowns and circle around the protrusions at the centre. I could estimate their size that way. That wasn’t, however, what I truly wanted to discover by doing this.

I looked up from my work to find Esther breathing heavily. Her eyes were almost completely closed, only a sliver showing that her gaze was downcast and focused on my hands. Her mouth was open just a bit and gave way to sweet sounds. Every single one of her audible breaths sent shivers down my spine and pulsations through my cock. She was just as entranced as I was. Her breasts were every bit as sensitive as I could hope. A whispered moan passed between her lips, somehow reverberating with her sexy accent despite being completely wordless. 

Lips, now glistening even more seductively than before. They came close. No, I came closer to them. I couldn’t control myself, her ephemeral beauty had me sucked in and each tiny moan made it worse. Tiny shivers on her part freed more and more strands of her hair from their confinement. She didn’t seem to notice, her hands stayed firmly on the table.

I had risen to an angle where I could no longer touch her breasts properly. Without thinking, I let go, my instincts telling me that this would lead to greater places. When I did, her eyes slowly opened again. She saw me leaning towards her, my intention to kiss her crystal clear. Her bright red flushed face was so close to mine, I couldn’t even see her lips anymore, only her amber eyes, one black strand running between them. Finding her luscious mouth would have been easy even without seeing it, given that it was the source of the silent panting. Just a finger-wide gap was between us now.

Then one of her hands caught me on the chest and she pushed me back with firm intent. Reason returned to me the moment I saw all of her face again and the pleasantness of what I had just done was suddenly overshadowed by a twinge of fear. I may have won the gamble but by pushing my advantage this far, I may have lost the battle. 

“This is enough,” Esther stated, deciding for both of us. Jaw bones clenching and relaxing in an irritated fashion, she circled the table. I looked after her movements quietly, not wanting to set her off or interrupt her thoughts. I had probably tried to take it further than she was comfortable with. “You got what you desired.”

“I would certainly say so,” I agreed with a firm nod. I remained quiet and careful, waiting for any signs that clarified if she was offended or not. What she had accepted at the start could swing into disgust by taking things just one action too far. I had experienced such behaviour in the past and it was always difficult to predict or read.

“Then let us move to your mansion,” she said and looked over her shoulder towards some murmured noises. Only now did both of us realize that we had been watched by the students. I couldn’t blame them, from their perspective they must have gotten a magnificent look at Esther’s ass. As a matter of fact, I would have absolutely stared in their position.

‘If only I could be at two places at the same time…’ I thought and looked over to the raven-haired beauty. She had the same lack of embarrassment as I did. A positive sign towards our compatibility, at least as far as I saw it, but I had a more important question on my mind right then. “‘Us? You’re coming back to my mansion?”

“It is the bargain we struck and I intend to see it through,” Esther sounded almost scolding when she said that. “As I declared before, greedy Karitas,” she took a small pause to readjust her backpack and fix her hair, “I am interested in you. The kind of interest you return…,” she looked at my boner, then back up to my fixated eyes. They told very similar but also different stories. “…is obvious and appreciated. As you say, the events that will occur during our stay will not fit in the ‘prude’ category. I do expect you to be wise enough to not push or prod where you shouldn’t..”

I swallowed my immediate proposal for her to join my Anomalia. It hadn’t even been a day yet and as much as I felt fate, lust and adoration intermingle for something that seemed meant to be, it wasn’t wise to rush things to this degree. “We’re of the same mind again, Esther,” I kept things flirtatious but fairly safe this time, letting my smile say the rest.

Answering with a smile on her own, small as it may have been, she seemed to note my approach approvingly. “I would have thought you would be more demanding, given what you just tried,” she confessed.

 “I’m sorry if that was too far,” I shook my head and apologized. “If you have the patience for my mistakes, I will gladly try and wait until you’re comfortable for all the things you’re willing to give to me.”

“...We will see if I possess such patience, good Karitas,” Esther responded and straightened up completely, pulling her shoulders back. “Let us waste no more time here. I have a room to pick and there are schedules to be planned.”

I nodded and only stopped to offer Arlethia a helping hand with her stuff. Now that we were all heading back at the same time, helping her was a courtesy I could afford again. ‘Helping hand’ was a bit misleading though, as I used my Artefact to manifest a trolley. That made the entire luggage situation a lot easier.

That little talk aside, I spent the majority of the way back trying to entangle Esther in a lasting conversation. I really tried, with all my charm and all my wit. The success was rather limited.

For all my attempts, I didn’t know enough about her to properly engage her. I didn’t know any topics she was passionate about. All I knew for sure we could talk about was our common history up to that point. That was a list quickly exhausted. Her tendency to keep conversations short and to the point did not help. 

I assured her how sorry I was for striking her face, she stated it was fine. I assured her that I was impressed by her swordplay, she stated that she liked my fighting style herself. I assured her that I found her confidence sexy, she stated she felt similarly. I assured this or that and the pattern repeated itself. 

I got one or two chuckles out of her, for sure, but no single topic held for longer than a few sentences, most of which came from me. Not wanting to seem pushy or, worse, annoy her with constant chatter, I eventually dropped my attempts and we just walked side by side. Silence was better than a forced conversation, especially if it was this neutral kind of silence.

“Can you slow down?!” I heard Arlethia complain. Despite me pulling along most of her stuff, she and her boyfriend had continuously been falling back and now the gap was large enough for her to justify shouting. I did stay in place, but Esther kept walking at the previous pace

She must have heard but, for whatever reason, decided not to oblige. Not a nice gesture, but given her military character, I just guessed that she saw no reason to wait. Torn between wanting to stay next to her and helping the stragglers, I took the spur of the moment decision to do the latter. Again, I didn’t want to seem pushy and even if I was extremely interested in her, Arlethia and Willt were still my friends. 

“Fucking Anti-Christ, can you cut half your legs off and give them to me?” the red-skinned succubus groaned when she reached me.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” her boyfriend immediately chimed in and gave me a thankful glance when I took one of his bags as well. I was now carrying more than five times my own luggage, but I could do with it. “You being short has its perks for me.”

“I was about to say,” I added in a gleeful tone. “Smaller women have so many advantages. Turning you over and smashing you into the cushions must be incredibly satisfying!” I could see it before me already. “Yes, a short and stacked woman, turned on her stomach. A unification by night. Breasts spilling under the small frame of her torso, the ass raised and the light of the stars playing on her exposed back before…”

I stopped dead in my monologue, when I realized that Esther had stopped for us after all and was now giving me a persistent glare. One whose emotional content or target I couldn’t decipher, but knew was on the negative side of things. This gorgeous, at least somewhat perverted, woman had shown in some capacity when she was happy with me before. Now she turned away with a blank face and continued leading the way.

“Very smooth,” Arlethia whispered towards me while I looked after the raven-haired beauty, too distracted by what I could have done wrong to even admire her ass. “Talk about how much you like small girls while trying to woo a girl with legs for days.”

“I… you…” I sighed deeply. “I got nothing…”

“Yes, victory for Arlethia!”

“Congratulations honey, you came out on top this round,” Willt’s amused comment was cut short by him groaning under the weight of his remaining stuff. He buckled far enough that his girlfriend could kiss him on the cheek.

“Not the only thing I’ll be on top of today,” she unashamedly sighed into her boyfriend’s ear. Pretty sure they were both blushing but the young warlock looked way more uncomfortable with me having heard that.

“Get your act together man,” I laughed. I would have slapped him on the back in a brotherly gesture, but I was afraid he would fall over if I touched him in any way. Instead, I just made a gesture with my head for us to keep moving. It wasn’t much further. “It’s just me. You think I’ll care knowing about your sex life?”

“He currently has more of it than you,” Arlethia kept coming at me before Willt could answer.

“Give it a few weeks,” I retorted, quietly this time, careful that Esther didn’t hear me.

“You think she is that easy?” Willt had an eyebrow doubtfully raised far past the frame of his red tinged glasses.

I didn’t agree that women that took a couple of weeks to be courted into the bedroom could be described as easy. Especially not with how much effort I would be putting in whenever I got the chance. Then again, I was talking to the guy who had needed twenty years to get together with a succubus who had liked him from their baby days. His perception was obviously rather skewed. Lecturing him on that would have been a bit of a waste of time.

“No, but there is just something that fits between the two of us. The kind of chemistry where you just feel it is right, you know?” I tried that angle instead, while we walked up to the mansion we were going to live in.

“That’s just your stupid brain telling you hopeful bullshit,” Arlethia mocked me. “You got struck by the ‘this girl is super hot’ effect and now you’re instinctively exaggerating every positive signal you receive. If you stop pestering her every ten seconds, she’ll show no interest in you.”

Before I could return to any of that mean-worded but well-meaning berating, I heard the sensual voice of Esther call out to me. “Karitas,” I looked over to see her standing before the front gate of the mansion, “would you accompany me inside? I would appreciate a tour, rather than having to explore everything on my lonesome.”

“Of course!” I shouted back and gave Arlethia a triumphant glare.

“That doesn’t prove anything, she just doesn’t have the key function yet,” the succubus stated, only to witness Esther using her Ashod to unlock the gate.

“Like I wouldn’t already have done that,” I managed to say, before I had to speed up my steps.

“She is just being nice!”

“And I am going to be the gentleman she asks for,” I made it perfectly clear and was soon at Esther’s side. “After you, my lady,” I said in my most suave tone. Without wanting to brag, that was very suave. Regardless of the skilled delivery, Esther gave me a militaristic, short nod as answer and we entered the grounds. I wasn’t yet sure if my efforts to be smooth were wasted or she simply kept most reactions to herself.

“I prefer the placement and architecture of this mansion greatly over the one assigned to me,” the angelic beauty stated, brushing a strand of her ever rebellious, wavy hair behind her ear. I found myself strangely attracted to them. I had never thought I could be sexually attracted to ears, but I noticed how nicely round and well placed hers were at that moment.

I forced myself to concentrate on what I was saying instead. This was the first time she had started a conversation since approaching the table. “It’s nice that it’s the closest to the train station and all that,” I agreed. “What about the architecture do you prefer though?” Rule number one of getting to know people was to ask them things that allowed them to talk about themselves. One miniscule information given could quickly cascade into a long talk about whatever.

“The tower,” Esther pointed up to the octangular roof that rose above the ceiling of the remaining mansion. “The mansion I was given has many smaller spires, but they are decorative in nature.”

“I think there was a room close to the stairs. Maybe that would be ideal for you?” I smirked and gave her a wink, “Unless you prefer to stay in my room?”

Esther gave this joke nothing more than a weak-smiled denial. “You may show it to me, but I require my own room.” I heard an implied ‘for now’ there. Could have been just wishful thinking. We headed inside, I left Willt’s and Arlethia’s bags for them to unpack and store away, and then started showing Esther around. 

As was reasonable, we started on the base floor first, including my bedroom. “I respect how openly you display your ambitions beyond words,” Esther commented when she saw it. Given that it was basically just one large mattress, it was very easy to interpret what I intended to do in that room.

“I like to wear my heart on my sleeve,” I shrugged as I closed that door. From there, I continued with the kitchen, bathrooms, unused areas and whatever else was around. Since she had already seen her own, exceedingly similar mansion, she wasn’t overly impressed with the luxurious designs. As a matter of fact, she didn’t seem impressed at all, as if this amount of space was something normal for her. I suspected she came from a wealthy background.

We were busy looking at the kitchen in greater detail, when Esther remarked, “I struggle to decide whether you deserve to be called shallow or not. Your constant and open displays make me lean towards it.” Even as she hit me with something like that, she went after a practical activity. Opening a drawer, she checked what kind of utensils had been given to us for use and nodded approvingly once she had scanned through.

“That seems rather uncharitable,” I playfully pouted. “A lake’s depth can be quite deceptive. Light breaks on the surface and even if the upper layers might be translucent, the bed might be hidden in a muddy cloud. It’s unwise to make guesses about depth while only swimming on the surface.”

“Esoteric but correct,” Esther agreed and gave me another long glance. We were both trying to figure the other out. I wondered what she had learned about me from that little exchange. I wondered what she had hoped to learn. “Escort me to the tower now,” she demanded.

I nodded and we went to find the staircase. Although I had not been up there earlier, I was already aware that the way up the tower was separate from the other staircases in the mansion. Instead, there was a door at the corner of the central hallway that was entirely filled with a winding staircase. “After you,” I offered once more and gestured for her to get on the stairs first.

This was, to be honest, not entirely motivated by gentlemanly education. Well, unless the idea to let ladies go first had been created in order to allow men to look at their asses while keeping up appearances. Given the sight that was created when women with bubble butts ascended the stairs, I found that to be a quite likely scenario.

The dark pants, as much as they had been cut with manoeuvrability in mind, had failed to entirely conceal the fullness of her bottom in the first place. It was the wonder of the female backside that the cotton could be stretched that way. That a waist as narrow as hers smoothly curved into such an ass was proof that nature did not allocate resources evenly. Then again, I was pretty sure that a lot of squats went into perfecting what had already been there.

Every step she took up the stairs was a sensation. One side went taut, firm and defined and the other jiggly, soft and round. A smooth movement later, the sides exchanged. Each time, I had to make the decision which side to follow. As tantalizing as the sight was, it would have been better with a little bit less clothing.

I let my thoughts be known, “I’ve been wondering, why aren’t you wearing a skirt like the other girls? Not that I’m judging, I like the sight of yoga pants and up skirts equally.” We went past the door that would give access to the staircase on the first floor. Esther simply continued walking, unfazed by my confession.

“Skirts are part of the category of clothes that flutter and can get stuck. I find such impractical articles bothersome,” Esther made it very clear as her marching boots clacked on the stone floor over and over again. “The only skirts that are not in danger of this are either so short I may as well not wear them or too tight; therefore, they are one of my least favourite articles.”

“Does that extend to dresses?” I wondered.

“Depends on the dress,” the woman of my interest responded. “I’m unwilling to wear something that is more of a fashion statement than clothing. If it is such a dress, I will be more reluctant to wear it than a skirt, even. In general, I’m not fond of them.”

“Shame, I really like seeing girls in those things,” I sighed.

“...I may be convinced otherwise, given certain assurances,” Esther conceded in a hesitant tone, as if she wasn’t sure herself she wanted to say that.

“Such as?” I was interested in both the statement and the little vulnerability she showed.

“A series of details.” Her voice seemed to compensate for the earlier hesitation by suddenly becoming so hard that I did not chase the topic further. We emerged in the room on top of the tower at that moment anyway.

Each of the eight sides had an individual window. Silver frames separated them into four rows of two panels, the top curving in something between a V and a U. The windowsills underneath were plates of black marble, white veins cutting through decoratively. The walls around were the usual mixture of grey and dark purple. An ebon, circular table stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by nine chairs, covered with burgundy red cushions. That bit of furniture filled almost all the space the room had to offer. There was just enough around the edge to effortlessly manoeuvre around the table. All in all, it was a comfy room.

My hand departed with the railing that framed the hole we ascended from. The view from inside the tower was spectacular. West was the isolated island of the Golden Eagles with the giant palace on top, south the singular mountain on Welldark, east the skyscraper of the other first years, all three of those peeking out behind the large forest. North may have been my personal favourite direction to gaze at. There were no structures in that direction. Only forest, ocean and the sky. Although I knew the water was limited and the sky far from endless, the blue layers invoked the impression of a vast world.

Esther was also focusing on that perceived infinity. Even if it was artificial, it was beautiful. With a content expression on her face, she folded her hands behind her back and just looked. Among all the fantastic sights that had been erected in Welldark, I still found that viewing the natural swing of her cheekbones enticed me more than any part of the landscape. 

For a little while, I nonchalantly stood next to her, my hands in my pockets. I weighed my options and then made my decision. My arm wandered around her back. Putting it around her shoulder would have been wrong for a romantic interest and the butt a bit too daring, even with what happened earlier. I aimed for her waist and soon felt the warmth of her body under my palm. Her breasts were more erotic, but the way we now stood, close together, was intimate in a different way.

I was met with no complaints, no struggles, not even a prolonged tensing of her body. There was only an initial reaction that relaxed the moment my hand came to a still. We just stood there. My shoulder brushed against her. A faint smell of citrus reached my nostrils. She took a tiny step closer and I felt more of her against me. It wasn’t quite an embrace, but it was very close.

“It is nice here,” I said, not feeling the need to spin any great philosophical formulation.

“Indeed,” she agreed. The fact that we were wasting time didn’t seem to bother her now.

And we continued to gaze at the world and each other.