# 034 To a New City
# 034 To a New City
I hadn't stepped outside my lair in eight hundred years.
But just as I hadn't personally greeted a single intruder inside it in eight hundred years, my lair was equipped with systems fully capable of intercepting enemies even without me.
"Take good care of the lair while I'm gone."
[Understood, Master.]
I reassigned some of the most combat-capable banshees, Jin among them, back to the lair.
They had originally worked in the lair, not the old castle in the forest; I'd only relocated my Life Vessel to the old castle temporarily in order to raise Sharia.
Except for the banshees tasked with managing the old castle, the rest would have no trouble fending off enemies entering the lair.
They were already dead, so they couldn't die again.
Pain might be involved, but it wasn't the kind of pain that could kill them, so they didn't fear death either.
If there was anything to worry about....
"You can manage on your own without me, right?"
[Yes. We will do our best on our own.]
"......But if it gets dangerous, call for me at once."
[Yes, Master. As your temporary 'wife,' I shall prove myself worthy.]
To intercept enemies entering the lair, someone who grasped every detail of the lair's internal state naturally needed to command the whole.
My wife didn't just need to be good at sex and individually capable—she also had to excel at managing the lair and running its household.
— No, wait... wait, please pull out just a moment... Right now, a Sword Master just entered, hngh...!
—What? My cock is a Sword Master?
—I said a female virgin Sword Master entered...!!
—Someone like that, you can handle on your own.
—That's, I mean..., nghh...!!
My late wife.
The high elf had managed it effortlessly for eight hundred years.
Thanks to her, I could focus entirely on her body and never spare a thought for intruders, no matter the situation.
Even in the middle of sex, she had commanded the lair using the Remote Command Terminal I'd crafted for her.
It wasn't that I distrusted Jin; it was that she had done it all so flawlessly that I worried for Jin.
"Excessive enthusiasm isn't advisable. If you think seventy percent of the lair's been breached, call for me immediately. I'll teleport over no matter the moment."
[Understood.]
"Then, I'm counting on you."
After handing over the command terminal my late wife had used to Jin, I teleported straight to the old castle where Sharia would be waiting.
"Ah, Master."
Sharia greeted me fully dressed for travel.
Wearing a white dress I'd temporarily crafted under a black robe, she welcomed me with a bright smile—
"Your body...."
—and swept her gaze up and down my form with eyes that had gone utterly flat.
"You haven't changed your body...?"
"Hm. I was planning to."
I was still in my original form.
Sharia had pointed it out at once, and I scattered mana before her.
"Pick one of these."
"...What are these?"
"Examples of what I could Polymorph into?"
A middle-aged potbellied man.
A man with a stooped back.
A youth with a muscular build.
A woman who looked exactly like Sharia.
A boy much smaller than my original form.
And assorted others.
"Seems both you and I need to disguise ourselves a little."
"A disguise?"
"Yeah. You remember I fought in your form, right? If the Church of the Twin Moon Goddesses saw that, they'll probably try to track us."
"You mean, since you fought as a woman who resembled me, if I show up in the Land of Darkness, they'll think the woman from the dragon's lair popped up there and come to capture me?"
"Exactly!"
Sharia nodded solemnly at the reason for the disguise.
"I understand. How should I disguise myself?"
"Just changing your hair should do it, don't you think? Couldn't you just undo your braid?"
"Hmm... it's been a while since I've gone around with my hair down, so it might feel a bit weird."
Shara-rustle.
Sharia undid her hair in one motion.
With a light sweep back of the long hair that reached her waist, her whole image shifted in an instant.
"What's wrong?"
"Hm.... Sharia."
"Yes?"
"When we have sex, do it just once with your hair down."
"...Master."
Sharia glared at me with an incredulous expression.
"Will you only do it once?"
"You'll do it multiple times?"
"Well, if that's what you want, Master?"
"I like that."
Fortunately, Sharia agreed right away.
Dragon or not, a woman's hair was a sensitive matter.
In fact, there'd been a time I wanted to give a certain woman a short cut, lopped it off as I pleased, and got thoroughly chewed out.
To a woman, hair carries a peculiar sense of pride, much like muscles do for a man.
Though maybe something else fits the comparison better than muscles, hair was not to be handled carelessly.
—You're going to come in my hair? Semen's a little hard to wash out of hair.... Hmph... if you'll wash it for me afterward, do whatever you want.
That was how touchy it was. When I'd finished on the high elf, even when her whole body was drenched in semen she hadn't complained, but where her hair was concerned, she'd told me to wash it if I was going to come on it.
Hair was truly a sensitive matter.
For women, and for men alike.
"But Master, is just letting down my hair really enough for me?"
"Yeah. Your chest is covered by the robe, after all."
"Is my most defining feature my chest?"
"It's a surefire element for pinpointing your identity as Sharia."
"My chest?"
"Your chest. Right now, I doubt you'll find breasts as beautiful as yours anywhere in the world."
"...Being complimented on my chest makes me feel oddly and ambiguously happy."
As if something didn't quite sit right, Sharia puffed out her cheeks in mild displeasure.
Could it be she wanted a different part of her complimented?
If so, I could oblige as much as she liked.
Her face, her waist, her hips, plus Sharia's many other charms—there was no shortage.
It was simply that her chest came to mind first.
I—
"If you say 'right now in the whole world,' that implies there used to be someone with breasts as beautiful as mine, doesn't it."
"......Well, that's true, isn't it?"
"Who was it?"
"......."
Ah, this was dangerous.
"Was it perhaps... the owner of those lewd undergarments in the old castle...?"
"......Er, Sharia?"
"A woman whose build looked like she had a thinner waist and wider hips than me. And her chest... seemed similar to mine, yet with perhaps a better shape."
"......."
How had she figured it out?
Had she deduced it from the sizes of the undergarments in the villa?
If so, had Sharia tried them on herself and realized the physical differences between her and their owner?
"......Sharia. Don't misunderstand and hear me out. A woman with breasts as beautiful as yours...."
"Well, it's fine. Looking at your expression, Master, I get the rough idea. Still."
Plop.
Sharia placed my hand on her chest and flashed a confident smile.
"Right now, it's me, isn't it. Right?"
"......That it is."
"Then that's enough."
Unexpected.
Sharia was sharp; she'd surely guessed who the 'woman with breasts as beautiful as hers' was, yet she'd let it go with remarkable coolness.
'What's this?'
Was she planning to use it as leverage later?
Or was she going to climb on top of me during sex and insist on going at it over and over?
"Master."
"Hm, yes."
"Your body, Master. May I decide which one you'll take?"
"...Which one are you thinking?"
"Fufu, nothing much, really...."
Sharia looked up at me with dangerous eyes.
"Um, may I go with this one?"
"...Sharia?"
"The backstory: an older sister and younger brother who escaped a ruined house and are barely scraping by, leaning on each other."
"Hey, this little."
The travel Polymorph Sharia had selected for me was a frame that would bury my face exactly in her chest.
"You... are you into that kind of thing?"
"Master."
Sharia spread her arms wide and smiled at me.
"If you transform into this form, you can bury yourself in my chest and breathe."
"......."
Huff. Hah. Huff. Hah.
Nestled in Sharia's arms, I began to work out the detailed backstory for our journey with her.
* * *
The western side of the continent.
Though the eastern folk called it the Land of Darkness, this place had an entirely different name.
Just as there were various cities in the vicinity of Lost Virginia, the western cities were divided into diverse regions.
This place was called Yushota.
A territory governed by Count Yushota, it was a thoroughly ordinary city free of incidents and accidents.
If it had a distinctive feature, it was that the majority of the earldom lay in high mountainous terrain.
Among the many cities at the western end, this one, surrounded by other cities, was situated at a considerably higher elevation than its neighboring regions.
There was a spot in the broad, open plain where people had most heavily congregated, and naturally, people had gravitated to this relatively livable area.
"Wow! We've arrived, Miss Mage!"
"......."
Into this place appeared a woman with pink hair and an irritated-looking black-haired boy carrying a staff taller than himself, holding hands.
What stood out was that while the woman was human, the black-haired boy had strangely pale skin.
His appearance was reminiscent of a demon.
"Hah.... Ria, we aren't here to play around."
"We're not here to play, but still, this is a place I'm seeing for the first time, so I'm all nervous."
"Even if it's called the Land of Darkness, it's still a place where people live. It's just...."
The demon pointed at the passersby on the street.
"Unlike the east, this is a place where humans and demons live together."
As the demon said, the streets were a mix of multiple races.
Humans, orcs, vampires, lycanthropes, succubi, and so on.
Countless species rarely seen on the eastern continent were going about their own way, neither bristling at each other nor quarreling.
"Miss Mage. Shall we head to our lodgings first?"
"Weren't you really uncomfortable about coming here?"
"I was uncomfortable, but we've come all this way, so I ought to have some confidence. On the outside, I'm the guardian, after all!"
"What nonsense...."
"Anyone would look at me and think I'm your guardian, Miss Mage, don't you think?"
The woman puffed out her chest with a shrug.
The demon, looking 'up' at her, scowled, but the height difference wasn't something he could overcome.
"Miss Mage, let's get to our lodgings quickly. Okay?"
"You, have you always been this lewd a creature?"
"Lewd? What do you think we'll do once we get to our lodgings."
"......."
The center of the Yushota Earldom.
The name of this city was Shotarape City.
"It's not strange for travel-weary travelers to go to their lodgings and take a shower, is it. Right?"
A city brimming with adventure and romance.