The world seemed to have been shocked by the appearance of that gate, but what made me even more stunned was the country known as the Great Republic of Gremanica was destroyed as they failed to close their gate, and now the entire central Euro continent was devastated and filled with strange lizardmen.
“Eternia… should we not go help?” Elizabeth asked with a soft voice as we all sat around my table and ate snacks and a light meal, watching the news. Seeing the damage to the world, it seemed that our continent of Asia was fine…
Apart from the goblin’s initial damage, the death toll and gate closure were faster than anything else.
Suddenly, the channel switched to an emergency news broadcast with a pretty woman standing outside the school where I had fought those monsters and suffered a grim reminder that the dungeon was not my ally.
—The latest information on these strange gates that appeared out of nowhere is that to make them disappear, a person has to enter and trigger a sort of response to make the gate break apart and vanish…
However, of the twenty-two gates that appeared, only two remain, while nineteen of the people who entered have already perished from a strange illness where their skin began to rot and blood and organs eroded into a black goo.
We have attempted to contact the Asian branch of the Ability User’s Guild but have not yet been able to speak with the only survivor…
I am Natasha Braun with KFN NEWS 5, and I will do my best to keep everyone updated on the situation of these horrific structures that brought about the death of one hundred and seven million people.
With a heavy heart and earnest hope that things improve once again.
This is Natasha Braun with KFN NEWS 5 signing off!
“Elizabeth, that is not the problem right now. There is something far more important and worrying regarding Rai!” Eternia and the other girls who had fused with their past selves were sitting several feet away from Rai.
Not because they had fallen out or stopped loving him but the fact that Rai, when close to them, would sometimes lash out and almost kill Aki as his eyes turned golden with black sclera and gave off the aura of their sworn enemy, the Falnar.
Yet Aki and I were sitting together, hugging each other as she stroked my chest, her fingers tracing the tattoo… “Big brother, who did this to you?” Aki asked with a serious expression as Eternia, Cassandra, and Anastasia moved closer, their eyes filled with jealousy and worry.
“I don’t know… a girl… like Haruka but not Haruka…”
My words stunned everyone… because the girl in question was clueless while eating a bowl of cereal in her underwear after getting covered in goblin blood and, for some reason, passing out during the event. She now seemed happy eating cereal and watching the television.
“Rai… that tattoo… it’s… written in the Falnars language!” Anastasia called out as everyone was shocked, and Aki hugged me tightly.
“Brother… no, Iranos, you have to explain everything!” Eternia’s words stunned me… I felt like I was being accused of cheating on my wives… but I didn’t know…
So I explained everything.
The moment I touched that ice… Haruka… no, Haruka’s doppelganger’s voice calling my name and stroking my heart and injecting something… then the mark that appeared…
Cassandra, Anastasia, Eternia, Aki, and Haruka listened to every word…
“Big brother… do you trust that woman?”
“Trust? Aki, I don’t know her… I just named her Haruka… and she seemed lonely and trapped in that ice, but I couldn’t have known she would inject something into my body…” It’s not like she will do any harm anyway… I felt that something was wrong, and these girls were getting too worked up over nothing…
That girl was just a victim and left alone—what was wrong with helping her? It’s not like she’s the queen or mother of the Falnar or anything.
****
It became a long discussion with the other, arguing at times and then agreeing, but in the end, they all said I should spend time in the dungeon for the next few days to avoid the reporters and other things…
So now I was sitting alone in my bedroom, the sound of them laughing and watching some drama echoing while I felt a little…
Lonely…
There was something different about my thoughts and body, but that was just because I remembered everything and accepted all those memories and feelings of the past.
“Master?”
“My Lord… shall we go to the dungeon together?”
Elena’s soft voice and her offer to go to the dungeon honestly felt like a saving grace for me… but for some reason, Ayr was looking at me with a concerned look as she came out of my shadow and hugged my chest…
I was alright, but why did her embrace feel so warm and make me feel normal?
“You were shocked, right… to feel such feelings towards those girls and see their eyes filled with disgust for even a moment… you are a bright boy, so you saw it instantly, right? Their fear and rejection of the bloodline that flows inside you now.”
It was scary for Ayr to sound normal and not mention fighting, killing or mating… her soft black arms stroking my hair while leaning her chin on my forehead, it seemed that these two were worried about me more than I thought.
“Why do you help me? If I die, doesn’t that mean you are both free in this world?”
“Idiot… who would want a world where you don’t exist.”
“That’s true, master!” Elena pouted as her cooling hands began to stroke my forehead and neck, the strange temperature I was suffering slowly reducing.
My eyes closed as the two people I treated as handy weapons in the dungeon were the ones helping me cope with the strange and oppressive feeling in my chest.
Seeing their eyes, a moment of rejection terrified me that those would become permanent…
“Master… do you remember what Ayr told you before you evolved? We would follow you until the end, no matter what happened, and we chose to accept your Falnar bloodline… so now, you are our family and king… we are bound to you and your divinity…”
I didn’t hear those words… but I wondered why both of them had slightly changed…
Elena became more devilish with her features closer to a lamia than a mermaid now… her black eyes with large golden pupils might make some people disgusted, but for me, it felt lovely… while Ayr was the same as me… her body was tanned with black hair and the same marking on her chest… but with a slight difference… it felt more feminine.
Family… King…
“Yes… we chose to follow Shibuya Rai, not some god reborn or a super powerful werewolf, but the annoying guy who always teases us with false promises!” Ayr’s words made me realise something… these girls… genuinely accepted me… back then and even now. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
They were my first companions, unrelated to the goddesses or other planets… they were former monsters… and no matter what happens, we would be together… Even though I gave them the chance to leave when that black blood entered my veins… silly girls.
“Thank you, Ayr… Elena.”
“Master, shall we go to the dungeon?” Elena smiled at me with a sensual expression as her forked tongue licked my ear, and her fangs bit into my neck, her tail wrapping around my waist as she pushed me onto the bed…
“Yes, let’s go~ I want to kill some goblins.”
“haha… goblins in the upper levels, are you mad?”
Ayr laughed as our bodies began to huddle together as we teleported into the dungeon, ready for the forty-seventh floor. I wanted to rebuild my sense of self and confidence so I could accept whatever gaze those women gave me.
****
? Cassandra POV
Rai left for the dungeon… honestly, we were worried about his change and the Falnar bloodline now flowing in his veins… I felt a sense of terror whenever talking to him or even looking at him.. the strange changes in his body caused all of our hearts to feel intense pain… none of us wanted to feel that way… and seeing his face looking so hurt and filled with anguish…
The dungeon was the only thing we could do…
“What are we going to do…? I don’t want to become distant from him just because of this damn change!”
“Eternia… calm down. We need to find out more about Falnars… their language… maybe Athena knows more… she lived the longest, right?
So maybe she knows something.”
I tried to calm Eternia down, who was pacing back and forth, but seeing Rai’s hurt face was like a stab to our hearts… even if he were to attack us, we didn’t care; he could ravish or beat us to death… it was that look when he saw our bodies recoil… eyes turn away, it makes my chest hurt even now…
Why?
Why did my body react that way?
Is it the memories of a goddess making me do that!?
“Cassandra… Iranos has accepted everything now… but that Falnar bloodline… it’s changing his divinity and heart… I am afraid… we are losing him to someone we don’t know.” Eternia spoke softly as her hands covered her eyes…
Aki… Elizabeth… Anastasia and Eternia… we all accepted Iranos, yet a foreign existence is trying to steal him from us…
“We won’t lose… we will accept him, no matter what!” Aki yelled… her golden hair flowing as the divinity began to flow through her body…
It was our only choice…
We needed to accept Iranos… no, Rai… we need to accept Rai…
No matter who or what he is.