Chapter 24

Finn sat in his office, thinking over what he knew of the situation with Drake. Not the matter of Goro, which he understood perfectly well and had as much of a handle on as he could. The actual situation with the five - now six - new familia members that had been brought into the familia almost-as-one. It was obvious there was something unusual about it, and more than just the way in which adventurers were often unusual people. Loki, perhaps, had missed it simply due to her being a god, but to Finn... it wasn't a dangerous uncertainty, but there was something secret here, and it was his familia.

He could have simply interrogated Drake, but he suspected that the young man had quite the elegant lies prepared. The sort that even a god couldn't see through, because of the beauty with which the truth was packaged with misdirection. He looked to the door, his lips pursing as he put his thoughts together again.

There was the unusual, discordant memories, which were apparent with both Xulia and Noriko, not apparent with Lena or Rei - both knew who and where their family was - and ambiguous with Cass and Erza. Erza claimed to be an orphan; Cass didn't know who her mother was, but didn't want to see her father again. This would suggest, at first blush, that the oddity was with the first five, and that Rei and Lena were outsiders...

Xulia and Noriko had both left their families at approximately the same time. This suggested a singular event. However, it did not require anything exceptional to explain it. Xulia disliked her father, as did Noriko; either girl may have left voluntarily, motivated purely by antipathy for their parents. He certainly hadn't thought much of either man in question, when he had met them.

There was no personality shift, despite all four girls apparently being in love with Drake. Hephaistos, Setsuko, Ken, Mari - none of them had noticed anything strange about Noriko or Xulia compared to their normal behavior. If one was to imagine he had some type of charm magic (backed by another god?), then one would assume that the memories would remain fixed and the personality would change. Selection appeared to fit as an explanation...

In any situation like this, there was going to be evidence that did not fit with the rest. This was because it was unusual, but had a separate cause. He should add together as much evidence as he could, and attempt to perform the minimum amount of reductions to explain it.

Rei and Xulia both appeared deeply intimate with one another, and not just because Xulia declared Rei to be her soulmate to anybody who would listen. (It wasn't a point of conflict with Drake, since she then added that Drake had stolen her away from Rei, which she appeared to consider extremely sexy. He also didn't consider it terribly valuable information, since she also proclaimed that Drake was whoring her out to day laborers for ten valis a pop even though that was obviously not the case; she appeared to simply confuse her own wild sexual fantasies for reality.) They also knew and made reference to stories and songs that he had never heard before. He had investigated the Far Eastern works that Xulia had collected before joining the familia, but they were classic fairy tales from another continent - the stories Rei and Xulia busily shared were particularly unusual. He had caught just scattered bits and pieces - the story of world-saving Goku, who flew around the planet, blew up planets, went into space, went foreign stars, got turned into a child... the story was far too long to fit into a traditional fairy tale, and definitely was not a history of some hero he had never heard of.

He could put that aside, but what he couldn't put aside, was that almost immediately after she joined the familia, he had heard Rei and Xulia singing together in their bedroom, in perfect synchronicity:

Standing here,

I realize,

You are just like me,

Trying to make history.

But who's to judge,

The right from wrong?

When our guard is down,

I think we'll both agree...

That violence breeds violence,

But in the end, it has to be this way!

Their singing voices were atrocious - neither of them had any future as bards, of that much he was sure - but they followed the same beats in the same sequence, to a song that he had never heard. Nor had any of their parents. It suggested that the pair knew each other before Rei joined the familia - significantly before, perhaps even months?

Another unusual point: Xulia had spoken to him, when they had first gone in the Dungeon, told him that strange story about the human-eating monsters. Claimed he would 'never read' the epic. Not had never read, but would never read. (She had been right - he had been unable to find it, anywhere.) There was a moral to the story, clearly intended specifically for him.

If he assumed the five were a unified set... the story, the prediction of whether he would read the tale in question... a thought came to mind, that perhaps they had come from the future? There were tales in the histories of great heroes trying to turn back the clock, but that was something that even the gods could not do. But perhaps it was different for a hero's soul? It was making a broad guess, perhaps, but if one made that assumption, it did appear to explain everything.

Discordant memory? Xulia misremembered her mother as having already been sold off to Ted, perhaps, and Noriko didn't wish to see her father again.

Knew one another longer than ought to have been possible? That fit perfectly well, too.

It fit with the five appearing simultaneously... no personality shift, people rarely changed... Rei and Xulia knowing one another in advance didn't appear to fit. Unless Rei was part of the same gestalt. She had a much better relationship with her parents than the rest, who were orphans or abuse victims, to hear them tell it. Save Xulia, who hated her father. Xulia had specific lessons for him.

Why not simply tell them? They were probably from different familias the 'first' time around. The apparent intimacy between Haruhime and Drake, and now Lena and Drake as well - was he originally an Ishtar familia member? Xulia's mention of not killing demons... was she once affiliated with some Evilus remnant, or the like? The rest were harder to guess. Perhaps they didn't trust him because they were once enemies, and he had died their enemy.

The solution seemed absurd, but it slotted almost everything into place. Rapid growth, Skills before a falna... the falna was a way of touching divinity, so perhaps in the coming years, those five surpassed it, too, gaining the power to turn back time... and then doing so.

A thought came to mind: he had noticed something when Noriko had counted out her age in days - 7504 was evenly divisible by 16. She had also stated that she was over 7504 days old. 7504 was divisible by two, four, seven, eight, fourteen, sixteen, twenty-eight, fifty-six, sixty-seven, and one hundred twelve. Multiple repetitions, with a highly specific end date? He couldn't quite square it with Noriko's claimed age, no matter how he ran the math - divide 7504 by four, and it's more than five years; divide it by seven, and it's less than three. Still, perhaps she had some even more idiosyncratic way of accounting her age than he could figure out. Or maybe she was just bad at math.

He recalled then that Drake had stated that he had known her for "three or four" years, so perhaps twenty was simply her current age, plus the additional time that might have been, which would put it at about four years from now, and no repetitions... that did seem to fit best. Though it was also possible that Drake had joined into the affair more recently than Noriko.

It was an absurd conclusion, but it provided a neat, singular conclusion to almost everything. The only real issue was Rei and Xulia's bilateral intimacy, but perhaps Rei was part of their coterie, and simply had spent time with her family rather than join in to fight armageddon. The girl seemed lazy enough for it.

He paused and discarded the theory. Treat it as if it were false - what is the truth?

Perhaps they were some type of exotic, body stealing monsters. They couldn't be adventurers - Loki had applied a fresh falna to them - but perhaps monsters could acquire a falna? The distorted memories would be a product of damage to the mind... except that none of them were adventurers before, which would make it hard for such monsters to acquire them. If they could get out somehow, why would they pick those five? Rei, Noriko, Lena, and Xulia all lived in widely separated spots; he couldn't say for certain where Erza or Cass hailed from, but it was likely not near them. Further, why pretend to be a harem? Perhaps the monsters were tamed by Drake?

Hmm. Perhaps if he had been stalking the four, or five, or six, he would know their personalities fairly well... the monsters could pretend to be them... but then why were Rei and Xulia so close in particular? No, he could discard one or two bits of evidence with ease. Perhaps the monsters themselves were old comrades, or something similar. Xulia's attempt to provide him that specific message would, then, be attempting to convince him in advance not to kill her... it had involved a kind of monster that had its own culture, like that of men.

The Skills, the magic... that fit too. It appeared to fit as well. Although... surely Freya would notice the distortion in a being's soul, if its body were to be occupied by a monster? Cass, Noriko, and Drake had all stood in her presence... but she had probably never seen any of them before that, so there was a simple enough explanation there. It was fairly simple to verify, of course. Realistically, Loki should have discovered it during the preliminary questioning before they joined the familia, were they some kind of possessing monster, but he could ask a few key questions when one of them was getting their falna updated, confirm that they had not missed it somehow...

Alright. Assume that is not true - then what next?

Drake had stated that he had known Noriko for three or four years. Noriko's claimed age was four years older than her actual age, and Hephaistos and Setsuko were quite certain of when she was born. If Drake had met Noriko "someplace else," where time moved differently, could that explain it? The five (six?) of them winding up in some other world, or perhaps some magical part of the Dungeon, or something else to that effect. Rei and Xulia knew one another from there.

Noriko's recollection of Goro striking her, however... perhaps the place was more than just a mere alternate world, but some kind of reflection of this one? Ancient religions, from back before the descent of the gods, sometimes believed that dreams were a spiritual realm, rather than merely the mortal mind's attempts to take an accounting of its contents, as the gods had explained on their arrival. Something like a dream world would explain it, though he was hardly one to doubt the gods' explanations of the nature of dreams.

Allowing for that, a dreamscape or dark mirror of this world. Perhaps they trained there, their false falnas granting them a variety of Skills, some of which appeared when they acquired a real falna. Xulia's strange warning... would have to be unrelated, in that scenario. She did have a very powerful stealth Skill, so perhaps she had heard something important? Who could threaten the Loki familia, though? The Freya familia? They had no cause for war with the goddess of beauty. It was hard to think of what she might have done that would provoke such a war, Loki and Freya were in tight cooperation... what other familias could be a danger to Loki? Families with at least one Level Five... Hephaistos would be the most obvious one, but if it were them, surely Xulia would have realized that Goro was a threat before then. Perhaps Ganesha? Ishtar?

Noriko did not act like someone who had spent four years training in another world... but then, she didn't act like an ordinary person in any case. Erza, Cass, and Xulia did act like such people, and he probably would be inclined to assume that Drake was more experienced than he actually was, if he were meeting him for the first time and getting an appraisal of his diligence.

Abandon that idea, move on to the next...

It was important not to allow any single explanation to bias him, so he had to approach the question with fresh eyes as many times as he could.

* * *

Rei #1 had her senses enhanced as she idly strolled down the halls of the Twilight Manor, mostly to try to get any good dirt on other familia members. Sadly, they didn't have any good secrets as far as she could tell, though she was a bit distracted by Rei #2, Rei #3, Rei #4, Rei #5, and Rei #6, all of whom were currently chomping down on an Infant Dragon, having taken the forms of a Silverback. The monster, just like all the other ones, tasted fucking awful, and she worked her jaw as if that would get the taste out. She was lucky she'd managed to work out the Towering Beast Form Skill, or her earlier eating of the Silverback would have been pointless.

Maybe she should work harder on figuring out what made eating pussy feel good for Noriko, then she could get a nice palate cleanse off her cherry-strawberry pussy?

Eh. She could just go get her falna updated. She idly glanced down at her new sweater puppies. Drake seemed to not mind them, so she was keeping them. If he'd been into flatties, she'd have shrunk them down... at least for sex with him. There was a huge ego boost from having knockers this big, it was like a big dick, except having a 12" cock mostly meant nothing since most people didn't get to see it. Every girl in the familia had to turn green with envy, every man red with lust, when they saw her walking around, no matter how she dressed.

And she dressed more conservatively than you might have figured, for the simple reason that when you had a body like hers, anything she wore looked obscene. Also it meant it was other people's problem, since she was dressed reasonably. Are you saying big boobs are bad? She could cry up a storm on command, if they tried it.

As she stood in front of the door to Loki's office, she idly thought about trying to seduce Loki again. Her androgynous, model good looks thing was kinda hot, and her personality was absurdly horny. Frankly it was ridiculous that she wouldn't eat Rei's pussy as it was.

"...mm. Come on in, Rei," came a male voice she recognized - Finn's.

Well, it was the Captain of her familia, so she had no choice but to open the door. He took one look at her, a dull expression on his face as he saw her breasts.

She just ignored him, sitting down on the bed and peeling off her shirt while Loki audibly gawked. "If you grope them, I'm turning into a snake again," she told the woman in question, making her huff. "You know what you have to do if you want to grope them, then you'll get to go at it as much as you want."

"Bah!" Loki said. "Tell her she should let me grope her, Finn," she added, looking over at Finn.

"I won't be doing that, Lady Loki," Finn said, his gaze turning to Rei. "How long have you known Xulia, out of curiosity?"

It wasn't out of curiosity, she wasn't stupid. It was a probing question. Maybe he was even waiting in this room just to ask it. The actual answer was about a week at this point... was there a way to deceive him? Technically she knew Xulia in her past life, which was... before recorded history, so she couldn't really use a number from that. It couldn't be an evasion, since he could - would - just ask a more specific question. All those thoughts ran through her head at superspeed, then: "A week. I went to take Drake to my moms to see if they'd be cool with me marrying him and joining the Loki familia, then I met her."

Finn simply hummed in acknowledgement at that. "How long have you known Drake?"

As long as her mothers, which in this world, would be approximately fourteen years? He'd been fifteen and she'd be four or something. "I first met him just a bit before my moms," Rei explained.

Finn glanced at Loki for something, and Loki nodded, then he kept staring at her. "Oh, she's got two hot mamas. One's a Level Two from Apollo, the other from... I dunno, just some Level One. Both of them are pretty chesty up top, though not as big as these puppies!" Loki reached for her boobs, feigning that it was just to emphasize her point - Rei turned into a snake, making Loki groan in annoyance as she hit the ground unceremoniously. "She was adopted after her dad died against the Black Dragon, that was like fourteen years ago. Come on, I'm not done," she said, and Rei just hissed at her.

"I see. That's a tragedy." Only kinda, she didn't really remember her biological parents that well, but she knew Alex and Chanelle were way fucking hotter. "Sometimes, adventurers don't even stop going to the Dungeon while pregnant..." Rei hissed at him. She wasn't getting groped by Loki just to get interrogated by Finn. He was obviously fishing for something. "Lady Loki, please, don't grope Rei - you're making it quite difficult to have a conversation."

"You're just saying that because you want to see her boobs."

"Honestly, Lady Loki, I really am not," Finn said, making Loki let out an exaggerated sigh, no doubt being magically reassured of the truth of the statement. Finn had one-itis for the Pallum race. You could tell because he had Tione, probably the hottest girl in Danmachi (other than maybe Aisha, but she was more domme-y and Rei liked 'em on their knees), ready to bounce on his dick and suck his cock, but he never stuck it in. "Please, do be reasonable here."

"Blah, fine," Loki said. "I promise not to grope your tits, Rei," she said, and Rei slithered back up into her lap before turning back into a girl, making sure her back was facing her. "Heh. You're a flatty when you're a snake."

"Snakes don't have mammaries, so yeah," Rei responded, rolling her eyes.

"What was I saying?" Finn asked, tilting his head for a moment. He didn't seem like the kind of guy to forget, so it was probably a manipulation. "Ah, right. I've known some second generation adventurers that were born in the Dungeon - were you?"

It was a bizarre question. "I'm pretty sure I wasn't." She was dead certain she wasn't - back on Earth. Here on Gekai? Who knew? Maybe her moms remembered a whole thing where her pregnant bio-mom gave birth to her in between fighting some minotaurs or something.

"Mm. Good to hear. Those sorts of births are dangerous. You seem like a smart girl, so I'm guessing you never entered the Dungeon before getting a falna?" This interrogation was increasingly blatant. Did he think she was a monster, just because she could turn into a snake girl? Was there something else?

"Yeah. I'm not fucking retarded." Should she point out how blatant his questioning was? Nah. Not worth the risk. "Yo, Loki, you done with my falna? You wanna kick Finn out so you can do you-know-what and play with these babies?" Rei hefted her breasts up in either hand, temptingly, able to practically feel the heat from Loki's cheeks. She worried that there might be a dribble of saliva down onto her bare flesh, but she didn't feel anything.

"Guh! Finn, begone!" Loki declared, and Finn just rolled his eyes.

"As you will, Lady Loki," he said, hopping off his seat and heading off.

She didn't know what his problem was, but she knew her clones had seen everything too, so... no, wait, they hadn't, since they were fighting monsters in the Dungeon and it was distracting. She sighed, mentally checking her reserves, taking into account where the clones were in the Dungeon... yeah, she'd be fine. She cleaved her soul in twain again, and Rei #7 hopped out of her.

"Two of you? Ahh, it's like heaven, except way better because you have more gropable mortals he- wait, where you going?" Loki demanded, as Rei #7 reached the door, only glancing back for a moment to share eye contact with Rei #1.

"Going to be with my husband, duh," Rei #7 explained, as she pulled on her shirt. Wait, fuck, that was her only shirt! Before she could stop her, Rei #7 left Loki's office, leaving a topless Rei alone with the horny goddess.

"I can still turn into a snake if you try something," Rei said, letting out a long sigh. "I already told you what the cost was."

"Oh, please. I'm the goddess of this familia! I can get all the boobs I want without having to do anything like that. Anyway, you should just let me grope your boobs for the benefit of my falna."

"Does that work on anyone at all?" Rei asked, giving Loki a level gaze. She could see as Rei #7 reached their bedroom, her senses sharpening as she stepped inside. The only person there at the moment was Noriko, though, so her clone decided to just get eaten out. She'd tell the other members of the marriage about Finn being suspicious later, she guessed. Nobody else was around to get interrogated, after all.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Loki told the most painfully obvious lie possible: "All the time."

Rei disguised her annoyance for a moment, then smiled as she came to a certain realization. "How about this: you give me a couple drops of your blood, and you can grope my tits for a few minutes?"

"I already gave you a couple drops of my blood, that's how a falna looks," Loki declared, hands coming up, fingers wiggling excitedly - and Rei transformed into a snake monster again, making Loki sigh loudly. "What do you even need my blood for?"

"What do you even need my boobs for?" Rei hissed.

"Whoa, and I thought Xulia was a freak."

"She is," Rei agreed. A fun freak. A hot freak. A hot, fun, freak, who ate her out on demand, thought she was sexy, and called her joousama. The perfect woman, basically. "Anyway, blood and you get a grope."

"Fine!" Loki pricked her finger again, and Rei leaned forward, her tongue lashing out to collect the blood. Technically she could already do this with Loki just by expending energy - Essence or whatever - but she'd rather not waste it pointlessly. She actually went so far as to transform into her normal self and just suckle on the fingertip, staring Loki right in the eyes. She was a pretty hot woman, after all - if a bit of seduction was all it took to get those pretty lips of hers wrapped around her clit, well, Rei could seduce her.

Loki's free hand reached for one of Rei's boobs and just went crazy on it, mauling the supple flesh with the reckless abandon of Loki given the chance to grope a huge boob. She sighed longingly, as if she was on fire and Rei's tit was a cool splash of wet water.

* * *

Two days after Finn's would-be interrogation, and she still hadn't figured out how to make eating pussy feel as good as it did for Noriko. She did think she was, like, probably partway there? She was definitely enjoying rubbing her tongue at this point, but it was pleasant like a massage, not like a clitoral orgasm. She could figure it out. She would figure it out.

"I'm really tired of going into the Dungeon every day," Rei #2 said.

"It's boring, and it tastes bad," Rei #3 noted. "Why do we have to do all the work?"

"I mean, she still tastes it because she's riding our senses to make sure we get as much experience out of this as possible," Rei #6 told the others. Rei #1 decided to stop playing with her tongue to just listen to her clones bitch.

"Plus, she's gotta be the one back home, since we can discorporate," Rei #7 added.

"You're on her team because you popped out like two days ago," Rei #2 said. "I popped out over a week ago."

"Hey, I didn't say I'm on her team," Rei #7 replied.

"The real problem is the fact that we're the ones who discorporate. If we do that, poof, nobody will ever remember what we were thinking."

"That's unavoidable," Rei #7 said, crossing her arms. Rei #1 was glad to see that some of her clones were still on her team.

"Yeah, but you're new, so you probably haven't thought about it yet. I'm a week old. Every experience I've had over that whole week, will be lost, if I have to discorporate."

"Rei #1 is riding our senses even now, she'll remember what you went through."

"She won't remember what I thought! And, hey, maybe a week isn't too long, but it'll just get longer and longer."

"What are you thinking of, then?"

"I think she should reabsorb us, then spit us back out," Rei #2 explained. "I've been thinking about it since I first took a bite out of a goblin. Once we're reabsorbed, all our memories, thoughts, experiences, get added back to the main pool. We do some circular stuff, like, three get gobbled up just before she goes to sleep, then another three are popped out, and by the time morning comes and we start our next adventure in the Dungeon, everybody's topped up."

"Plus, it'll help Drake out a bit. He won't have to fuck us all."

"He already doesn't fuck us all. Luckily Noriko's a horny little suckslut," Rei #4 said, licking her lips as she no doubt recalled Noriko eating her pussy. Everybody - even Rei #1 - sighed.

"Yeah, and now he won't have to," Rei #2 said. "Right now, I mean, fuck, I kinda miss the dick. He last fucked me three days ago, y'know? He didn't last fuck Rei #1 three days ago."

"That's because she's at the manor."

"Yeah! But if we reabsorb and then split, then I'll remember being at the manor and getting fucked by him!"

"Yeah, nobody's saying it's unfair," Rei #3 said, though there was a hint of a 'yet' to her voice. "Anyway, let's get back to work. Think we can take on a Minotaur when we all take the forms of an Infant Dragon?"

"Uh, yeah. Our stats are already Ds. Plus we've got Erza if we mess up."

"That's true," Erza offered, with a firmness to her voice. "I am here to protect you all, Rei. If you need my assistance in any of these battles, merely tell me."

"Don't worry, you'll know if I need your help, Erza," Rei #4 said, then turned to the others. "I kinda want to kill an Almiraj. They remind me of Bell."

"Bell's cool," Rei #5 said.

"Yeah, that's why I want to kill one and get its form. It's probably a waste, though. Plus they taste like ash."

"Wait, what if this is like, an AU where Bell's a girl? I'd love to molest a girl Bell."

"I'd love to molest a boy Bell."

"Yeah but we're not allowed, this is one of those one dick only situations."

"Bah. It's totally unfair."

"You're just saying that because you haven't been fucked in days."

"You're just saying that because you remember getting fucked just yesterday!"

When the group of Rei clones made their way back out of the Dungeon and made their demands, Rei #1 had no problems with gobbling up three of them and spitting them back out. That pretty much became her pattern, reabsorbing the direct memories of them in the Dungeon before extruding more clones... damn, she was leveling fast. She was gonna beat even Bell's record, which made sense, since she was even better than Bell.

She knew, from absorbing their memories, that her clones had some pretty uncharitable thoughts about her, but she was sure that'd fix after a few repetitions of this whole cycle. She couldn't go into the Dungeon herself, they all knew that. If she got hurt or injured down there, they'd all die, no saves, no undos, no chance. Better for her to laze in bed and get eaten out by Noriko.

Though, once Goro was taken care of, wouldn't that mean Noriko would leave the Manor more, and she wouldn't get all that free pussy-eating? That was a horrifying thought.

* * *

Noriko's entire body ached from having been sparring with Ais again. Her stats were growing more quickly from training with Ais than they had from being a supporter in the Dungeon. She liked Ais, as Ais was a very dedicated teacher. However, it was still painful, and she was exhausted as she returned to the bedroom. There were currently five copies of Rei on the bed, all of whom had the voluminous breasts that Rei had chosen to give herself, shortly after joining the harem. They were so large that Drake was no longer entirely sure if Noriko would be the chestiest of his wives once she became pregnant with his child. She did not like that thought very much.

"Heyyy, Nori-chan," the Reis said, a chorus of seductive desire. "I'm still working on getting that orgasming tongue thing down, so, can you make eye contact?"

"Very well, I will go along with this." Noriko made eye contact with each of the Reis in turn. She understood that this would allow them to enjoy the pleasures of sex which she experienced, which was much greater than the degree to which they enjoyed sex. "I am very tired, Rei. I do not believe I will be able to properly pleasure you. Instead, I will simply lie down on the bed, and you can sit on my face."

"Ohhh, sure, babe," Rei said. Rei was not her 'babe,' but as she was the head wife, and Rei was her co-wife, she chose to ignore the comment in the interest of ensuring there were no troubles in the harem. She laid down on the bed, snuggling her head into a pillow, and promptly, Rei's salty pussy was presented to her as she moved to straddle her face.

* * *

Erza rolled her shoulders. They stood at the stairs to the Seventeenth Floor, where the Goliath lurked. She had killed it twice already - once, with Ryu's help, against an angry Dungeon; the second time, without it. Rei was still inexperienced and full of youthful vigor, and she wasn't sure if Rei could handle the monster in question. At the moment, ten of her clones were arranged behind Erza, all wearing the bodies of minotaurs, titanic figures of masculine strength, each towering over her at more than eight feet tall.

Yet, according to the logic of this world, each minotaur was equivalent to a Level Two adventurer, and the Goliath was equivalent to a Level Four adventurer. She was unsure if they could really face down the creature, but if they couldn't, then she could step in, allowing Rei to retreat. Erza had to trust in Rei until it reached that point, though. Given the way that, when she assumed a monster's form, she added both her own strength and the monster's together, it was possible that ten minotaurs could be the equals of one Goliath - each was armed with one of her own swords, drawn from those she used in the Heaven's Wheel Armor.

"Are you ready, Rei?"

"As I'll ever be," the minotaurs spoke in a cacophony, not with a single voice but with a single will, each responding to the question much the same for a moment. There was a grim nod a moment later, and she strode down the staircase to the next floor.

In the room that followed loomed the Goliath, seeming to simply breathe in place, its whole body rising and falling with a monstrous energy. It stared down at them, eyes seeming like pinpricks on its face - and after a long, pregnant pause, it lunged forward, titanic arms stretching out for Erza. She drew her sword in a defensive posture, stabbing it into the Goliath's palm and letting the force of its would-be strike propel her backward, rather than simply being slammed into the wall by it. Her feet slid across the ground, then hopped up, and she pulled the sword out as the Goliath began to lose speed, making a twisting, acrobatic motion in the air. She wasn't here to kill the Goliath, though, so she adjusted her angle and flipped backwards off the creature.

The minotaurs had, by this point, swarmed around the creatures legs, swords slicing at it. Once, Rei's movements with a weapon had been inexpert, but now there was a certain basic ability with it... after Erza had spent some time training the group. It was only the fundamentals, but it was enough to maximize the damage the strikes did, and the Goliath roared in rage and pain as it was nicked and cut again and again.

Every minotaur's eyes and head shifted, moving, ready for an attack - but the Goliath ignored them, instead simply rushing towards Erza where she stood. She had heard from the Prettiest Princess that a monster could sometimes carry on memories from a past battle - perhaps it was simply mad at her for fighting it in the past?

Some of the minotaurs transformed suddenly, into the almost serpentine form of an infant dragon, each snapping and biting at the Goliath's legs with grievous force, jaws clamping down to slow the beast. Erza grit her teeth as she leapt and dodged back from the Goliath's clumsy swing. She was glad, on the one hand, that the monster was trying to kill her rather than Rei - but on the other, she was confused as to the beast's strange behavior. Why was it trying to kill her, instead of Rei? She had hardly even attacked it by this point, only dodged and parried its strikes. The Goliath tried to kick out at her, two Reis firmly attached to its leg, teeth digging in - they transformed into small birds mid-strike, flying into the air - and Erza leapt to one side, letting the ferocious kick pass her by even as it landed with a might thump.

"So you remember me," she told it, smiling as the creature reached out for her again. "I'm glad! Learn from your past battles, and become stronger!" She would surely never achieve Level Two if she relied on the Goliath remaining an inert obstacle.

The creature's only response was to incoherently, ripping out a chunk of the Dungeon wall, hurling it at her a moment later. It fired off as a scattershot of rock and dust, scattering through the air. The two birds that hovered over the creature's head suddenly transformed into a pair of infant dragons, slamming down on its back and forcing it to briefly shudder with the weight. It brought its hands up towards its own face and neck, no doubt planning to rip them away, but they simply released, falling down to the ground with a pair of mighty thumps as they - and the others - continued to swarm the Goliath.

It did seem as if the Goliath was too strong for Rei to take down, even with it remaining persistently distracted... but so long as it didn't attack Rei, then Erza could continue this battle for as long as it took to make absolutely certain of that claim.

As she readied for the Goliath's impending charge, she felt a movement behind her, a faint shift in wind currents, and leapt to one side. A moment later, a titanic form of a seven foot tall man, armed with a massive sword as long as he was tall, thick as a man's hand at its largest point, swung right through the space she had occupied. "Hn," came a familiar voice - Goro Iwakari, her co-wife's abusive father and the one who had tried to kill the Prettiest Princess. "Good dodge, but it won't protect you. I'm going to kill you," he told her, with a casual roll of his shoulders, and then he swept forward again.

He was fast - much faster than Ryu, simply sweeping forward like a lightning bolt, cutting through the air fast enough to leave a quiet shriek of air. She had to spend all her focus on dodging and leaping backwards, and she silently Requipped into her Clear Heart clothing. There was no point remaining in armor against a foe as strong as Goro. One hit would be all it took.

The Goliath's paw slammed down where she had been, and she saw a teeming mass of incoherent flesh crawling across its midsection, the beast and Rei atop him moving too swiftly to make out much more than that. Goro swung his blade again and again, cutting through the air with a casual contempt, forcing her to step and leap backwards with each lazy movement.

There was no chance for her to cut through. Oh, there were flaws in his form, places that she could have injected her own strikes if she was a peer - but he was faster than her. Where she might see a mistake, some overexposure, it vanished in the blink of an eye, as his body spun and pivoted.

His sword slammed into hers as she failed to get out of the way in time. She could feel as it dug into her own blade, which snapped in half a fraction of a second later, the discarded half slamming at great speeds into the arm of the Goliath as she was forced to Requip a new weapon as she finished her backwards movement just in time, Goro's blade so close she could feel it against the hairs of her skin. He grinned as he saw her tumble backwards. "You can blame your husband for this," he taunted her, as he casually strode forward. He maintained his sword arm in such a position that he could have deflected any attack she brought to bear. "If he hadn't stolen my daughter away, this wouldn't be happening to you right now."

Erza did not blame her husband, of course. "You are the one responsible for this," she said, her sword kept in the space between them. "You make your own decisions, Goro Iwakari. Those decisions are the ones that have led us down this past, not Drake's!" Goro tried to bat aside her sword with his own, but she managed to get her blade back in time, taking two swift steps back. The Goliath proceeded to try to grab her, one massive hand reaching out for her torso - she leapt into the air, even as Goro's own sword cut upwards, chopping clean through the Goliath's hand, removing all its fingers in a single movement while barely slowing down at all. Her pant leg was ripped wide open as his attack continued its course onwards towards her, but he fortunately missed the actual flesh as she flew through the air.

Erza Requipped midair into the Heaven's Wheel Armor, and thereby avoided setting down on the ground in Goro's immediate range, using the armor's flight capabilities to soar to a far wall. Both Goro and the Goliath pursued her with a manic energy, the Goliath still angrily coming after her despite Goro having grievously injured it and Rei visibly clinging to its cool grey flesh. It was confusing - but it provided her with a hint as to how to fight the two. She leapt off the wall as the pair came near, swinging around the Goliath to position it between herself and Goro, and Goro casually stepped through the creature's legs, the teeming mass of Rei briefly parting to avoid him cutting them apart. Erza, though, shifted around the Goliath, keeping its leg between her and Goro.

"You know I don't need a Goliath to kill you, don't you?" He said. He was a fool - playing with her rather than battling her. He lunged, sword at his side, ready to swing it - she repositioned herself on the opposite side of the Goliath, and his blade cut neatly into the creature's leg, simply ignoring it in its quest to kill her. It tore through the breastplate of her armor with a sideways motion, a massive gash forming even as the Goliath tumbled down to the ground, unable to support itself any longer with the grievous wounds that Goro had inflicted upon it.

Goro rushed forward, and Erza summoned forth a mass of swords as she did her beast to leap and fly backwards, hundreds of swords manifesting and flying towards Goro like a thousand bullets fired in rapid sequence from one of the Prettiest Princess's guns. He was forced to block and parry the swords, slowing his approach - while he may have been stronger than her, he couldn't guarantee no strike would hit true.

"You're only buying time, you little bitch," he screamed out at her in annoyance as the swords continued to rain down on him. She was - she only had so many swords to hurl his way, even if she'd stopped his approach.

But time was all she needed, as behind Goro, several massive shapes rose behind him, each looming at three times his height. She grinned with grim determination, momentarily intensifying her assault on Goro, and then massive hands reached to grab Goro from behind, six different strong arms grabbing and squeezing at him as one. He swung his sword out, but four more managed to grab that arm just in time, thick fingers blocking the sword strike and receiving a small cut for their troubles. The entire field erupted into a luminous blue glow, countless strange and alien eyes beginning to erupt around the massive Goliaths, like a vast sea.

"What the hell-" was as far as Goro got out, before the crushing force of the hands squeezed the breath from him, only a whispery noise escaping his lips. There was a momentary straining noise, and suddenly, his body was ripped in two, blood spraying out in great gouts, sickly blue glow bouncing off the dark red in the cool darkness of the Dungeon. His upper body was lifted into the air, blood raining down on the open mouths of the four or five Goliaths that held him aloft, while his legs were simply ripped in two and gobbled down by two other Goliaths. There was some muffled cry of panic or scream from Goro's upper half, but it ended when his head was torn from his shoulders, more blood splashing about in the din of the Seventeenth Floor, his body being devoured in pieces by the various Goliaths that made up Rei. The blood that scattered across the floor was lit by the glow of Rei's soul, countless little flickers of pale blue and near-white tracing across it as she and the eyes moved about.

Less than a minute later, there was no sign of Goro beyond his discarded sword and the occasional splatter of blood or piece of his clothes that dotted the Goliaths' faces and chins. Then they shrunk down to an ordinary size, and there were ten Reis standing before her, smiling with smug self-satisfaction, still glowing with in ethereal blue, strange eyes swarming around her, and long, pale silvery lines running across her bare skin where it wasn't covered by her armor. "Now I'm the strongest in the harem," she declared, with confidence.

"Indeed you are, Rei," Erza agreed. Given the opportunity for a surprise attack, she wasn't quite sure that she could have managed to fell Goro - certainly, she couldn't have ripped him in half with her bare hands, as Rei had done. "Congratulations are in order. Let us go to the Hostess of Fertility. I will pay!"

"Ehh... I'd kinda rather that we just went back home, and the two of us made sweet love. Seeing you go at it against Goro got me hot. You were all heroic and shit. Plus I like strong girls."

Erza lowered her head slightly in regret. Unrequited love was one of the classic tragedies, and she brought a hand up to her chest. "I am sorry, Rei. My heart pounds only for Drake, and I have no interest in women," she explained.

"Guh," Rei said, sighing.

"I mean, Syr's probably bi..." one of the Reis noted. "I bet we could get her to eat us out. Don't we have a good-looking soul?"

"How are all ten of us going to go to the Hostess of Fertility?" Another Rei argued.

"She said she was paying," another one noted.

"I can easily afford it with the proceeds of the Goliath's magic stone," Erza pointed out, gesturing to the item.

"Whoa, that's my magic stone. I earned it," Rei said.

"I have killed the Goliath twice before - do not worry. You may keep the proceeds from this one."

"Awesome," they said as a chorus.

"Let's go to the Hostess, see if we can't seduce Syr."

"I wish you the best of luck," Erza said. While some men may have become upset by their wife's wandering eyes, she knew that Drake had accepted this part of Rei, showing his great and vast heart.

Erza cut the pair's way back out of the Dungeon, as Rei discussed with herself how best to seduce Syr.

On the thirteenth floor, Rei spoke up. "Oh, sweet, looks like I leveled up. That's right, I'm the Record Holder now. Two weeks, eat your heart out Bell."

"Congratulations," Erza said. She hoped she had also achieved Level Two - the thought of being left behind by her husband and co-wives left a bitter feeling in her heart.