The hour was late, but sunrise was still a ways off. Clothing that had been carelessly stripped off lay strewn over the thick carpet. Moonlight glinted off countless beads of condensation on half-emptied glasses of top-tier brandy. The distinct odor of intercourse hung faintly in the air, mixing with smoldering incense and alcoholic fumes to create a sweet, heady aroma that filled the room with a lewd air.
All was quiet save the peaceful breathing of sleep. Strangely, the little imperfections in the silence, like the barely perceptible patter of rain, occasional clap of distant thunder, and the faraway city commotion, made it seem all the deeper and more profound.
The bluish light of the stars streamed through the skylight, illuminating the naked figures of a man and woman sleeping on a large, luxurious canopied bed. No, it was only the woman who was asleep, with her long, golden hair spread out on the sheets around her. The man was sitting up with one knee propped up.
The first bout between these two had ended with Sol’s decisive victory, leaving Frederica so deeply asleep that she wouldn’t be waking up until morning short of being shaken with great force. In other words, she had won the seduction showdown but then suffered a complete defeat in the resulting duel.
Sol didn’t even have to cheat using the abilities that Luna had appropriated from the succubus. In terms of pure physical capability, he was no match for Frederica, as he couldn’t boost his own stats through Player but had raised hers to the limit. In bed, however, victory was decided by other stats. More importantly, a stark difference in experience could very easily overturn the advantage of physical prowess, as was the case in many other domains.
Consequently, Frederica was now more accurately unconscious, not asleep. The memory of how immodest her first night had been would be making this princess writhe in bed in pure mortification quite a few times in the days to come. Thankfully, however, defeat was not the end in this form of combat. With unceasing effort and enough experience, Frederica just might be able to have her revenge one day. Or that would have been true if Sol hadn’t had far more opportunities to gain such experience or the ability to not only temporarily revoke her stat buffs but even reset her level. On second thought, her prospects were an immutable zero.
Funnily enough, Reen had recently taken a liking to just that: having her level reset and being reverted to a “normal” girl. It apparently really turned her on having Sol, with the overwhelming strength that came with his much higher level, do as he pleased with her in that state. It was very likely that Frederica would discover the exact same thing not too far off in the future.
When separated and facing him alone, the girls’ forces were no match for Sol’s solitary might. They had but one very slim chance at victory, which would require them to swallow their embarrassment and join hands to mount a united assault. Then again, considering their current strength, they would still get trounced. If they didn’t individually train themselves up more, Sol would just be going through them like tissue paper.
While absently playing with Frederica’s blonde hair, Sol murmured to himself, “So, we’ll be putting off the Four Great Dungeons for now. That said, we might be on a timer and just don’t know it. Even so, our first order of business is to fully clear a random dungeon. At the same time, we should also step up efforts to find the Lifeless Divine Beast and the Cursed Hero.”
Countless display windows of all sizes hung in the air surrounding the canopied bed bathed in starlight. Some displayed texts from Biblioteca with subject matters that had little to no mention in this world’s myths, traditions, or recorded history. Others showed the pictures of the murals from the lowest floor of Abyss being sorted and grouped while extracting and documenting excerpts with suspected similarities and connections according to Sol’s judgment.
This form of analysis was what Frederica was best at, but she was out of commission, so Sol was having to do it himself. The meeting with all the Libertadores was going to be rather early in the morning, so he didn’t have much time to finish. Given the considerable urgency of this meeting, he couldn’t just show up empty-handed with the excuse that he had spent a very enjoyable night with Frederica.
Their situation was, in fact, quite dire. If Sol’s hunch about the three bound entities was on the mark, it even appeared that they were at an impasse. To defeat the three, they needed Luna at full strength, which meant regaining all her organas. Assuming that each organa—a horn, an eye, and a pair of wings—was keeping one such entity at bay, only the third fight was winnable and the first two would be decisive defeats.
In addition to the paradoxical nature of this conundrum, there was also the constant possibility of the three beings getting free by themselves. Whatever they were, they were so powerful that nothing short of the All Dragon’s organas could keep them bound. Frederica understood that. It was pure fear, not strategy or calculations, that had induced her actions tonight. She knew full well that they were standing on very thin ice, and it terrified her.
Sol saw this as a development in his quest to make the unknown known and was thrilled, but he also was aware of how Frederica felt and that she was only being dragged along by him, so he had wanted to comfort her. Frankly, she had been adorable. So adorable that the word did not do her justice. Ever since meeting Sol, she had never once shunned Player or Luna. Instead, she had devoted all her mental energy to coming up with ways to most efficiently make use of them—to put it in a more diplomatic way, maximize their potential. She had been a steadfast presence at Sol’s side, honest and direct with her suggestions and opinions.