"…Did one of you ask an express toy delivery?"
"What? What are you… Ooooh! Dibs!"
"Wait! Fine… Have it your way…"
"Oh, there's enough for all of us… I only wonder how she ended here..."
"Pffff. Does it matter? I mean, let's just enjoy that free meal!"
"...You're right. Let us indulge for once... Oh, shush you, consider it the price of your resurrection..."
Micaela reached the top of the Shrine Hill to see a dark haired elf in a kimono run away into the snake shrine. The first seraph turned toward Tamamo.
"She's that shy?"
Tamamo nodded. The duo turned to see Alma Elma and Luka following them, and the hero didn't look enthusiastic in the slightest at the perspective of the upcoming date.
"Sooo, we let the two lovebirds have their little date together or…"
Luka groaned.
"We won't abandon you Luka, don't worry, I was just wanting to know how you wanted it to go."
"Wait…"
The group was standing in front of the shrine when Tamamo raised her hand, stopping their progression. She straightened Luka's armor and clothing underneath, and repositioned a few tufts of hair. Micaela glared at the succubus, as if to challenger her to say anything. The succubus seemed oddly lost in thoughts for a reason.
"Now we're ready."
The group entered to see two elves (none of them being the princess) sitting behind a table. One of them ran behind a paper screen that was positioned to hide someone (likely the elf princess if what they saw was any indication). The elf that had run back behind the screen came back and bowed.
"The princess says she like you."
Luka muttered back. "Thank you."
The elf ran back behind the screen and came back a minute later.
"The princess says she finds you very cute."
Luka started not so discreetly blushing. The elven messenger once again ran back behind the screen, while each member of the quartet tried to keep a serious, neutral expression. She came back with the red orb, upon which Tamamo's eyes instantly locked.
"This is a welcome gift, you will need it on your travel… Is what I have been said." She ran back behind the screen when Micaela's voice echoed in Tamamo's mind.
"Ok, I'm starting to understand it now, it's beyond ridiculous."
"Stay calm, don't do anything rash, at least let me grab the orb first… Wait, she's back for more…"
"Please accept these gifts from our village." The intermediate placed down several items on the table A long katana, a piece of armor, several expensive looking necklaces, and several other items the party couldn't even see under the heap.
"This can't be serious."
"I agree. This generosity is extremely suspicious."
Micaela cleared her throat. "We thank you for your numerous gifts, but isn't it… excessive?"
"Those are only gifts for the upcoming marriage." The elf disappeared again behind the screen.
"…We both saw that one coming, didn't we?"
"Well... I did say that she was more pushy than the kitsune marriage ceremony..."
"The princess says she's fine with either a temple or a church."
"This… is impressively fast. Are you sure you don't want to go on one or two dates beforehand?"
The envoy disappeared after Micaela told her cue. There were several minutes of discussion with the ambiance becoming unbearably heavy. The elf came finally came back with the princess' decision."
"It is agreed. She wishes to meet you again tomorrow here at the beginning of the afternoon… If it is fine with you."
Luka blushed and muttered an accepting answer. The envoy once again left behind the screen and reappeared a minute later.
"Then, it is decided. We shall see each other tomorrow…Is what the princess told me to tell you." The envoy bowed.
"Well in that case…" Micaela got up and bowed back before leaving, soon followed by the three other members of the party. Her pace was unusually brisk, and the party instantly teleported back into the Pocket Castle.
"We saw everything. I suddenly felt a lot better about my love life."
The Grand Noah Queen was sitting in the reunion room, accompanied by the quartet, as well as Freya and Ilias. The elf queen was grimacing and passing her hand in her long hair nervously, something that attracted everyone's attention.
"I… Don't remember what happened last time. I only remembered what happened last time she dated someone. It was before the Great Disaster. The elf queen grabbed a bottle of Wind Leaf liquor, and generously helped herself, gulping down a small pint in one go.
"It ended that badly?"
"Not exactly… But let's just say there's a reason the snow elves follow her like that… She's extremely picky, and any man that gets rejected after her first selection is more often than not a good stud used by the kunoichis as training material…"
"And if that date goes well, and that she indeed completely falls head over heels for Luka?"
Freya fanned herself with a fan as the liquor was taking hold. "She's going to bring him into her manor, and I don't think he'll see the outside much. They're more likely to share gloomy poetry evening than to enjoy the pleasure of the world..."
Luka released a long drawn groan. "I wished monsters were less interested in me…"
"Before we go any further, I would want to check on something." Ilias was smiling sarcastically. "We're basically going to treat that date with a monster as a baiting operation, aren't we?"
Freya leaned back on her chair. "As insulting as the underlying message is… It's perfectly fitting, given our circumstances."
Ilias gave out a satisfied smile for her small victory, which everybody let her have.
"As the regent of monsters, unless this date creates a diplomatic conflict, I can't step in." Tamamo's ears drooped. "And we have to be really careful, the last thing we want is to push the snow elves into Black Alice's arms just because the princess wants to get Luka at all cost."
Micaela leaned back. "So we have to make this date good, so that the elven princess doesn't end up depressed and decides to join Black Alice, but not perfect, so that she let go of Luka and let the hero free… I suppose you don't want to get married to her?"
The hero groaned. "I'd like to save the world first, and be free afterwards if you don't mind…"
"Just like a succubus."
"Please shut up Ilias, I was just checking... And then we'll have to extract him from the grasp of her guards to prevent a full-on war with the snow elves… Did I miss anything or get anything wrong?"
Everybody awkwardly looked at each other before nodding negatively. "I don't suppose we have a plan to deal with something like that?"
The Grand Noah Queen produced an incredibly thick volume under everyone's stupefied gaze and started browsing.
"You are kidding me."
"This is what happens when Mephisto got bored. She was known as devious for a reason. It could be worse…"
"How?"
"Well, she could have decided to test some of these plans for starter." The queen flipped a few pages. "And, believe it or not, plans focused on managing the hero's love life is not the strangest chapter in that book."
Micaela discreetly took a peek across the table, and managed to recognize something about dealing with Morrigan's familial issues, or even a backup plan should the hero get drained to death by a succubus. She felt a small pang of guilt on hiding the truth to Luka.
"So Mephisto had plans to seize control of the hero's… intimate life." Ilias scowled. "I don't know how I should feel about that… Wait, is there anything for me?"
"I didn't look, only Promestein took time to read the book."
Ilias emitted a low, meowling whine that was largely ignored, save for her past first lieutenant who patted her gently on the back.
"Anyway, here are a few suggestions: Bringing Lucifina-chan. That one speaks for itself."
"No. That's a terrible plan."
"Coming to the date high on pheromone's succubus."
"Ooooh!"
"Sorry, but no."
"Ooooh..."
"Bringing up the full list of people Luka made special requests to." The queen distractedly browsed, ignoring the hero who was now as red as a tomato.
"Can I see the page with said list?"
"It's on several pages. Ah. Passing the four bandit as his illegitimate children…"
"That's… questionable… Was Mephisto that good an advisor?"
"Yes, but it sometimes required some effort to identify the actually good idea in the midst of the original ones… Another idea was to have a succubus come and… oh for the love of my ancestors." The queen pinched the bridge of her nose."
Sensing her nephew's rising distress, Micaela raised both of her hands. "Let's… keep looking silently while looking for other ideas. Tamamo, you don't have anything in that alley?"
The kitsune sighed. "This is one of the thing I really wish not to talk about."
Micaela raised an eyebrow before she realized she had hit a sensitive issue that likely involved the other Ancestors. They did have a few sisterly grudges when it came to bedding heroes in the past, and several of her hand picked infiltrators personally assisted to them. Several had to be taken care afterwards, their minds utterly broken by what they had seen.
"I think I have a plan that will do nicely with Alma Elma's help, but first, I want to check what Mephisto considered…"
In the meantime, Luka felt terribly alone and useless in his corner, as if those matters discussed didn't concern him.
And so the next day, the hero was back at the Snake Shrine, alone. He knew his allies were extremely close, but he still didn't feel reassured in the slightest. He could see the princess, surrounded by her own guards who were protecting her. While they all smiled in a friendly way, always being surrounded by a company that large made the ambiance heavier than what would be decent for a supposed date. The hero nervously gripped his hands, checking that he still had that ring from Micaela.
"So, do you want to walk around or…"
The elf princess whimpered and hid behind her guards who formed a denser wall. "Our mistress says she'd be interested in visiting the famous Mount Saint Amos."
"Ok, so how do we…"
One of the elven kunoichi grabbed Luka, and, the next instant, everybody was standing at the top of the mountain. The hero was surprised to see the ruins of a settlement, before he remembered that it was indeed a place where Ilias and her angels lived for a few… weeks? Months? It was hard to tell now, and he was glad that they peacefully came back.
In any case, they didn't help in improving the alarmingly gloomy ambiance of the place. The weather was dark, with the sun unable to pierce the grey layer of clouds, and the devastated buildings only reinforced the ominous pressure emanating from the place.
He focused back on the elves. Most were spreading through the ruins while a few others were still standing around the elven princess to protect her from possible gazers. They eventually settled close to the edge of the mountain. The elven princess started muttering something that one of the guard repeated instantly.
"Even at the top, civilization is dead, a ruin to be found."
Luka gulped loudly. "That's… poetic…"
"Yes." The atmosphere became unbearably heavy for several minutes, before the elven princess muttered something again that got translated by one of her guard once more. "Do you want to try it?"
Luka cleared his throat before stammering his card. "
"Lost in the darkness, from one world to another, it is a struggle."
"That was… Good."
The group remained eerily silent for some more time. Just a head to head, with a whole cadre of guards between both because one of them was too shy to look or to be looked at the other. Eventually, as the sun was setting on the horizon, the elf princess muttered something which got translated by one of her guard once more.
"I really enjoyed this day. Can we see each other again soon?"
Sure, just let me save the world first…
"Yes. Whenever you want."
"Very well then. We shall- huh?"
The guard turned away in surprise. A slight change in the air instantly made Luka summon Gnome. A veiled succubus clad in a black cape with matching long gloves and stockings suddenly appeared in the sky.
"Tremble! For I am Koka Bruka, first lieutenant of Black Alice! And that boy is mine!"
Luka remained motionless. The guard deployed around to protect their princess and her new possible paramour in front of the flying threat.
The elves started casting ninjutsus at the succubus, but she dodged all of them with alarming ease by remaining away. She kept flying around for a minute while making every possible effort to avoid her opponent's attacks, and suddenly dived bomb at Luka. However, an explosion modified her trajectory, and she ended up grabbing only the pants of the hero before teleporting away.
As a result, Luka ended up pantless in front of very interested elves who all licked their lips. The hero gulped loudly and started running away before the succubus reappeared, fully grabbed him in a body lock, and teleported away.
The hero found himself surrounded by a green scenery, with Micaela leaning back against a tree, her arms crossed as she looked down at the scene in front of her, and Tamamo holding out his pants with an apologetic expression.
"…Sorry. I… Didn't expect that. We needed more time than I expected to set up another extraction point without getting detected."
Alma Elma let go of the hero before changing herself in the blink of an eye in her signature attire. The kitsune raised her hand, and the other set of clothes instantly caught fire while the first seraph sighed.
"You really think they fell for that? I mean, powerful succubi like that don't run the street…"
Tamamo shrugged. "If they're not going to jump on Black Alice, it will be on the Lilith Sisters… In any case, we have the Red orb and Luka's fine. I'll just make sure that Yao's aware of what happened so that she'll deal with the snow elves appropriately."
The hero groaned as he put his pants back on. "Please, get sure that whoever writes my life omits what happened there."
The kitsune nodded. "Let's clean our trace and get back at the Pocket Castle. The faster we move on the better."
"Why should we even follow you, you monkey…" Quetzalcoatl sneered and turned away from Sun Wukong.
"Because Black Alice's going to slaughter everyone." The monkey queen was getting tired. The ancient goddess' supposed wisdom had difficulties shining at that precise moment. Sphinx and Yamata No Orochi were backing Sun Wukong up, since they were part of the few monsters that used to know both of them, and were as such the only ones that could make the feathered goddess listen to reason.
"And what makes you say that? She brought us back to this world, when your new master recruited the one who raised those that killed us, trampled our temples and our followers." She hissed. "And now I'm agreeing with that stupid cat! What you're inflicting one me is untolerable!"
"Weeeell, true, but if you follow Black Alice, youuu'll just get back to that in record time." Sun Wukong leaned back against the wall.
"I'm only honoring the debt I have to her. You should also be doing so…"
"You did that when you rallied the insect tribe in Plansect. And before that, she paired you up with Tezcatlipoca. And she never showed up even when Micaela stepped in." Sun Wukong looked down. "And she didn't step in either when I was getting my ass handed by Tamamo. Face it. She doesn't care about us. If she doesn't do any effort to keep us on her side, then it means your followers are just going to be so many victims to her rampage."
"Good point… But that certainly won't be enough to sway me, and I will-"
"And Kagetsumugi is completely creepy with her dolls."
Quetzalcoatl froze as memories of the puppeteer came to her mind. She was just creepy. Maybe it was her dissonant personality, her creepy laugh or her interest to transform dead monsters into weapons, but she felt uncomfortable just being around her.
"Fine, I won't join her back… Now as to why I should stay… here… What's that smell?"
Sphinx cleared her throat. "That would be the cooks preparing tonight's meal. Seasonned steak with potatoes and a parfait as dessert."
Quetzalcoatl was trying to keep her composure, but Sphinx could see a slight trail of drool slipping from her mouth. Tamamo had been entirely right into her suppositions that cooking food would get them to switch to their side.
"Very well… I will consider helping you. At least for a while longer."
Sun Wukong smirked. "Yeah, that's for the best, trust me on that one.
"Now, would someone kindly guide me to the dining room? Not that I'm hungry, but I'm curious about the food you're cooking…"
Yamata No Orochi invited the reptilian bird-like monster to follow her, leaving Sphinx and Sun Wukong alone.
Sphinx sighed. "Phew, that took longer than I expected. Now, onto that dumb cat…"
"Remember, keep them away from each other. Even better, let's wait a minute."