My Life With An S&M Maid - NEW

by Curiosity44

Anime worlds are fun as a story, but what happens when that story becomes your reality? Join Dante on his journey through a world full of adventure, romance, immortals, magic, magical beasts, and a lovable S&M maid. Join him as he takes the world by storm as the Ouroboros Potioneer! Slight AU Fairy Tail, starts years before canon. At the moment - Solo Romance.

8. The Job, The Time I Met The King, and Th

AN: Yo. Sorry for the wait, this chapter was a massive pain as it's a combo of parts of three others. I don't usually like making flashback scenes the main point of a chapter anymore, but I couldn't do much without rewriting the entire plotline, so I just kept it as is. I also took a few reading breaks but no one has to know that. Bite me.

You will see in the chap but I freestyled a lot of canon knowledge here. I AM AWARE of what the wiki says. Please don't attack me for not doing my homework. I read the canon and wiki stuff; I just like doing things differently sometimes.

I try to catch grammar issues but there's only so much patience I have lol. Theres prob issues around, but my brain is currently fried.

Response to reviews at the end. PLEASE let me know if you think I should cut this chap in two after your done. And share your thoughts on the chapter itself.

Enjoy.

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"Somebody speaking."

'Somebody thinking.'

{Telepathy}

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, or any other anime/novel/manga/fanfic that I may use.

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Chapter 6: The Job, The Time I Met The King, and The Graveyard.

Heading into his lab while drying his hair with a towel, Dante pulled out his journal and opened the bookmark set for work. His trusty journal hadn't changed a bit in over five years of heavy usage, often just appearing by his side without warning if he didn't carry it with him in his Requip space.

'Let's see… two custom orders, another batch of those horrible PPP constitution potions, and that pesticide request from Warrod. I'll get the PPP batch out of the way and deal with the others after that, I can make the others at the same time as their not as time sensitive during brewing. Warrods needs to be made on the deck and its better brewed in moonlight.'

The PPP, or Pay Pain to Play, potion enhanced his skin, organs, muscles, and skeleton durability-wise. His ability to take damage, both magical and physical, as well as resist toxins rose steadily with continued usage and a heavily increased metabolism. It didn't change his appearance, he managed to remove that side effect before taking it, but it was incredibly painful to use and had minor changes that needed long-term usage and constant pressure on the body to take effect. 80% of the recipe went to control the effects of the last 20% of ingredients, some of which were only able to be grown in the Celestial Realm. And the final main ingredient was the rarest of them all, without which the potion was impossible to craft.

Various jars and shelves were telekinetically grabbed while he stood at the center Pac-man-shaped table and got into his element. The burner was ignited under the large copper cauldron as pure water filled its contents, while he used smaller hand-sized cauldrons to divide, measure, and grind up herbs in specific ratios.

Everything was weighed in ratios on a freestanding scale before being added to various marble mortar and pestles to be ground up and then combined into the hand-sized cauldrons in ratios needed for specific potions.

The sounds of the bubbling cauldron and the grinding of the pestle were all that was heard as Dante focused on every piece of the puzzle that added up to the final potion.

An extremely fine chef's knife appeared in his hand as he delicately cut up stalks of Star Eye stalks. The pitch black herb gave no indications of the highly toxic elements inside that had to be removed without puncturing to use the rest of the herb.

Jasmine Ear had to be cut into along the grain, or the medicinal quality would be wasted.

Fire Pines had to be peeled off the explosive outer layer to get to the seed inside that he needed.

Dozens of ingredients with their own specific preparation requirements passed through his cutting board before having the pieces he needed set aside with the leftovers tossed into a compost bin.

Ingredients, jars, vials, knives, and occasionally tomes flew across the lab in organized chaos as he methodically progressed from one step to another. Some herbs had time limits for when they could be used, and a few steps of the potion could turn volatile or fail if the next step weren't ready on time. Proper prep work was 70% of the work. And that included actually retrieving the ingredients in the first place.

One after another, the ingredients were levitated into the bubbling cauldron as Dante grabbed from the two dozen stirring spoons hanging from hooks above him, constantly adjusting which wood affected the brew depending on what type of ingredient was being dissolved into the mixture.

'Five times clockwise with ash until the Green Carp Shell dissolves, add the June Root, eight time counter-clockwise with maple until it evaporates into smoke, trap the smoke in a jar and wait for it to condense back into liquid before adding it after letting the mixture boil for 14 minutes.'

Step after step flashed by, his hands moving like an artist in actions done thousands of times before to create a specific result.

Over an hour of intense concentration moving from one step to another resulted in a calmy bubbling cauldron of glowing neon green liquid with an almost physical vibration in the air. A locked chest in the corner of the room creaked open as Dante retrieved a shard of a larger bone lying inside.

The crystal-like bone shard shot forward to hover above his palm as he looked at it. So small, seemingly like any other piece of crystal, and yet it radiated mana like a furnace. The shard was none other than a dragon bone shard, and it was the final ingredient of his potion. An ingredient he had in abundance and one that changed things for him all those years ago.

As the bone shard dropped into the neon green liquid and set it to violently churn with a faint dragon roar ringing in his ears, Dante's mind turned back to the time he got the bones on that trip to Crocus two years before and the changes he caused.

Flashback:

Year 775.

The capital of Fiore, the city known far and wide as the Flower Blooming Capital, was a magnificent city named Crocus after a genus of flowering plants.

It was the largest city in Fiore, shaped in a massive circular pattern with the king's palace in the direct center. A vast skyline of buildings extended for miles like trees in a forest, with one side coming right up to a massive crag where the flatland met the outer mountains of the Mirage Mountain range.

The most distinctive trait of the city, given its epithet, was the limitless number of flowers of hundreds of varieties that adorned the streets. From flowerbeds to balconies, to rooftops, to small parks placed throughout the city, it was overflowing with the scents of all kinds of flowers.

It was probably a nightmare in pollen season.

In the very center of the city lay a large round lake. Its center dedicated to the massive palace of the royal family, named Mercurius, and connected to its surroundings by drawbridges.

The coliseum used in the future Grand Magic Games stood tall on the western side of the city where festivals and demonstrations were held for generations.

It was truly a beautiful city no matter how you looked at it, and if there was one thing Dante especially loved about it, it was the social class.

Nobles existed, as Everlue had once been, but they were heavily limited in actual power beyond their titles. The King of Fiore was heavy-handed when he stepped into the throne and had a one-man war against the nobles of the kingdom, eventually stripping them of much of their power over the course of decades.

He was a man with genius intellect in regard to the economy but was a hopeless child in awe at anything magic related, which resulted in him creating the magic council of Fiore and having an offhand approach to their inner workings. The economy of a kingdom was a full-time job after all.

The capital had no district divisions for high or low-class areas. No slums existed, and the homeless were never allowed to become a burden on the kingdom. Fiore had an entire government branch dedicated to directing those at the bottom of their barrel to areas of the kingdom where they could start over or be of use. It wasn't slavery, just an option between a few choices they could take that could actually improve their quality of life. The only option that didn't happen was for them to be homeless in the city.

The city had mansions, expensive hotels, and cheap inns, but it was all mixed up with no specific districts. It was truly a fantasy city with a heavy emphasis on stamping out corruption. Dante had noticed numerous shadows moving through the streets, often keeping a watch and removing shady elements. The jovial-appearing king didn't play around with what he considered threats to his people, at least on the non-magical side of things.

He was less successful in other cities, but he left the job to the various mage guilds and magic council to deal with. The man was a fool with magic but a fantastic ruler for the mundane. Although his actions resulted in the magic council becoming increasingly corrupt without supervision or competition as Toma stomped out underground corruption that would oppose the magic council's ways.

'Not like any of that political nonsense is my problem anyway.' Dante hummed to himself as he walked down a street with a steamed bun sticking halfway out of his mouth and a slight smile on his rough face.

It wasn't the tall, wild, and aristocratic fifteen-year-old Dante that was seen by others, but a heavily muscled, scarred, and tattooed six-foot-seven frame of a man wearing steel-tipped boots, black pants, and an open shirt.

His disguise, done through his transformation spell, was his standard appearance when he was out an about in public for work. A mixture of inspiration taken from Katakuri from One Piece, and the body he used to have in his first life as it made things more natural in his movements. The body could physically interact with the world as long as mana was supplied, but the form supplied no extra physical or magical boost to his abilities. In fact, it weakened him as it required a constant supply of mana, and he was more accustomed to moving in his base form. But as a disguise, it was fully functional and within the limits of his spell.

People tended to avoid his gaze and move apart for him as he walked, not wanting to be in the way of a dangerous-looking guy, but Dante never let it go too far and was never particularly rude to anyone. 'It is funny to see people naturally react without me doing a single thing though.'

Ouroboros Potions were a very exclusive product due to Dante doing everything he could to retain anonymity, but he still needed a 'face' to create a network of clients, deal with information brokers, and talk to black market middlemen.

He needed clients because he needed resources, and money was the least of his concerns. His clients can pay in Jewels, but Dante gives better prices for ingredients, magic items, and anything of value. Particularly any potion recipes that the top 1% have squirreled away in their vaults.

It takes money to make money, and Dante liked to be on the top of world news when things were happening, hence his information network spread out among hundreds of separate individuals who get paid to tell any interesting rumors to communication lacrima's once a week. They commit no crimes, and as far as they care, they are being paid for things.

The funds for such a thing aren't small, and that doesn't include things Dante himself buys or any jobs he issues for the mage guilds. Being a player in the shadows isn't cheap.

The process to issue a job to the guilds was actually quite simple. You can just call the magic council's general lacrima number, speak to an employee, give your account number for the Bank of Ishgar, and then speak your request. The fliers are then delivered to the guilds once a week, and the guild independently ranks the jobs from S down to E.

In the kingdom of Fiore, once a job is accepted, the guild in question stamps it with a magic stamp that tells all other guilds with the same flier that a job has been taken.

If one guild accepts a job, and the job is B or higher, the guild master will contact the client by communication lacrima and tell them a mage is on the way.

All guilds who can manage B-rank jobs and up can usually afford to get a communication lacrima. It's a staple among the more successful guilds. Although the stamps are given out freely by the Magic Council of Fiore to legal guilds once they are registered.

There are rules and fines for failing requests taken, for abusing the stamp, or even for needing a replacement. An intriguing system that works for the mage economy of Fiore.

Mages weren't also unique to just specific mage-orientated guilds as well. There were merchant guilds, mercenary guilds, treasure hunter guilds, bodyguard guilds, and dozens more. Mage guilds, however, were at the top of the food chain power-wise as they were combat-focused, and the number of them rose and fell quite frequently.

Dozens of small-time mage guilds relied on a few strong mages, and if those mages retired, joined another group, or died, the guild would lose its revenue and be forced to close.

Other job-orientated guilds accepted the more common percentage of mages who simply didn't want to fight or had talents elsewhere like cooking, construction, music, arts, and many more. There was even a guild union of various specialties that ran things in Bellum, an eastern nation of Ishgar.

Combat mages were much more common in Fiore than in other nations, with places like Pengrande Kingdom focusing more on their military, but the number of mages was never that high in the first place. Around a hundred mage guilds existed in Fiore, between four and fifty members for most, with only a spare few reaching up to a hundred. Guilds like Phantom Lord were an exception as they monopolized a sizable portion of the mage economy for Fiore.

Many guilds, not just mage guilds, which get desperate often turn to crime and get labeled Dark guilds by the council, becoming fresh targets for legal mages when they commit crimes that a client is willing to pay for a response to. It's actually a big problem for surrounding nations as dark guilds tend to be born in Fiore and move across borders to escape the dangers of the larger Fiore guilds.

Things wouldn't be as bad if the Magic Council of Fiore didn't outlaw any attack or loss of life of dark guilds without a mission being first given. They considered it their authority to determine who lives and dies, and when they finally get around politics enough to declare a guild worth taking out, with the funds supplied by the council, the dark guild in question hears the news and flees.

Their Rune Knights are cowards, often unable to handle C-grade mages, and are regulated to mundane police force middlemen between legal mages and clients, as well as the cleanup crew and jailers for criminals. 'A whole battalion of Rune Knights was wiped out in like episode five of the show, and by a low-grade dark guild at that.'

So the magic council uses the mage guilds, and the arrogant pompous council members couldn't be quiet about throwing around their weight if someone muzzled them with how the current system worked for Fiore. It's a shit show from top to bottom, and Dante already knew at least three future members worked for the top three dark guilds. The actual chairmen dealing with Tartarus, Ultear working for Hades, and Jellal partnered with Brain.

The chairman, Crawford Sean, was truly corrupt, wanting eternal life and not caring about the costs. How long he was working with Tartarus wasn't said, but the Council was always shady with corruption settled deep.

Ultear was unfortunate in many cases, being stolen from her mother at the age of four and experimented on by Brain, before escaping after years to witness her mother with two new kids, and then getting picked up and brainwashed by Hades. She did fucked up things; actually, what she did exactly wasn't well known, but it was assumed, all to chase a dream of being able to return to her mother at the age of four and not be abandoned.

Jellal…Dante was unsure what to think about him. He truly doubted Ultear could have been the one to brainwash him at the age of fourteen. Not because he didn't think she could do it, but because all his studies into mind spells had shown how intricate and experienced one had to be unless they were born with a caster magic for it.

So for Ultear to brainwash Jellal with something that could last a decade was unheard of. It was more likely Hades or Brain had acted on top of whatever Ultear did without telling her.

Jellal was different from Ultear in another way as well. Ultear didn't have her crimes shown very well, but Jellal had a tower full of hundreds of people. People that seemingly disappeared over the decade required to build a tower hundreds of stories tall. In real life, people just don't disappear with humorous undertones. One also has to ask who was actually funding the tower in the first place, and how an eleven-year-old boy knew how to continue to run things. The Oracion Seis were taken from the tower as well.

'All said and done, I can't judge his actions without finding out what actually happened, both to him and the tower.' Dante shrugged in ignorance; he wasn't a judge, jury, or saint of his own; he just liked to know the players on the board, so to speak.

The entire reason Dante did everything in his power to stay anonymous was to avoid the gaze of all the big players in the world. His potions did exactly as advertised, and not a single potioneer of his caliber had come around in centuries. All other potions were made by people who studied the art for decades and could make a few specific recipes through trial and error. Dante could make dozens, hundreds of potion recipes, at a quality and quantity others could compare to.

Everyone who mattered noticed his potions but finding a single breadcrumb that led to Dante himself was extremely unlikely for even the best. The Danger Zone he lived in made divination or clairvoyance spells obsolete as they couldn't penetrate through the thick ethernano in the air. And if someone could even discover he lived in the Mirage Mountains, that didn't help them much at all.

There were only three ways to publicly contact Dante.

Through referrals by existing trusted clients. Through invitations by Dante himself to be a temporary client until proven trustworthy. Or through contacting his middlemen.

The middlemen, or women, here being Virgo and Dante in his Katakuri disguise. Virgo always introduced herself as Dante's personal maid, and Katakuri was a mercenary hired.

Virgo was known and feared in her own right, but she usually oversaw delivery with the aid of a trio of silver keys belonging to ravens who can find people if given an address to deliver to. She also organizes referrals and possible clients and uses the information network to do research on them before delivering her results to Dante.

Katakuri dealt with clients when a personal touch was needed, and also attracted all the attention while acting like the bouncer at the door. A trail of bodies from those who tried to act forcefully made a fierce reputation for how he responded to threats. Seeing as he only left people broken verse killing them, the law left him alone as he was justified in 'self-defense,' not that the magic council hadn't tried to strong-arm him, but a word to some of his clients found the magic council on a good deal of financial pressure.

All of Dante's potion vials were carved with his symbol and left a trace of his mana that couldn't be replicated or tracked, only recognized. Virgo had taught him the skill to do such a thing.

When a client paid in goods rather than currency, they were instructed to deliver them to specific locations where Katakuri or Virgo would pick them up. It was also at these places where most unsavory types attempted to jump them.

Katakuri would just break them physically without extending the pain or taking any pleasure, earning him a fierce but straightforward reputation. Virgo would break them mentally, and she took pleasure in it, earning her a 'run on sight' reputation. The vast majority would rather deal with Katakuri.

She was infamous as 'The S&M Maid' for punishing anyone who tried to not pay or try to find out more about Dante in whatever form in a style that left a mark. If they were civil, she politely rejected them or ignored them. If they were not civil, she was not civil.

There had been attempts to attack, kidnap, drug, and intimidate her, but she would straightforwardly crush the opposition and leaves her mark. Anyone left in her wake either gave up crime entirely or became devoted to a new path of S&M.

The petite maid was feared for good reason.

Overall, clients who prove trustworthy move on from temporary to official VIPs. VIPs will receive a direct line to Dante's business communication lacrima for a variety of benefits, from being able to request custom potions to participate in monthly auctions for limited products.

The number of VIPs never exceeded forty clients; Dante was one person and had no patience or time to create bulk potions for sale. He chose the path of quality over quantity.

Temporary clients can order potions from a general basic menu given out freely. They cannot make custom requests or join auctions.

VIPs are those who have been allowed in, but not those who knew Dante. They only saw a shadowed blob in any communication but could participate in the benefits.

These clients tend to drop in numbers as someone always gets a big head and tries to go around his rules. Such people are blacklisted, and a new slot is open for a new client.

Premium VIP's, numbering less than ten, are the ones Dante makes his personal friends. The ones who know his face and voice. They can make personal requests and call on him for help if needed.

The system took time to build, and in the current year of 775, not even half the slots were filled, but as the brand name grew, the referral list did as well. And not just in Fiore but all across Ishgar, those in power through a variety of ways, from personal to financial, were evaluated.

For cases where a meeting with a client was necessary, Katakuri would meet with them at a branch of the Bank of Ishgar, who Dante formed a deal with after the whole fiasco with the branch member who tried to give him a tough time. They gave him some benefits, and he continued to use their bank.

Of the existing VIPs, six of them are actually guild leaders in Fiore. Fairy Tail, Lamia Scale, Blue Pegasus, Quatro Cerberus, Mermaid Heel, and Phantom Lord.

Dante had made numerous guild job requests for ingredients and evaluated them before extending invitations. He knew things from canon but wouldn't accept things for sure until he confirmed it. The first five proved to be similar to canon and were trustworthy, while Phantom Lord was surprisingly civil.

They did indeed hate Fairy Tail, but it was nowhere near the animosity of what it would be years in the future. Although Dante made a point to refuse potion requests he wasn't comfortable handing out. As long as they followed his rules, they were accepted as paying customers.

Dante wanted to pull his hair out sometimes at how many people tried to fuck with him or Virgo during the first year they set things up. Like a trial by fire, everyone and anyone thought they could grab a piece of his pie. Businesses, dark guilds, independent dark mages, bandits, the magic council, random morons, underworld merchants, small-time gangs, the list goes on.

If anything, their attempts only helped to solidify Katakuri and Virgo's reputations. And at the same time, it helped to point out the ones who didn't try to fuck with them, and they were a minority.

After thirteen months of networking and set up, and at the age of fifteen, Dante already had 17 VIPs and a constantly growing reputation.

At the current moment, he was walking through Crocus not for business but for a personal mission at the arena set up in the distance. Seeing as it was daytime, he was taking things slow and making a slow path there so he could sneak in once night fell.

All the flowers along the way were a wonderful distraction as he killed time. It really made one feel the name of the 'flower capital' was well earned. 'I should look into helping King Toma one day, he made a beautiful city here. And it's not like he would be the first royal I have dealings with.'

Toma was the one who truly brought Fiore to economic prosperity. Fiore had been known for centuries as a nation with a high birth rate of mages, but it wasn't nearly as prosperous half a century before.

It brought a smile to his face; seeing so much vitality among the people and the city, it gave him hope for humanity as a species. 'Man, I know I would never be able to feel like this back on Earth. I can actually sense how pure the happiness is through the ethernano here.' Some nation's capitals might fake it, but Crocus wasn't one of them.

Dante recalled reading a medical study done about how positive things like classical music, tea, meditation, and living in clean, colorful, and stimulating environments could improve mental and physical health.

He saw the same thing here; the city was vibrant.

Passing a pair of street stalls, a wonderful scent hit his nose and his stomach grumbled. 'I wonder if puberty will ever stop making me hungry, this is getting ridiculous.' He shook his head with a chuckle and followed the scent to the stall selling croquettes. "Excuse me, can I make an order?" His deeper and rough voice rang through the transformation and got the attention of a middle-aged man who looked like he hit the gym a lot.

The jacked older man took a single extra second to look at his rough form before ignoring it and speaking boisterously while pointing at the short menu. "What will you be having, lad?"

Dante eyed it for a moment in serious contemplation before holding up two fingers. "Two potato and two chicken mushroom please." He was meeting up with Virgo soon and thought he should bring her some to try.

The older man nodded with a grunt while giving him a sharp-eyed intense look. "Think you can handle that many, lad?"

Dante met the look with the same intensity; while not understanding the situation, he felt a prick at his manly pride and raised a brow. "Yes."

'I wonder if I stumbled on a secret wuxia elder type.'

The older man's muscles began to flex and bulge as his eyes glowed, almost confirming his thoughts as pressure began to build. "Oho? We will have to see about th...ow!"

The powering-up old man image shattered under the strength of a thrown slipper. "Don't start with that again you old coot! Stop picking fights with customers and sell something!"

The middle-aged woman selling flowers in the conjoined stall chewed out the old man for a moment before turning to Dante standing there awkwardly with a smile. "Sorry about that young man, the old fool got a fancy toy magic item that makes him look strong and he loves challenging every male he sees like a bull."

The old man huffed while rubbing his bald head. "Only real men can handle a croquette." The older woman sent him a withering look that got him moving at his grill. She beckoned Dante over with a gentle wave. "How about some flowers on the house young man?"

Dante looked between the two for a moment before shrugging and holding up two fingers at the old man. He got it with a grunt, and Dante stepped over to the flower stall to eye the wares. The stall was rich in dozens of beautifully cared-for flowers in vases. The old woman leaned on her counter as she spoke. "Got anything you're interested in? Any special girl caught your eye? Flowers have meanings; you can't just pick willy nilly if you want to win a woman's heart."

Dante put a hand on his chin in silent thought as he looked around. 'Might as well bring Virgo flowers with the food, but what the hell do I pick? I know how to use most of these in potions, not their actual meanings in society.'

He turned to the motherly older woman and bowed his head. "I'll defer to your wisdom, ma'am." The older woman's nodded proudly as the older man scoffed with a mutter of 'wisdom, right.'

A new slipper was thrown like a kunai and followed by crashing sounds as Dante focused on a flower and ignored his surroundings. The older woman smiled at him innocently as she replied without acknowledging anything. "Good, you know how to use your words unlike this one, are the flowers for yourself or a special woman?"

Dante's rough voice behind Katakuri's mask filled with warmth as he responded. "The love of my life."

She smiled gently at him. "I see, tell me what you want to tell her, and what color you think describes her best."

He thought for a bare few seconds before the answer came out naturally. "I want to tell her how much I appreciate her, how much gratitude I have for her coming into my life, and that no matter what, the time we spent together will always be unforgettable in my memories. As for color, it would have to be pink."

The older woman beamed up at him and even the older man gave him an impressed grunt from the side. "Oh dear, I have the perfect thing for you."

She went behind her stall and came back moments later with a beautiful bouquet of five-petaled pink and white flowers. "I just received these this morning from the fields, it's their blooming season right now. These are called Carnations, and they symbolize exactly what you just described. Loving gratitude and being unforgettable." She wrapped them up gently by the stems and dried them off before handing them over. "Make sure you put them in a vase within the next twelve hours and they should last a couple weeks."

Dante nodded with a thankful smile and handed over some Jewels. The older woman tried to reject it, but he just placed it on the counter and walked away. "You offered free flowers, the money is for the advice, thank you."

He returned to the old man's stall just as he held out a white bag and nodded at him. Dante took the bag and paid. "Thanks old timer."

"I'm not old you brat."

The two smirked as Dante left with a wave over his shoulder.

He caught the two leaning into each other as he left and picked up their voices as he trailed away. "Ah, young love, do you remember when we first started dating?"

"Dating? Is that what they call hunting now-a-days…ow!"

Dante chuckled and pulled out a steaming croquette to munch on. 'They were good people…mn…this is tasty.'

He stuffed the flowers and Virgo's croquettes into his requip space, less because he didn't want to carry them and more because he was getting tired of the tail that had been following him for blocks. 'Whoever it is has been trained at least, so it shouldn't be another lowlife type. They clearly stand out as a mage to my senses, so maybe this might not be so boring.'

After years in the Mirage Mountains, experiencing hundreds of stalking-type magical creatures, the mage was only considered descent in his eyes. 'Doesn't help that he caught my attention by passing me by and staring at my back for a full ten seconds before dashing off the street.'

It was never something simple that they just happened to remember something. The times Dante could go for a walk in a populated place as Katakuri these days without something happening were very rare.

With an inaudible sigh, he turned off the street into an alleyway and went around a curve before leaning against the wall while he finished his snack. The tail appeared at the rooftop above him within moments as Dante called out. "So, are you going to stay up there or come down and do whatever it is you followed me to do?"

The mage twitched at being found out but quickly jumped down to land a bit away from him and pull back a hood. "My apologies sir, I only meant to wait for a chance to speak with you in private, I mean you no harm or offense."

The mage was a man of average size with purple hair cut in a crew cut. He gave off a strong military vibe of being strict with a sharp gaze beneath pencil-thin eyebrows. He gave off the image of being a mix between a knight and a ninja, with metal gauntlets and a black cape with a hood. Below, he wore dark pants and black striped boots wrapped by four pieces of cloth decorated with Fiore's symbol.

None of that was recognizable to Dante, but the twin scythes strapped to the man's back tugged on a distant memory. 'Where have I seen this guy before…., oh! He's that captain dude of that execution squad that fought Natsu in the grand magic games arc.' He tried to recall a name but pulled up a blank.

Externally, he just nodded and looked at him with his arms crossed. "And now that we're alone, how may I help you?" If it were just someone seeking him out with a request to be a customer, he would just get the name of the guy and tell him he would be in contact. Dante just hoped it wouldn't be another kiss-ass trying to bribe or threaten him.

The man surprisingly cut straight to the chase. "I won't play games with you sir, are you Katakuri, the man who represents the Ouroboros potion master?"

Dante grunted in confirmation, and the man seemed to sigh in relief as he muttered out loud. "Good, fate is watching over the royal family after all." He locked eyes with Dante and spoke as sincerely as he could. "My name is Kama, a knight directly serving under the king. We have known of you for some time but could never make contact whenever you popped up. You're a difficult man to find Mr. Katakuri."

Dante waved a hand casually. "It's part of the job, I'm sure you understand." Kama nodded with a slight chuckle and went on. "Indeed, I commend you as a warrior myself. But I didn't seek you out for praise, to be honest I never expected to run into you now, I can only thank the fates for this chance." Kama bowed his head and finished. "The royal family is currently having a medical emergency, please help us. We will pay whatever price you have as long as it doesn't harm the kingdom."

Dante rose a brow at the man. "Don't bow to me dude; I'm no noble. Tell me what's happening and I'll give you an answer." In truth, Dante was quite surprised. He wasn't surprised his reputation was heard by royalty; two of his VIPs were standing monarchs in other nations, but it was that there was no mention of something happening in canon, and Hisui and her father were plenty healthy a decade into the future.

Kama stood straight and spoke clearly. "The queen, Jade E. Fiore, is currently bed ridden and our best healing mages are unable to help her. The king has been distraught for weeks as the queen's health plummeted rapidly. He has been scouring everything he can about healing magic item and mages but the mage council seems unable to help in the matter. The Ouroboros potioneer was one of our options but we didn't hold much hope for it due to the difficulty of finding you. We even sought out the Ouroboro's personal maid, despite the rumors, but have been unsuccessful. If the rumors are true, well…I'm glad I found you."

Dante couldn't help but chuckle strongly at that. 'Virgo's reputation proceeds her, even a royal family shadow corps fear her name. I'm saving this for teasing material later.'

His amusement aside, his brain took in the information rapidly. 'The queen? There was never any mention of a queen before. Obviously Hisui had a mother, but she must have been gone for a long time if nothing ever came up.'

He held up a finger to the man as he pulled his journal out of his Requip space. "Just a moment." Dante ignored the man and went over the timeline he had written down years before. Something he had added to every time he recalled something. 'There's nothing here, but if she died around this time, there was never any reason to mention her. If I help here, wouldn't I be making some pretty substantial changes? I have no way to predict how this will change things in the long run.'

He thought hard over it and made a choice. 'I already told myself I wouldn't care about canon; this is my life, not a preordained path I have to follow. Besides, this is a chance to get a connection to Toma. Another royal in my pocket is never a bad thing."

Recalling his book, he looked back up at the anxiously waiting Kama. "I understand the basic situation. I can't make any promises but I'm willing to take a look on behalf of my employer. I'll relay anything I find to him and get an answer right away." It wasn't that he wasn't confident he could help, but to assume is to make an ass out of u and me.

Kama bowed his head once more in relief. "Thank you, truly. Please follow me right away, I would like to take you on the direct path, but the king has been keeping a lid on the situation. We will have to take the long way around; will you be alright?"

Dante just gave the guy a silent look, and Kama chuckled sheepishly. "Right, stupid question. Follow me."

Mana fueled his limbs in a bare second as he jumped up to land on the roof with Dante right behind him. Kama didn't bother insulting him by turning to check if he was still there. Kama struck him as the type of guy who was dead loyal and put their mission first but still took pride in his abilities. The fact that Dante spotted him tailing must have thrown the man off.

It took twenty minutes of a combination of roof hopping and moving through cellars before the two reached the castle through a hidden mound that opened behind the drawbridge on the castle's lake.

Dante mentally whistled at the closeup sight. 'Damn, I saw this thing from a distance, but the structure must be centuries old. It's like a god planned on living here.'

Kama led him to a hidden entrance built into the castle wall out of sight from the bridge and main entrance where guards stood. Dante couldn't help but feel a twitch at the sight. 'Oi, should you really be leading a stranger to a secret entrance like this?'

His answer came a second later when Kama knocked in a certain pattern and whispered a password. Around twelve different clicks signaling mechanical traps deactivated as someone opened the door from the inside.

Dante clicked his tongue as he passed through while Kama nodded to another knight ninja with their face covered. 'Damn, those traps weren't enchanted; I didn't notice a thing. Don't get arrogant; it's a big world.' He made a mental note to train for mechanical traps more when his mana sense couldn't easily notice things. If he stopped to meditate, he might find them, but there was no time for that in a fast-paced setting.

The guards did a customary search for weapons and let him through without any fuss with Kama standing there. He led Dante through winding tunnels, seemingly without any pattern, and eventually came to a dead end.

Kama removed a lacrima from his pocket and the wall began shifting with a soft grinding noise as it swung open straight into a luxurious private study. He whispered behind him as he passed through. "I apologize for the confusing path, but we cannot allow someone to learn a direct path inside the castle."

Dante just grunted in reply, but internally he was rolling his eyes. 'It's not like I don't understand him, but if they want a potion after this, I'm sending a delivery bird.'

His inner thoughts aside, Kama asked him to wait in the room while he alerted the king to his arrival. Dante just shrugged and took a seat on a chair and observed the room. 'Hm…not bad but I like my own leather chair better, maybe I'm being biased on that though.'

His eyes scanned over some of the art on the walls and landed on a painting of King Toma sitting on a throne. 'You know, I didn't really think this through. Should I show Toma my true appearance or have him become familiar with Katakuri? Hm…. I have a good impression of him from canon as well as what I've heard of him so far, but it's best to meet him and decide for myself.'

He learned a few lessons since he finally left his seclusion in the wild with Virgo to explore the world. He had multiple pages of notes from canon, but not everything matched canon one-for-one. Not only was he just under a decade before canon in the timeline, but this was reality and not a show behind a screen. The characters he knew from a screen were flesh and blood; they had their own thoughts, they could act outside what was expected, and they could change and grow.

Already, his impact on the world was causing hundreds of small butterfly effects as his potions spread. You only had to look at where he was currently sitting to see that. 'I only hope no one got randomly gender-bent; I always hated those tags.' A stray thought hit him, and he chuckled at the idea. 'But that's not to say I couldn't slip a gender-swapping potion into someone's drink for a short laugh. Imagine making Jellal suddenly find himself a woman? Or some of those corrupt elders on the council. Oh, hm, maybe…. if I combined that…. yes, I think I could make a potion to simulate the female pregnancy process and make it last an hour.'

A diabolical smile plastered itself on his face as he wrote down his inspiration potion recipe. It was the sight of Katakuri smiling evilly while writing quickly in a journal as a metaphorical devil's tail swung behind him that King Toma entered the room with Kama right behind him. The two men stopped in the doorway and stared before Dante felt the gazes and looked up.

The three men matched gazes for a silent moment before Dante coughed into a fist and vanished his journal while standing up. "King Toma, a pleasure." He bowed his head in respect but didn't bow or kneel as the man wasn't his king.

With the air of someone who has swam in the pit of vipers known as politics for decades, Toma threw off his first impression and grunted in reply. "If your truly the man I've been looking for then the pleasure is mine." He stepped up to Dante and held out a hand. Dante met his shake and was surprised by the smaller man's grip.

He took the moment to observe the king as he was, in turn, examined.

He was small. Small for a dwarf. If midget dwarfs existed, Toma would fit in there. He wore striped overalls, held up by a belt at the waist, as a cape extended from his shoulders. His face was grave, with dark circles under his eyes and hair slightly frazzled like a man under a great deal of stress and fatigue.

The two men finished their observation as Toma's gaze became fierce. He didn't even bother sitting down as he spoke. "I thank you for coming so suddenly Mr. Katakuri. I would prefer to sit down and talk with you under better circumstances, but as Kama has informed me, you should be aware of the situation correct?"

Dante nodded. "I was told the queen was bedridden and your healers have been unable to help."

Toma's face seemingly aged before his eyes as he responded woodenly. "Do you know what Fiore is famous for Mr. Katakuri?"

Dante raised a brow at the change of topic but grunted out a reply. "Mages."

Toma nodded. "I am the king of a land at the forefront of mage populations in all of Ishgar; I have one of the strongest economies on the continent, I have an entire government branch dedicated to overseeing all things magical in the kingdom, and for all of that…. for everything I possess…. I can't help the love of my life when her life is at risk. Not my mages, not my wealth, not my kingdom, not my connections, nothing. Do you know how that feels Mr. Katakuri?" Toma's eyes became wild for a moment. Not a drop of mana was felt from the man; he was a complete civilian.

But even without it, he gave off the aura of a monarch as he spoke. "The other half of my soul is suffering, my precious daughter is distraught and ill with worry, and I can do nothing but be by their side as she fades. I don't know you; I don't trust you; your business came out of nowhere and your employer is a ghost unable to be found by anyone."

To Dante's surprise, the king suddenly bowed his head. "And yet, I don't care if you're the devil himself with the reputation you possess. I beg you to help me. As long as it doesn't hurt the people of my kingdom, I will give you anything I can if you can help my wife."

Dante silently stood there as he looked at the bowing man. Toma's words were forceful, heartfelt, and spoken from a place of desperation. He wasn't a man who cared about screwing others over to get a better deal; he told people exactly what he wanted and worked to make favorable terms for all parties involved.

He was giving Dante a chance here, a chance to ignore all the man's concerns and feelers if he could solve this problem promptly. Some may call a man like that foolish, trusting a seemingly random person and giving them a blank check with a pen for a reward.

But Dante could respect a man like that. If Virgo's life were in danger, there was no mountain too high he wouldn't climb to help her.

Dante would help this man even without the benefits that came from it. He lifted a hand and reached for the king's shoulder. Kama twitched behind the man, but the king had given him an order to not interfere unless his life was at risk.

Dante's hand rested on the king's smaller shoulders, and he helped the man stand tall. "Don't bow to me your majesty. I make no promises without seeing the problem first, but I will do what I can to help you. We can discuss a reward after the job is complete and not before. You may not know me, but you have my word that I will not ask more than you can give if I am to be successful."

Toma's fierce gaze cracked a bit as a slight bit of relief entered his eyes. "Thank you…. I won't forget this." He wiped an eye and turned quickly as he made for the door. "Follow me, I won't stand for my love suffering a second longer if I can help it."

Kama and Dante matched gazes for a moment and followed behind the king. Despite the man's size, his speed was brisk and he actually kept ahead of the two much taller men.

Dante couldn't help but feel his respect for the man rise as he walked. Toma was straightforward, made his own decisions without an advisor, and charged forward without hesitation once he made his mind up. There was great wisdom behind his eyes for sure, but the man cared little for concern when his loved ones were at risk. He stared a man like Katakuri down, even with all the weight of Dante's will sharpened by hundreds of life and death battles, even with the height and physical differences, and didn't flinch a single time. He didn't attempt to threaten, intimidate, or force him in any way; not a single guard besides Kama was brought with him. He gave a heartfelt plea, and Dante responded with respect due.

The smaller man had balls of pure steel.

Every guard they passed saluted the king with respectful gazes and didn't stop to question Dante a single time as he followed.

It only took a few minutes of a brisk pace for the king for the three men to approach a pair of nondescript doors. Dante's eyes trailed to the shadows by the door, where he felt eight shadow guards hidden.

Two came out of camouflage and bowed to the king, but he waved them away. "Open the doors and go back to your watch, no one else enters."

""Yes sire."" The guards placed their hands against the sides of the door, and magical circles flashed with hundreds of runes flowing over the door. A few seconds passed before a click was heard, and the door gently opened.

Toma wasted no time and moved forward while beckoning Kama and Dante.

The door was sealed behind them, and Dante observed the space he found himself in. 'Well, I guess it's a room fit for a queen.'

The room was large, larger than it should have been from the outside, and it was filled with luxurious comfort. Plush carpets, a roaring hearth, leather chairs and couches, a large powdering station, a chandelier glowing dimly with magic lights, a door to a bathroom in the back, rich wooden bookshelves lined with leather tomes, and a king-sized four-poster bed sitting prominently against the far wall.

A beautiful woman lay peacefully in the center of the bed, her emerald green hair spread like a pillow beneath her. She held an elegance to her even while resting, giving her an ethereal feeling of beauty. She was Jade E. Fiore, the queen of the kingdom of Fiore. And much to Dante's surprise, she was a mage if the mana he felt circulating beneath her skin was any indication.

Curled up to her side was a small bundle of green hair, latching on to the woman desperately. Big dark green pupils revealed themselves from the small bundle as a young girl tracked the three men as they approached. 'Must be Hisui, she can't be more than seven or eight years old.'

Both females were near identical, even with the age difference. Only some of Toma's facial characteristics shone through on the young girl's face. Dante couldn't help but let his gaze drop to Toma's speculatively. The man must have felt it as he sighed and whispered. "Yes, that's my daughter. Yes, I'm her blood-related father. She got her mother's genes, not that I'm complaining." He waved a hand at his height, and Dante internally chuckled. "Must get that a lot." The man gave a depressing shrug. "I'm used to it." The depressing air lowered a bit with the comment as Kama stifled a chuckle.

Toma ignored them and approached the bed as he smiled lovingly at his daughter. "Hey princess. Did you watch over your mother while I was gone?"

Little Hisui nodded her head. "Mn, she only woke once and asked for water." She lifted her arms and Toma swept her up into a hug. "Good girl, I'm proud of you and I'm sure your mother is thankful."

Dante felt he shouldn't break the heartwarming scene by commenting on how the fully grown Toma was the same height as his eight-year-old daughter, but he didn't want to delay things and let out a soft cough.

Toma seemed to come back to himself and pulled his daughter to the side. "Right, Hisui, this is Mr. Katakuri. He will take a look at your mother."

The little girl's gaze locked onto Dante's and she responded bravely even while grasping her father's shirt. "Is he another healer daddy?"

Toma shook his head softly. "No dear, he works for the famous potion master that's all the rage these days." Hisui's eyes shined. "You mean Ouroboros? Everyone has been talking about him!" She turned her gaze toward Dante and asked. "Is he coming?! Will he save my mama?!"

Her voice rose to a pitch and was full of desperate hope, and Dante felt his heart crack a bit at the pleading look. Much to the surprise of the other two men in the room, the fierce and scary-looking Katakuri got down on one knee and hunched over to pat the girl on the head with a disarming gentle smile. "I'll do what I can kid, and I'll let Mr. Ouroboros know if he's needed. Why don't you go stay by your mother's side, you can watch me work."

Hisui gave him a giant smile under his larger hand. "Mn." She ran back to the bed and snuggled up to her mother while looking at him expectantly. Toma sighed at the sight and patted Dante's shoulder. "Thank you."

Dante grunted as he stood. "You're a good father. Thank me after I'm done." He waved a hand at a chair and the other two men saw it levitate over to the bed. No one truly knew what Katakuri's magic was, or even if he had magic, as he was never seen performing it but always seemed to be wearing magic tools on his wrists.

The chair rested by the bed, and Dante spoke to the king and princess as he lifted the covers to pull out the queen's arm. "I have a few ways to diagnose a patient; I'll try the simplest way first and scan her mana."

The king nodded from the side. "We had dozens of healing mages and doctors take a look, but they all kept getting stumped. None could even identify the cause even if they could point out symptoms and cast spells to ease her pain. All we know is that she has gained a fever that won't break, has lost feeling in her legs slowly, and now she can barely lift her arms." He lowered his voice to whisper so only Dante could hear. "I know she was in constant pain despite the smile she put on, but she refuses to let me see her tears. She's still the same foolish strong willed woman I fell in love with so many years ago."

A faint voice echoed back a response. "And hopefully for many more years to go lover boy." The two men looked up to see the queen's eyes open and turned their way. Hisui grasped onto her mother's torso. "Mama!"

The queen, Jade, smiled down at her daughter and lifted a trembling arm around her shoulders. "Shh baby, I'm right here." She soothed her daughter and tried to sit up, but Toma was quick to her side to push her back down gently. "Please rest dear. Mr. Katakuri here will take a look at you."

Jade scoffed unladylike from her bed. "I'm not made of glass dear; I can sit up to meet a guest." Despite her words, she extended a trembling hand Dante's way, and he was quick to catch it in two hands. "It's a pleasure to meet you your majesty, but your husband is correct, please rest, I do not need you to move."

The woman rolled her eyes from her pillow. "Ugh, you foolish men. I'm perfectly fine and healthy." Dante and Toma just sent her deadpan stares that she ignored, but it was her daughter looking up at her with desperate eyes that melted her expression. "Mama? Ouroboros will make you better, right?"

Jade couldn't put up a front to that look and gave in. "Of course sweety." She turned her gaze back to the rough-looking man still holding her hand. "Do what you need to."

Dante smirked at the strong-willed woman. She wasn't being rude per se; she just didn't like looking weak. "I already am ma'am. It says something that you can't feel me moving through your mana pathways; I'll add mana sensitivity deprivation to your list of symptoms."

She raised a brow at the man. Unlike her husband she was an accomplished well-read mage and knew what Dante was speaking of. She sunk inward to look and indeed saw the foreign mana pushing through her pathways with a feathers touch. "My, my, for such a rough-looking man, you have a gentle approach. Very few could do the scan your performing so casually."

Dante chuckled as he focused on what he was feeling. "I had an excellent teacher."

The queen smirked at that. "Of that, I have no doubt. Please do not approach my core. You may be attempting to help me, but that is where I draw the line." Dante nodded strongly. "No need for concern, I'm only assessing your body…." His eyes fogged up slightly as he looked closer at what he was sensing. 'Why would that… an illness wouldn't…. unless…. It's not just one….ah….'

The king and queen noticed him become absentminded and waited patiently. But the little bundle of curiosity didn't know what he was doing and voiced the question. "Did you find something Mr. Katakuri?"

Dante came back to himself and blinked at the girl before shaking his head. "I…hm…. Maybe." The rest of the room looked at him expectantly, and he went on. "I found something strange, but I would rather eliminate other possibilities before I say anything." He pulled his mana from the queen's body and held up a hand as he turned back to Kama. "Do you mind if I cast some magic, I'm only accessing my Requip space." He thought it prudent to ask the guard standing vigilantly behind him out of respect, and the man met the king's gaze before nodding. "Please do it slowly."

Dante nodded, and before the other's eyes, he pulled out a suitcase. Opening it up revealed an assortment of potion vials and small tools. Its purpose was in case he needed to use his craft with others around, as this way, they would just assume he was given the tools by his employer.

He removed an empty vial and combined three different liquids into one before shaking it slightly to get a glass vial of glowing neon-yellow liquid. Turning to the curious eyes, he politely asked. "Do you mind if I take a single drop of blood? I need to confirm something with a potion reaction. I will dispose of said potion before your eyes after I have finished."

The queen nodded and gave her hand with a skeptical brow. "You're not going to pull out a knife like some barbarian are you?"

Dante snorted lightly while the king paled slightly at the joke and moved a tad closer to his family. "No need ma'am." He removed a silver needle from the case and pressed it gently to the queen's thumb before pulling back with a single drop held on it. Hisui hissed at the sight. "Needles are evil."

The adults chuckled at that while the queen commented. "I didn't feel a thing sweetheart." Dante internally commented on that. 'That's cuz you can barely feel your arms woman. Sheesh, the joke about behind every strong man being an equally strong woman is accurate as an arrow here.'

Dante dropped the blood in the vial and shook it three times at different angles before watching attentively as the liquid turned neon green with black dots spread within. 'Hm… so I was right.'

Hisui couldn't stop her curiosity from rushing to ask again. She pushed her head halfway off the bed to look closer. "What did that do? What kind of potion was that? Will it heal my mama?"

Dante absentmindedly ruffled her hair as he put his tools back and left the vial on the nightstand. "She's going to be fine little one. I could use your help though."

The adults looked at him questioningly, but he ignored them to look at the starry-eyed girl. "I can help her?! What do I need to do?"

Dante smirked down at her and held up a finger. "I'm going to need the fluffiest towel in this castle. Do you think you could find one like that?" The excited little girl nodded her head fast. "Oh! Oh! I know where to find that, it's in my room! Mama, I'm going to get my fluffy towel!" She rushed to the door with childlike innocence as the parents gave Dante questioning looks. He shook his head at them, and the two seemed to get the message as the king turned to Kama. "Kama, please escort my daughter will you? Use the 4th corridor."

Kama understood the message to stall the young princess but gave his monarch an uneasy look. "Your majesty…"

The king waved a hand. "It's fine Kama, I feel my years have taught me to be a good judge of character, Katakuri here means me and my wife no harm. Besides, we are in the center of my power here. You know as well as I do the kind of security that is here." Kama seemed to struggle for a moment before bowing his head and saluting. "Yes sire." He gave Dante a hard but not impolite look and left with the princess who ran down the hall, the guards closing the door behind them.

Dante raised a brow at the king's security comment, and the man smirked. "There is a reason dark mages never attack a royal in their castles." Then his eyes hardened. "I did as you asked; what is it you found that required me to send my daughter away?" The queen had stayed silent, but she had the same serious question on her face, and Dante sighed as he held up the potion vial. "She's not sick. You have been poisoned."

"WHAT?!" Toma nearly shook the room with his shout while the queen's face became grave. "Please explain yourself Mr. Katakuri. That's no small assumption to make."

Someone knocked at the door, having heard the shout, and Toma shouted back that he was fine before turning to Dante with a fierce look as Dante elaborated. "Her mana was acting strange to my senses. I've read of dozens of magic-related sicknesses, and very few of them result in a mage's internal mana acting so…stagnant." He took a breath and went on. "As I'm sure you are both aware, a mage is fundamentally different from a civilian thanks to their mana core. Every mage has mana flowing through their body, even from an early age. Controlled or not, a mage will passively heal faster than an ordinary human. This is due to the mana naturally flowing from the core into the body and becoming fuel to boost regeneration. It doesn't replace the nutrients needed, but it's like caffeine to the process."

The king and queen nodded as Toma held his wife's hand in concern. "We are aware, even if you simplified the process better than those dry texts, but what does that have to do with anything?"

Dante waved down their impatience. 'It's annoying explaining this shit for me too.'

"My point is, there are very few things that can stop that process. Your mana ma'am, is not responding to your bodies distress. Very few things can stop that from happening."

The queen gave a strange look at his words, and her eyes faded as she dove back to look. She came back a minute later while Toma was asking questions about a mage's natural healing and exclaimed in shock. "What the hell? How did I not notice that before?! How did the healers not notice that?!"

Dante grunted his reply. "It's incredibly subtle. If you're not familiar with the natural ethernano flow in the air around us, a foreign mage wouldn't be able to look deep enough to see the mana dispersing out of you without attempting to fill your limbs. Your mana is effectively being tricked into not realizing anything is wrong."

The queen paled as she went back to looking inward while Toma urged him on. "Is that why you performed the potion test?"

Dante nodded. "I didn't want to say anything until I had proof. I have encountered her symptoms before, but it was no illness."

Thankfully, all his transformation spell did was increase his body size, height, and muscle wise while changing his facial structure. His scars remained the same on both bodies. Dante rolled up his sleeve and revealed multiple thin scars. "I've fought many magical beasts in my time, and I've been forced to adapt to dozens of strange magics and physiologies."

Toma twitched looking at some of the scars while the queen listened attentively. "One of them was known as a Baron Leech, a parasitic leech that injects its prey with paralytic venom. The magical variety of them have an added element to their lethality in that their venoms paralysis affects internal mana. They can be found in swamps with higher ethernano density." Dante wasn't even bullshitting here; he really had dealt with the parasites dozens of times as they inhabit a swamp ecosystem he gathers herbs in. He just never expected to see it here, but it went to remind him that just because he fought something in the Mirage Mountains didn't mean it didn't exist in other parts of the world. "The effect of the venom is not instant; it takes weeks to fully affect prey depending on dosage and how much mana the prey has. The potion I just used detected it's traces in your blood."

The two were silent as Dante finished. Their grave faces stared at one another as Toma gripped her hand tightly. The queen seemed to process things first and raised a point. "If what your saying is true, why am I becoming so weak?"

Dante held up two fingers. "Two possibilities. The first and more likely is that the Baron Leech venom is being used to mask a secondary poison with effects. And the second and less likely is that someone is feeding you a continuous supply of the venom. If they gave you a large dose at the start, your heart would have stopped within the day. If they gave you too little, you wouldn't be still effected weeks later. Someone gave you a dosage developed by a professional to make things look like an illness. But that doesn't negate the possibility that someone is simply feeding you more venom, and as a result your body is slowly shutting down. Baron Leeches are not gentle creatures, their victims suffer." Toma's face reddened in anger as he listened.

"How sure are you of this venom being used? Don't mistake me for questioning your abilities, but I need proof to be sure before I take action."

Dante held up the potion vial from before. "This is a personal concoction made by my employer. Its sole purpose is identifying toxins by showing distinct types in different patterns. The green color signifies paralysis agents, the black dots specify the type of venom. We are very familiar with toxins from magical beasts your majesty. I also know how to cure it, so that should be proof enough." It was something Dante made after getting tired of dealing with being poisoned. Diverse types required different cures, and he had to make those cures.

Toma's teeth ground together as he took Dante's words at face value while thinking aloud. "Someone on my staff has betrayed me. The very people I serve and work tirelessly for. There is no one in this castle I haven't learned the name of, and someone almost took my wife's life…."

The queen cut him off with a scoff. "Don't be rash dear, this was planned. We have safeties for someone poisoning our food, we made sure of that when I became pregnant with Hisui. No, either someone replaced one of our staff, someone snuck in to get us unaware, or someone has been plotting against us for a long time."

The two went back and forth for a minute on how to find a culprit, completely ignoring Dante sitting right in front of them, until Toma brought up something. "Wait, what about Pesk?

Jade's eyes widened. "That could work. It would also help keep things quiet and not alert anyone."

The two grinned at each other before turning matching gazes on a deadpanning Dante. "If you expect me to somehow know your plan or what you want from me because you mentioned a name I never heard before, I will slap someone regardless of social standing."

The two had the decency to look sheepish for a moment before Toma coughed into his hand. "Mr. Katakuri, would you be able to create a scent sample of this venom?"

Dante raised a brow but sat back in his chair as he thought about the request, he would have to reveal a bit more of his ability, but so far the two royals before him were showing him a great deal of trust, not that he wouldn't be cautious. "It's not very difficult, just requires a few more steps."

Toma nodded. "Please start with that then. What would the healing process require?" The king had seemingly moved beyond asking if he could heal his wife and into what he would need. Dante could respect that sort of trust shown.

"The venom has already reached her organs, and considering the state of her limbs, her nervous system has likely been damaged. If you wanted her purged of the toxins, I could do that quickly, but I don't believe you would like to be restrained to a wheelchair for life, correct?" He raised the point toward the strong-willed queen who shot him a fierce look. "Not happening."

Dante smirked and went on. "In that case, you will need a few treatments. It won't take long, and with each session you will regain more strength and health; I daresay even your immune system will receive a pretty good jump for a few years and have strong antibodies toward invading toxins. You might eat more than usual, but well, your general fitness is on you." The queen's eyes were practically fire. "Get me off this bed, and I'll show you fitness when I shove my spear up whoever's ass did this to me. They will bleed for every tear my baby girl shed."

Toma nodded along with his wife while Dante just smiled wryly. "Right, so a few sessions it is. The biggest issue was identifying the cause; now I just need to make the counter agent, boost your body's immune system, and revitalize your mana to actually realize your body is in danger and you should recover back to full health in ten days. Less depending on how fast your natural healing factor is." Dante could probably recover in hours from such a thing with the right potion, but he knew he was becoming a freak of nature with all the potions he kept boosting himself with. On the downside, he was becoming less affected by low-grade health, stamina, or mana potions.

The king and queen shared a silent look before answering him together. ""Do it."" Dante went to act, but the queen added on. "Start with the scent sample; I'm not dying today."

His lips twitched at the morbid comment. 'Woman, your heart is beating due to your will rather than your health at the moment.' Dante was being calm about things, but internally he was quite in awe of the woman before him. He had experienced the venom firsthand from the damn leech's mouth, and it was among the more painful varieties of toxins he had felt in his years in the mountains. For her to go weeks enduring it with it reaching her organs and still have that fire in her eyes was remarkable.

Still, his thoughts aside, he just nodded and got to work. "You mind if I clear some space?" Toma waved a hand quickly. "Feel free."

Dante moved a couch out of the way and pulled a table from the side toward the bed. The two royals made no mention of the ease with which he lifted the heavy furniture like they were made of styrofoam. His hand flashed as a square box was placed on the table. The box glittered with potion vials placed in holders in lines along each side of the square's surface.

Dante muttered to himself as he removed a few vials and placed them on the table. "I'll need this…this…ah, yeah, that would help…"

He came back to the bed with a red glass vial and an empty one, handing the king the red one seeing as the queen had trouble moving her limbs. "Here, let her drink this, it's a blood replenisher. Usually taking a small amount of blood wouldn't be a risk but with her current state I'd rather not risk it just for a scent trace of the venom. Ma'am, I doubt you felt the first needle poke I did, it's the same process, I just need a vial."

The two did as he asked without complaint, the king lifting the queen's head as he fed her the potion. The man had a gentle touch that the queen huffed at fondly. Dante ignored the married couple as he focused on pricking the queen's finger and letting the blood drip into the vial. Mages healed fast, and the puncture wound was very small, so he had to apply pressure a few times to keep the flow moving.

Once he had around twenty milliliters, he stopped and used a cloth to wipe her finger before moving back to the table.

He blocked the view with his body and quickly summoned a small cauldron onto the table, making it look like it was from his requip space, and removed a small portable burner from a case of tools he kept in a briefcase.

Toma and Jade watched in interest as he mixed a few liquids and some pure water into the cauldron and added the blood from the queen. There was a quick reaction as the blood boiled in the mixture and quickly began to evaporate. The mix of colors taking on a black sheen as a sickly sweet scent rose from the cauldron. His voice calling over his shoulder to explain. "Just burning out the water and impurities while enhancing the effects of the traces of venom." He tapped a finger on the side of the cauldron, stirring the contents with his control of the traces of pure water as the mix condensed further and further.

The process took only a few minutes until a sludge was left in the cauldron that Dante was quick to pour into a fresh vial and seal. He held it up to the light and shook it a bit before scoffing at the contents. 'Not good enough, I still need to work on this skill, but to be fair, the traces of venom were faint. It's likely the culprit was going to need to apply a new dose soon.'

He handed the vial over to the king while sharing his thoughts with the royals. "You might have luck if you have some way to find the culprit. My actions have made the toxins inert and useless but the scent is empowered."

The king gravely nodded as he gripped the vial. "The scent is all I need." He gave the queen a deep kiss and stood while giving Dante a strong look. "Heal my wife, and I will honor my word for your reward. I will go deal with this immediately." He strode forward like the world's smallest adult lion going feral, his anger palpable as he strode from the room and started shouting for his guards to attend to him as he strode down the hall.

Dante gave the man a mental thumbs up; the guy didn't waste time. The queen sighed from the bed. "That foolish man, what if he alerts the culprit?" Despite her words, there was a warm loving look in her eyes as she looked at where Toma had left the room.

Dante grunted in reply as he cleared the contents of his old work and prepared for the next one. "I've only known him for an hour and he has my respect as a man. His reputation speaks for his respect as a king."

Jade chuckled from the bed as her eyes fell on Dante's back working. "Fiore couldn't ask for a better king. He is not naturally cruel, but he can be politically vicious when he wants to be."

Dante grunted in reply but didn't respond verbally. A message they both knew passed unsaid. 'Which means the one who makes the necessary hard choices is the queen.' Dante didn't miss how Kama's body signs as he stood in the room showed he was used to deferring to the queen over the king, but the man was loyal to the royal family as a whole.

A new potion brew was quickly boiling away on the table as Dante removed various vials from the square box and added different amounts to the mixture. He called over his shoulder as he worked. "You can rest for the moment; this mix will take at least half an hour."

The queen hummed in silence as she watched him work. "You don't have a counter for the toxin on you?"

Dante scoffed from the table. "Why would I carry that on me? The counter agent has a shelf life and the chances of encountering this specific toxin is so small it would just be a waste of space."

"So you don't have some cure all type for toxins?"

"If you wanted your blood detoxified immediately, sure, I could do that. But your organs would fail under the stress it puts the body under. I'm making the exact counter agent to target the venom without requiring your body to go into overdrive. Even with that I'll need to give you boosters to your vitality and immune system just so your heart doesn't stop within the day. You do realize I know exactly how close to death you are right?"

The queen smirked at that, letting some of the pain she was under show in her voice now that her husband and daughter weren't there to see it. "You really know what your doing don't you?"

Dante scoffed. "It's my job." He missed the mischievous look in the queen's eyes. "Is that so? You have my thanks Mr. Ouroboros."

Dante's hands paused in his actions for a spare second before he went on working without showing a sign, but the queen caught the pause. "I'm just an employee ma'am."

Jade gave a snort from the bed. "Oh please, you really think my husband and I can't recognize an actor when we see one? Try spending decades in court with the vipers of politicians before you think you can fool us. My husband allowed you the benefit of the doubt and didn't question you, but I'm not him."

Dante didn't pause his work as his thoughts moved rapidly. "And why would you care Jade?" He dropped the respectful tone as his voice went bland.

"I'm a greedy woman for intelligence and you have been a difficult man to find with all the waves your making in certain circles."

Dante finally paused as he turned to look at her from the corner of his eye. A wary look sent her way. "And this situation…."

He left his statement open and the queen chuckled. "No. This wasn't an attempt to smoke you out Mr. Ouroboros. I would have found out about you in other ways, I wouldn't worry my family over something like this. But that doesn't mean I can't hit two birds with one stone so to speak."

Dante hummed and went back to his work. He already suspected the chances of his guess were very small, but he would rather hear it from the woman to confirm it. That didn't stop him from reaching out to Virgo and warning her in case he needed backup. {Babe.}

He felt her reach to his mind immediately. {Yes master? I thought you would only contact me once night fell?}

{I had a small work situation crop up; would you mind coming by just in case I need a quick escape? It's not an emergency just yet.}

He could feel the sigh coming from her end. {Just what did you get mixed up in this time master? I'll be there in a minute.}

The conversation happened in seconds as Dante spoke to the queen. "I need a few more ingredients for the counter agent. Do you mind if I call my colleague?"

He could hear the amusement in the queen's voice as she responded. "Ah, spooked you did I? Feel free if it reassures you, I have been quite curious to meet the fabled S&M Maid myself." A cold shiver went down Dante's spine at her innocent words, and somehow he felt a little closer to Toma.

While he waited for Virgo, he gave the queen a strange look. "Just my form wouldn't give away my identity."

Jade chuckled. "You have your talents, observation is mine. Your answers and actions were those of someone who knows exactly what they are speaking of and you moved with the familiarity of someone who had done things hundreds of times before. I've met mercenaries, you don't act like one. You might want to work on that."

His brow twitched at the jab, but he went back to ignoring her. 'If this woman existed, I would have bet my left nut future rouge would have been fucked the second he stepped into this castle.'

A moment later, a magic circle came into existence next to Dante, and the queen watched in interest as Virgo popped out. She looked around quickly, assessing the room in seconds and noticing both the queen in her bed and Dante working in his disguise. The two lovers shared a mental conversation as Dante gave her the bullet points before she turned to the watching queen and curtsied. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance; my name is Virgo."

The queen smiled from her position. "Jade E. Fiore, and the pleasure is mine, I'm quite a fan of your work."

The two women matched gazes, and a hidden camaraderie was formed in seconds as each recognized a certain gleam in the other's gaze. Dante manfully focused on his work and ignored the frightening meeting happening behind him.

He silently worked while Virgo took the queen's attention off him and her frighteningly accurate observations. What the two discussed was placed in the mental box of Dante's mind labeled 'NO' very simply. At least, it did until the queen pointedly began targeting flaws in his appearance. Not saying he was ugly, but areas where his transformation wasn't up to her standard.

Virgo dutifully kept her poker face but couldn't help but silently agree with the queen on areas Dante had to improve in. The incessant nagging lasted all of ten minutes while he progressively developed a more severe twitch until he snapped. "Oh for the love of god women, fine. Fine!" He understood the queen's intention just fine, and Virgo never liked his transformation in the first place, even if she understood the purpose. The fact that she didn't stop the queen spoke of her initial impression of the woman.

Dante's form flickered as he dismissed his disguise and shrunk to his just under six-foot lithe-like frame filling out his cotton shirt pleasurably with long green hair flowing over his aristocratic facial features. He gave the two smug women an irritated look. "Will you PLEASE let me work in peace now?" His tone was clear. He wasn't asking, but the women just silently held up a V in victory. He rolled his eyes and went back to ignoring them.

Jade whistled from her bed. "So that's what you really looked like under that abomination of a disguise. Damn girl, you got yourself a good one."

Virgo smiled triumphantly. If someone insulted Dante's real form, she would be greatly insulted, but she also took compliments toward him well. "Mn."

"He's a bit young but quite talented. I give that ass an 8."

Virgo scoffed unlike her usual demeanor. "Oh please, that's just bias. That's obviously a 9."

"Bias? Me? Girl, that one's yours, of course your biased. Give him a few more years to get the grizzled look and fill out some more and I'll give it a 10."

Virgo actually contemplated that before reluctantly nodding as she stared at Dante's ass. An ass that belonged to a very irritated man in a younger body.

"For fucks sake…." He pulled out some earplugs and threw them on to be blessed by silence. 'I should have done this ten minutes ago.' He grumbled and worked while mumbling about troublesome women.

Said women shared a smirk and went back to their conversation topic of how to make someone talk with minimal time and effort required.

The door soon re-opened with Hisui running back in, out of breath, with Kama trailing behind. He paused, seeing the new entries into the room, and reached for his axe before the queen told him to get his ass in the room and shut the door. The man quickly acted while Hisui paused with a giant fluffy towel in her hands. Jade beckoned her from the bed. "Come here sweety." The little girl rushed over and snuggled up to her mother while clutching the tower. "Mama, I brought the towel to make you better. Where did Mr. Katakuri go?"

Jade sent a smirk Dante's way. "Thank you baby, I'm already feeling better. And I wonder where he went hm?"

Dante slapping a palm to his face in the background was the only reply she got. The man had removed his earplugs when the new arrivals came. Kama went to open his mouth but paused when he looked closer, recognized Virgo, and paled rapidly. "M-my l-lady…"

The queen actually laughed seeing him react before she coughed roughly at the exertion, getting a cup of water from Virgo, who took it from the side table. She drank it with a thankful nod to the maid before responding to her guard. "Stand down Kama, I don't think you want to anger my new friend, do you?"

The man rapidly backpedaled, unconsciously clenching his ass cheeks at the looks from both women, unintentionally coming near Dante as he shook his head. "Not at all my lady. I'll just stand here." A hand landed on his shoulder and almost made the shadow assassin guard of the royal family jump as he turned to look at the dull eyes of Dante. The two men shared a look and nodded in shared suffering before ignoring each other to do their jobs.

Soon the half hour passed with Hisui asking Virgo dozens of questions that the maid patiently answered in a PG manner. Jade helped her in spots that were rough to translate.

The king soon returned while the door shut quickly behind him. Toma paused just as Kama did, but his eyes first landed on Dante working at his potions, and his grave face eased into a humorous chuckle. "Ah, I see that hideous thing is gone. My wife's curiosity can be quite vicious eh?"

Dante sent the man a withering look that was met by decades of experienced suffering, and it was Dante who looked away first, his respect for the man in a complicated place.

Hisui jumped up to give her father a hug while speaking rapidly. "Daddy! I got the fluffy towel! Mama is already feeling better! Oh and Mr. Ouroboros is super shy, but Virgo is awesome, I want to be a maid like her one day!"

Her rapid words were translated with years of fatherhood behind his belt, and Toma suddenly focused on the maid. A paleness that matched Kama's before appeared as he shook violently from two different arrows. Being in the same room as another woman like his wife for the first, and his precious daughter's desire for the second.

Dante pettily enjoyed the despair on his face. 'Your turn to suffer old man.'

Thankfully for his sanity, Dante was finishing up just then. He poured the mixture into four vials and removed a few extras from his supply as he turned back to the bed. "I'm done."

The room's occupants focused on him without comment as he placed a tray of potions on the queen's bed. Four red vials stood glowing with neon light next to two yellow and a single green potion. He eyed Hisui for a moment before speaking and sent the queen a look that she understood and turned to the king, who quickly answered the unspoken question. "It's fine, we have the culprit. Speak freely Mr. Ouroboros." Dante's brow twitched at the casual show of knowledge. 'I hate this place already.' He hadn't been shown up like this since he made his new identity.

He just sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he spoke. "The red potions are the counter agent; they will neutralize the toxins in your blood. You can only take one every forty-eight hours; I'm not explaining why; just do it.

The yellow potions will boost your vitality and immune system, take one with the counter agent for the first two doses; you only need the two yellow vials before your body is recovered enough to act on its own.

The green potion will shock your mana into wakefulness; you're going to feel your entire body burn as your mana comes alive and notices how badly your hurt. Imagine an exterminator noticing he had an infestation in his own home and attacks with prejudice."

The queen shot him a nasty look at his final comment that Dante ignored. A small token of revenge for digging into his secrets. Virgo's deadpan look and Hisui's shiver of disgust didn't favor him, but he ignored them. "Right, go ahead and take the first three now; start with the green one. I want to give things an hour after you take them to make sure there are no complications."

The king moved to assist, but Virgo surprisingly beat him to it. He actually looked put out at not getting the chance to help his wife, a woman who noticed and chuckled fondly at his look while not stopping Virgo's actions. The two women were fast friends, and Dante didn't want to know what that entailed for the future. "Don't worry dear, you can take care of me later." She sent her husband a sly wink that sent the man blushing. 'She really wears the pants in that relationship, doesn't she?'

The green potion went down with a hint of disgust on the queen's face at the taste. Hisui noticed and nodded her little head. "Medicine is yucky."

Dante took offense to that and reached forward to ruffle the girl's hair, still a bit fond of her from earlier. "It was a rushed job, so I couldn't enhance the flavor. Give me an order without an hour of work and I'll make it taste fruity or something."

"Nuh uh! Those are lies adults say to make me take my medicine!" Hisui vehemently denied while biting his hand. Dante twitched and tried to shake her off. "What are you a rottweiler?! I'm a potion master, of course I can make a potion taste good."

"Lies!"

"Truth."

"Lies!"

"Fine, you want me to prove it. Here try this!" He pulled out a bag from his requip space and tossed a small gummy candy into Hisui's protesting mouth. She automatically closed her mouth at the abrupt entrance and chewed without thinking. Her eyes began to shine with metaphorical stars. "Yummy!"

Dante puffed his chest out. "Of course they are."

Hisui reached out a hand for another, but Dante pulled the bag back. "Nuh-uh, you called me a liar."

The little girl pouted and sent him a big-eyed look. "I'm sowwy….I was wrong." Dante chuckled and tossed her the bag. "Good. You can have the bag."

The rest of the room's occupants watched the exchange with varied looks. Kama with hidden amusement. Toma with fatherly respect. Jade showing pride in her daughter for getting what she wants and also being quick to admit she was wrong. And Virgo with a growing loving look toward Dante, something that was happening more and more these days.

Jade just enjoyed the show while Virgo fed her the potions, but Toma raised a hand. "Should I be worried about what those candies are?"

Dante scoffed and stood back. "No. I made those things as a side project, it's just a candy substitute for vitamins that boost the body's natural health factor. If she were injured it would help heal her faster if she ate them frequently like a slow acting health potion, but otherwise it's just tasty candy that won't rot teeth or spike blood sugar levels."

Toma gave him a thumbs up, but Virgo coughed lightly with a pointed look. Dante twitched but went on. "Ok, so maybe they also help boost the body's eventual growth during puberty, but that's only if you ate them for weeks. It's a failed project anyway; it would just give someone a few extra inches of height if consumed regularly." Toma's eyes locked onto Dante with great intensity at that, and Dante just recalled the man's height. He sent Virgo a deadpan look as he noticed her watching the building chaos with sparkling eyes.

Toma's gaze moved between his daughter, the bag of gummies, and Dante before Dante suddenly found himself in a death grip by the much smaller man latching onto his shoulders. "Please give my daughter more of those!"

"Gah! Too close! How are you standing on air!?" Dante wrestled with the king in the background as Hisui cheered her father on, and Virgo fed Jade the last of the potions. Said woman was flushing as the potions went into effect. Her body began to heat up rapidly as her mana woke with a vengeance and began attacking the venom.

The vitality potion supplied her with a heavy dose of nutrients and energy to quickly regenerate the micro damage being done to her body without burning her own lifespan. If she had taken too much, the vitality potion could have rapidly aged her as her cells went into overdrive and burned themselves out.

The counter agent rapidly spread from cell to cell as the toxins that hid within her for so long were being rapidly wiped out.

The combination of the three rapidly brought the woman away from the edge of expiring back into the world of the living. What dozens of renowned healers and doctors had thrown the towel out on, Dante fixed in an hour. That was the power of potions when a potioneer had the knowledge, skill, and ingredients necessary to solve a problem.

It wasn't an instant process like Dante warned, but within minutes feeling was returning to the queen's limbs, accompanied by pain. A lot of pain. The strong-willed woman grit her teeth to avoid getting the attention of her loved ones, and it was only Virgo who noticed. {Master.}

Dante continued trying to pry the midget king off him while his eyes traveled over to the bed and saw the look on the queen's face. {White potion, left side, 3rd row, 5th vial, 4 drops. No more than four Virgo or she could go into shock.}

{Yes master.} She moved briskly without getting anyone's attention and brought the vial to Jade's lips, the woman easing up her expression in seconds as she sighed in relief. "Thank you." She whispered to the maid, and Virgo gave her a small smile in response.

Meanwhile, Dante finally pried the gremlin off him with a huff. "Alright, alright, damn it man, I'll make sure your girl doesn't become a dwarf."

Toma's bloodshot eyes calmed as he stepped back and collected himself. "Cough, right, sorry about that."

Dante gave him a disgruntled look and summoned a gourd into his hand before tossing it at the man. Toma caught it with a raised brow. "Another potion?"

Dante rolled his eyes and leaned back on the table on which he was working. "Sure, that's one way to look at it. It's a potion for stress if you get what I mean. We got time to kill, so I figured it was a suitable time for a drink." A small holdover from his first life; while Dante wasn't an alcoholic, he was a man who enjoyed savoring a good drink. His new constitution and ability with potions only enhanced that hobby.

Toma's eyes shined and opened the cork, getting a whiff of a strong woody and fruity scent. Somehow making the tension in the man melt with just the scent alone. He smiled dreamily as he swirled the contents, savoring the scent. "That is quite the aroma, what is it? I get hints of sweetness from the smell but the woody scent tells me it's going to be dry."

Three glasses appeared in Dante's hands as he answered. "It's spiced mead matured in ethernano enriched oak barrels from a four hundred year old tree. 34% if you were wondering, and it fermented with licorice and cherry. The rest of the process is a trade secret I'm afraid." He shrugged unapologetically and floated the glasses in front of Toma with telekinesis.

The recipe was one that Virgo traded a celestial spirit for and one unlikely to have been seen in Earthland for a long time. What era the recipe was from went unsaid.

The king smiled at the show of magic and the amber-colored liquor that seemed to sparkle in the light as it filled the glasses. A glass floated to Kama, who tried to reject it, but with the way his eyes were glued to it, Toma just gave the man an order to enjoy. A cough from the bed had the three men turn to the expectant-looking gaze of the queen as she sat up on her own strength in the bed.

Dante was quick to put a nail in the coffin. "Nuh-uh, not happening. No liquor woman, recover first." Jade pouted at the immediate rejection, and Toma laughed good-naturedly, being quick to tease his wife in good humor. You could see the stress seem to fall from the man's small shoulders as he saw his wife coming back to life. "Listen to him for now dear; I'll save the rest for when we finish dealing with business."

Virgo felt bad for her new friend and raised her voice. "Master, shouldn't that barrel of apple cider be ready by now?" Dante paused as he considered it and realized the ingredients in the cider wouldn't get in the way of the effects of the potions before reluctantly nodding. He knew what Virgo wanted and sighed. "Just take a gourd, one gourd Virgo." He knew better than to give her carte blanche; she would bring the whole damn distillery.

Jade chuckled and waved a hand for Virgo to calm down. "It's ok dear, I was just jok…." She didn't get to finish before Virgo bowed her head to Dante and vanished, using the teleportation formation hidden inside her clothes to head home, grab the gourd, and come back by following her connection to Dante.

Dante just smiled wryly at the queen who looked troubled. "Don't worry, she is just doing what she wants, it's no trouble for either of us." 'Virgo's getting more and more expressive these days. She's come a long way.' He was proud of her and loved to see her express herself.

Jade slowly nodded with a touched look, and Virgo arrived back just in time with the new gourd. Dante floated three new glasses her way; he knew she didn't drink in public, or at least when around people she wasn't very familiar with, so he never bothered offering her the liquor. The less said for offering Hisui, the better.

Virgo sent him a warm smile as she took the glasses. {Thank you master.}

He waved a hand casually with a wink. {Anytime babe.}

Soon everyone, even little Hisui, got a drink, and they all raised it. "To the queen's recovery."

"""Cheers!"""

Toma sagged even more as the amber liquid went down his throat. "Ah~, that's good stuff." Kama silently agreed, he tasted hundreds of fine liquors as a precaution and safety for his liege over the years, but the mead was soothing to his mind and soul in a way few could achieve.

Seeing his wife engaging Virgo in conversation, Toma signaled Dante to follow him as the two went to a corner of the room to sit and talk while Kama silently followed. The royal guard preferred to stand with them rather than get involved in the women speaking on the difficulties of a woman's health being confined to a bed entails. Hisui was buried in her mother's arms and refused to let go.

Toma and Dante sank into the leather seats and faced each other as they enjoyed their drinks. "You really weren't kidding about this 'potion' helping with my stress. I feel five years younger. Of course, seeing my wife recovering before my eyes after weeks of concern is also a load off my shoulders." He added the last line with a soft look sent Jade's way.

Dante raised his glass. "I aim to please."

Mid-sip, he paused as Virgo poked their mental connection. {Master, do you have any snacks? The little one is hungry.}

Dante recalled what he had in his requip space before recalling the croquettes he got earlier and sent them Virgo's way. {Does this work?}

Her face lit up in joy in a way only someone who knew her would realize. She sent warm feelings over the bond. {Thank you master.}

{Anytime} He enjoyed the look on her face as she split the snacks and offered it to her new friend and the princess while nibbling on her own. He felt like he could get lost in her smile and their bond assured she felt his feelings.

Toma chuckled and brought his attention back before the two began making casual conversation. Both diverted away from business to just speak and get to know the other more personally. Toma spoke of his fascination with magic, the various kinds he had seen and loved. Dante shared of his adventures in gathering potion ingredients in magical beast infested ecosystems. Even Kama pitched in on his own surprising love for painting and the scopes he would go to in order to gather inspiration.

As they got comfortable, Dante asked something that he noticed. "Not to be rude, but I figured you would be drowning your wife in attention now considering your worry these last weeks."

Toma coughed mid-sip and laughed. "Ha! Don't get me wrong, I would love to do just that, but a few decades of marriage teaches you a few things. My wife hates being coddled with a passion where others can see. I'll be driving her up the wall as soon as everything is settled; no need to worry there." He added a wink to his last statement that just had Dante tipping his drink in reply.

They went back to silent drinking, but soon enough, Dante noticed Kama and Toma shooting him strange looks. "If you want to ask me something, just do it; if I don't want to reply, I'll say so."

Kama coughed into his hand. "My apologies, it's just I couldn't help but wonder how you became so skilled at your age. You found me tailing you and move like a seasoned warrior."

Toma added in. "Not to mention your phenomenal potioneering skills. I have every reason to be thankful but that doesn't mean I don't notice how young you are."

The two asked more in curiosity than judgment, and Dante hummed as he thought over what to say while rubbing the rim of his glass with a finger.

"My childhood was my own, and I have no wish to speak of it, but I'll simply say my eyes were opened to the world at a young age." A very open-ended answer that could have many meanings. Considering how many dark mages and criminals did horrifying things, it could truly mean a lot. It also wasn't exactly wrong, considering Dante was an orphan in his first life and learned a lot from spending time on the streets. Adding another twenty years onto that so-called 'childhood' went unsaid.

He went on to add a few comments about how he awakened his magic early, how it put him on the path of a potioneer, and how it took years of trial and error to get anywhere. Nothing specific, nothing that could come back to be used against him. They were all well aware that if one were talented, lucky, and intelligent enough, caster magic could take them far. History had shown true monsters of mages who started out much stronger much younger than Dante due to those three factors.

As far as combat went. Dante gave Kama a look as he spoke. "Where do you do most of your training? I'm not asking what you do, but where."

Kama paused to realize he wouldn't be giving out any confidential information and answered. "Right here in the capital. The order hones itself within."

Dante nodded knowingly. "And you only get true combat experience through missions correct?"

Seeing the man's slow nod, Dante took a sip and pointed a finger at him. "You trained among humans, to deal with humans. I would assume you know more about fighting, removing, extracting, and interrogating humans than I do. But that's just it, you are limited by humanity."

Kama took the compliment well but grew confused at the ending. Toma listened attentively, interested in where Dante was going with this.

Dante raised a finger straight up and formed a tiny sphere of water. "The potential for magic is limitless. We may be limited by spell formula, but that is simply our own understanding and limitation of how to use magic." The ball of water grew slowly in size. "The human mind is our greatest limiter. Humans are a race that grow by copying those around them, babies learn through imitation, and that carries over into life. Magic fundamentally changes the potential of a human by making them a mage, but that potential can never be realized within human limits."

The ball of water grew to the size of a beach ball and rotated gently. "So what do you think would happen when mages fight only humans? Can they become powerful? Of course they can. But they will only grow as powerful as they push themselves to the limits they think they know. If you saw an S-class mage perform a great feat of magic, that becomes the new mental limit to surpass in a human's mind. And then when they see something else eclipse what they thought was the limit, their mind either breaks as they refuse to accept the reality that their expectations were wrong, or they adapt to see a new 'limit' to surpass."

The ball of water shrunk as it began to compress in on itself. "So when you train among humans, you see human limits as your standard. I trained among magic beasts and have to see the true limit I could reach. Unlike humans who are not constantly at war, magic beasts never stop fighting. They hone themselves, their abilities, they adapt and grow, evolve and reach higher forms, and become things normal humans can't fathom. Can human mages do the same thing? Of course they can. But you require many characteristics to follow such a path of growth."

The ball of water compressed to a golf ball, and as the sphere began to fluctuate, he pulled the mana from his spell and let the water fade back into ethernano. "Surviving that path long enough to see results is another matter entirely." He sat back and took another sip while the two men digested what he had left with them.

After a moment, Kama raised a finger in question. "Did you just spend two hundred words to tell us that you learned your skills through fighting magic beasts instead of human mages?"

Dante paused mid-sip with a twitch. "If you want to be crude and get to the point, then yes, I did."

"Why didn't you just say that?"

"I like explaining my discoveries man, give a researcher his moment will you?"

"But it wasn't a science question, I don't think I even fully understood what you said."

"And that's your human limit."

"Oi."

Toma was greatly amused by the back and forth, but he did actually comprehend what Dante had said and thought about it. 'The four gods of Ishgar were forged through war; he has a point.' He recalled the various wars between kingdoms and continents that raged in pockets throughout the last two centuries. The four men who stood at the top of wizard saints were all old warriors born during war times.

He eyed the young enigma that he owed much to before him and asked. "And where do you see your limits then?"

Dante's eyes briefly trailed to Virgo on the other side of the room, an action both men caught. Virgo too turned, feeling his gaze, and she couldn't help but blush at the intense feeling of both desire and will she felt over the bond. "Somewhere far, far, away from where I currently stand your majesty." His eyes brimmed with an inner fire as he looked at something beyond the room they sat in. 'As long as he lives, this young man will go far.'

Still, his position demanding he either support or crush a young dragon or not, Toma owed the young man more than he could admit and would treat him as a friend for the time being. His eyes gained a humorous quality as he teased the young man. "Chasing after love eh? Not a bad thing to strive for."

Dante's eyes returned to the moment as he met Toma's teasing smile with a smirk and raised his glass. "What else does a man need?"

Toma chuckled and raised his own glass while sliding his eyes over to his wife and daughter. "Indeed."

The two males downed their drinks while Kama stood to the side awkwardly, rubbing his neck with a depressed air. 'Not everyone has a lover, damn it.' His thoughts went to a certain purple-haired assassin in his unit, and he considered acting on them.

The conversation continued on friendly terms until the hour was up, and Dante checked up on Jade's condition. A new scan of her mana had him smiling to the waiting group. "Good, there were no complications. You're out of the danger zone." There were smiles all around as Toma jumped on the bed and hugged his wife dearly with Hisui squeezed between them. Dante stepped back to let them have their moment with an internal sigh of relief. 'That was touch and go; if the woman weren't so strong-willed, I'm not entirely sure that would have worked.'

He kept his thoughts to himself, but that didn't mean much to a certain maid. Virgo stood to his side and intertwined her fingers with his own behind their backs. {You did a good thing here master, I never doubted you.}

He sent her a side-eyed look and saw the small smile on her face as she watched the family moment. Something clicked inside him as he saw the look on her face. {I know, my love.}

Her eyes widened a fraction as she looked at him, the two sharing a long look as emotions over their bond bubbled over. The crush that built for years with them slowly progressing further and further as a couple crossing a metaphorical line at that moment. Dante's conversation with Toma and Virgo's with Jade seemingly being the final nail to make both realize what they had been feeling for a while now.

Their gaze was electric as they fell into their own worlds before a loud cough brought them back to reality. The two flinched and turned to see Toma and Jade giving them knowing looks. "Mr. Ouroboros, perhaps you would like to retake that abomination of a disguise now? It may not be much to my wife and I, but it works just fine on the rest of my staff apparently, and we are about to open the doors." The king and queen sent Kama unimpressed looks that had the man flush in shame and look away, mumbling about how his lieges were cruel.

Dante and Virgo calmly separated, their hands pulling away from one another with reluctance, but the look in the maid's eyes told him this wasn't over. Dante felt a surge of energy at that look and closed his eyes as he activated the transformation spell.

A minute passed before he was enveloped in light and became Katakuri once more. The only recipient of the room over the age of eight humming as he studied the disguise. "Now that I know, it's hard not to see the discrepancies."

Katakuri smirked down at the suddenly shorter man. "Hindsight is twenty-twenty ain't it?" Kama snorted and scratched his cheek with his middle finger getting a chuckle from Dante.

Toma turned to his wife with a look, and Jade rolled her eyes but pulled her daughter into her bosom. "Go deal with it husband; I'll have some one-on-one time with our daughter."

The man nodded and gave her a final kiss before beckoning the others to follow. The doors to the room opened with his gesture as he explained what he had found earlier to Kama, Dante, and Virgo. "Using the scent sample from earlier, we had one of our royal guards with scent-based magic follow the trace. She tracked it back to a chamberlain who hid small packets of the venom in a hidden compartment. Without the scent trace, it would have been completely overlooked and unlikely to be found.

Toma called out to his guards as he walked down the hall, a shadow guard appearing from the shadows and standing behind Kama. "Report!"

The guard saluted. "Sire, the interrogation has been completed. Councilman Rashad has been exposed and a unit is ready to apprehend him before he can run or erase any evidence. Furthermore, the chamberlain was being supplied period supplies and orders through a servant of Marquess Phenex, what would you have us do your majesty?"

Toma paused mid-step, and Dante raised a brow at seeing the small king turn red with rage. "That son of a…." He took a very deep breath and gained a great deal of respect from those around him for the immediate control of his anger. He grit out orders. "Kama, take the unit to arrest the councilman; any representative or member of the magic council that stands in your way is to be warned and further charged with treason if they do not comply. Do NOT give the man a chance to scrub his office; I want to know everything behind his actions here. Coordinate with a second unit and have the Marquess quarantined in his own home. I want Peck to search his manor for the venom; if found, the man is to be arrested or put down if he resists. No warning shots. Understood?" Kama and the guard bowed their heads with a strong salute. "Yes sir!"

The extra guard vanished into the shadows of a hallway as Kama turned to Dante and Virgo. "This is where we part. I cannot thank you enough for your help, as long as it doesn't get in the way of my duties, you have earned yourself an ally in me if ever needed." He held out a forearm that Dante grabbed, and the two men nodded to each other. He sent a final bow to Virgo and rushed off.

Toma waved his hand once more as the two followed the smaller man. He seemed to sense the questions of his guests and explained as he moved. "I'm sure your aware I'm not favored by the surviving nobles of my kingdom." The man scoffed at the word noble. "I would abolish the system if I could but I can't make so many changes without repercussions. My rise to the throne was accompanied by great authority cuts from the past nobles. I stripped them of their land, titles, and power as they did nothing but cause chaos to the people. The few surviving descendants are all power hungry fools who throw around empty titles their great grandparents earned through service in war times. The Phenex family is one such family. They have been unruly ever since the Everlue line they were serving under vanished in a fire years ago." Dante and Virgo shared a silent look at that last line but kept quiet as the man went on.

"I gave the people of this nation a chance to prove themselves through hard work and merit and the economy thrived. Some of the old nobles aren't happy, but things had never gone this far before. I gave them opportunity, their businesses thrived, but just because they didn't have status to go with it they decide to pull a stunt like this? This is treason! And worse than that they targeted my family, my wife!" The man shook violently in anger but managed to push it down once more. The king looked ready to personally charge in and capture the offending parties himself despite being weaker than a regular civilian.

Dante coughed into his fist and got the man's attention. "I have a truth serum if you would like? It works less against mages, but as long as they have their mana sealed with Etherium cuffs, it can still break through if their will is weakened." It was a tricky potion with annoying ingredients, but Dante had made it through inspiration from Harry Potter's Veritaserum. Unfortunately, mages in this world were much more resilient mentally, magically, and physically than Harry Potter's world.

Toma sighed and whispered back in reply so no one could overhear. "I appreciate the favor my friend."

Dante pulled the vial from his requip space and handed it over with a smirk on Katakuri's face. "No problem, your still being charged for this."

The king froze before his fingers grabbed the vial. "What are you a demon?" He grumbled and pocketed the vial.

Dante chuckled but raised a finger. "Me? No. Although I'm starting to wonder about someone else…."

The king grunted in silent agreement as the two men ignored the chatter of the regular palace soldiers they had been passing. The proud men and women that patrolled the halls in their shining armors saluted the king as soon as they saw him before going into panic attacks as they whispered shouted at the sight of Virgo following behind him.

*Gasp!* (Random guard #1)

"Oh shit!" (Random guard #2)

"Fuck!" (Random guard #3)

"Why is lower body armor not standard issue?!" (Random guard #4)

"Run! It's the S&M Maid!" (Random guard #5)

"We can't run! Were on duty! The king is right there!" (Random guard #6)

"Then merge with the wall damn it! Become one with the stone!" (Random guard #5)

"Inner peace…. Inner peace…." (Random guard #7)

"I am a tree. A tree is me. I have no worldly desires…" (Random guard #8)

The big scary scarred Katakuri was completely overlooked as Virgo put a royal castle's elite soldiers into fight-or-flight mode with only her presence.

Toma manfully ignored them all with only slight sympathy while Dante was growing increasingly disturbed and amused in equal fashion. {I've done my best not to ask this, but what the hell did you do to make these people react like this? I never sent you to this castle before, right?}

Virgo tilted her head adorably in thought, knowing full well how it attracted his gaze, as she responded innocently. {Hmm… I don't believe I ever came here, no. As for what I did? I also do not now master. All I did was perform standard punishments on unruly or misbehaving customers.}

Dante's brow twitched at the sight of three royal shadow guards coming around a corner before fleeing like startled rabbits while whisper shouting code 'SM' to every fellow they passed. {An example of these punishments would be?}

Virgo put a finger to her chin and answered in a slightly dreamy tone. {Let's see, I shall use the last incident as my example. A group of twenty-five bandits tried to threaten information on my master out of me and proceeded to explain how they would 'handle' me to make me talk like some cliché villain from a storybook.

After incapacitating them, I removed their lower garments, hung them by chains from the ceiling by their arms, spread their legs with chains holding them taut in a split, and placed a rounded metal pole beneath them.

Finally, I left a large note in the direction they were facing to explain that the more they struggled to release themselves, the looser the chains holding their arms would become and the lower they would be 'impaled,' so to speak, on the pole.

It was a wonderful punishment for such foolish things that dared try to threaten my master or make use of my body that belonged solely to my master.}

{….} Dante was speechless and involuntarily clenched his ass cheeks imagining the scenario.

The walk was silent for two long minutes while he processed her words and realized Virgo might be stepping into Yandere territory. 'Why is that turning me on? Wtf is wrong with my life?' A very confused Dante was dealing with a very confusing boner while more and more guards tried their utmost to remain at their posts in front of their kind while simultaneously trying to not get Virgo's attention.

They almost arrived at their destination before Dante finally responded. {Virgo, in the future, please remind me to never ask what your punishments for non-friendlies are again. I permit you to use force against me if necessary.}

Virgo's eyes shined with an unholy light. {Understood master.}

The silence was strong before his own curiosity got the better of him. {Just a thought here, but were all your victims male?}

Virgo scoffed over the connection. {Of course not master. The ratio is indeed skewed on the male side, but plenty of them were females.}

{Well… no one can ever say you're not an advocate of gender equality.} What Dante wasn't aware of, and likely would choose to remain unaware of if given a choice, was that Virgo's actions had set in motion a great undertaking that would shift the timeline of the world dramatically.

Her casual actions of punishment would form a terrifying legion of suicidal souls willing to fight god for half a bagel.

The S&M secret society, formed by those who reached 'enlightenment' under Virgo's punishments. Men and women who would go to any length to assist her and possibly receive the award of her personal punishments. A society that grew with her victims, and slowly branched out to grow on its own terms, pulling others in and praising the maiden spirit as their patron.

But that was a story for another time.

Toma brought them into a private office and gestured for them to sit across the desk from him. "I apologize for the change of scenery, but I need to get a leg up on things before my guards return. I want to make sure there are no interruptions from any of the smaller factions." Just as he spoke, servants walked in carrying stacks of paperwork to leave on the desk before bowing and leaving. Seeing the man age before his eyes while looking at it, Dante did not envy him. "Before that, I want to get your reward out of the way."

The king straightened up and looked at Dante and Virgo seriously. "I promised you anything I could offer as long as it does not hurt my kingdom, and now I will hear you price."

Dante hummed to himself, but there was very little the king could offer that he couldn't get himself. In essence, he was going to ask for things that would just make his life easier.

"I have two requests and a gift."

The king raised a brow. "A gift? Are you unaware how rewards work?"

Dante's hand twitched as he summoned a golden card that he tossed on the desk. Toma picked it up curiously, seeing a long number on its lacrima-encrusted surface. "A lacrima card?"

"This, my friend, is a premium VIP client card. Unlike the usual process of how I take clients, with them having to go through temporary status to VIP status, premium VIPs are what I consider my friends and have more direct access to my work than most.

Temporary VIP status allows for buying products from a pre-set order list.

VIP status allows for participation in monthly auctions and making custom orders.

And Premium VIP status gives you VIP benefits along with discounts on purchases and direct line communication to me if there is an emergency.

Drip a drop of blood on the card to tie the enchantments to you. You can use it to project the pre-set order list, which is periodically updated, get a timer until the next auction, and have a number you can call on a communication lacrima to reach me."

Hearing the explanation, Toma truly understood the weight of the card in his hands. Ouroboros potions could change the world, and having a direct line to him was like having a wizard saint always available.

He gave the younger man a shrewd look. "Why would you give me this?"

Dante smirked. "I give them to those who know who I am, those I consider friends."

"I am honored but I think we both know you don't trust someone with this so quickly."

"Well… it never hurts to keep a monarch close does it? Especially when I operate out of your kingdom and as long as the card is bound to you, I can also use it to get a direct line of communication to you."

Toma continued looking at him for a moment before he broke into laughter. "Ha! Indeed, it never hurts." He pricked his finger with a small pin on his desk and rubbed in the card, seeing it glow slightly as it was bound to him.

The king wiped his finger with a handkerchief while commenting. "So you truly are based in my kingdom then? I admit it was a topic of great interest among the higher echelons of Ishgar."

Dante shrugged in response. "It doesn't really matter to know. I have few doubts anyone could even reach my base, let alone find me." He left the statement open-ended, as even if he mentioned that he lived in the Mirage Mountains, it would take someone truly skilled in tracking to find his home.

By the widening of Toma's eyes, Dante was sure the man figured it out on his own anyway. It didn't take a genius to think of where his words fit in the scope of the kingdom's land. "Well… your obviously a paranoid one."

Dante just smirked in reply. "That actually brings me to my first request."

Toma waved his hand to get on with it, and he explained. "At the current moment, I have no concerns about organizations finding me. They can grumble all they want, but they can't stop me as I'm doing no one any harm.

However, according to a few sources of mine, it seems your Fiore magic council is thinking of making some moves against me. Outlawing my products and arresting anyone seen with them. I assure you it's nothing to do with my own potions, but out of greed on their end. I was hoping you could absolve this issue for me and perhaps keep them off my back."

The king went silent as he listened but sighed and sat back against his chair when Dante finished. "I swear I don't know why I made that government branch…." He mumbled to himself before straightening up. "I usually leave them to their own devices but seeing as how at least one member is involved with my wife's attack, and that I myself have been getting my own rumors and signs of them making ambitious moves, it may be time for their autonomy to come to an end. My wife was not happy with how I dealt with the magic side of things anyway, and it's coming to bite me in the ass." The man's look of annoyance was met by chuckles from his guests. "Bah, don't worry, I'll directly handle your situation myself. No law will ever be directly or indirectly made to confine your work. In fact, every law should pass through my desk before being implemented. Perhaps that's another thing I have to discuss with that rotten group." Toma went off into his thoughts for a moment as Dante was suddenly hit with a realization.

'So that's how canon came to be. I always wondered why a monarch would allow a clearly corrupt and mostly useless organization to run things. Perhaps they targeted his wife to put the man in grief and remove him from the picture. Huh, well canon really is fucked if that's the case. Good riddance.'

He wasn't a hundred percent sure, but the more he thought of it, the more likely it became. At least, the result had a high chance with the cause being up in the air.

Toma came back to himself and finished. "Yes, it will be done. If anything happens still, you may contact me and I'll deal with it."

Dante nodded thankfully. He wasn't afraid of the council, but that didn't mean he underestimated them. Dante was strong, growing stronger, and had a firm foundation set. But he wasn't arrogant into believing others couldn't hurt him in various ways, and the council had access to centuries of hidden knowledge, connections he didn't have, and magic items and weapons from ancient times. He would rather not directly come into conflict with the Fiore magic government if he had a choice.

"As for my second request, it's much more simple. You see, I wish to do a little… excavating of fossils, so to speak, within your capital. Would you mind?" Dante's request was simple and more done to make his life easier than anything else. The whole reason he came to the capital that day was to get dragon bones, and while he could have still gone to get them himself, he didn't actually know where they were, considering Natsu only found it in canon by breaking the floor of the stadium and then finding a mine shaft cart to toss Gajeel into.

This way, he might get some directions and doesn't have to sneak around Toma's back lest he finds out later on his own, and their trust and respect get damaged.

Toma's eyes blanked out for a moment as he processed the request before they sharpened on the two sitting before him. "I must commend you on your information gathering skills. I can't in good conscience detain you and find out exactly where that information leaked from, but I will ask you to share if someone is leaking state secrets."

Dante held his palms up to calm the man. "No need to worry. The source has been…silenced and I'm confident the leak has been plugged at least in that area. I would however, take a closer look at your magic council to see where they have been stick their noses into." Dante hated to lie to a friend, but when it came to his metaknowledge, he preferred to find alternative sources to explain them. Only Virgo would ever know about his future sight, and as she said before, she had no interest in questioning him on it.

Toma cursed under his breath. "Goddamn it, just how much damage have those fools done." He nodded toward Dante. "Your request is permitted. We don't actually use them for anything as the royal family had always considered it a bad omen, but I'm a more practical man then my forefathers. You can take as much as you can carry in a single trip but I ask you not to return for more. The less interaction anyone has with that, the less of a chance others will know of it."

Externally, Dante nodded calmy in agreement; internally however, he was smiling wildly and sending Virgo a message. {I guess we're doing the Everlue heist again.}

He could feel the annoyance bleed through in her response. {Master, my realm is not a storage unit.}

{I wouldn't call it storage, just a transfer point.}

{…}

{I'll give you a massage voucher.}

{Five.}

{Three.}

{Your wish is my command master.}

Dante's brow twitched but otherwise gave no sign of the conversation they just had as Toma reached into his desk and removed two badges. He tossed them to the mages and rang a small bell on his desk. "Those will let you through the wards guarding the site. I'll have someone take you to the entrance." The office door opened as a shadow guard appeared holding a box.

Toma gestured to it as it was placed on the desk. "Your requests aside, I planned to offer a gift of my own to show my gratitude." At the king's gesture, the guard opened the box, and a strong mix of herbal scents filled the air. Dozens of neatly wrapped and packaged rectangular boxes sat securely inside. "From our own treasury, I had a few samples of precious herbs we keep stocked packaged for you, along with a few seeds from ones we could not easily move."

Dante's eyes shined as he looked over the precious herbs, his passive spell pinging like crazy. He didn't want to be rude, so he accepted and stored away the box in precisely .73 seconds. The king blinked for a moment before chuckling. "It seems your happy with my gift I see. Well, I can rest easy now."

Dante coughed into his fist awkwardly. "Right, yeah, it's great."

Toma waved it off and signaled to the guard. "Guide them to the catacombs, tunnel D section 18. No one is to follow, turn back as soon as they go through, understood?"

The guard saluted. "Yes sir." He left the office to wait outside as the three occupants finished up.

The king looked back at Dante and Virgo a final time as they all stood. He reached out a hand and shook their hands. "I've said it before, but you have done me a service I could never repay. You didn't ask for much in return as well, but I accept the token of friendship. Ouroboros Potions will have the backing of the crown of Fiore."

Dante smiled down at the man with a nod. "Thank you Toma, I hope this can be the start of a wonderful relation….friendship between allies." He changed his words midway through at a pointed glare from his maid. 'He's a four foot middle aged married man, drop the yandere vibes damn it.'

Virgo bowed her head as well. "Please take care of us from now on."

The king laughed and made a final request before they left.

A minute later, Dante and Virgo left the office while the king stashed away a precious gourd of the mead from earlier.

The guard guided them through a hidden door that led back into the tunnels Kama had originally brought him in from. Rather than go up however, they descended further into the manmade system. From the current angle, it was simple to make out symbols carved into the stone with numbers and letters designating where they were. 'Huh, it's one of those optical illusions. Can't be seen from one direction but the other was fine. I guess that's why Kama kept turning around to check if I was behind him earlier.'

They soon arrived at a wall with a carved '18' on it, and the guard gestured to it. "Keep your badges on your person and walk through the wall. Your destination is on the other side. To leave the cavern, there is a lift on the side. Be warned that it is only an exit, the lift will recede behind you, and the path back will fill with enough traps to give a wizard saint second thoughts. Once you're out, there is no going back." The man finished his peace and left just like that without another word.

Dante sweat dropped at the sight. "Damn, they really take their orders seriously."

Virgo hummed. "Toma and Jade are good rulers." She didn't elaborate, and Dante didn't ask. He just assumed she had seen enough rulers over the ages to be able to tell.

They walked through the wall like it was an illusion but Dante could sense the heavy enchantments all over the entrance and had little confidence in passing through it on his own. 'Maybe it was a good thing I decided to ask for permission. I'm suddenly realizing my chances of getting in were smaller than I originally thought.'

The grand magic games were fifteen years away. Who knew what kind of construction the arena went under in that time to eventually have a new entrance that could lead into the dragon cavern. 'It was probably Hisui's decisions that even allowed such a thing to happen. Hopefully, her mother being around will make her less gullible in the future.'

They passed through the entrance to come out to a ledge overlooking a large underground cavern illuminated by glowing green crystals. Dragon skeletons lay as far as they could see in their line of sight. Bones radiating with mana even centuries after their passing.

"I remember the age of dragons; it was a chaotic time, but they were interesting beings." Dante's researcher side poked up at that. "Maybe you can tell me about them more later."

She hummed in silent agreement and the two enjoyed the view and feel of the ancient place.

Seeing as they were finally alone, Dante sent out a scan for any surveillance enchantments before dismissing his Katakuri transformation and throwing his normal arm over Virgo's shoulders. "Well, that was a fun experience eh?"

Virgo chuckled into her hand and leaned into him. "A bit different from how this day was planned but it was certainly interesting."

"Tell me about it, I kinda just zoned out and let everything happen after a certain point. I'm thankful I managed to befriend Toma and get the council off our backs, but that was pure dumb luck."

Virgo kissed his cheek and laid her hands on his chest. "Take it from me master, sometimes life works in mysterious ways."

He smiled at her actions and rested his chin on top of her head. "I'm not complaining. It seems you made a new friend back there huh?"

Virgo sighed in pleasure in his arms. "Mn. Jade is an interesting woman."

"Should I be jealous someone else has your attention?" He asked playfully.

Virgo scoffed and slapped his chest. "Don't say foolish things master. I made my vow quite clear." She placed a hand on his cheek and rested her head against his chest. "I'm yours Dante."

Dante hummed and closed his eyes as he felt for her heartbeat inside his core. "And I yours Virgo."

The two blended together naturally. That moment back in the queen's room where they realized their love coming back to them in tune. Something about the very air seemed to click and tell them it was ok.

They had grown increasingly affectionate over the years, but that moment before when they realized it became love changed things slightly. The two were savoring the new emotion bleeding over the bond so strongly, converting thousands of memory fragments tied to their emotions with a new color.

Dante loved her, and she him. It was simple. It just happened. Like a slow winding river that went on for miles until it eventually reached the ocean and realized it was all connected.

The two immortalized the moment as they stood on the ledge of the cavern surrounded by Virgo's element, glowing green crystals providing an ambiance, with the backdrop of hundreds of glowing dragon skeletons standing witness.

Three years since their bond formed, with the two side by side through thick and thin deep in the Mirage Mountains, journeying through one ecosystem after another, building a home, supporting each other through their inner demons, their feelings turned into love. Neither could imagine life without the other, both were tired of holding back, and the climax of their feelings pushed them over the edge.

The two turned as one to face the other as their lips met in a tender embrace. Their emotions flowing like a river over the bond as the two drowned in the taste and feel of the other.

Dante swore she tasted like cherry, and Virgo committed his taste of cinnamon to memory.

The moment cemented itself inside them, becoming a branch on the tree that was their bond. A hand slowly released from around Virgo's waist as Dante slowly broke the kiss. She looked on curiously as he Requipped a bouquet of pink carnations into his hands.

Her eyes widening as he spoke softly. "I was meaning to give this to you earlier, but the time wasn't right. I was asked by a nice woman at a flower booth what kind of flowers I wanted to give to a special woman in my life, and I told her I wanted something that could represent that the woman I loved was someone I was endlessly grateful to have met and that no matter how much time passes or what we go through, she had left an unforgettable mark on my heart. No matter if it's now or a millennia from now, that mark will always remain."

He bent down to kiss a wet cheek. She stood frozen as moisture built into tears trailing her cheeks. She reached a hand out and gently brushed a pink flower that matched her own hair so perfectly as he went on and poured his heart out. "I want to thank you Virgo, for coming into my life, for patching me up when I got too wild in my fights and experiments, for teaching and instructing me in magic and knowledge, for standing with me even when the contract didn't call for it, and more than that, thank you for allowing me to get to know the real 'you' behind all the masks you were forced to wear for unworthy masters."

He bent his head to place his mouth next to her ear. "I love you Virgo. I want you in my life, till the end of time and beyond."

She didn't speak for close to five minutes, just trembling in his arms as tears fell freely. She opened her mouth to speak a dozen times and closed it unable to respond, but the emotions he felt were clear on what she wanted to say.

Still, he waited. He held her and waited, no matter how long she needed to take. Eventually, she found her voice and lifted her hands to his cheeks as she kissed him. "I love you." She kissed him again. "I love you Dante." And again. "I love you so, so, much." And another. She whispered her words over and over as she absolutely flooded the bond with her emotions. Dante felt like a sailor lost at sea on his small boat with the river she sent his way.

How long the two spent like that went unsaid, but by the time they realized it, they were already sitting on the earth with Virgo straddling him like she did on the night of their bonds formation.

Blue stared into blue as their faces hovered inches from the other. Virgo's ever so soft petite fingertips trailing his facial features. She swallowed a lump in her throat and whispered her words. "Dante…my love…you don't know what you have done to me." She leaned down for another kiss and pulled back. "I have lived for millennia, been among the first members of the celestial spirits; I am the personification of a constellation.

I have seen so many things, empires rising and falling, I've felt love before." She traced his jaw line. "And for all of that, after all I've seen and done, no one has called to me like you. No one has given to me like you. Your soul sang to mine that first night we met and nothing I had ever done could prepare me for the pure and utter joy that being by your side has brought me.

You gave new meaning to every sunrise. Seeing you struggle and grow, hearing you laugh and shout, being held in your arms and holding you in mine." Their arms subconsciously tightened around the other. "I felt more in every day since we bonded than I have felt in the last millennia I lived. From day one, I never felt I had to hide my true self from you. You listened to me, cared for my feelings, you tried so hard. You opened your heart, soul, and magic to me, and I have basked in them all this time." Her palm came to rest against his cheek as she leaned forward to place their foreheads together and look him deeply in the eyes.

"I know the goal you seek. I know what you desire. I know why that fire burns so strong and true." Her lips trailed kisses along his jaw to reach his ear. "You're a fool Dante. Chasing something so many have ruined themselves to achieve. But your my fool." She trailed back to his lips and whispered so low he almost missed it. "And I love you for it, with all my heart and soul. I'm yours Dante, till the end of time and beyond."

The two kissed, and the world was drowned out. This wasn't planned; this wasn't prepared for. There was no call for this moment, and yet it came to be. A spark was lit, and the time came, as the two souls found their love ring true in a cavern lost to time.

Virgo's eyes glowed in the dim lighting with pure celestial energy as she pinned Dante to the ground hard enough to crack the earth around them. "Now." She growled out as her nails dug into his skin. "You're not running away from this."

Despite the look in her eyes that screamed predator, Dante couldn't help but laugh as he bucked his hips and pinned her to the ground in surprise. "No my love, it is you who is not running away from this." She smirked viciously and ripped off his shirt as she dove toward his lips.

Surrounded by the element of earth, far away from any prying eyes, in a cavern that sang with ancient magic, the two met as one and consummated their love. And it was only Dante's weaker body that stopped Virgo from doing her best to collapse said cavern in her desperation for more.

Day bled to night, time lost all meaning, and the royals had no idea their sacred cavern was occupied much longer than they originally planned for.

And when the sun rose a day later, the two lovers returned home hand in hand, with crates full of dragon bones and something a little more.

Something unique their lovemaking had uncovered as they caved in the very floor of the cavern.

It seemed some things were buried and hidden, even amongst graveyards of those who stood at the top of the food chain. After all, nature always seeks balance, and sometimes something is born to prey on predators.

Flashback End.

Dante's unfocused eyes came back to the finished constitution potion cooling before him. The dragon bone shard having fully dissolved and completed the recipe.

The two lovers had excavated dozens of skeletons worth of bones that would last them years upon years and stored them in Virgo's realm temporarily until they were moved to a vault beneath their basement. Various bones soaked in the pure mana of dragons and focused on specific elements that could make potions leagues stronger than those without them.

The haul was a true treasure trove toward his future as a potioneer, but it wasn't the greatest prize that night. The foreign skeleton they found deep below that cavern dated back to a time before Virgo was born. To a time when gods and ancient beasts roamed the lands.

Even asking other spirits in the Celestial Realm had given them little help in discovering the skeleton's original form. But it called to Dante. It called to a primal part of him. It called to his deepest desire to become immortal and spend eternity with Virgo.

So he kept it, stored it away, and experimented with it.

His eyes trailed from the potion he was making to one of the walls of his lab. The dragon bone shard rested on the table as he walked over and slid his hand along the wall, using his mana to input a code only he and Virgo knew.

A false metal door, made of enough Etherium to make a king green with envy, slid open to reveal a small space radiating ethernano. The room was empty bar for a small simple stand in its center.

Dante approached and opened a glass case to lift a glowing red vial made of dragon bone he had carved himself. The red liquid trapped inside radiating ethernano like a broken dam.

His eyes reflected the light of the potion as he stared at it for the thousandth time since he accidentally created it. 'Not yet, my body can't handle it yet.'

He sighed and placed it back in its case before closing the room.

The red liquid would have its time. It would shape his future. Be his key to achieving his desire. An ancient legacy long forgotten would have its heir.

A resolved expression faded from his eyes as he returned to his potion crafting, not vanishing but bottling up inside him for a future day to come.

A wind blew from the open door, and his trusty journal sitting on his work table turned its pages rapidly to rest on a random point. A single question written on the blank sheet in bold ink.

[What really happened in the dragon graveyard four hundred years ago?]

Chapter end.

AN: Thoughts? Let me know what you all think. Was the chapter to long? I could divide it in two but I didn't want to break the massive flashback scene in two like I did the first time around.

Response to Reviews:

Fish – thanks dude.

The One Dutchman - Thanks for the moral support man.

ArktheLegend - Fluff is justice.

Kirito Tatsumi - MOAR has arrived my friend.

UnknowingGodz - Thanks dude, Virgo is just so wholesome and I can't help myself. Thats a really cool idea for the key. A silver key that helps with gardening and growing various herbs. maybe even a spirit that maintains a herb garden for him in the spirit world? Or perhaps a spirit with a pocket dimension inside it capable of growing herbs? Theres some interesting potential here.

As for the spirit itself, the first things that come to mind is something like 'Groot'. or some other kind of small plant based spirit.

Kyo - Thanks for the awesome review! I'm not perfect but I'm trying hard to make this story better grammar wise to make the rewrite worth the effort. I wrote the OG version two years ago and some of my views changed on things like where to put effort in.

I already raided the HP potion list lol. You will see it in the auction chapter but in the OG version I used that list a lot. Although I made my own ones as well to be creative. I'll check out cheat pharmacist and see if I can mooch anything good.

Although the idea of Natsu jumping at Virgo screaming for her to fight him, and then her spraying him in the eyes with pepper spray, is highly amusing. I might steal the pepper spray idea and put it in a vial with a spray nozzle.

Ya boi – thanks for the ideas man! I don't know if I'll ever use them, but they are definitely in the list for use if an opportunity comes up. Keep them coming.

Thanks to everyone who leaves thoughtful or encouraging reviews, it somehow fuels me. Its weird, I'm weird. Whatever.