Book 2. Chapter 11: Preparations and Snake-girl Kisses

Book 2. Chapter 11: Preparations and Snake-girl Kisses

Ophelia continued, [Ill start with the first task. I was able to get various shrines to rally together and form a unit for medical attention like you wanted. I think youll be happy with the turnout.]

Jake and the rest started heading for the portal to head back to their refuge for now, as Ophelia continued, [Hestia was able to corroborate our assumption that Alisara is likely acting for the enemy. Such a thing is extremely rare at our tier in the way that it must have been achieved in this case. She could not give specifics about how Alisara was affected, but it appears that she, her body at least, must be being controlled in some way by an enemy Champion. This is the only way it could be achieved in a meaningful way that your purifying flames couldnt simply purge or without continuous exposure to Alisara herself, which Fhesiah or Ira would be able to detect.

This cannot be a Framework person that is instead working for the enemy. The same compulsions that keep you from attacking her or communicating with fringe world people would keep her from betraying it knowingly. Most likely, the enemy has somehow placed their influence inside her.

Until they take action against you, it appears they are protected by the Framework itself, as whatever is controlling her is doing it from inside the body itself. Alisara is alive in some way and not the Champion herself, or youd be able to attack her. The good news is you dont need to worry about her as a hostage. When this happens, you can destroy them as needed. The framework will be able to resurrect them in the future.]

Jake took that in and thought about it. So, Alisara is likely a woman that they have not even met aside from her body, and the enemy champion was using her as a sort of puppet to accomplish their goals. Perhaps that void they see might even be the Champions influence.

[We have a few choices on how to deal with this, but none of them are great. It is clear the enemy champion desires Alisara to be in our party, likely to spring their trap once they are in the Fortress Assault. Hestia doubts they would be able to spring this trap fully remotely within the Assault, and so they must be present in some way. Aware of their trap, we should be able to destroy them once and for all, preventing them from escaping or preying upon other worlds in the future. Read latest chapters at nov(e)lbin.com Only

It is clear that this agent is immensely useful to our enemy, enabling them to hurt conquest progress in many significant ways, even without taking great personal risk. Just like [The Framework] is supposed to only be able to take actions as a result of scouting, [Tartarus] is supposed to do the same. This woman is clearly enabling Tartarus to maximize its machinations, making it easy for it to win where it would normally be mostly an even match.

The second option is not likely to succeed, according to the goddess. We could isolate Alisara and trap her or otherwise bind her without taking action against her directly, such as collapsing a cave or us entering a prison cell with her and locking it. But this is the most likely to fail. If she hasnt acted against us, then we wont be able to stop her from using an escape ability or item. Not only that, but we are working under a time limit. She would be content to wait in a cell with us as we keep her there, the fortress assault will win them the world given enough time, and she would not lash out in a way that would cause us to be able to target her.]

Jake also didnt like the second gamble, but wasnt the first a terrible proposition? The challenge is balanced around 5 party members, so wouldnt entering with an enemy be even worse than that? Even without their trap, they are already starting at a handicap with that. Wouldnt it be better to just enter without Alisara and just have nobody at all?

[I thought so too, but the problem is that even if we defeat the fortress assault, the enemy agent could easily undo our win with their feeding the enemy information and leading people into ambushes like they have been. Even if we call out that she is an enemy agent, she could end up dumping her current body and moving to another guild and repeating the process once again.

Still, that is the third option, which is also not good. We could finish the fortress assault without her, and just watch alliance HQ and warn the other guilds of the puppet-master, so to speak. There are in fact add-ons to a guild or HQ that can help detect and allow us to eliminate such an entity as her, but due to her rarity at this Tier, its not one without significant cost. It is one and takes time for it to be implemented. Its not as though its impossible to detect this, but this creatures ability must be quite special, to transcend what someone should be able to do at this Tier.]

Jake somewhat understood this. Even a mind specialist or something of this nature would need to be in range in order to control the target at this Tier. Jake didnt think it was any kind of artifact, or he would have spotted it with his [Arcane Eye]. He had done a good amount of research for his familiar choices, and was somewhat aware of some of the options for their Tier even among rare individuals. It would definitely have to be something with extremely rare capabilities to accomplish this.

It was Fhesiah that next spoke over the bond, [Isnt it fine? The fortress assault has 3 potential enemy champions, and Alisara is a potential fourth, or they might just be a puppet of the third. Thats one champion for each of us. The previous champion of Apophis was tough, but we were just beginners then. Jake wasnt even a true champion at the time, and I was only challenged due to my own hubris. I think Ophelia would have taken him one on one, and we are even stronger now. We will show them our growth and that our family is not one to mess with, that they can keep sending Champions to fuel our ascension if they want. When it comes to teamwork, there is no way they can compete with our family.]

Jake thought there was a lot of merit to Fhesiahs line of thinking. It could backfire and the enemy god or goddesses double down, or it could get them to cut their losses at least for now. Jake was not foolish enough to believe that they would give up, but Gods and Goddesses think differently than humans: they would play the long game, especially when Hestia clarified that they had their own checks and balances to turn the vice on the enemy gods as a result of their meddling.

They are eternal, and while Jake and his family are immortal, it wasnt as if they would live forever, necessarily. There would come a time when they would want to retire, or otherwise allow their lives to end naturally and allow their soul to enter the cycle of reincarnation once again. The Framework allowed for this, all while protecting their souls against the outsiders. That is, if Jake and his family didnt become gods and goddesses themselves, one day.

This meant that the enemy gods would prepare their pieces, and wait to spring their trap in the distant future for their slights against them, when Jakes family least expected it. Knowing that they could not defeat Jake and his party, they could also go after his children. This just meant that if his children decided to battle against the outsiders, that Jake would have to make sure they went into things with eyes wide-open.

While the law of balance required payment for knowledge given by gods and goddesses, or through things like the multiverse market, there was absolutely no payment for a parent preparing their child with knowledge and training. Some knowledge was still protected, but this was also how things like the adventurer school operated. Jake would ensure his children had amazing skills and knowledge before they ever stepped foot in a dungeon.

While Jake was ruminating about the issue, they had finally arrived back at their refuge, where Ophelia was waiting. They then filled in the lamia to the situation, to which she was shocked, and it looked like she was about to cry once again. Hearing that she missed out on this internal conversation because of her lacking bond had really hurt and filled her with frustration. What an insidious enemy. She had never run into one that couldnt just be smashed by her mace. The girls took her off to console her, as Jake now had a lot of work to do. He wanted to be there for her, but what he was doing was incredibly important, and might save many lives.

He didnt have many preparations left other than planning a spell that would help against the treacherous enemy in the dungeon, but he certainly had some ideas for how he could help against the ambushes. He also thought the ideas he had would help them out in their destination world, so he got to it. He would create a few different spell-rods meant for many castings, rather than the almost one-use ones he had created previously.

The key differences were the amount of mana required to cast the spell, the materials, and runic ink used. He was now purchasing Tier 1 Runic Ink, as opposed to the Tier 0 he had been using previously, but also would be etching these new spells onto Tier 1 materials.

Ophelia had made these spell-rods for him using her [Advanced Smithing Level 1] skill that she now had. Jake had hoped to use them to make some sort of mega-einherjar spell once he got his [Hearth Runic Magic] to level 3, but that looked unlikely to happen before the big showdown, and maybe not even by the time they got to the destination world they were hoping to defend. As he entered his enchanting room, Jake put his thoughts on hold.

Jakes enchanting room now had a special tool for [Runic Etching]. Jake was quite surprised to learn that tools like this were available thanks to the goblin, gnome, and dwarven crafters, and he bought it as soon as he could afford it. Jake thought it resembled some weird mixture of a surgery robot and an old CAD printer that he had seen in his shop class in high school. When he contacted it, and channeled mana into the device, he could etch runes rapidly with the several arms on a track. An arm on another track held the item he was etching, and he could move them separately while charging them with his mana and runic ink together.

Jake inserted the empty spell-rod as he sat on a chair in front of the device. He checked the runic ink and mana crystal levels, and operated it by controlling it with his mind, or his intentions. He drew two runes at a time; the arms having what looked like mana blades or scalpels at the end, slowly cutting through a small layer on the surface of the magical metal that made up the rod. Jake found that as his intelligence and wisdom got higher, being able to multitask like this became easier and easier. As each rune completed, he spun the spell rod or moved the robotic arms up and down the length of the rod on its own track, etching and filling the next runes with ink and his mana.

His first spell rod was meant to conjure stone. This would allow him to aid builders in constructing a wall rapidly, being able to source the materials necessary for any construction effort. Not only that, but he could conjure the stone at the desired location and build the wall himself. He just wouldnt be able to provide much input on the shape or size of the wall; he wouldnt want to use this to construct a wall for something meant to look nice for a city, is all. If they wanted to build the wall to precise dimensions, he would need to have the stone cut into blocks of the correct shape and size instead.

Jake continued, working on the second spell-rod. The machine whirred and the spell-rod spun, as Jake sliced and etched the Nordic runes onto the metal, meticulously looking over every detail. After just a few minutes, the second spell-rod was done. This one was similar, only it conjured water. It would conjure water rapidly enough to fill a moat, or fill large basins of water for supporting initiated and uninitiated alike.

Jake crafted several more spell-rods, until he had almost a dozen. Each was specialized in what it did, but it should allow Jake to effectively become an engineering crew on his own, or work well together with one. Not all of the spell-rods required the special magical metals to accomplish their goal, and many of them just helped Jake with mana consumption. Many of the spells Jake would use only required 12 rune word spells, so Jake had offloaded half of them or more in some cases to the rods to help. A few of them, Jake offloaded the whole spell so that anyone could use them, as long as they filled them with mana. Either way, Ophelia would have no problems using them alongside him.

Jake chuckled. Her words completely matched what he was feeling over the bond. Her massive chest was practically heaving, and things were going to get derailed quickly if he left things as they were.

Lets head over to your room, and Ill meet the other girls in theirs before we all head to bed in my room tonight. Each will get some time with me alone, and how they use it will be up to them.

The girls headed to their rooms after sending a confirmation over the bond, presumably to get ready for their own times, and get ready for bed. Jake still felt a little weird, his time with the girls being split this way. If thats what they want, though, he would be happy to give it to them; it felt great to be desired, after all. He took Berri by the hand and led her over to her room, and Jake could tell that she couldnt believe this was happening. Jake shook his head; he did just say kissing, didnt he?

Jake finished leading her into the room and turned around. She was wringing her hands. Are you sure its okay? I dont want to make you mad again.

I wasnt mad, just worried about Fhesiah, andyou really did seem to want to hurt her, you know. Just do your best, and I promise I wont be mad at you, okay? Ill take care of it.

Berri looked relieved, then her emotions shifted right back to excitement. He laughed, Berri, Im sorry. It seems Ive made you wait too long. You understand its just a kiss, right? Why are you so excited?

She played with her new earrings in her fingers, as she replied, Its just, I long since thought I would never experience this. The Matriarchs were firm on this matter, and no matter how much weI tried, they would not budge, and I eventually accepted it would never happen for me.

Jake wondered about the verbal tic, but said, Okay, well, its happening now. Jake looked around the room. Her bed was a large bundle of blankets and pillows on the ground, and a very large pillow was there. Her tail, or rather the snake portion of her body, reached around 15 meters in length, and her human-like body 3 meters in height from her usual standing posture. Standing next to her, Jake really looked like a child standing next to an adult. If Jake tried to kiss her on his tip-toes from where he stood on the ground, he wouldnt even be able to reach her neck.

Of course, she could lean or stoop down, but that seemed quite awkward. Really, things would probably work best if they were both lying down. Well, that had connotations that might make her a little too excited, but that would allow this to be a proper test of her being able to hold herself back. Fhesiah and Ophelia were just a [Call Summon] away, so everything would be fine, probably.

Why dont you lay down on the bed, and Ill join you there. I think this will make it easiest for me to kiss you. As for you kissing me, I know you could just hold me up with your tail.

She nodded, perhaps too excited to trust herself to speak, and rapidly curled herself on her bed. Jake had always been amazed at how rapidly she could move her massiveJake really needed to come up with a more womanly term for referring to how large she was, as no woman wants to be called massive, for when she could hear his thoughts, at least. Perhaps she wouldnt mind, though?

He laid down next to her and did his best to scoot up to where his lips would meet hers. Now that he was close, he was amazed at the size difference. Her lips were more than double the size of his, especially with her lips being fuller and more pillowy. As he lined his mouth up to hers, it astonished him that his crotch would press down near the bottom of her breasts as they kissed.

He looked into her pink eyes, her slitted pupils dilated. She was panting, and was feeling many emotions at once: fear, excitement, lust, desire. Jake smiled at her and sent reassurance to her over their bond, mixed with his own desire. He couldnt help but feel she was quite beautiful, with her very pale skin and elfin features of high cheekbones, knife-like ears pointing straight to the side, and shocking pink eyes. Her lips looked quite kissable, despite their size. Jake reached out to frame her face, leaned against her as they laid side by side on the bed, and pressed his lips against hers slowly.

Her lips were soft, and her taste was fresh and minty. Berri was stock-still, just focused on the sensation and not taking part. He kissed her several more times, trying his best to give her a feel for the different areas on the lips, and even on parts of her face and neck. She eventually returned the kiss. It felt wonderful, her massive soft lips covering all of his and even some of his face. She kissed him back some more, and even kissed around his face the same way.

She was breathing heavily, but Jake could tell that the fear was nearly gone as she gained confidence. She was filled with happiness, but the lust and desire was rising. Jake pulled back and pushed her softly away to try to keep things from getting derailed, and said How was it? Was it everything you hoped itd be?

Oh, yes, even better. Its wonderful, Jake. I am happy we kissed and you let us me kiss you. It feels so goodbut my body is

Jake could tell that she could hardly hold herself back, but thought they could go just a little further.

If you hold yourself back a little bit more, then I promise it wont be long until we go even further. Are you doing okay?

PleaseI want more.

Jake gave her another smile, to which she returned with a shy one of her own. He leaned in and kissed her again, but this time he probed at her lips with his tongue, trying to get her to open her mouth. She did, and she moaned as he slid his tongue inside. Her arms wrapped around him, and he could feel her tail weaving around the bed, but no motions to otherwise try to wrap around or restrict him. He wrapped his arms around her upper back as best he could as the kiss deepened, and his tongue started to duel hers.

He was in for a surprise there, as her tongue was larger and much longer than his. Her tongue coiled around his and continued into his own mouth. Their tongues explored each other, and he found himself making sounds of his own as she moaned in appreciation.

Her tongue eventually explored a little too far and he gagged on the massive tongue, but she pulled back quickly before things went particularly bad, and she became distressed realizing she must have done something wrong. Her massive tongue was still out, and Jake nearly gaped at the length and size. He couldnt help but feel that the large, long tongue filled with saliva was sexy as hell. She pulled in her tongue and looked worried.

Jake gave her another kiss on the lips, and said, Its okay, you were just exploring like I was. Still, we both got to experience a lot of each other, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Well do some more another time, I promise. You did well to hold yourself back.

Oh, its already over? She looked quite disappointed, but then she changed to a wistful look as she touched her own lips, as if trying to remember the sensations. I thought I would never get the chance toThank you, Milord.

She looked so appreciative that it made Jake feel bad. I enjoyed it as well, and you dont need to thank me. You can of course thank Hestia for setting us up together, if you want to thank someone. Well do more soon. Now, I need to take care of the other girls, but you can wait for us in my room, maybe listen to music again while you wait? Bring whatever you need to make yourself comfortable with us. It should be fun having another sleepover like when we were camping.

Berri nodded and looked excited as she gathered some of her pillows. Jake left the room, and went to quell a needy demoness lust first, before she exploded.