It was the noon of the following day and Rykard was looking up at the sky. ‘I am starting to miss rain,’ he thought. The endless, average, enjoyable temperature was getting quite dull. The sky was blue, no clouds in sight, and all was just… it just was. ‘The weather patterns are likely subject to a future Divine Game.’

  “Are you certain this is the pce, Rykard?” Miyo asked, directing his gaze down.

  Before them was an apartment block. Tall houses that had been built next to each other, each created primarily to give as many people as possible living space. The quality was still decent, because the city by and rge had money, but notably below the average.

  “It matches up with the map,” he assured her. “Although I don’t think it’s about these buildings themselves and more what they were built on top of. These houses are too new to be what we are looking for.”

  “Oy, the fuck you looking at?!” an angry woman shouted down at them. She was half-sitting on a tiny balcony that was attached to a decently sized window. The woman was, bluntly put, ugly and middle-aged.

  “What are the chances we are about to find another woman to take home with us?” Miyo asked, her tone indicating approval no matter what his answer was.

  Rykard put his hand around the side of his harem queen and rewarded her with an approving kiss. ‘Blessed is the king that has a wife that knows he needs courtesans,’ he thought. “50/50?” he suggested out loud. “You know how it goes. If there is someone I want to make half-siblings for our child, I will go through the necessary motions.”

  “That reminds me, did you have a pse in judgment st night?” Miyo put a finger on his nose. “I have heard many tales of how noblemen get around bunny girls. ‘Pregnancy is just their natural state’ is a sentence I have heard more than a few times.”

  Rykard chuckled, as that thought had crossed his mind. “I did not, the resolution to wait for a while before I start breeding my sex sves again still stands.”

  “Good man,” Miyo complimented and kissed him on the cheek. Even a man as powerful and popur as Rykard felt the warm tingle when his first love pressed her pink lips on his skin. “It’s nice to be reminded that you do know a bit of stoicism.”

  “I’m the master of stoicism, if I want to be,” Rykard answered with a proud smile. “As, I have so many better things to do.” His hand gripped the cool-faced beauty by the squishiest part of her shapely ass. Miyo perked up and let out a little squeak at the sudden, intense cwing at her derriere. Her (currently singur) fox tail swayed side to side. On her face remained a collected expression. Her newly acquired fan hid her little smile to all but the man right next to her.

  “I do also delight in your indulgences,” the perfect submissive admitted in a ready purr.

  “Of course you do,” Rykard whispered back.

  They were both ready to fuck then and there, but retained a modicum of decency. By now many of the people that were still at home at this time, which wasn’t a whole lot as these were the working hours, had begun to stare at them from above. Royalty stood out quite a lot in a street that belonged to the undercss. It did not help that Rykard was of a clearly different ethnicity. Miyo generally fit in. The locals had the same almond-shaped eyes as she did.

  Stares alone were not enough of a deterrent. Neither was the ck of a bed, Rykard had impregnated Miyo while carry-fucking her in the mountains. No, it was the watchers, plus the ck of bed, plus the fact that they wanted something that kept them from just indulging then and there.

  Rykard did keep kneading her ass as he thought about their next move. What exactly had been where the apartment block now stood he did not know. It was possible that whatever they were looking for was in the canalisation underneath or that there was a courtyard enveloped by the block that had what they were looking for.

  “We’ll take the path of least resistance,” Rykard announced and redoubled the hold he had on Miyo. Alteration magic lifted the grip gravity had on them. Weaving their direction, the king had them fly first upwards, then dive down into the opening between the roofs of the apartment block.

  The walled-in floor was immediately more gorgeous to look at. From up there, Rykard could immediately see the patterns in the floor tiles, despite the trash and grime that yered on top of it all. He took a sharp dive. Miyo kept her cool despite the speed of their descent.

  All of the force of impact was transferred into the ground. Ancient gears clicked and one of the floor tiles suddenly shot up, revealing a hidden compartment. Rykard grabbed the box that had been revealed and pulled it out.

  “That was… swift,” Miyo stated, fingers gliding over the slightly distorted wood of the container that was now being presented to her.

  “Sometimes my genius surprises even me,” Rykard stated, showing the slightest bit of humility in his bragging. “Although I won’t lie, coming all the way out here for such a little effort is quite boring.”

  “Then let us see if the reward is worth it.” Miyo lifted the lid and raised the folding fan within. This one was of a bright pink colour. A sharp sound accompanied its unfolding. Whereas the st one had been polished wood and thin fabric, this fan was made entirely from a metal the colour of cherry blossoms. The outline of those flower petals was etched into the surface of each of the identically shaped ft pieces that made up the whole of the folding fan. “Oh my,” Miyo moaned.

  Rykard noticed the smell a moment ter. An intense cherry aroma radiated from the opened fan, filling his lungs and igniting his passions. Heat rushed into his loins just as it did Miyo’s cheeks. A satisfying click accompanied the sealing of the fan. Once the segments had slotted back together, the smell ebbed away.

  “An aphrodisiac enchantment,” the king noted.

  “How fitting,” Miyo purred and pushed the fan into a specialized leather belt that she had brought to their apartment this morning. “I wonder if this means that the first fan is also enchanted?”

  A good question, one that Rykard could have checked on earlier. He put the empty box atop one of the many trash heaps around. Withered by age as it was, it was useless to them anyhow. Once he had the first fan in his hand, he whistled. “That’s a moderately powerful binding we have here… the jade dragon is actually in there. It’s not a true dragon, but it will regardless serve as a good guardian in a pinch. I would demonstrate, but I suspect it will only take one contractor. Look out for weird dreams in the coming nights.”

  “Noted,” Miyo said and took the fan back. “Two down. Do you think we can go for the st one today?”

  Rykard rubbed his chin. In the background the raised tile slowly lowered itself back down. Someone suddenly shouted at them from above. Rather than bother with that, Rykard used Alteration magic to have them fly back over to the other side of the house.

  By the time they nded, he had come to a decision.

  “We’ll continue to the ruin. No need to dey.”

  “What if Ayama will need more time to set things up?” Miyo asked.

  Rykard had a simple answer. “Then she will have to earn my stay like a good girl should.”

  To that, Miyo ughed. A flick of Rykard’s wrist summoned Starlight Wandering All Worlds. They entered the carriage and then went on the dull drive southwards. Well, it would have been dull if they hadn’t known how to entertain each other.

  It was a long way away, practically a whole day of driving. Plenty of time for Miyo to practice her blowjob skills and for Rykard to widen her holes a bit. He held back on the tter to keep her capable of walking.

  It was well past midnight by the time they arrived at their destination.

  The ruin of the old mayor’s manor was an isoted lot. Bad rumours were likely the reason, or perhaps people just liked keeping the ndmark around. In either case, the two-story building was surrounded by an expansive green area that was decoratively untouched. The burned out remains of the house were covered in vines and particurly stubborn weeds. Shattered gss remained in frames here and there. For the most part, the frames had rotted away however, leaving the panes on the ground. Many of them seemed to have been removed.

  ‘Probably parents worried that children pying inside the ruins could cut themselves,’ Rykard guessed as he followed the cobblestone path up to the building. Right in front of the doorless entrance, he stopped.

  “A haunted house,” Miyo commented.

  “That is the air it gives off,” Rykard agreed. “Scared?”

  The redhead mockingly blew air out of her nose. A scaredy cat, the harem queen was not. Rykard had met warrior women more skittish than her. Matter of fact, all of them had been. ‘I don’t know any other women that would have defied their entire family in order to join me on the Competitor’s Hexagon,’ he thought.

  “Where do we go first?” Miyo asked and used the dragon fan to point at their options. There was the main entrance, a staircase that led to a balcony on the upper floor, an access hatch for the celr, and the surrounding green area, capable of hiding a few secrets.

  Before Rykard could make an educated decision, his instincts drew his gaze to a shape between the trees. Weaving together a simple light spell, he cast a cone of illumination onto a small shrine. It very closely resembled the one found at the Baradel’s House. The resembnce could have been just coincidence, an icon of the common religion of these parts, but what were the odds of that?

  “Alright, let’s cheat a little,” Rykard decided and walked on over. Rubbing his hands together, he warmed up his Alteration muscles again. Then, he went ahead and screwed with the ws of tangibility.

  It was a simple thing on paper. Use his connection to the Conjuration Realm to temporarily repce the attributes of stone with those of air. In practice, the density he was dispcing revolted against such an intense change. In magic, the more mass that was dispced, the more expensive it usually was to the caster’s mana and stamina. That was why so many people preferred fire as their medium.

  To Rykard, standards were a suggestion. This went in marriage w just as much as magic.

  The pilr that the roofed top of the shrine stood on suddenly turned translucent. The outline remained, showing where the effect of Rykard’s magic ended, but otherwise the mantle of stone was now, essentially, air, leaving the mage to interact with the insides as he pleased.

  “Oh my,” he mused, rubbing his chin as he id eyes on the complicated mechanism. Triggers mechanical and magical connected to a central bit of artifice that, once triggered, would cause the box within to rise up on a small elevator. Tinkering with the mechanism directly could also cause a contingency to activate, however, and Rykard was not quite sure what that would entail. “Whoever made this did not want the finder to cheat.”

  “Eccentrics rarely want their riddles skipped,” Miyo stated the simple truth. “Could you turn the mechanism into air as well?”

  “I could, but since it’s not one solid object it will be a lot harder,” Rykard answered. “Could still be the easiest way to solve it.” He traced the magic signature of the mechanisms back to the celr of the mansion. If he wanted to solve this the proper way, then he at least knew where to look now.

  But why go through the hoops when he could just throw a few helpers at the problem?

  Rykard hooked his finger into the air and pulled down, as if he was dragging down a zipper. Sure enough, the air parted into a dark gap. “Trigger the elevation mechanism manually,” the mage ordered the darkness.

  The darkness spilled out of the gap. Blotches of bck nded in the uncut grass, then wiggled their way over to the exposed mechanism. There were hundreds of them, taking the concrete shape of colourful worms, resembling autonomous wires.

  “And what did you summon this time?” Miyo asked.

  “Tinkerworms. They have an intrinsic understanding of mechanisms they were summoned to solve,” Rykard expined. “The worst nightmare of anyone who relies on artifice to secure their traps. In nature, they feed off dashed hopes and dreams. No, I am not being dramatic, they literally get nourished by the disappointment of the creators.”

  “What devilish little things,” Miyo said and squatted down next to her man.

  The two of them watched the Tinkerworms do their dirty work. They swarmed all over the mechanism, avoiding spots that appeared sensitive and exploring everywhere else. Constant, static buzzing in the air was proof of their communication. After a short scouting phase, they began to influence the actual mechanisms.

  The worms formed chains, connecting bits and pieces that weren’t meant to connect, or tched together onto signal receivers to fake the desired impulses. Magical and electrical signatures were created. One click, two clicks, three clicks, and then the elevator within the mechanism began to rise with a slow but satisfying turning of gears.

  “Thank you very much,” Rykard said once he had the box in his hands. The Tinkerworms flowed off the mechanism, lined up, bowed before their summoner, then flowed back into the gap in real space. The zipper closed. The stone returned to its natural state and Rykard offered Miyo the st of the folding fans.

  The redhead flipped the lid open and lifted out a fan of pure white. This one had been made from ft pieces of crystal, enchanted to possess the necessary flexibility to serve in such an instrument. Singing like gss, the crystal glowed softly, revealing marble veins within the white that stretched from one of the ‘spines’ to the next. Between them stretched a translucent membrane. The veins effortlessly flowed from the crystals into the membrane, arching from one end to the other. Gently, slowly, the glowing veins moved within.

  “And what does this one do?” Miyo asked.

  “Let me show you - no, keep it.” Rykard refused to take the folding fan and instead had Miyo stand up. Taking one big step back, the king suddenly unched a little lightning strike at the fox dy.

  Raising the fan on instinct, she activated the enchantment within. The Destruction spell flowed into the fan. Absorbed completely, it caused neither the item nor Miyo herself any harm.

  Understanding swiftly the nature of the enchantment, Miyo waved the fan at a nearby tree. The lightning strike was unleashed, sending the energy into the tree bark. It only seared the surface, having been a deliberately light spell. “The capacity is limited so be careful how much you rely on it.”

  Miyo pulled the other folding fans from her belt. To Rykard’s surprise, upon being tapped by the white fan, the bck and pink ones were absorbed into it. As a result, the jade dragon and the cherry blossoms appeared on the spread of the white folding fan. The aspects of all three fans harmonized perfectly. The white veins became branches on which the cherry flowers bloomed, giving the winding jade dragon a properly magnificent background. The crystal spines of the white fan also took on elements of pink metal and bck wood, creating the hints of temple structures.

  Tapping her palm with the combined fan caused it to split into three again. Miyo decided she liked one better than three and re-fused them a moment ter. “How did you know that?”

  “Intuition,” Miyo answered simply and hid her smile behind the gorgeous fan. “And with that you can consider me appeased, Rykard. Next time, do not leave me waiting this long.”

  “I have learned my lesson,” he promised.

  They slept in the carriage on their way back to the inn. They would be back there in time for lunch.