With Rose guiding me, we reached the apartment’s entrance before I collapsed. I didn’t even get to slow down properly as Aisha jumped out of my embrace to open the door for me. I rushed inside and stopped, my chest heaving like a bellows, wheezing for my life while resting my palms on my thighs. She took a brief glance outside to check that we weren’t followed by a small army and slammed the door shut.

  In a much better state than me, though still looking a little rough from our recent battle, Aisha reached my side and patted me on the back.

  “You didn’t have to carry my ass all the way back here.” She smiled softly at me, and I responded with the same after tilting my head towards her. “But thanks.”

  I tried to reply that she was welcome but all that came out was more awkward wheezing and an unintelligible noise. She chuckled, clearly getting the message, and kept rubbing my back as I gradually brought my breaths under control.

  Leaning her greataxe against the wall of the entryway, Aisha wiped the sweat off her forehead. She strolled into the kitchen, returning with two bottles of chilled water, straight from the fridge. I nodded at her appreciatively and finally stood up.

  I had to take small gulps, so as not to choke, my heart thumping in my chest like a war drum, but Aisha had no such trouble; she ripped the plastic cap off and poured the clear contents into her throat, gulping the refreshing liquid down greedily. I could see two faint trails trickle down her attractive neckline, right into her clothes and armor, coming out from the bottom of her breastplate and leaving more streaks down her appetizing stomach. At least on the visible section between her metal belt and breastplate.

  After downing our respective drinks, I took a deep breath. “That was fucking close.”

  Releasing a sigh of relief, she nodded. “Alone, they are a joke, but the moment you let them pile up into a creepy swarm, even the grunts become an issue. An extremely dangerous issue.”

  I let out a groan. “We almost had it. Figures that we wouldn’t be able to get all the cage chambers wrecked in one run. Shit never goes better than planned, only worse.”

  “Hey, at least we got the entire bottom floor swept clean.” Aisha extended a fist toward me and I bumped it with a smirk. “But, I agree. The Seed will be on guard now, and it will have much less ground to cover. It’s going to be damn tough to smash the remaining prisons.”

  “That’s why we need to do it right now, when an attack from our mauled asses will be least expected.” I shared my thoughts with her.

  “True. That would be the best way. We are barely standing straight, though, and you lost your weapon.” She gave me a worried glance.

  Damn, it felt kind of good knowing that someone worried about you.

  I nodded and used the nearby wall to push myself forward, dragging my exhausted body towards my PC. My feet stumbled over each other, and Aisha rushed to my side, jumping under my shoulder to support me.

  “You are suffering from mana over-expenditure, aren’t you? Use your ability and take some from me.” She turned her face towards mine.

  “You barely have any yourself. I’ll be fine.” I met her gaze sternly.

  “I have enough. I know you are a tough nut, and that sprint carrying such a burden proved it, so just get on with it. I think I know what you are planning to do, and it’s your head that should be the clear one. I’m the muscle, you are the brain, right, partner?”

  I chuckled as she grinned at me. Shaking my head, I turned to face her properly.

  “Got it, partner. Give me your ha—”

  Before I managed to finish my sentence, Aisha slid her fingers into my hair and pulled me into a deep, passionate kiss. Surprised at first, I quickly activated Transfer Spirit as I wrapped my arms around her waist, ignoring the hard metal of her armor pressing into my chest and stomach. I felt the dizziness dissipate fairly quickly, but jerked back, ripping my lips from hers before she gave me too much.

  Aisha pouted briefly, but it was soon replaced by a pretty smile. “You could have taken more. All of me is yours.”

  “It’s more than enough. Thank you.” I left a loving peck on her cheek and sat in front of the PC.

  Quickly waking my war machine up from its slumber, I headed straight for the D-Shop. After a few quick searches and a moment of reading, comparing, and verifying, I ordered a bunch of potions for us.

  Getting them on the D-Market would surely have been cheaper, but money wasn’t an issue for us right now, while time was of the essence. We didn’t have the leeway to waste precious minutes ensuring that we weren’t buying some scam product or a half-effective one if we needed to get back into action fast.

  Aisha said nothing, watching my movements and purchases in silence, slowly starting to catch up to my operating speed. A little bit more and she would be able to follow me without getting lost somewhere.

  Soon, for sure.

  The doorbell rang and she walked over to retrieve the package with Rose by her side. They brought the box over to the bed and opened it. After digging through a bunch of protective packing material securing the glass vials—I had no idea what against if the whole thing was teleported right under the door—we pulled the colorful potions out and split them evenly between us.

  “I would rather not skimp on stuff and risk getting hurt, or failing and causing a Dungeon Break,” I explained myself, downing a blue mana potion, before picking up an orange one, to refresh my stamina too.

  “I know. What’s money for, if not to be used? Better to use it like this than what I did with mine.” Aisha snorted, reminding us of her fortress-home-makeover, which had turned out to be completely useless.

  “These will need a moment to kick in, so we have a few minutes of rest.” I nodded with a reassuring smile.

  “I think my hand buzzed at one point today.” She shot a glance at her wristwatch.

  “Right. Mine did too. A few times. Let’s check it out before we leave. Maybe it’s something important, or useful.”

  As I stepped closer to her, Aisha turned the holographic illusion display on and showed her notifications to both of us.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Congratulations!

  Through defeating monsters and partaking in other activities, you have gathered enough experience to strengthen yourself.

  Aisha Erlivyre: Level 7 -> Level 8

  Gained Attribute Points: 7

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “No surprise there with how many we killed,” I commented, and she nodded, scrolling through the air.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  After continuous use, your skills have grown.

  Sunder (E) -> Sunder (D)

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “That’s also not unexpected. I used it a lot, and pushed it almost to its limit near the end there. I bet my other Class-Related Abilities aren’t far off from ranking up too.” Aisha turned her display off, a hint of excitement in her ferocious crimson eyes. “What about you?”

  I turned my watch on and reenacted her movements. We skipped past the level-up notification since it was exactly the same, as we still split the experience between Overlord and Subordinate equally.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  You have proven yourself to be capable of wielding axe-bladed handheld weapons.

  New General Skill Learned: Handaxe Proficiency (F)

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “I should have seen that one coming. I guess I’m now okayish with maces and handaxes. One more, and it will bundle together under Weapon Proficiencies.” I rubbed my chin.

  “It’s great to see you grow. Maybe not as thrilling as watching my own numbers rise, but still fun and satisfying,” Aisha added.

  Nodding at her, I shoved the two notifications aside to make space for more, if there were any.

  And there were.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Through continuous training, practice, and combat experience, your abilities have become stronger.

  Telekinesis (E) -> Telekinesis (D)

  Command (E) -> Command (D)

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “Your hard work is finally paying off.” Aisha patted me on the back with a proud smile, which faltered a little after she noticed my furrowed brows. “What’s wrong?”

  “Telekinesis is obvious, but Command? My wrist buzzed way before I ordered you to rip the tree dudes to shreds. Do the notifications get muted after a few? Wait…” My eyes widened in realization. “It can’t be—”

  I pulled the illusion up and scrolled through it, revealing more lines of text which caused me to freeze momentarily.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  The following requirements have been met:

  Proficiency: Two Unique Arms Proficiencies -> Current Count: 3

  Ability: Battle Sense - Rank D -> Current Rank: D

  Ability: Telekinesis - Rank D -> Current Rank: D

  Ability: Command - Rank D -> Current Rank: D

  Status Points: Charisma - Value: 20 -> Current Value: 25

  Explicit Will To Command An Inanimate Object -> Expressed

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “What the fuck?” My brows crawled up to my hairline as we stared at the wall of text.

  Aisha scrolled down before I did, as intrigued by the sudden burst of notifications as I was, eager to see the final result.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Through the fulfillment of the aforementioned requirements, a new ability has been learned.

  New Class-Related Ability Learned: Armsweaving (F)

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Develop the ability Armsweaving (F) to Rank C for the privilege of receiving a new title.

  Overlord of Lust -> Armsweaving Overlord of Lust

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  We stared at the last two pop-ups in silence for about a minute before looking each other in the eyes, equally shocked and stunned.

  “You gotta be shitting me…” I finally let out a deep chuckle and shook my head.

  “Now, I might not be the most knowledgeable about stuff, but I’ve never ever heard of such an ability.” Aisha gave me a big grin.

  “What’s with these specific requirements? I’ve seen and heard of Gunslingers or Spellslingers, but Armsweaver is a first for me too.”

  “You said that the Overlord path in your game hadn’t been explored much, due to the submission part, yes? I would assume this is something either unique to Overlords, or to them and a few other Classes which might be able to fulfill these conditions too.”

  “I guess so. This confirms my suspicions. I would have never thought that me cursing at your greataxe to move could trigger something like this. I assumed that it flew up with just Telekinesis, but was so heavy it drained me dry.”

  “This is so exciting!” Aisha’s eyes literally sparkled. “Come on! Show us what it can do!”

  I smiled at her enthusiastic expression and navigated to the ability.

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  Armsweaving (F)

  As a powerful Overlord, you can dominate, bond, and command an entire arsenal to follow your orders, be it swords, axes, hammers, or even shields. Rain down weapons at your enemies without lifting a finger, using your domineering presence as the fuel of your armory.

  Effective Range: 10 m

  Available Bonds: 1

  Bonded Weapon’s Mana Usage Reduction: -30%

  Bonded Weapon’s Weight Reduction: -25%

  Bonded Weapon’s Range Increase: +25%

  ※　※　※

  Primary Scaling Attribute: Charisma

  Secondary Scaling Attribute: Leadership

  ★━━━━━━━━━━★

  “Now, this is badass!” Aisha slugged me in the shoulder with a laugh and I chuckled too, rubbing my arm. “I almost want to beg you to try it out, but I know damn well how exhausted you are. Such a bummer.”

  “We will get a chance to see it in action soon. I’m just wondering about one thing.”

  For easier navigation, I pulled out my phone and checked the main menu of my DCI Hub. As expected, a new submenu had appeared amongst the available buttons, titled Armory. I tapped it as Aisha craned her neck over my shoulder to see the display and we found a screen similar to the one from the Subordinate Management section.

  A bunch of flat pedestals stood on a black background. Two of them were lit up by a stage light from above, displaying a slowly rotating figure of my trusty mace and Aisha’s greataxe. One more silhouette spun around beside those two, but was grayed out, like an unavailable character.

  “Maybe you should bond with the mace?” Aisha suggested, assuming that I wasn’t currently bonded with any of the visible tools of murder, same as me.

  “I’d prefer to do it with a bladed weapon instead, considering our current situation,” I replied.

  “Too bad we left your handaxe in that cave. I should have tried to grab it. Sorry.”

  The last, shadowy silhouette must be it, for sure.

  I turned to my lovely drakan mate and placed a brief kiss on her precious lips.

  “Not something you should view as your fault. I would have run away and abandoned your weapon, too, if it meant saving your life. The former can be replaced, the latter, I’m afraid, is one of a kind.”

  She answered with a warm smile, a faint nod, and a soft peck on my lips too. “I’m thinking about taking a shower while we wait for the potions to do their thing. Care to join me?”

  “There’s a mace in the storage room. If I ever say no to that question, I want you to take it and smash it right into the side of my skull because you are talking to a doppelganger.”

  Aisha chuckled charmingly with a wide smile and kissed me once more. The next second, I was being dragged towards the bathroom as we hastily unbuckled our armor and disrobed on the way to the shower. She hopped into the open cubicle first while I stacked the pieces of armor on the floor outside the bathroom, to save them from getting all damp and rusty.

  I hastily joined her under the stream, wary not to get burned, but she smiled at me softly and I noticed that she had set it to a very comfortable temperature. Needless to say, we engaged in a short exchange of slow kisses as the hot water soothed our bodies, grazing our palms over each other’s backs.

  A flash of pink made us notice the third person in the room, which we had completely missed. Rose bobbed and swirled around us happily, perhaps sensing the slightly intimate mood. We chuckled at our little companion and began taking care of one another.

  Each of us had a number of visible cuts and wounds. I grabbed a healing salve from a small shelf beside the shower and covered the worst of them with it as Aisha angled herself and raised her arms up to make it easier for me.

  Her athletic body was a sight to behold every damned time. Just… Wow.

  Shortly after I took care of the second red line, Rose squished herself between us. We looked at the cheerful orb curiously. Our friend circled us a bunch of times before stopping at the wound in Aisha’s thigh. She gasped when Rose suddenly pushed herself into it, causing part of her spherical pink body to either flatten or disappear into Aisha’s flesh.

  A few seconds later, our field medic withdrew her round form and revealed nothing but Aisha’s soft skin. No wound, no scar, all traces of the damage completely gone.

  We exchanged glances and smiled at each other. Rose did possess a weak healing ability, though it looked like it was strong enough to patch us up decently fast.

  I assisted Aisha, lending her a hand or my body to support herself against, as we let my adorable familiar do her thing. I swear Rose became much livelier after we politely asked her to heal us. She must have been pleased to be of use. Not that she hadn’t been plenty useful, already.

  With all the minor cuts, wounds, and bruises having disappeared from the drakan beauty’s body, it was my turn to experience the Pixie’s magic. I gasped during the first contact just like Aisha had. She chuckled at my expression, giving me an impish smile. It kind of felt like someone had pressed a sizable winter heat pad to my stiff and sore muscles, which additionally pricked my skin with a weak electric current.

  Closing my eyes, I succumbed to the pleasant treatment. Rose floated from spot to spot, pressing herself against the few marks and blemishes she found on my skin. It was extremely delightful, but also rather… stimulating.

  I had already become somewhat active, thanks to the dazzling woman beside me, but Rose’s tickles and teases warmed me in one more place other than the spots she had touched. A knowing smirk met my gaze when I opened my eyes. Aisha was very much aware of the unintended effect behind the Pixie’s healing.

  After dealing with every single wound, Rose swirled in a spiral between us, and we showered the incredible little healer with pats and praise. She buzzed happily under our palms, letting us interact with her kind of spiritual form.

  “We will surely kick some serious ass thanks to your healing, Rose. I appreciate it.” I smiled at the pretty orb, hoping she could sense my emotions.

  “You are the best. I’m really glad we have you with us,” Aisha added after me.

  Rose started vibrating, the buzz growing increasingly stronger, before she suddenly bolted away from us with an erratic wiggle. We watched her phase through the bathroom door like it didn’t exist and chuckled together. It looked like even Pixies could get embarrassed from being praised.

  Turning the water off, I held my arm out to assist Aisha, and she stepped out of the shower with an appreciative nod. I roamed my eyes over her delicious figure from behind for a moment as she paraded forward before following her.