[DCI] Chapter 38 - Proper Introduction

The blue-skinned newcomer regarded us with a slow, calculative glance. I was sure she wanted to fully examine her surroundings but limited herself to roaming her gaze in our general direction, turning her head only a little bit left or right. It certainly was enough for her to catch interest in a few key elements of my apartment like the desk, PC, and the nearby balcony door and windows.

Since both of us were still seated, looking up at the charming, slender Witch, it felt a little bit improper. Not wanting it to resemble anything close to a questioning, interrogation, or much worse, some kind of sick presentation, I unhurriedly rose up from my desk chair, doing my best to avoid any unnecessary movements.

Naturally, the woman’s keen eyes locked onto me instantly. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to react to my action otherwise and I regarded her with a single glance before turning my face to my still sitting draconic partner.

“Could you bring our guest a chair to sit on? And perhaps a glass of water?” I asked.

Aisha met my gaze while sitting cross-legged and cross-armed, and nodded. “Sure thing. I still remember how parched I was when you summoned me. I’ll bring an entire jug.”

She winked at me and stood up, heading straight to the kitchen complex. The Witch followed her with her gaze for a brief moment before refocusing back on me. I tried to show my most friendly and casual smile.

“Greetings. My name is Lucas. I assume you are aware of the situation you’ve found yourself in, right?” I decided to check how knowledgeable our soon-to-be companion was about the nature of her arrival.

I received a vague nod in response. “Indeed, I am. You have summoned me and bound my soul to oneself. As it is natural to respond to a polite introduction in kind, my name is Levia.”

And the voice that sang beautifully from her lips was pretty much as I had expected. She spoke in a soft and calm tone as if she had all the time in the world to properly and respectfully articulate every single word. You could say that there was a hint of indifference and boredom in it, but I thought it was just part of her mannerism and general aura. She certainly didn’t lack respect but held herself firmly.

“Here. Get yourself comfy.” My mate returned and placed one of the kitchen chairs behind Levia, holding a glass jug filled with water and three glasses in her other hand. “Name’s Aisha, by the way. You a night elf?”

The blue-skinned woman sat down obediently and extended her hands to receive one of the cups. “If I were to be precise, I am a lunar elf.”

“That’s what I thought. Suits your Class much better.” Aisha poured her some water and set the jug on the desk, stopping next to me. “The difference is mostly in their magical capabilities. In terms of appearance, they are easy to mix up, though lunar elves tend to have white hair much more often than night elves, for whose anything other than dark shades is extremely rare. There’s a reason they make the best Witches. Plenty of rituals are connected to various moon phases.”

Leave it to my incredible partner to anticipate my question before I even get to ask it. Thanks to that, I avoided bringing up a potentially sensitive topic. I was sure now that it wasn’t anything offensive to talk about.

“If I’m not mistaken, you are a human and a drakan, correct?” Levia asked in the same slow tone right after moistening her dry throat a little.

The two of us sat down not to tower over her and nodded.

“Right on target,” Aisha replied. “I’m an Annihilation Berserker and this guy’s Subordinate. Well, Bonded to be exact but that’s just another step.”

“Is Master Lucas a Summoner, then?” The Witch lady moved her gaze onto me.

“Well, he certainly summoned both of us, but not exactly. He is an Overlord,” my mate answered.

Since I had been looking back at Levia’s face, I somehow managed to catch her seemingly unfazed eyes widening for just a fraction of a second. She then respectfully lowered her head with her palms holding the glass set softly on her thighs.

“I apologize for assuming incorrectly, My Lord.”

Aisha snorted to the side. “You don’t need to worry. He is nothing like the stereotypes. Truthfully, you couldn’t have scored a better master considering his focus.”

“And what is it?” Levia raised her head curiously.

“Lust and pleasure,” my companion replied with a grin.

I instantly felt Levia’s eyes on me and definitely saw her limbs squeeze just a little bit closer to her body. Letting out a quiet sigh, I smacked Aisha in the back of her head.

“Think of what you say and how it can be received,” I rebuked the frivolous drakan. “While I am called an Overlord of Lust, this path doesn’t benefit from anything forced or generally negative. You can rest assured that I don’t plan to abuse you in that way, or in any way, since I literally can’t.”

Our guest kept her inquiring gaze on me as a relative silence fell onto us. It was obvious that she would have doubts, especially with the usual reputation of Overlords. It would certainly take a moment to get Levia to actually fully believe and trust us.

“I see. You two must be high-level Defenders to be in your second ascension,” she finally replied, breaking the awkward atmosphere.

“Technically, we are both Level 10.” Aisha waved her hand.

That remark captured the Witch’s attention and the white-haired lady turned to my draconic mate. “Only Level 10? How is it possible to advance one’s Class this early?”

“His doing.” My mate pointed at me with her thumb. “Told you, scored a jackpot getting summoned by him. He’s a genius.”

“While I appreciate the compliment, we both know that isn’t exactly true.” I smiled at her. “And, considering how the Overlord Class works, I’m yet to advance. I only unlocked the full capabilities of it after…”

“You made me submit.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Aisha, please.”

“Fine.” She chuckled lightly. “I willingly submitted not just my soul but also my body to you. But, you still made me do it by being so nice and charming.”

Then, perhaps wanting to cheer me up a bit, our energetic pink sphere floated between the three of us and made some happy circles around my head. After Rose stopped, I plopped my hand on her round top and gave our adorable companion a few pats, noticing a certain newly recruited lady staring at her with a faint trace of shock once more.

“Is that a Pixie?” Levia asked.

“Yeah. This is Rose. Rose, meet Levia. Levia, meet Rose,” I introduced them to each other.

“You managed to capture a Pixie?” the Witch mused.

Aisha smirked. “Oh, he certainly managed to cap—”

“No,” I cut her off fast. “Rose is my familiar. We found Pixies in our previous Dungeon, rescued them from their imprisonment, and she decided to stay with us after the clear. She requested to be taken in out of her own volition.”

Rose hummed merrily and flew closer to our guest. Levia raised her palm and let the cute Pixie nestle herself in her hand. After a few seconds of pleasant buzzing, Rose lifted herself off and returned to hovering in the air in my general vicinity.

“If you really became friends with Pixies, then I truly wouldn’t have to worry about anything,” Levia stated softly.

“I’m not asking you to trust me completely right at this moment. Just believing that I don’t want to cause you any harm will do fine. I would like you to become part of my team and aid us in clearing this and the future Dungeons. While technically being my Subordinate, as the System calls it, you don’t necessarily have to fully submit yourself to me. You can think of it as me employing your services if you would like to,” I explained with a friendly smile.

“He’s telling the truth,” Aisha joined in. “Have you ever heard of an Overlord letting their slaves do this?”

She suddenly slugged me in my shoulder with no warning hard enough to send me hurling to the side as I was sitting on my wheeled desk chair. I barely kept myself from falling off it after slamming into the balcony wall.

“Hey! What was that for?!” I shouted at her after regaining full stability.

“See? He’s too big of a softie to raise a hand at a girl. I would have been on the floor writhing in pain right now if it was any other Overlord.” Aisha gestured at me with her head.

“Oh, I will show you a softie.”

I jumped off the chair and walked back to the two women while squinting at her. Surprising me again, Aisha lunged off her own seat and crashed into me before I could even react. Her arms wrapped around my body and squeezed hard. By some clearly not accidental twist of fate, my face ended up buried in her impressive bosom.

She used every ounce of her much higher strength to keep me in a chokehold as I attempted to find some leverage to push myself out of it. My hands repeatedly restrained with her free arm, the one which wasn’t locking my head between her marvelous tits, I tried to do something with my legs.

Aisha chuckled mischievously at my struggle but then gasped when I slammed my heel into the back of her left knee and hit the right with a burst of telekinetic force. She literally folded backward and we hit the ground. But, that didn’t loosen her inescapable hold in the slightest and we began rolling around with me gradually getting closer and closer to fainting from the lack of oxygen.

Thankfully, Aisha’s aim wasn’t to give me the most jealousy-inducing death, perhaps on par with getting your head popped like a melon between a muscular lady’s juicy thighs, and she let me go before I blacked out. I rolled off her while wheezing for air and she lay on her back next to me, breathing just a tad quicker than usual.

“Fuck… I knew you could kill with those right after laying my eyes on them for the first time…” I chuckled awkwardly.

She snickered proudly. “My axe isn’t the only thing available in my arsenal.”

“Yeah… Those definitely count as weapons… Lethal ones at that…” I smiled.

Sitting up, I noticed that we had ended right under Levia’s chair. Almost slamming my nose into her pretty, blue skin, I was reminded of her state of undress, which could possibly be at least somewhat uncomfortable when in front of a guy who had been introduced as an Overlord of Lust. But, if she was bothered, she didn’t show it, still watching me cautiously with that stoic, somewhat sleepy expression.

Crawling a little bit to the back to increase the distance between us, I stood up and fixed my clothes. Extending a hand to Aisha, I helped her get off the floor too. Rose circled us but I waved at her, letting our field medic know that we were fine.

“Alright. Before we continue, I think you might want to actually put something on. I’d rather not have you think that I’m keeping you like this for my own pleasure,” I said, glancing at the lunar elf beauty.

“Why haven’t I been offered clothes right after getting summoned, then?” Aisha raised a brow at me, setting her fists on her hips.

“Because I could immediately tell that you didn’t give a single fuck about that from the moment you opened your naughty mouth.” I mirrored her stance and then turned to face my desk. “Now be a good girl and bring the mail in.”

“Fair enough.” She smirked. “Be right back.”

I quickly navigated through the DCI Hub and found the section holding our inventory. Locating one of the reward boxes, I right-clicked it to make sure that I wasn’t trying to open the wrong one and nodded to myself after displaying the information about it. We had already decided to use the Woodman-themed armor box on our next recruit and I was actually very curious what kind of apparel would show up after choosing Levia as the target.

The person in question had also raised herself from her chair and hesitantly walked closer, peeking past my side to see what I was doing. I left the explanations for later and selected the option to open the reward. The doorbell rang and Aisha yanked the door open almost instantaneously. But, judging from the silent curse that rolled off her tongue, she didn’t catch the mailman.

“I swear, it’s plainly impossible,” she complained with a sigh while bringing the package in.

“Maybe try standing on the other side next time?” I suggested.

“That’s… an intriguing idea. Why haven’t I ever thought of it?” She raised both eyebrows at me and then turned to Levia. ”See? A genius.”

I snorted and took the box from her hands. Expecting it to be heavy considering the most probable material, I was taken off-guard by its unusually low weight. Without wasting too much time pondering over that fact, I threw the package on the bed and Aisha cut it open.

Inside, instead of blocky pieces of armor, we found something akin to robes. There was a simple, ankle-long dress of light gray color, which somewhat resembled the vulnerable flesh of Woodkinghts and Woodscythers; a slightly shorter black coat with widening sleeves, an open front, an additional, short amice, and a hood, this time resembling the strong, external armor of the aforementioned Woodknights; a black, floppy, wizard hat with a wide rim and slightly crumpled cone; and a pair of dark shoes made of the same material

We were slightly confused with Aisha about how this set could be Woodman-themed but then figured the reason out after looking at the pieces with more attention and running our fingers over the supposed cloth.

While the gray dress looked smooth and soft, its texture was something akin to an extremely flexible and velvety paper. It didn’t seem rough or awkward. On the contrary, it seemed to offer quite the comfort for the wearer while still being somewhat tough and durable. I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be that easy to make a hole in it.

As for the black coat, we quickly noticed peculiar patterns all over it. They were hard to spot at first due to its deep color but they definitely resembled the swirls and patterns often seen on wooden planks or wood in general. And yes, it was much harder than the dress, though still incredibly elastic, perhaps close to high-quality reinforced leather. This could be capable of not only protecting the wearer from stabs and slashes but also absorbing the blunt impact to some extent.

“Now, I wouldn’t have ever expected such a result. We should have used this on you. It looks durable yet easy to move in,” Aisha commented.

“Maybe, but we can’t know how it would have come out if we did that. My Class could have made it into that creepy, spooky armor Overlords fancy. I’d rather not look like a walking, withered tree with numerous sharp branches poking out of my shoulders,” I replied.

“I guess that would look stupid, yeah.”

I laid the coat I’d been holding on the bed and turned to look at Levia. “What do you think about these? Will they be fine?”

The silent Witch stopped rubbing the dress between her fingers and gave me a faint nod after finding my eyes with her mesmerizing, purplish irises.

“I’ve never worn robes made from wood-type monsters but this material appears to be surprisingly comfortable in touch. I do not mind trying them out,” she replied calmly.

“Great. I’ll take a quick bathroom break and give you some privacy, then.”

Aisha snorted and I shot her a brief glare with squinted eyes to stop the unruly drakan from throwing in any improper comments. I knew Levia had been interacting with us in just her underwear the entire time and she would just be putting things on, but I’d at least try and show her some respect to slowly ease her mind into relaxing a bit around me. She had nothing to worry about and I wanted to convince her about that as soon as possible.

After three minutes, Rose phased herself through the bathroom door and let me know that the girls were done. I followed the adorable orb of pure energy and saw Levia examining her new attire now fully covering her lithe figure while Aisha kept walking around her and nodding her head in approval.

“How is it?” I asked, arriving by their side.

“Unexpectedly pleasant,” the Witch responded. “It does not impede my motions or movements.”

“You can mistake it for normal robes from afar,” Aisha added. “This is good. Really good. Can fool not one monster. Or Defender.”

“I express my thanks for this gift, Master.” Levia politely lowered her head, tilting the big hat alongside it.

I must say, the entire costume looked incredibly fitting on her, but the wizard hat was the icing on the cake. It completed her appearance, hiding the top of her hair inside the snug indent, giving her a truly witchy look. Its tip bent near the end and adorably flopped down to the side, making it even better.

“Don’t mind it.” I waved a hand at her. “And you don’t have to call me master or anything of sorts. Just Lucas is fine. As I mentioned, I would like to ask you to aid us. As a companion, party member, not a slave. Are you willing?”

“I have been summoned for that exact purpose and will certainly use my knowledge and abilities to their utmost capabilities to thwart the Dungeons alongside you and your other companion, Lucas. My own fate relies on that,” Levia replied slowly and matter-of-factly. “Alas, it is not as if I can return without experiencing another death.”

Seeing her softly shake her head while closing her eyes, I rubbed my chin. “I can just use the Dismiss option to send you back, no?”

“You can?” She seemed a tad surprised by the revelation, but then her eyelids rose even a little bit more. “You would forgo one of your valuable attempts at summoning just to do that?”

“If you would have anything against working with us or desired to stay out of this entire situation and get back to the pool of souls, then yeah. I need reliable companions who trust me and each other, and who give their all for the team and our objectives. Everyone has to be on board to achieve that. We have to be a unit.”

“Mmmmm… You are so sexy when you go full leader mode…” Aisha purred from my side, looking at me with a quite wolfish expression.

I rolled my eyes while glancing to the side. The corners of my lips curled up involuntarily. It was hard to hold them down. Even more when Rose tried to convey something similar to my lustful mate, certainly in a praising way.

Nevertheless, I returned my attention to our new recruit, hoping that Levia would actually join us as a companion. After a moment of silence, she found my gaze with her slightly hooded eyes and I held it firmly, showing a gentle smile. I wasn’t sure what she was searching for in mine but I made sure she had all the time she needed to find it.

“Then, it will be my pleasure to explore Dungeons as a member of your group, Lucas,” she finally responded with the same, tiny nod, now more apparent thanks to the hat.

“Perfect. I’m really glad to have you. I’ll make sure you don’t regret that decision.” I made a polite bow too. “Now, then, Aisha? I think we should check Levia’s status and see what she retained from her previous run. Would you be so kind?”

“On it, boss.”

My drakan mate stepped between us and raised her wrist to the level of her chest. Our newly recruited Witch observed her touch the magitech smartwatch, most likely unable to grasp what exactly she was doing. Then, an illusory display popped up from it and spooked the blue-skinned lady a bit. Her eyes opened much more at the sight of text related to her abilities.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

GENERAL

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Darkvision (C)

Dagger Proficiency (D)

Arcane Proficiency (B)

Mana Control (B)

Foraging (B)

Dismantling (C)

Enchanting (C)

Circuit Creation (C)

Cooking (B)

Brewing (C)

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“Damn, she has so many more higher rank skills that carried over than me.” Aisha whistled. “Also, Arcane Proficiency at B? I thought Witches specialized in hexes, curses, knickknacks, concoctions, and such. You can’t level that up unless you literally study and practice a wide range of spells.”

After a few long seconds, Levia realized that she was expected to answer and drew herself back from taking in the fascinating sight of the holographic display.

“While that is true, I felt like I couldn’t rely only on those, thus I designed a medium that allowed me to evoke a plethora of weaker spells in case of emergency. For that, I abandoned the idea of using a staff or another magical catalyst,” she explained.

“Impressive. You acknowledged your weakness and attempted to get rid of it. What did you come up with?” I asked.

“Something resembling talismans that Talisman Masters use but prepared with magical formations and arrays that Wizards specialize in. It’s not as powerful as either of those techniques but raises my offensive capabilities substantially.”

“That’s exactly what we’ve been looking for,” Aisha chimed in. “Even your usual, minor magic and other magical aspects of your Class would have been great, but with this, we will have a much easier time dealing with those annoying sacks of bones.”

“I’m curious about those, actually. Could you switch to the Class-Related section?” I asked my drakan companion.

Aisha didn’t reply but just did as I had requested.

★━━━━━━━━━━★

CLASS-RELATED

★━━━━━━━━━━★

Hex (F)

Voodoo Magic (F)

Ritual Magic (F)

Potion Making (F)

★━━━━━━━━━━★

“Sounds fun. I can’t wait to see your abilities in action,” I commented with a smile.

“I will properly showcase my capacity to you, Master.”

Even though Levia answered quite fast this time, it felt more like an automated response with her mind elsewhere, namely the illusory rectangle, where her eyes and entire attention were.

I chuckled quietly. At least a little bit of explaining awaited us first.

★━━━━━━━━━━━━Author's Notes━━━━━━━━━━━━★

Here's a quite close ref of the outfit :)