Chapter 31: Material Sourcing, Dragon Girl On My Crotch

In his past life, Adonis wasn’t used to sharing space with anyone, be it a girlfriend or a roommate.

He lived alone. Ate alone. Did everything alone.

His apartment was a studio with one chair, one desk, one bed. The only guests were delivery drivers who never stepped past the doorway. His sister visited twice in a year, and both times she left within an hour because the silence made her uncomfortable.

He’d been a virgin when he died.

Twenty-six years old and never so much as held a girl’s hand romantically.

So when he transmigrated into this world and suddenly had maids fanning him, queens feeding him grapes, and warrior princesses sleeping in his bed, it was... an adjustment.

An adjustment he was still making.

The warehouse had two rooms.

It was a simple arrangement. Men in one, women in the other. Garm had grunted his approval, already dragging his heavy pack toward the smaller room. Mariella had nodded gracefully and gestured for Geles to follow her.

Prussia, however, had other ideas.

"I’m his guard. I should be close to him at all times."

She crossed her arms under her breasts.

Adonis raised an eyebrow. "The rooms are ten feet apart."

"That’s ten feet too far."

"You can literally hear me breathe from your room."

"Unfortunately, that’s not enough. What if someone attacks you in your sleep? I need to be there to do my job."

Adonis stared at her.

Prussia stared back.

Her face was perfectly expressionless, but Adonis had learned to read her. The slight flush on her tan cheeks. The way her fingers drummed against her bicep. The subtle shift of her weight from one leg to the other.

She wasn’t worried about his safety.

She wanted to torture him.

Her skimpy undergarments, her shapely caramel-colored body stretching out across the mattress, her muscular thighs on full display, her generous chest rising and falling with each soft breath that felt like a moan.

She was testing him. Daring him to make a move.

And every night, he’d resisted.

Because Adonis knew the truth. Prussia didn’t actually want him to touch her. She wanted him to try so she could reject him and feel superior. It was a game to her. A way to prove that Falsbane men were as weak and pathetic as she believed.

Well, this is his chance to be free.

"Men and women should sleep separately. It’s proper."

"But—" Prussia tried to argue.

"FINAL DECISION!"

Her eyes twitched frustratedly at him.

Mariella watched the whole thing with curious eyes as her lips curved into a small smile. Adonis caught her look and felt a chill run up his body.

’Right. Her humiliation kink.’

If he’d agreed to let Prussia share his room, Mariella would’ve been furious. Jealous. Humiliated. And that humiliation would’ve turned her on in ways he couldn’t deal with.

But he wasn’t going to do that anymore.

If he was going to bond with Mariella, really bond with her, he needed to circumvent her kink entirely. Treat her with genuine respect. Make her feel valued instead of degraded.

Easier said than done, he thought grimly.

This woman gets wet when he ignores her.

"Good, good. Our sleeping arrangement is perfect!"

It lasted exactly one night.

The next morning, Adonis stumbled out of his room looking like he’d been mauled by a bear.

Which wasn’t far from the truth.

Garm’s snore was so boarish it rattled the window, but that wasn’t the worst part —— Garm couldn’t sleep in one position to save his life. One second he was upside down, next he was spread sideways, with his sweaty, hair arms slapping a sleepless Adonis in the face.

"... I didn’t get a wink of sleep."

Prussia looked up from her morning tea and said nothing.

Adonis gave her a side-eye. "The silent treatment, hm?"

"Apparently, I’m not need. Hmph."

"You’re so feminine these days, Prussia, yunno?"

"Oh, shut up."

To fix the Garm sleep of death issue, they left him to sleep in the workshop while the others still had their rooms. Since he’s a dwarf, he should enjoy sleeping there.

Another day, more work to do.

Garm was a master smith from the western mountains. He had spent forty years forging weapons and armor for the Soron military, and he’d forgotten more about metalwork than most blacksmiths would ever learn.

His first contribution was the shaft.

He picked up the ruined Mk. II prototype, turned it over in his hands and grunted.

"Silver’s too soft. Mythril’s too brittle."

He tossed it onto the scrap pile.

"What you need is a composite."

He grabbed a piece of charcoal and started sketching on a scrap of parchment.

"A core of mythril for mana conduction."

He drew a thin line.

"Wrapped in a layer of dwarven steel for durability."

He drew a thicker line around it.

"Then an outer coating of silver for additional conductivity."

He finished the sketch and slid it across the table.

"With something like this, it’ll handle ten times the mana load of your last attempt."

Adonis stared at the sketch. "Can you forge it?"

"I can. It’ll take three days and cost you thirty gold."

"Done."

Now all Adonis had to worry about was the focusing array.

Which was Geles’s problem.

She was a graduate of the Naxos Magic Academy, where she had specialized in advanced runic theory.

She took one look at Adonis’s designs and sighed.

"You’ve been using Utility runes for everything. That’s fine for basic enchantments, but for a weapon like this, you need a hybrid rune system."

"Come again?" said Adonis.

"Utility runes are flexible, but they’re weak. Elven runes handle flow and acceleration better. Dwarven runes are superior for containment and focusing. To handle the kind of pressure you’re generating, you’ll need five or more layers of interlocking runes. Each layer with seven runes."

First things first, they needed materials.

Adonis and Prussia hit the market.

First stop: the Adventurer’s Guild of Gilishon.

The lower city was a mess; congested buildings, mercenaries, bounty hunters, and desperate people looking for work. The guildhall itself was a three-story structure of stone and hard timber with adventurers going about their day.

The guildmaster, Theron, supplied them with high-grade mythril at one-millimeter thickness for a one-meter rod.

That alone is 50 gold.

"Fifty gold for a single rod of metal?" Prussia lifted a brow.

"Heh, don’t worry about it. It’s the money I scammed from your family. There’s still a lot of it."

Prussia stomped her foot and growled at him.

Adonis patted her head like she was a misbehaving dog.

"Good girl."

"I WILL KILL YOU—"

But Adonis was already walking out of the guild, and Prussia, still furious, proudly jogged after him like she didn’t want to follow him around all day.

Next, dwarven steel.

Plus Garm’s labor it cost about 20 gold.

The last thing on the list was runic ink.

But Geles refused to use anything but authentic Naxos ink.

"Cheap inks smudge and when they do, arrays explode. Do you want your hand blown off?"

Adonis sighed. "How much?"

"Ten gold per vial. I need four."

That’s another 50 gold. 40 for the vial, 10 for customs duty.

The inks arrived a few days later in a sealed crate. Each vial was packed in soft cushioning and marked with the seal of the Naxos Magic Academy.

Geles handled them like holy relics.

"These are worth more than most nobles’ entire estates. No one touch them. Okay? No one."

She didn’t let anyone else carry them, not even Mariella.

...

In the following days, three problems came up.

1. Garm’s smithing problem.

2. The hybrid rune system.

3. A dragon girl.

The story with Garm was simple

Garm had flat-out refused to work in the warehouse smithy.

His reason, as he said, was "it’s too damn clean."

According to the old dwarf, a proper forge needed soot, sweat, and the smell of grease —— not constant wiping and cleaning from women keeping the place tidy.

So, Adonis had no choice but to set up a huge, portable forge in the backyard.

A decision he regretted almost immediately.

Because the backyard was right behind his bedroom window. For three straight days and nights, Adonis was forced to endure a nonstop, ear-splitting assault of hammering and creative dwarven curse words. Sleep was out of the question.

By day four, the noise finally stopped.

Garm stomped up and slammed the finished spear shaft into Adonis’s hands.

It was stunning. A flawless composite of mythril, steel, and silver, forged so masterfully that it felt effortlessly light in his grip like holding a feather woven from pure metal.

"Wow... this, this is incredible!"

The masterpiece of metal was complete.

Next, the problem of the hybrid rune system.

Layer 1: Utility Rune [Gather] × 7

Layer 2: Utility Rune [Condense] × 7

Layer 3: Elven Rune [Flow] × 7

Layer 4: Elven Rune [Accelerate] × 7

Layer 5: Dwarven Rune [Contain] × 7

Layer 6: Dwarven Rune [Focus] × 7

Layer 7: Utility Rune [Trigger] × 7

That’s a total of 49 runes in seven concentric circles each with seven runes.

Geles winced painfully.

"There’s no way I can inscribe all that."

Adonis stared at her. "What?"

She took a step back.

"I... I didn’t run calculations for how many runes we’d need. I didn’t think it’d be nearly fifty. I’m a silver-class enchanter. Only a platinum-class enchanter could handle something like this."

The workshop was silent.

Mariella sighed.

Garm rubbed his beard.

The number of platinum-class enchanters in the world could be counted on one hand.

Adonis felt something hot and painful build in his chest. All this work. All this time. All this money. And it was all for nothing? He ran his trembling fingers through his hair, pacing back and forth. His breaths came short and fast.

Then he flipped over a workbench.

"GODDAMMIT!"

The crash scared everyone around.

Adonis stormed toward the door.

Prussia stepped forward. "Adonis—"

"Don’t."

"..."

Adonis walked out and slammed the door behind him.

Mariella watched him go with a sad face. She knew how much this meant to him.

Geles trembled, her red eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"I’m sorry... I... I didn’t know..."

Garm patted her on her side.

"Not your fault, lass."

Mariella said nothing. She just stared at the door, wishing she could follow him.

...

Adonis didn’t remember falling asleep.

He’d stumbled back to his room, collapsed onto his bed, and pulled the dragon egg and crucible into his arms like a child clutching a stuffed animal.

The last thing he remembered was the cold, smooth surface of the egg against his cheek.

And then, sleep.

When he woke up, something was different.

The first thing he noticed was the weight.

Something warm and soft was pressing down on his crotch. Something that felt suspiciously like a pair of plump thighs straddling his hips.

The second thing he noticed was the smell.

An old, but sweet smelling flower?

The third thing he noticed was the face.

A girl.

She was sitting on him. Sitting right on his crotch, her legs spread wide, her hands resting on his chest.

She was also very beautiful.

Long, curved black horns rose from her head, glossy and sharp. Messy black hair tumbled down her shoulders in waves. Her vixen purple eyes and teasing, bratty smile.

Her body was petite but perfectly proportioned. Small, round breasts and pink tips that were already twitching without anyone having touched them. Her hips spread in a way that promised fertility. Her skin was pale and smooth, like alabaster.

And her butt, Adonis could feel it.

The soft, pudgy weight of her rear was pressed directly against his morning wood, and from the way it felt, the way it cushioned him, he could tell she was big back there.

"... What?" Adonis blinked.

The dragon girl tilted her head. "Good morning."

Her voice was soft and mature.

Adonis blinked again.

"Who are you?"

The dragon girl didn’t answer. Instead, she reached down and grabbed his right hand, bringing it up to her face.

She studied it, then turned it over to press her nose to his palm and inhale deeply.

"This is the hand that awakened me."

She looked at him with those half-lidded eyes, and Adonis felt a shiver run down his spine.

"Ahh~ I sensed your potential the moment you touched my fertile egg. I’ve been waiting for you to release me."

"..."

"I was right to be patient."

"..."

Adonis tried to pull his hand away, but dragon girl held it tighter as her small fingers wrapped around his wrist like shackles. He felt his bones snap little by little. How can such small hands have so much strength?!

She brought his hand close to her small mouth as her rosy lips parted for her slimy tongue shining with saliva.

"Ahh~"

She licked his palm.

It was a very warm, wet, tingling sensation that made his toes curl up and his body shudder.

She licked him again, and again, and again.

Long, slow strokes of her tongue, like she was trying to savor the taste of his skin.

"What are you—"

She pulled her small tongue back, as glistening bits of saliva dripped her perfect lips.

"I’m performing the contract by initiating bio-contact."

She tilted her head.

"Is that not fine?"

"..."