"So Adrian... are you willing to trust me and step into my room?" Valka said cheerfully as she looked over all the restraints and tools that filled her room. "I promise I’ll be gentle... the first time," Letting out a few concerned laughs she continued her search.

"I’m uhhh good... maybe next time," I said, backing myself out of her room for fear of being tied down and played with. "I’ll just let you get comfortable, I’ll come back and check on you later."

As I joined the other girls in the hallway I closed the door and looked back at them. Reika had one of the most curious faces painted on I had ever seen, Celeste however, looked mortified. Her face was beat red all the way up to her pointy tipped ears. I gave them a kind smile and we headed for the kitchen, as we were inspecting the new rooms a few bellies rumbled loudly, mine included.

"What do you two have planned for lunch," I asked

They both looked at me with a twinkle in their eyes, giggled and then hurried off to the kitchen ahead of me. The loud clattering of pots and pans filled the silence followed by the sound of some very skilled knife work. Taking a seat at the table behind them, I enjoyed the sight until a giant dick shaped panel broke my vision.

[ DIVINE QUEST RECEIVED ]

[ QUEST: FREE THE TYRANT DRAGON EMPRESS ]

[ TARGET: SEALED DRAGONKIN ]

[ LOCATION: NORTHEASTERN DUNGEON ]

[ CURRENT CONDITION: UNCONSCIOUS ]

[ NOTE ]

[ IF SHE WAKES UP BEFORE YOU GET THERE, GOOD LUCK EXPLAINING YOURSELF ]

[ REWARD: MANOR CAPACITY EXPANSION ]

[ REWARD: LINK STABILITY INCREASE ]

I stared at the panel long enough for the knife work in front of me to stop sounding impressive and start sounding very dangerous.

There were a lot of words on that screen that felt like they should not be anywhere near each other. Divine quest was bad enough. Tyrant Dragon Empress sounded like the kind of title people only gave someone after they had already burned down a few towns and made the survivors agree she looked good doing it.

A sealed unconscious dragon girl in a dungeon was not a casual side quest. It was the kind of thing a sane person heard about from very far away, nodded politely, then moved to a different country before the problem became airborne.

"Adrian?" Celeste called from the stove.

I blinked and realized both girls had stopped cooking. Reika still had a knife in her hand, vegetables neatly cut in front of her, but her ears had lifted toward me. Celeste had one hand on the handle of a pan, her cheeks still faintly red from whatever thoughts Valka’s room had beaten into her head, but her eyes were sharp now.

Apparently my face had given me away again. I opened my mouth, closed it, then looked back at the giant floating cock-window of doom.

"That bad?" Reika asked with her tail raised high, it had stopped swaying however.

"Depends," I said slowly. "How do you two feel about dragons?"

"That is not an answer," Celeste said. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"No, but it is a very strong warning label."

Celeste set the pan down with a little more force than necessary. "What did the system say?"

I rubbed my hands down my face and wished the perverted god had waited until after lunch to ruin my appetite. Just once, I wanted to eat something without fate slapping a quest across my vision shaped like a glowing dick.

"It gave me a divine quest," I said.

Reika’s expression changed first. The curiosity stayed, but something steadier moved underneath it. "Divine?"

"Yeah," I said. "Which sounds important, because normally it just tells me horny nonsense and lets me make the terrible decisions myself."

I cleared my throat and read the panel again, this time out loud. "Quest: Free the Tyrant Dragon Empress. Target: sealed dragonkin. Location: northeastern dungeon. Current condition: unconscious."

The kitchen went very quiet.

Even the clattering from Valka’s room upstairs seemed to stop for half a second, though that was probably my imagination and not the demon girl realizing someone had just introduced competition with scales.

Celeste’s face slowly tightened. "Absolutely not." She paced back in forth in the kitchen thinking before continuing. "This sounds dangerous Adrian..."

"See, that was my first instinct too," I said.

"We are not freeing anyone called a tyrant before lunch." Reika chimed in, oblivious to the situation.

"Technically, the system did not say before lunch." I assured her with a smile and a laugh. "Don’t worry we can eat before we decide anything,"

Reika placed the knife down flat on the cutting board. "If she is sealed and unconscious, then someone wanted her there. That doesn’t mean they were wrong, but it means we should know why before deciding."

I pointed at her. "Thank you... That is exactly the kind of reasonable middle ground I was hoping you would say."

Celeste looked between us like we had both lost our minds in different directions. "Reasonable? A sealed dragonkin tyrant in a dungeon is not reasonable."

"No," I said, glancing back at the panel. "But the note says if she wakes up before we get there, good luck explaining yourself... and I don’t wanna find out what that means,"

The girls reacted, Celeste’s lips parted, then closed again. Reika’s ears angled back slightly. "So the problem is not only freeing her. It is what happens if the seal fails first."

"Yeah," I said. "Apparently, if she wakes up alone, angry, and still in whatever ancient timeout box they put her in, talking might not be her first choice."

Celeste turned back toward the stove, but she did not pick up the pan again. She just stood there thinking, which was terrifying because Celeste thinking usually meant I was about to be told exactly how stupid I was being.

Before she could speak, Valka appeared in the doorway. She had somehow managed to look more comfortable after spending two minutes alone with chains and sharp objects. Her shoulders were looser, her expression calmer, and there was a faint brightness in her eyes that made me extremely grateful I had not agreed to test anything.

"I heard dragonkin," she said as she stepped into the kitchen, looking from me to Celeste to Reika. "What dragonkin?"

I pointed at the panel, forgetting for the hundredth time that I was the only one who could see it. "Tyrant Dragon Empress. Sealed. Unconscious. Northeastern dungeon. Divine quest."

Valka’s expression changed. "Tyrant Dragon Empress..." she repeated quietly.

Celeste looked at her. "You know that title?"

Valka’s fingers curled once at her side.

"Not personally but my father does..."