DD 203 Ch 10

We walked out of the shop, and Fayeth was fidgeting with her now bare finger.

"Miss it that much?" I asked the beautiful elf. As she took my arm, we continued about the shops in the outdoor mall.

"A little," she said, thumbing the spot until I pulled out a low-quality ring that I had in my CID from our other adventures.

I crouched down on one knee, holding the ring out for her. "Then, will you be my Adrel?"

She smiled at the gesture and there was a clapping from the crowd as she took it from me.

I got up laughing. “It was a joke,” but people didn't listen.

Instead, they were just smiling and happy to see a young couple in love.

Which was an odd thing to say, given that I hadn't been with Fayeth all that long, but we were Adrel. Which meant our souls had harmonized and in the elven world, all we were missing was a ceremony.

Fayeth took my arm again, this time near giddy with excitement, and almost skipped to her step as we went in the housewares store. "Oooh. These are interesting designs," Fayeth looked around. She picked up a set of bowls, spinning them over in her hand as she looked at them.

They were a... I didn't quite know the word for it, but they had a texture to them like they’d been hammered. They were plain white porcelain bowls, but they were uneven because that was the current trend.

"If you like them, we can get them," I said, looking at the price tag and feeling oddly comfortable with not worrying about the number.

We weren't Crimson level rich, but the amount of mana crystals that we had harvested throughout the event on the 28th floor left me with quite the sum of cash. More than a college student really knew what to do with. We had bought some things for adventuring that were expensive, but knowing we’d be gearing up in the raid had stopped us from blowing it all.

Heck, I could even put a down payment on a house if I wanted to.

"Maybe we shouldn't," Fayeth put it back. "We should save for gear." Even I didn't find her tone convincing. Picking up the bowl and putting it in her arms. "Let's look around and see if there's any you like more than this."

Fayeth took two steps before she found a long rectangle plate. "Ooh, I could do sushi on these." She looked at the plates excitedly.

Sushi was a favorite of the elves. Fish being a delicacy on a world that was mostly dried up.

"Yes, you could. I'm sure if we look hard enough, they have actual sushi platters." Fayeth abandoned her current find and started going with me through the various different sets of dishware.

Honestly, it was a little much. All I needed was something flat, preferably even, and a fork to eat with. But Fayeth found charm in the various different dishes, talking about how she could plate her food more appetizingly on them.

In the end, she was excited enough that I couldn't say no and continued to let her shop to her heart's desire.

By the time we got to the checkout counter, I had picked up a cart and had carefully placed the growing mound so that things didn’t spill over while Fayeth carried two pitchers in each hand. The sales clerk looked at us with wide eyes.

"Planning a party, are you?" She tried to make conversation.

"Of course, we have to have enough dishes for the whole raid," Fayeth said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

At the mention of a raid, the cashier's eyes bulged even further. "You're adventurers? Oh my gosh, you're an elf!" Her question died on her lips as she realized Fayeth wasn't human.

My Adrel thumbed at her ears. "That's what they tell me." And then she clung tighter to my arm.

The woman looked back and forth between us. More excitedly now, I'm sure we would make a great story for her to tell her friends at her next dinner.

Fayeth hummed happily as the clerk wrapped up all of the items, only for them to get sucked into Fayeth's CID the second they were scanned.

"No need to box them," I reassured the lady. "She'll just take them all away and she'll take them all out later. CIDs don't need packaging material either."

The woman had picked up some parchment paper even after I told her not to box them. Finally, she put it down and just continued to scan items, placing them to the side, watching them disappear into the eager elf's wristband. "Those have to be so convenient," the clerk stared at it with wide eyes. "I hear even the cheapest one is like 50,000 Ren." The woman ticked off her fingers, "That's like a car."

I shrugged, "They're a necessary device for all adventurers. Besides, hers isn't basic," I pointed at Fayeth's arm. "It's actually an elven design and technically she's elven royalty."

Fayeth rolled her eyes. "I hardly count as royalty, especially when Elysara is here. I'm like 287th in line for the throne."

Clearly, that number didn't matter to the clerk who leaned over her counter and, in a hushed voice, said, "You're in line for the throne?"

Fayeth glanced at me as if asking what she was missing.

I subtly shook my head, indicating that her royalty was a novelty.

The woman continued to scan Fayeth's items. This took long enough that a second clerk got involved to speed up the process. Both of them seemed to listen with rapt attention to Fayeth as they asked various questions about elves, and in particular, about elven men.

They were even more specific about what elven men liked in their women.

We finished up and Fayeth practically pulled me out of the building. "What is with those women and elven men?"

I chuckled. "I'm pretty sure that elven and Nekorian men have become a popular topic for romance novels."

Fayeth's mouth made a wide 'O' of understanding. "That makes sense. It's far better than that blue alien trend."

I gave her a strange look. "Do I want to know about the blue alien trend?"

"Probably not," Fayeth chuckled. "Penny was talking my ear off about it the other day though."

I hummed for a moment, not entirely sure how to broach the topic. "Charlotte's been getting along with Penny quite a bit and apparently she gets along with Felin. Now you?" I raised an eyebrow, not quite asking the question I meant to ask.

"Something like that," Fayeth said. "Penny is quite lovable. Not to mention she shares my penchant for romance novels."

I knew about Fayeth's love of romance novels quite well.

The only reason she was able to speak English so well when she first came with her father to earth was because she read so many human romance novels. It was also the reason that she'd so easily, or perhaps eagerly, accepted my accidental proposal to her. It was like a dream come true right out of one of the romance novels she so loved reading.

"Speaking of, how about we go find you a bookstore?" I looked around the mall. Bookstores had gotten rarer, but there was usually one at every mall.

"Let's just enjoy the walk for now," Fayeth held my arm closer. "You always seem to move with a purpose," Fayeth said. "Part of me loves that, the other part of me loathes it. Sometimes I wish you would just live in the moment."

Taking the hint, I held her arm, gave her a peck on the cheek, and just walked the mall with her, keeping up idle conversation.

"Do you ever think you'll stop diving the dungeon, or at least slow down?"

Fayeth looked up at me with her brilliant blue eyes. "Of course, one of these days," she looked me in the eyes. "I would like kids." And the way I winced, she softened the blow. "Many years in the future," she clarified.

I chuckled nervously, scratching at the back of my head. "Yeah, many years in the future. I could do kids, just not any time soon. I mean, I'm only 19 years old. It's a little early. It is for elves too, right?"

"Oh, way too early," Fayeth agreed. "Besides, you and I are most likely going to live several hundred years, at least. Getting into the 30s before we're even 20," Fayeth said with an air of disbelief. "That's the kind of thing you only see in the super high levels of the past generations."

I thought about Charlotte and Desmonda's parents, both of whom looked like they were in their early 30s, possibly their late 20s, but I knew both of them were probably closer to 60 years old.

"Every generation of humans has progressed their children far faster than the last," I said.

Fayeth waffled her hand. "It was similar for the elves for a while, but then at a certain point, a lot of people drop out of the dungeon to raise families, and only a small percentage truly push themselves to unmatched heights. That, and the elves are only two or three generations deeper into diving the dungeon than humanity."

I thought about that for a long moment. Only a few more generations. But they had progressed, and their average level was significantly higher than humanity's. I wondered if any other worlds would be found in the future.

"The thought of elves joining a couple hundred years before humanity now would almost be just as long as the difference between elves and humans joining the dungeon as humans and possibly some other race," I said.

“Who knows? We have no idea how deep the dungeon goes. With the way it branches out to worlds, by the time we reach the 80th floor, the number of potential branches multiplies by nine. And within the branches from now into the 70th floor, there's already four races connected," She shrugged. "Statistics say with nine times the amount of connections, there's a good chance there's at least one other race."

When she put it that way, I felt like it was almost a certainty that by the time we would reach the 80th floor, there would be another race to discover. Except for one thing.

"That is, if the naga haven't already found and killed them," I winced at how pessimistic I sounded.

Fayeth let out a sigh. "Or the dwarves. Both of them are menaces.”

“At least the Nekorians aren't nearly as aggressive," I said.

Fayeth tapped her chin. "I wonder what the Nekorian homeworld is like." She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, only for me to hold my unoccupied hand up in surrender.

"Felin’s never talked about it. If I didn't know better, I'd say she grew up in the dungeon itself."

"That sounds about right," Fayeth chuckled. "The woman is practically feral."

"Feral?" I said aghast. "She's like a tame kitten who just happens to steal all of my clothes." We both laughed.

"Maybe we shouldn't be shopping for me. Maybe we should find you a few more shirts." She leaned us towards a store.

"Don't worry, Des has been on it, giving me a steady flow of new shirts every time Felin destroys one."

Felin liked to collect them and sleep on them or wear them. However, the Nekorian was not used to such fragile clothes and had already torn multiple of them to shreds.

We continued our walk through the mall.

I was just happy to spend some time with Fayeth.

Finally, she couldn’t resist and dipped into a bookstore. Eventually, we came out with a tall stack that went into her CID. All of them were the newest of whatever her favorite author had produced.

Then we swung by the United Guilds building in the mall.

Even more popular than bookstores, every shopping center seemed to have a UG shop. It was much like the shops that I would see at the dungeon, only these tended to have much lower level equipment and a higher focus on consumable goods. Which made sense because your average person wouldn't be able to equip anything high level. Instead, most people were buying gear that was below level 10 and gave simple attributes like strength or stamina to make their lives easier.

The other thing there were plenty of were low level healing potions. Not that they solved every disease, but they could certainly help in a pinch. We went to the back where all the potions were, passing by a large number of empty shelves.

I met the woman at the counter. "I've never seen so many empty shelves in a UG shop." She let out a groan of frustration.

"Tell me about it. Apparently there's some big delay with shipments now. I'm sorry, but if you're looking for anything, you might have better luck somewhere else."

"Actually, I was hoping to get some potions. It seems those are at least stocked," I pointed at the shelves behind her.

"If you want a healing potion, we got plenty of those," she said, opening up a drawer to get out a key. Most of the potions lay behind locked plexiglass cases.

"I'm looking for something a little different than just health potions," I said, waving my CID at her.

"Adventurers, are we?" she asked.

"We're definitely adventurers. We're both attending Haylon University." At the mention of the dungeon college, she stood up a little straighter and regarded us seriously.

"Oh, well, in that case, what are we looking for?" She went from a casual, bored saleswoman to talking to us like we were people who knew what we wanted.

"We've been struggling with a boss. It has an add," I pointed up in the air for whatever reason. "It's a parrot that flies around and deals a lot of sonic damage to the raid group."

"You're raiding? At your level?" She glanced at us strangely.

"We're in our low 30s."

Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. "And you're still in a dungeon college? Are you seniors?"

Fayeth chuckled, enjoying her surprise. "No, we're in our second year."

The saleswoman blinked several times as if her mind was struggling to deal with the information she had just been given. "Well, in that case, I do have some deafening potions." She pulled them out. "Is the sonic attack bothering your casters?"

"No, it's more like a physical wave," I explained to her.

She hummed and went through her stack of potions. "There's a stoneskin potion." She put it on my counter. "Makes your skin hard, slows you down a little, but a physical attack like a sonic wave would do," she waffled her hand, "about 15% less damage. This isn't a super high-level one, but it should work for what you're dealing with in the low 30s."

"It's on the 32nd floor," I clarified.

She nodded and pushed the potion across the counter to me. "Then this should work well, 15% on physical damage."

Fayeth glanced at me. "Would that also work for the pounce?"

I was thinking the same thing.

The saleswoman raised an eyebrow, listening to our conversation.

"You see the trouble we're having with the boss…" I decided to give her a full explanation. "The parrots are keeping everyone low, and then another add pounces on a random raid member."

The saleswoman nodded, "And if they're already low, the pounce is taking them out. I get you." She dug around a little more and gave us two more options.

"This is a potion of cheap death." She tapped one on the counter. "I don't recommend it because of how expensive it is, but I'll give you the option. We don't have a lot of these, certainly not enough to stock your whole raid. But I could put an order in with the stocking department, and maybe we could get enough for you. By the time you're raiding… in a month," she hesitated.

"Try a week," I let out a sigh, pushing the cheap death potion aside. "What's the other one?" I glanced at it.

"This one is a stamina booster. It should raise everyone's health."

I shook my head at that. "Reducing the damage by 15% would probably help the healers keep the raid more full, not to mention reduce the amount of damage people would take from the tiger." I shook my head at the stamina. I didn't think it would be nearly as helpful.

"The stoneskin is going to slow you down, though," she said.

"Slow down attacking or movement?"

"Both," she said. "Your legs are just going to be a little stiffer. It's going to be harder to move around. Same with your arms."

I knew that might make it difficult for the melee dps, myself included. However, I thought it would be a worthy sacrifice if it meant we could kill the boss. Melee was already decently crippled on this fight anyway.

"How many of the stoneskins do you have?"

She reached under the counter, opened up a cabinet, and put a case in front of me. "I've got three of these. Each of them has 30 potions."

"And the cost?" I looked at them, not excited for the number she gave me next.

She winced. "Each one is 5,000 ren. I'll give you a discount of 10% if you buy it by the case."

I put a hand on my CID. The ring was absolutely nothing compared to this. I had the funds, especially after my grandparents had paid me for my most recent family job. Still, I grimaced.

"I'll take all three cases," I said, holding my CID up for her to tap and drain the funds.

She gave me a pained smile. "Pleasure doing business with you. The good news is, hopefully, you'll be able to take care of the boss."

"I'd better," I said, stuffing the potions into my CID. Perhaps I was going to charge the raid members for these. Maybe I could get some of the funds back.

Fayeth had practically whisked me away after the official business of buying the potions. She was eager to get back to our date, and I knew just the place to take her.

About a block from the mall was a fancy surf-and-turf place, a Japanese steakhouse. The kind that didn't put prices on the menus. I walked her over, a grin on my lips.

Fayeth was looking around, her head on a swivel. When we sat down, with a perfect view of the sushi kitchen.

I stepped aside and pulled out a chair so she would be facing it.

"This is perfect," Fayeth said eagerly. "Did you know they would put us here?"

"I asked for it," I smiled, pushing her chair in and taking my own seat next to her. In the movies, they always sat across from each other, but sometimes I thought sitting next to someone was more intimate. I reached under the table and laced my fingers in hers.

"Have you two been here before?" the server asked.

"No, but I think we can manage," I replied. She smiled and wandered off, the two of us opening up menus and looking through them. I knew what I was going to order, but Fayeth turned out to be incredibly indecisive on which roll of sushi she wanted.

The meal was lovely.

We pointedly talked about nothing important, and it was filled with large moments of comfortable silence. Both of us having spent our days with each other, we didn't have a bunch of new stories. Not that that bothered us in the slightest.

Instead, I held her hand and leaned against her, enjoying her presence as she excitedly watched the chefs work their way through their sushi orders.

Fayeth turned to me, staring into my eyes. "Thank you for the date, Ken."

"Oh no, thank you," I said to Fayeth. "If it weren't so enjoyable for me to take you on these, I wouldn't keep doing it." She had the kind of sweet smile that melted hearts as she leaned against me.

"I'm really happy the way everything has worked out. I know we have a lot going for us, as well as many things that will happen in our future. But here and now, I am happy," Fayeth said. She leaned in to peck me on the cheek, but I cut her off, capturing her lips in mine.

"I am happy, too," I said. "Nothing else. I'm happy we will take a moment, just the two of us."

"Me too," Fayeth said. "I don't know when you'll add more."

I choked on those words. "Add more?" I asked. "I don't think I'm going to be adding anymore. Our party is full."

Fayeth hummed. "Now we are doing a full raid.”

I nearly died. “A full raid is far too many.”

“As the Elven Emperor, you can have as many as you want."

I shook my hands. "I will stick with what I have. Besides, I’m not really the Emperor, just the Empress’ husband."

"That might be what you want, but I'm not sure that's what the world has in store. After all, Penny keeps putting 74 wives in everyone's head.”

“74 is an impossible number. That would be like," I tried and failed to do the math, but waffled my hands. "Like five days a year for each woman.”

“Des has proven that you can take more than one at a time." Fayeth bobbed her brows, staring up at me with those two gems.

I rolled my eyes. "Not you too."

Fayeth shrugged. "You're my Adrel, and I love you. But I certainly expanded to be more, and I don't find the numbers to be intimidating. If nothing else, I find myself more often surrounded by love."

I found that to be sweet. And it was good to know the rest of the ladies were treating her well.

“My grandfather always pushed for me to have a harem, saying that they forged bonds that were strong enough to weather the dungeon. I now understand what he meant, but I'm glad you girls are experiencing the same level of bonding, even if it isn't always physical."

She gave me another sweet kiss before we were interrupted by the server returning with our meal.