"Ursula, give me a bit more! Even in human form, this is too little, several pouches barely make one cup, not nearly enough to drink."
"Alright, let me think about how to transform. It's been a long time since I last took human form..."
Wridra had originally wanted to milk her injuries for more, but seeing Ursula unmoved, she gave up on that idea.
She flapped her wings in midair, pondered for a moment, and began chanting draconic magic.
As the spell took effect, her massive dragon body gradually emitted a blinding light.
When the light fully faded, a voluptuous adult female figure stood where the crimson-black dragon had been.
"So, how is this dragonkin form of mine? Should pass in the human world, right? No issues with the outfit? Or does our husband-to-be prefer your current petite build?"
Wridra held a bulging pouch in one hand and tugged at her knee-length skirt with the other, showing off her appearance before Ursula, asking with a grin.
Though dragons were sometimes classified as demi-humans, demi-humans were generally humanoid races with racial traits, while dragons' true forms were all great dragons. Using magic to take dragonkin form could make them big or small as they wished.
However, unlike Ursula who preferred a small build, the long-lived and somewhat older Wridra preferred a taller, mature woman's figure.
"Our husband-to-be? Who said you're a wife? I haven't even become that guy's wife yet. At best you'd be a mistress, no, barely a mount. That guy loves staying home even more than we dragons do. He looks busy all day, but he never actually leaves his spot."
Looking at the overly confident Wridra, Ursula curled her lip, her eyes full of contempt.
If she didn't want Wridra to help her fight against Aegis, she wouldn't have bothered with this freeloader.
"Mistress? Mount? Do you know who I am? I'm a Magic Dragon!"
"If I took a tour through human kingdoms, those kings would kneel and offer gold, silver, jewels, princesses, and queens, begging me to visit other countries!"
Wridra froze mid-bite on her pouch, quickly suspending the supplement leaking from the corner of her mouth in midair, then stared at Ursula in disbelief.
Ursula had come all this way to beat her up and tell her to go to another world to serve a human, and she couldn't even be a mistress?
"And? If you weren't a Magic Dragon, I wouldn't have bothered with you. You'd be too weak to handle those damn elves."
Ursula spat out the empty pouch, casually incinerated it with a fireball, and squeezed her slender fist at Wridra.
"Once I become one of Hachiman's fiancees, I'll help you become his mistress."
"Don't get mad so fast. Anyway, you don't like managing things anyway, wife and mistress aren't that different."
With so many people in the Service Club, hardly any could truly be called Hachiman's mistresses.
The only clear one was Kaede's close friend, Rurikawa Tsubaki, who had once been manipulated by Ursula into betraying Kaede.
Mm... most of them were friends, girlfriends, female friends, at best...
"..."
Wridra stared expressionlessly at Ursula, who acted like she was getting a great deal, feeling like she'd been scammed.
Among dragons, the strong ruled, when in doubt, fight it out, and the winner called the shots.
Even matters like marriage, in human terms, were often decided by strength.
Though Ursula was essentially forcing her into marriage on someone else's behalf, which was pretty absurd even by dragon history, she had lost, and she didn't have any intention of fighting Ursula to the death anyway.
Now that she'd heard Ursula's explanation, she was actually curious about the guy Ursula kept mentioning.
As a Magic Dragon, her strength was nothing to scoff at. Even Ursula, who'd taken the chieftain position through power back then, had to go all out to beat her, one slip and she could turn the tables. The only ones who could reliably beat her were probably the gods.
But it hadn't been that long since she last saw Ursula.
And Ursula had gone to that dangerous magicless world for a while, and now could easily beat her, seemingly without even using half her strength.
Mistress, mount... it was a bit degrading for a dragon.
But Wridra thought it over and decided to ignore her chieftain trying to keep all the fun for herself. She'd wait until they got to the other world.
Either Ursula was lying, or, as Ursula's actions suggested, there really was a human male who had Ursula completely under control.
Either way, she... couldn't beat Ursula right now...
"Where are we going now? Straight to the Elven Forest to cross worlds? Or are we finding a few more mounts for our husband?"
Having decided to coast along, Wridra relaxed considerably and immediately asked Ursula.
Ordinary people knew nothing of other worlds, at most they knew some heroes came from elsewhere, but to top-tier beings like them, world-hopping wasn't anything special. Some summoned heroes did come from that magicless world.
For unknown reasons, ordinary people from the magicless world awakened talents of varying strength upon arriving in this world. Some human kingdoms used them as "heroes" to fight against the Demon Lord's armies, or other rebel factions labeled as such.
And while sending ordinary people across worlds was costly, compared to sending powerful beings across, it was still negligible.
In theory, for someone as strong as them, they'd need a stable world-crossing passage. Otherwise, even a whole human kingdom's court mage corps would collapse, mana depleted, life forfeited, dropping dead on the spot.
Normally, naturally formed world-crossing passages were unstable and could vanish at any time. But Ursula said there was a stable passage in the Elven Forest leading to the magicless world, and they could borrow that route.
"No rush going back. Since we came all this way, I want to pick up some local specialties."
Ursula waved her hand. Although the passage in the Elven Forest greatly reduced mana consumption, and elves didn't have to worry about power loss when going to the other world, frequent trips were still tiring. Otherwise, how could that blonde elven princess only bring such a small number of kin each time?
If she hadn't stocked up on supplies before returning, she'd probably still be recovering mana and would have to wait before coming to beat up Wridra.
"Wridra, what do you think. Should we raid some human kingdoms for fallen nobles and princesses, or find a hero party with a priestess, a saintess, a dark elf, something like that? Hmm... if we do that, we could do Dragon Quest–themed sessions later without even needing cosplay!"
Ursula had meant to ask Wridra for suggestions, but she got excited just talking about it.
She knew some people from human kingdoms had already crossed over, but this land was full of conflict, racial wars, divided kingdoms.
There was more than one self-proclaimed Demon Lord, let alone hero parties from different kingdoms.
For their Dragon Quest service game theme, pitting hero parties against each other would be fun.
The only problem was that hero parties usually had mixed races and classes. Elven archers and elven mages being among the classic combos. But any elf would probably betray them to Aegis the moment they appeared, unless they found dark elves. She wasn't sure if Hachiman liked dark elves.
"I don't really know about cosplay, but I think both options work. There are plenty of human kingdoms anyway. And about those dark elves you mentioned..."
Seeing Ursula decide to cause a ruckus on her own, Wridra was a bit speechless, but after a moment she still offered her advice.
"Ursula, if you want to deal with that elven princess... the dark elves have a Dark Elf Queen. We could capture her and have her share some experience."
She didn't quite understand what cosplay was, was she supposed to gather real heroes, priestesses, nobles, and princesses to put on some kind of opera?
But everything Ursula mentioned was clearly meant to please that human male the elves called their savior.
She'd already thought it was absurd that someone as proud as Ursula had a master she wanted to serve. Now even the proud and pure elves were treating a human male as their savior, and dragons and elves were competing. She, a full-fledged Magic Dragon, not only had to beg to be a mount but also bring a dowry along.
Still, Wridra's personality was more composed than Ursula's, but she didn't mind a bit of fun either.
"Dark Elf Queen? That's a great idea!"
As soon as Wridra finished, Ursula suddenly realized she'd missed that option and immediately urged her.
"Think harder, any better ideas? If not, we're going for the Dark Elf Queen right now."
She wasn't sure if Hachiman would like ordinary dark elves, but a Dark Elf Queen should be right up his alley.
She couldn't beat that blonde elven princess, but there was no way she couldn't beat the Dark Elf Queen.
Elves were always exclusive. Even though Aegis was well-liked and friendly with outsiders, even she wouldn't easily accept a Dark Elf Queen into the elven fold.
And the Dark Elf Queen would never lead dark elves to join the elves and submit to the Elven Queen.
She didn't need to say much, the Dark Elf Queen would cause trouble for the blonde elven princess on her own, as long as Ursula could keep her in check.
"Though I'd say gather more dragons, since I don't even qualify as a mistress, let's not consider other dragons for now..."
Wridra thought for a moment, then slowly said, "In that case... let's head to the Orcus Labyrinth first."
"Deep in the Orcus Labyrinth, something valuable is supposedly sealed. And there seems to be a hero summoning going on nearby, not a small one either. You can check if there are any priestesses or saintesses you want. In exchange for bringing them back to their original world, they'd probably be more than happy to accept your terms."
"Hmm... how about these as a welcome gift for my yet-unseen husband?"
Though as a dragon she didn't care much about humans, any adventurer who came to kill her would be reduced to ash by her dragon breath, generally speaking, she didn't go out of her way to kill people.
Anyway, summoned otherworld heroes counted as actual heroes with classes. If they could reach a mutually beneficial agreement, even better.
"That's plenty! Let's move now!"
Ursula was very satisfied. She flew higher to get her bearings, then urged Wridra on and resumed her true form.
With her current strength, dealing with these matters wouldn't take long, but who knew what was happening on the elven side.
If Aegis got back first with a huge batch of "pure" elves, her disadvantage would only grow.
"Aren't we teleporting?"
Wridra watched Ursula stretch her dragon form, unsure if she was actually in a hurry or not.
Dragon flight was fast, but if time was short, teleporting would be quicker.
"I want to check for any villains along the way. I can't just kill people randomly over there, but these humans shouldn't get away with anything either."
Ursula said, then flapped her wings and shot forward, scanning as she flew for any scene where she could play the role of a "dragon" making an entrance.
She couldn't do whatever she wanted around Hachiman, but surely she could in this world?
Wait, she wasn't doing anything bad, she was doing good.
She didn't ask for rewards for her good deeds; they offered themselves as compensation willingly.
"ROAR!"
Ursula flew toward the Orcus Labyrinth when she suddenly spotted a forest of towering trees where a group of terrified, frozen rabbit-kin were too scared to move. Not only did she not fly past, she deliberately descended and stood before a trembling blue-haired rabbit-eared girl, throwing her head back and letting out a proud dragon's roar.
Over in that world, she had to search everywhere for suitable demi-humans. Here, she could find plenty of races that suited Hachiman's taste just by looking around.
Still, she had to choose carefully. Bringing too many demi-humans over only to lose miserably would just give that blonde elven princess more ammunition to mock her.
Truth be told, if she didn't feel that facing a god directly was still a bit risky, if the goddess escaped or defeated her, Aegis would never let her live it down, she'd even want to capture a goddess for Hachiman.
Though Hachiman didn't like them stirring up trouble, the gods of their world bore great responsibility. The churches that worshipped them did evil behind the scenes, and there was even evidence that the masterminds behind the racial wars might be those gods.
If she explained it that way to Hachiman, he definitely wouldn't refuse her proposal to bring a goddess back as a pet.
Too bad... she hadn't been eating as well as that blonde elven princess, or she could already lead the dragons to knock on every door and put chains on those goddesses.
"Looks like Ursula's still the same..."
Wridra followed behind Ursula, both relieved and resigned.
She'd thought Ursula's nature had changed, but it seemed she was only restraining herself out of necessity.
Just who was this future husband of hers?
He'd trained Ursula so well that even in another world she followed the rules and didn't dare go wild.
Still, she had no intention of advising Ursula otherwise. She licked her lips with relish, her massive dragon form soaring past Ursula, who was busy making the rabbit-kin tribe bring out their best-looking members, and headed straight for the Orcus Labyrinth.
Before meeting her future husband, causing a ruckus in human kingdoms and plundering gold, silver, jewels, and beauties as her dowry didn't sound bad either.
In her view, it was normal for someone as temperamental and willful as Ursula to be at a disadvantage. That elven princess probably didn't really want to be enemies with the dragons.
She might just be able to beat Ursula to becoming their husband's fiancee, well, one of them...
———
The sun was high...
[At the Service Inn]
Hachiman, who'd been up all night without sleep, still hadn't gotten out of bed.
Tohsaka Aoi and Einzbern Irisviel lay on either side of him, their jet-black and silver-white hair intertwining like waterfalls.
"Master, by noon, the inn's comiket setup should be completely finished. Then you'll be able to see Touka and Rin's cosplay."
Tohsaka Aoi gently kissed Hachiman's eyes, calmly updating him on today's comiket plans.
Though Hachiman had his ever-improving body, growing stronger with each aid, he was still full of energy even without closing his eyes all night. He only lay there pretending to rest so that Aoi and the others who'd stayed up with him could get some proper sleep.
Still, Hachiman worked day and night with no shortage of requests, and couldn't always attend to the household. At times like this, Aoi wanted to take her duties as his wife more seriously.
To her, her master was the head of the household, the pillar everyone in the family had to obey.
Whenever her master had a thought or need, as his wife she was unconditionally obligated to satisfy it fully.
"Darling, there's still some time before noon. Shall I call a few more people to serve you? Sayo from the Kamishiro family and Yuriko from the Kuraki family should both be happy to come."
Irisviel, resting her chin on both hands and swinging her pale, jade-like legs in the air, stuck out her tongue playfully. Her pink tongue traced across Hachiman's cheek, her crimson eyes sparkling with mirth.
"Of course, Mai and the others could come too. They really want to experience firsthand how Awakening Miasma is produced, but they get embarrassed the moment they're interrupted."
"If you don't want them over for now, darling, we could have Mira, Kasumi, Marika, and Touka come serve you instead."
"Don't let their begging last night fool you, they say one thing but mean another. The moment you hold them, they won't let go so easily."
"..."