Gardenia’s Heart

“Who would’ve thought there was a labyrinth so close to my village?”

The cold morning made the girl’s breath visible, even within the frosty mist.

Tucking a strand of her silver hair behind her ear, Lily gazed at the cave before her.

Formed in a small dip in the terrain, the entrance—wide enough for two or three people to walk side by side without trouble—was hidden among the tall shrubs and trees of the forest.

“Since this is on the far southern edge of Anthus, it’s no surprise no one’s ever found it. Other than that village I used to live in, there probably aren’t many others nearby.”

Adjusting the hood of her cloak, Lily lowered her hand to her belly, caressing it gently.

Since Nia always formed her clothes, her dress had been adjusted so it wouldn’t press against her abdomen. The fabric was light and mildly flowing, allowing the wind’s pleasant breeze to slip through, and the tentacles that constantly embraced her moved more easily, settling around each fold with a familiar, comforting grace.

“The river I fell into is a few hundred meters in that direction.” The soft voice came from a purple-haired girl in a black dress who appeared in the air.

Emerging from within Lily, she timidly pointed her finger toward the direction opposite the cave entrance.

The sound of running water—so strong it could be heard even from this distance—flowed along the uneven terrain before splitting into several branches deeper into the forest. One of those streams was where she and the villagers used to wash their clothes.

“Are you sure you’re okay coming back here, Nia?” Lily asked softly to the girl beside her.

After deciding they needed to investigate the place where Nia had absorbed her first volume of the Book of Truth, the two had prepared and easily arrived through one of the portals. Yet, even after everything they had gone through, Lily couldn’t help but feel uneasy about making Nia return to this place.

“There’s no problem.” Nia replied quietly, leading Lily deeper into the cave.

The interior didn’t seem covered in mold despite the mist’s humidity. Lily’s heterochromatic eyes studied the place. The small space stretched only four or five meters forward, showing no traces of campfires or leftover food. With no beacon routes nearby, it made sense that no merchants or travelers had used it—at least not in recent years.

“There doesn’t seem to be any other path. Are you sure this is the right entrance?”

Resting her hand on the wall opposite the entrance, Lily tilted her head while watching her wife in deep thought. With her eyes closed, Nia appeared focused on something.

“I’m scanning with Mana-Location, but there’s really no passage. There’s roughly twenty meters of solid rock separating this part of the cave from the underground.”

In an instant, a portal resembling a starry sky opened before them, flooding the cave with a violet glow.

With a single step, she could enter the labyrinth.

Yet, standing before it, the metamorph couldn’t move forward.

Nia felt her hands turn cold, her step faltering for a moment without carrying her ahead. Her body grew heavy. It was as if the cave walls pressed in around her, and her breath—something she didn’t even need—began to quicken.

That was the place where they had once tried to take her life.

The place where she had been hunted simply for disobeying an order.

Even though she had grown stronger, even though she no longer had to fear what awaited beyond, Nia couldn’t take that step.

And then—

“It’s all right.”

Her body was pulled against something warm.

“I know you’ve grown so much since the last time you were here, my love… but never forget—I’m here with you.” Lily’s gentle voice whispered lovingly into her ear.

As the warmth of her wife’s chest pressed closer against her face, Nia realized Lily had no intention of letting her go.

“Mhn…” A faint sound escaped her lips. With her cheeks softly flushed, the purple-haired girl wrapped her arms even tighter around her wife’s back.

Lily was her safe place.

The one who would always stand beside her, no matter what.

Nia was no longer the same person who had left this place that day, for something far more important than all her magic or innate abilities had happened—something that had changed her forever.

She was no longer alone.

The metamorph felt her face warm and her tense muscles relax as her beloved soothed her.

Carefully, the two girls stepped through the portal together, and on the other side, an enormous, winding dark cave awaited them.

“Mhn… If Lily keeps kissing me… nhm… I won’t be able to focus.”

Yet before she could even pay attention to their surroundings, Nia found herself having to deal with her beloved’s teasing tongue exploring her mouth.

“For now, all you should focus on is feeling good.”

Licking the strand of saliva as if savoring her surprise attack, Lily didn’t waste a second before claiming her wife’s lips again.

As she pulled the girl closer, Lily felt a pleasurable shiver climb up her throat. With an intensity that justified her tiptoed stance, Nia’s hands seized her breasts, her hardened nipples tightening between the girl’s fingers.

Her face deeply flushed, Nia’s crimson eyes—beautiful like jewels—fixed on Lily and nothing else.

Stroking the purple hair of the girl who kept grinding against her violently, Lily made sure her tongue touched every sensitive spot in Nia’s mouth before sliding her knee between her wife’s legs, stimulating her vagina with overwhelming pressure.

“Nhmmmmm!” With her mouth still sealed by the endless kiss, Nia moaned intensely, her back arching uncontrollably.

As her knee was pushed up high enough to leave the metamorph balancing on her toes, the cave echoed with nothing but the wet, rhythmic sounds of their shared saliva.

“Nhm... Nhm...”

Nia felt every part of her body clench as a wave of pleasure shot up her spine and flooded her mind.

All at once, her eyes rolled back—a thick rush of her love-juice gushing from her vagina and splashing recklessly onto the ground.

Without even being allowed to pull away from that delicious tongue, Nia kept squirting, climax after climax crashing through her mind in one powerful, unending orgasm.

“Ah… Aah…”

After long minutes of her sensitive groin being mercilessly stimulated, Nia’s lips fell slack—just enough to let her breathe heavily.

“Now you don’t only have bad memories of this place~”

With a soft smile, Lily helped her wife—still trembling from her climax—settle more comfortably against her body.

“Ah… It’s not fair, Lily…” Nia murmured between moans, her face beet red.

“If you want, we can build more memories.”

Slowly moving a hand into her own panties, Lily touched her drenched vagina while bringing her lips close to her beloved’s ear.

“I’m always ready to receive all your love. So don’t hold back—thrust your thick cock inside me, again and again, until you’ve poured all the hot cum you want into my womb.”

Powerful enough to shatter her mind with ease, the words made Nia shiver. Though she had already climaxed multiple times, hearing her beloved say they could continue right there—for as long as she wanted—was enough to send her excitement and libido soaring back to their peak.

“Nngh… Lily shouldn’t do such things in a dirty place like this… Nn… Lily deserves only the best. Let’s wait until we’re home.”

Nia whispered timidly, only to feel her body swiftly pulled back.

Spinning Nia so her back was pressed against her, Lily embraced her firmly from behind, nestling her between her breasts.

“If you act so romantically like this, honestly…” Being taller, Lily easily brought her lips close to her wife’s ear, nibbling gently as she felt her warm body tremble. “It makes me want to tease you until you can’t take it anymore.”

Sliding her fingers over Nia’s dress, Lily skillfully traced one of the girl’s nipples while squeezing her waist with her other hand.

“Ah… Nhm… Nn… Nyah…”

Biting her lip and using both arms to cling to Lily’s, Nia fought to keep from collapsing to the floor. Waves of pleasure surged through her mind, forcing her tongue to loll out of her mouth.

“Let’s get going~”

Observing how Nia showed no trace of her earlier inner restlessness—now gazing at her with nothing but pure adoration, even in this position—the silver-haired girl couldn’t hide the wide smile spreading across her flushed face.

Carefully, Lily began to walk through the cave. Nia, still held firmly in her embrace, did her best to cope with the throbbing penis and soaked vagina, while her wife’s skillful fingers continued to pleasure her relentlessly.

“Doesn’t look like there are any directional traps, so we’ll probably have to go downward.”

Studying the walls thoughtfully, Lily commented in a measured tone.

The structure resembled the Caligo mines more than any of the labyrinths they had previously explored. The wide, gray stone walls stretched into several parallel tunnels of varying sizes. Since neither the lack of ventilation nor the darkness posed a problem, they could explore the place without much difficulty.

“There aren’t any barriers around here... Nhm... Even with the rocks, I can spread my dark mana to the lower floors. If Lily wants, we can go down now.”

Sending out her dark mana through her mana-location spell to obtain the coordinates of possible paths was becoming easier the more energy she could channel into the technique without worry.

“It’s fine. Let’s check out the lower floors first, and then go see the battlefield you mentioned. Since we already have this labyrinth’s book, we’re just here to explore—there’s no reason to rush.” Pulling her wife closer, Lily whispered the rest of the sentence with a warm breath against her ear. “Besides, if we move too quickly, I won’t have time to tease my beloved wife.”

Taking advantage of each small shiver that ran through her partner’s body as she clung tightly to her, Lily continued walking, scanning the surroundings for anything suspicious.

Finally, after a few minutes, something appeared that set this place apart from a simple cave.

The creature looked like a gray, oval-shaped mass, no more than a meter wide. On what should have been its head, a swollen protrusion was marked by two black eyes.

Like sludge, the monster crawled across the cavern floor, each movement accompanied by a wet, twisting sound—like an old rag being wrung out.

“A gray octopus.”

Nia murmured, and Lily tilted her head, but before she could ask, several gray tentacles began to emerge from the slimy surface, shooting toward the girls.

“Is that the name?” She asked while watching her wife. The tentacles crashed violently against the barrier surrounding them, producing heavy, muffled impacts.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Nia admitted. “But that’s what I decided to name it based on its appearance. The concept of octopuses and marine creatures was among the knowledge stored in the Book of Truth, so my mind connected the two.”

Speaking as clearly as she could, despite still standing on her toes and flushed from the lingering warmth against her body, Nia formed a single purple tentacle and sent it toward the creature.

Sensing danger, the gray octopus tried to evade, but it was quickly outsped. Its slippery, boneless body was caught and crushed with increasing force until it collapsed into a purplish puddle on the ground.

“I remember that when some rodents got into the cave through small cracks, the order commanded us to kill them. Monsters of different species don’t tend to fight well in groups, and one of these octopuses ended up injured. I devoured them, and after gaining a mind, its innate ability naturally became mine.”

Extending a purple tentacle gently to the side of her wife’s face to demonstrate the first innate ability she had ever acquired, Nia trembled when the young woman, without hesitation, pressed a long, tender kiss onto the gelatinous limb.

“So that’s where your love for tight hugs began, huh?” Lily teased, smiling as she felt every one of Nia’s tentacles tighten and warm around her.

Whether beneath her breasts, between her thighs, around her waist, or brushing her skin elsewhere, there was always a purple tentacle of her beloved pressing softly against her. Those warm, pliable limbs—gentle enough to make her smile without realizing—were a part of Nia that Lily truly loved.

“Mhn... It’s just that I love being close to Lily... and feeling Lily...” Nia whispered shyly, her flushed face hidden between her wife’s arms. “I love Lily…”

Ever since they had lived together in the village, Lily had noticed how much Nia cherished physical closeness. Having grown up in a harsh environment devoid of empathy or bonds, it was only natural that the metamorph had grown so deeply attached to that kind of affection.

”I love feeling you too, my love. You can stay as close to me as you want.”

Making sure Nia was safe in her embrace, Lily turned her gaze toward the dozens of gray squids that approached while she spoke.

Pulling the staff from her waist and extending it forward, a bluish glow filled the cave as a black wolf appeared.

“It won’t be safe to use you to cast spells in such a narrow place, so you can hunt whatever shows up in front of us, Akasha.”

Even though her order was simple, Lily couldn’t help but smile awkwardly as the black wolf’s tail wagged excitedly from side to side.

Swiftly, the fairy whose very purpose was destruction dashed through the groups of monsters, followed closely by several black ice crystals from the purple-haired girl.

With Akasha and Nia clearing out the approaching creatures, Lily truly didn’t have to do anything.

She didn’t really feel she’d reached the stage of pregnancy where her movements would be affected, so she didn’t think there’d be any problem unsheathing her swords and fighting too—but neither of her companions seemed willing to allow that.

“Lily doesn’t need to dirty her hands with this trash,” Nia stated bluntly, resting her head on her wife’s chest while continuing to attack the gray squids.

Unlike Rhei’s labyrinth, which was filled with riddles and puzzles, or Nox’s, where rooms constantly shifted, this one seemed focused solely on facing hordes of enemies.

Given their current offensive power, it took only a few minutes to cross the first floor.

However, when they finally reached a staircase of carved bricks that stood out against the rocky walls, for the first time that day, Lily’s expression twisted slightly.

“Metamorphs, huh...”

Moving across the ground in large groups, numerous colorless spheres no more than thirty centimeters in diameter began to approach.

With an innate ability to absorb the traits of whatever they devoured, these creatures had a natural urge to consume. Yet, with the labyrinth being a sealed space devoid of weaker animals or monsters, it was nearly impossible for any of them to grow stronger.

For a moment, Lily felt her wife’s timid gaze fix on her—a faint unease surfacing in her expression.

“They’re nothing like you, Nia.”

An intense blue light burst forth as countless ice crystals spread across the rocky floor, turning the cave into a frozen field within seconds. In the blink of an eye, every metamorph but one, was frozen in place, their bodies turned into icy statues.

“I love you, Nia, and my heart belongs only to you—never worry about that.” Pulling Nia close and planting soft kisses on her neck, Lily didn’t stop until a radiant smile appeared on her wife’s face. “And of course, that includes the beautiful baby you placed inside me.”

The last part made the metamorph’s cheeks burn even redder, using both of Lily’s arms as hiding spots for her face.

She loved Nia as her wife and only her. No other metamorph interested her, and no matter how similar they seemed, she was certain that Nia was completely different from them. Lily was absolutely certain she would recognize Nia even if a thousand metamorphs stood before her.

Swaying side to side as she felt Lily continue to pamper her, Nia couldn’t help but feel joy filling her mind.

Pushing Lily’s arms away from her face just enough and fixing her gaze on Akasha, who howled gleefully while smashing the frozen metamorphs, Nia began imagining what she would make fairy do later.

Without any difficulty, the group made their way toward the stairs leading to the second floor.

“You’ve never been here before, Nia?” Lily asked as they descended.

“I remember never taking this path. Maybe it was my instinct telling me it was dangerous, but there was a bigger reason why I couldn’t go.”

The metamorph didn’t need to elaborate, for as soon as they descended a few more steps, the girls stopped moving forward. Not because the cave ahead was colossal, nor because of the unpleasant smell of mud and mold clinging to the walls, but because of the vast darkness that filled their eyes, even in that dim light.

“The whole floor is flooded…” Lily whispered.

Starting from the last step of the staircase and extending to a depth that the silver-haired girl couldn’t even estimate, there was an underground lake that seemed to sink into the very bowels of the earth.

“The exit is down there.” Pointing toward the depths of the subterranean lake, Nia stared into the dark water with a cold gaze. “I can sense multiple monsters along the way.”

Calling Akasha back to its staff form, Lily adjusted the fairy at her waist before beginning to wade into the water, Nia still clinging firmly to her.

Although this was something that could have blocked most intruders, despite the initial surprise, it was not something that could hinder the girls. As they walked into the water, a transparent spherical layer pushed all the liquid aside, never allowing a single drop to reach them.

“The purpose of this place really does seem to be testing the strength and endurance of anyone who enters here,” Lily said with a breath, staring into the darkness ahead.

With fins that never stopped moving cutting through the icy water, massive three-meter-long sharks displayed rows of triangular teeth on their flattened heads. Their bodies, covered in overlapping and irregular plates resembling dark gray shells, looked like colossal armor.

“It’s the same type of oyster shark they have in the Caligo lake.” Nia said.

Acting as guards for the connecting bridge, the monsters, meant to prevent escape from the mist-covered territory via the water, advanced toward the girls in a group of more than fifty, their thirst for blood intense.

“I thought I could gather valuable data by seeing how the barrier would react to attacks from monsters, with the difference in internal and external pressure due to the water pressing, but this is really disappointing…” Nia said, watching indifferently as the various oyster sharks bit uselessly at the sphere, letting out a sigh of disappointment.

Nia realized that valuable knowledge meals like the Twilight weren’t something she could obtain easily.

In the air before her, exactly fifty small portals no larger than a fist appeared. In front of each, an ice crystal of the same size materialized.

Gaining torque as they rotated on their next axis, each crystal spun so rapidly that it glowed even brighter. The slate-colored shine intensified as they vibrated, forming a hum in the air.

Watching her wife work with a smile on her face, Lily couldn’t help but get excited. If Akasha could cause massive destruction with ease, Nia would always opt for precision.

In a single second, each crystal fired, and the next instant, the lake was stained purple. With millimeter precision, each oyster shark received a single, perfect fatal wound.

“Aren’t you going to absorb them?” Lily asked.

“I’ve already absorbed some in Caligo. They are monsters capable of high mobility in water, altering the flow around them to manipulate friction. I’ve been applying this innate ability in submerged situations for some time now.”

Without even casting a second glance at the dead monsters, Nia snuggled back into her wife with a smile on her face.