Llewellyn blinked, like he'd only just noticed too.
"Ryo is right," he said. "And the answer to that question is no, at least while you keep crossing our paths and disrupting our plans. What were you doing?"
"I was trying to make one from scratch," Gilded said, annoyed. "Happy now?"
"One? You mean a Dungeon?!" I said. "From scratch?"
"Yes," he said. "Instead of getting a random Dungeon, trying to figure out what's in it, and modifying it in layers, I figured out where a new Dungeon was likely to show up and tried modifying it before it appeared, so it already followed my specs."
Huh.
Well, damn. That was kind of incredible.
"And you can do that?" Llewellyn asked, also looking impressed despite himself.
"Who knows," Gilded said with a yawn. "I miscalculated the amount of crystals needed and got trapped there myself. I have enough crystals now, obviously, but the Dungeon might have materialized already." He sighed. "I'll go back tomorrow and check. I'm too tired now."
…Uh. Maybe we should go with him when he did?
But right now I didn't have the energy to even think about it.
I put my hand on Llewellyn's shoulder. "Let's go home," I said. "Before we get a new emergency alert."
Llewellyn turned to look at me and relaxed a bit.
"Yeah," he said.
"Gléonwon!" I called. "We'll be back tomorrow. Do not show Gilded the books without us!"
"Okay!" Gléonwon called back. "See you soon!"
Gilded narrowed his eyes at us but seemed too tired to protest.
"Whatever," he said. "I can't deal with you at this hour. Goodbye!"
And teleported away.
Well.
Penguin chirped.
"I know," I told him. "We're going too."
We teleported too—except that the System teleported us directly into Llewellyn's shower.
"..."
Llewellyn snorted.
"Don't move," he said. "Let me get Lumos back so Penguin has company and I'll join you again."
Well, fine by me.
"Happy to see Lumos?" I told Penguin.
Penguin chirped and jumped out of my pocket, scampering off after Llewellyn.
I grinned and got my clothes off, starting the shower.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
I woke up to Llewellyn's arm around my waist.
"Morning," he said against my neck.
Uh.
My brain took a moment to catch up. Sunlight filtered through the curtains. We'd crashed immediately after getting into bed last night, and judging by how rested I felt, we'd slept well past noon.
"What time is it?" I mumbled.
"I'm not sure," Llewellyn said. "Does it matter?"
He was right. It didn't.
His mouth found a spot just below my ear.
"Good?"
As if he didn't know.
I rolled over to face him.
"…"
Damn.
Sometimes I forgot how affected I was. His bed hair was particularly devastating.
"We should probably check on Gilded's Dungeon experiment," I said. "Before we go and check the books."
"Later," Llewellyn said, kissing down my throat. "Much later."
Uh.
I tugged his pajama bottoms down.
"Careful," Llewellyn said, voice rough. "Or we'll never leave this bed."
"Is that supposed to be a threat?"
Llewellyn's answer was to roll me onto my back.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Then buzzed again.
We both ignored it.
It kept buzzing.
I reached over and grabbed the phone, squinting at the screen. "No, it's... Gilded?"
"I will murder him," Llewellyn said, dropping his forehead on my sternum. "What does he want?"
I blinked, read the rest of the text, then turned the phone to Llewellyn.
"He's back in the cave?!" Llewellyn said. "Didn't we say we'd go back together?!"
"He said he didn't go," I explained. "Look." I scrolled back up.
On screen, Gilded had sent two things. One, a picture of the cave we were in yesterday, and two… a picture of a tattoo on his wrist. A dragon.
"Caerwyn," Llewellyn and I both said, at the same time.
In the text below, Gilded said he'd gone to sleep and woke up when he found himself teleported back into the cave.
Llewellyn, who'd been on top of me, collapsed on my right, staring at the pictures.
"Can't you get to the exit yourself?" he typed.
"Was that Llewellyn?" Gilded replied a second later. I snorted. "And no, as soon as I leave, it teleports me back here!"
I frowned. I took the phone from Llewellyn and typed, "Do you think that's Caerwyn's doing?"
Gilded started typing, but a second later he seemed to have given up, because my phone started ringing.
"Look," he said, as soon as I put him on speaker. "I don't know what the hell is going on and I don't like it either! I think it either wants us to open that door or to explore the section we left unexplored yesterday."
"He wants you to do it," Llewellyn said. "What's that to do with us?"
"Ugh!" Gilded said. "Are you just going to leave me here? I can't leave! I'm in my pajamas! And this place is creepy by myself!"
I sighed.
"Fine," I said. "Give us time to get dressed."
There was a pause.
"That was too much information, which I didn't need!"
"Then stop interrupting us!" Llewellyn said, annoyed. "We'll be there soon. Ish. I need a coffee first."
"Hey," Gilded said. "Bring one to me too, I didn't even have a chance to h—"
Llewellyn hung up.
I sighed. "System," I said. "Can you send Gléonwon to Gilded? He can enter from the exit we found yesterday, right?"
[System Notification: Affirmative.]
Llewellyn scoffed and got up, looking for some clothes. "Just leave him there alone."
"I'm more concerned about what it means that he has Caerwyn's mark," I said. "Didn't the book say that means Caerwyn has chosen him or something?"
"I don't think it's much different than us meeting Éisne," Llewellyn said. "The question is, Éisne had coalesced, Caerwyn hasn't. Why?"
Huh, he had a point.
And besides, why Gilded? We'd been there too and had no tattoos or marks or any of the sort.
I checked myself.
"Neither do I," Llewellyn confirmed.
I scratched my head.
"Isn't it also weird?" I said. "Dragon statues aside, all we saw yesterday was proof that Yoon Juhyung had been there, but not much about Caerwyn himself."
Llewellyn sighed.
"Coffee first," he said. "Then we can decide what to do."