Chapter 1
Thanks for the Ko-fi, Marleeze
༼ つ ◕‿◕ ༽つ
Vivian stared blankly at her hand.
She hadn’t completely believed Gray’s solution of having sēx with Roger, but there was no other way, so she had hung on desperately, and fortunately, it was the right choice.
“Roger, I think…”
With a concerned expression, Vivian looked at him and said hesitantly.
“My power is returning.”
Roger, who had been worrying that the intense lovemaking would exhaust her even more, widened his eyes.
“Really?”
At his surprised response, Vivian nodded with a bright smile.
As her lower eyelids, still tinged with red, fluttered strangely, Roger felt his desires reigniting but fought to ignore them. He hastily put on the trousers he had thrown aside, buttoned his shirt without fully fastening it, and left the room.
While he was gone, Vivian lay still, feeling her strength gradually returning along with the afterglow of their lovemaking. But unable to bear the tension and anxiety that came with wondering if her strength had truly returned, she slowly sat up.
Vivian gazed quietly around the space. Being underground, or more precisely, connected to the earth, there should have been some changes if her magical power had returned.
After a while, in a corner that had been completely still, something began to emerge. An alien green light seeped through a narrow crack in the dark brown wall, and at its apex, a pure white flower blossomed.
Confirming it with her own eyes, she finally felt relieved that her power had returned.
“Vivian.”
At that moment, Roger knelt beside her. He held a towel in his hand.
“I’ll wipe you down, so stay still.”
Vivian hesitated as she watched him spread her legs wide. But Roger firmly held her legs in place and began to wipe the inside of her thighs with the towel.
Unable to escape his touch, Vivian covered her face with both hands, overwhelmed by embarrassment. Her face, which she couldn’t hide in time, turned excessively red. As Roger concentrated on wiping her damp lower region, he looked up at her and chuckled.
“Why are you so embarrassed when I’ve seen everything anyway?”
His words brought back memories of when she had trembled under him. Her heart raced wildly then, and now, she truly realized that she had become one with Roger.
In contrast to herself, who was filled with unfamiliar sensations, he was incredibly composed. For some reason, that made her feel oddly resentful, so Vivian glanced at him through her fingers. In doing so, she accidentally discovered a bulge in his trousers that felt ominous.
“Roger…”
Vivian called him in a trembling voice, as if she had seen something truly terrifying.
“Are you still… not satisfied?”
Her eyes betrayed a hint of disbelief. As Roger moved his hand from her thighs to her slender calves, he glanced at her. He chuckled when he realized where Vivian’s gaze was directed.
“Why are you asking something so obvious?”
His voice, spoken as if he had no intention of delving deeper into the matter at hand, was strangely calm given the arousing topic at hand.
To avoid provoking Roger further, Vivian tried to stay as still as possible. This allowed Roger to easily wipe her body, damp with sweat.
After finishing the task, Roger removed the towel from her body. Just as she was relieved that he had finished without arousing any further desires, his large hand suddenly approached her neck and gently bent it back.
“Ugh!”
Their lips met instantly. Perhaps he never intended to go too deep in the first place, as he quickly found her tongue and intertwined it with his own before withdrawing. But even in that brief moment, the impact was more intense than any kiss.
“Given the current situation, there’s no helping it.”
As their eyes met, she noticed his gaze was closer to lust than tenderness, and a thrilling shiver ran down her spine.
“Don’t look next time.”
Heat radiated from his palm, which was still wrapped around her neck. Roger lightly pressed his forehead against hers and then rose to his feet. He began to straighten his disheveled clothing.
As he left the room to join the others, Vivian hurriedly got up and picked up the dress that had been on the floor. In the past, she would never have considered wearing a dress covered in dust and sand, but now was not the time to worry about such things.
“Are you ready to go?”
Roger, already armed and holding a sword, glanced at Vivian. She responded with a look that asked why he was asking something so obvious. Her waist was still sore, and her limbs tingled from their recent lovemaking, but now that she had regained her strength, there was no room for frivolous behavior.
“…Is your strength really back?”
He asked with a hint of doubt on his face. While in the past, he had adamantly warned against it, this time he merely asked the question. Vivian, who had confirmed her return of strength moments ago by witnessing the blooming flower in the corner, nodded.
“Then let’s go.”
Vivian, following Roger, suddenly felt a sense of emptiness. Soon, she realized that the absence of the sword, which had been hanging from her waist, had struck her.
Clearly, Enka had taken the sword at Roger’s instruction earlier, but…
“What’s wrong?”
As Vivian stood in place, turning her head around, Roger, who had been walking ahead, stopped as well.
“The sword, where is it?”
“The sword?”
“The one you gave me. I saw you carrying it earlier.”
The sword that Enka had in her hand had been passed to Roger when they entered this place. So someone must know the location of the sword.
Roger let out a brief sigh and resumed walking. He headed towards the room where Vivian had received healing magic from Camilla. The slender sword he had taken with him was neatly placed against the wall inside the scabbard.
Vivian tucked the scabbard back into her belt as she had done when leaving the mansion.
“There won’t be any use for this now, right?”
Roger, who had been observing her actions with a clenched fist, tilted his head in confusion. It seemed odd to him that Vivian was carrying a sword when she now had access to spirit magic.
Vivian herself couldn’t explain why she was taking it. If she had spirit magic as Roger claimed, she wouldn’t need the sword, but for some reason, it felt like she should take it.
“I probably won’t use it, but… I still want to bring it.”
Roger gave her a strange look before nodding, as if to say she could do as she pleased.
After this exchange, the two hurriedly made their way to the entrance of the hideout. This entrance was not the same as the one they used when they came in; it led into the forest. Roger had informed Vivian of its location at some point
As they hurriedly ascended the stairs and emerged, the sky above was so pitch-black that not even the stars could be seen. Fortunately, the rain had stopped. However, unlike the quiet night sky, their surroundings were extremely noisy. The cacophonous sounds of monsters echoed continuously from various places, which reminded Vivian of the chaos she had experienced when traversing the village alone. The situation here in the forest was completely different from the sporadic appearances of beasts in the quiet village streets.
“Commander, why are you only coming out now?”
At that moment, along with the piercing sound of nails scraping against the rock, someone leaped down from above. The person, disheveled and breathless, was none other than Ben. He looked to be in a sorry state, possibly because he was dealing with the gathering monsters.
“What’s the situation?”
Without a word of apology, Roger scanned the area. Ben sighed deeply and quickly explained. Ultimately, there was no progress. The rifts were forming rapidly, keeping pace with Gray’s efforts to destroy them, and the monsters were increasing at a crazy rate.
“Where’s Master?”
Ben, shrouded in darkness, hadn’t noticed Vivian, who was barely visible.
“Young Lady? Why are you here?”
“It’s a long story. But where’s Master?”
Anxious that Gray had come all the way here and was facing difficulties, Vivian’s impatience grew. Ben pointed somewhere.
At that moment, a powerful explosion occurred in the direction he indicated. It was a pillar of fire, swirling in place like a sandstorm, and it announced its presence with a ferocious roar.
Vivian had an instinctual feeling that Gray was there, but she couldn’t recklessly check it out. The place where the pillar of fire had appeared was quite far from where she stood, and in between were countless monsters that were terrifying just to look at.
“It won’t be enough to simply eliminate the rifts.”
Vivian thought about binding the monsters she saw running toward her with tendrils she could summon from the ground. Suddenly, she recalled a conversation she had overheard in the mansion library.
-Is there any way the Eckhart Order can defeat the relentless increasing number of demons, no matter how hard they try? Even if we manage to hold our ground for now, in time, we’ll eventually be at a disadvantage. There might even be casualties. The Royal Knights must wait for the right moment and seize the opportunity when the Eckhart Order weakens to eliminate them all.
Marquis Dinus spoke as if he knew that such an event would happen in the western lands. The countless ruptures that had occurred overnight were undoubtedly their doing.
“Roger!”
Vivian called out to Roger, who was methodically dispatching the bound demons one by one. With a clean swipe of his hand, he plunged his sword into the demon’s forehead and then withdrew it. Roger turned to look at her.
“Let’s head to the mansion.”
“The mansion?”
“These rifts, they must be the work of those who came to the mansion. So, if we take care of them, the rifts might disappear.”
After neatly dealing with the demon running toward her, she called out to Ben, who stood opposite to them.
“Ben! The Lady and I will go to the mansion.”
“Are you sure it’s okay for just the two of you to go?”
Ben asked in a loud voice, swinging his sword without pause. However, the situation here was so urgent that taking another knight with them seemed impractical. Realizing this, when Roger replied with a ‘yes,’ Ben nodded in agreement.
Roger turned and walked with Vivian. Their steps quickened with each noise from behind as they headed towards the mansion.
***
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