Orders to the end

Knelt by the lakes edge not an hours walk from the headquarters, Parc leaned forwards. Letting the still water reflect his visage in the midday sun. His gaze locked upon his two crimson irises. A hand lifted pulling his cheek down, widening his eyelid, making more of it visible.

Since he'd inadvertently sent Eris on a sexual rampage a week ago, he'd been coming out here to see if he could at all bring about the bloody glow he recalled appeared whenever it happened. His attempts coming to failure no matter how long he strained his eyes or tried to cross them.

It was strange to him, the times it happened he didn't notice anything. Yet still it happened. It was like some part of him was hidden to his mind and was slowly leaking out. Drip, by drip. He knew where it was coming from, his demonic lineage, that much was obvious. But why? Now that was a question, he wanted answers to.

Why now, in just these past few weeks was he having these strange waking episodes. He'd been in this world for over a year and a half by this point and only now was he discovering new things about himself.

Lowering his hand down, Parc straightened himself, bringing himself to his feet. Head glancing every which way over the lake and its little waterfall in the distance. Searching for any signs of danger that may try to ambush him while he took a dip.

Finding himself safe, Parc unbuttoned his vest and threw it to the side along side his pants, leaving him with only a pair of underwear to keep his endowment hidden from the world. Bringing his left foot into the water, he shivered, finding it was particularly chilly today.

'It's getting to winter after all,' he thought bringing himself deeper into the waters, right until he was up to his waist where he then began to drag his hands through the waters. It wasn't uncomfortable, quite the opposite. Compared to a slumbering Esdeath who's control over her own aura went haywire this was quite pleasant.

Holding a deep breath within his lungs, Parc brought his hands together, lightly pushing off the muddy bottom and dove into the water. Legs kicking in quick vertical motions, sending him gliding through the clear blue depths. Eyes just barely open enough to catch a sight of a hellbender in the distance and quite a few river tuna doing swimming around.

'When's the last time I went for a swim?' he pondered flapping his arms to keep him suspended at the center of the lake. Bathed in the shimmer of the sun beaming through his watery surroundings. Forming a beautiful sight of browns and bright greens of the aquatic flora and glimmer of the fishes scales as they passed by particularly bright spots of sunrays.

'was it when me and Akame hunted those hellbenders? I think so… gods, how long ago was that?' feeling his reserves of oxygen running low, Parc flapped his arms, sending him gliding towards the surface. Head piercing through not moments later alongside a gasp as he released his held breath.

'Months, at least,' he thought letting his body be taken with buoyancy, his body coming to lie flat bobbing between being in and out of the water. It was a strange thought to him, the fact that he'd taken to this world like a fish to water.

He wasn't a murderer, not two years prior, not even three nor four. Yes, he'd been gifted daggers from his mother when he was young and taught the bare minimum of using them. But that was only ever for self-defence. Never for what he had been using them for. Murder.

And yet, here he was, hands caked in blood practically pulling the chains of the dam that would soon drown an entire empire in turmoil. How terrifying a thought that was. A half-bred boy deemed unworthy of existing by his very family now becoming a pivotal piece in a game of war. Days away from unleashing his queen to the checkmated king.

And that just meant his time was growing ever nearer to ending here. He was half done with his main objectives with the last soon to come. Pulling up the usual glimmering screen he had long become accustomed to, Parc dragged his gaze down to one quest in particular.

[Concubines: 10/8]

He hadn't thought of it at the time when he'd taken Sayo. He'd seen the completion screen flash up but had put it to the back of his mind at the time. To busy with coddling Sayo into slumber to even care. Only for him to discover the marker had already ticked up past its completion point of 8 and onto 10 with Maya and Eris.

It lifted a small weight from his shoulders now that he needn't put much thought onto selecting his future muses. Instead allowing him to focus on the more important and wholly more fun part of actually conquering them.

'Wonder what's going to happen after this…' would he simply be flung off back home and await being tossed to a new world out of nowhere like he had at the beginning of his adventures in this world?

He doubted as much with one of the rewards on his mind somewhat answering it for him. The 'Pleasure Hub' the reward went. What it was, he could only guess but what he could surmise it was a hub and had to do with pleasure. And considering hubs tend to be where numerous people go through, it sounded like some type of intermediary between worlds.

Landing his gaze upon the writing beneath the quests denoting the rewards for completing them, Parc began to hum.

[Main Objective Rewards]

--[Blood of the Conqueror] [Pleasure Hub Access: Initiate]

[Secondary Objective Rewards]

--[1000 CD]

[Hidden Objective Rewards]

--[Bone of Icarus]

His main points of interest being the Conquerors blood and the Icarus bone. Two seemingly artifact sounding objects he'd just up and be granted the moment he conquered Najenda. Both of which he could only hope would be useful to him.

The blood most likely dealt with the system in some form or function. What that was he could only wait until he got Najenda under his nail to figure out.

Now the bone, that simply confused him. It had a haughty origin of supposedly being from Icarus, the idiot angel who decided to go sunbathing a few centimeters away from the sun. To predictable, and surprisingly survivable results leaving him only brutally maimed and wingless. Exactly what a bone would do for him, and why it was a hidden reward was a curious thought. But he wasn't going to let it bother him for long. Whatever it did he'd be seeing soon… very, soon.

"If you throw that stone at me, I'll be skipping the wait and getting right to the taming, Najenda." Parc said as he floated atop the lake. Eyes tilted to the bank of the lake where a suit clad Najenda was tossing a head sized rock up and catching it as it came down. Looking mighty ready to hurl it right at Parc.

"Hoo," Najenda whistled amusedly, "you want to tame me now? Cute. But I'm not Leone, you can't just get me with a chair and a whip. Though I'm sure she'd love that," Najenda chuckled, beginning to wander down the bank of the lake, following Parc as he drifted with the soft currents.

"Surprisingly, she's not as much a fan of pain as you'd think," Parc responded, "she's not completely averse to it, but its not one of her kinks. She much prefers messing with the other girls and watching them fall to orgasmic bliss." He shut his eyes, letting his body simply be within the water. "And getting it up the ass. Should have seen her, had her twitching for hours." His lips quirked and a soft laughter escaped him.

"Right," Najenda muttered, her trailing word bolstered by the metallic clunking of stone against metal accentuating it. "Sorry, but I ain't someone into being watched, or 'getting it up the ass' as you put it. I'd rather keep that… hole… for its intended use."

"Dawww, and here I was. Having bought a brand new bottle of anal lube just for you," Parc flapped his arms, halting his drift and letting his body return to the depths of the water right by a small rock outcropping which Najenda had found herself kneeling atop, staring down at Parc. Her head shaped stone now held still in her prosthetic hand.

Taking his offhanded comments with a flare of her brows and roll of her eyes, she began to speak, "After speaking with Esdeath, I sent a message to the R.A HQ explaining everything. They just got back to me a few hours ago with orders."

"Oh really?" he grinned, "and what do they say?"

"The war has officially begun." She said, "the path of peace has been informed and have agreed to speed up their insurrection along with the clans to the west. All forces will arrive at the capital in four days. We've been assigned the honour of taking out Honest himself while the war rages outside the palace."

Parc nodded along with her words, "sounds great. Any specific orders I should know about?"

"Yes, you and Esdeath will be front lining the Palace assault. We and the Jaegers will be acting as the wave breaker force keeping the palace guards in check while you and Esdeath make your way to Honest. Esdeath herself will be dealing with whatever Honest may try to throw your way. I want you to focus on gutting the fat bastard."

"I can do just that," he replied, "but, that's not all I'm going to do."

Najenda frowned, raising a brow at him.

"I want to kill the little Emperor as well."

Her eye widened, lips parting in surprise. Soon falling back to a neutral smirk. "That's fine by me. The R.A will be disappointed they couldn't put a show of it up for the public but there shouldn't be any problems if we got rid of him now rather than later."

"Great." Both went silent, staring at eachother. Parc with a wide grin and Najenda with an increasingly grimmer frown on her lips. Picking up a soft glint on Parc's left hand of his gauntlet shimmering in the sunlight. A single metal chain extending into the depths of the lake. A fact that sent an ominous chill down her spine.

"Why do you have your Teigu activated?" she asked raising to her feet.

Parc's grin parted into a toothy smile as a sharpened spear shot from the waters depths towards Najenda who jumped and raised her arm up to defend herself. Only to find her wrist wrapped in a taughtly pulled chain. "Cause I feel like it."