Chapter 0085: Whispers (2/4)

"I know…" Mai caresses Masashi's cheek lovingly, "I'm the same."

"…What do you want to do after the dungeons are done with?" After a while of comfortable silence, Mai asks Masashi.

"I don't know. Fight that fake god?"

"After that dummy~ And didn't you say you weren't gonna."

"Well… It depends on the circumstances honestly. The three of us are directly in the guy's crosshairs. Hajime isn't even a priority for him since we're the real anomaly. He didn't summon us, we took the vessel that he wants and we killed his apostle the worst part is that we're completely hidden from his divine gaze or whatever that bullshit is. Saying that the guy is pissed at us is an understatement."

"…Touche. But still, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. What do we do after all that? We've got 10 years. I don't wanna go home after a year of vacation. I'm enjoying this new place. There's so much to explore."

"Wanna try kingdom building? We'll take over that other Hoelscher Empire that's the second major kingdom and start managing it ourselves. I think it'll be fun to be king and queen. And Yue can be a princess again."

"…Really? Fine, I guess I was expecting something more unique though. What do you say, Yue?" Mai finally calls out to Yue since she's been awake for a while but was only pretending to be asleep.

"What's the vessel you're talking about?" Yue's first question is unexpected for both Mai and Masashi.

Yue asked that because she had a hunch about the 'vessel' they were talking about. It brought out a part of her repressed memories that had all but disappeared after the centuries that she was stuck in the abyss.

'The vessel cannot be left.'

'He will become unstoppable if he takes the vessel.'

'He must never receive the vessel even at the cost of our existence.'

'I will get rid of the vessel.'

'I will trust you. No one must ever find the vessel. No one…'

"-about it, Yue. Yue… YUE!" Yue was lost in her vague memories of this 'vessel'.

"Huh, what?" Yue snaps out of her reverie.

"I said that I'm not sure if you're not ready to listen about the vessel right now."

"Why?"

"It has a lot to do with the vampires being exterminated and everything that happened after you got sealed," Masashi answers vaguely since he still didn't know if his plot information about her uncle was accurate. He didn't want to tell Yue anything without being sure that it was correct.

Masashi's words checked out with what she just remembered about the vessel so Yue decides that it doesn't matter anymore. She'd already moved on from the fact that her race was extinct and she was the last of the vampires.

"You will tell me later." Yue orders Masashi.

"As you say your highness the princess." Masashi lightly rubbed her hair.

"Are you okay now Yue?" Mai asks Yue in a concerned tone.

"Mmm, better, I'm not mad at you two anymore."

"Why would you be mad at us?" Masashi is baffled.

"You don't know?" This time it's Yue's turn to be baffled at Masashi's ignorance. Even Mai looked at him as if he was a rare animal.

"We've been exposing you to our displays of affection for the better part of 7 months. I thought that you were used to it. Hell, there have been times that you've slept in my and Mai's fluids when we were too lazy to clean up."

"What!!?" Yue jumps off Masashi's lap and looks at him as if she were a cat and he stepped on his tail.

She even hisses at him.

Yue turns to Mai with an accusatory look on her face.

Mai looks down guiltily.

A few awkward seconds later Yue calms down, "You motherfucker."

Yue blasts a lightning dragon at Masashi, also targetting Mai who is still sitting on his lap.

Masashi jumped away from its path with Mai in his arms.

"Yue!"

"Shut it!" Yue casts another lightning dragon and throws it at Masashi within an instant as the first one circles around to follow him.

Masashi dodged again and tried to reason with Yue.

"Yue listen-"

"Go fuck yourself." Followed by another dragon and this one's made of fire.

Masashi keeps dodging and trying to reason with Yue but to no avail. Every time he tries to say something she just blasts him with another elemental dragon.

Mai on the other hand was just enjoying the situation like a spectator even though she was equally to blame as Masashi.

She enjoyed Masashi's misery as he kept dodging Yue's dragons with her in tow.

"Go get him, Yue. I believe in you!" At some point, Mai even started cheering Yue on.

"You're also going to get blasted if she hits me, you know." Masashi dodges the attack of 15 dragons as Yue summons a 16th before finally running out of juice.

"Haahh~ Hah~" Yue is panting as if her mana was overexerted after only a few elemental dragons which confused her a little.

Finally, Masashi got some respite as every single one of the dragons disappeared as if they never existed.

"You calm now, Yue?" After dispelling Yue's dragons Masashi threw Mai on the couch before kneeling in front of a tired Yue who was sitting on the ground.

"Yeah… What happened with my mana?"

"You remember this?" Masashi put up his wrist and showed Yue his cuff that was connected to Mai and Yue both.

"Yeah."

"I slowly sapped out more of your mana through these as you cast the spells. This place is my world, I get privileges. You couldn't use fluid magic since I blocked all the mana in the environment. Had to get you tired somehow."

"I hate you." Yue looks away.

"Come here." Masashi picks her up like a kid from under her armpits and puts her down on the couch.

"How is nothing in the house damaged? I didn't hold back at all with my spells." Yue looks around and notices the house looks the same except for a few tripped-over objects on the ground.

"You're underestimating me. I made everything with the strongest metal possible while enchanting it all to be extremely good at defending. I wasn't going to spend my time repairing the place, was I?"

Masashi has a proud look on his face.

Yue rolls her eyes at him.

After a few minutes of silence later Mai gently asks Yue, "Yue, do you want to tell us what got to you so much from the whispers."

"Sigh… I know it's not true but hearing something, again and again, gets you to doubt anything. I kept hearing things as you'd leave me, I'd be trapped in the abyss again, I'd be betrayed again. Before I knew it the whispers started getting to me. I kept recalling the feelings that I had back when I was stuck within that rock. That loneliness. That desolation. It was devastating." Mai holds Yue's hand for comfort while sitting on one side and Masashi holds her other hand, sitting on her other side.

Yue felt that they were trying to comfort her and acknowledged their efforts with a grateful nod before continuing, "All of that was easy to deal with, but after that, the whispers started getting personal. Things that I usually think about. I know what to expect from you guys but that doesn't mean that it hurts any less. I thought I'd gotten used to it after the first month in Orcus but apparently, I didn't. Or at least the whispers resurfaced it."

"Haven't you thought that you'd ever want to move on and find someone to spend your life with for eternity?"

"I already found two of those someones." Yue smiles beautifully and tighten's her hold on both Masashi's and Mai's hands.

Masashi smiles lightly and acknowledges Yue's words.

"All right give me back your bracelets, I have to add some enchantments that'll be useful."

Mai and Yue took off the cuffs and handed them to him.

Masashi spent a while tinkering with them.

"All right, I'm done. Let's get back to the whispers."

"That doesn't sound like something you should look forward to."