Returning to the Dungeon
The short meeting ended.
Ein and Sophia parted ways at the stairs as they headed to each of their rooms. Ein, Nayta, and Melina were out of guard duty that night, so they could sleep early to prepare for their departure in the morning.
"I'm against that man coming to our home!" Melina shouted inside the room. "We should exclude the members of the Church of Purity from this!"
She was still seething with anger at Sir Gawain. Although she was cute even when angry, Ein still tried to smooth out the situation.
"We can't. Although the Church of Purity probably sent those Paladins to keep us in check, since they have permission to join from Count Auxburn, we can't just drive them off for no reason," Ein said while shrugging his shoulders.
"And I don't plan to let them shed blood in my territory anyways." Saying this last piece, the air around Ein suddenly turned cold. Nayta, who was near Ein, shuddered from feeling his cold hostility.
"Anyway, from the moment I decided to accept the trade, I was prepared to protect everyone within my territory. Nobody is going to get injured, let alone die, in my dungeon."
"..."
When Melina saw how determined Ein was, she realized that she was just speaking out of anger. She quickly calmed down and sat on the side of her bed. It was a secret that her heart skipped a beat upon seeing Ein's serious expression.
Nayta, on the other hand, felt worried for Ein instead. She knew that Ein was still dragging on the deaths of his three wolves. His cold killing intent earlier was surely due to him remembering the scene of their deaths. It had been many days ago, but their shadow was obviously still lingering inside Ein's mind.
'I wish to help lighten his burden, but I'm too powerless to do anything.' Nayta thought as she sighed.
"We're leaving early tomorrow. You two should sleep early today too." Ein said as he tucked under his blanket, pretending to sleep while facing his back towards them.
Nayta and Melina looked at each other before doing the same. Soon, the room's lights were extinguished by Nayta as they rested upon their respective beds.
Melina quickly fell asleep. It was as usual for her. However, Nayta was still wide awake, staring at the dark ceiling while thinking of how to help Ein.
...
Time continued to pass, and it was already nearing midnight. Ein, who had been maintaining his position of sleeping on his side, was nearing his limits. His arms were already numb from the weight of his head; he wished to change positions soon.
However, before he could do so, he heard rustling from the other bed.
'Did one of the two wake up?' Ein wondered.
Before he could slowly turn his head to peek, he felt the slight vibration of mana in the air. It was the telltale sign of someone casting a spell.
'Is it an assassin again?!' Ein assumed as he quickly and silently turned his head. There, he saw Nayta casting her spell on Melina.
Ein felt bewildered by the scene he was seeing. Nayta shouldn't have any reason to cast a spell on her daughter, let alone at this time of the night.
When Nayta finished her spell, she bent over Melina to check the effect of her spell. After confirming that her spell worked, she nodded her head as she went down the bed towards her bag.
From the bag, she took out something like a dress. It was dark, so Ein couldn't see much. Nayta then quickly unrobed, revealing her pristine body to the cool night breeze.
'Oops,' Ein thought as he slowly returned to his previous position. He didn't expect her to change clothes at this time.
The rustling of the clothes was the only noise inside the room for a while. For some reason, Ein couldn't relax while the sound was the only thing resonating inside the room. His imagination was running wild.
Soon, the rustling of clothes stopped. Shortly, a set of barefooted footsteps could be heard approaching Ein's bed. Ein was internally panicking. 'W-What's Nayta planning to do? Why is she approaching?' His mind was going haywire.
"(Lord Ein, are you awake?)" Nayta whispered. Ein wanted to just shuffle a little and act as if he had woken up, but before he could turn completely, his right arm bumped into something soft.
"...?!" Ein did his best to act like he was asleep. However, his heart was beating fast, as if he had just run a marathon.
"..." Nayta stayed quiet the whole time. Although Ein bumped his arm on her boobs by mistake, she should have been crouching beside the bed for that to happen. And Ein didn't have a single clue why she would go to his bedside.
Nayta, after determining that Ein was asleep, slowly and gently entered his bed. Ein wanted to just wake up at this point. However, he didn't have the courage to do so.
Nayta, who finally managed to squeeze into the bed, was in extreme skin contact with Ein. The clothes she was wearing were so thin that it was her skin's texture that Ein felt. The attire she was wearing was a risque negligee that the mother-daughter pair bought together with Sophia as a souvenir. She didn't think she would use it like this right now.
The bed Ein was using was for a single person's use. With two of them sharing the bed, he can't even move as he wishes. Ein squeezed every last bit of acting knowledge he had and continued pretending to sleep. Although he looked like he was peacefully asleep, his mind and his heart were in chaos.
Nayta, who had successfully infiltrated Ein's bed, was looking at his face in close proximity. Since Ein didn't think anybody would enter their room, he took off the disguise from the Illusion Orb. His face right now is that of a late teen.
Nayta reached out her hands to Ein's head. She brushed his head a few times before brushing her hands down to his ears, cheek, neck, and shoulder. Using a moderate amount of force, she pulled Ein into an embrace. Ein's face was buried deep in her cleavage.
Ein didn't know what the gentlemanly way would be in this situation. Should he keep pretending to be asleep? Or should he act as if he just woke up and dine in? While he was in a dilemma, Nayta started humming a tune. It was slow and soothing music that weirdly released all the tension on Ein's shoulders. Soon, his whole body relaxed as he decided to just enjoy Nayta's embrace.
The situation continued for quite a while before Nayta fell asleep. Ein, who doesn't need to sleep, was in another dilemma about whether to get out of her embrace or not. By the time he reached his conclusion, the sky was already slowly turning bright.
...
"Good morning, Mr. Rain. You look tired; didn't you have a good night's sleep?" Sophia greeted Ein first thing as they met near the southern gates.
Ein just laughed to dodge the question. Looking around, he found that the caravan was already prepared to leave.
"I was just thinking about something last night; please don't mind me," Ein said as an excuse. "Rather than that, we should head out already."
Their caravan contained exactly 100 carriages, half of which contained cargo for trading. The remaining half were carrying gifts, weapons, and personnel. Parallel to the carriages, paladins wearing gold armor and riding large war horses were at rest. There were 24 of them.
Each of the 24 Paladins was glaring at Ein, Nayta, and Melina. Fortunately, General Frost placed them at the rear of the convoy, which was far enough from the carriage where the three of them would ride on, in the middle of the caravan. This should make "accidents" difficult to happen.
"Then, let's depart!" Sophia shouted from the carriage.
As if they were waiting for it, the carriages immediately moved as soon as she gave the signal. They set off one at a time and headed towards the forest path.
"How long is it again to reach your country?" Sophia asked Ein, who was sitting right across from her in the carriage.
Ein looked outside the window and estimated the speed they were going at.
"With this speed, two weeks at most." Ein gave quite a generous estimate. Since it took them two days to ride the wolves, it should take the caravan a week at the fastest. Taking some long rest or other sorts of delays along the way into consideration, two weeks would be a good estimate.
"Two weeks..." Sophia muttered under her breath.