Guilt

"...E-Even if that's the case, I want to trust Ethan-sama..no, Master. Please accept us, I will prove myself to be useful to you.."

Lowering her head even lower than before, Glenda tightened the grip on her clothes. She couldn't miss the opportunity for Reyna to be under the wing of someone as righteous as Ethan, believing this was an opportunity that happened once in a lifetime. In her eyes, she had the determination of someone who would do anything.

Ethan was again surprised by her words. He hadn't even rejected her offer, yet Glenda seemed already on the verge of despair just to let the two serve under her service, and although he wanted to concentrate on the scene, in front of him a large amount of panels blurred his vision.

[The Chienthrope [Glenda Acanthus] wants to be your servant, since the level of loyalty is already over the required level, the Host can also look at her personal information freely. Do you accept her loyalty?]

[The Chienthrope [Glenda Acanthus] wants to be your servant, since the level of loyalty...]

[The Chienthrope [Glenda Acanthus]...]

...

'...Just what kind of life did she live for her to be this desperate..'

At the countless number of panels appearing in front of him, Ethan had no idea how to respond. He planned to scold her for the way she had thrown her own life on the line without the slightest hesitation, but this kind of reaction wasn't what he expected, and in fact now he felt terribly guilty.

Being able to read Ethan's emotions with a single glance at the moment, Loki pointed her eyes at the Werewolf and the Chienthrope currently sitting in front of them.

'The atmosphere became heavy in seconds, can Ethan deal with the situation alone?'

He had clearly underestimated to what lengths the Chienthrope would be willing to reach, all to keep her precious companion under the wing of a person able to treat her with due care, Ethan didn't know that yet, even though he sort of figured out the situation wasn't easy. But Loki was curious if Ethan was mature enough, it didn't matter what he would decide to do in the end since she wouldn't mind, but she was now curious to see the end.

The same couldn't be said for Riveria though. As she could almost touch Ethan's heart more than one time, she could understand something wasn't right with him, so the fact now a new burden was threatening to impact his mind was making her worry, but even if that was the case, she limited to stare at him.

She certainly wanted to help him, but Riveria knew in this contract, she had never been mentioned. She couldn't recklessly help him, but she hoped he could overcome this feeling, and if he didn't, she would have tried to help him do so at a later date..

'If Lefiya or Ais where here, they wouldn't hesitate to help him..but I don't have the privilege to act like them, and it's not like I can call Lefiya here...'

She was rationally thinking about what she could do, and she also knew there was nothing able to change this heavy atmosphere around Ethan if not someone like Ais or Lefiya, so her mind was almost telling her she just couldn't help him, but her heart couldn't easily rest at ease, as it was obvious Ethan was feeling guilty as he was the cause for why, the Chienthrope was now on the verge of tears while the werewolf, upon seeing this, tried to calm her down...

Even after nearly two full minutes, Ethan continued to see panels appear in front of him, all with the same identical message. But beyond that, he could hear Glenda start sobbing with her head still lowered, but other than that, he could hear the werewolf trying to comfort her, but that didn't seem effective as at that moment, Glenda was venting out all her pent-up emotions.

But it was just as Ethan was feeling even more guilty, that something totally unexpected happened.

Seeing Ethan being swallowed up by guilt, Loki felt a strange rage wrapping her entire body, and by glancing at his face, Loki couldn't resist a second longer.

Following her emotions, a sound as loud as a clap could be heard in the room. Even though the two girls didn't immediately realize what happened, Riveria had her eyes widened almost in full circles as from her perspective, she could perfectly see what happened, since she was staring at Ethan from the beginning.

After a second, Glenda looked up startled by the loud sound, but when she came into realization to what happened, the latter was shocked to her core.

'W...What?!"

What she could see, was a red welt left behind on Ethan's face from what she understood was the cause of the sound....

Between the general shock and the surprise clearly visible in Riveria's eyes, Loki began to speak.

"...You worry too much. Just give her a reply. Do you want to have her work under you or not? You want to take care of these two or not? There are still things we have to talk about later, so we don't have time to waste."

Feeling heat from his cheek, Ethan realized what had happened. Loki slapped him with enough power to leave a red mark. Although until then the atmosphere seemed to have become all of a sudden heavy, now not a word followed those of Loki, and Glenda was so shocked her mouth had remained open from the moment she had intuited what had occurred...

'After all that happened, you are even asking me if I want to take care of them or not...she vowed to serve me for the rest of her life..refusing now would be..'

Taking a look at the enormous amount of panels covering his entire vision, Ethan took a long breath as he could realize his thoughts were darkening without a reason. He was being caught up in guilt over the fact he made Glenda burst out in tears even though he could have evaded it, but Loki's slap, and her words, made him realize it wasn't necessary to worry about that.

With his thoughts now cleared, Ethan removed all the panels in front of him, before a new one appeared, but this time, it was slightly different from the others.

[Do you want [Glenda Acanthus] to be your subordinate?]

Before confirming, Ethan raised from the crouch letting the message await for his answer.

The fact that he had suddenly risen, brought the whole group's attention to move towards him, but seeing that Ethan's feelings seemed to have changed now, Riveria was surprised, but before she could even record the change in her mind, she was again surprised, this time by his words.

"...I'm sorry if I showed you this side of me and I even made you cry, it wasn't my intention to make you feel in this way, it's just the moment I understood to what length you're trying to let your companion be safe, trusting someone you don't even know out of pure desperation, I felt so guilty that for a moment I started wondering if I really had the right to be your master. But as Loki said, we're talking about whether I want you two to work under me, and if I want to take care of you or not..."

Smiling, Ethan glanced at Loki with the corner of his eye. The way she handled the situation was a bit harsh, but even though she wore a mask of not being concerned by her actions, Ethan saw how the hand with which she hit him was trembling.

'...I see. That must've been harder than I think to pull off...'

But coming back with his eyes on the two girls who were now staring at him, Ethan approached them, so that he could finish the speech he himself had begun.

"..so, I accept your offer, Glenda Acanthus. From now onwards, I'll be your master, I hope this is valid for Reyna too."

Hearing his words, the first tears covering Glenda's face now seemed non-existent as she immediately wiped her face and, after raising from the crouch, she bowed again.

"I-I see! Please take care of me from now on, Master..!!"

Although he couldn't see Glenda's eyes, they were now filled with vitality as she could finally rest at ease...

While Glenda's tail was wagging furiously, Reyna's ears flinched as she heard Ethan calling her too. She was very embarrassed by nature, so it would take a while before Reyna could feel comfortable around him, which is why all the time she hadn't spoken once, knowing Glenda would still try to do her best for her, but now that Ethan had reached out to her with a kind smile on his face, Reyna looked down and slowly nodded.

"P-Please...take care of me from now on..M..Master.."

Being familiar with this type of behaviour, Ethan didn't worry much about her words, as what Reyna was letting out of her mouth were more of an incomprehensible whisper, in fact from the context it was easy to understand what she was saying.

Seeing another panel appear next to the one he leaved in his sight, Ethan smiled.

[Do you want [Reyna Barther] to be your subordinate?]

Accepting both at the same time, Ethan saw as several panels appeared one after the other, so he decided to quickly see the contents as after this, Loki told him there were more things to talk about.

[[Glenda Acanthus] is now your subordinate. Since the loyalty of the Chienthrope exceeds 2,000 the Host has access to her [Status] [Preferences]...]

Just from the first panel, Ethan was a bit puzzled. He didn't know if the loyalty Glenda had towards him was considered high or normal, so he wanted to find out more about this.

[[Reyna Barther] is now your subordinate]

'Oh, I see. Since Reyna's loyalty towards me isn't that high there's nothing the System has to notify me...'

He had at least managed to figure it out up to that point, but just as he was about to check other panels, Ethan felt like a connection had just been created between him and Glenda, and the same way with Reyna.

"...Ah, by the way Master, your wound..."

Snapping out of his thoughts, Ethan understood what she was referring to. Indeed Loki had slapped so hard that she remained the sign of her five fingers on his cheek, but smiling at Glenda's concern, Ethan pointed to his 'wound' and looking where he was pointing, she saw how the redness of Loki's 5 fingers faded shortly after...

"My body can recover from wounds faster than normal, so I don't need treatment, if it's what is concerning you..."

By answering her question, Ethan now had one.

'..Strange, didn't these two feel the same feeling I felt a few seconds ago...?'

---

(I have a discord server. https://discord.gg/cpVr5X8. You may ask me: "Why should I enter the server?". Well, I'm replying to every interesting question you readers are asking in my chapters, so, you should absolutely enter if you want to read my answers. Ah, and you can find some image reference of items in the story such as Light..! (Soon even Qienta).. so it's recommended to join, I frequently post polls as well, regarding things that(most likely) will be present in the story. One last thing, I post chapter updates in my discord right after I posted on webnovel, so I guess you can join to be able to know when I post chapters faster.)

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(Alternate Titles: "Loki slapped so hard...but in the end she...was trembling!? Why!? Explanation next chapter", "Now with a slapping scene I have what it takes to add the Wuxia tag to this novel", "Riveria, the fact is you think rationally when such a thing was never known by Ais, neither Lefiya in the first place.")