My Harem of Dangerous and Crazy Women as a Reincarnated Necromancer

Chapter 252: Ely’s Insecurities... Or Maybe Not?

The first two days of the return journey passed without any setbacks.

The druid barely stopped as he guided them through the skies, but as the third night fell, the silence of the flight was interrupted by the enormous beast’s tired voice.

"My lord, could we stop to rest just for tonight?"

"Fine by me," Mark replied without even thinking about it. "We’re not in any hurry after all."

The druid let out a grateful grunt and began to descend, looking for a suitable spot until he found a small clearing in the middle of a sparse forest.

He landed heavily, and the moment his enormous legs touched the ground, he waited just long enough for Mark and Ely to climb off his back.

And, as had become customary, the moment he returned to his elven form, his eyes rolled back before he fell face-first onto the ground.

"He never gives me time to thank him..." Mark murmured, looking at the unconscious elf at his feet.

He simply shrugged and, letting out a long sigh, dropped onto the grass.

Already lying on his back, he laced his hands behind his head and fixed his gaze on the sky.

The night was clear, and above him stretched a blanket of stars that, back on Earth with all its light pollution, he could never have seen this clearly.

That was, without exaggerating, one of the simple pleasures this world had given him without asking for anything in return.

Ely, for her part, got to work without her Master having to ask.

She gathered some dry branches and began building a small campfire near where the druid lay unconscious.

And while she tended to that, Mark stayed staring at the stars, completely lost in his thoughts.

Too many things had happened nearly at the same time, and now they were all piling up in his head, fighting over which one deserved his attention most.

The first, and perhaps the one that troubled him most, was his recent "alliance" with the Demon Lord.

Or rather, with Mary.

’Alliance,’ Mark thought with a certain irony. ’What a generous word for what it actually is...’

Because no matter how much she had used the word "collaborator," both of them knew perfectly well how the cards were distributed.

Mary was, without any comparison, the stronger of the two. And the gap between them was simply abysmal.

She had demonstrated to him, with barely any effort, that she could get inside his mind, neutralize all his abilities, and cut off his connection to his subordinates whenever she felt like it.

And if she had really wanted to kill him, she wouldn’t have needed to lift a finger. Wanting it would have been enough.

’Why go to all that trouble? Someone with that level of power doesn’t need a collaborator...’ Mark wondered for the umpteenth time.

None of it made sense to him.

’She could have made me her vassal or just her slave, and I wouldn’t have been able to do a single thing to stop it...’

And yet, Mary had not only treated him as an equal, but had even gone to the trouble of revealing part of her past to him.

Those weren’t things you told a simple pawn.

’Maybe she sees something in me that I still can’t see...’ he thought with some skepticism. ’Or maybe she’s just using me for something she hasn’t told me yet.’

And as if all that weren’t enough, in the middle of that journey through Mary’s memories, he had stumbled upon something completely unexpected.

A detail that, at first, he had nearly overlooked, but that now kept going around and around in his mind.

That elf who appeared in Mary’s memories.

The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that it was, almost without a doubt, Emilia’s father.

And speaking of Emilia... she was the other subject eating away at his thoughts.

More specifically, her pregnancy.

Knowing that Emilia was carrying his child was already a surprise on its own, but what had really hit him was not finding out from her, but through a careless slip from Luna.

The first thing he had felt upon hearing that revelation was disbelief, and with good reason.

He and Emilia had only had sex once, so the idea that that single encounter had ended in a pregnancy seemed almost like a joke.

However, no matter how hard he tried to find a different explanation, he always ended up reaching the same conclusion.

Luna had no reason to make something like that up. On top of that, her reaction hadn’t been that of someone lying.

So, as hard as it was to absorb, he had to accept it.

She was going to be the mother of one of his children.

’First Rose and now Emilia...’ he thought, still not fully believing it.

Two of his wives expecting a child from him at the same time.

Rose’s, he already knew about, and at her request they had agreed to keep that information between them for the time being.

But Emilia’s he had found out by accident... and she had chosen to keep it from him for reasons he didn’t know.

And that, precisely, was what bothered him.

That Emilia, after everything they had been through together, after he had believed that there was finally something like real trust between them, had chosen to stay silent about something so important.

Not the fact of being a father again, that, if anything, gave him a strange mix of nerves and something resembling excitement that he still didn’t know how to handle.

’The moment I get home, the first thing I’m going to do is sit down and have a serious talk with her,’ Mark told himself. ’I need to understand what she was thinking by not telling me...’

Mark was so lost in his thoughts that the world around him ceased to exist for a few moments.

While he kept turning everything over, Ely finished lighting the campfire and walked over to where he was without him noticing.

"What are you thinking about so hard, Master?"

Ely’s voice yanked him from his thoughts in one pull.

Mark took a moment to return to reality. And when he finally did, he realized she was on top of him, with one knee on each side of his body.

She was so close to his face that her white hair fell on either side of his face like a curtain, completely hiding the starry sky from him.

"You’ve been quiet for practically the entire trip, Master," she continued without pulling back. "And I think I know you well enough to know that when you get like this, it’s because something is really bothering you."

Ely brought her face a little closer.

"So tell me... what has you so distracted?"

Mark looked at her in silence for a moment.

And despite all the weight he was carrying in his mind, he couldn’t stop a small smile from escaping.

"It’s nothing, Ely..." Mark replied, trying to downplay the matter. "Everything is fine, really."

But she didn’t move and kept watching him with an expression that was hard to read.

"Is it because of me?" she asked finally, in a quiet voice. "Since we left the kingdom you’ve barely looked at me..."

Mark blinked, completely thrown off.

"...What?" he said, frowning. "What do you mean?"

"It’s just that you’ve been a little distant for days," she said, looking away. "And I can’t help wondering if maybe... you no longer enjoy being with me."

"...?"

"That maybe you’ve grown tired of me... or that maybe you’d rather be with one of the others instead of being stuck with me in the middle of nowhere."

"Ely—"

"I know I’m not the sweetest, or the smartest, or the calmest, let alone the prettiest... but I genuinely try to improve," she continued without even giving him the chance to respond. "And even so sometimes I think maybe you’d be better off without me..."

Ely’s confession had caught him off guard, but it didn’t take him long to understand that any response would have been too much.

Without looking away from her, he raised a hand, slid it to the back of her neck, and drew her toward him to kiss her.

It wasn’t a timid or hesitant kiss.

He kissed her firmly, as if he wanted to answer that confession without needing to say a single word and, at the same time, dispel in one blow all the insecurities that still tormented her.

Ely let out a small surprised moan against his lips, but it barely lasted an instant before she melted completely into the kiss.

And when they finally separated, just a few inches, Mark was breathing heavily from the lack of air.

"Never say something like that again, understood?" he said, frowning.

"...Understood, Master."

"Good."

"Although... I wouldn’t mind if you reminded me a couple more times," she added, gradually recovering her usual energy as a mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. "Just so it’s completely clear."

"I’m starting to think you did all of that on purpose..."

"Hehe, who knows."

Mark didn’t say anything. He simply leaned toward her again and kissed her once more.

It was a slower, calmer kiss than the previous one, but no less intense for it.

Ely settled over him, wrapping her arms around his neck, while Mark placed a hand on her back and drew her a little closer.