My Infinite Gacha In Another World: Surrounded By MILFs

Chapter 57: Chapter 57 — The Part That Stays

We reached Prusna on the third morning.

The gates were open. The guards were at their posts, not huddled behind the iron doors waiting for the sky to fall. A cart of vegetables was rolling through the main street, the driver arguing with a merchant about the price of turnips. Somewhere near the well, a dog was barking at a chicken. The chicken was winning.

Normal sounds. Human sounds. After three days of silence and violet light and the inside of a rift that smelled like the end of the world, they hit me like a physical blow. I stopped just inside the gate and closed my eyes. The sun was warm on my face. The air smelled of bread and woodsmoke and horse manure. It was the best thing I’d ever breathed.

"You’re blocking traffic," Samira said.

I opened my eyes. She was standing beside me, her bandaged hands tucked into the pockets of her coat. Her braid had come undone somewhere on the trail, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders, still flecked with frost that hadn’t melted yet. She looked exhausted. She looked beautiful.

"Let them wait," I said.

She shook her head, but she didn’t walk past me. She stood there, in the middle of the gate, and let the sun hit her face too.

Chimera limped through a moment later, Odessa leaning on her shoulder. The grimoire was tucked under Odessa’s arm, its pages singed at the edges, its leather cover cracked from the heat of the seal. Chimera’s skin had regained some of its color, but the grayish tinge hadn’t faded completely. The black lines on her arm had retreated to her wrist, faint as old ink, but they were still there. Maybe they’d always be there. A reminder of what she’d swallowed. A scar that didn’t show on the outside.

"The inn," Odessa said. Her voice was hoarse. "I need a bed. A real one. Not a rock. Not a crystal. A bed."

"I need meat," Chimera added.

"You always need meat."

"This time I earned it."

---

The innkeeper took one look at us and didn’t ask questions. She just handed me four keys, pointed at the stairs, and told me the bathwater would be hot in an hour. I made a mental note to tip her generously. Maybe buy the inn. Maybe rename it after her.

Lia found us before we reached the stairs.

She came barreling down the hallway like a small, pink-colored meteor, her bear plushie clutched in one hand and her shoes on the wrong feet. Dorko was behind her, looking like he’d been running for three days straight. Domack brought up the rear, his heavy footsteps steady and deliberate, but his eyes—those old, gray eyes—were wet.

"Daddy!"

I caught her before she crashed into my knees. She smelled of soap and the lavender perfume Samira had bought her. Her hair was clean. Someone had braided it. Probably Samira had taught Dorko how, or maybe Domack had learned from watching. Either way, she looked like she’d been cared for. Loved. Safe.

"You came back," she said into my shoulder.

"I told you I would."

"Did you kill the monsters?"

"One of them. The others are still out there."

"Oh." She pulled back and looked at my face, her small brow furrowed. "Are you going to kill those ones too?"

"Eventually."

"Good." She nodded, satisfied. Then she turned to Samira. "You’re hurt."

Samira knelt down—slowly, painfully, her burned hands resting on her knees—and looked Lia in the eyes. "It looks worse than it is."

"Does it hurt?"

"A little."

Lia reached out and touched Samira’s bandaged palm. Very gently. The way you touch a butterfly’s wing. "I can kiss it better. Mommy used to kiss my hurts better."

Samira didn’t say anything. Her jaw was tight. But she held out her hand, and Lia pressed her lips to the bandage, and something in Samira’s shoulders relaxed. Something that had been clenched for four thousand years.

"There," Lia said. "All better."

"All better," Samira repeated. Her voice was steady. But her eyes were wet.

---

We slept for sixteen hours.

When I woke up, the sun was setting again. Someone had drawn the curtains. Someone had left a pitcher of water and a plate of cold meat and cheese on the nightstand. Someone had washed the blood and grime from my hands while I slept. I didn’t know who. I didn’t care. I was alive, and my family was alive, and the rest could wait.

Samira was still asleep beside me. Her bandaged hands rested on the pillow, palms up, the white cloth stark against the dark sheets. Her breathing was slow and deep. The lines on her face had softened. She looked younger like this. Not like a High Mage of a fallen kingdom. Not like a warrior who’d held a seal shut for four millennia. Just a woman. Just my wife.

I leaned over and kissed her forehead. She stirred, murmured something about turnips, and went back to sleep.

I got dressed and went downstairs.

---

The common room was quiet. Odessa was in the corner, hunched over her grimoire with a quill in one hand and a cup of cold tea in the other. Her lips were moving. Her quill was scratching. She’d been at it for hours, judging by the pile of crumpled parchment around her chair.

"Writing your paper?" I asked, sitting down across from her.

"The first draft. It’s going to be very long." She didn’t look up. "I’m calling it ’On the Containment of Herald-Class Entities Through Divine Artifact Mediation.’"

"Catchy."

"I thought so." She dipped her quill. "The Church will want a copy. Maybe the Academy in the capital, if it still exists. The one in Mouka, I mean. Not the Tower of Nava. That’s been gone for—"

"I know."

She looked up at me. Her eyes were tired, but they were sharp. Still analyzing. Still cataloguing. "You did well, Harold. The dual-channel projection. The ether-mana balance. You held it steady for almost four minutes. That’s longer than most trained mages."

"Odessa, are you complimenting me?"

"I’m stating facts." She went back to her writing. "The compliment is implied."

I smiled and left her to it.

---

Chimera was on the back porch, sitting on the steps with her legs stretched out and her face turned toward the fading sun. The grayish tinge on her skin was almost gone now. The black lines had retreated to her fingertips. She was holding a haunch of something roasted—mutton, maybe, or goat—and tearing chunks off with her teeth.

"Feeling better?" I asked, sitting down beside her.

"Mm."

"That’s all? Just ’mm’?"

She swallowed. "The mouth is quiet. The hunger is quieter. I can still feel it—the herald, the subordinate, all of it—but it’s like a scar now. Something that’s already healed." She tore another chunk of meat. "I’m still hungry, though."

"You’re always hungry."

"This is different. This is just meat. Before, I was hungry for something else. Something that wasn’t food." She looked at me, her heterochromatic eyes catching the last light of the sun. "It wanted me to eat you. The subordinate. While I was unconscious, it whispered things. It said if I consumed you, I could be whole. I could be the design."

"What did you do?"

"I told it to shut up." She bit into the mutton. "Then I woke up. Then I ate this."

"That’s my Chimera."

She grunted. But the corner of her mouth twitched.

---

Dorko and Domack found me after sunset.

They were in the yard behind the inn, sparring. Not the way they used to spar—not the careful, measured exchanges of mentor and student. This was different. Harder. Faster. Dorko’s club was a blur of iron and wood. Domack’s movements were sharper than I’d ever seen them. They weren’t practicing. They were venting.

"You’re going to break the fence," I said.

Dorko stopped mid-swing and turned. His chest was heaving. His green skin was slick with sweat. "Master! You’re awake!"

"I’m awake. You’re angry."

He lowered his club. "We stayed behind."

"I asked you to."

"I know. And we did. We protected Lia. We followed orders. But you almost died. Lady Samira almost died. Lady Chimera almost—" He stopped. Swallowed. "We should have been there."

"The rift would have killed you," I said. "The dark mana concentration was lethal for anyone without a protective circle. Even with one, we barely made it out. If you’d been there, you’d be dead. Both of you."

Domack stepped forward. His gray hand rested on Dorko’s shoulder. "Then we need to be stronger. Strong enough to survive the next one."

"The next one?"

"There are three pillars left," Domack said. "Three heralds. Maybe more. You said the casket is broken. Next time, you won’t have a divine artifact to trap the enemy."

"Next time, we’ll find another way."

"And we’ll be there," Dorko said. His voice was steady now. The anger had burned off. What was left was resolve. "Whatever it takes. Wherever you go. We’ll be there."

Domack nodded. His hand tightened on Dorko’s shoulder.

I looked at them—the young orc with his heart on his sleeve, the old warrior with his eyes full of unspoken things. Certainty. That was the word. I hadn’t felt it in a long time.

"Then we’d better start training," I said. "The next herald isn’t going to wait for us to be ready."

Dorko grinned. Domack’s hand tightened on his shoulder. And somewhere behind me, Chimera tore another chunk off her haunch of mutton.

---

That night, I sat on the roof of the inn with Samira beside me.

The stars were out. Not the pillar—the pillar was dark now, a dead spire of black stone against the eastern sky—but the real stars. Thousands of them, scattered across the darkness like salt on a black table. I’d almost forgotten what they looked like.

Samira’s head rested on my shoulder. Her bandaged hands were folded in her lap. She’d been quiet since she woke up. Not the tense, watchful quiet of a soldier on alert. Something softer. Something that had been waiting a long time to come out.

"The piece of me that’s still in the seal," she said. "I can feel it. It’s not in pain anymore. Almira is with it now. They’re... talking, I think. The way we used to talk. About nothing. About everything."

"What are they talking about?"

"Me. You. Lia. The future." She smiled. "Almira says I should stop being so hard on myself."

"She sounds smart."

"The smartest person I ever knew." She lifted her head and looked at the sky. "I spent so long trying to carry her death. Trying to make it mean something. Trying to be worth the sacrifice she made. But that’s not what she wanted. She didn’t want me to carry her. She wanted me to live."

"And now?"

"Now I think I finally understand what that means."

She turned to me. The starlight caught the edges of her face, softening the lines that four thousand years had carved into her skin. She was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

"There are three pillars left," she said. "Three heralds. The Outer God is still out there, waiting. The Andawas are still sealed, but the seal won’t hold forever. There’s a war coming, Hal. Bigger than this one. Bigger than the Rift Wars. Bigger than anything this world has seen since the gods stopped walking among us."

"I know."

"It might kill us."

"It might."

"You’re not afraid."

"I’m terrified." I took her hand—carefully, gently, mindful of the bandages. "But I’m not alone. Neither are you. We’ve got Chimera and Odessa and Dorko and Domack. We’ve got Lia. We’ve got Pain and Karina and whoever else decides to throw their lot in with a bunch of broken idiots." I squeezed her fingers. "We’re going to fight. We’re going to win. And if we don’t win, we’re going to make sure the bastards remember our names."

She laughed. The sound was small, but it was real. "That’s a terrible strategy."

"It’s worked so far."

She leaned over and kissed me. Slow. Soft. The kind of kiss that had nothing to do with desperation and everything to do with the quiet certainty of two people who’d chosen each other, over and over, across four thousand years and the space between worlds.

When she pulled back, her eyes were dry. Her smile was steady.

"Tomorrow," she said, "we start preparing. Training. Recruiting. Finding out everything we can about the other pillars and the heralds guarding them."

"And today?"

"Today," she said, "we stay here. With our family. With our daughter. With the stars."

I put my arm around her shoulders. She leaned into me. Below us, in the inn, Lia was laughing at something Dorko had said. Chimera was probably stealing more mutton from the kitchen. Odessa was still scratching away at her paper, her quill moving faster than her thoughts.

The first pillar was dead. The first herald was trapped. The war was just beginning.

But tonight, there were stars.

---

End of Volume 1

[Author Note:Thank You for reading ^⁠_⁠^]