After a hard-to-describe moment he shared with a strangely behaving Aurora, she immediately booted him out of the office, saying that she was busy with work.
Sol had never been one to ignore the weird actions of women around him. He prided himself in thinking that, while he wasn’t the smartest man, he was able to understand the feelings that were directed at him by the opposite gender.
Was Aurora in love with him?
Sol rejected this notion altogether. He knew about love. Knew about sexual attraction, desire, and all that entailed as well. There were no signs of love for him in Aurora’s eyes when she was looking at him.
Only a certain form of weird longing. This was a feeling not directed at himself but at something or someone that he reminded her of.
‘Should I use….’
Sol stopped this train of thought before it could root in his mind. He felt disgusted in himself that the first thought he had after attaining this knowledge was how to make use of the situation to his advantage.
For now, Aurora, while extremely suspicious, has proven herself to be a good companion.
It was just that a part of him refused to let his guard down around her. Something was telling him that his relationship with Aurora was extremely unstable at the moment and any mistake he made could end up with her becoming an enemy.
‘Sigh… Forget it. Today and for the next week, I am just going to have fun and not think about anything troublesome. Nothing more, nothing less.’
He would finally be able to realize one of his dreams that he had ever since his time in the original world he came from. Becoming an adventurer might be a really childish dream at this time, but it was still a dream of his and he wished to realize it with his lovers.
‘Well. I should talk to the witches first;’
———
[Tower of Babel — Medical Ward]
After the fight between Sol and Lilith, Medea’s world had been reduced to nearly nothing. Recreating that place would take too much time and energy, so the witches had started to stay inside the tower or in Sol’s dimension. Freya being the main offender in the case of Sol’s dimension.
Persephone, meanwhile, had become more active as a sort of doctor in the tower. She seemed to be taking care of the women of the tower. He had yet to read what she did exactly, but he wasn’t too keen to ask her about her work either.
Weirdly, Freya seemed to sometimes appear there as well. Though she would simply take notes while talking to the maids. It was there that he was reminded that Freya was actually an author of erotic stories. One of which fuelled Camelia’s soft BDSM fantasies.
When he came this time to the ward though, the one he wanted to meet was neither Persephone nor Freya. But rather someone who had been as helpful as Aurora while taking even more risk for him during his mad task of saving Lilith’s life.
“Hathor. How have you been?”
The Water Phoenix, Hathor. Considered to be the greatest healer in the Astral Realm.
What was supposed to only be insurance turned out to be one of the centerpieces of his plan to save Lilith…
Hathor was reading a chart when he came inside the ward. It was weird to see the usually drunk and slovenly woman wearing a lab coat while looking so serious.
“Hmm?”
Unlike Aurora, it was practically impossible for Hathor to feel his presence before he actually appeared before her.
But still, she showed no surprise at his sudden manifestation inside the medical ward. With her experience and what she had witnessed lately, she believed that there were very few things that could actually surprise her nowadays.
“What brought you here? No Kingly duties today?”
Hathor smiled and licked her lips when she sniffed a particular fragrance she liked emanating from Sol. She looked down at the bottle Sol was holding and her smile changed into a grin,
“At least you have some manners. What is this?”
Sol shrugged, “I am not exactly an expert in wine or alcohol but some of my ancestors were. I just went through the wine cellar and took whatever seemed the oldest.”
“Ohhh…”
Hathor was not even listening to him anymore as she gazed at the bottle like a snake hypnotized.
“Take it. Anyways it’s a meager gift for what you did. I just wanted to say thanks.”
“Heh.”
Hathor snapped out of her stupor and snatched the bottle from his hand. She walked up to one of the drawers and took out two exquisite crystalline glasses from inside.
“Persephone gave these two to me. It belonged to one of the human kings before the creation of Lustburg.”
Sol was intrigued by this information. He remembered that all Four witches were actually older than the creation of Lustburg. It was one fact that was easy to forget with how young they looked.
‘Now that I think about it, I only know about Medea’s past.’
Despite having mingled with Persephone, it was hard to say that they were lovers. They were definitely close to each other but that was pretty much it. Freya still seemed interested in getting pregnant from his seed and had never hesitated in voicing this but it was clear that she did not feel much love for him.
As for Kali — Sol chuckled as he was reminded about her. Kali had been pretty clear in the fact that she would never enter a harem. In the first place, she didn’t even seem remotely interested in love. It was unlike most witches who endlessly sought the companionship and love of others.
Hathor caressed the bottle and seemed to hold some kind of ritual with the way she opened it and filled the two glasses.
Sol accepted the wine-filled glass and the two smiled at each other,
“To a successful cooperation. To a new friendship.”
“To a new friendship!”
Hathor laughed before slowly savoring the wine. She let out a low moan when the liquid filled her mouth. Her eyes lit up and she looked once again at the bottle.
“Impressive. This wine was made with an interesting technique. I feel like it’s one not of this world.”
Sol's expression betrayed no surprise. “It seems to be from the era of the Peaceful King, Pluto.”
Pluto was the son of Jupiter, making him the second King of Lustburg. The era of Pluto could be said to be one of the dark ages of Lustburg.
After all, Jupiter had set off to conquer the world and nearly succeeded, only to fail and die at the last step.
With the witches withdrawing from the front line and lacking a King, the young prince who was only ten years old at that time had to stand up and protect Lustburg as much as possible.
After all — Jupiter hadn’t been kind during the war. The country was basically the number one enemy during that period and without Pluto, the current Lustburg might have been more than 79% smaller.
“Well, thanks for the wine. But seriously though. Why did you come?”
“I just came to say thanks.”
Hathor tilted her head and chuckled derisively, “I thought it was something big. But is that really all?”
She shook her head, “I don’t need thanks. I already obtained the greatest gift I could ask for. The memory I made here will be enough to last for a few thousand years.”
“So… You are really going to leave.”
“Indeed. Unlike Isis, who is contracted to you, for a King-rank divine beast like me, staying in the mortal world is not really a good thing.”
The restrictions this world imposed on Hathor made her feel like she was constantly being shackled. It wasn’t a good feeling in any way.
The mortal world itself did not welcome her presence in this place. She was no different than someone entering another territory illegally without permission.
There was a reason most divine beasts never came down here or if they ever did, it was only for a short trip.
“Also you know very well about the time flow issue, right? Even if the difference between the Astral Realm and Mortal Realm slows down, It’s hard to say how many months or years went by there, in the meantime.”
She had been here for nearly three weeks now. This was close to a year in the Astral realm if nothing changed.
She had her duty to uphold in her territory, after all.
Finally,
“There will be a meeting between all the Divine Beasts soon.”
The word ‘soon’ had a different meaning when it came to a bunch of immortal beings who lived for thousands of years. But it was really approaching. When this happened, it was necessary for all the generals under the divine beasts to be present.
This was a show of force to establish a clear hierarchy and no matter how silly it looked, Hathor didn’t wish to embarrass her mother at such an important moment.
“A summit, huh? Heh…”
Sol focused on the swirling crimson liquid before chugging it down in one go.
The Wings of Freedom had created quite a problem here as well. Not only did they obtain the Divine Weapon of Lustburg, but it seemed like they also obtained the Divine Weapon of Greed Dike, the Kingdom of Dwarves.
There were also signs of them perhaps infiltrating and causing chaos in the Elf kingdom back then while under the guise of Vampires.
The vampire girl who was part of the WoF had still not woken up and it was clear now that something was amiss with her.
Pandora had spent her time analyzing and swimming in the dream of that vampire to get more information about it.
Sol was not really worried about the Wings of Freedom themselves. Currently, they only had three or four Kings, and one demigod in their ranks.
It was impressive, but it was no army. The problem came from the Titans and the Chaos Spawns.
Not all divine beasts had the power of Tiamat and her dragons. Surtr alone was enough to make two or three Divine Beasts suffer greatly without much effort.
"Haha. I guess when compared to what happens high up, the incoming war really seems like child’s play, huh…"
Hathor shook her head, "War is war. No matter what the scale is. There is no such thing as mere child’s play."
Sol gave a bitter smile. Indeed. If it was a child's play, he could have simply challenged Lupus to a fight and sent Lilith to decimate his existence.
But it wasn't. War wasn't child's play. But it was still no less than a game where the Kings acted as players and Soldiers as chess pieces.
"Well. I won't let them sour my mood."
He downed the wine and smiled, "Wait one week. Lilith is currently acting mischievously. Once we bring her back, we will hold a great farewell party for you and send you off with all the glory that the Mortal Realm can harbor."
"I am kinda not exactly interested…"
"I will also open the wine cellar and grant you unlimited access for the day."
"What a measly week. Farewell parties are indeed a must."
The two laughed out loud and continued to drink the wine for a long time as they chatted about this and that.
———
After drinking all afternoon with Hathor and talking with her about her experience and the worlds she explored, Sol found himself walking back to his office room.
It seemed like he had become quite the workaholic. He just wanted to take a look at some papers and then go talk to the witches about his plans for the week.
As always, Sol simply used his dimension to walk. He was doing so in order to increase his synchronization and understanding of this mysterious power.
This was why he was surprised to hear a muffled moan when he actually approached his office.
"Your highness~"
He recognized the voice and as such, had no hesitation when he passed through the door and finally saw the show Milia was putting on for him without her knowledge.
———
(AN: Man. The last Milia smut was like a year ago in real life time. I think I pretty much made the turn with those who helped. The last ones on the list are Luxuria and perhaps Asmodeus. But those won’t appear before the end of the volume. So the plan is smut, fun, relationship development, smut, fun. Then something serious. Taking my flight tomorrow. Flight at 8 am. I regret choosing that time. Pretty stupid.)
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