MTLNOVEL Chapter 523: Aftermath
- PoV: Quinlan -
Like zombies, the twins turned their heads in my direction, asking for my next command. "Order Sylvaris to act as she wishes."
"Sylvaris, act as you wish." The two repeated in an emotionless tone.
The elven matriarch froze for a split second as her magical orders were overwritten, after which she was free to act, and the first thing she did was eye me curiously before murmuring under her breath, "Daughter, you caught quite the big fish…"
Experience tales with empire
I chuckled, eagerly awaiting the moment when I would get to see her reaction after learning just how much of a big fish I truly was. My being an Elemental Sovereign was just the beginning. However, before getting to that, we had to leave.
"Quin!" Seraphiel shouted as she rushed up to us. Interestingly, I was the one who got hugged first, as my bombshell of an elven healer dashed right into my arms by jumping at me from quite a distance.
Hell, she didn't even greet her mother…
<Ronan, come.> I commanded while receiving my sobbing Sera into my embrace as she lodged her two legs around my waist and her arms around my neck and then eagerly leaned in for an emotion-charged kiss. I knew she was anxious and felt guilty about the situation, but it seems I wasn't fully aware of the severity of her stress. The only thing I could do for her was to let her release her emotions, so I let her do whatever she wanted - which seemed to be a long, deep kiss.
Not that I complained.
I opened my [Warp Gate], letting my workers rush to the various groups with stretcher beds. If anyone needed treatment, they would have to be transported first. There was no time to heal them here as reinforcements could arrive within minutes.
While the woman clinging to me like a baby monkey to her mother was still bombarding me with numerous sloppy kisses, I reached down and grabbed the twins by their hair, then began dragging them toward the swirling portal.
Technically I could've ordered the pair to walk by themselves, which would've resulted in zombie-like motions from them as that was the best I could get from unconscious subjects, but it felt much more satisfying to drag the twins by hand. The sound of their bodies scraping on the harsh ground was a beautiful sound to my ears.
"Daughter… Is this how I taught you? You don't even greet your mother after getting reunited with her after months of cruel and unjust separation…" Sylvaris spoke up from behind me, and I couldn't help but sense that she felt a bit disappointed and that feeling only grew in me when Seraphiel very briefly and disinterestedly waved her right hand at her without dislodging her lips from mine for even a second before returning her limb to the back of my head to better support her kissing efforts.
"Hmm… Maybe the 'cruel' part was only true for me, you seem to be having the time of your life in the human lands…" The Mooncaller's grumbling continued as she followed the two of us into the portal without showing an ounce of fear. That was a first for me, everyone I met thus far was reluctant about stepping into it, for very a understandable reason - the portal looked truly ominous.
I swiftly secured my twin captives and then returned to the battlefield to check my new ride out. I could slightly widen my portal in exchange for greater mana expenditure, so we could bring it back with us. Before doing so, however, I had to check what was inside it. I was sure some tracking devices were present, those had to be found and neutralized before we took the artifact carriage back with us.
Kaelira helped me greatly in doing just that because as it turned out, this was a dwarven design she studied in secret back when she was an aspiring smith before she got captured and forcibly conscripted due to her strong class. The Greenvale Duke must've imported it at quite a hefty price, or perhaps he has an army of dwarf slaves who assembled it for him. Such a work of art must've been made by the joint efforts of numerous craft masters.
It was a bit difficult taking it back, especially because Sera kept clinging to me throughout the process, but thanks to the assistance of my allies with high Strength stats, we managed to haul the thing to my stronghold, and I swiftly closed the [Warp Gate] behind us.
Phew.
It was a risky gamble, but we came out victorious. I also finally managed to capture a soul with Soul Reaper's [Eternal Damnation] ability. For some reason, it didn't work with monsters.
My quest to unlock the Necromancer portion of my Harbinger of Ruin subclass took its first step toward completion.
Capture the souls of 1,000 level 20+ entities 0/1,000
Capture the souls of 50 level 30+ entities. 1/50
Capture the souls of 1 level 40+ entity. 0/1
When I couldn't capture the souls of monsters, I already had a strong suspicion that I had to kill intelligent humanoids, but acting on those suspicions was easier said than done. I couldn't simply walk into a city and begin culling its strong inhabitants, that would be just plain stupid. Until I could openly defeat people like Black Fang, Lilith, and Queen Morgana, I would have to act with the mindset that there's always a bigger fish in the pond.
No, for me to have the ability to kill humanoids en masse, an opportunity was needed - a good situation for me to go on a massacre spree. I hoped the Consortium would help me with that soon. If not, I would have to take matters into my own hands.
"U-umm… W-what should I do…?" Eira interrupted my thoughts, and now I finally decided to dislodge my lips and tongue from my overly needy Seraphiel. No matter how badly I wanted to enjoy this rare chance of her being so clingy, I had to settle some business first. Thus, with some heavy pouting, she reluctantly climbed down from my arms.
"Ayame, can I leave it to you?" I asked my dependable samurai.
"By 'it' I assume you mean 'please do everything tedious such as check on our injured, tally our gains and losses, organize the Ascendants so that they can get back to what they were doing before they answered your call, and many more.' Would that be correct?"
"Absolutely."
She amusedly giggled at my shamelessness for a bit and then walked away to do as asked while shaking her head, and the rest of the combatants followed after her, leaving us alone.
I glanced in Eira's direction, and my heart contorted for a moment. How could the twins wish to rape and torture such a pure soul? I couldn't comprehend how a person could gain satisfaction by committing such wretched acts.
Eira was hiding behind Sylvaris, and she barely had enough bravery in her fragile heart to peek her head from behind the woman. She was trembling from head to toe too, and she eyed me like a deer would eye a wolf she had no chance of escaping.
Sylvaris showed no signs of care that she was used as a shield against me, the elven matriarch was currently busy eyeing her daughter. I could sense a strong dissatisfaction emanating from the mother's core, which must've been the case because Seraphiel was doing her best to avoid meeting Sylvaris' gaze. My healer was currently busy studying the interesting grass under her bare feet.
Before I could settle the matter with the two elven bombshells, I decided to prioritize Eira, not only because I knew the process with her would be a lot swifter, but also because she was about to suffer a mental breakdown as she was in the middle of hyperventilating.