"So you've been living in the Wilds all your life?" asked the girl who had introduced herself as Jane to Nusia.

He could have sworn that she was a boy in one look. The brown-haired girl had her hair cut short and didn’t have the usual girly demeanor at all. He hadn’t stared, but the chest was also not helping in the judgment.

"Yes, and I've met the young-" Nusia cleared her throat. "Artus had spared me a beating during my first ever visit the city after I accidentally dirtied another young lord's clothes."

"With your rare beauty, they'll do more than just that," said Kent, the other young man in the farmhouse. “If they take a real look at you.”

The blunt attempt to flirt was way too crude for him, but still, Nusia blushed admirably. Artus knew where this was going right away. The old man in him was able to read tv dramas like a book until people were complaining.

"So you did what actually?" asked Cindy, aka, the boss of the farm without hiding a bit her suspicion of him. "You beat them up or something?"

"Nothing like that,” he chuckled. “I had just distracted the chasers for her to escape."

"And you got off unscathed?"

"I got caught," he stated simply. "Beaten up until bloody all over, healed only out of saving face. He chased me out of the city when he heard about it, my lord father."

Kent scoffed at his story and Artus chuckled inside. He had to agree, it was the stupidest story he had ever come up with, but it had to do with the setting given to him without any prior discussion.

Nusia was too pretty to be a normal village girl, but her part was easy. Everybody would believe anything that came out from the mouth of a pretty girl. It was just the way humans perceived the world.

Pretties are always equal to everything good. Uglies are suspicions and mostly bad persons.

It was a fact of life he had swallowed like gravel down his throat.

"Then where're your parents?" asked another girl in the house.

"Papa died and I got a few levels from his Core," she said. "The Wild gives, and it takes," she added.

She used a sad tone even if gaining a few levels should have been a great thing. Not to mention the surprise he had barely able to contain inside.

What if he had a level one hundred grandpas or something?

“At least, I could tell that this young man didn’t have anything to do with her father’s death,” Cindy said as she ensured Nusia with her hand on the girl’s thigh.

"But the greedy nobles won't chase you out after one simple mistake," Cindy dispelled the sad atmosphere with the thorny statement. "Offending others is normal squabbles between the rich families," she added with a smirk.

Artus sighed. ‘Am I really that suspicious?’ he thought to himself. "I have no affinity at all, and so I'm useless to him, that's why I was thrown away. He had only needed a reason, any reason."

Nusia tried to say something while looking at him but he shook his head at her. Everyone seemed to notice the small exchange. He had no idea what the girl was trying to do here.

"But how did you two end up here?" Jane moved the topic onward.

"Well, we meet in the forest," Nusia started with a smile that charmed everyone. Even the other girls were blushing. "I was running for men trying to make me their concubine while Artus was fleeing from a few city rats paid to end him."

"I wanted to slow the thugs down by using the trees, and Nusia had saved my life while she was in no better situation."

"Our fate had led you to me. Us to here," she corrected his practical look at the scenario.

Cindy sighed out loud. "But we only have one big room for the girls and we can fit one more. Kent already-"

"I'll take the barn," he cut her off. "This hot tea and a warm welcome are kind enough. I don't want to trouble you any more than that. And you don’t want a stranger in the house, no matter who he says he is."

"But the barn will be cold, Artus, you would freeze," Nusia said.

"Arcane Shell had kept us warm enough while in the Wilds, the barn would be a great improvement."

"I thought they said the spell was useless," Jane said.

"It would block most of the cold out if you make two or more layers of them," Artus smiled.

“If you could afford the mana,” Cindy added.

Artus felt the sting in her words. That meant others didn’t have much mana? Maybe he could help them in that way rather than what Nusia wanted him to do.

Regardless, he had tried the multiple layers and they worked wonders. Nusia had that proud look once again when she had witnessed it. He couldn’t get enough of that look of hers. She made him want to show off all the time.

"So you hadn’t been forced to warm each other?" asked Cindy out of the blue.

"Yes, the shell made the night warm enough," he said as he already could guess the older girl’s train of thought. Cindy was protective to a fault even for a female stranger.

Nusia yelped before she covered her red face as if she had just understood the implication of the question. Her reaction left the real question hanging, and he would rather leave it ambiguous rather than boasting about it.

It could still go both ways as he still could be all over her anytime any time during the cold day. He had her each time they stopped for a short break, but no one needed to know that. Especially not the other young man.

Kent was smiling but his eyes were definitely not.

"I'll take an early leave before it gets too dark," he said after one last gulp of the warm bitter drink. He enjoyed coffee more than green tea but it was better than nothing.

He stopped by the door to say thanks again and waved at Nusia. She looked disappointed at his choice. Others might have thought that she felt bad about him sleeping in a barn but he knew better. If it was up to her, she wanted him to spend the night with all the girls in one room.

That would be suicide, and he wouldn't be able to sleep. Artus shook his head as he walked in the twilight, enjoying the view while he waited. He already knew what would happen next, or had the gist of it.

"You didn't touch a girl like her all this time?" asked the voice from his back before he scoffed. "Don't tell me you don't even have the dick to do it?"

Artus looked up into the sky while sighing inside.

"I'm not my father," he stated before starting to walk again. He had replied without answering the question, the only kind of lie he could muster.

-

Cindy heard the clear provocation.

It felt like hearing a stranger talking in the voice of the young man she knew for many Terra cycles already. She guessed that Kent hadn't been really himself all this time, and it only took an appearance of a competitor to shed his nice-guy sheep-skin off.

She could only hope the young man didn't do anything more than try to provoke Artus. Mana wise, the new guy could be useful to her. She already suspected it, and his statement was clear that he got more mana than anyone on the farm.

His answer though was short and surprising. Her best guess was he could tell that his mother was suffering all this time under the guise of security and wealth.

Call them what you want, but many women would rather choose to become one of the many wives of a wealthy man rather than the only wife of a poor farmer. If the position was reversed, many men would do the same.

Even as concubines or mistresses, women would have considered themselves lucky to be in favor of a wealthy man, and the reason was understandable. The choice would lead them to a secure life which was the most important thing for everyone. There was no need to sell your body to random men or go hungry for days at a time.

The other alternative, the adventurers, were the worst as no one would know their spouses would return or not. There was also a fact that the streets were full of orphans. Their orphans.

Who cares if they were labeled as cheap or whatever as long as they could eat anything they preferred or dress in whatever they wanted. The hunger that she had to go through during the winter had forced her to look from these women's perspectives.

It would be an easier, safer choice.

She would if she could, but even to become a maid would need some basic knowledge. No one would hire a maid who couldn’t even count past ten. Whatever happens, she would never want to strip herself down to maidservant status. It would be pointless and she would rather struggle here.

She was at the door when she heard them.

The secret talk in the girl's room changed everything she had thought of the young man. The conversation between girls was expected but Cindy had never expected to hear what she was listening to.

"He didn't force you but he had kissed you down there until you can't take it anymore?"

The girls yelped in surprise and excitement after she imagined what would be the new girl's blushed nod. Nusia might have only given them clues and let the others piece it together. No girl who would be brazen enough to cover every detail.

"How come you let him, you know, kiss you there?

"Did he trick you or something?" asked another right after.

"No! He won't do that," Nusia answered in a hurry. "He had just wanted me to be happy. He said girls can enjoy it too, as much as boys do, and he proved it by using only his lips."

The girls gasped with Cindy included. Her mother had told her that she enjoyed it sometimes when the father wasn't too tired. They couldn’t afford to buy a book about it or even had the bravery to buy one of those educational storybooks.

Mama had never mentioned kissing there, and Cindy had never even heard a rumor about it. This is the first time she heard a man kissing a girl there.

She entered the room and joined it as if it was natural to do so. She was sure the girls wouldn't mind it. This kind of talk among experienced women was very rare even between families and always done in great secret.

"He- he didn't put in?" Jane gasped. "No, don't tell me the, you know, was cut?"

"No!" the girl denied once again. "Eventually, he taught me how to sit, you know, on my own."

They all gasped again and it was quiet for a while before someone asked.

"The first time, doesn't it hurt?"

"It does, but not really," Nusia paused for a while as she hesitated to give the reason she said that. "Artus's kiss made it slid right through," she whispered in the even redder face.