Filth came back with a cartload's worth of the shrooms and was lauded as a local hero once again.

Well, not really. But he got thanked a lot because he always shared.

While the perilously procured mushrooms were supposedly a vital ingredient in some kind of mana regeneration tonic, ordinary people didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was how good the mushrooms tasted when put in a soup or simply steamed. And, naturally, how they provided a much-needed respite from subsisting on man-eating seafood all the time.

“Whoo! Thanks, cap.” Lospar jovially grinned as he stashed the small pouch of mushrooms he got from Filth. “I’m getting a taste for these things lately, and this’ll tide me over for a week. But never mind that, we can gorge ourselves for dinner tonight!”

Filth rolled his eyes as he swung one leg over his steed. “Why do you even bother going into those dark tunnels to scavenge? It’s too risky. I'll just give you some of mine whenever I go down there. That's what I already do now, anyway.”

“Now, that wouldn’t sit right by me, cap. You may get ten times my best haul on a bad day, but that doesn’t mean I can just sit and wait to be fed. Besides, I gotta keep myself sharp. You never know when we’ll get picked for a mission back on the mainland.”

There was some truth to that, Filth mused as they both started up their steeds and followed the way they came.

‘When the hell are they going to pick me…’

It didn’t happen very often, but some people were chosen to perform certain tasks back on the mainland. What these tasks were, Filth didn’t really know. But he had more chances to correspond with his employer there than he had out here in the middle of nowhere.

If he had to take a guess, the jobs probably involved scouting out what Argonia and Aizen were doing in the former republic’s lands. Or perhaps just dipping into the mainland to see if the climate stopped being so unfriendly to sustainable life. Heck, since Aizen—or rather, Samsara—was openly accepting Arkhanian survivors, the Sons of Arkhan might have been planting spies within the population itself.

Such a thing wasn’t doable to the Argonian settlements, however, because the Argonians preferred chaining all the Arkhanians and replacing them with Argonian settlers. Ironic, how the humane way Aizen treated foreigners actually made them easier to spy on. And it was sad how the Sons saw fit to exploit that kindness.

Feed the wolves, and they'll bite you first. It was sad, how often kindness seemed to be punished sometimes. And evil somehow got to enjoy itself before it got vanquished—if it ever did, that is.

In any case, Filth and Lospar had already made it back to Filth’s hut in no time. They planned to roast some of the mushrooms while enjoying the sea breeze, which was slowly becoming a weekly ritual of sorts. Filth wouldn't complain, however, since he always found listening to this jolly old man's drunken stories enjoyable.

Said old man had fortunately managed to barter a portion of his shrooms for some hooch, so they were going to have some drinks too. It had been a long time since they’d last tasted alcohol, and they were looking forward to it. Even if said hooch was brewed in some smelly guy’s hut, it would still be better than nothing.

Hell, they’d both guzzle it down like it was the best thing they’d ever tasted even if it actually tasted like piss.

They both got to setting up a simple grill—which was basically just a wire mesh above a fire pit, held up by some rocks by the wayside. It was crude, but it worked. Besides, not much was needed when all they were doing was grilling some mushrooms.

“Got us some salt, cap.” Lospar pulled out a small pouch made of rags, shaking it beside his hairy face proudly. “Don’t ever say I just freeload off ya.”

“I never said that.” Filth chuckled as he threw down a bag of coals they could feed into the fire as needed later. Then he started placing some of the mushrooms on the wire mesh using a fork—a wooden one that his friendly neighbor gave him as a gift weeks ago.

As they waited for the first few to be cooked, Lospar also procured the rumored bottle of hooch and two wooden mugs, handing one to Filth.

“Agh. This is some strong stuff...” Filth remarked as he brought his nose close to the rim of his mug. “But it smells good. Tastes good too, hopefully. My expectations were low, so color me surprised.”

“I aim to impress.” Lospar theatrically bowed before taking a seat on a rock.

“It’s not like I was the one who made it," Filth remarked with a roll of his eyes.

"Anyway!" Lospar completely ignored Filth and leaned in, his voice falling to a very conspiratorial whisper. "I heard something interesting yesterday.”

Again, Filth rolled his eyes. “You always hear something interesting.”

It really didn’t take long to realize that this person he’d inadvertently saved from giant sewer rats had a sharp pair of eyes and a pretty good set of ears—the ears being considerably more useful. Perhaps it was also because of his friendly nature, but he managed to squeeze into many circles and hear all kinds of information from them.

Lospar was so sharp that Filth truly wondered how the man accrued so much debt. Was he just that bad of a gambler? As someone who'd never really had any agency for most of his life, he always viewed debt as something only idiots or the truly desperate accrued until it became a problem. Since Lospar didn't seem like a fool, then he supposed the old man had a story of his own.

Filth knew that it wasn't his place to pry, however.

“What is it this time?” he asked with a calm expression as he focused on making sure none of the mushrooms got burnt. “I hope it’s not gossip about who’s fucking who again. I've gotten tired of being envious.”

“It’s not, it’s not. Listen to this… A bunch of the people sent to the mainland finally returned.”

That did sound interesting, so Filth perked up his ears even though he pretended it didn't bother him. “Oh? I thought they died or were never meant to return. Not yet, at least.”

“No, it only took them so long because they apparently had to go to the mainland by boat. The return trip was instant because of the portals, however.”

Filth ruminated on the implications of that information. Well, he’d noticed it a long time ago, so this was just additional evidence to support his conclusions.

The portal ability that someone in the Sons of Arkhan could use had very strict limitations.

Regardless of where the user was, they could open an “escape point” anywhere in Arkhan. This escape point would lead them to a “safe zone”, but Filth had come to understand that this safe zone had to be near the ability user.

Of course, he still hadn’t personally met the aforementioned ability’s user yet, but some things just became obvious when he really thought about it. Otherwise, they could just set the safezone to anywhere and essentially have free transportation to... well, everywhere.

However, that was never the case.

The safe zones were almost always some secret base that was hidden and protected. If anyone from the Brotherhood ever had to scout a place out, like when Filth and his team were sent to investigate the capital of the republic last time, they had to actually go there on foot.

‘Well, I could still be wrong.’

Perhaps the safe zone truly did mean a “safe” zone. In other words, the title could only be assigned to a secure base, and the ability user’s proximity wasn’t a factor. Really, it was such a mysterious ability. With any hope, Filth would climb high enough in the ranks to access more information about it.

“Did they say anything?” Filth’s mind returned to their conversation as he heard the familiar sizzling sound a mushroom made when it was cooked just right. He speared it with his fork and blew on it for a few moments before popping it into his mouth.

‘Delicious.’

Lospar also hungrily but patiently eyed the shrooms on the mesh grill, waiting for them to be cooked. He no doubt found it hard to resist in the face of the tantalizing aroma wafting over to them, but he still continued gossiping. “They made it to the vicinity of that new place. Lageton, was it called? It’s a country now, can you believe that?”

Filth’s hand froze for a second before he resumed, plating the cooked shrooms and placing new ones on the grill. He looked to the older man as he sprinkled salt over the shrooms. “Did they say anything about it? How well the place is doing, I mean.”

“Nah. Apparently, they split into two groups. One headed to the settlements, the other headed to some kind of wall or something? It’s the latter that returned.”

“Wall?”

“Yeah. Seems that Samsara place is building one. Really long one, too. They seem serious about it.”

“Huh…” Filth hadn’t heard anything about that before leaving.

But then again, he wasn’t exactly part of the prince’s inner council, so why the hell would he know? Besides, he’d been away for so long that there were definitely some developments he wasn’t aware of. And these developments apparently caused Samsara to build a wall.

“According to my friend,” Lospar whispered, taking a quick sip of his hooch before continuing. “Argonia attacked the wall before it got finished. Used giant worms and a whole buncha those ghost things. The creepy ones that float around without a lower half.”

“Espers, you mean?”

“Yeah. Those.”

“I see... What do you mean by giant worms, though?”

Lospar shrugged. “That’s all they said about it. They weren’t very descriptive, so our guys either made them up, or they didn’t get a good look—which would make sense. They got spooked so much that they took their exit point earlier than planned. They didn’t find out very much except for the weather being better.”

Filth idly took a swig from his mug and looked out into the vast blue sea. “So the weather’s getting better? That means we can start moving back into the mainland, no?”

“Probably not.”

“Hah? Why? We’re only living here because we can’t live there, right?”

“It’s because of the other group.” Lospar wagged a finger as he ate his share of the grilled mushrooms. “Didn’t I say? One group went to the wall, the other went to Lageton.”

Filth frowned as he gestured for the other side to elaborate.”What about them?”

“See, they’re intention is to liberate a portion of the population from Aizen’s control. If things work out well, we’ll be getting a whole bunch of newbies around here.”

“Liberate, huh…?”

Filth had come to understand that the Sons of Arkhan didn’t necessarily despise Aizen and its people. No, they just disliked foreigners in general. The ones who’d been in conflict with Arkhan, at least—they were perfectly fine with the nations in the Pentagorian Continent, who had never been at war with the republic.

So really, it was just Argonia and Aizen that they disliked.

The organization’s wariness toward the two Great Powers was well warranted in Filth’s opinion, because Arkhan had never won decisively against either.

Aizen had always done reasonably well against Argonia, losing nothing but making the empire bleed for every transgression. This could also be said for conflicts between the kingdom and the republic as well, though there were evidently very few of these throughout history.

In contrast, there were always skirmishes on the border between the republic and the empire, which were hit-and-miss. And when the losses got a bit too heavy, causing the people to call for war, the republic came out of it with just as many, if not more, losses than the empire. After all, the empire was so unimaginably vast that it could recover from personnel losses ridiculously fast. So when an Arkhanian life was traded for an Argonian one, then the republic would come out the loser in the exchange.

In conclusion, Arkhan was weaker than Argonia, which was in turn not strong enough to deal significant damage to Aizen.

That was also why the republic had always been the one to play both sides to some extent. It was never because the republic's leaders were sleazy fence-sitters. No, they had to play both sides, otherwise, they'd just be eaten up. Well, that's what the Sons of Arkhan says, at least. Filth didn't exactly have the upbringing to have the best education, so he was never sure about anything.

“Did they succeed?” Filth questioned, once again trying hard not to sound too interested.

Lospar shook his head. “No… Well, not yet, anyway. They’re still there. If the escape point is going to transport a whole bunch of people, then it has to be in some open area. Probably outside the city. People can’t just get up and go that far out without being noticed by the authorities. They’ll probably need lots of time to prepare.”

“Huh…”

‘Will it really work out that well, though?’

Suddenly, Lospar squinted as he looked into the distance. Then he suddenly stood up. “Whoops. Sorry, I’ll have to go.”

“What? Already? What about the…” Filth gestured at the grill full of roasted mushrooms and the half-finished bottle of hooch. “I can’t finish all this by myself.”

“Don’t worry about that. Just sit there for a few minutes. I’ll see you tomorrow, cap. Thank me later.”

“Why would I thank…?”

Before he could demand answers, Lospar had already gotten on his steed and rode off, presumably to his own hut somewhere on another island. Still confused, Filth stayed put and managed the grill before realizing what the older man had been planning.

Leila, the other person Filth recruited into the Sons of Arkhan, was standing in front of him before he noticed. Her long, peach blonde hair looked ephemeral in the fire’s light as he stared up at her pretty face.

“Hey, Fil.” She smiled and looked around, a slight crook in her brow. “I could've sworn that Lospar was with you...”

“He, uh…” Filth chuckled sheepishly. “He left. Said he had to do something.”

‘That old man is doing something unnecessary again… But thank you, old man. Thank you.’

Months had passed, and Filth had gradually gotten closer to Leila.

Honestly, it was too good to be true. Anyone could see that she was too good for him. If Filth hadn’t seen the women around Prince Reivan, then she would have undoubtedly been the prettiest girl he’d laid eyes on for his entire life. She didn’t have a difficult personality either, as far as he was concerned, but she could talk rough and trade banter depending on who she was talking to—which made her fun to be around with, in his books.

And somehow, she didn’t seem to hate being around him.

“Oh… Well, that’s fine.” Leila hesitantly gestured at the makeshift grill. “Mind if I join you? I haven’t eaten yet.”

“No. No, not at all. Take a seat anywhere. There’s plenty of sand to sit on.”

“Thanks, don’t mind if I do.” Taking him up on his offer, Leila sat down on the other side of the grill.

The graceful way she folded her legs and the straightness of her back were noticeably unlike how a village girl would have sat. Filth had seen village girls before, and she definitely didn’t act like one, even though she always said that she was.

‘Don’t pry. Don’t pry. It’s none of your business, so don’t pry.’

“Here, eat ‘em while they’re hot.” Filth offered her a bowl of the grilled shrooms meant for Lospar. “You’ve got lots of flavors to choose from. This one’s salted. Oh, that one, I believe, is salted. And that one is salted, too.”

Leila grinned, taking the bowl from him with a nod of thanks. “The salted one looks good, but are there any other flavors?”

“Feeling adventurous, are we? Well, I can make a special one seasoned with salt and sand if you want.”

“I’ll make do with the salted one, thank you.”

“A fine choice, m’lady.”

That got a giggle out of her, making Filth feel very good about himself because he spent hours last night simulating that in his head. He absentmindedly grinned too, enjoying the view—which is to say the night view and the pretty lady eating in front of him.

“So good…” Leila muttered, covering her mouth as she chewed. “You went scavenging in those spider tunnels again, huh? You really shouldn’t go so often… It’s dangerous.”

Filth’s grin almost widened when he sensed the concern in her voice, but he concealed it by drinking from his mug. “It’s fine. I’m being really careful.”

“Not going at all is being careful. There’s no need to risk your life for mushrooms when there’s plenty of fish in the sea to catch. I mean, they kind of try to eat you too, but it's easier to deal with them because they're useless above water.”

“Well, if I never go down there to get shrooms, when will I ever see the face you make when you eat them?” he blurted out his honest thoughts, but instantly realized his mistake and covered his mouth.

Too late, because she’d already heard them. Whether her ears burned red or not, it was hard to tell with so little light. Nonetheless, she turned her face away from him. “Don’t blame your recklessness on someone else…”

Filth chuckled meekly as he scratched the back of his head, which had gotten annoyingly oily. Which was par for the course out here. There wasn’t exactly an abundance of shower rooms and luxury bath products.

‘Come to think of it…’

When he looked at Leila’s peach blonde hair, it wasn’t doing as badly as he’d expected. It definitely looked worse than when he first saw her. But it still looked rich and luscious, obviously well-maintained. Plus, the fact that she didn’t feel the need to cut it was strange.

After a few weeks of staying on the island, most of the women had shortened their hair out of necessity. Though it wasn’t sweltering hot out here, it was still hotter than what they were used to in Arkhan.

Their hair suffered from a lack of proper bathing facilities, the salty sea air, and the heat on top of it all. If they worked a job, which they likely did in some way, then they sweated all day, too. And being sweaty was significantly more annoying with long hair than it was otherwise.

Leila had noticeably kept hers long, though she trimmed it a little. Now it reached slightly below her shoulder blades.

“Hey…” she spoke up, eyeing the bottle of hooch. “Give me some of that.”

Filth hesitantly handed it to her along with a fresh wooden cup from his spatial ring. “It’s pretty strong stuff, so don’t drink too much. You already know you’re not very good with alcohol.”

“It’s fine.” Leila peered at him as she poured herself a cup. “If I get too drunk, I can just sleep in your hut, right?”

“There's no need for that, I can just—

drive you to your hut,” he was about to say. But then he realized what a huge mistake that would have been.

‘That's an invitation, right? I’m not overthinking this, aren’t I?’

Leila wasn’t some airheaded girl, she was actually quite sharp and guarded against others. So if she made the suggestion herself…

Filth peered at her and found her gazing back at him. He didn’t look away, and she didn’t either. And somehow, Filth just knew that he really wasn’t mistaken about his assumptions.

‘Oh. Oh, oh, oh. This is really happening…’

They had gotten close these past few months, doing work for the Sons of Arkhan. But it had never gotten to the point of actual romance, though Lospar needled and pushed them together. Well, Filth unintentionally flirted with her sometimes, but that was the Arkhanian way, wasn’t it? Being slightly flirtatious was perfectly ordinary.

He never expected it to actually get this far.

‘W-what do I do now…?’

The thought of breaking the ambiguity they’d been stuck with for months occurred to him, but he didn’t have quite enough courage for that.

So he cheated.

Filth picked up the bottle of hooch and downed the entire bottle, immediately feeling his sense of balance leave his body. But so did his inhibitions. “Yeah, there’s plenty of room inside.”

There were still some doubts. Maybe everything was in his head and she just thought of him as an elder brother whom she could share a room with. Or perhaps this was some kind of elaborate test to see if he would pounce on her, and it was actually a mistake to do so.

So Filth, despite being drunker than he had ever been in his life, intended to go about this carefully. He would inch closer and closer, constantly gauging her reaction. And if there was even a slight sliver of a chance that she didn’t want something to happen, he would back off faster than an Ascendant taking flight.

Hopefully, he'd be courageous or inebriated enough to pull through if she was actually fine with what was about to happen.

“Okay, good then…” Leila held her cup with both hands, bringing it up to her mouth. “Take good care of me.”

“Uh… yes, of course.”

 

---

 

As Teianna, the florist turned gardener, left the room, Reivan sighed and looked toward Elsa. “She knew a lot more than she thought, huh?”

Teianna confessed that she didn’t know much about the Sons of Arkhan, which wasn’t a lie from her perspective, but she and Reivan had very different ideas of what “a lot” meant. A man dying of thirst would kill for a mere drop of water, and all that. Mundane things she’d noticed and thought was of no particular use actually revealed a lot to him.

“Let’s see…” Elsamina unfurled a very rough map of the continent on the table, tracing a finger in the vast expanse south of Arkhan. “It should be about here. It can’t be west of Arkhan, that’s for sure.”

Reivan nodded. “It doesn't really narrow it down, though. That’s a ridiculously vast area.”

Most maps that featured even just a portion of the supercontinent that was the Sentorale Continent didn’t detail every single island close to its shores. Just the really big ones, at most. And some maps didn’t even record those. Despite what most maps depicted, there were actually hundreds of thousands of islands randomly arrayed in the seas south of Arkhan, leading the way to Pentagoria and then the Sutherim Continent.

Combing such a vast expanse while evading the attention of monsters was going to be hard. Especially since gargantuan-class sea monsters that could jump out of the water and reach the clouds weren’t unheard of. Some of said monsters even ate islands. At least that’s what legends say. And for Aizen, legends were very likely to be facts because there were some really old people there and those people were likely the origin of those very legends.

It was now especially impossible to comb through it because the kingdom’s Ascendants were confined within mainland Aizen. Only if the nation's people or their allies were aggressed upon by an Ascendant could they deploy theirs, that was what the contract stipulated.

And even if it was allowed, a half-ascendant with the [Water] attribute or the [Wind] attribute for flight would take ages to search through that many islands anyway.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Elsamina frowned as she crossed her arms. “You’re thinking of wearing a disguise and using one of those escape points so that you can be delivered to their base, right?”

Reivan scratched his head and smiled meekly. “My thoughts haven’t gotten that far, but they were definitely going in that direction, yes. Can I just say how heart-warming it is that you know me so well?”

“But you said you wanted to be here for the baby.” She ignored him and rubbed her bloated stomach gently. There was a hint of apprehension on her usually brave face. “And I also want you here when it happens.”

“I know. I also want to be here when our boy is born. Even if I did intend to go, I wouldn’t go immediately, you know?”

Elsamina’s pregnancy had advanced to the point that it wouldn’t be strange if she gave birth right this instant. It would be premature, but it could happen tomorrow. Or the day after. As such, he couldn’t leave her side anymore. Not until the baby was born. And probably even a week after that, because he’d obviously want to spend time with his newborn.

In this world, it wasn’t uncommon for newborns to die within the first few days due to various complications or deficiencies. He wanted to be around his second son until he stabilized. Even if it was just as a human medicine box, he would do anything he could to make sure his child was healthy.

“Okay.” Elsamina sighed in relief, a smile on her face. “I didn’t actually think you’d just leave me at this point, but…”

“I’m sure it’ll take some time before Teianna can spread the word.” Reivan shrugged. “Let’s hope it takes more than a month.”

“You’re really going to let her go through with the orders she received?”

He nodded. “That’s right. Call it a… social experiment.”

Said order involved spreading the word about the “extraction” so that they may be “liberated from the Hierarch's tyranny” or something along those lines. Earlier, he’d instructed Miss Teianna to spread the word because he was curious about how many would go.

Not to brag, but he felt as if he’d taken care of Samsara’s people adequately. And with significant prospects for future development to boot. Surely, that was enough to retain some modicum of loyalty, right?

He naturally had no intentions of punishing anyone who did, however. If somebody in Samsara didn’t want to be here, then they likely wouldn’t work very hard to prop it up. They would work the bare minimum to support themselves. Hell, they might even be a seed of rebellion.

And if so, then losing them would be no real loss.

Good riddance. Sayonara. Arrivederci.

More people coming meant more cover for Reivan, too, when he chose to infiltrate the Sons of Arkhan himself. So really, there were plenty of advantages to letting the Sons take some of his non-enthusiastic citizens away.

‘Oh. And since they’re not a signatory of the treaty…’

Then that meant he was allowed to use artifacts and other items made by Ascendants or even Transcendence—in other words, he could bring one of the Sword Star’s bells with him and the amulet that Saint Frey gave him.

Reivan could also bring an entire arsenal of runestones that had an Ascendant's killing move embedded into them. Even if the Sons of Arkhan had an Ascendant among their ranks, it was possible for Reivan to kill them. If it didn’t work, then he could simply retreat using the old man’s silver bell.

If it weren’t for that pesky rule about keeping Ascendants within their respective core region, Reivan could have packed a dozen Ascendants inside Zouros and have them spat back out when the need arose.

‘Fucking treaty…’

Suddenly, Elsamina grabbed her tummy with a surprised face. “Oh. He’s kicking again.”

Reivan smiled at that. “Is he now? Our big boy’s just itching to get out, huh?”

They’d already had priests check, and it seemed his first child with Elsa would be male. Honestly, since he already had Arthur, Reivan hoped for a girl this time.

But the feeling of disappointment vanished as soon as it arrived. In the end, the baby’s gender never mattered. He just wanted it to be healthy when it came out into the world. And judging by Elsa’s bigger-than-normal belly and the assessment of priests, their baby boy was going to be a big boy. Definitely not as big as a toddler, but he was surely going to be a couple of kilos heavier than Arthur.

It would have been great if the baby was small and then just got big after it was born, but one couldn’t have everything in life. Elsa would have a harder time delivering the baby because of its estimated size, but she had wide hips, so it would hopefully be okay.

Plus, there was a priest of Sormon here. And he was here too, just in case she needed some obscure medicine or something.

Unable to resist, Reivan got up and moved to sit next to Elsa, filling the space where Teianna used to be. He leaned over and put his ear to her stomach, listening intently for his child.

There were a few kicks, yes. And they were a bit too strong in his opinion. He almost wished he could talk to the child and tell it to be more considerate. But Elsa didn’t seem to mind and was even happy about the kicks, so how could he complain? Still, despite the roundness of her stomach, it wasn't a ball. So he would really like it if his little boy wouldn't kick it too hard...

“Oh…” Elsa’s smile slowly turned upside down. “Oh, wait… My love, I think…”

Reivan sat up, his face hardening. “Is it happening?”

“I don’t know, but something feels different.”

“What? What something? What's different? I don't understand!”

Elsa shook her head, her forehead creasing as both of her hands were now placed on her stomach. “It just feels different… And I suddenly feel anxious.”

“Oh. I’ve read about this.” Reivan licked his lips, drawing up what he’d read and asked about in preparation for this exact situation. “Some women can just instinctively feel when it’s coming. Maybe you’re like that.”

“I am? Is it like how you have really good intuition?”

“Something like that.” Reivan got up and gently lifted her up out of the couch. “Just to be safe, let’s get you back to your room.”

“O-okay, but be careful about my stomach…” Elsa nodded meekly. It seemed she really was feeling extremely anxious, because there was an uncharacteristic panic in her voice that she was barely holding at bay. “You might shake up Hanz…”

“Relax, I know…” Reivan chuckled and smiled to try to ease her worries, amused at her mention of the name he’d suggested for their child.

It was a name likened to a very important man in Reivan’s previous life as Ken. A person who taught him that you didn't need to be related to be family.

In any case, Hanz had to be delivered successfully before he could receive the name. And for that, Reivan and Elsa had to work hard not to mess things up. Reivan, with his second wife in his arms, walked over to the door and kicked it open. Not because he was in a rush, but to alert everyone listening. Knights stationed to protect Elsa had learned not to listen in when the couple were alone in a room together, so his very loud act would force their attention on him.

“The lady of the house is about to give birth. Please prepare accordingly.”

The maids stationed outside of the door immediately started running somewhere while touching their earrings—which were embedded with a dream crystal. Those two would contact all the personnel that needed to be contacted, including the priest and everyone who would help deliver the baby. With Reivan here to escort the lady herself, they knew that they were better off entrusting her to him.

“Go slowly, okay?” Elsamina tightly wrapped her hands around his neck as he carried her like a princess. “Even though something already hurts, go slowly. We’re not that far.”

Reivan just nodded, even though he knew all that. The last thing he needed to do was give his wife lip, aggravating her further. He quietly walked down the Emerald Manse’s hallways, occasionally whispering encouragement but otherwise allowing her to focus on enduring whatever it was she needed to endure. This came from his own experience, because when a limb got cut off during training, the last thing he wanted while reattaching it was someone talking his ear off.

By the time they’d arrived in the predetermined delivery room, the priest was already there, along with a few midwives and maids who would help with mundane tasks.

“Please lay her down over here,” the priest promptly gestured at the bed before snapping her fingers. A gentle light flashed, enveloping the room and everyone in it with a mild radiance that only lasted for a few moments.

Reivan obediently did as told before taking a stool out of his spatial ring, sitting down right next to the bed. They’d already talked about this in private, that Elsamina preferred having Reivan present during the delivery. It was quite different from Helen, who didn’t want him to be around—and she ended up getting her wish because he was literally in another country when she went into labor.

Elsa’s breathing grew rough, and beads of sweat started forming on her beautiful face. Her hand absently searched for something on the bed before Reivan grabbed it. Then she calmed down and looked toward him.

“Honey, I’m scared.”

‘I’m scared too, actually.’

Reivan’s fingers comfortingly tightened around her hand. “You’ll be okay. We'll get through this.”

A smile bloomed on her face, filled with uncertainty. But a moment passed, and fear replaced it once again.

Only this time, there was determination burning in those emerald green eyes.