Chapter Forty Eight: Win Him Over…

Greg was seated, his legs crossed in a lotus position with Olivia seated across from him. It was just after dinner and Greg was now inside his room. Tired as Greg currently felt, they didn’t immediately start his training. Instead, his gaze moved right to the edge of his vision where the small system screen was. Three seconds later, it enlarged to cover most of his vision. The first thing of note was that the mission the system had assigned him when he attained the rank of acolyte of lust was now marked with 2/100. The next thing was that his lust points total had climbed to thirteen million and some change. Greg may have gotten a bit carried away with having a hard-on that wouldn’t go soft unless he wished it to. By the time he was done with the Town-head’s wife and his daughter, the two could barely walk. Greg had to allow them to rest for an hour before letting them bathe in his house to get rid of the smell of sex. Of course, Greg joined them and had some more fun with them while they washed. It was only after they could walk and were no longer reeking of sex that Greg escorted them back to the carriage.

Greg moved to the COMPLETED MISSIONS tab and skipping past the listed missions that he'd completed, he turned his gaze to the feats of lust. Greg had already gone through the system earlier in the day after the Town-head’s wife and daughter had left. Still, even now Greg was unable to wrap his mind around what he was seeing. Talk about overshooting one’s goal.

TWENTY-ONE FEATS OF LUST ACCOMPLISHED.

Ø Arouse more than a hundred women at a single event.

Ø Bring the Town-head’s wife to her first-ever orgasm right under the nose of her husband.

Ø Bring the Town-head’s wife to multiple orgasms right under the nose of her husband.

Ø Lost your virginity to the healer.

Ø Took the healer’s virginity.

Ø Creampied the healer.

Ø Cum on the Town-head’s wife right under the nose of her husband.

Ø Creampied the Town-head’s wife right under the nose of her husband.

Ø Impregnated the Town-head’s wife right under the nose of her husband.

Ø Brought Shalia to orgasm with your words alone.

Ø Gave the Town-head’s wife her first oral sex experience.

Ø Had sex with the Town-head’s wife in the sight of her daughter.

Ø Had sex with the Town-head’s wife in the sight of your mother.

Ø Creampied the Town-head’s wife in the sight of her daughter.

Ø Creampied the Town-head’s wife in the sight of your mother.

Ø Took Shalia’s virginity in the sight of her mother.

Ø Took Shalia’s virginity in the sight of your mother.

Ø Had sex with Shalia in the sight of her mother.

Ø Had sex with Shalia in the sight of your mother.

Ø Creampied Shalia in the sight of her mother.

Ø Creampied Shalia in the sight of your mother.

PICK FEATS TO MERGE.

When Greg first saw the list, he’d almost been certain that the system had some sort of glitch. But no matter how many times he opened and closed the system, the list remained the same. Turning to Olivia, Greg voiced his thoughts. “I was under the impression that feats would be hard to accrue. Is it just me, or are the feats a little too easy to get?’ he asked.

“First, thank the healer, and secondly, consider the danger,” Olivia offered this cryptic answer. At his look of incomprehension, she went on to explain. “The fact that everything seems to come a bit too easy to you all traces back to one single factor. The fact that you were lucky enough to encounter the healer at the start. I doubt even the maker of the system ever imagined that a mundane human would somehow get involved with a seventh-tier mage,” She voiced.

Greg’s brows went up. Not because of the part about the healer but because of the last statement. This was the first time that the familiar had alluded to the system having a creator. Greg didn’t know whether this was intentional or not. Still, he latched onto it. “How do you know that the system was created he asked. Greg already knew that the system was the work of Olivia’s original. He, however, couldn’t very well come out and ask about this outright. He had to play the role of the ignorant party.

The familiar arched an eyebrow at him. “Do you honestly believe that something so intricate and powerful just popped into existence from the ether?” She’d asked.

Greg smiled in an embarrassed fashion, turning his face to the side as if to avoid the familiar’s gaze. With a slight cough to clear his embarrassment, he replied. “I guess I just never really thought about it,” He said. With his ruse perfectly executed, Greg went on to ask his true question “I can’t even begin to imagine how powerful one would have to be to create the system. Who do you think it is?” Greg had been hoping the subtle praise would make the familiar more inclined to tell him the truth. Much to his chagrin, however, she didn’t.

“The power of such beings is beyond the comprehension of either you or I. Trying to pry into their identity and secrets will more than likely lead to a bad ending for both of us,” She stated. Greg could feel a slight chill crawl up his back. Not because Olivia had been trying to threaten him but precisely because she wasn’t. The familiar hadn’t spoken in a particularly threatening tone. Instead, she’d just made the assertion as if it was plain fact. And given that she probably knew her true self better than anyone else, Greg got the feeling that she wasn’t guessing at the outcome. With a hard swallow and a nod of acknowledgment, Greg gave up the line of questioning.

“To go back to what I was saying, the fact that you somehow managed to come into contact with a seventh-tier mage is the reason everything else that came after seems easy to you. Think about it, from the lust points she earned you, you not only managed to open up the highest levels of the Eros shop, you also managed to buy several title items from the highest tier of the shop. It’s also because of her that you managed to come into contact with the Town-head and through him, his wife. It’s also because of the healer that you obtained the innate title that helped you in your more erotic pursuits. She is the one aberrant factor that rippled out into everything else!” The familiar had calmly laid out. “Think about it, there were over a hundred women in attendance at your father’s sendoff party, and yet, you only earned about twenty-seven thousand lust points from them! Now, take a second and imagine that the healer wasn’t in the picture and you somehow managed to survive,” she proposed. “Forget the title items, forget having a familiar, forget having an innate title, just how long would it have taken you to unlock the higher tiers of the Eros shop?” She asked.

Greg hadn’t understood what Olivia meant when she told him to thank the healer. The more he thought about her words, however, the more he realized the truth of her words and how central to his success the healer had been. Without her, even Olivia wouldn’t have entered the picture. Greg would have been on his own, floundering as he tried to figure out the system. Not to mention that without the mana from the healer, he wouldn’t have been able to access the Magic shop. The more Greg thought about it the more certain he became that he would have most likely ended up dead to his uncle’s machinations and that would have been the end of that!

“The second reason why you managed to get so many feats of lust, had to do with a hidden rule of the system. And that is; the higher the danger grade, the more feats you will earn as a result. While the Town-head might need you, there is zero doubt that he’d do all that he could to end your life if he ever found out what you did to his wife and daughter. And given that he is still Town-head, he has the power to pose a lethal danger to you. This is the reason that the system considers any mission to do with the man’s wife or daughter to be of a suicidal danger grade. Remember, feats are for either unique or ballsy acts that you do in pursuit of sexual pleasure. It’s also for this reason that you received no feats regarding what you did with your mother. Every feat where she is mentioned still involves the Town-head’s wife and daughter. Kinky and taboo as what you did may have been, you weren’t in any real danger from her. The worst that could have happened is a soured relationship but little else beyond that.”

“On the other hand, every single feat that you got from your little tryst with the Town-head’s wife and daughter is something that puts you in danger of death. Having sex in front of another person, while kinky, is also a loose end that could expose you and land you in a world of trouble should they so choose to reveal what it is you did. Like most young women out there, Shalia is probably given to letting her emotions guide her actions as opposed to cold rationality. Should she have a sudden spike of guilt and choose to come clean to her father about what she and her mother did, what then? What about the Town-head’s wife, should you ever be at odds with one another and she chooses to use what she saw to turn the Town-head against you, you’d be screwed!” she laid out before cautioning him. “It would serve you well to remember that the system only rewards you for being brave, master, it doesn’t care whether you were being foolishly brave or wisely so. Just because you get a feat of lust for a certain deed, doesn’t mean that it was the wise or right thing to do,” She advised.

Greg was once again forced to agree with the familiar’s assessment. The rule that the higher the danger the more feats he'd get seemed to match up almost perfectly with how it rewarded missions. The more danger Greg put himself in while pursuing a mission, the more lust points he would get from the system. Looking at the list from that point of view, it was less a list of his achievements and more a record of all the times he’d foolishly risked his life to one degree or the other. When Greg first went through the different mission categories and come across the TWISTED and ROGUE categories, he’d realized that just because the system listed something as a mission, didn’t mean that it was the right thing to do. That realization was now expanded to also include the fact that, just because something could earn him a feat of lust, doesn’t mean that it was necessarily the wise thing to do.

His first question answered, Greg had asked about the new instruction that now followed the feats of lust. “What does it mean by ‘pick feats to be merged’?” he’d asked. The question may have sounded dumb to most people out there. After all, the words seemed rather self-explanatory. Greg, however, had come to value Olivia’s insight into the system. Things that seemed straightforward to him often had hidden facets and deeper implications that Greg couldn’t see. Besides, even if there wasn’t anything more to the instruction than what it said, Greg didn’t lose anything by asking. His decision to ask, however, was immediately rewarded as Olivia revealed bits of information that he never would have guessed unless he accidentally stumbled onto it.

“The maximum number of feats that you are allowed to merge is ten, regardless of how many you’ve accrued. While your total number of feats is ten and under, you’ll only have the option of merging them. As soon as you have eleven or more feats, then you are given an option of which ten to merge! This is of far greater value than the default merge as it gives you a benefit that wasn’t there before. You will never be able to determine what gifts the system gives you, master. But if at least seven of the ten feats you pick to merge have something in common, then the system will generate a theme for the kind of rewards it gives you. Take for example your very first feat of lust involving arousing a hundred different women. If you had six other feats that involved crowds, plus another random three to fill out the ten feats maximum that you can merge, then the resulting rewards that you can get from the system will lean towards affecting crowds or yourself while you are within a crowd,” Olivia had laid out.

“What if I don’t add the three to dilute the set of seven?” Greg had asked the question that immediately came to him after listening to the familiar’s answer. “While ten is the maximum number of feats I can merge, it doesn’t mean I can’t merge less than that figure. So why not go for purity as opposed to filling a quota?” He’d asked.

“Don’t confuse purity for potency,” Came the calm reply from Olivia. “In situations where the feat doesn’t involve an inordinately powerful target like the healer, then it’s always the number of feats merged that determines how powerful the rewards will be. Seven feats with a uniform theme might get you a more focused list of rewards. Whatever you get, however, will be less powerful than if you’d added three more feats to the mix even if those three were unrelated to the first seven. The best case scenario would be to have ten with a common theme, but failure to achieve that, then just abide by the rule that a bigger number of feats merged is always better, “ The familiar had informed him.

With a nod of acknowledgment, Greg had gone on to undergo another willpower training session with Olivia. His dungeon dives may have been suspended for the duration of his break, the same, however, wasn’t true of his willpower training sessions. Rain or shine, Greg had resolved to keep forging his willpower. After seeing just how easily those with low willpower could be swayed to do things they otherwise wouldn’t have, Greg wasn’t willing to let himself fall short in this area. This time, he was the one doing the controlling. Almost inevitably, however, there would come a time when he’s the one who would be on the receiving end of such manipulation. Greg planned on being ready when that time came. Greg managed to fight the urge to laugh for seventy-three breaths of time before he burst out laughing like a lunatic.

The laugh quickly passed as Olivia withdrew her mental attack. On other days, Greg would have proceeded to lie on his bed before going for a dungeon run. With the dungeon dives being called off for the coming days, Greg should have gone to sleep. He, however, didn’t. Instead, he went back to the list of feats that he’d accomplished and cashed in the very first one involving turning on more than a hundred women at a single event. Greg’s thinking was simple. First, he needed to know the difference in value between a normal feat of lust and one that involved the healer. Secondly, Greg was looking to hit at least thirty million lust points before he merged the feats involving the healer. If these other feats turned out to be valuable enough, perhaps cashing them in for list points would put a worthwhile dent in the larger goal.

Unfortunately for Greg, the reality was cruel and the rewards for the feat were quite disappointing. Unlike the first-ever feat of lust involving the healer that Greg had cashed in, this one offered only two options as possible rewards instead of four. And of the two, one was a Low-grade tier-one ring of hidden presence. To mundane humans and creatures with no magic, it would do a good job of hiding Greg from their senses. With tier-one mages, however, only those with the least awareness of their surroundings would be fooled by the thing. When compared to the kinds of rewards that the feat with the healer had given, to call it underwhelming was in itself an understatement.

The second reward offered was just as underwhelming. The only reason Greg drew a little joy from seeing it was because it allowed him to draw a direct numerical comparison between this level of reward and those he got previously. The second reward that Greg got for the feat was fifty thousand lust points. One of the possible rewards that Greg could have gotten for the feat involving the healer was ten million lust points. This means that the feat with the healer was about two hundred times more valuable compared to this one. Olivia had tried to get him to understand just how remarkable it was for a mundane human to have anything to do sexually with a seventh-tier mage. At this moment, however, Greg realized that he hadn’t really comprehended the weight of that achievement. One feat involves over a hundred different people, and the other only a single individual. And yet, to the system, the one with the seventh-tier mage was worth two hundred times the feat involving a hundred mundane individuals.

A part of Greg knew that he was spoilt. He was looking at the rewards from the perspective of someone who had managed to become involved with a seventh-tier mage and reaped the rewards of that. Olivia’s explanation had opened his eyes to what it would have been like if the healer had been out of the picture. Earning fifty thousand lust points, for someone who hadn’t gotten used to earning the points in the millions, would have been quite the boon. His father’s send-off party involving over a hundred different women had only netted him about twenty-seven thousand lust points, so fifty thousand wasn’t a small amount by any means. Also, if the healer hadn’t pumped him full of mana allowing him to access the magic shop, then Greg wouldn’t have any way of getting magical items or materials of any kind. The ring of hidden presence would have been a very attractive prize for him in that case. The only reason Greg could look down his nose at it was because he’d had the unbelievable luck of being able to buy tier one to tier three items any time he wished to.

But while Greg recognized that he was being a bit unappreciative of the fact that they were indeed good rewards, it still didn’t change the fact that the rewards wouldn’t help him meet his goals. Greg’s plans of using the other feats to take a bite out of the thirty million lust points he needed went up in smoke. Simple math made it clear that even if he merged ten of such feats, their total value would come to about five hundred thousand lust points. Greg knew that not all feats would be rewarded with exactly fifty thousand lust points, but even if the total amount for ten feats was doubled to a million, it would still be too little to make significant headway in meeting his thirty million lust points target. With a sigh, Greg chose the fifty thousand lust points and purchased the ring for fifteen thousand lust points.

Once that was done, a serious expression crossed Greg’s face as he turned to ask something of the familiar. “Help me prepare to face the Town-head should he come to learn what happened between me and his wife and daughter,” He’d said. Months within the dungeon had ingrained in Greg the importance of being prepared for future dangers. He had watched his plans fall apart, and worse yet, he'd died at the hands of his enemies enough times to know that not only was it stupid, but it was cruel to oneself not to prepare for a danger one knew was coming. He didn’t hate the Town-head in the least, and Greg wouldn’t go out of his way to cause the man harm. He sincerely wished that neither of the two women ever got the notion to reveal what was going on between them to the man. That, however, didn’t mean that he was going to sit around and twiddle his thumbs. Greg would do everything in his power to prepare for the possibility that things wouldn’t go the way he wished for them to. Should the day ever come that the Town-head was out for his life, he would be ready…

***

“You called for us?”Niya spoke in a loud but respectful tone to his father, the current head of the Valla household. They were currently inside the largest room inside the family’s main house. It was here that important family meetings were held. It was also from this same room that his father ran the whole family. His father may have become crippled and lost his ability to walk in a beast tide several years ago. Anyone who had taken this to mean that he was weak, however, was currently returned to the earth, their souls resting in the Beyond.

As was a common trait in the Valla household, his father had deep black hair, with streaks of white running through it. This wasn’t because of anything artificial done to it, but just how it was, from children one cycle old to the older generation, their hair never changed color. His father had sharp angular features that came together to give an austere air about him. His hawkish gaze only further emphasized this. Niya had vague recollections of times when he was much younger when his father used to smile, and even laugh. That was before the accident that crippled him. Ever since then, his eyes had grown colder with each passing year and his mouth had come to be fixed in a permanent scowl.

Seated at the head seat of the table long enough to seat fifty people comfortably, his father had a few papers before him that he was reviewing. Still, his powerful voice carried all the way to where they stood when he spoke. “Sit,” Came the single-word instruction.

Without another word, he and his sister Naiya who had been standing beside him, both moved forward to comply. Their steps were muffled by the various animal pelts that had been stitched together to carpet the floor as they moved from the door to the two seats closest to their father. During family meals, they’d be much further down the table as there were many more members more senior than them. With no one else in the room, however, they were allowed to sit this close to the head of the table. Taking the right side of the table, Niya pulled out the seat and settled down on it while Naiya did the same with the seat on the left side of the table.

There was a long stretch of silence as his father continued to go over the papers before him. Despite the unease the silence evoked in the two of them, neither he nor his sister tried to speak before their father had spoken. Marking something on the paper he was reviewing, his father placed the quill back in the inkpot before leaning back in his chair. “Do you know why the three families hold the position that they do?” the man posed in a calm tone of voice.

It was a somewhat unexpected question, but not one that Niya hadn’t thought about before. Still, despite having his guesses, he didn’t rush to speak. Growing up with this man as his father, he had long since been taught to not just take things at face value. In other words, even more than wondering at the question, Niya couldn’t help but wonder why he would suddenly ask this of them. Unfortunately for him, his father’s expression was no better than a wooden mask. It gave no hints or clues as to what his ultimate end-game was.

“Wealth.”

“Strength,”

Both he and his sister spoke up at the same time, each with their own answer to the question.

His father’s gaze turned to him. “And where do you think our strength comes from?” He asked. Though he didn’t outright say it, they both knew that by turning his attention to him and not his sister, he was indicating that he thought his answer to be the correct one.

Rather than being elated at this, Niya only felt more pressure at having the man’s undivided attention. “Our hunters are far more powerful than they are,” Niya responded. Despite knowing that he was probably wrong, Niya didn’t allow any doubt to filter through into his voice. His father wouldn’t ask the question if such an obvious answer was all he was after. He was after something deeper and Niya was doing his best to try and figure out what that was.

Niya could tell by the slight downturn of his lips that his father found the answer unsatisfactory. “If all the hunters of the town took up arms against us, do you think our hunters would be able to stand?” the man asked calmly.

Shaking his head, Niya spoke. “No,” He said. It wasn’t a complicated question. The house of Valla had almost one hundred and fifty capable fighters. The whole town had close to if not over a thousand hunters in total. If they took away their hunters, there would still be almost six times that number left to contend with. There was just simply no way of them beating those odds.

“So then, why do we occupy the position that we do?” He asked. “Why does the house of Aria and Ember stand as our equals and not any other? Why does our town head stand above our three families despite being one man?” he posed.

“Enlighten us, father,” Niya asked with a bow of his head. Try as he would, Niya couldn’t see what his father was driving at. Wasting time by making pointless guesses ran the risk of garnering the man’s ire. Not willing to see such an outcome, he simply admitted his ignorance.

“Magic,” His father, not being one to beat around the bush, answered directly. The answer, however, only drew confusion from the two of them based on their shared glance. Between all three noble families, there wasn’t any mage that they knew of. Not even the Town-head was a mage, so how did magic feature into their power? Noting their confusion, his father didn’t wait for them to ask before continuing. “Of the three families, none has a complete system of magic that they can systematically practice, otherwise they’d have long since taken power,” He plainly stated. “But one way or the other, each of the three family can trace their power back to a magical source.”

“The house of Aria is a minor branch of a certain clan of body-enhancing mages. If what I’ve learned from my investigations is true, the main clan from which they descend is composed of mages possessing extreme strength and invulnerable bodies. They possess none of that power. Their bodies, however, still bear the remnants of it. That’s why their hunters are far stronger and less prone to injury and disease when compared to the other people in this town,” He laid out.

“The house of Ember can be traced back to a family of mind mages. To the best of my knowledge, the original family fell at the hands of their enemies. They are the last remaining of their line. What magical knowledge they once had was lost to their enemies. Their pitiable lives are the only thing that they managed to keep after all was said and done. Not that surviving the purge of their family is a small thing. They’ve long since lost their family’s techniques and knowledge of mind magic. Their affinity for that school of magic, however, is still very high as evidenced by the three Ember girls. Their hunters move together like one organism and are deadly as a fighting force because of their unparalleled ability to coordinate almost perfectly” His father continued to reveal.

“Last of all, is our house, the house of Valla. We are descended from sorcerers. My grandfather, your great-grandfather, was the last surviving member of a coven of sorcerers. You see, unlike other schools of magic, sorcerers rely on greater beings than those found on this plane as their source of power.” There was a bit of silence before his father continued in a grave tone. “Not every single one of these beings is benevolent, or willing to be entreated. The coven overreached and tried to contact a being that they shouldn’t have. The only reason my grandfather survived was because he was the lowest of the low-ranking members, little more than an errand boy. At the time of the ritual, he was off on an errand. When he came back to the coven, all he found was a cursed land full of nothing but nightmares. What the curse or the nightmares were, he never spoke of. After that incident, my grandfather never pursued anything more to do with sorcery other than the basic ritualistic knowledge that he already had. What little ritualistic knowledge he did leave us, however, has been enough to grant boons to our warriors that have allowed them to distinguish themselves in this town whenever the need arose for it,” he explained.

“What about the Town-head?”Niya found himself asking when his father remained quiet for a while.

A frown crossed the man’s face. “If we knew that, he wouldn’t be Town-head, “ He replied calmly. “The man has guarded this secret far too closely. Other than his wife, I doubt anyone else knows. And even with her, I am not sure,” He revealed. Niya had panicked when his father had frowned at his question. After his answer, however, he could tell he was more annoyed at his ignorance than at him for asking. “Whatever, that secret is, however, the fact remains that he has no heirs that can take the leadership of this town from him. As such, after his time has come and passed, each of the three families will go to war for control over this town!” he said with complete indifference to the prospect. “But whatever power the three families may possess means nothing. Like a bunch of wild goats fighting each other in the presence of a snow bear, we are doing little more than making a mockery of ourselves. In the end, it is the snow bear that decides who lives and who dies. It is she who chooses who ascends to leadership and who is removed from existence. Do you understand what I’m saying?” he posed turning his gaze once again to him.

Niya nodded immediately the answer on his tongue. “The healer,” He said, not needing to say more than that. The reason Niya didn’t need to guess the answer was because the only time he had ever seen his father scared was when one of his cousins had offended her. This had happened several years back when the healer had still been new to town. Too used to being in a position of honor within the town, the poor boy had thought nothing of the healer and spoken rudely to her. All that the healer had done was turn to his father as if to see what he would do about it. Without hesitation, his father had called the boy to his side before swiping a blade across his throat. As the boy lay on the floor eyes full of confusion as he bled out, his father had been bowing to the healer and not just apologizing, but begging for mercy for their whole family. Niya could even remember the way he’d been shaking at the time. It wasn’t an act, his father had truly been feared for the continuation of their whole family. The healer didn’t even answer his father’s pleadings, she’d just turned and walked away. From that moment on, Niya knew never to even breathe wrong in the healer’s presence.

“The healer,” His father repeated his words. “A word from her and there would be no one to counter it. She could pick a random person in this town and set them up as Town-head and none of the three families would dare say otherwise. It is our good fortune that she remains completely uninterested in the leadership of this town. So long as whoever comes to power knows not to antagonize her, then she doesn’t care all that much! If things had remained thus, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But such isn’t the case, the healer, much to everyone’s shock, decided to take on a student,” his father spoke.

Niya couldn’t help but feel a chill crawl up his spine as it suddenly clicked what this was about. His father had asked the two of them to try and get close to Roka, the healer’s student. Starting by attending his father’s send-off party, they were supposed to try and forge a close friendship with him. Unwilling to associate with someone of a lower station than them, however, they’d only attended this party, barely spoke more than a greeting to him, and departed. His father hadn’t explained back then why the boy was so important. Even before he spoke it, however, Niya knew that this wouldn’t suffice as an excuse. As head of the house, his father didn’t need to explain himself to them whenever he gave instructions. That he had given the instruction should have been enough.

“A student that, unlike the healer, isn’t as neutral. If what my eyes and ears within the town tell me is true, then the boy has developed a rather close relationship with the Town-head’s daughter!” his father stated causing a sudden spike of jealousy to well up within Niya. He, however, didn’t let it show, knowing perfectly well that it wouldn’t help his case with his father. Just because the man wasn’t screaming and raging didn’t mean he was calm by any means. Niya knew that whatever punishment awaited him, it’d only become much worse if he revealed how he truly felt. “The healer may be neutral but what do you think would happen if her student wasn’t as neutral as she is?” He asked.

Niya didn’t need to think long on the question. It wasn’t a certain thing that the healer would be willing to indulge her student’s whims on the matter. The very possibility of it, however, would be enough to give pause to the three families. None of them would be willing to risk annihilation by going against the healer or her student. In a way, Roka had become the most powerful individual in the town, even more influential than the Town-head. Bowing his head, Niya immediately tried to get ahead of the situation and address his mistake. “Forgive me, Father, I have failed both you and the family!” he said.

His sister, Naiya, mirrored his words and actions a second later as she seemed to come to the same conclusions just a step later than he did.

Their words were met with a while of silence before the man finally spoke. “You are attracted to the Town-head’s daughter, are you not?” he calmly asked.

Niya's head shot up in consternation despite himself. His father’s eyes were boring into his precluding any possibility of lying to the man. “Y… yes,” he responded.

“And you, you like the Aria boy, Bran, do you not?” He asked turning to his sister.

Despite the color that spread across her cheeks, his sister nodded in the affirmative. “Yes father,” She vocalized.

“As of this moment neither one of you is to indulge these feelings!” The man declared with a note of finality that brooked no arguments. Even without his saying so, Niya knew that this was their punishment for not following through on what their father had asked of them. “Had you heeded my instructions and managed to become friends with Roka, then I would have cared nothing for your youthful affections. You, however, have lost that chance,” he declared, turning to him. “Starting now, your only objective will be to become as close a friend to Roka as you can possibly be. You will not fight him for the Town-head’s daughter, you won’t even so much as look at her longingly. Your one and only task is to do all that you can to bring him over to our side and make sure he looks favorably toward our house! Am I understood?” The man growled.

Niya didn’t realize how tightly he’d clenched his teeth until he was forced to answer the man. “Yes Father, he answered with forced calm.

“And you,” His father turned his unforgiving gaze towards his daughter. “The Town-head’s daughter may have gotten the first chance to gain the boy’s affections, but I expect you to win him over in the end! Is that clear?” he questioned.

There was a long silence after the question and for a moment, Niya thought that his sister would object. In the end, however, she answered in a small voice, “Yes Father…

***