After finishing their bath, they both came out of the bathroom, Alice had a red face while Aster was smiling from ear to ear, he dismissed the barrier and felt relieved seeing that Aria hasn't returned yet, he lay down on the bed and Alice followed him after a moment.
Aster closed his eyes and started meditating, after a couple of minutes Alice heard someone knocking at the door and after Aria entered the room, Aster opened his eyes and spoke.
"How about we play domino now before ordering dinner?"
Alice was not convinced because she was not good at domino but Aria wanted to play so she accepted to play with them too, after a couple of games she didn't want to play anymore so she told Aster.
"Brother don't you have another game? I don't like this one"
Aster thought that there were a lot of board games he could make to pass the time with his girls in the future.
"Yes, I have a couple more of games but you will have to wait because I need to make the necessary things to play them"
Alice nodded and they played a bit more until they felt hungry, Aria used her talisman to ask her uncle to send someone to get food from the Fragrant Pavilion, the employee got back with the food and the manager brought it to the room, Sebastian was surprised to see his niece laying down on the same bed as Aster but he didn't say anything and left after giving Alice the food.
Aria stood up and prepared the table and Alice accommodated the dishes, Aster saw them acting like young wives for him and he was happy that they stopped fighting over everything like when they first met.
The three had dinner and then talked about Aria's family, Aster was a little curious about Aria's mother, because after meeting her father, although his talent was not mediocre, it was not above average either, which only left her mother as the possible origin of her special body.
Aria thought for a moment before answering.
"I don't really know much about my mother, her maiden's name was Aina Grell, she was adopted by uncle Sebastian's brother who later died in an accident so he took care of mom until she was an adult, then she met dad, they fell in love and after a couple of years I was born, due to the stress of giving birth she fell ill, father brought the best doctors he could find but they were not able to cure her, you know the rest of the story…"
Seeing that Aria was a bit sad remembering her mother, Aster tried to comfort her.
"If you don't mind, could you take me to visit her grave? I want to pay my respects and then present myself so then she can be happy in heaven knowing that I will take care of her daughter forever"
Aria nodded and Aster hugged her while stroking her hair, after that the three of them decided it was time to sleep, he left the room for a moment before returning and they settled on the bed with Aster between them, Alice clung to him and Aria gave Aster a somewhat embarrassed look.
He understood that she preferred him to take the initiative so he extended his arm to bring her closer to him.
"Come here you stubborn girl" he said.
Aria smiled and leaned against him before closing her eyes and saying.
"Good night".
Aster shook his head a bit and then he also closed his eyes before entering his mind space, the past night he found out that he could cultivate there and he would get double the results with half the effort, also, exposing himself to the aura that the gigantic sword radiated helped Aster to cleanse the impurities in his body and he also noticed that being there made him feel at ease.
While he was cultivating suddenly his heart felt worried, wondering what was happening he opened his eyes and then noticed someone's presence outside of the room.
"What a predictable situation" he thought, he noticed that while Alice was still asleep Aria was looking at the door with a worried expression, Aster patted her head to get her attention.
"Don't worry, there is a barrier surrounding the room so even if the patriarchs of the big families came, they won't be able to break in, tomorrow we will discuss what to do, ok?".
"Mm" Aria nodded and closed her eyes.
Aster waited until she fell asleep and then he quietly stood up of the bed, carefully opened the door and left the room, he took out a circular piece of glass out of his spatial ring and placed it in front of his left eye, his vision of the floor changed, in front of him there were footprints illuminated in a phosphorescent green color, which made him smile.
"Seems like spreading that tracking dust was the correct idea".
That's right, he supposed this would happen so he previously set up a trap for anyone that came, he didn't need to worry about Aria and Alice due to the barrier but an enemy hidden in the dark is hard to deal with so he thought of using this tracking dust that only lasted ten hours outside of the room and in the balcony before going to sleep, besides this whole row of rooms was reserved by Aria so there wouldn't be anyone coming and leaving traces behind by mistake.
He followed the footprints while checking the inn to see if there were any damages but he didn't find anything, after that he left the inn and walked a couple of streets, Ghaleria had a rich night life so there were some pubs were music could be heard, he also saw some places were light dressed women were trying to attract the men passing by.
"Heh so at night these places turn into brothels".
He didn't pay attention to those women as he already had a pair of goddesses waiting for him at home, after walking for about 20 minutes he reached his destination, a house that looked so average that if you see it, you wouldn't recognize it from the other ones that were near from it, he first entered an alley that was nearby and looked in his spatial ring before taking out a white mask and a black mantle.
"This should work, the trace ends here so he is either hiding here or he found out and started flying instead of walking".
Aster approached the door and used his soul idol to slowly cut through the lock to avoid making a lot of noise, when he opened the door, the first thing he saw was a knife directed to his head which he deflected with his soul idol.
He then focused on one of the corners of the house and saw a middle-aged man wearing black clothes and bandages to cover half of his face.
"Good night mister assassin, I bet you were not expecting visits this late am I right?".
The man trembled a bit, he was trying to sense the cultivation of the person in front of him but the result was absurd.
"Impossible if he was in the soul manifestation realm there is no way he could have defended from my attack so easily so he either has a higher cultivation than mine or he has a really good talisman to hide his cultivation" he thought, the man decided start a conversation to drag the situation and find an opportunity to kill.
"Who are you", he asked.
Aster was disappointed this assassin was only in the late stage of the star formation realm and his technique wasn't even that good, even when he was training with Lilia the surprise attacks that he received from the spiritual array she set were as fast as that knife, he shook his head and when has about to answer he calmly dodged, somehow the man managed to get behind him.
Seeing that his surprise attack failed the assassin was about to retreat but he got blinded by golden light and then he felt something preventing his body from moving, he tried to stab the object only to hear his knife break from the impact, then he felt his body being crushed with force.
"Aghhhh" the man screamed and vomited blood, when he could finally see what was going on he saw a golden armored hand holding him in the air, then he heard a sarcastic voice.
"I'm someone you should have not offended"
The man knew this was the end of the line for him so he tried to break the fake tooth in his mouth which contained poison but after a moment he panicked because he couldn't move his body.
"Ghmnf..mhew"
The man tried to speak but he couldn't move his mouth the way he wanted to.
Aster smiled.
"It is well known that assassins tend to choose death over being captured so I used some paralysis poison, after all we don't want you dying so easily do, we?".
Aster tightened the grip on the man's lower body and the sound of bones being crushed echoed through the room.
"Aghhhh mmff", the man let out a low pained sound, tears could be seen on his face and blood was dripping from his nose and mouth.
Aster moved him to be closer to him, he put on gloves and forcibly opened the mouth of the man then he used a knife to carefully remove the tooth that contained the poison before wrapping it in a rag and keeping it in his spatial ring, he turned to see the man's terrified face and then he spoke in a playful tone.
"I will give you two options, you either answer my questions and then I give you a fast painless death or you refuse to speak and I will have to use some special methods to force the truth out of you, if you think you have seen horrible things before let me tell you that I'm quite a creative person" Aster stopped for a moment before continuing.
"How about I cover your body in blood and sugar and tie you to a tree in the bloody forest so the insects feast on your body... now that I think about it you might be used to pain, in that case I can find a rock gorilla and feed him with an aphrodisiac before putting you in a cell with him so you get to know each other hahaha, if you don't nod and answer me in five seconds then I will choose for you".
The man trembled this guy was a demon, he was regretting taking this job, even if the payment was really good it was not worth losing his life nor sacrificing his ass, unfortunately there was no medicine that could cure regrets.
Aster saw the man nodding and he internally sighed in relief, even if he was putting on a calm front, he has never tortured someone and he was not exactly bond with the feeling of doing it, of course he already killed a bandit on the bloody forest before, but killing and torturing were two different things.
"Ok then let's start, did the Rein family sent you?"
The man nodded.
"Was It the patriarch?"
The man shook his head.
"Was it… Kail Rein?"
The man shook his head again.
Aster's eyebrows frowned for a moment but then he remembered another person and he asked.
"Was it that woman called Kayla?".
The assassin trembled a bit before finally nodding.
Aster's aura leaked from his body.
"Heh, it seems I was too merciful with them on the restaurant last time, but I guess one should learn from his own mistakes".
The poor assassin almost had a heart attack, if what he heard was true then the person in front of him which he believed was the bodyguard of some young master from a powerful family was… the kid that destroyed Kail Rein's public image, he was in shock and realizing that a little child was going to kill him made him fall into despair.
Aster didn't want to lose more time so he decided to ask his last question to end this.
"Does anyone else knows about this?"
The man shook his head, he was directly contacted and paid by the second young miss of the Rein family herself, if this was a matter handled by the family instead of a personal request then an assasin like him would have only met an elder or even a servant of the Rein family instead of Kayla.
"Well, that is all", Aster used his soul idol to end the man's suffering by beheading him, he wrapped the head in a piece of cloth, then he went to the kitchen and used the oil he found out to burn the corpse, he also set the house in fire before escaping through the back door, the lord of the city was someone from the Ghale family anyway so he sent a message to Arthur so he would invent an excuse about the house in case someone were to ask.
After a couple of minutes, he took the mask and the mantle off before keeping them into his spatial ring to dispose of them later, as he walked back to the inn, he heard a commotion coming from the direction of the house and he knew someone noticed the fire but he didn't care.