"Did things go well?"
Asked Elizabeth concernedly.
"Yep. Now we can enjoy our date."
Lucius answerred while smiling.
"Yesssss!"
She exclaimed while raising her fists high, clearly excited for their date.
****
Unfortunately, things happened, and the date went sideways.
At first, they were enjoying their time in the city.
They visited the local snack stands and restaurants to taste the city's food.
They visited tourist spots and romantic spots for couples.
They even enjoyed a couple of hours reading in the library.
And this all took place from night to morning.
Due to the elves having a very long lifespan, they didn't need to concern themselves with resting at night. They could easily not sleep for 2 or 3 days and then spend a whole day sleeping.
Because of this, the city of Ellan was a city that was active for 24/7.
In other words, they didn't sleep for the whole night just for the date.
This was both good and bad for the wife and husband.
Since Lucius had to also deal with his insanity increasingly frequent, he needed a good sleep schedule to maintain proper brain function.
Yet, with his brain modifications, it shouldn't have been a problem for him to maintain his sanity even if he had no sleep for weeks.
However, seeing as he had been recently having issues with maintaining his sanity after the mysterious figure's knowledge injection, this meant that his brain modifications could fail at maintaining it anytime.
Anyway, the Empress and her consort, her actual husband, had heard of the couple's visit from the city's mayor.
Don't ask why the mayor contacted the Empress, but this led to her and her consort visiting the city.
Ellan was quite close to the capital of Enrivier, Eldamoore, so their trip didn't take long.
When Lucius and Elizabeth had heard of this news in private through the mayor, they had opposing yet similar expressions.
Elizabeth naively smiled in warmth excited at seeing her mother, while Lucius had a smirk full of madness.
Soon, the conversation began. Elizabeth and her mother were happily chatting and catching up to each other's lives, while her mother's consort sat down imposingly as if he had nothing to do.
Lucius on the other hand, looked like a madman. He was staring at empty air whilst smirking and occassionally giggling.
This caused the mayor to be confused about what was happening, but he chose to ignore the weirdness of it, and left the room for the family's privacy.
****
"And that's why I'll be taking over your Empire, Mother-in-law."
Lucius manically addressed straight to his mother-in-law's face.
"Excuse me?"
She was wholeheartedly confused. The last time she met him, her son-in-law's personality wasn't that of a hooligan. So why was he behaving like this?
Her confused response brought Lucius back.
'What did I just do? Shit, this defective piece of shit lock just ruined it.'
He swore he would remake the whole insanity lock from scratch once he gets back home.
He glanced sideways to look at his wife's expression. Her smiling expression exuded an air of coldness.
'He's getting a scolding from me after this.'
Elizabeth was annoyed.
'This bastard of a husband!'
No, it was very incorrect to say that she was just annoyed. She was highly pissed.
There was hardly anything that scared Lucius, but seeing his wife's expression made him sweat profusely.
'Fuck! Let's rewind and collect your thoughts, Lucius. You remember what you did. Yes, you suddenly blurted out that you were going to do to your own mother-in-law's nation. Sure, you were planning it in your head, but you didn't have to say it. Fuck! Why am I speaking in third person again?! This shitty lock.'
Snapping out of his inner monologue, he quickly did the best he could do to minimize the damage.
"Could Mother-in-law's husband step out for a moment?"
He asked in a serious tone to his mother-in-law, Evangeline.
"Why should he?"
Evangeline also asked back in a serious tone. She knew that what Lucius said earlier was a grave offense to her, but she was willing to let it go for her son-in-law, provided he had a really good reason.
"Because this is something I've only told Elizabeth about. And I'm afraid your husband is not by any means a family member of mine, nor is he trustworthy yet to me."
"BRAT! YOU DARE!!!"
Her husband, the sole consort to the Empress, was understandably angered. After all, Lucius did just call him someone untrustworthy.
As Evangeline's husband was about to stand up and confront Lucius, she raised her hand.
"Stop."
Her words were full of authority.
"Just go outside for a moment."
"Fine."
*TAP TAP TAP*
*SLAM*
His audibly heavy footsteps were accompanied with a door slam.
After he left, Lucius quickly explained to Evangeline about his mental illness.
"So you were in a state of delirium?"
"Yes, that is indeed true. It has been increasingly frequent after I.... opened my heart to Elizabeth."
The last part of his sentence made him slightly blush in embarassment. He was not the type of person who would easily admit to his true feelings.
It took years for him to actually admit that he loved Elizabeth. So much so that he even convinced himself that he didn't love her.
Well, that was until he realized that he was just being a fool by being in denial.
"I see. So let me get this straight, the more emotions you experience the more unstable your mind becomes?"
"Yes. But I'm currently searching for a way to treat it."
Of course, he didn't tell her about his entire backstory. He just told her about his mental condition.
"Would there be a time where you'll get my daughter hurt because of your mental condition?"
"Thankfully, no. I still have a tiny bit of awareness whenever I enter that state, and I am definitely not a man of violence without a cause."
Even Lucius himself didn't know if he was telling the truth or not. Maybe it was all an illusion caused by his fractured mind from years of isolation and madness on Earth-1.
But as of right now, he felt that he was indeed telling the truth. Only time could tell if the opposite was the case, or if it would develop into said opposite.
"Hmmm, then I'm wondering why you sent my husband away."
"Well, to tell you the truth, I was sort of saying my rough plan for the future."
"Pardon?"
"Well, umm. I plan to merge our nations?"
"Even if you're my son-in-law, there's still a limit to how far you can act."
"What about in 500 or even 1,000 years? I heard you elves live up to around 500 years. As you're my mother-in-law, I will not do anything to your Empire yet. But after you've passed the throne to one of your children, then I will be planning to take it over as a gift to my wife."
"YOU PLAN TO WHAAAAT??"
Elizabeth suddenly yelled.
"I'm sorry Mom, I think he's still out of his mind."
"No, I'm completely fine. Elizabeth, I just want you to inherit the throne in name. I'll take care of the rest. My gift is in the form of protection and advancement."
"Sorry to interrupt you Son, but what's this about lifespan? And what protection and advancement are you talking about?"
"Well, it might be strange for you, but I'm no ordinary human. I have lived for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands, and I've never aged ever since I was in my 20s."
"That's impossible. The laws of our world forbids any attempt towards immortality. The ones who break the taboo are usually practitioners of dark magic, and magic does not exist anymore ever since that event!"
'Yikes, should I explain that there's no such thing as a law that forbids it? No, I'd rather her learn science from scratch so that she can understand how the world works on her own.'
"Believe it or not. That's who I am. Tell her, Elizabeth."
"Yes, Lucius is telling the truth. I promise you, Mom."
Elizabeth told her with a confident look, showing off that she wasn't lying. She wasn't the type who would lie, as she was bad at it to begin with.
"Alright, since my dear daughter's also saying it, I'll believe it for now."
"Ah, now I'll tell you about the protection and advancement part. As you know, the current continent is in an unending war of resources and attrition."
"So, are you telling me that you would protect us with your weapons?"
"Yep! You've seen what my kingdom is capable of on your last visit."
"Hmm, you did show off your weapons arsenal and how they worked. That is indeed true. And for the advancement part, I am assuming that you will improve my Empire's overall technology, just like how you did with Heimer's?"
"Exactly. You're really smart Mother-in-law, I mean, Mom. Sorry, I'm still not used to it."
"No worries, Son. But there must be catch here."
Those words were exactly what Lucius was expecting.
"The catch is that you pass over the throne to Elizabeth. Of course, whether she's the Empress only in name or not, it's up to her. But I'll always take care of it as if it were my own home. The sooner you agree, the better it is for your Empire."
He smiled, knowing that his mother-in-law is smart and would sooner or later agree to it.
'Although I'll have to modify the plan to also include Enrivier as part of my territory, I can still do it. Hehe, it's already a pretty isolated country, so it won't be hard. And just to make sure that it'll work, I'll have to build a giant wall to keep outsiders from seeing the technological marvels of the future Empire. Eh, I might as well take over a few nearby territories while I still can. But I'll leave this for future me to plan.'
"I see."
"I know it's an extremely hard decision to make. That's why, take your time. You have years to think about it, literally."
****
"Sigh, I think that could've been a disaster."
Lucius was laying on a soft bed. He was in a VIP guest room of the Mayor's mansion.
"You think? It's already a disaster. Our date is ruined."
Elizabeth sulked.
After the conversation with her mother, she and Lucius went to rest since Lucius needed it for his mind. Plus, she was also a bit tired for not sleeping since yesterday.
"Hey. Please don't sulk."
Lucius hugged her from behind.
He placed his hands on her stomach, gently embracing her warmth.
Since they were already in their pajamas ready for a long afternoon nap, Lucius thought that it was okay to just cuddle.
Then, he pulled her backwards, making both their bodies fall into the soft mattress.
"Come on, let's sleep. After we wake up, I'll take you on another date."
"...Fine."
Whilst positioning their bodies under the sheets, they embraced each other face-to-face.
Both of them were lost in a sparkly world whilst staring at each other's faces.
Then, Elizabeth instinctively went for a kiss, with which Lucius gladly responded with more kisses.
They kissed each other until falling asleep, not separating their mouths until they woke up a few hours later.