Chapter Seventy Nine: Recovery…
Alena sat on the edge of the pool in her cave, her right hand pressing a white pearl to the side of her head. It had been ten days since her return to the town. For those ten days, all she'd been doing was focusing on recovery from the fight with the abyssal creature that had crossed over through the convergence. The physical injuries that she'd suffered in the fight had been all too easy to deal with. What was far harder to be rid of was the remnant energies from the creature's foul mana. Had she still been equal to a seventh-tier mage, it would have been child's play to do this. In her compromised state, however, it was an arduous process that required her full attention for several hours at a time.
She had just finished a five-hour-long session of trying to cleanse herself and was now taking the time to relax. To most others, this would have perhaps meant laying back in the hot pool and doing nothing else. To her, however, that would just be boring. Having something to stimulate her mind, instead, was the best form of relaxation. This was why, as had become her habit over the past few months, she was once again analyzing the Maelstrom ascension manual. It never failed to leave her in awe of the depth of understanding and insight into the underlying principles of magic one would need to have to even guess at the truths hidden in this manual. Perhaps only a being that managed to live as long as Olivia's true self had could come up with such a document. Alena had never regretted the price she'd paid to get this manual from the boy. She just halfheartedly wished that the boy wasn't as enthusiastic in extracting that payment from her.
A moan involuntarily escaped her lips as she felt herself once again begin to ascend the heights of pleasure. Her gaze dropped to the boy's head framed between her thighs as he savored her womanly essence as if it were the finest ambrosia. With the water coming up to his shoulders, the boy had already brought her to three orgasms so far and was still going at it. In their negotiations, when Alena had been trying to get one up on the boy, she had told him that he couldn't go for longer than an hour. Rascal that he is, the boy had taken this to mean that he could take his time and torture her with that damnable tongue of his for an hour. After all, he'd still be abiding by the rule she had set up so long as he never went past the one-hour mark.
Running her fingers through the boy's raven black hair, Alena couldn't help but grind her hips forward as she pressed her womanhood into the boy's delightful mouth. As a healer, and one who had reached the heights of the seventh tier, Alena knew her body inside out. After hundreds of years studying others as well as herself, she had attained almost perfect control of her body, which is how she knew that the boy was probably using some magical item to enhance her pleasure. Even when she completely numbed her body making her skin incapable of transmitting any sensations, his touch still caused her a pleasure that she couldn't reject. Whether it was at the level of the mind or directly to her soul, Alena didn't know, but somehow, one of the items on the boy was causing the boy's touch to circumvent her body entirely and transmit an indescribable pleasure to her very being.
In an odd twist, the boy's ability to circumvent her body, drove the enjoyment Alena drew from their little trysts to rise to new levels. After all, with her abilities, any pleasure she derived from her body was entirely under her control. If she wanted, she could make herself completely numb and incapable of feeling any pleasure from physical intimacy. By the same token, she could make herself hypersensitive and cause even a simple touch by the boy to send her into a shuddering orgasm. That level of control over her own body made any pleasure she felt feel like it was artificial, a lot like tickling oneself. Before the boy had come along, she'd never thought of it this way. She'd just accepted it as the consequence of being such a high-tier healer. After experiencing the pleasure that the boy gave her, whether she wanted to feel it or not, she came to crave it. Unbeknownst to Roka, she had completely numbed herself to any sensations that any normal touch would elicit from her. She wanted the pleasure that was beyond her control. The pleasure that defied her mastery of her own body. The kind that left her a shuddering mess at the mercy of the boy's tantalizing tongue.
An involuntary cry of pleasure escaped her lips as she was once again driven past the precipice into an ocean of pleasure. Shaking and shuddering, Alena could feel her thighs involuntarily clench around the boy's head even as he continued to make love to her pussy with his mouth. Biting down on her lower lip and trying to catch her breath, Alena did her best to ride the waves of pleasure that crashed into her one after the other. Small tendrils of pleasure complemented the high she was already feeling from the orgasm as the boy planted small kisses all over her thighs. Alena was familiar with this. Every time he brought her to the peak, he would start to passionately explore the rest of her body and allow her to come back down from the heights of pleasure. Circling her needy center, the boy started to kiss his way up to her navel and then past it.
Alena shuddered with a mini-orgasm when she felt the boy latch on to her nipple. She could also feel his girthy monster rubbing against her inner thighs. The large bulbous head was dangerously close to her pussy, any moment now, he would spear into her very core. Strictly speaking, this was outside the scope of their agreement, but then again, when she had tried to limit him to only kissing during their negotiations, the sly boy had replied that he would comply only if she wanted him to stop at kissing. Far from wanting him to stop, Alena found herself wrapping her legs around the boy's waist and pulling him closer to her. With his magical tongue tracing circles around her nipple, Alena couldn't keep herself from letting out a long, drawn-out moan when she felt him pushing into her velvety depths.
There was no rush in the boy's actions. It was as if he was taking the time to savor every moment of their lovemaking. In long slow strokes the boy plunged into her deepest depths, he slowly and deliberately drove the two of them right to the edge of pleasurable release and then kept them there. Even with all the hidden cards the boy seemed to have, Alena knew that she was far more powerful than he was. And yet, as his strong masculine arms wrapped around her, she couldn't help but feel like a delicate maiden held protectively in his arms. Wrapping herself around him and letting herself get lost in the sensation, she let out low moans of ecstasy even as the boy pressed his forehead against hers and started to pick up pace.
Their eyes bore into each other's as if they were trying to gaze into each other's very soul. There was no shame in them, no shyness either. Neither hid from what it was they were doing. At this moment, they weren't teacher and student, she wasn't a seventh-tier mage and he a first. No. They were just man and woman, she was his and he was hers. He'd have her any way he wanted and not only would she be powerless to stop him, she'd enjoy every second of it. She'd take everything he wanted to give and still want more. She didn't know what it was about the boy, but she couldn't help but feel like a fly slowly and deliberately getting herself tangled up in his web. The longer she hung around the boy, the more of her desire he aroused. It was a new feeling for her, to be so carnally drawn to someone, and yet somehow, she didn't mind it at all.
An animalistic growl escaped the boy's lips as he drove himself all the way to the hilt inside her. Alena increased the sensitivity of her insides just so she could feel his molten explosion inside her. With the head of his manhood pressed right up against the entrance to her womb, she felt it as he sent blast after blast of warm cum inside her. Even with the fact that the gap in power between them made it impossible for her to conceive, she couldn't help but get a thrill of excitement at the thought of it. At the thought that, perhaps his seed might do the impossible and take root within her. That her belly would swell as new life blossomed within her as a result of this boy. It led her to tighten her legs around his waist lest he have any chance to withdraw. She wanted every bit of him inside her.
After the lewd challenge against the boy that she had so spectacularly failed, Alena knew better than to expect the boy to go soft after an orgasm. Which was why she wasn't surprised when she felt him pull her into the pool of water, turn her around, and bend her over the edge. A yip of both surprise and excitement left her when the boy brought a hand down on her round derrière. She couldn't help but bite down on her lip, growing wetter as she imagined a red hand print forming afterward. He was marking his territory, marking her as his. Without preamble, the boy once again drove himself all the way into her depths. The slow and sensual lovemaking was over. From the way he grabbed at her hips with one hand and pulled at her hair with the other, she knew that his more primal side was taking over. Like an animal, he was about to pound her into submission, and she craved it from the very depths of her soul…
***
Greg appeared in the teleportation room inside the infirmary, before walking through the wall that kept it hidden away from anyone without the healer's access token. A satisfied smile played on his lips even as he moved through the hallways. The healer had once tried to explain to him the value of the Maelstrom ascension manual and how he was making a bad bargain by not asking for something more valuable than just kisses. He, however, begged to differ. Getting to watch her melt in his arms as he brought her from one peak of pleasure to the next was in itself a boon that no magical item could compare to. Greg didn't know if he was just imagining it, but he also suspected that the more times they were intimate, the more effective, his innate AROUSING title was. More than once, while they were engaged in non-sexual activities, he had caught his teacher's gaze lingering on his body with what looked like desire in her eyes. She, of course, would quickly catch herself and move on as if nothing had happened leaving Greg guessing if there was something there or if it was just wishful thinking on his part.
All the same, even if this was all that he got as a result, Greg would have been content that he had made the best bargain that he could have made. But as a cherry on top, Greg was earning lust points by the millions every time they were intimate. Greg didn't always go all the way with her, but even the few times that they'd been together along with everything else that they'd done had brought Greg's total tally of lust points to twenty-eight point seven million. Just a few more trysts with her, and he would hit the thirty million lust points that he'd been targeting for several months now. Greg couldn't help but bubble with excitement as he tried to imagine the kind of rewards the system would give him to be worth exchanging for such an astronomical amount of lust points. More than once, he'd asked Olivia to give him even a hint of what to expect, but sadist that she is, Olivia had chosen to remain tight-lipped on the subject. Every time he asked, she would just smile at him like a Cheshire cat and tell him to wait and see.
Greg's musings came to a stop and his smile faltered as he came to the door to the room where he and Shalia had their workstations. There was a moment of indecision on his face before he resolutely turned, pushed the door open, and walked in. Shalia was at her workstation, a serious expression on her face as she plucked the thorns from a coiling thorn vine inside a basin full of warm water. Unlike several occasions before where the vine would be thrashing around as she plucked the thorns, this time, the warm water made it only twitch slightly every time it lost a thorn. Greg quietly moved to stand next to where she was working but didn't interrupt.
Ever since the night of the attack when she lost more than twenty patients, the girl had changed. After hearing about what had happened from Olivia, Greg feared that Shalia would lose all confidence in herself and stop learning under the healer. The opposite, however, turned out to be the case. As soon as the healer was back in town, she had come to her lessons the next day just like usual. That, however, isn't to say that nothing had changed with her. Before, she had been lackadaisical with the education she was getting from the healer. That, however, had changed. There was a quiet intensity to the girl as she carefully listened to all that she was taught and committed it to memory. Though she hadn't broken down like Greg feared she would, it was clear that she had been profoundly affected by the events of that night.
Once she was done working on the current thorn vine inside the warm water, she pulled it out of the water and carefully laid it out on her workstation, leaving it to slowly dry. It was only then that she turned to him. "Why bore yourself watching me perform these simple tasks," She asked in a genial tone. Greg, however, didn't miss the fact that the small smile on her lips wasn't reflected in her eyes.
Ignoring the question, he chose instead to be direct. "I'm worried about you," He said looking deep into her eyes.
There was a flicker of emotion in the girl's eyes but it passed too fast for Greg to fully pin it down. "Don't be," She answered in a carefully neutral tone even as she turned back to her workstation. "I am picking up everything rather quickly now that…"
"I'm not talking about the damn herbs," Greg cut her off, not allowing her to deflect. "Look at me!" Greg commanded when Shalia started to reach for another thorn vine ready to continue her work. Her hand paused, but her head remained facing down, prompting Greg to repeat more softly, "Look at me, Shalia,"
The gaze that met Greg was filled with so much anger that, for a second, he was certain that she would attack him. But quick as it appeared, it faded. Like air leaking out of a balloon, all that was left behind was deep pain and shame. "P… please, ju… just leave me be," She said in the weakest tone of voice he'd ever heard come out of her. She made another attempt to turn away from him, but even before he himself knew what he was doing, Greg had stepped forward and wrapped the girl in a tight embrace. Like a feral animal whose tail had been stepped on Shalia struggled. She shimmied left and right, while her trapped hands tried to find purchase that she could use to push Greg off her. Unfortunately for her, her efforts yielded very little success as Greg continued to tightly embrace her.
"I killed them!" The tortured words eventually left her mouth unbidden. The struggle leaked out of her as she went limp her body only being held up by Greg. Tears that she hadn't allowed herself to shed since that day formed two trails down her cheeks. "I killed them Roka," She cried, pain and guilt tearing at her. "If I had just paid more attention… If I had just remembered what I was taught! I see them… every time I close my eyes I can see their faces of pain, pain, and even worse, hope. Hope that they would recover … hope that I would save them! My… my father, Roka… if you hadn't been there to save him, I would have killed my father as well! How… how can I face them? How can I face them when my father got to live and I couldn't save theirs?"
Greg said nothing and just held the sobbing girl as the things that had been torturing her ever since that day finally tore out of her. They were strung together in a barely coherent manner, painting a picture of grief, shame, and deep pain. Everything within him wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that she wasn't to blame for the deaths that day. That fault for the deaths of those men lay solely with the monsters. Greg, however, knew that if such paper-thin reasons would have been enough to assuage the girl's guilt, then she wouldn't be in the state that she was in right now. Besides, it would be a lie on his part if he said he didn't see some truth in what she was saying. Perhaps if she had paid a little more attention in her lessons with the healer, she would have known what to do at the critical time. Perhaps if she had committed more of what she'd been taught to memory, a few of the men who came to her with injuries would have lived to see another day.
By the same token, however, Greg hadn't been here. He had no way of knowing what weapons the monsters brought to bear when attacking the men of the town. Poisons, curses, heck even sonic and mental attacks were all possible vectors of attack for the creatures. It could just as easily be that, without magic, Shalia would have been unable to save the men regardless of what she knew at the time. There was just no way of knowing and Greg knew that this was what tortured the girl the most. The what ifs? The inability to say for certain that she wasn't to blame for their deaths. The fact that her father was somehow the only one to be saved just murked up the waters even further. After all, didn't this prove that the others could have been saved? And if so, what right did she have to be happy that her father had lived when she had failed to save so many others?
"I can't forgive you for what you've done," Greg spoke up. Though his voice was soft, Shalia stiffened as if his words were a whip that had landed on her back and rent flesh. Despite this, she didn't say anything in her defense. Greg was almost certain that in her mind, she believed that this was what she deserved. To be called out for the fraud that she was and condemned for it. He thus hurried to add on the rest of what he was trying to say. "You need to forgive yourself first," He spoke to the heart of the issue as he saw it.
He could fill her ears with all manner of kind words, talking about how she wasn't to blame. He could tell her that she had done all she could and that this was all anyone could ask of her. He could even tell her that the men had died defending what they loved and would gladly do it again. However, all that would be empty wind if she herself didn't think she was worth forgiving. Shalia herself was her own primary accuser. Her guilt over what happened that day was eating her up from the inside. Even if no one said a thing about it to her, it wouldn't make a difference to her as she stood guilty before herself.
A harsh sound that was supposed to be laughter, or some mockery of it, escaped the girl's lips. "Forgive myself?" She repeated. "How convenient! People are dead because of me Roka! And just like that I'm supposed to forgive myself and act as if nothing had happened?" She questioned pushing him away in both anger and disgust. Greg, however, couldn't tell whether it was directed at him or herself.
"Who said anything about acting as if nothing happened? More than twenty people died on your watch, Shalia. You'd be a monster if you acted as if nothing had happened," Greg calmly replied. Both his tone and expression relaying that he wasn't in any way taking the situation lightly. "But by the same token, if you just wallow in your guilt, what benefit is it to anyone? Poor you, people died and now you feel bad. So what? Will your feelings of shame turn back time? Will your guilt bring them back from the dead? Will the anger you feel at yourself change even a single thing about what happened?" he questioned in a blunt tone that held nothing back. Greg could see that his incisive questions were landing like physical blows on the girl as she went completely quiet, her gaze dropping to the floor.
"Forgiving yourself doesn't mean absolving yourself of all responsibility for what happened. It just means that you can't beat yourself up for eternity for the mistakes you've made. Learn from your mistakes, do everything in your power to do and be better, and then let go of the anger, shame, and guilt. Then and only then, will you be able to walk with your head held high and not feel like a charlatan," Greg laid out in a much softer tone. Hard as he had been on her, Greg knew she was being harder on herself. He was simply trying to show her that learning from her mistakes didn't necessarily need to involve crucifying herself for them as well. "And don't forget, I am always here for you if you need me. I won't lie and tell you that this weight that you now feel will go away any time soon. I'm only saying that you don't have to bear it alone," He stated, hoping she could hear his sincerity.
Shalia, whose gaze had remained on the floor all this while, didn't say anything. Instead, she just quietly turned back to her workstation, picked another Coiling thorn vine, placed it in the basin of warm water, and started working on it. Greg watched her for a while before letting out a resigned sigh. His words were the kind that could only be accepted voluntarily. There was no way of forcing Shalia to see things his way. Turning around, Greg started towards the door. Perhaps he would try to talk to her some other time.
"Thank you…" Shalia's voice was so small, that Greg almost didn't hear her at first. Pausing at the door, Greg smiled to himself before walking out. Perhaps she wasn't as far gone as he'd been fearing…
***
"A good afternoon to you, Roka" The wife to the now former Town-head greeted Greg just as he walked through the front door to their home. At six, headed toward seven months of pregnancy, her belly was already clearly showing. Somehow, this didn't diminish her allure in the least. If anything, the knowledge that it was his child in her belly only made her more appealing in his eyes. "Have you come to see my husband?" She asked with a smile, lust already blazing in her eyes.
Though they hadn't been pushed out of the home they used to occupy while her husband was Town-head, most of their servants had moved on to seek employment under the new Town-head. What few servants remained only came around to prepare meals and keep the place clean before they left to attend to their issues. Greg, therefore, wasn't afraid that anyone would see him as he boldly crossed the distance between them, wrapped his hands around the woman's waist, and grabbed her generous ass even as he planted a deep kiss on her lips.
"What are you doing? My husband is in the other room," The woman protested in a whisper. He, however, didn't miss the fact that she didn't pull away from him. If anything, she leaned closer to him, exposing more of her neck as Greg started to kiss his way to her collarbone. Greg knew the words had been said more to arouse him than as an actual protest, after months of being together, the little minx knew just how to push his buttons and from the way she smiled when her hand rose to caress his rapidly hardening cock, she was pleased with the result.
"Then you'll have to be quiet," Greg quietly growled in her ear even as he turned her around and roughly pushed her against the closest wall. "I don't think he'd be happy to hear his wife moaning in ways he could never hope to make her moan," he taunted while rubbing the head of his cock against her already wet pussy.
"You brute, your thing is too big. My husband will notice how much you stretch me out," She whispered back in mock exasperation even as she pushed her hips back, impaling herself on his girth.
Greg had to clamp her mouth shut with the palm of his hand to keep the moan that involuntarily left her from being heard throughout the house. "Don't worry, you'll be having my child soon. You can blame it on the birth," Greg replied in a mocking tone even as he started pumping in and out of the woman. With how turned on she already was and the fact that Greg had the SENSUAL TOUCH bangle on, it didn't take long before she was quivering in orgasmic bliss. On his part, Greg didn't hold back either. They were both perfectly aware that they didn't have much time for their little tryst. Just because there weren't any servants around presently, didn't mean that one couldn't appear at an inopportune time. Their adulterous sessions thus had to be quick affairs
With her insides painted white with his cum, the wife of the former Town-head, took a few seconds to compose herself. With his cum probably leaking to the insides of her thighs, they both walked to the room where her husband lay bedridden, weak as a babe…
———
Selecting the new Town-head had been a rather straightforward affair for Greg. After presenting the heads of the Aria and Valla households with an oath-keeper stone each, he had gone on to recite all the pledges to which they would be committing themselves if they wanted to be Town-head. But while the process of getting them to swear the oath was easy, coming up with the oaths themselves was nowhere near as straightforward. Greg was no scholar of history and how governments were set up. And much to his surprise, neither was his teacher or Olivia. Despite her age, his teacher had never involved herself in politics. Her obsession had always been her field of magic. Little beyond that ever caught her interest. The most she knew of such matters was that the strong ruled and the weak obeyed. Olivia, on the other hand, simply told him that she came into existence the day she was bought from the shop, so she couldn't say much on the matter either. In a way, Greg knew this to be true as while her original may be tens of thousands of years in age, this avatar was created the day Greg bought the familiar from the special Eros shop.
In the end, Greg had done his best to think back to what he could remember of his old-world government and how it was set up. Greg would then present his ideas to his teacher and familiar to see what they would think and how applicable they would be to this new world. Greg had been expecting that they'd be arguing over things such as a leader serving for only a certain amount of time before they had to step down and pass on the baton to the next person. Much to his shock, however, the very first thing that both his teacher and familiar had to be convinced of was the idea of rights.
Olivia had actually laughed and his teacher looked at him with the smile one presented a naïve child when Greg said that people have a right to life. Between laughs, the familiar asked him where this so-called 'right' was found and how many lives it has protected so far. More gently, his teacher had tried to explain to him as if to a child that the only rule that held sway in the world was that the strong had their way. She had argued that if someone powerful wanted to kill him, no 'right' would protect him. The only way he'd live was if someone stronger than his potential killer intervened. Greg had found himself trying to argue that just because a right could be violated doesn't mean that they don't exist.
"Then what good are they?" had been Olivia's immediate rebuttal. "You claim that people are born with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But look around you, Roka, where do you see any of these rights? Should I go out and kill everyone in this town, and we both know I am well capable of that, how will this so-called right protect any of them? If you were creative enough with the items in the shop, you could enslave everyone in this town. Tell me, would their right to liberty come to the rescue and free them? I'm not even sure what you mean by the right to pursue happiness if I'm being completely honest. The only 'rights' you have, are those that you are strong enough to enforce, Master, everything else is just wishful thinking," Olivia had declared with brutal finality.
Greg had been tempted to argue that they were God-given rights, but in this new world of countless gods, he already knew that the immediate question that would have followed was which god? And when did they declare this? And how come no one else has ever heard of it? And why should anyone care what that particular god thinks? Even he could see all the myriad ways that this argument would be torn to ribbons. Unwilling to give up the argument, however, Greg had turned the question to them. "Are you then saying that it's okay to take a life for any reason?" he'd asked the two of them.
"If you're weaker than me, and you don't have allies that can threaten me, then who's going to object?" His teacher had calmly questioned.
"But that's wrong! It's evil!" Greg had found himself exclaiming.
A pitying look had crossed his teacher's face as she regarded him. "Wrong according to who? Evil according to who? And if you aren't strong enough to enforce your opinion, of what worth is it?" She had countered. The debate had gone on for hours with neither side budging from their position. Greg's twenty-first-century mind just couldn't accept the idea that there was no such thing as rights. Whereas to both Olivia and Alena, the very concept was an absurdity that had no basis in observable reality.
In the end, after all was said and done, the pledge was boiled down to five core oaths. The first was the oath to protect. Whoever would be the Town-head would have to swear to be willing to protect the town and its inhabitants to the best of their ability in the face of any danger that threatened the town. The town did not need a leader that wasn't willing to fight for it. Next, was the oath of impartiality. Part of the role that the Town-head undertook was to settle disputes and cases among the townspeople. This next oath required that they wouldn't show any bias in favor or against any party involved in a dispute.
Third in line was the oath not to steal. This oath required that the Town-head honor the property of the townspeople. Even with his position, he wasn't allowed to take anything from anyone in town, be it material wealth or labor, without appropriate compensation. Fourth was the oath to listen. The town did not need a dictator. Whoever would be taking up the post of Town-head had to be willing to listen to the voice of the people and give consideration to whatever the people wanted. Finally on the list was the oath to give up power. Whoever would be Town-head, would hold the position for as long as they lived, so long as they remained capable of fighting for the town and their mental faculties weren't compromised. The position of Town-head, however, would be forfeited if more than three-fourths of the townspeople wanted the Town-head to step down as a result of poor leadership. The position, also, wouldn't be hereditary. At the end of their time as Town-head, whoever was in power would allow the people to choose who the next Town-head would be without trying to influence the decision one way or the other.
To Greg, all these seemed like sensible things to expect of their leader. Both his teacher and familiar, however, thought of him as being idealistic. The two men who wanted to be Town-head already had strange expressions by the time Greg got to the fourth oath. When Greg announced the fifth oath, the head of house Aria directly handed the oath-keeper stone back to Greg before moving back to join the crowd. On his part, the head of the Valla household had looked at the black stone for a long while in silence, clearly wondering if the position was still worth the bother with all these restrictions on his power. For a second, Greg had feared he'd be left with no one taking the position of Town-head. In the end, however, Niya's father let out a sigh before nodding to him. "Okay, I'll do it," he'd finally answered…