Chapter 18 - Want a Taste?

"She calls her power the "Princess of the night", but that's just her being a child. Her ability is categorised under mystic and basically makes her look more charming to the people around her during the night. It's easier for her to convince people to do the things she wants too.

As for Brandon, he's an elemental awakener. He grows extremely hard rocks on his body, but they're individually small, so it's still easy for him to move normally. It provides him with exceptional defence and since his skin basically turns into stone, his punches hurt harder than mine.

Clara is the most unique one among us. It's hard to categorise her ability as she summons a plain white glove. But whomever she touches while wearing this glove, will obtain protection from our Goddess."

Keith's eyes opened wide when he heard about Clara's ability. Not only due to the direct protection of the goddess, but because he recognised this ability from the novel itself. 

It was from a character who was a soft hearted villain, and she was called the Shield of the Devil. Unfortunately, this character only got a a screen time of five to six chapters before getting killed by the main character. 

'The ability to grant shields to others... but there was nothing written about summoning gloves.' he thought as he frowned, trying to remember more about this character. 

As he thought, the others joined the two in the carriage until it almost filled up. 

After a while, Keith gave up as he could not remember anything important about the character. She had no fan arts and nor did anyone like or dislike her, which tossed her into the ignored and forgotten category. 

"Miss Clara, could you show me your-"

Before he could finish, he saw a glove appear on her hand. It looked like a white latex glove that doctors wore, but when he touched her hand, he could tell that it was silk. 

"A physical glove... so you can grant the goddess's protection to anyone you touch with this glove?" he asked as he shifted his attention from to gloves to her face. 

"U-um.. yes. But there are limits. At most, I can grant protection to five people at the same time, but the more I concentrate on one person, the more layers of protection they get." she explained as her face slowly turned a light shade of red. 

Keith nodded and took his hand back before he went back to his own thoughts. 

The character written in the book never used different layers of protection, so he crossed Clara out as the chances of her being this character was now pretty low. 

But this changed when he heard her next words. 

"Back when I was twelve, the gloves I summoned were made of cotton. As I aged, these gloves went up to my elbows and when I turned twenty, they came back to my wrists but the material changed to silk. I'm twenty four now and from the past four years, the thickness of the gloves has been decreasing."

Keith didn't show any sort of emotion other than slight curiosity, "That's interesting. I'm guessing that the potency of the goddess's protection also increased as time passed."

"Yes, it did." she said, her smile so charming that Keith had to force himself to look away. 

'Skin as pale as a ghost... I clearly remember this description of that character. Maybe it's not the skin but a very thin layer of silk that covered her entire body? The possibility is high as she was killed by the main character more than a decade from now.'

While he was trying to recall the events from the novel, Amelia and Brandon had their eyes on him but with different expressions on their faces. 

"You... why aren't you nervous? And why are you flirting with Clara?" Amelia asked, prompting Keith to raise one of his eyebrows. 

"Who's flirting with who? I'm just curious about her powers, that's all." he said, but Brandon laughed as he slapped his left knee thrice while doing so. 

He then looked at Amelia and smirked, "You're jealous that he's not paying you any attention, am I right?"

Hearing this Amelia glared at him and her expression changed slightly as she smiled, "Well, maybe I am. After all, it's easier to like someone who doesn't ask me out of the first day I join. And damn, you were persistent."

She then shook her head like she was dealing with a child.

Keith, not knowing what to do, looked at Edward who was silently smiling while watching the drama unfold. Seeing the oldest in the team like this, Keith decided to not interfere and simply enjoy the entertainment. 

"Hah? You clearly used your charming ability to get into my head! I can create rocks on my body to protect myself from physical attacks but not magic spells from evil witches like you!" he countered back before pointing at Keith. 

"Also, it's clear that he's flirting with Clara because he found out that you're an evil witch the moment he saw you. Tch tch, who would even want to be with black hearted vixen like you? Haaa...."

Keith saw Brandon sigh exaggeratedly and didn't know what to say. He simply wanted to enjoy the show, but now he was dragged into the center of the battlefield.

The carriage was small, but Amelia was a slender lady. She lifted her leg and stomped the area between Brandon's legs. Her lips curled into an arrogant smile, while Brandon scoffed back with a knowing smile.

"I'm used to your tricks by now."

It was clear that Brandon had used his stone skin to protect his jewels, but unfortunately for Keith, Amelia shifted her targets when she found out that her tricks were ineffective against Brandon.

"My dear newcomer, tell me. Tell me why you were flirting with Clara. If you don't..." she said warningly and glanced down at his crotch area before licking her lips with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

Keith couldn't help himself and instinctively blurted out. 

"If you really wish to have a taste that desperately, just tell me directly."