Getting Stronger By Marrying And Investing In Abandoned Villainesses

After Theo settled all necessary business, the first thing he did was sleep. He hadn’t been able to rest easy in the Tower, not really, and here in his own bed he slept like a baby.

He might have slept for a little over twelve hours, drifting up and under and up again, never quite surfacing. At some point he dreamed that Sesan was in the room, staring into his face the instant he opened his eyes. But he sank back under anyway.

Then very late in the night, Theo actually woke up. His whole body ached, and as he pushed himself up to stretch, his hand grazed something soft and plush.

Theo froze, his pulse jumping. Then, slowly, he turned his head to the other side of the bed.

And there she was, a jade beauty with frost-blue hair and alabaster skin, lying across the bed.

Her eyes were closed, the duvet lazily draped across her body. Asleep, she still looked like a goddess carved from frozen jade and set down beside his bed. Her breath came slow and even, faint clouds of it ghosting the cool air with every exhale.

It was one of those moments. Theo stared at her without blinking for two straight minutes, wondering just how lucky a man could get.

He didn’t stand up. Instead he rolled onto his side and dragged the duvet gently over her, covering her opened thighs and pulling it up to her waist.

The sound of the night was loud, but he didn’t hate it. Instead, it was a lullaby.

He felt comfortable in the darkness. He did have a solar lamp for when he needed light, but he suspected Odette had switched it off and tucked it away somewhere before she left for home. That was, if she’d left at all.

Theo stayed on the bed studying Sesan and thinking:

’I wonder what her Class is? I couldn’t see it the last time I checked, could that have been because I was Classless myself, since Class is an information that is somewhat limited.’

If one wasn’t given a Class, it seemed they’d rarely even know it existed. Yet beyond certain floors, it seemed impossible not to have one.

Theo found himself wondering, too, how unfairly the ladies had been treated. How everything they’d worked and fought for had been ripped away from them by a patriotic system, and by the very people they trusted.

And when he thought about it, when he thought about Thall lying in her induced coma, his jaw tightened and heat surged up through his chest, sharp enough that lying still and pretending to sleep became impossible.

But staring, just staring at Sesan’s face, brought a strange smile to his lips. And Theo could tell. It was a dangerous, reckless thing, considering these ladies were villainesses first and victims second.

Falling in love with them was very dangerous.

More so if he ever succeeded in helping them back to their feet. There was no guarantee they’d want to stay with someone as pathetic as him. So was it really okay to let himself fall in love with them?

Just as he asked himself that question, Sesan groaned and threw her cold legs over him, sleeping so carelessly.

Theo chuckled.

After a dozen minutes of lying still so he wouldn’t disturb her sleep, he gently eased her legs off him and tiptoed out of the room, through the parlor and out onto the porch.

There on the rocking chair sat Uthed, leaning back with folded arms, his sword resting beside him. The moment Theo closed the door, Uthed’s eyes opened.

’I didn’t hear him come out?’

Theo’s steps had been so muted that if he hadn’t closed the door, Uthed might never have heard him at all.

’Is that another skill added to his arsenal?’

A quiet laugh escaped him as he watched Uthed jolt awake. Then he whispered.

”Sorry to disturb you. I just wanted to train a little.”

Uthed grabbed his sword.

”Fine then, let’s do it together. I will like to see how much you’ve grown in the past two days.”

Theo’s mind recalibrated to the fact that he’d only been gone two days. For him, it still felt like four.

He nodded, and the two of them walked into the woods, the trees closing overhead until the porch light was gone behind them. As they went, Uthed watched Theo’s steps, listening for the sound of them.

’There’s nothing. There’s no sound coming from his footsteps, how does he do that?’

Even when Theo stepped over dry leaves, the shadows seemed to drown the sound before it could ever leave the ground.

They finally reached the lakeside, met by a fresh, cold wind that made them shiver. Moonlight lay flat and silver across the water, and the reeds along the bank swayed low with the passing wind.

But this cold was nothing, not after what Uthed had lived through in the car with Sesan’s seizures. He’d learned, since then, just how warm cold could be.

When the two of them stood facing each other, Uthed studied him cautiously.

Then Theo paused and asked.

”What?”

”Mr Theo... do you have an affinity to Shadow, or darkness?”

Theo’s brows lifted.

”Shadow or Darkness, is there really a difference?”

Theo chuckled.

”Of course. One is the absence of light, one is the presence of evil. A shadow isn’t so much of a threat to light, but a darkness can be a threat to light. Since it is an origin to both light and shadows.”

Theo smiled softly.

”Sir Uthed, you seem to know about these things.”

He laughed, short and low.

”I was pretty useless, so I studied affinities a lot, hoping I’d get one, but I never did. At one time, I almost got the wind affinity, but I failed.”

”I didn’t know you could get an affinity?”

”I presume there are a lot of things you don’t know can be gotten, Mr Theo. But when you challenge a dungeon in the Tower, or an Ancient Ruin, you can find things called Runestones. They’re engraved with a certain element, and cultivating them can earn you that element. There are also Engravings from Runestones that can give you skills.”

While Uthed explained, Theo summoned up his own profile to look it over.

And then he froze, staring.

’Wow... it has been a while, I checked, but so much change?’