• Action
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• Drama
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• Martial Arts
• Mature
• Romance
• Seinen
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• Reincarnation
• Second Chance
• Time Travel to the Past
• Past Life Memories
• Time Loop / Regression
• Cultivation
• Power Progression
• Ruthless Protagonist (when necessary)
• Strong to Stronger
• Overpowered Protagonist
• Cheat-like Powers
• Hard-Working Protagonist
• Tragic Past
• Magic
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• Alchemy
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• Nobles
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• Ancient Secrets
• Secret Organizations
• Harem Seeking Protagonist
• Harem with Real Romantic Development
• Loyal Subordinates
• Loyal Love Interests
• Monster Girl Heroine
• Beastkin
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• Arranged Marriage
• Jealousy
• Love Interests Grow Stronger
• Slow-Burn Romance
• Strong Female Leads
• Tournaments
• Fights Against Stronger Opponents
• Arrogant Young Masters
• Face-Slapping
• Scheming Antagonists
• Assassination Attempts
• Epic Battles
• Revenge
• Demon Beasts
• Demon Lords
• Betrayal
• Bloodline Powers
• Body Tempering
• Forbidden Techniques
• Mystical Realms
• Cunning Protagonist
• Protective Protagonist
• Determined Protagonist
• Charismatic Protagonist
• Strategic Minded Protagonist
• Cares About His Subordinates
• Does Not Hide His Strength

I woke to find myself resting inside of a tent. A canopy above my head greeted me. It appeared to be made from Demon Beast hide, though I couldn’t figure out what sort of Demon Beast thanks to my sleep-addled mind. On that note, my head was pounding. It felt like someone had split it open with a war hammer.

Grunting, I placed my hands against the ground and pushed myself until I was sitting up. My muscles felt stiff. Every muscle and bone in my body was aching. Just moving hurt.

What happened?

I couldn’t remember.

It took several minutes for my brain to kick into gear, but I soon remembered what happened. I had gone to an island floating in the sky, fought against Dragons and Sekbeist, and was nearly killed when the Sekbeist unsealed someone trapped within a crystal coffin. Who was that person? Why did seeing him fill me with such dread?

There were a lot of things I wanted to know, but, for the moment at least, I needed to focus on healing myself. My body was bruised and battered from that battle and falling into the ocean. I closed my eyes and channeled the water element through my body, almost slumping in relief when the element surged through me like a cleansing tidal wave. The aches disappeared. The stiffness in my muscles vanished. I felt a lot better, so much so that I could now take a look at my surroundings.

The first thing I realized was that I was not alone. Erica, Tungsten, and Dagan were lying on individual futons beside me. All of them were still unconscious. Unconscious, but alive.

Heaving a sigh of relief, I tried to figure out what I should do now. It was clear that we had somehow survived falling into the sea, though I didn’t know how, and that someone had rescued us, though I didn’t know who. Had we perhaps washed up on shore? I couldn’t even begin to guess, but I knew we were still near the ocean because the salty scent of seawater drifted in through the flaps covering the entrance.

As I sat there, feeling nothing but uncertainty toward our situation, the door suddenly opened, and a young woman who looked to be in her late teens entered. She paused when she found me sitting up. I stared at the girl, who stared back, blinking like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Should I talk first? Maybe she was waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t know what to say.

“Oh!” The girl made a startled exclamation before I could even open my mouth. “You’re awake. I’m so glad one of you finally woke up. Please, wait right here. I’ll get the elder.”

I could only assume the elder was the leader of this place, wherever this place was, but it wasn’t like I could ask her for confirmation. The girl rushed back outside before I could acknowledge her words. Sighing, I decided that the only thing I could do was wait.

A few seconds ticked by before a noise made me turn my head. It wasn’t coming from outside the tent. It was coming from the woman lying on my left.

Erica’s eyes slowly fluttered open as I crawled over to her, though they closed again several seconds later. I could tell she was awake, though. The woman raised a hand to her face and released a pained groan. I bet she was feeling how beat up she was. It had been much the same for me just a few minutes ago.

“I’m glad to see you’re up,” I said.

“Eryk,” Erica muttered. “What happened? Where are we?”

“I don’t know where we are, but as for what happened…” I sat down beside Erica and removed her hand from her head, then placed my hand on her forehead and began channeling the water element into her. “I’m sure you remember what happened. That strange person emerged from the crystal coffin, said something about killing us before we became a threat, and destroyed the entire island.”

Erica sighed in relief as I healed her ravaged body. She was just as injured as I was. Her ribs were bruised, her left leg was broken, and her right arm had several fractures along the femur and wrist. She also had a minor concussion. To be honest, I felt like she and I had gotten off lightly, given what we went through. It could have been much worse.

Her armor had been removed, or maybe it had been destroyed, and she was wearing nothing but a somewhat roughly textured shirt that looked a little primitive. It also seemed to be several sizes too small. The shirt stretched across her large chest. I could tell from the way her nipples poked through the fabric that she wasn’t wearing her breast bindings either. They must have been removed so she could breathe more easily.

“I remember now.” Erica’s lips trembled as tears appeared in her eyes, though she didn’t let them fall. Admirably holding them back, she looked at me with an imploring gaze. “How many of us survived?”

“Aside from you and me? Just Tungsten and Dagan survived,” I said softly, glancing at the two still unconscious men.

We were all that was left of our party. Everyone else had died. I was the only person from my sect who had come, but the others had brought several of their more powerful members. What’s more, Erica was very close to all her members, so I’m sure this knowledge hurt.

“I… I see.” Erica bit her lower lip as if the physical pain would help mitigate the emotional agony she was no doubt feeling. “They’re all… dead… Karen and Hilda and Michelle… all of them are gone.”

Erica gritted her teeth, no longer able to hold the tears back. I didn’t say anything. In fact, I pretended not to see the tears being shed by this strong woman who had just lost several people she loved. There was nothing I could do to ease the pain she felt, except to let her cry it out.

Erica didn’t cry for long, stopping just a few minutes after she had begun. I removed my hand from her forehead once she was healed and scooted back so I wasn’t in her face when she sat up.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

Another two noises echoed from within the tent as Dagan and Tungsten woke up. With a sigh, I went over to them and healed them as well. I also decided to get them up to speed since I was sure they would also be disoriented. I informed them of the same thing I told Erica. They accepted the deaths of their comrades with the stoicism expected of them. I personally thought they’d have been better off crying it out, but these two men were far more stubborn and prideful than me.

“Do you happen to know where we are?” asked Tungsten.

“Somewhere near the border of the continent, I imagine.” I shrugged as I sat back on my futon. “I can smell saltwater, which means we are at least close to the ocean. I’m sure the elder that girl went to get can explain our situation to us better than I can.”

Tungsten accepted my words with a stoic nod and crossed his arms, not saying anything more. I already expected that. He was a man of few words, never talking any more than he deemed necessary to get the point across. That was also the reason so many people listened to him when he did deign to speak. They knew he only did so when it was important.

“I can’t believe everyone else is gone,” Dagan said with a sigh. He looked worn out and ragged, perhaps feeling weighed down by what happened.

“Considering what we faced on that island, I’d say it’s a miracle any of us managed to survive,” I said.

He sighed again. “I am aware of that.”

I glanced back at the flap, wondering when the elder would arrive.

“That person we saw on the platform,” Erica began. “The short one. That was Hreidmar, wasn’t it?”

“It was.” Nodding, I closed my eyes and recalled what I remembered during our time in Niðavellir and compared it to what I had seen on the floating island. “However, he was a lot different from how I remembered him. He seemed broken.”

“I imagine the Sekbeists tortured Hreidmar to the point where his mind broke,” Tungsten theorized. “They probably turned him into a mindless slave.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Erica admonished with unshed tears. “After everything that man did to help us return home, you should not say such things—even if it is true.”

“You are right. I apologize,” Tungsten said before going silent once more.

At that moment, the sound of footsteps alerted me to the arrival of two people seconds before the flaps to the tent opened and the pair walked in.

One of them was the young girl. However, the other was an older man with long gray hair, thick eyebrows, and wrinkles lining his eyes and mouth. I couldn’t judge his age. Despite looking old, his body appeared quite fit. He was probably a Spiritualist.

“It seems all of you are awake,” the man said. “My name is Sigurd. I am the leader of this small village you find yourselves in.”

“Thank you for treating our wounds,” Erica said with gratitude.

“You are welcome. However, I hope you will tell me how it is you all came to acquire such injuries,” he said. “When we found you four, all of you were washed up on the shore and in terrible condition. I honestly thought you were dead at first. It’s a miracle you four managed to survive whatever happened to you, so I am curious to know how you received those injuries in the first place.”

I didn’t know if telling this man about what happened was a good idea, but it wasn’t like we could just not tell him anything. That would have been rude to the man who saved us.

We did our best to explain what happened. Sigurd and his daughter listened. While the man remained calm throughout most of our story, the girl was staring at us with wide eyes and made weird exclamations every time we reached a harrowing part of our journey. By the time we had finished, the girl was clasping her hands and looking at us with a reverence that disturbed me.

“It seems you four have indeed gone through something trying,” Sigurd said at last. “You may stay here and recuperate if that is your desire. Our village is small, so we cannot offer much in the way of hospitality, but we offer what we can all the same.”

“Thank you very much,” Erica said again. This time, she, I, Tungsten, and Dagan offered the man a polite bow of gratitude.

“Think nothing of it,” the man said. “Now then, I should let you know that this village is located several kilometers from the Rotfang Forest. Should you wish to reach the Northern Plains, you will need to travel west from here and enter through the forest. I can give you a guide when you wish to leave. Many of our members have great experience traveling through the forest and know the best routes to help you reach your destination unimpeded.”

The Rotfang Forest, called such because it was a forest filled with incredibly toxic plants and poison-type Demon Beasts. Almost everything there was poisonous. I once heard from a sect mate that the Demon Beasts in the Rotfang Forest possessed the deadliest poisons in the entire world, which also made it one of the most dangerous places to traverse.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly, the Rotfang Forest was popular with the Poison Sect.

We offered the man our gratitude again, but he merely waved it off with a smile and told us that someone would come by with dinner soon. The mention of dinner made our stomachs rumble. I wasn’t sure how long we had been asleep, but it must have been for quite a long time because it felt like my stomach was running on empty.

The girl Sigurd was with, who I later learned was his granddaughter, Svanhild, did indeed return with food. As we were eating, a strange sense of nostalgia washed over me. I couldn’t help but feel like I had been in a similar situation to the one that I was in now at some point in the past.

I just couldn’t remember when that was.

***

I woke up early the next day to find myself enveloped by the warmth of three gorgeous young women. Kari was on my left, her arms wrapped firmly around one of mine, which was deeply nestled within the valley of her breasts. Unlike her, Fay was slightly removed from me. It was like she felt too embarrassed to snuggle, but she still wanted to be close, and thus had opted to hold my hand instead. Of course, resting on top of all three of us was Lin. The precocious Lamia’s tail was coiled around all of us like very loose bondage.

Since I was still tired from last night’s dream, I didn’t wake up the four of them right away. Moments like this were precious. Irreplaceable. And I wanted to spend this time simply relaxing within their embrace. The warmth from these three women gave me peace of mind that I hadn’t known in a long time.

I took a great deal of guilty pleasure in just lying there.

As I lay there, I thought about the dream I’d had. These dreams no longer bothered me anymore, but this particular dream stood out because it was my first meeting with the man I hated more than anything else in the entire world. Thinking back on that meeting made me realize how strange it was. The way the Great Overlord of the Seventh Realm had acted felt… off. I could not explain it. I did not know him as anything more than an enemy. At the same time, some part of me was telling me that the way he acted was not the way the Great Overlord of the Seventh Realm would normally act.

There were other things I thought about as well. I still didn’t know why I was having these dreams. It seemed odd for my dreams of the past to be so vivid. In my previous timeline, my dreams were always blurry and indistinct, but here, they were realistic and detailed, to the point where I felt certain that what I saw when I slept was what really happened.

It was disturbing in some ways.

It was nice in others.

And that was why I didn’t know how to feel about them.

While I wished I could lie in bed forever, time waited for no one, and I knew we had to get up, so I began shaking all three women awake.

“Come on, you three. It’s time to get up.”

“Is it… morning already?” Kari asked as she sat up, stretched her arms high above her head, and released a prolonged yawn. Some tears pricked at her eyes, but she wiped them away without a second thought. “I feel like I didn’t get nearly enough sleep…”

I watched as her breasts bounced within the confines of her shirt. She was wearing clothes, but she wasn’t wearing her breast bindings, making her bosoms all the more prominent. Her shirt stretched across her chest and lifted to reveal hints of her stomach when she raised her arms to stretch.

“Good morning, Kari,” I murmured, briefly shaking my head to get my mind focused.

“Eryk. Good morning.”

Kari smiled at me as I leaned down and pressed a soft kiss on her lips. I enjoyed the way she tilted her head to better press our lips together. The scent of her skin and hair was a bit stronger than normal because of what we had been through not ten hours prior, but I enjoyed how she smelled. It made me randy.

Great. Now I had a boner.

“This princess wants to keep sleeping until she’s at least five degrees warmer, Darling. Just five more degrees…”

Unlike Kari, who at least had the decency to get up, Lin laid her head right back on my chest and nuzzled her face into it. I normally wouldn’t have been bothered by such behavior. Were our circumstances different, I would have been more than happy to indulge her, and in fact, her action more often than not led to us having sex, but we couldn’t do that here.

Propriety and all that.

“Lin, if you don’t get up, Big Sister is going to become cross with you,” Kari suddenly said with a sing-song voice and an even more ominous grin.

“I’m up! I’m up! Please don’t be angry, Big Sister!” Lin suddenly bolted upright, her eyes wide open.

“It’s so nice of you to get up with the rest of us.” Kari’s smile went from dark to pleasant in an instant as she held out her hand. “Come on. Why don’t we begin helping everyone at the camp?”

“Okay. This princess will help you. Just please don’t be mad at her.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not mad. Now up we go.”

Lin took Kari’s hand and allowed the blonde woman to pull her to the tent’s entrance. Before leaving, Kari turned back to me and smiled.

“Come out when you two are ready,” she said. “I think Fay needs a bit more time with you.”

“Um… sure,” I said.

I didn’t know what Kari meant until I looked at Fay and realized that her eyes were red and puffy from crying. I hadn’t noticed it before because my sleep-addled mind had hampered my thought processes, but now that I was awake, I could see that Fay had been crying in her sleep.

“What’s wrong?” I scooted up to her, cupped her cheeks in my hands, and began gently wiping away the tears on her face. A bright red blush sprang to her cheeks. She didn’t push away from me, however, instead nuzzling her face into my hands as if seeking warmth.

“It’s nothing. I just had a bad dream.” She reached up to grab my hands, keeping them pinned to her cheeks.

“Will you tell me about it?” I asked.

Fay did not say anything for the longest time, but I wasn’t in a rush. I mean, I think we were technically on a deadline since we would be leaving the Demon Beast Mountain Range today; however, I was sure we could spare some time for this.

“I can’t remember much. Even now, the dream is fading, but… I dreamt that my entire body was in agony, like I was being burned alive, but I did not die. Despite some part of me wishing for death, another part of me refused to give up and kept enduring.” She took a slow, shuddering breath before continuing. “I was wandering through a forest in my dream… a forest? Was it a forest? Yes, I think it was. Anyway, I… I was picking herbs, trying to cure the unending pain of my body being ravaged, but even the herbs could only mitigate it. They couldn’t completely heal me, and so my life became one of constant agony… and then you woke me up.”

I listened to her as she talked about the dream she had. This wasn’t the first time she’d had such a dream, and she wasn’t even the only one. Kari and Lin often had dreams like this too. I had a theory that these weren’t dreams at all but visions from their past lives before I traveled back in time. In other words, these dreams were memories from their previous life coming back to them.

Just like the dreams I was having.

That said, I didn’t know how or why they were having these dreams. Perhaps it was because of the runes that appeared on their chest whenever we had sex, but I didn’t know for sure, which was why I remained silent thus far. I didn’t want to present false information. What I did know was that right now, someone I loved was in pain before me.

Since I couldn’t think of anything to say that could help her, I pulled Fay into my arms and held her close. This fiery redhead was normally shy. She never instigated intimacy between us, but she never turned it away either. The moment I hugged her, she wrapped her arms around my waist and clutched the back of my shirt with her calloused hands.

We stayed that way for a moment before eventually breaking apart. I smiled at the reluctance Fay expressed to leave my embrace.

“Are you feeling better?” I asked.

“A little.” She gave me a tentative smile. “Thank you.”

“That’s not something you need to thank me for. I’m just doing what I want. You know I’m always up for a good cuddle.”

“Don’t I know it?” Fay giggled.

Deciding I could afford to be a little bolder, I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers. Fay stiffened. Her entire spine seemed to grow rigid. Then she melted into my kiss and began kissing back. Like everything she did, her kiss was tentative and uncertain, but that was fine with me. I loved this side of Fay as much as I loved her competitive nature.

Her lips were so soft. They were fuller than Kari’s. Their lushness was something I took great relish in nibbling on, though I held myself back today. We were in the Demon Beast Mountain Range, after all, and in a camp with numerous other Spiritualists. There was a time and place for everything, and now was not the time for me to let my amorous desires take hold.

“Come on.” I grabbed Fay’s hands and pulled the woman to her feet. “Let’s head outside.”

“Mmm. Okay,” Fay said in a soft voice.

The two of us traveled outside of the tent and looked around at the people walking across the campsite, carrying boxes, loading up cargo, and taking apart tents. It seemed we would be getting ready to move out soon.

Kari and Lin were standing beside a large pot filled with a type of gruel that had been prepared. They held a bowl filled with the gruel in one hand and used a spoon in the other to scoop up their food. Lin didn’t seem to care for it, but she ate the food without complaint despite her carnivorous nature.

Her disgusted grimace as she ate was priceless, however.

I was sure the man who had done the cooking did not appreciate that look.

Fay and I also came up and were given a bowl and spoon to eat with. The one standing by the pot, ladling our food, was none other than Mykkel. He smiled at the two of us.

“Morning, Eryk. I didn’t get to say this yesterday, but thank you for rescuing my brother.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied, trying hard not to shrug. “Geirolf is a part of my family too now, so it’s only natural that I would rescue him.”

“I guess so,” Mykkel replied cheerfully. “Still, I am grateful to you all the same.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything more, instead choosing to focus on eating. The gruel wasn’t great. Actually, the bland taste made me wonder if anything had been used to give it flavor. Did these people not know of butter? Salt? There wasn’t even a single berry in this!

Even though it tasted like nothing, I still ate the food because I was hungry.

After the meal, Kari, Lin, Fay, and I rolled up the futon, took apart our tent, and loaded it into one of the wagons that the Nevarian Spiritualists had brought with them. Everyone else was doing the same. Most everyone had already finished loading all their supplies up and were getting ready to begin moving again. Only a few stragglers were trying to quicken their pace.

Once everyone was ready, Dante and Rainer ordered their forces to move. I was told to hop in one of the unused wagons with Kari, Lin, and Fay. As the Mastodons attached to the harnesses began pulling the carts, I leaned back against the wall as Lin rested her six-meter-long tail across our laps and watched as the scenery rolled by. Our current location was filled with grass and a sparse copse of trees, but that would soon change as we got closer to Nevaria.

Our journey home had begun.

***

When I had journeyed to Bucharest with no one but Kari by my side, it had only taken a few hours to reach the ancient and long-abandoned city. I had pushed the Flash Step to the limit and made the journey in record-breaking time. We sadly could not do that here with so many people traveling alongside us. We started our travels early in the morning, but we did not arrive in Nevaria until late evening.

The sun had set by the time we reached Nevaria. I could make it out as it dipped below the Demon Beast Mountain Range. While the area around the sun was bright orange with streaks of red, it transformed into a gradient that gradually turned into a deep purple. Several stars had already begun to sprinkle heaven’s canvas.

Once we made it past the north gate, the Nevarian Spiritualists traveled back to the northern barracks. Our group, which consisted of myself, Kari, Fay, Lin, Earland, Mykkel, Geirolf, and Dante climbed into a cart that was waiting for us. Once everyone had climbed inside, the driver whipped the reins and the Mastodons began lumbering forward.

Rainer did not join us.

“I’m going to let Rainer handle the paperwork,” Dante admitted with a careless shrug when I asked him about it. “He’s a lot better at administrative work than me.”

Given how lazy Dante acted, I wasn’t surprised he had decided to foist his responsibilities onto Rainer. I just sighed and accepted it.

As the cart moved, very few people conversed inside, though I think that had more to do with how tired everyone was. Traveling through the Demon Beast Mountain Range was always an exhausting experience. Kari, Fay, and Lin did talk a little, but they spoke in hushed voices so as not to be obtrusive.

I was quietly sitting against the wall, listening to the hushed conversation of my fiancées and contemplating the matter of the Sekbeist Shaman. It worried me that there were more Sekbeists out there. It also left me with many questions. Was this Shaman the only one? Were there more? If so, how many more? There was so much about this new knowledge that I found worrying. I didn’t know if Nevaria was prepared to deal with a threat of this magnitude so soon after recovering from the Demon Beast Invasion.

While lost in thought, I felt a pair of eyes on me. I turned around to look at the person who had been staring at me.

Geirolf looked away when he realized I had spotted him staring. I frowned, but then went back to my musings… only to sigh when I felt his eyes on me again. It seemed he had found a new fascination with me.

I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

What to do? I couldn’t quite figure out why Geirolf was staring at me, so I didn’t know whether I should confront him about it now or later, but the more he stared, the more discomfiting I felt. I decided to just confront him.

“Is there something on your mind?” I asked him.

“Wha—no.” Geirolf looked away. “There’s nothing on my mind.”

“Really?” I muttered, not believing him for even a minute. “So, you don’t have something you wish to say to me?”

“W-why would I want to say anything to you?” he snapped back.

I frowned at how difficult this boy was being. If he didn’t have anything to say to me, then why was he staring so much?

“I personally think what you should be saying to Eryk is ‘thank you,’” Kari chimed in without shame. “Eryk dropped everything to journey into the Demon Beast Mountain Range and rescue you. The fact that you haven’t even thanked him yet is pretty rude.”

“W-whatever,” Geirolf grumbled.

“I agree with Kari,” Mykkel added.

“You should thank him,” Earland put in his two valis.

“Sh-shut up! Shut up, both of you!”

As Geirolf put on a strange hot and cold act, Dante laughed, which only riled the boy up further. Fortunately, Fay did not seem interested in joining the others as they teased the boy, though sadly, Lin had absolutely no trouble doing just that.

“A man who is unable to show gratitude isn’t really a man,” she told Geirolf, whose face had gone red with shame.

“Okay, everyone,” Dante said, gesturing with his hands for them to calm themselves. “Settle down. There’s no need to get on Geirolf’s case right now.”

While it was clear that a few of them—like Kari and Lin—wanted to keep harassing the boy until he expressed gratitude to me for saving him, everyone grew silent. Lin extended her long tail across the cart until it was resting on my, Kari’s, and Fay’s laps. Kari had set her head against my shoulder. On the other hand, Fay’s brows were furrowed and it looked like she was thinking deeply about something. I was curious to know what she was thinking about. However, I didn’t ask right now.

We eventually made it to the front gate of the Imperial Royal Palace. Members of the Imperial Royal Guard were guarding the gate, but when they saw Dante sitting in the cart, they snapped off a salute and opened the gate for our group to proceed. The driver cracked the reins again, and the two Mastodons pulled the vehicle up the hill and into the main courtyard of the Imperial Royal Palace.

It amused me that we were using Mastodons instead of Mares. Mastodons were normally used to pull heavy equipment like the kind used in construction. I could only assume we were using them here because Lin weighed about six times more than the average human.

Lamia were a heavy species thanks to that tail of theirs.

When we reached the entrance, our group was shocked to discover Empress Hilda and Valence waiting for us. The empress was dressed in a simple gown that looked expensive but was unembellished with any sort of decorations. That said, I didn’t think the woman needed something extravagant to look magnificent. If anything, the lack of adornments allowed her beauty to stand out, making her all the more radiant.

The moment she saw our group arrive, Empress Hilda walked up to us with feigned poise and stopped in front of Geirolf, who was trying to look anywhere but at her. The young man was practically radiating nerves. Not that I could blame him. His mother could be an intimidating figure. 

“Mother, I—”

Geirolf was unable to say anything more as Empress Hilda engulfed him in a hug. She held him tightly to her chest as if afraid he would disappear the moment she let go. No tears fell from her eyes, but I thought I could sense the intense relief she felt upon seeing her youngest son alive and well.

“I am so glad you are okay,” she murmured, speaking not as the Empress of Nevaria but as the mother of Geirolf. “I was very worried about you when I found out what happened.”

Empress Hilda did not seem like the type to dole out affection often, which perhaps explained why Geirolf didn’t seem to know what he should do. He just stood there like an idiot. His eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open, and his body stiff like a board.

The empress eventually had her fill of hugging her youngest son. She released the confused boy and hugged both Earland and Mykkel. They were a lot more accepting of the hug than Geirolf. Perhaps they had expected it and mentally prepared themselves.

Then she got to Kari.

“I’m so proud of you, my daughter,” Empress Hilda said as she hugged the girl tight. “You’ve made me so proud.”

“Th-thank you, Mother,” Kari mumbled as she hugged the woman back. Her voice was soft but filled with an overwhelming amount of emotion.

Everyone else stood back as they allowed mother and daughter their moment. Looking at the two of them gave me a warm feeling. The others seemed to feel the same way. Fay and Lin were smiling as they watched the scene, and even Dante, Earland, and Mykkel looked like they were happy to see such a touching moment. Geirolf looked a little conflicted.

However, the true shocker was none of them.

It was Valence.

I couldn’t remember a single time since meeting the man where I had seen him smile, but right at that moment, he was wearing a soft, tender smile. It was warm and gentle, filled with what I could only assume were fatherly feelings. Of course, the moment he realized I had noticed him, his expression became stern and unfeeling once more. Cold like a block of ice. Even so, I would not be forgetting that sight any time soon.

“All of you must be exhausted,” Empress Hilda said after she had hugged all of her children. “Why not rest and recover from your ordeal?”

No one was about to disagree with her idea. In fact, the moment it was suggested, Kari and Lin grabbed me by the arm and began pulling me along behind them. Of course, Kari had also grabbed Fay’s hand and dragged her with us.

“Come on, everyone. Let’s get some rest,” Kari said.

Lin nodded. “This princess longs for a hot bath and an actual bed.”

I looked at Fay as she and I were dragged along behind Lin and Kari, who were chatting about how they longed to have a hot bath, and gave her a helpless smile. Fay smiled back.

That evening, I luxuriated in a warm bath with the three women who had become an indispensable part of my life.

Step-by-Step Guide to Sideload EPUB Files Purchased from Shopify onto Kindle

Amazon now supports EPUB files on Kindle, but you need to send them through Send to Kindle or convert them. Follow these steps to get your EPUB books on your Kindle.

Method 1: Send to Kindle (Recommended)

Amazon now allows you to send EPUB files directly to your Kindle via email or the Send to Kindle app.

Step 1: Find Your Kindle Email Address

Go to Amazon → Manage Your Content & Devices (Link).

Click the Devices tab.

Select your Kindle device and note the "Send-to-Kindle Email" (e.g., yourname@kindle.com).

Step 2: Send EPUB to Kindle via Email

Open your email client (Gmail, Outlook, etc.).

Compose a new email to your Send-to-Kindle Email.

Attach the EPUB file you purchased.

Send the email. Amazon will convert it and deliver it to your Kindle.

Alternative: Use the "Send to Kindle" App

Download the Send to Kindle App (PC, Mac).

Drag and drop the EPUB file into the app.

Select your Kindle and send it.

Method 2: USB Transfer (For Advanced Users)

This method requires converting the EPUB to Kindle’s MOBI or AZW3 format.

Step 1: Convert EPUB to MOBI or AZW3

Download Calibre (Link).

Open Calibre and add your EPUB file.

Click Convert books → Choose MOBI or AZW3 as the output format.

Click OK to convert.

Step 2: Transfer to Kindle via USB

Connect your Kindle to your PC/Mac using a USB cable.

Open the Kindle folder in File Explorer (Windows) / Finder (Mac).

Drag and drop the converted file into the Documents folder.

Eject your Kindle, and your book will appear in your library.

Bonus: Use a Third-Party App

Apps like Send to Kindle for Android/iOS or Readwise Reader can also sync EPUBs to Kindle.

Now, enjoy your book on Kindle! 📖🔥