Harem System In A fantasy World

Chapter 241: Tired of her freedom

Gale was fuming, pacing back and forth in the balcony as his voice rose in frustration, “We have been here for two days! We have seen her fight twice already, and yet! That stupid daughter of mine has not come to see us even once, how disrespectful can she be?” he snapped, his expression darkening further, “is she tired of her freedom!?”

Cedric, on the other hand, looked like he was having the time of his life, leaning back comfortably as he watched his father rage.

There was a faint smirk on his face as he enjoyed every second of it, because truth be told, he had never liked that sister of his, not when she seemed to hold more status than him in the family despite only being a woman, and lately, he had been in an especially good mood, because Mira seemed to be doing a fine job of angering their father all on her own.

’All is well that ends well,’ he thought with quiet satisfaction. As he could already imagine what kind of punishment she would receive.

At this point, even he could tell that she was digging her own grave, because no matter how much their father tolerated, there was always a limit, and once that limit was crossed, the hammer would fall, and Cedric was more than happy to sit back and watch it happen.

Meanwhile, their mother sat quietly, caught between the two sides. Her expression looked calm on the surface, but her thoughts were anything but.

On one hand, she did not want to estrange her daughter by strongly going against her wishes, but on the other hand, customs dictated that she stand by her husband’s side, and right now, Mira was not really making things easy for anyone.

Any good daughter would have come to see her parents the moment they arrived, would have introduced the man she considered her husband properly, as she was meant to, and yet, it felt more and more like Mira wanted them to be the ones to approach her first, as if she was making a point.

And that was the problem. Clearly, she was doing this on purpose.

Whether it was to show that she didn’t care about the family anymore or simply to throw a tantrum, either way, it would only serve to anger her husband further.

The woman let out a quiet sigh. She could already feel a headache forming on her brow.

It didn’t help that both father and daughter were so alike. They were both stubborn and manipulative in their own ways. Neither was willing to back down easily, and she knew that this situation would go nowhere unless one of them took a step back.

But who would it be?

That… Only time would tell.

…

Elion stood at a distance with his hands in his pockets, his gaze fixed on the group of beautiful flowers ahead of him, where Mira, Isolde, Aria, Tessa, Lyra, and a few of Aria’s other friends had gathered.

Their voices overlapped as they spoke excitedly, some laughing, some still looking a bit shaken as they no doubt talked about what had happened yesterday and how everything had somehow turned out okay in the end.

For a while, he simply watched them without moving, with a calm, almost detached expression, but his mind was anything but calm.

His thoughts drifted to the severed arm. He couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to it after everything settled down. Beatrice had probably gotten rid of it already, preferably burned it even.

There was no point keeping something like that lying around, especially not in a place like that, and yet the image still lingered in his mind longer than he liked.

He didn’t know about Aria, but he definitely wouldn’t feel comfortable knowing he had one of his severed limbs lying around somewhere. Eventually, he forced himself to push the thought aside

His eyes shifted again as he scanned the area.

He had been keeping an eye out for William ever since he had come in here, but the bastard had not shown his face even once.

It was starting to look more and more like he had decided to disappear somewhere, which honestly did not surprise Elion in the slightest.

If he were in the same situation, after doing something like that and then getting his face smashed in the way he did, he might have done the exact same thing: hide, avoid, delay the inevitable for as long as possible, but that only worked for so long, and sooner or later, they would have to face each other.

Either way, they would meet on the battlefield today. That was if William even showed up. Or maybe not.

Elion would bet on the latter.

The guy could just be hiding somewhere right now, licking his wounds and praying for a miracle. That thought faded as another one took its place, one that made his expression shift slightly.

Liora.

Elion rubbed his chin slowly as his eyes sparkled with anticipation.

Last night, he had taken the liberty of using the ink of yearning on her, purely out of curiosity; of course, he wanted to see if it would make her act any differently around him.

Definitely not because it annoyed him that his charm hadn’t worked on her the way it usually did on others, yeah, definitely not that, he told himself, though even he didn’t sound convinced.

He had actually been looking forward to seeing her today. He was a ’bit’ curious to see if anything had changed in her. To see if there would be even the slightest difference in how she looked at him.

“I’m not participating until the second round…” he muttered under his breath, his gaze drifting slightly as he thought it through, “maybe I should take that chance to go look for her…”

He paused.

Then immediately shook his head.

No.

That would look suspicious.

He had never gone out of his way to look for her before, so if he suddenly started asking about her now, of all times, especially after having a lewd dream about him last night, that would be far too obvious; it would practically ring alarm bells in her head.

And then it hit him.

“…Fuck.”

His eyes widened slightly as the realization came crashing down on him all at once. Why didn’t he think of this before?

Liora had a dream affinity. Her entire family specialised in dreams, the mind, consciousness, all of it.

And what had he just used on her? An artefact that influenced dreams.

“…Shit…”

He dragged a hand down his face slowly, his earlier curiosity completely gone now as a very real sense of unease settled in his chest, because who was to say it wouldn’t backfire, who was to say she wouldn’t notice something was off.

Suddenly, the idea of using the ink on her didn’t seem very bright after all.

Best case scenario, her affinity didn’t help her detect something like that, maybe she just had a strange dream and brushed it off as her own desires, maybe she didn’t even question it.

As far as he knew, the only reliable ways to guard against mental interference like that were specific artefacts or divination affinities, and he had no idea if mind-based affinities worked the same way.

“So I should be safe…” he muttered quietly, though even to his own ears it didn’t sound convincing, “…probably.”

Worst-case scenario, her affinity allowed her to distinguish what was real and what wasn’t, and it also helped her realize that her dream had been tampered with, and then somehow traced it back to him.

In that case, he was well and truly fucked.

Elion exhaled slowly, letting his shoulders drop slightly as he stared ahead without really seeing anything.

“I really should have thought this through…” he muttered under his breath, his tone carrying a hint of annoyance at himself, “so stupid…”

[You think?]

The system’s sarcastic voice sounded in his head immediately, perfectly timed as always. Elion’s brow twitched.

He didn’t reply to the retort. He refused to give it that satisfaction.

In any case, Elion didn’t really feel like staying there any longer. The noise felt suffocating now that things had settled down, and his thoughts naturally drifted to Aria, because he had already spent time with her, more than enough for now

They had been together all night in his room, though for once, nothing steamy happened between them.

Hze hadn’t initiated anything, and neither had she, and strangely enough, that had made the night feel… different, calmer.

They had just stayed close, talking, or rather, she had done most of the talking while clinging to him, while he listened, and occasionally responded.

Her voice was soft as she spoke about random things, about the academy, about her thoughts, about him, and at some point, she had fallen asleep while still holding onto him.

It had done more for their bond than anything else they had done before. Which was… surprising.

She had also mentioned something important; his presence was still needed at her parents’ balcony.

She had said it with that slightly awkward tone she used when talking about her family, oh, and she had also mentioned her younger sister, apparently the girl was very excited to meet him, which was… something he didn’t really know how to feel about yet.

And then there was Mira.

Elion’s gaze shifted slightly as he thought about her. She acted normal most of the time, calm, composed, playful when she wanted to be, but there was something else there that she hid from everyone else.

In that sense, she was a lot like Liora; it felt like both of them were wearing masks all the time, showing people only what they wanted to show, never quite letting anyone see everything.

Mira hadn’t said much about her family recently. He knew they were here in the city. She had mentioned it in passing before.

But that was it.

There was no mention of meeting them, and she didn’t seem to have approached them since he was always aware of her whereabouts.

Which was strange. Because usually she would have brought it up already. So that meant one thing: she was doing it on purpose.

Elion exhaled lightly as he thought about it, his mind turning over the possibilities, trying to make sense of it, and honestly, there weren’t that many options.

Either she was avoiding them, which felt unlikely given her personality.

Or she was being rebellious, which to him for some reason, felt… very likely. Elion huffed quietly under his breath. “…Yeah, that sounds about right.”