Chapter 39: Prince Arcos

"Hmmm...? Oh. Oh!" The one who woke up first was Sammy, and her voice was loud enough for the rest of them to flinch as they all opened their eyes at once, looking around, almost assuming battle form.

But then they looked around the room and it was empty, except their husband who was up and looking at them as if he was enjoying them.

"Hello, ladies." He greeted them, but, the reaction that he got from them wasn’t that of joy.

All three of them suddenly had more tears in their eyes as they jumped on him to hug him, wanting to embrace him at once.

-Bam.

Sadly, the three of them had the same thought and ended up bumping their heads, stopping before they could embrace me.

"Slow down, you three. One by one, ok? Sammy, come this way, Beth, you climb up."

He knew having them take turns would be disastrous so he first organised them as he always does, and with the three of them on three sides, he watched as the ladies embraced their dumb, useless, bad husband.

Beth was crying, her hair still brown with her disguise on. The other two were also wearing their rings so they weren’t in their original looks, but that was needed for the time being.

The mission was not yet over.

"Do you even know how long you were out, you bastard!" Sammy cursed me, hitting my left side with her head. I could tell quite some time had passed since we rescued the prince but even I did not know how long I had been unconscious for.

"Two weeks! You were unconscious for two weeks!" It certainly wasn’t a small time. In fact, it was a longer recovery time than the last time I activated the orange rune.

However, the previous time was much different from this one. That was practice, while this one was a hunt.

Considering how I have stayed unconscious for several weeks during the initial days of our journey just because I did not know how to use those powers, this much wasn’t as bad.

’The toll on the mental and spiritual body after using the power of the Reaper is the worst.’

That orange power native to the Red Artifact is a synthetic force closer to a concept.

To kill a god, you must erase all of their existence. And since existence stretches far beyond one’s present state, doing so is nearly impossible.

You need a special force forged alone for that Divine Sin.

’There are only a few weapons that can kill gods in this world.’

Namely, there are only nine: the nine Epic Armaments. Weapons mostly in possession of the highest gods of this world. But, the red dagger isn’t one of the nine.

At least, not anymore.

The red artifact that the gods have is different from the red artifact that I wield. Theirs is stronger, easier to tame, and much easier to use. But the one I wield is the original one.

The artifact that the gods never got their hands on once our forefathers took down its master, a god.

They were brave people. Smarter than any that’d be born to this world, stronger than any that have ever appeared on the earth.

The red dagger is a weapon that my people have been protecting for thousands of years.

’The gods did not know about it at first, but when they found out, they set off to destroy my entire kind.’

Some of us survived, and I am the consequence of their arrogance, of their haughty nature.

Those shit eaters have six of the nine god-killing armaments, the demons have two, and one of them is still lost somewhere in this universe after the first progenitor of the angels lost it.

Humanity may never find it, but I am their hope.

And I have not forgotten what they have done.

’I will not forgive them for their sins.’

But we cannot do that just yet. There’s still much to prepare. Much to win, and much more to protect.

So I lay there, holding my wives a little tighter than before, my anxiety obvious to them.

"Hmm...?"

We are having a private moment here and then we realise we aren’t alone in this place. There’s a child with us.

"...!"

The child, the youngest prince of Mayn, a prodigy as well as a unique character, opens his distinct green eyes with the same yellow ring that his sisters and father have.

His name is Arcos, he is a boy of ten years, and he is looking at us as if looking at something that looks weird to him.

"Ummm, why are you on him, Miss? Isn’t he hurt?" He asks, pure and genuine with his concerns, our indecent display of affection a simple thing in his eyes.

He was watching us with his big eyes, his face round, soft, innocent. Yet, there was a kind of light in his eyes that few wise ones possess, his soul still eager, filled with countless questions.

He was looking at me specifically, watching my eyes, somehow aware that there was something unique in them as well.

"It’s fine, little one. They were just happy to see me."

I sat up on the bed as Beth slid to the side, going to my right by Lily’s side.

"It doesn’t hurt, you see? She’s pretty light." Well, with how much weight she carries in her storage bracelet and in her heart, she would actually be the heaviest among us.

But instead of being heavy, she is the one who carried most of our burdens.

"Hello, prince Arcos." I greeted him to distract him from his previous questions. "You seem tired. No good sleep?"

I looked to my side and nodded to Sammy.

"Oh." Sammy also nodded back, picked the young prince politely, asking for permission so he wouldn’t complain and picked him beside me on the bed.

"Have you been here with the three of them all this time?" I asked, a bright smile on my face.

"Um, not really. I was busy most of the time. The pretty ladies were here all the time... well, they were also doing a lot more things, but it doesn’t make sense to me."

He was cute.

Watching him be confused by the multitasking abilities of my wives was pretty funny. He was a good boy, but, had he fallen in the hands of those gods, he would have been used as a tool for the rest of his life.

’All that pain and suffering was worth it in the end.’

I caressed his head, telling him funny things at which he laughed genuinely, being true to the mask that he must have shown to everyone throughout his life.

"Since you know you’d be coming with us, you must have prepared to run away as well, right?"

"Yup~. All done. I’ll..." He happily answered my question but stopped midway, not understanding what he had just done.

"Oh? Why the look?"

Snow took out her sword and placed the tip on the floor while Beth activated a translucent barrier around us. At the same time, Sammy grabbed his cute hand that had been holding my fingers earlier, cutting off his magic power.

I summoned my red dagger in the same hand that was wrapped around his neck as well.

"Look, boy, we know what you are."

Sammy is a frequency genius, Beth is a tech wizard, Lily was born with a sword in her hand, and me?

Well, I’ve lived my entire life tricking people, demons, even gods.

A child like him tricking us? Me?

It was a funny thing to even think about from our perspective.

"Now then."

The god that abducted him didn’t just appear out of nowhere.

There was a reason.

And only this boy knew that reason.