Chapter 18. My Lust Is Low, the Ice Knight Is Thawing, and My Girlfriend Heard Everything

Chapter 18: 18. My Lust Is Low, the Ice Knight Is Thawing, and My Girlfriend Heard Everything

She kept looking at me, and this time... I could tell that she wasn’t treating it as a joke. And now I’m starting to get worried if I’ll get a good slap or punch to my face.

Surprisingly... Her eyes moved to my hand, then to the rock behind me that I’d failed to lift, and then back up to my face.

She was a good enough tracker to notice that I’d been hiding something, and I was a... bad enough liar to know that she’d caught me.

She didn’t push, though. Which is a good thing.

But... she just said, "We’ll stop at the river in an hour," and walked back to her position.

I watched her go and thought, great, now I have to figure out how to explain this to her before it gets us all killed.

To me... explain something like this isn’t really that hard, probably.

We reached the river around noon.

It was a narrow, clear stream that curved through a stand of white birches, and it was exactly the kind of place that makes you forget you’re being hunted.

Alicia took Martin to a flat stone to look over the documents again, and I found a rock of my own at the water’s edge and sat down to catch my breath, because the walk had somehow worn me out more than the fight.

It just a walk, and it already make me sweating like this. I think it’s not my fault here... other than my Lust who’s worn out too quickly.

A shadow fell across my knees. Laura was standing there with a water flask in her hand.

"You haven’t recovered from yesterday," she said. "Take it."

"Ohh... thanks, but..." I took the flask. "I’m just a little tired, and it’s nothing serious, trust me."

"Don’t lie to me... I can tell it’s a different type of tired."

"Oh wow... Do you always talk this firmly to people you just met?"

"Normally... I don’t go out of my way to bring water to them."

I looked up. She seemed to hear what she’d said a second after she said it, because her mouth tightened and she turned to stare very hard at a tree on the far bank.

I can see that the tips of her ears were pink. An easy sign that a woman is probably embarrassed.

Well, well, and here I thought that the ice knight has a heart after all... I don’t know why, it’s my lust or myself that starts to realize that I might have some interest on her. With different kinds, of course.

I wanted to tease her so badly... It was practically a physical itch, not there, like having a joke stuck in my throat.

But I’d learned something in the last two days... which was that if I let her get away with one small kindness, she’d offer a bigger one later, and if I pounced on it, she’d go back into her shell.

Yeah, better be careful about that.

Try not to get carried away that easily, myself.

"Thanks," I said, and I meant it, of course.

She nodded stiffly and sat on a rock near mine, close enough that we could talk but far enough that she could pretend we weren’t.

Not even a word or anything, classic.

After a few minutes of listening to the water, she started talking about her teacher.

Finally... some conversation! I could’ve die by the silence if this keeps on going for another minute or two.

"My teacher’s name is Sharon Sanford," she said. "She’s the one who trained me, ever since I joined the order..."

"I can already tell that she’s a strong knight indeed." I nodded.

"She is, but... she’s loud, she’s stubborn, and she doesn’t believe in subtlety." Laura sighed. "If I’m the kind of knight who makes a plan and follows it, Sharon is the kind who kicks open the door and figures out the rest later."

Yesh... sounded like a naive knight then. But being a teacher for an ice knight like this, I bet there’s some twist coming from Sharon Sanford.

I replied. "That sounds like a nightmare to work with."

"It was... She made me run laps around the fortress fifty times when I tried to fight a monster alone." Laura looked faintly haunted by the memory. "But she was also the first person who told me I didn’t have to carry everything by myself."

"She said a knight who won’t ask for help is just a stubborn corpse who hasn’t died yet."

Hoh... interesting. Maybe I have to take back what I said.

I chuckled for a bit. "I think I’m going to like her."

"Never say that in front of her."

"W-why not? Is she that scary?"

"She once threw a grown knight into a pond because he called her weak."

I thought about that for a second. Weak and like are not the same thing!

"I... take it back then," I said.

Laura laughed.

’H-huh...?!’ I shivered all of the sudden, maybe because of that laugh... came out of nowhere.

It was a real laugh, short and surprised, the kind that comes out before you can stop it. It transformed her whole face, and for a moment she looked like a completely different person.

It’s like someone who’d spent her childhood playing in the mud instead of studying sword forms.

But then I realize... she s stared back with that cold look.

Shit! I must have stared a bit too long, because she noticed.

"What?"

"Nothing... I just didn’t know you could laugh, hehehe."

"I can make you regret saying that."

"And we’re back to the Laura I know." I smiled.

She elbowed me in the shoulder, lightly, as if she didn’t want to admit she was doing it. It was a tiny gesture, but coming from someone who kept everyone at arm’s length, it felt like being handed a key.

Maybe I slowly manage to open her heart more and more until I can see the real her.

And yet again... The quiet came back after that, but this time... it was a comfortable one.

She glanced at the bandage on my arm. "You’re really not afraid of dying, are you?"

I took my time answering. "Hmm... Of course I’m afraid."

"But... I’m just more afraid of watching somebody get hurt when I could have done something about it."

She looked down at her hands.

For two days she’d probably thought of me as a careless man who threw himself into fights without thinking, and I could see that picture shifting.

Maybe she was starting to realize that being scared and going anyway isn’t the same as being reckless.

"I’m glad that... you came to Dunmore," she said quietly.

"Ohhh...?" I turned my head. "I’m sorry... did you say something?"

"No."

"I’m pretty sure I heard something about..."

"If you finish that sentence, I will push you into the river."

I laughed so hard that it hurt my ribs, but I didn’t miss the little smile she was trying and failing to hide.

For a few minutes, I forgot about my dwindling energy and the quest plus the conspiracy, and just sat on a rock beside a woman who seemed to be slowly deciding that I might be worth keeping around.

After lunch, I wandered off a short way down the bank to check the panel in private.

I wanted to know whether the Lust problem would fix itself with sleep or meditation. I sat on a log, called up the screen, and went through the options with a growing sense of dread.

[LUST RECOVERY ANALYSIS]

[Passive Recovery: Slow]

[Rest and Meditation: Insufficient for rapid restoration]

[Bonded Partner: Alicia Ainzfield]

[Repeated Bonding Efficiency: Diminished]

[Alternative Recovery: New compatible Bond]

I rubbed my face with both hands.

"So I can’t just take a nap and wake up fine," I said to nobody. "Having sex with Alicia won’t change a thing or two..."

"Shit... do I have to really do it with her...?!"

The system helpfully expanded its explanation. Each partner had a different resonance with me, which meant a new, compatible Bond would restore my Lust and could also unlock extra abilities, the way Alicia’s had.

It repeated, in the same smug bracketed font, that none of it could be forced. Trust and consent from both sides were mandatory.

I thought about Laura... because it would have been dishonest not to. Especially that little moment from before.

I was attracted to her, yeah... can’t lie to that, and I’ll admit that without embarrassment.

She was beautiful in that sharp, no-nonsense way, she was skilled and disciplined, and she had a gentler side that she let out in tiny doses. Definitely my type in both worlds.

But I didn’t want to approach her because a panel said she was the next stop on my power-up route... The idea made my stomach turn.

I remembered the promise I’d made by the fire in Blackthorn, and I held onto it.

"Dammit...! I really need to find a better way to explain all of this," I murmured.

"Explain what?"

"Uwahhh!" I jumped up so fast that I nearly fell backward off the log.

Alicia was standing right behind me with her arms folded and her long golden hair tied loosely over one shoulder. She had that look on her face, the one she wore whenever she’d caught me stealing sweets as a kid.

"How long... have you been there?"

"Long enough to hear you talking to yourself like a man who’s lost his mind."

"More like planning for the future."

"Really? And does that future have short blue hair and a very sharp sword?"

I froze. ’She always read me like a book! Fuck!’

Alicia grinned and let out a laugh she’d clearly been holding for a while. "Relax, Roland..."

"I’m not angry or anything."