Chapter 19. The One Person Laura Trusts (Please Don’t Let It Be Sharon)

Chapter 19: 19. The One Person Laura Trusts (Please Don’t Let It Be Sharon)

I should have been relieved, but she can be much scarier when she’s calm... especially with that innocent look.

She walked over, sat beside me on the log, and nudged me with her shoulder until I explained everything. Same old Alicia... always wanting to know everything in my mind.

Can’t blame my adorable childhood friend for that.

And so... I told her about the Lust meter, about the diminishing returns, and about what the system recommended.

With just the two of us and no one else in earshot, I used the word system without worry, and she nodded the whole way through.

"So our Bond has a limit, huh..." she said when I finished. "Even though I’m fine if you use me almost every day, you know."

"I would have loved that, yeah, but it’s not that it stops working or anything..." I sighed. "It just doesn’t recharge me as well when I keep going back to the same person..."

"The system literally made me choose a path that felt like an infinite source of power and skills... so he gave me this bullshit to have sex with another girl." I facepalmed. "And sex isn’t something to be rushed with."

"That’s true, but you still need another partner to get your energy up." She didn’t sound upset, only thoughtful. "And for now... seeing how close both of you are. Laura is one of the candidates?"

I didn’t see the point in lying anyway, so I answered. "The system picked her up the second I saw her..."

"But I don’t want her to feel like I’m using her... That’s the last thing I want, and I fucking know this is going to be awkward as hell!"

Alicia’s expression softened, and she took my hand in both of hers.

"And that’s exactly why I trust you," she said. "I know you want to get stronger."

"I also know about the harem you used to daydream about, which you described to me in way too much detail when we were sixteen."

’But I don’t want us to turn other women into tools... If I thought that was where this was going, I’d have said no from the start."

"You know that I’d never do that, right?"

"Yep. Because if you hurt any of them, I’m going to be the first person to hit you... or maybe kill you?"

"Why do your threats always sound scarier than monsters?"

"Because I know you better than any monster does... I’m your childhood sweetheart and now... your girlfriendddd~" She winked.

We both laughed. It was the kind of easy laughter that comes from years of knowing someone, and it made the knot in my chest loosen.

"Let’s think this up for another day, okay? It’s best that you get some good rest next to me."

"Yeah... that’s the best idea for now."

Before we went back, Alicia squeezed my hand one more time.

"Don’t rush it, alright?" she said. "If Laura is going to be part of our lives, she needs to be the one who decides for herselves."

I nodded. That, at least, was a plan I could live with.

"Wanna have sex to make sure?"

"Yeah, sure... it makes our sleep even better."

And so we have sex before sleep. But of course, it didn’t change anything in the morning.

But eh... pleasure is pleasure, I guess.

...

We saw Elarion in the late afternoon.

I’d expected a walled town like Dunmore, only bigger, but the city on the horizon was in a different league.

Stone towers climbed over the battlements, banners snapped in the wind, and rows of roofs spilled down a long hill toward the river.

Several of the towers had pale blue crystals fixed near the top, and a faint shimmer hung in the sky above the walls, like heat over a summer road.

That was the barrier, I realized, the magic wall that kept the monsters away.

It was flickering.

Every few seconds, a part of the shimmer would stutter and fade, then catch again.

Guards walked the walls in tight clusters, and I counted at least three squads on a stretch of rampart that should have needed one.

"The barrier is... unstable," Laura said.

Her voice had gone flat and professional. "The crystals in the towers are supposed to produce a constant flow of energy..."

"That shouldn’t happen unless the supply is low."

Martin swallowed audibly. "If it fails, the monsters from the northern hills could reach the lower districts in a day."

I looked at the walls and the thousands of people inside them. The crystal thefts weren’t just a smuggling ring.

They were a slow knife aimed at the city’s throat.

At the gate, a guard in a polished breastplate asked for our papers and Laura’s mission letter. He read it with the bored face of a man doing his hundredth check of the day, and then his expression changed so quickly that it almost looked comical.

"Knight Lapisfield?" he said. "You’re to report to Commander Hallis immediately."

Laura frowned. "Is there a problem?"

"No, ma’am... He’s been asking for you since this morning." The guard hesitated, then lowered his voice. "He wants your report on Site Nine."

"There have been developments."

Laura’s eyes flicked toward me. I’d had the same thought.

She had sent a message ahead from Dunmore with the village head’s rider, which included a short note about the ledger, making it possible for Hallis to be known.

But the guard’s nervousness bothered me.

Before anyone could ask more, a man in black armor walked up to the gate.

He wasn’t tall or loud, and he didn’t draw his weapon. He just approached the guard and murmured something in his ear, and the guard went white as flour.

The knight turned his head and let his eyes travel across our group, pausing for a long moment on Martin. Then he walked off without saying a word.

What the hell was that...? That’s not looking suspicious at all.

On his left shoulder, stitched in dark thread, was a jagged circle with a line through it.

"Laura," I whispered. "You see what I’m seeing...?"

"I saw it."

Her hand had settled on her sword. "Someone already knows that we have the evidence."

We hadn’t even met Hallis, and the enemy was already moving.

I was still working out what to do when a second officer jogged up to the gate, breathing hard and holding a folded paper.

"By order of the garrison," he announced, "a warrant has been issued for the arrest of the clerk Martin of the transport office, on suspicion of stealing royal documents."

Martin made a sound like a kicked dog.

I stepped half a pace in front of him without really deciding to. Alicia moved in beside me, and I could feel the tension in her without looking.

Laura, to my surprise, took the paper, scanned it, and handed it back with a face like a locked door.

"This man is in my custody under a royal investigation writ," she said, in the cold, official voice I’d heard her use exactly once before, on the bandits. "Your warrant doesn’t override mine."

"If you’d like to dispute that, you can take it up with the Commander... I’ll be seeing him shortly."

The officer opened his mouth and closed it. He clearly didn’t have the authority or the courage to argue with a royal knight in front of three witnesses and a gate full of people.

Laura didn’t wait for him to find either. She turned and marched through the gate, and we followed her with Martin practically glued to my side.

’Oh wow... she’s really a professional at this, making me and Alicia feel like amateurs at this point. ’I sighed.

"We can’t go to the garrison like this," she said under her breath when we were out of earshot. "If that man works for whoever is behind this, walking into the Commander’s office with Martin might as well be walking into a trap..."

"So where do we go?" Alicia asked.

Laura was quiet for three steps.

"There’s one person in this city I trust completely," she said. "And she’s going to be extremely loud about it."