Chapter 438: Child-Bearing Hips [Bonus - ]

Chapter 438: Child-Bearing Hips [Bonus Chapter]

She flipped the page forward, scanning through the lesser figures of the fallen kingdom.

Her eyes landed on a small grainy sketch of a sneering armored man:

Senior Inquisitor Enin.

Aurelia’s breath hitched. She recognized him instantly... he was the sadistic prison guard who had dragged her by the neck chain every single morning, spitting in her food and cursing her as a demon.

She read the brief, concluding sentence beneath his record.

[...During the cataclysmic event known as the ’Great Karmic Purge’ Senior Inquisitor Enin suffered instantaneous, catastrophic physical rupture. His skull, spine, and chest cavity exploded simultaneously from the return of thirty-two unpurged battlefield wounds, killing him instantly within the garrison corridor...]

A wide and thoroughly satisfied smile blossomed across Aurelia’s face.

"Good," she whispered quietly to herself. "Useless trash."

Feeling lighter and more liberated than she had in centuries, Aurelia closed the book, tucked it securely into her arm, and pushed the canvas curtain aside to step back into the main foundry floor.

The moment she walked out, the sight before her made her pause mid-stride.

Lying flat on her stomach in the center of the stone aisle, kicking her legs in desperate frustration, was the Princess.

The blue-haired royal had stubbornly insisted on trying on a heavy dwarven vanguard breastplate forged from dense adamantine plate.

The crushing weight of the massive armor, combined with her heavy waist-harness and the lack of mana to support the load, had instantly collapsed her center of gravity, pinning her flat against the flagstones like an overturned beetle.

"It’s... it’s too heavy!" the Princess whined loudly, her face pressed against the stone floor as she kicked her silk-clad heels. "The center of mass on this plate is defective... It’s pulling me downward!"

Standing above her, Silas had his hands on his hips, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

Beside him, Thora was practically doubled over, slapping her leather apron in howling amusement.

"I told you to pick the light mesh, Princess!" Silas teased, shaking his head with a wide grin. "You’re way too young and frail to be playing dress-up with heavy plates."

The Princess abruptly stopped kicking.

She pushed her chin up from the floor, her azure eyes flashing with indignant, aristocratic fury as her face turned a brilliant, burning shade of scarlet.

"I will have you know, Lord Silas," the Princess snapped in a sharp, defensive huff, "that I am twenty-six years old! Well... twenty-five, but I am turning twenty-six in three months, which practically counts as twenty-six! I am a fully grown, mature woman!"

Silas paused.

His teasing smile froze on his face, his blue eyes blinking in sudden, stunned realization.

’Wait... she’s twenty-five going on twenty-six?’ Silas’s internal voice echoed in genuine surprise. ’With that height, those pouts, and that complete lack of spatial awareness, I legitimately thought she was an eighteen-year-old high school graduate throwing a royal tantrum...’

Far across the inner district of Blessed Land, inside the quiet luxurious residential complex overlooking the western gardens...

Evelyn sat comfortably on the edge of her balcony railing, the crisp morning breeze rustling the edges of her dark robes.

She held a slender leather-bound ledger in her lap, reviewing her territory’s internal logistical distributions.

Suddenly, without warning...

SHIVER!

An intense freezing chill ran straight up her spine, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck.

Evelyn blinked, slowly lowering the ledger.

She reached into the pocket of her coat, retrieved a slender silver case, and popped a cigarette between her lips.

With a snap of her fingers, a tiny spark of blue mana ignited the tip.

"Haah..."

She drew in a long, slow breath of cool smoke, exhaling a thin white stream into the morning air as her eyes narrowed toward the distant Keep.

"Eh?" Evelyn murmured softly, a dry amused smirk touching her lips. "It’s been a while since I felt a chill run up my spine like that... That usually means it’s going to be a good smoke day."

...

The dry radiant heat inside the grand chamber of the Warlord Foundry kept hitting on everyone in it as standing in the center of the stone-paved aisle, the Princess slowly pushed herself up from the floorboards, her cheeks burning with an intense scarlet.

"Huuu..."

Silas reached down with a calm, amused smirk, his strong hands catching her beneath her slender arms and easily hoisting her back onto her feet.

The blue-haired royal maiden wobbled for a second before stabilizing her balance, quickly smoothing down her gold-embroidered silk tunic while deliberately avoiding eye contact with the female dwarven artisans who were openly snickering into their leather aprons.

"Alright," Silas chuckled softly, reaching for the next set of defensive plating that Thora had pulled from the reserve storage racks. "Let’s try this again without giving you a concussion."

Several more minutes passed...

After the embarrassing disaster of the heavy adamantine plate and the subsequent realization that even the standard infantry armor was entirely too dense for an Unawakened constitution...

Thora had dug deep into an older velvet-lined chest in the back corner of the workshop.

"Got it! I won it from Brenna by beating her at drinking!"

She produced an antique ultra-lightweight scout carapace forged from layered shadow-silk, lightweight silver-thread mesh, and thin scales of polished sky-iron.

Silas stepped behind the Princess, lifting the fitted chestpiece and resting it gently over her shoulders.

CLICK! CLACK!

His fingers moved with efficiency, threading the supple leather straps through the side buckles and snapping the enchanted copper clasps into their corresponding runic grooves along her ribs.

The Princess wiggled her torso from side to side, testing the give of the material.

A bright genuine smile returned to her porcelain face as she tilted her chin down to inspect the immaculate fit.

"Oh!" she breathed, her azure eyes lighting up with delight. "This one is remarkably different! The weight distribution does not actively drag my posture toward the flagstones! It breathes quite nicely, Lord Silas!"

She gave another exaggerated wiggle, rolling her hips slightly to test the flexibility of the lower waist-guards.

"Stop wiggling, Princess," Silas commanded with a dry laugh, reaching around her flank to catch the final lower latch. "If you keep twisting like an eel, I’m going to pinch your skin in the copper hinge. Hold still..."

SNAP!

The last clasp locked securely into place as Silas patted the side of the armor, smoothing down the leather straps.

’This is a lot of trouble...’

Originally, Silas’s operational plan for the morning had been straightforward... Gather the newly recruited maidens of Blessed Land, march them out into the perimeter crags of the Umbral Basin, and conduct a controlled combat sweep to harvest vital UP while acclimating the recruits to the brutal realities of the Sovereign Realm and also getting more meat.

That core objective hadn’t changed.

However, with the sudden arrival of an unawakened imperial princess whose presence was currently acting as a shield in keeping his identity safe, the parameters had changed.

Silas needed to personally oversee this outing, ensuring that the blue-haired royal received the full experience of what it meant to fight and survive in Blessed Land without accidentally getting herself trampled by a rogue mana-beast or crushed by the basin’s atmospheric currents.

’Regardless of her tantrums and lack of common sense,’ Silas mused internally, adjusting his own cuffs, ’she’s still a Princess. If she dies on my watch, Thor won’t be able to laugh off the fleets. Plus... it’s about time I see what the rest of the girls can do in the open field like Lupina and Morrighan.’

He had high hopes for those two... Once Evelyn left, Silas would properly swear them all into Blessed Land.

Silas turned his head, his gaze sweeping toward the place where Aurelia stood.

The Saintess had finished fastening her white-enameled cuirass over her dark tunic as the silver-trimmed armor contoured flawlessly against her tall voluptuous silhouette and the pristine metal gleaming under the orange forge-fire like polished pearl.

Her long platinum hair was tied back in a neat flowing ponytail, and her golden-amber eyes carried a tranquil dignity that looked breathtakingly regal.

"You look great, Aurelia," Silas complimented with a warm, genuine smile. "The silver trim suits you."

Aurelia paused.

A subtle sudden prickle of heat dusted her porcelain cheekbones, but instead of offering a sweet reply, she gave a stiff formal nod, deliberately turning her head sharply to the right and staring intently at a stack of raw iron ingots as if they were the most fascinating artifacts in the cosmos.

Silas blinked in mild confusion, scratching his cheek.

’Did something happen while she was in the fitting room?’ Silas wondered, utterly clueless. ’She was all tears and warm hugs last night... why is she giving me the cold shoulder now?’

Before Silas could ponder the mysteries of the Saintess’s sudden mood shift, a short muscular dwarven maiden with soot-covered cheeks and braided auburn hair bustled over, carrying a neatly folded pair of dark expandable leather leggings.

"Here you are, Your Royal Highness," the dwarven girl offered with a crisp polite bow, holding out the garment. "These are tailored with elastic threading... They’ll protect your legs from thorn-bushes and stray shrapnel."

The Princess accepted the folded leggings with an elegant, practiced nod. "Thank you, master artisan. I shall equip them post-haste."

The dwarven girl pointed toward the changing room behind the door. "Right through there, miss!"

The Princess turned, stepping gracefully into the private dressing room and letting the thick door shut behind her.

Left alone in the clean quiet changing room, the Princess leaned her back against the wooden partition, letting out a long shuddering breath of pure relief.

"Ah..."

She looked down at her simple trousers as a wide radiant smile bloomed across her face.

The memory of the last thirty minutes... the high-speed flight through the storm with Thor, the comical confrontation in the office, the shattered window, and Silas’s teasing laughter as she tumbled onto the rug echoed in her mind with vivid clarity.

’I cannot remember the last time I laughed like that,’ she thought, her azure eyes shimmering with warmth. ’In the Palace, every single word is weighed by a lot of things, every smile is cataloged by political rivals, and every failure is carved into stone but here... Lord Silas laughs with me. He scolds me when I am foolish, yet he fixes my armor with his own hands. It is... wonderful.’

She shook her head, banishing the sentimental thoughts, and prepared to put on the leggings.

The Princess unfastened her lower garments, stepping into the dark elastic leather.

’Not bad...’

She grabbed the waistband with both hands, planting her feet and pulling the material upward over her shins and calves.

The leggings slid smoothly over her lower legs until they reached her thighs.

The Princess paused, her eyes widening as the elastic fabric came to a sudden dead stop directly beneath her prominent voluptuous hips.

"Nngh...!"

She grunted softly, biting her lower lip as she gave the leather waistband a sharp, upward yank.

"Come on... by the Throne, why is this fabric so stubborn?!" she muttered in an exasperated whisper, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she hopped awkwardly on the cedar floorboards. "I was told it was an elastic weave! Is this dwarven sizing standard intentionally designed to suffocate the pelvis?!"

She planted her heels firmly, puffed her cheeks out, and channeled every single ounce of her physical strength into a desperate coordinated heave.

"Hnnnngh... HAAAH!"

SCHWIP!

With a sudden snapping sound, the expanding leather gave way, contouring tightly over her generous hips and snapping snugly around her slender waist.

The Princess stumbled forward, catching herself against the wooden bench with a relieved pant.

"Phew... by the stars," she muttered, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead while smoothing down the dark leather across her thighs. "That was more exhausting than negotiating with him"

She checked her reflection in the bronze mirror.

The dark leggings hugged her lower body like a second skin, accentuating the dramatic curvaceous flair of her hips and long legs while matching the lightweight sky-iron chestpiece above.

Satisfied that she looked every bit the part of a battle-ready pioneer, the Princess took a deep, composed breath, pushed the heavy canvas curtain aside, and strode proudly back out onto the main foundry floor.

The moment she stepped into the warm glow of the forge, several dwarven craftswomen paused their work, their amber eyes scanning the blue-haired maiden from head to toe.

Thora leaned against her master anvil, crossing muscular arms over her leather apron with a wide appreciative grin.

"Well, look at that!" Thora’s booming voice rang out across the workshop, accompanied by hearty nods from the surrounding dwarven women. "Now that is a proper set of child-bearing hips! Built wide and sturdy! You’ll pop out half a dozen healthy babies without breaking a sweat, lass!"

The Princess froze mid-stride.

Her azure eyes blinked once then twice. A look of confusion washed over her face as she tilted her head.

"Is... is that considered an official compliment within this domain?" the Princess asked in complete innocent earnestness.

THUD!

Thora lost all traction on her boots, collapsing sideways against a wooden scrap bin in a fit of howling wheezing laughter.

The surrounding dwarven maidens burst into loud chuckles, slapping their thighs at the royal maiden’s utter lack of common banter.

"I-I apologize if I misconstrued the term!" the Princess squeaked, frantically waving her hands in flustered embarrassment. "Thank you for the praise, Master Smith!"