Chapter 140: Holding the Queen in My Arms! This Damn Sense of Security

Celeste didn’t even comprehend how she had moved.

Her body acted before her mind could catch up. With a single, impossible step, she crossed more than ten meters of battlefield debris and appeared directly at Elaniel’s side.

She extended her powerful arms, and just as the Elf Queen’s body began to crumple, Celeste swept her into a steady, secure embrace, pulling that soft, fragrant form away from the cold ground.

It was a textbook princess carry.

‘Holy crap!’

Alarm bells weren’t ringing in Celeste’s heart—it was more like a full-blown celebratory cannonade.

‘This texture… this scent… Did a field boss just drop an SSR-rank humanoid accessory?’

The body in her arms was as soft as a sun-warmed cloud. Every curve was perfectly proportioned, and a sweet fragrance, like that of flower blossoms after a fresh rain, drifted straight into her nose. She was also incredibly light.

Without thinking, Celeste gave her a slight, almost imperceptible bounce.

‘Mm, perfect.’

At that moment, she was deeply grateful that her Priest class wore cloth armor, allowing her to experience this sensation with maximum fidelity.

Elaniel sagged weakly in Celeste’s arms, her consciousness hazy and indistinct. The aftereffects of completely draining her mental energy had left her body limp; even lifting a finger felt like an impossible chore. She was only vaguely aware of falling into a firm, warm embrace.

A deep sense of peace and tranquility, one that seemed to rise from the very earth, washed over her. It was a grounding feeling that allowed her nerves, stretched taut to the breaking point, to finally find a sanctuary they had never known.

So… reassuring…

‘Who is this?’

She struggled to pry her eyes open. Her gaze fell upon Celeste’s profile, which looked exceptionally holy and majestic under the golden, primordial radiance of the Geo shield.

“Miss… Celeste?”

Her voice was a faint whisper, laced with the frailty and confusion of someone who had just been pulled back from the brink. It sounded like the mewling of a startled kitten.

“Mm, it’s me.”

Celeste looked down at her. Her voice was calm and deep—while it was the Damselette speaking, the tone was imbued with the steady, resonant quality of Zhongli himself.

“You’ve overexerted yourself. Rest for a while.”

This sudden, intimate scene brought the entire battlefield to another eerie, grinding halt.

“Sis… Sister, she…”

Selene had been bracing for another shield charge, ready to smash the goblin’s ugly face in again, but her entire world was now filled with the sight of her sister teleporting to catch the Queen. The immovable mountain of a shield in her hand clattered to the ground, and her mouth hung open wide enough to fit an egg.

‘That was… way too smooth!’ she thought, her mind reeling. ‘So, the type Sister likes is the high-and-mighty Queen, huh?’

Su Wan subconsciously pressed a hand to her aching forehead, her expression a complex mixture of emotions. On one hand, she breathed a sigh of relief for the Queen’s safety. On the other, she looked at the figure holding the Queen in a princess carry, radiating an aura of divine majesty, and then glanced down at herself…

The small flame of rebellion deep within her heart suddenly roared into a bonfire.

‘Why does she get to be so cool!’

Coach! I want to learn this! Her eyes sparkled with a dangerous new aspiration.

Xia Lian’s cheeks were already burning, feeling as if her entire perception of reality was being violently dismantled.

“A… a girl… can actually give another girl a princess carry…”

On the other side of the field, Eldara and Baroque, the two Legion Commanders, were also completely dumbfounded.

Eldara was in a state of pure shock. Teleporting to save the monarch, and in such an intimate posture… She subconsciously glanced at Her Majesty’s pale yet peaceful face, and a single, terrifying thought took root in her mind: ‘The Queen… is in danger! There’s a wild Damselette on the loose!’

The Paladin, Baroque, on the other hand, was experiencing a moment of pure, fanatical fervor.

This was a deity descending to the mortal world!

That pure power of protection, that indestructible golden shield, and now this grand figure saving the monarch from peril! Wasn’t this the ultimate form that all Paladins pursued their entire lives?

“A miracle! This is absolutely a miracle!” he trembled, his voice thick with emotion. His gaze toward Celeste was so fervent it was as if he were looking up at a divine statue in his own temple.

The common Elven soldiers had already come to see Celeste as the incarnation of a guardian deity.

“It’s that Priestess! She saved Her Majesty!”

“The golden shield… I feel like I’m filled with power!”

“The gods have not abandoned us!”

At that moment, the morale of the entire Elven army surged to an unmatched peak.

Meanwhile, Girousse the goblin, the catalyst for all this, was completely stunned. He stared at the woman holding his “future queen,” then at his two subordinates being pinned down by the enemy, and then registered his own completely nullified mental attacks.

An absurd sense of ‘So I’m the real clown here’ washed over him.

“Damn it! Let go of my queen!” he shrieked, his voice twisted by jealousy, and launched another mental shockwave.

However, the Jade Shields protecting Selene and the others didn’t even flicker.

“Your opponents are us!”

Selene snatched her shield from the ground, her spirits soaring, and launched another thunderous charge.

“You green-skinned ugly freak, you still dare to get distracted? Eat my shield!”

“Think you can play with mental shocks? Think you can play with mind control? Think you can call us ‘dowry’?!”

Su Wan and Xia Lian quickly recalibrated. With a flurry of ice and a hail of arrows, they coordinated with Selene’s assault, dragging Girousse back into a chaotic, desperate struggle.

“You lowly dowry!” Girousse screamed in impotent rage.

At the same time, startling changes were rippling through the Elven army’s front line.

An Elf Ranger watched in astonishment as the arrows he fired, which had previously only struck sparks against the tough hides of the Frost Trolls, now sank deep into their flesh.

A front-line knight habitually gathered his strength for a sword swing, only for the Skeleton Soldier before him to shatter like rotten wood, the unexpected lack of resistance nearly causing him to throw out his back.

The mages remained silent, but the increasingly brilliant and eye-catching elemental radiance gathering at their fingertips said everything that needed to be said.

With one side’s power waxing and the other’s waning, the front line, which had been a grinding stalemate, instantly tilted into a one-sided rout. The Elves discovered that the monsters that had seemed so ferocious just moments ago had suddenly become fragile.

“Brothers! These monsters have gotten weaker!”

“It’s that lord’s power! It’s a miracle!”

“For the Queen! For Silvermoon City! Charge!”

The Elven army erupted in devastating war cries. The front line surged forward like an unstoppable silver wave, pushing the endless tide of monsters back, forcing them into the deep tunnel from which they had emerged.

In a quiet corner of the battlefield, Celeste held Elaniel, leisurely watching the show for a moment.

Her Majesty had already regained some clarity in her arms. Elaniel could clearly hear the steady, powerful thump-thump of Celeste’s heart, a stark contrast to the frantic fluttering in her own chest. She could feel the firm, unyielding strength in those arms and the heart-stopping warmth radiating through their clothes.

She wanted to struggle, to get up, but her body was still limp and devoid of strength. What was worse was the mortifying awareness that almost every eye on the field, whether intentionally or not, kept glancing their way. She could even hear her own Royal Guard knights, usually so serious and old-fashioned, whispering amongst themselves.

“Is this the composure of the strong… to protect the entire army just by standing there…”

“Her Majesty looks so safe in her arms…”

Elaniel—who was over five hundred years old—felt her face turn completely red. The crimson flush spread from her cheeks all the way to the delicate tips of her ears, even tinting her fair neck with an alluring shade of pink.

‘Safe?’ she ranted inwardly. ‘This is more than just safe; this is entirely too stimulating!’

As Queen, she was always the one others leaned on, the pillar for her people, a symbol that could never be allowed to fall. But now, she was being held like this, like some damsel in a romance novel.

This feeling of completely entrusting her safety to another… she hadn’t experienced it since the day she first put on the crown.

It was unfamiliar, and yet… damnably flustering.

“Miss Celeste…” she spoke softly, her voice carrying a hint of weakness she hadn’t even noticed herself. “You can… put me down now. I can stand on my own.”

Celeste looked down, meeting Her Majesty’s watery, yet somewhat stubborn, wine-red eyes.

‘Oh? Is Her Majesty shy?’

A wicked sense of joy blossomed in Celeste’s heart.

‘Tsk, tsk, tsk. She’s lived for over five hundred years and she’s still this pure? Didn’t the rumors say she had a wild youth? How can she be this flustered just from being held? No, no, an expression this precious must be savored for a little while longer!’

She pretended not to hear, deliberately adjusting her grip to let the Queen lean more steadily and comfortably against her.

“Rest a bit longer.”

Her voice was deep and magnetic, carrying a sense of reliability that was impossible to refuse.

“The battlefield hasn’t been cleared yet, and the ground is cold.”

Elaniel felt as if her cheeks were about to catch fire. She had lived for so many years, and since reaching adulthood, this was the first time she had been held like this by a… woman, for such a reason.

And it was under the gaze of the entire army!

Her royal dignity was utterly gone today.

But… this feeling didn’t seem… unpleasant?

“I… I’m fine now, really!” she protested softly, her voice weak and utterly devoid of conviction.

“Don’t move,” Celeste said succinctly.

Elaniel fell silent.

She resignedly stopped struggling. Instead, she shifted slightly, nestling her head deeper into the crook of Celeste’s shoulder to find a more comfortable spot.

‘Fine. Just let the world end,’ she thought, surrendering. ‘Since I can’t resist, I might as well pretend to be an accessory.’

Celeste held her contentedly for a while longer. Feeling that if she teased her any more, the Queen might actually shut down on the spot, she reluctantly prepared to end the moment.

“As per the contract, a seat is formed!”

The ground vibrated slightly. A throne composed of pure, amber Geo energy, carefully carved with magnificent cloud patterns, rose from the earth.

She carefully and gently placed Elaniel onto the throne.

“You sit here for now. I’ll go take care of the last of the trash.”

After speaking, Celeste turned, her gaze locking onto the green-skinned goblin who was still being toyed with by her sister and teammates.

Her expression turned cold in an instant.

It was time to end this farce.

[Elysian’s Note:

Having a good time with the story?

Every single bit helps immensely:

Thanks a ton for making this journey possible!]