Chapter 495: Princess’s Resolve [Bonus - ]

Chapter 495: Princess’s Resolve [Bonus Chapter]

While every private suite in Blessed Land was equipped with its own luxurious en-suite washroom.

In the center of the room lay a sunken hot-springs tub... roughly thirty feet wide, carved from a single seamless block of dark volcanic bedrock.

’I still don’t know how the Upgrade System does these things but I’m not complaining...’

The crystal-clear, steaming water rippled gently with a continuous soothing hum, fed by runes that maintained a perfect muscle-melting temperature.

Silas stood at the edge of the stone basin with the warm steam instantly clinging to his damp hair and condensing on his exposed throat.

He looked down into the tub and his entire thought process ground to a screeching halt.

Sitting dead-center in the shallow submerged seating ledge of the hot spring was the Princess.

The twenty-five-year-old royal maiden was completely naked.

The crystal-clear water lapped gently at her slender waist, leaving the entirety of her upper body fully exposed to the warm misty air.

Her porcelain skin, pale as freshly fallen snow, was flushed a brilliant, dewy rose from the heat of the springs.

Her azure hair, dark and heavy with wetness, was pinned up in a loose messy royal twist, allowing long elegant tendrils to cling to the graceful curve of her slender neck and exposed collarbones.

Her shoulders were soft and narrow, descending into the delicate perfectly proportioned curves of her bosom.

She wasn’t massive like Thor, nor was she muscular like Brida either as her body possessed the exquisite timeless elegance of a sculpted marble statue.

Her waist was narrow and supple with her hips flaring into smooth shapely thighs beneath the shimmering surface of the water.

And sitting right in front of her, perched unsteadily atop a floating wooden cedar washing bucket, was the obsidian bird.

The ragged avian had its wings pinned tightly to its sides, looking like a thoroughly soaked miserable black pigeon.

Its wicked scythe-curved beak was parted slightly as the Princess gently dipped a soft linen cloth into the warm water, humming a sweet lullaby as she carefully washed the soot, frost, and dried monster grit from its ruffled tailfeathers.

"There, there, little one~" the Princess was cooing softly, her small delicate fingers smoothing down its wet plumage. "A warm bath washes away all the terrors of the mountain..."

Silas stood frozen on the tiled rim but he didn’t move, hell he barely even breathed.

Slowly, his eyes darted to the empty space directly to his right... the exact spot where Aeliana had been standing when she initiated the spatial teleportation.

There was nothing there.

Only a lingering shimmer of fading silver mana, followed by the soft distant pop of a spatial seam snapping shut.

’The hell...’ Silas’s mind screamed, his eye twitching violently as sweat broke out beneath his collar. ’Did Aeli... did she just dump me directly into the bath and immediately teleport away?!’

Silas gulped a bit.

’Was this an assassination attempt via embarrassment? A prank or a coordinated scheme to compromise my dignity?’

It made zero sense.

Aeliana was the most demure, disciplined, and fiercely loyal hero under his banner.

She wouldn’t pull a stunt like this unless—

’Wait. Did she think the bath was empty? Or did she... did she deliberately place me here?!’

Before Silas could finish unraveling the conspiracy, the water rippled.

SPLASH!

The Princess paused her humming. Feeling the sudden shift in atmospheric pressure, she casually turned her head with her deep azure eyes blinking through the swirling clouds of white steam.

Her gaze locked directly onto Silas.

She took in his tall commanding frame standing barely five paces away... his damp dark hair clinging to his forehead, his piercing blue eyes and his parted silk bathrobe revealing the hard chiseled contours of his chest.

The silence stretched.

One second... Two seconds... Three seconds...

The obsidian bird slowly turned its head, looked at Silas, looked at the naked royal woman, and immediately tucked its scythe-beak under its wet wing, utterly refusing to be an accomplice to whatever execution was about to take place.

"Uhh..." Silas finally managed to choke out, his voice cracking by a fraction of a decibel. "Princess. I... apologize. Aeliana’s spatial coordinates were... severely miscalculated."

The Princess didn’t scream.

She didn’t reach for a towel, hell she didn’t even cross her arms over her exposed chest.

Instead, a deep crimson blush swept across her porcelain face, traveling all the way from the tips of her delicate ears down to the soft swell of her bosom.

Her azure eyes fluttered, wide and shining with an intoxicating mix of breathless shock and sudden wild hope.

Her heart began to hammer against her ribs like a trapped bird.

’He’s... he’s here,’ the Princess thought, her throat suddenly parched despite being submerged in mineral water. ’Lord Silas... in the bath...’

She swallowed hard with her small hands trembling slightly beneath the surface as she looked up at him through her wet eyelashes.

A soft and surprisingly bold smile curved her rosy lips.

"Lord Silas..." the Princess whispered, her melodic voice echoing with sweet trembling clarity off the warm stone walls. "You... you do not need to apologize."

She shifted slightly on the submerged stone bench, the crystal-clear water rippling softly against her slender waist, exposing a fraction more of her smooth porcelain hips.

"I... I truly do not mind," she continued, her voice gaining an earnest courage that surprised even herself. "After all... it is because of your benevolence that I am here now. It is because of your strength that I am sheltered within Blessed Land, eating wonderful food, learning to defend myself, and experiencing the world without the suffocating chains of the real world. If... if you wish to share the waters... if you wish to bathe together... I would... I would gladly accept—"

STEP!

Before the final syllable could even cross her lips, Silas took a sharp disciplined step backward.

His hand found the heavy brass handle of the bathhouse door.

"Pardon the intrusion," Silas said with a sigh. "Enjoy your bath, Princess."

CLICK! SLAM!

The heavy oak door snapped shut, plunging the Grand Bath back into steamy quiet solitude.

The Princess sat completely motionless in the center of the steaming tub.

Her small delicate hand was still frozen mid-reach, hovering an inch above the water.

Her lips were parted, her azure eyes wide and unblinking as she stared at the solid, closed wooden door.

Drip... drip... drip...

The sound of mineral water falling from the ceiling sounded deafening in the silence.

The Princess slowly blinked.

’He... he left?’

She slowly lowered her hand, looking down at her reflection shimmering across the crystal-clear surface of the spring.

As the Princess of the human realm... a royal whose bloodline traced back through centuries of nobility, Rejection was a foreign alien concept.

’Even if I’m useless...’

Throughout her entire sheltered life, suitors had crawled across polished marble floors just to kiss the hem of her silk gowns.

’Even if I’m useless...’

Presidents and other lords had offered entire provinces, legendary artifacts, and trade monopolies simply for the honor of sharing a single midday tea with her.

Even when she was denied or faced an obstacle, she had always possessed leverage.

She had always possessed something valuable to put on the bargaining table to make an arrangement worthwhile for the other party.

When she had wanted to flee the stifling cages of Rhyx City, she had successfully bribed Thor... an immortal God of Thunder into acting as her personal escort simply by using her royal allowances to supply endless mountains of meat.

She understood transactional power and she understood value too.

’But with Silas...’

A painful agonizing squeeze tightened around the Princess’s chest.

She looked down at her bare porcelain body, her smooth shoulders, her narrow waist and her delicate curves.

’I have nothing to offer him,’ she realized, her lower lip trembling with a sudden overwhelming wave of inadequacy. ’He doesn’t need my royal titles since he is a Lord who bends a territory to his will. I already agreed to pay him money too or should I offer him more? That won’t work...’

Their arrangement was purely monetary.

’And yet...’

Her fingers subconsciously reached up, pressing against the center of her chest, right above her rapidly beating heart.

’I don’t want it to just be a contract.’

Silas was the first person in her entire existence who had ever seen her true self.

He didn’t treat her like a fragile porcelain doll meant to be traded off in a political marriage as he had hoisted her onto the back of a wolf.

He had placed a void-iron dagger in her hands, stood behind her, and taught her how to strike.

He had praised her when she had slain her first beast, laughed warmly when she discovered the hidden diamond passage, and patted her head as if she were a precious companion rather than a royal pawn.

She had experienced more joy, more freedom, and more genuine, heart-pounding exhilaration in the last seventy-two hours than in all twenty-five years of her royal life combined so she didn’t just admire him.

She was falling for him.

...Hard.

If she could explain this feeling.

The Princess slowly turned her head, looking at the soaked obsidian bird sitting on the floating cedar bucket.

"Little bird..." the Princess whispered softly, her azure eyes pooling with genuine earnest anxiety. "Tell me honestly... what should I do? How do I make him look at me? Should I... should I practice with the spear more? Should I try to be more like Lady Brida?"

The bird opened one beady black eye.

It slowly turned its crested head, looking at the Princess’s delicate, slender frame, then looked at the reinforced oak door that Silas had just vanished behind.

"Squawk," the bird croaked flatly.

It lifted a single, dripping black wing, mimed an exaggerated slashing motion across its own throat, and gave its head two slow dismissive shakes.

’Give up!!! You’re fighting a losing battle!!!’

The Princess puffed out her porcelain cheeks, her azure eyes flashing with sudden stubborn royal defiance.

"No!" the Princess declared, splashing her hands into the warm water, sending a spray of droplets across the tub. "I will not give up! I am a princess of the realm! If Lady Brida can punch through mountains to win his favor, I can learn to swing a pickaxe with proper technique! I will prove my worth to Blessed Land!"

She snatched the linen cloth from the water, furiously scrubbing the remaining soot from the bird’s wings.

"Hurry, little one! We need to finish washing!" she urged, her face determined. "Lady Eluned is back at the Keep! You need to tell your story, and I am going to be right by his side when you do!"

"Krrr-caw?!" the bird shrieked in protest as the aggressive scrubbing resumed, wishing it had chosen the freezing blizzard over royal ambition.

Meanwhile, out in the wide, carpeted corridors of the Keep’s residential wing, Silas was walking briskly as his wet hair finally beginning to air-dry against his collar.

’That was close,’ Silas thought, letting out a long breath as he rubbed his temple. ’Way too close. I don’t want any issues with the Royal family too...’

Why was this always happening to him? First it was the thing with Seraphina which he had not even settled, now he had to handle a princess too?

’Kill me now.’

He was just a commoner dammit!

FZZT!

From beneath the midnight-blue silk lapel of his bathrobe, a soft vibrant crimson light flickered to life.

With a cheerful musical chime that sounded like tiny silver bells, Kael-Drin popped out into the open air.

The fist-sized ruby orb hovered effortlessly in the warm hallway, bobbing up and down with boundless childlike curiosity.

Faint flecks of gold drifted within its translucent fiery core, pulsing in harmonious rhythm with Silas’s own heartbeat.

The little spirit drifted down the hallway, zooming toward a brass wall sconce, sniffing the unlit oil wick before doing a rapid celebratory loop-de-loop around a stone bust mounted on the wall.

Silas chuckled with the lingering tension in his chest finally melting away.

"Enjoying the new territory, Kael-Drin?" Silas asked, his voice fond as he watched the glowing orb hover around a velvet tapestry.

The spirit zipped back, hovering right before Silas’s nose, chiming with an eager high-pitched chirp that practically radiated excitement.

"Go on then," Silas smiled, waving his hand toward the sprawling corridors of the upper floor. "You can explore the Keep... Check out the architecture, meet the garrison, stretch your wings but mark this down... Do not set anything on fire. If you scorch a single rug or singe anything, I’m putting you in a cold stone jar for a week. Understood?"

Kael-Drin flared brightly, executing a crisp double-nod in mid-air.

ZOOM!