Chapter 138 – The Diamond and the Honey Bread.

Breakfast the day after the furniture delivery began with the pleasant aroma of toasted rye bread and medicinal herbs filling the kitchen of the Lower Cauldrons Estate.

Kael sat at the polished wooden table, carving thick slices of cured cheese with a blunt knife, taking up half the bench with his broad shoulders backed by over a thousand hit points. Aurelia-Elysia poured tea into the new porcelain cups, while Seraphina had already clamped the articulated brass stand to the corner of the table to read her grimoire hands-free.

Diana sat at the head of the table wearing her loose gray linen shirt, stripped of her heavy armor. The two obsidian horns with golden grooves rested unimpeded among her black hair, and she held her tea mug with her right hand, reviewing the reagent inventory report.

Zarek leaned against the sink counter directly across from her.

The arachnid demon wasn't wearing his leather vest. He wore only dark trousers and drew one of the runic diamond stones Diana had given him along the edge of one of his moon swords. The motion was slow, producing a thin, metallic scrape of whetting that drew everyone's attention in the room.

Zarek stilled the stone in midair, balancing the tool between two of his chitin claws, and raised all six eyes toward Diana.

His lips pulled back into that wide, sharp-toothed grin:

“You know, Diana...” Zarek drawled, his voice velvety and deliberately slow. “...giving three bars of runic diamond as a gift to a swordsman in the Seventh Circle carries a very specific meaning among the clans of Wrath.”

Diana didn't even lift her eyes from the herb report. “It means your swords won't dull in combat.”

“It means a formal proposal of martial betrothal.” Zarek took a step forward, resting his primary elbows on the wooden table and leaning his gray face toward her with an unabashed look: “I had no idea my Commander was already planning a wedding with her new consort so soon. Should I order crimson silk fabrics for our ceremony?”

***

CLACK.

Rhea's porcelain teacup struck the saucer so hard that a droplet of tea splashed onto the tablecloth.

The wolf girl sat in the chair immediately to Diana's left, still wrapped in the blue velvet blanket lined with hare fur she had received the night before.

The millisecond the word 'wedding' left Zarek's mouth, Rhea's silver ears pinned flat back against her skull in a rigid line of pure fury. The tip of her wolf tail began striking the chair leg with dry thumps, and her amber eyes narrowed into two murderous slits.

Rhea did not draw her dragon daggers.

She opted for a far more direct tactic.

The silver-haired girl rose from her chair, took half a step to the side, and simply... climbed into Diana's lap.

She adjusted the fur blanket around her back, draped both arms around Diana's neck, pressing her chest against the Commander's shoulder, and rested her chin in the crook of the black-horned girl's collarbone, releasing a loud, provocative purr that echoed through the entire kitchen.

Rhea plucked a piece of buttered honey bread from the platter with her right hand, brought the food directly to Diana's lips, and spoke in the sweetest, most coquettish voice she could muster:

“Open your mouth, Diana...” Rhea murmured, looking sideways at Zarek with the corner of her eyes gleaming with pure challenge. “Food tastes so much better when I feed you myself... You bought this cozy hare-fur blanket for me yesterday because you like keeping me warm in your bed, don't you?”

***

Diana froze, her mug suspended in midair.

The Commander of Arcane Greed, master of 237 Intelligence points and over seventeen hundred mana points, felt her brain lock up in an absolute system crash.

She was pinned between Zarek leaning over the table inches from her face with a charming grin, and Rhea sitting in her lap with her arms wrapped around her neck, shoving a piece of buttered bread against her lips, wolf ears twitching with jealousy.

Diana's Archdemon skin, which could endure boiling magma without burning, turned as red as glowing ember from her neck to the very tips of her obsidian horns.

On the other side of the table, the spectacle was greeted with unadulterated delight.

Aurelia-Elysia clapped both hands over her mouth, laughing so hard her shoulders shook against the back of her chair:

“OH MY GOD! Rhea went straight for heavy territorial warfare right at breakfast!”

Kael burst into a booming laugh, pulling a silver coin from his pocket and flicking it across to Aurelia with a sharp clink:

“Here's your silver, Aurelia! You won the bet! I thought the Commander would last at least a minute before her face froze from embarrassment!”

Seraphina adjusted her glasses with her left hand, dipping her quill into the inkpot and making a note in the margin of her grimoire with a bashful smile: “The territorial dispute between the lineage of Wrath and the canine bloodline is even more intense than the scholarly treatises described...”

***

Diana gritted her teeth.

The golden grooves of her obsidian horns crackled with an azure spark of mana that made the air over the table snap.

She used her 18 Strength to take Rhea by the waist, stood up from the cedar chair, and placed the wolf girl firmly on her feet on the adjacent chair before slamming her open palm against the wood of the table with a sharp crash:

“ENOUGH!” Diana barked, her face scorching with pure mortification. “Both of you shut your mouths right now!”

She turned first toward Zarek, vertical pupils flashing:

“Zarek! Runic diamond stones reduce mechanical wear on moon steel by twenty percent! I bought those stones so you wouldn't snap your swords in Level 50 dungeons and cost me a repair bill! It has nothing to do with weddings, betrothals, or any Seventh Circle nonsense!”

Next, Diana pivoted toward Rhea, who remained standing on the chair with her arms crossed over the hare blanket, sporting a petulant pout:

“And you, Rhea! The velvet blanket was purchased to prevent muscle strain in your one hundred and twenty-four Agility ligaments after you nearly froze to death in the rift! And I have functioning teeth to chew my own bread without anyone shoving food into my mouth!”

—HAHAHAHAHA!

The System's voice exploded in Diana's mind in black gold, rolling with laughter in the depths of her soul:

—You might have two hundred and thirty-seven Intelligence, Diana... but against two idiots fighting for your attention at breakfast, your logic boils over faster than water in a cauldron! The look on your face is priceless!

SYSTEM, IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP I WILL SHUT DOWN THE INTERFACE! Diana snarled internally.

***

Diana pulled her chair back, sat down again, and crossed her arms with the severest scowl she could plaster across her face, glaring at the five squad members around the table:

“If anyone else utters a single word about harems, martial marriages, or assisted feeding at this table...” Diana said in an icy, cutting voice, “...I will crank the courtyard gravity matrix to five times normal weight and make everyone do push-ups with Kael until noon!”

The threat had an immediate effect on the squad's discipline.

Kael shut his mouth on the spot, dragging the plate of cheese toward himself. Aurelia-Elysia choked back her laughter with a hasty gulp of tea, and Seraphina pretended to be deeply absorbed in the third page of her grimoire.

Zarek merely let out a low chuckle, offered a wink with his four secondary eyes, and calmly went back to running the diamond stone along his blade.

Rhea sat down on the chair beside Diana, pulling the hare-fur blanket up to her chin with a small, sullen sigh, but reached under the table to clasp Diana's gloved fingers with a soft, possessive grip.

Diana felt the wolf girl's squeeze on her hand.

She did not pull her fingers away.

She simply picked up her tea mug with her free right hand and took a long sip, feeling the warmth of the house and the silence finally return to the room.

The morning had begun in sheer chaos, but the family was gathered. And the upcoming dungeons awaited the Arcane Greed Faction.