Chapter 37: Stranger Things

The past few days have been weird.

Like every morning, Alpis is seated on Prussia’s lap to have her messy hair done. This sounded like what Adonis would normally handle, but he wasn’t good with women’s hair, much less a dragon girl’s hair which was significantly stronger. So Prussia carved a dragonbone comb and used it to dress her hair with a smile every morning.

As someone who loves dragons, she enjoyed Alpis’s ancient floral scent and how her pointed ears bounce as she hummed softly. One could say this was the only time of the day Prussia smiled. Other times she was frowning or just expressionless.

Then there’s Garm who had been in the toilet for several days now.

Dwarven biology was odd. They could go months without needing to poop, but when they do, it took usually a week or more before they were out of the toilet.

This is because dwarves get their best ideas when they’re in the toilet. The heat and stress reminded them of the smithy but without needing to focus their brain on hammering, so that focus went to coming up with new ideas.

This is called the "dwelling period" by dwarves.

But that’s not why the past few days have been weird.

None of that was.

Rather, it’s what Prussia has been noticing.

She’s starting to like Adonis.

And yet, that’s not the most surprising part.

To her, what’s most surprising is the competition.

Mariella.

A lot had happened in the last few days.

First, Feena wasn’t done with the focusing claws, and Garm got so impatient and unbearable to everyone around him that he decided to go into his dwelling period.

It makes sense now, hm?

Then there’s Mariella who’d been trying to steal Adonis from her, it seemed.

Prussia combed Alpis’s hair.

’I don’t know how to feel... I don’t like Adonis in a romantic way. I’m an honest woman, naturally, I can’t lie to myself. I’m sure I don’t like him, but this indescribable anger I feel when Mariella makes moves on him, humuu. I don’t know how to feel. For some days now, she’s been trying to offend Adonis...’

Just three days ago, Prussia was supposed to cook for the group and she planned to try out a delicacy from the Dragon Continent to win over Alpis more. But Mariella woke up an hour earlier to cook for the group, and Prussia didn’t mind until Mariella started to flirt with Adonis.

She asked him all sorts of atrocious things.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Uuuu~ I have this pain on my shoulder, you see..."

"Garm cooked last night, did you enjoy it? Tee-hee!"

Well, they sounded "atrocious" to Prussia.

Thinking about it now made Prussia boil.

’How dare she ask about his sleep?!’

In her eyes, that’s the duty of the bodyguard.

Back to the story.

Mariella cooked the worst meal possible, but everyone tried to be nice, so when she asked them if they liked it, they all made sure to gave positive comments.

"It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted!" Geles beamed.

Mariella frowned at them, then hurried over to Adonis.

"Are you satisfied by my cooking? Gasp! You’re not. You must be disgusted by this abomination I’ve concocted! It’s not fitting of your refined palette! You must be mad! I won’t fault you if you want to use... hnnn... physical means to correct me."

There’s a hungry look in her eyes and drool rolling down her lips which Prussia found weird, but she didn’t say anything because Adonis just ignored it like it was nothing and kept eating the brown slop Mariella cooked.

When Prussia was young, her father used to take her hunting trips to bond, and they’d live out in the wild and eat some of the most disgusting bugs and meat out there.

In summary, she’s eaten her fair share of garbage which made her impervious to this.

She just didn’t expect Adonis would be the same.

He ate it with a straight face and gave Mariella a side-eye.

"Why would I correct you? The food is great."

The entire group went, "Eh?"

Another day, they were in the market district to get some spices since the warehouse was outside Gilishon.

Prussia, who was walking between Adonis, got chanced by Mariella who shoved her to the side.

Prussia wanted to cut her head off.

But she huffed and looked away with her arms folded.

"Hmph."

Adonis chuckled at her, then focused back on their little walk. He looked around and whistled with his hands in his pockets while Mariella edged closer and closer to him until their shoulders were touching.

Her face turned a little red as she waved her slender hand in Adonis’s face.

"Huuu, my hand is so free and cold. If someone doesn’t hold it, I fear what may happen. Gasp! Imagine if my poor hand gets cold. How sad..."

Mariella knew Adonis would ignore her, and she planned to use that against him by annoying him until he got mad enough to hit her.

It’s an ingenious idea. Or so she thought.

Mariella proudly closed her eyes.

"Hmmm? Are you going to ignore me again? Well, I guess I’ll just have to annoy you until—"

Shfff... Adonis took her hand and Mariella’s eyes sparkled with deep emotion she wasn’t used to at all.

"Why are you...?"

Adonis coolly looked at her.

"You wanted someone to hold your hand, right?"

"Uhm, ye-, ye... I said that, didn’t I..."

Mariella’s moon-shaped face turned red and she stared down at the ground feeling shy. This was so unusual for her. This was the first time she was near Adonis and her crotch didn’t get hot nor were her undies soaked.

She could hear her heart go ...Thump, thump, thump.

"Mhm..." she obediently said.

She wouldn’t bother him again today, in a way, this was way better than getting hit.

On the other hand, Prussia went pale.

Handholding! And it’s not the usual kind. Their fingers were intertwined.

Prussia hadn’t gotten over it up until now. Mariella did many other things to try and annoy Adonis, but he always kept acting calm and sweet to her, which made Prussia a little jealous. She was starving of attention? Perhaps, one could put it that way but she’d never agree to it.

’Does Adonis like Mariella so much that he’d let her frustrate him this much?’

Thinking about it again made her angrier.

She didn’t realize Alpis was screaming from how hard Prussia was currently combing her hair.

"Waaah, Prussia take it eaaassyyy!"

Alpis even tried to rip her hair from Prussia’s grasp. That’s when Prussia realized how rough she’d been.

"Oh, sorry..."

Alpis huffed and looked away.

Prussia ignored her for a while to think.

’I thought all this time Mariella had suddenly just become some clumsy idiot... until that night.’

Just last night, she caught Mariella viciously touching herself in the bushes and whining about how she’d tried every trick in the book and still couldn’t get Adonis to smack her. Her hand was digging hard, deep inside her crotch and between her sweaty, tight inner thighs. She’d been going so hard on herself her pink rose had gone a little sore.

All this is no surprise. Mariella also touched herself at night when she thought Prussia and Geles were asleep.

Prussia rubbed her chin, thinking.

’So that’s her plan...’

If Prussia just let Mariella do her "thing" in peace and kept quiet about everything she heard, a great disaster wouldn’t be coming for Adonis.

Prussia stopped combing and put her palms together.

"Forgive me, Adonis."

Her golden-brown face was red, realizing she let jealousy get the best of her and gave Mariella terrible advice.

Adonis and Mariella were going out today. Maybe there was still time to correct things. She left Alpis and darted out the door to stop them, but they were already gone.

...

Meanwhile, Mariella took Adonis to a warehouse in the capital city where she claimed they could get special metals to attach to his water spear. They stepped inside, and Adonis looked around the place, seeing nothing but dusty crates and cobwebs.

"...Hmm... that’s strange..."

It looked like no one had been here in ages.

"Are you sure this is the—"

He turned around and paused when he saw Mariella holding up a thulian pink, rose-shaped bottle.

There’s a dangerous look on her face.

"Do you know what this is?"

"Uh, no?"

"It’s an aphrodisiac I got this morning, heh~"

She hungrily licked her strawberry lips after.

"Eh?" Adonis was genuinely confused.

Then, she locked the door.

Adonis sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, oh, I’ve seen this before. This is disappointing. You’ll use the aphrodisiac on me, hm? I’ve read that a million times... it’s such a cliché, and also assault—"

Before he could finish, Mariella gulped the whole bottle down like a mug of ale! She immediately started panting like a dog in heat as her cheeks turned an erotic color of pink.

"Hah~ hah~ Adonis Falsbane, You’re not getting out of here until I’m satisfied. Take care of me uhuhuhu~ ♥️" she panted.

With a wild look in her eyes, she shoved the key past her long skirt and deep down into her hot panties.