Chapter 2564: "Most"

Leonel and Aina held each other close, the latter resting her head on his chest.

The two had truly taken their time to enjoy one another's company. The days ticked maybe, weeks even, without the slightest care in the world. They knew that this sort of thing was probably the closest thing to a honeymoon that they'd get, but they really wouldn't have it any other way. When they lived lives like they did, there was little appeal in going on vacation to see new and amazing sights. By this point, what hadn't they seen? Plus, could there be a world more beautiful than Anastasia's? And even if there was one, could they have sex in the middle of it without being interrupted?

They both had a tacit understanding, then, that this was what they wanted. Neither would even mind wasting an entire year in this state of limbo. This was the kind of happiness people searched for their entire lives; there was nothing out there that was better.

The two fell into a deep sleep. From time to time, one would wake before the other, and seeing that their partner in life was still resting, they'd comfortably go back to sleep as well.

A long while later, they both awoke, feeling refreshed and full of life, but they continued to lay there in silence, listening to the soft rustling of the trees and enjoying the softness of the grass against their bodies.

Leonel took a look at his left ring finger and smiled. He hadn't expected for some mysterious energy to etch a wedding ring right into his finger, but he guessed the tradition had to come from somewhere.

He always thought that some guy had randomly chosen it at some point. Some people said that it was the finger closest to the heart, but that didn't even make any sense. In that case, instead of a ring, why didn't everything just walk around with pendants swinging over their chests? It was a hell of a lot more noticeable than trying to check for a ring on a constantly moving hand.

Sometimes the world didn't like logic, though.

Even now, he didn't know why this finger was chosen, but he liked it. It was like a piece of Aina tattooed into him, in the least morbid way possible. If you took a step like this, you couldn't even pretend not to be married even if you wanted to.

Leonel was glad for Aina's Clairvoyance. He didn't know about the exact process on how to do such a thing, or even that it was possible. It might even be the case that this tattoo could have been engraved anywhere, but because Aina was a woman of Earth, she chose the place she was the most familiar with. Either way, he liked it.

He reached down and pulled up the hand Aina had resting on his chest to his eyes with a smile. Her hands were beautiful, and the tattoo seemed to add a delicate sort of exoticness to them.

"I've noticed you like looking at my hands a lot," Aina spoke with a laugh. "I've heard of foot fetishes, but a hand fetish? Is that better or worse?"

Her voice sounded a bit gruff and slightly deeper than usual. It was hard to tell if that was because they hadn't spoken in a while, because she had used it too much when they had been speaking, or if it was because a certain something had gone too far down it earlier...

Leonel smiled. "What can I say, I like admiring every part of you."

Aina gasped. "You take that back, I am not an object."

"I'm hurt. They say women change after they get the ring, but this is just too fast."

Aina's light laughter was carried by the gentle breeze.

"So what did you go do before, exactly?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just taught a few Ninth Dimensional pricks a lesson, killed a few of them, pissed a lot of them off, the usual."

Aina shook her head. Someone else might think he was speaking nonsense, but she believed him completely. Of course, what she didn't know just yet was that he wasn't referring to humans.

"Then what's your plan?"

"Open up the Dream Pavilion, I guess. There's a huge lack of Dream Force experts, and the few that there were ran away. I doubt they've come back, they're probably just waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"And you're leaving them alone?"

"There's a minimum threshold I have to keep so that they can't target the Pavilion, unfortunately. Or else I would have lopped their heads off already."

"Mm," Aina nodded.

"But there are some other troublesome things coming down. Those pricks didn't really like my performance, so they made some more annoying rule changes. Well, most of them didn't like it."

"Rule changes?"

"Yeah. There's one thing that's unavoidable, but they sent down two 'decrees'. I almost forgot about the second one, but it doesn't matter much."

"Whenever you say that it's almost guaranteed to be a big deal."

Leonel laughed. "They didn't like the fact I basically wiped out a Dream Pavilion, killing all their members. They used that as a pretense to ding my Contribution Points. The Vast Dream Pavilion fell from 100th place to 101st."

"Is that a huge deal?" Aina asked.

"There are definitely a large amount of special privileges I lost because of that, but I wasn't banking on them either. I expected them to do this already, which was why I never made plans based on that ranking. They even dinged the Gem Dream Pavilion as well to avoid looking too biased, but it only made them look more pathetic."

"Then what did you mean by only 'most' were made? Some were happy?"

"Ehh..." Leonel drew out his hesitation. "They may or may not have sent some Spiritual-elf women to try and seduce your husband. Can you believe it? The nerve of them."

A dangerous aura came spurting out from Aina in waves.

Leonel grinned. "But, I have an idea for you to get back at them. Wanna hear it?"