Chapter 57

Marcus...


When the next day came, he decided to draw up some designs for the armor, and decided to take a walk around Alken to get some inspiration. ​​

He decided to start with the farmland and chose not to focus on anything else while he passed through the city. He wanted to absorb what he could as he was making his trip back from the outside in.

He made his way beyond the outermost wall where the valleys stretched on for miles on end. As he looked to his left, the wide range of mountains and hills spanned to the west of Alken. Looking towards the right of him, he could see the coast in the distance. The location that the Forrosan people decided to build their capital city on was truly beautiful.

Noticing the farm houses scattered beyond the outermost wall, he realized that most of them actually looked better designed than his own home in Duranell.

These people don't mess around, do they...?

Some of the homes were made of bricks, others of wood, but all of them were built with one standard in mind.

Well honed craftsmanship.

It was clear for him to see that the Forrosans did not act like a massive hive society as one might first think when looking at the way their city was designed. They greatly respected innovation but they also had a respect for the unique artistry that they poured into every home they made, even in these farmlands. No house looked exactly the same to him as they had varying sizes, layouts, and even doors.

It was almost as if the Forrosans were Dwarves with how uniquely designed each home looked to him.

Making his way inside the first wall, it was like walking into an industrial assembly line nightmare.

Sure, walking through it was simple enough, but so much was going on that it was almost nauseating to pay attention to. It wasn't this busy when he had come through this area the first time so it must've meant that this was their version of rush hour.

What looked like cars, buses, and even large trucks propelled by the maglev rails sped past him at speeds that would have given a traffic officer a heart attack. Interestingly enough, he didn't see any drivers which made suggested that everything was automated somehow.

There were banks, courtrooms, and offices as well as military outposts all over the place.

What really caught his eye though was the Forrosan standard flag that was all over the place. The colors of the flags were black and gold, with the design itself depicting a golden roaring lion.

As he stared at the design of the Forrosan flag, he remembered reading about all the other kingdom's flags.

Duranell's flag was green and silver, with its design depicting a silver wolf with a sword in its mouth.

Brunhildt's flag was golden and silver, with its design depicting a golden owl holding a spear in its talons.

Mordran's old flag was silver, grey, and black, with its design depicting a black raven holding a sickle in its talons.

There was little to no information on whether Alfheim or the Kingdom of Orcs in the wastes ever had a flag standard, but when he decided to dig a little deeper into Amaskia's history, he found something very strange.

Amaskia's flag was black and red, and depicted the head of Malthael on its flag with blood dripping from his jaws. It seemed like overkill to him, for their fallen kingdom to design a flag in that was but what interested him was the fact that the Amaskians chose not to use a precocious metal for their flag and that they went with a more brutal design than the others.

Their design was blunt and to the point and he respected that. Their flag was meant to intimidate and show strength rather than to appear noble or dignified.

Amaskia was a kingdom created solely for change through war and bloodshed, nothing more, nothing less.

If he was being honest with himself, he really liked the black and red color choices but adding silver or gold to that would make it look better...

Moving on past the second wall, he reached the area where most of the citizenry seemed to live.

Unlike the homes in the farmland outside the walls, where all the homes were designed uniquely and were more spread out for farming, most of the homes on the inside resembled suburban neighborhoods. Although there were some homes that were tailormade for their owners, most designed homes were made the same for the sake of convenience of the people living there. Despite that, he saw no apartment like homes at all. If anything, Alken's Tower seemed more like a giant apartment building in and of itself.

Making his way into the third layer, it was like walking through Central Park as the entire third layer was nothing but a well maintained lawn, large spread of trees, and collection of park rides. What surprised him about this though was that not only where there swings, merry-go-rounds, and slides available for kids, but there were also much larger rides that you would typically find in an amusement park. Rides like the Revolution 360, the Gravitron, the Zipper, the Kamikaze, and along with a few others he didn't know the names of, and yet all these rides were put together and maintained with magic and Forrosan engineering.

Comparing Duranell this kingdom made it feel immensely dull by comparison.

Walking into the fourth layer, he found himself in what looked like a large museum or art exhibit as there were statues and paintings as well as machines and inventions put on display all around him.

This in particular didn't really interest him and so he moved onto the fifth and final layer before it met the tower. This layer was where the nobility seemed to live as there were large mansions and royal soldiers patrolling the area.

It was his first time seeing them, but the armor the soldiers were wearing resembled something between a mix of Greek Athenian armor and British Medieval armor. It was a strange mix, and he assumed that the Greek inspiration of the armor probably came from Azazel.

Looking at it, he could spot numerous flaws with how the armor is designed by how heavy and awkward it looked to the number of weaknesses present in it as well.

He understood what the king meant now when he said that they were having troubles with designing new suits of armor.

After thinking over what he had seen, he could already see the ideal design for the armor in his head. All he had to do now was figure out a way, with the materials he had available, to craft a suit of armor that the king would approve of.

When thinking back to the design of his old armor, he had built three different versions. The first set of armor he built was heavily plated with built in weapons and hybrid skeleton that ran on both electric motors and a gas powered hydraulic system. It was horribly inefficient and if struck in the right areas, whether with bullets or blunt objects, it could be slowly torn apart. However, considering it was the first version of the armor that he had built, it managed to take a beating for as long as it had lasted.

The second version of the armor he had designed, he tried to cut down on weight and as well as weapons so that he could focus on speed.

He needed to find a way to move the armor with an exoskeleton that wasn't as cumbersome. He had a lot of difficulty with that in the past until he found a strange electro-reactive fluid that caused a plastic sheathe to constrict at greater speeds than human muscles were capable of. This fluid paired with a plastic sheathe made what were called pneumatic muscles which weren't a perfect replacement for a mechanical exoskeleton but it made things much lighter.

With this, he had designed a rubber external muscular structure (EMS for short) with wires connecting to specific areas through which electricity would travel to make the muscles tense up in specific ways. He then wrote a code and programmed it to calibrate the signals in his brain to match patterns made for the movements that the EMS would replicate.

Ultimately, the problem with this armor was the fact that even if he put a titanium plate over the EMS, with a strong enough blow, the force from it would reverberate through the armor and be enough to cause the EMS to burst open like a balloon, leaking fluid all over the place.

His third design is where he perfected his armor completely.

Realizing that the original exoskeleton was too heavy and that the EMS was too fragile, he built an entirely new exoskeleton from scratch with its outer frame made of hard plastic and carbon steel rods to keep it from snapping. He put this new exoskeleton over the EMS along with shock absorbers to serve as a stable frame so that the fluid wouldn't burst. He also decided to redesign the EMS so that it had steel mesh on the outside to keep it from exploding.

One of the new things he added to his third design though was a propulsion system. It didn't lift him off of the ground but it did help boost his speed, rapidly slow him down, or even help him manage quick response actions when the armor or his own body would be unable to keep up. The propulsors designed to swivel in multiple directions when needed and they were placed all over the body.

Designing them in such a way to provide proper propulsion in various situations without causing him to fall over was incredibly difficult but he had managed to do it somehow.

Taking everything that he knew about the armor he had built in the past and merging it what what he had available to him...

Was there a way for him to recreate an EMS system?

Well...there was no way to know if they had any electro-reactive fluids lying around, but if he were to apply rune formulas to water to make it react to...no. He shouldn't restrict himself to simply copying what he had done in the past when he can innovate further with what he has now.

Still, replicating an EMS system should be a priority, though he wasn't quite sure what direction he needed to take to replicate it...

Then he remembered something important that Azazel had told him. Azazel had said that the power that was given to Isaiah, the first King of Forrosa, had been passed down through the royal family and gifted to their most respected warriors via blood lamenting.

The power of the red lightning allowed whoever used it to accelerate the growth of organic matter and even manipulate it for some reason.

Marcus wondered if he could harvest muscles from monsters and graft them into a metal frame through which Forrosan warriors could harness their strength. However, what would be the best monster to harvest from...

Malthael. His corpse was still on Mt. Lunaris with a preservation rune to keep his body from rotting while also warding off anything that tried to scavenge it. The cold of the mountain would also do well to keep it contained.

He just needed to get a hold of Azazel and...didn't he say to just call out his name and he would arrive?

"A-Azazel? I'd like your help with something," he said aloud in his room on a whim.

Not three seconds passed and Azazel appeared in the corner of his room, much to Marcus's surprise.

"How can I assist you?" he asked plainly.

"I'll need to head to Mt. Lunaris to harvest some muscle tissue from Malthael's corpse and also, I'll need one of Forrosa's warriors who can use the red lightning because I have some experiments to run," he said and Azazel nodded.

"When do you plan to head there?" he asked.

"Immediately."

He didn't have to bother Ruvick for a trip to Malthael's corpse as Azazel snapped his fingers and red smoke surrounded them for a moment before they appeared next to the Archdragon's head.

Despite not feeling any mental reaction to seeing Malthael's corpse, his body reacted by vomiting violently. He didn't understand why this was happening to him as he had no feelings of disgust about seeing the dead body there but for some reason, his body was reacting negatively to it anyways.

"Marcus?! Are you alright?" Azazel shouted with surprising concern but Marcus held up his hand to signal that he is fine. He tried to look back up at the body but was hit with another wave of nausea that nearly made him vomit a second time.

He then forcibly shut off the signals in his brain that would trigger vomiting and took another look at Malthael.

No physical reaction at all.

Strange. Why did his body react that way if he felt no disgust towards seeing the Archdragon's corpse?

Never mind that, it didn't matter. What mattered is that he grabbed what he came for.

He spent the next half hour carving out over a hundred pounds of muscle fibers and placing them into a box that he made of Dragon Glass.

When he was finished, he said, "Alright, lets head back."

Once they returned, he got to work carefully unravelling the muscle fibers he had harvested into thin strings before weaving them into a braided mesh and into a muscular structure similar to that of the human body.

Before doing that, he decided to test whether or not they could be stretched to the point that they would rip apart and although they could be unraveled with only a slight amount of difficulty, ripping them apart was almost impossible without the use of a sharp weapon. Even using magic to enhance his physical strength, it took every ounce of strength to rip through less than a centimeter of three inches of muscle fibers.

If these fibers were really this strong without spiritual energy pumping through them, he could only imagine how tough they would be when infusing magic into them.

After he had finished making a full body EMS out of Malthael's muscle fibers, Azazel left for a few minutes and came back with a man he called Frosk. Apparently this man was special since unlike the royal family or the soldiers they gifted their power to, he was chose by a bolt of red lightning during the Mordrinite War and had the purest level of power out of anyone currently alive.

Apparently there have been numerous Forrosans throughout the kingdom's history who have been hit by the red bolt and granted the power of the God of Wrath.

"When was the last person hit by the red bolt before Frosk?" Marcus asked.

"In the ten thousand years that Forrosa has stood strong, there have only ever been one Champion of Red for every king's reign," he said.

"How long has King Aldia been ruling over Forrosa?"

"Four hundred years," Azazel said and Marcus was taken aback by this.

"Four...how has King Aldia been alive for four hundred years?! Is he even human?!" Marcus exclaimed and Frosk got upset by his reaction and was about to launch a barrage of insults against him when Azazel held out his arm to stop him.

"I take it that because of how limited spiritual energy is on Terra, humans do not live very long lives. Here on Erebus, the size and strength of a person's soul and the strength of the body containing that soul dictates how long a person will be able to live. King Aldia has one of the strongest, if not the very strongest soul among all the previous Forrosan kings and will likely live for several more centuries."

Holy shit...

"Okay then... Moving on. Frosk, I want you to put this wrapping over your arm," he said and Frosk looked back at Azazel with a confused look, to which Azazel nodded.

"Alright then...," he said as he carefully placed his arm through it.

"Okay, now what I want you to do is envelop your arm in red lightning and try to infuse the wrapping with it as well," Marcus ordered and Frosk obeyed.

As he did, the wrappings stiffened and constricted around Frosk's arm but not enough that it hurt him.

Marcus then made a shield out of Dragon Glass as hard and as durable as he could manage before handing it to Azazel and saying, "Okay...now for the next test. With that wrapping around your fist and arm, I want you to punch this shield as hard as you possibly can."

Azazel realized that he was being used as the punching bag as he raised his eyebrows at Marcus with an amused expression on his face but did not complain as he shook his head and braced himself.

"Uh...do you think that maybe we should do this outside?" Frosk asked and Azazel eyed Marcus as if asking the same question.

Hm...probably, yeah.

In just a few moments, they made their way outside into the farmlands and were ready to test the strength of the wrapping.

"Now!" Marcus shouted and Frosk punched the shield.

A cone of air exploded around Frosk's body as he moved forward and at first Marcus thought it was the wrapping enhancing his speed as well but no, Frosk was just naturally that fast...wow.

The moment his fist connected with the Dragon Glass shield, it shattered instantly and the force from the strike sent Azazel flying into the wall over a hundred feet away.

Marcus involuntarily grabbed at his throat as if he had just been strangled.

Azazel then reappeared back in front of them completely unbothered.

"That looked like it hurt," Marcus said.

"It did," he confirmed.

"Well...now that that's done with, the rest will be pretty easy to figure out," he said, to which Frosk looked at him like he was crazy.


"You understand that King Aldia gave you two weeks to finish designing this right?" Frosk asked him.

"Yes, I do. But its not a problem if I finish it in a few days right?" Marcus asked.

True to his word, Marcus had managed to make a design the worked with the EMS made from Malthael's muscle fibers.

When Frosk found out it was made from that, he freaked out while trying to peel it off of him but ended up struggling as he tried to figure it out that he gave up trying to remove it in his panic and accepted it.

After all that was done and taken care of, Marcus pulled together some Black Iron material for the under frame portion of the armor and Azazel retrieved some Adamantine metal to be melted down and forged into the outside armor plating.

After only four days of work, he had managed to forge a newly designed suit of armor at King Aldia's request and then presented it to him in the throne room.

"You...actually managed it in the time I gave you. No, you did so even earlier than I would have thought possible," the king said in disbelief.

He then looked towards Azazel as he asked, "Have you confirmed its capabilities?"

Azazel nodded as he said, "Although its design seems simplistic at first glance, its properties are quite complex and power. I assure you, it is worth the investment to grant Marcus the aid that he came for."

King Aldia nodded in agreement before he said, "I hereby grant you the financial aid that you requested but I might ask, is there anything else that you might need?"

"Are you offering to give me more aid than I originally asked for?"

"Call it an incentive to continue cooperating with Forrosa in the future," he replied.

"Okay then..., is there any chance you can offer me access to surplus of Adamantine metal for forging?" he asked.

"Of course. Its not a resource that we are lacking in," King Aldia said with a slight chuckle as if it was humorous to him.

"Its not? I thought adamantine was extremely rare in the world."

"Adamantium deposits found in mines are rare, yes. However, the fourth Forrosan King was gifted an adamantine ring by a Dwarven craftsman which makes four duplicates once every three minutes. Which means that we have a limitless supply of Adamantine to work with," he said.

"That sounds a lot like the Draupnir ring," Marcus said and the King looked stunned to hear him mention the name but shrugged it off as it seemed to be the least surprising thing that has happened so far.

"I believe that it is now time to bid you farewell, yes?" King Aldia said as he looked behind Marcus and there stood Ruvick, who waved to the king nonchalantly.

"Yes, thank you for your help. I'll be sure to visit and offer my assistance again at some point," Marcus said as Ruvick walked over to him and snapped his fingers, and they appeared in Marcus's home.

"Oh wait, I should have grabbed-" he started to say but Ruvick held up a large bag that clinked with the sound of metal rings hitting each other.

"I already have it, don't worry. You can get started on making Selene's armor now," he said as he tossed the bag of adamantine rings to Marcus. He managed to catch it but due to the weight, he fell backwards onto his couch, and the weight of the bag knocked the wind out of him,

"Ow...," Marcus groaned and Ruvick laughed.

Over the next several days, he borrowed Samael's shop to forge Selene's armor, much to his shock at the story he told about how he got the adamantine for the armor in the first place. He then went back to Mt. Lunaris and harvested more muscle fibers to make the EMS inner layer.

When Artemis said that not even her moonlight would be powerful enough to split Malthael's scales apart, then he figured that the moonlight magic Selene gained could also be contained in them as well. He also put together a special crystal with a rune formula engraved into it before infusing his red lightning into it. He did this with the goal of giving Selene the ability to increase her strength and speed using the EMS while also allowing it to repair itself if it was damaged.

After he had finished attaching the leather straps to the adamantine armor pieces over the EMS, he asked Samael to help him figure out a way to contain the armor inside of a curse without affecting the nature of the adamantine itself. Once the raw adamantine changes in nature even once, its impossible to change it back.

The fact that adamantine only changes in nature when in contact with a soul self was beneficial to him. Even if he couldn't melt it with his own magic or with Selene's, he can still use rune formulas to melt it which won't change its nature.

The only thing left to do now was to give her the armor.

He made his way up to her apartment and knocked on the door.

In a few moments, the door opened up and Selene stood in the door way wearing a loose T-shirt, shorts, and a tired expression on her face.

"Oh...Marcus. What is it?" she said with an almost depressed tone in her voice. Hearing her sound like this made him feel like he had a heavy weight in his chest. It made him feel bad the same way he would if he saw his sister sad.

"Selene, are you okay?" he asked and she tilted her head up to look at him for a moment before breaking eye contact with him.

"I'm...fine. I'm just really bored. I have nothing to do at the moment and if i try to go anywhere or do anything, I could risk burning everything around me. So I'm stuck here," she said as she turned around and walked into her living room, leaving the door open to welcome him in.

"Well...would it make you feel better if I told you what I've been doing lately?" he asked as she sat down on her couch and shrugged.

"Sure...anything that helps my boredom, I guess," she said without enthusiasm.

"Alright then. I'm sure you already know that I've been talking with Ruvick to get an idea of where things stand with him, yes?" he said and her eyes perked up in mild interest.

"Marcus...you and I both know that something is up with that man. I don't know how you are so open to working with him," she said.

"I know, but so far he's been honest and fair with me. For the moment...I trust him. Aside from that, while I was with him, I went to the kingdom of Forrosa," he said and her eyes widened, far more interested than before.

"You went to Forrosa?! W-What was it like?" she asked him, with a hint of excitement in her voice.

"You've never been to Forrosa?" he asked and she shook her head.

"I'm not really allowed to leave Duranell's territory, so no. I've never been to Forrosa," she said and he was surprised to hear that.

"Why not?"

"I would like to guess that its because the rest of the world doesn't want to deal with me...but it doesn't really matter that much," she said and her mood became more depressed.

"Alright, well putting that aside, I went to Forrosa with Ruvick to ask King Aldia for his help with making something. Would you like to know what it is?"

She shrugged as she said, "Sure."

"Alright, but we'll need to gather everyone from the Darkmoon Knights first, including Dean," he said as he stood up from where he was sitting and started walking towards the door.

"What, now? Like right now?" she asked frantically.

"Yes, now. Let's go," he said and she followed after him.

After gathering everyone in the brotherhood and even bringing Thalia along, he called Selene forward and she walked towards him with a vacant expression on her face. She obviously didn't seem to excited to be anywhere without her armor, but thankfully, that is what she was here for.

"Okay Selene. Are you prepared to see what all my hard work was for?" he asked, adding a bit of energy to his voice to get her in the mood but she just stared at him blankly.

In his right hand, he held a suitcase and presented it to her in the same way Samael had done for him when giving him Seventh Sinner. He then opened it for her to see and inside was a crystal. She looked at it and then gave him a strange look.

"What is this? Are you...giving me jewelry or something?" she said with an amused smile.

Well...at least she was smiling now.

"No. Its not jewelry, its a containment crystal that Samael helped make for me. Now, I want you to pick it up and crush it in your hands with your magic," he said as she reached for it and held it in her hands.

"You want me to crush it with my magic...? I don't think that's a good idea with so many people here," she said, worried as she looked at the other brotherhood members around her.

Something then caught his eye as Dean stood up and edged his way over to them slowly. From the look on his face, Marcus had the feeling that something was wrong with him but chose not to say or do anything yet.

"Trust me, everything will be fine. Just crush the crystal, and you'll see what's inside," he said and so Selene started to do as he asked.

Again, he could see Dean moving closer to her.

Just what was he intending to...

Then Marcus notices his right hand moving over to the handle of his katana at his waist. It hovered over it, but did not fully wrap around it to pull it out of its sheathe.

Hmm...

Selene squinted her eyes as she focused her magic on the crystal and cracks started to form on its surface. With one final grunt, she crushed it to powder and a flash of light erupted from it before it died down and revealed the armor that had enveloped her body.

"W-what is this?" she said as she could hardly believe what she was seeing.

"Its your new armor. I made it using adamantine and leather made from Malthael's muscles," he said and he could hear Thalia shuddering in disgust at the idea of making armor out of muscles but Selene seemed more surprised than grossed out.

"You made this for me? Really?" she asked breathlessly and he nodded.

"Of course. It took a bit of work but I was able to get everything I needed to make that armor for you and it hardly costed anything," he said and she could hardly believe it.

He then walked towards her and looked her up and down.

The adamantine armor he made for her, changed by her magic retained some of its silver tint but also had hints of dark red as well as orange. He had added some flame engravings onto the armor but he didn't expect those areas to change color as soon as her magic flowed into it. On her waist and flowing off of her shoulders was a golden yellow cape with an intricately designed sun painted on it.

He made no helmet for her as she never wore one before but he made sure to add a rune formula that either put up a sphere of fire or a flash of moonlight to destroy anything that tried to attack her head.

He then folded his arms as he looked her in the eyes with a smile and said, "I think it looks good on you."

She stared at him with disbelief and shock at the fact that anyone would go to the trouble of helping her like this that she then became overwhelmed with emotion as she jumped and hugged him.

"Thank you...thank you for all of this," she said as she seemed almost on the verge of crying from how grateful she was.

Marcus wasn't sure how to react to being hugged but he didn't push her off and decided to pat her on the back gently. He looked around and could see many of the other brotherhood members surprised at her show of emotion like this, even Dean was shocked as his hand drifted away from his sword and he looked almost embarrassed.

Thalia however, smirked at him and gave him a thumbs up.

Who the hell does she think she is, my wingman?

Selene then must've realized what she was doing and pulled herself away from him with a flushed expression as she said, "I-I'm sorry about that."

"I'm not complaining," he said and she smiled.

The people around them seemed both somewhat relieved and also somewhat confused as to what to do now.

"I think this calls for a bit of a celebration yeah? A welcome back to work party?" Marcus offered helpfully to which everyone perked up at the suggestion of drinking. Then, almost in unison, they shouted and called for drinks to be poured.

Its that easy for these guys huh...? Any excuse to mess around and have a few drinks...

Well, whatever. He was kind of in the mood to drink too.

However, as the rest of the members were rushing off to grab their own glasses and fill them up with whatever alcohol they could find, Dean stood there awkwardly and was about to walk away but stopped dead in his tracks when he met Marcus's eyes.

Marcus glared at him to show him that he was fully prepared to kill him if Dean had decided to draw his sword. He didn't know what his deal was, but Dean was prepared to kill Selene if her magic had gone out of control. Adding to that, the fact that Selene had told him she wasn't allowed to leave Duranell's territory because she was told that everyone in the world was either afraid of her or didn't want to deal with her meant something wasn't adding up.

He intended to figure out what the reason was but for now, he figured he would just knock back a few drinks and enjoy the night.

After downing three glasses of what tastes like scotch, Thalia, who was sitting between him and Selene, looked at his glass curiously. Selene, was also drinking some alcohol but hers was mixed with some kind of creamy liquid that reminded him of mead.

Thalia then asked, "Brother...what does that stuff you're drinking taste like?"

Already somewhat buzzed, he asked, "What does it taste like...? Why do you ask?"

"Well...can I try it?" she asked him and for a moment, he thought about it.

"How old are you again?" he asked her and she got annoyed.

"We're not even on our own planet anymore. Drinking laws don't matter here...," she said before she looked at Selene and asked, "Do they?"

Selene just laughed and said, "I'm not not your mommy. Its not my place to tell you whether you can or can't drink. That's his job. But no, drinking laws aren't much of a thing here."

"No, I'm actually curious. How old are you now Thalia? When we left Terra, it was in August, a month before your birthday and then we came here and the time displacement sent us nine months into the future. Would it be fair to say that you're still twelve years old or thirteen now?" he rambled and Thalia became annoyed.

"Marcus...? Can I just try it to see what its like?" she asked.

"No. Besides, liquor is bitter and I doubt you would like it," he said and she ran off to look for something to do.

Now it was just the two of them sitting together...

Selene, who had already downed four glasses of alcohol, turned her head lazily to look at him and asked, "I wanted to know...why did you want to make my armor? I mean, its nice and pretty and it keeps my magic under control but...why?"

"Well...you know the reason why," he said as he deflected from answering.

He didn't know why he felt the need to but when she asked him, he understood that he had a second reason for why he did it that he didn't know about until now.

"That answer is boring...Why did you really make it? Why go to so much trouble for me?"

He was silent for a moment as he thought about it.

If he were sober, then he likely never would have admitted this to himself, much less to her out loud, but he figured out what it was that motivated him to put in the effort for her.

"I guess I just did it because I like you Selene," he said and for a moment, her face reddened before she rested her chin on her arms. Her head then flopped to the side as she looked up at him and gave him a drunken smile.

He wasn't sure how to react to it since it looked kind of...cute.

He then reached for her mead and drank all of it.

Jesus, this had more alcohol in it than his own drink did...

"Is it good?" she said with a grin.

"Yeah."