Chapter 129. Marceline Tried to Take the Easy Exit. I Closed It. For Strategic Reasons.

After thinking for quite a while about the plan for his energy, he noticed Lily moved. She moved to his side and made a sound that wasn’t quite a word.

"Mmm..."

Then her eyes opened halfway and fixed on his face with the kind of focus that someone who was worried about losing something important would have checked right away.

"Rex...?"

"Morning," Rex said.

"Morning..." she said back, and the way she said it was so happy that it was almost funny.

Then she seemed to notice Lilith at the foot of the bed, and her face changed from one of annoyance to one that was more restrained but still not happy.

"Oh yeah... I almost forgot about this disgusting succubus still being here.’

Lilith woke up at that exact moment hearing that.

She sat up straight at the foot of the bed with both hands raised, her eyes still closed, her hair going in about eleven different directions, and said to the room, "Yawwwnnnn~ I had a good dream about Master making me a sandwich."

"That’s what you wanted?" Lily looked at her. "You start to think of him as your servant who serves sandwiches?"

Lilith opened her eyes and blinked at the room, putting her thoughts back together. Her succubus traits were clear, including her horns and tail and the faint blue tint to her skin.

She looked between Rex and Lily with the confused kindness of someone who was thrilled to be awake but wasn’t sure why yet.

"Wait! I don’t mean that, Master!" Lilith shook her head. "Please don’t punish me with my own tail."

"Was it a good sandwich?" Rex asked.

Lilith smiled and said, "It was amazing," with no hint of a joke.

"There were seven different things in it, and it was warm... the same warmth is inside my tummy right now."

Lily said, "You are so strange," in a way that made it sound like she had expected to dislike the person she was talking to but was finding it more complicated than she had thought.

"Thank you!" Lilith stretched, putting both arms above her head, and her tail curled in what looked like a very happy arc. "Master, are we going to have breakfast together today?"

"I want to see if the sandwiches downstairs are close to the dream."

"Nope." Rex said, "You, in fact, are going back to the Underlayer and never came back here without my command."

Lilith put her arms down. "But—"

"No more fucking ’buts’! You’re already too close to the surface!" Rex pointed at her. "Mordecai will want a full report, and if you keep showing up in human form around the Academy district, someone with a detection skill will notice that your magical signature is wrong."

He spoke clearly, not unkindly. "Go fucking back, report, and come back when I call!"

Lilith looked at him for a moment like someone who was doing math and accepting the results. "Urgghhh... okay," she said, sounding only a little sad about it.

She completely changed into her human form, stood up, and fixed her hair with the ease of someone who had done it a thousand times before. She went over to Rex’s side of the bed, leaned down, and kissed him on the cheek before he could stop her.

"Goodbye, Master and Lily," she said, waving to Lily. "Don’t be too competitive today, okay?"

Lily said, "I’m not even being competitive about it," which was such a big lie that even Lilith just smiled and didn’t say anything.

Then she was gone. The soft shimmer of her teleportation briefly disturbed the air before it returned to normal.

Lily looked at the empty space for a moment. "She’s growing on me," she said, as if she were admitting to a personal flaw.

"I hate that I’m getting used to her."

Rex said, "It’s okay."

Lily stared at him. "Are you not going to say anything to make me feel better?"

"She’s loyal and helpful, and you two have learned to be in the same room without setting anything on fire," Rex said. "That’s already better than I thought it would be."

Lily seemed to think about this. Then she got up to get ready for her own day, which took a lot more planning than Rex or Lilith.

He used the time to wash up and get ready for the second day of Academy life.

He pulled up the system one last time and looked at the numbers before going downstairs. He had one thousand two hundred points, a skill that needed to be purchased as quickly as possible, and a clear idea of what he needed to do next.

He thought, "Sovereign Necromancy," and set the goal. "And then whatever comes next."

[RECOMMEND REACHING 3000 POINTS BEFORE APOSTLE GATHERING IF POSSIBLE]

[TIMING WOULD BE ADVANTAGEOUS]

’Noted,’ he thought, and went to get breakfast.

...

When he went downstairs while still thinking about the plan, he almost bumped into Marceline in the hallway.

Marceline was coming around the corner from the kitchen wing, carrying a tray of food. She moved quickly and purposefully, like someone who was in the middle of morning operations.

When she saw him, she stopped short, her body responding in a way that showed she remembered something her calm expression was trying to hide.

The tray shook. She made it steady.

It was impressive that her composure came back together in about two seconds, but Rex’s Emotional Insight had already read the two seconds before it.

"G-good morning," she said.

"Morning," Rex said, and he didn’t bring up the bathhouse because he had learned a long time ago that letting someone else bring something up was a free way to have power.

Marceline looked at him for exactly as long as it took her to make up her mind. Then she turned her head toward the smaller dining room off the main hall.

This was the room for longer conversations that needed some privacy from the busy inn traffic.

She said, "I’d like to talk to you if you have a minute before you eat."

"Hm? Sure."

He went in after her.

She put the tray down on the side table and turned to face him. Rex could see that she was going through two or three different ways to say what she wanted to say before she settled on the most direct one.

"Last night." She said, "I want you to know you can forget it happened."

"I was in a weird mood and said things I don’t usually say to people I’ve known for less than a week, and... I don’t want things to be weird between us."

"And the sex we just had... maybe... I was so drunk about it that I lost my control..."

Rex said, "I don’t want to forget it."

Marceline blinked. "I just told you that you could."

"And I’m telling you I don’t want to," he said. "You told me something true about your life."

"You didn’t do it because you were in a weird mood," Rex smirks. "You did it because you needed to say it out loud, and I just happened to be there and seem like someone who would listen."

He looked straight at her. "I don’t want to act like that didn’t happen, especially after the great sexual encounter we just had... it’s the best thing ever."

Marceline didn’t move at all. "Rex—"

"Your husband is making a choice that has nothing to do with what you deserve," Rex said, keeping his voice calm and not acting. "That’s not how you’re thinking about it yet."

"You’re thinking of it as a logistics problem because that’s easier than thinking of it as what it really is."

The quiet that came after wasn’t awkward. It was the kind of silence that happens when one person says something true and the other person needs a moment to think about it.

Rex was going to say something else when the door to the private dining room opened and Mara walked in with a coffee service. She moved with the calm confidence of someone who had worked the morning shift so many times that she could find her way around the inn without seeing it.

She looked at both of them, noticed how quiet it was, and put the coffee down without saying anything. "Uh... I’m just going to put this right—"

"Would you mind staying for a moment, Mara?" Rex asked.

Mara looked at him with the calm, knowing steadiness that had made it easy to trust her from the start.

"Um..." After that, she turned to Marceline. "Is everything okay?"

Rex said, "We’re discussing something."

"I thought you might have something helpful to say from your experience."