Chapter 648: Aftermath

Muen opened his eyes, and what he saw was still the familiar white ceiling of the infirmary ward.

"Is it morning already—tch... why is it so heavy?"

He instinctively tried to move, only to find his whole body unbelievably heavy, like he’d just been run over by several big trucks... but in the next moment, the fragrant softness filling his arms had already begun to stimulate his nerves.

"Mmm... Muen, stop touching me... I can’t take it anymore..."

Liya, wrapped around Muen’s arm like an octopus, felt his movement and mumbled hazily, half-asleep. And on the other side, two unbelievably indecent, fair, naked bodies also began to shift slowly—skin pressed tight against skin, the friction alone making the blood in Muen’s body start accelerating almost instantly.

Ah, crap.

Muen snapped fully awake. While forcibly calming the heat surging in him, he also silently cursed that this was bad.

Woke up too early!

Judging from the sensations on his body, after last night’s insanity, all three women had simply been exhausted into sleep.

Falling asleep wasn’t the problem—what mattered was that they’d fallen asleep together, with him, under the same blanket?

And now they were waking up at the same time—how was that supposed to end well?

Without hesitating, Muen immediately closed his eyes again and played dead!

The best way to deal with a slaughterhouse of jealousy was to pretend it didn’t exist!

That’s right. He was just a harmless, innocent yellow-haired guy who had been thoroughly abused last night. Any “slaughterhouse” had absolutely nothing to do with him...

"Mmm~"

And sure enough, after Muen “fell back asleep,” the three perfect bodies—each naked, each draped over him in a different posture—almost simultaneously woke up in a languid haze, then slowly sat up.

Three gazes met. Six eyes collided.

First came the sleepy, unfocused look right after waking. Then the foggy confusion of not fully being conscious yet. Next, the shock of remembering everything. And finally...

A dead kind of calm, like nothing had ever happened.

The three of them stared at each other in silence. They could all see the traces of last night’s madness still lingering on the other’s lamb-smooth skin—and through the other’s eyes, they all knew that they themselves must look exactly the same.

At this moment, with perfect tacit understanding, none of them said a word.

Celicia was the first to move. She turned and began to dress.

The instant she woke, her expression returned to cold detachment. Even during that mutual stare, she showed almost no visible change in emotion, as if she had once again become that lofty, ice-cold, noble empress—like last night had been nothing but an absurd spring dream.

...Even though last night, under the two-on-one pincer and a certain someone deliberately causing trouble, she had actually been the most disheveled of them all.

And unlike Celicia’s indifference, there was still a lingering, unspent coquettish spring heat between Anna’s brows and eyes. In that melee at the end, everyone had completely sunk into it, so no one even knew whether she had achieved her goal—whether she’d successfully made Celicia call her “sister.”

...But she looked satisfied now, at least. After all, once you’d seen Her Majesty show that cute side so different from her usual cold aloofness, what was there to be dissatisfied about?

As for Liya...

She looked left, then right, then cast one last reluctant glance at Muen. Cheeks puffed, she also turned away to search for the clothes a certain bad person had thrown who-knew-where.

...She didn’t know what she was supposed to do next, but in any case, first: get dressed.

For a while, the only sound in the room was the soft rustle of fabric. Calm as a seaside breeze. Even the act of beautiful girls putting on clothes could make one’s heart feel open and refreshed.

But right now, Muen had none of his usual interest in appreciating such sweet, moving time. He kept his eyes shut, playing dead.

His instincts told him this was only the calm before the storm.

The big one was coming!

"..."

"..."

"..."

In the end, after everything had been put in order, the three of them regained the nobility and sanctity of the empire’s empress, the Silent Bureau’s Swordbearer, and the Church of Life’s Saintess. If any outsider had been here, faced with that aura that flowed from every gesture they made, they would have lowered their head and knelt without even being able to help it.

And now, the three of them looked at each other again...

...

...

"Mmm... my head feels so dizzy."

In the bright morning sun, Diyaka finally stirred awake as well.

Sleeping too long and too deeply had left her head muddled. She slapped her face hard, relying on the mental discipline forged through long training to force herself awake.

"I’m..."

She looked around and found she was still outside the ward. She was still wearing the standard armor of the Royal Knights as well—only her posture was a bit indecent. She’d slept... a little too freely.

Which meant—

"I actually fell asleep on duty?!"

Diyaka jumped up, then clenched her fist and slammed it against the wall, her face full of grief.

As the daughter of a knightly family, she had worked for so many years and finally achieved her wish of becoming Her Majesty’s personal guard, able to serve the royal house... yet it had only been a few days, and she had already done something as derelict as falling asleep in the middle of a mission!

If her father found out, he would definitely be disappointed in her.

"Damn it..."

Diyaka raked her fingers through her hair in pain. In her memory, she should have encountered something last night, but her head was still so heavy that she couldn’t sort out the details.

"Hm?"

As she thought, her hand froze mid-scratch.

"Why does it feel wet? Morning dew?"

She rubbed her fingertips together, feeling that faint dampness. The unusual sensation made her instinctively go on alert...

"No—now isn’t the time to think about that!"

Diyaka smacked her own head hard, furious at herself for considering something so irrelevant at a time like this.

What mattered now was the mission! The mission! The mission!

She had been ordered to guard Young Master Muen Campbell. If anything happened to him, what face would she have to report back to Her Majesty? At that point, only death would preserve her knightly honor!

Diyaka gathered her thoughts and quickly scanned her surroundings...

Mm, good.

She let out a breath for the moment.

From the look of things, everything around her was calm, and the ward showed no signs of damage at all.

So it probably hadn’t been a criminal attack. Of course, if it had been attacked, she wouldn’t have been sleeping so deeply until now.

Then next she only needed to confirm Young Master Campbell’s safety...

Early morning really wasn’t a good time to disturb anyone. So Diyaka leaned forward slightly, brought her head to the viewing window in the door, and peered inside...

But before she could see anything clearly, with a deafening boom, the entire ward door—along with half a wall—exploded outward!

Caught completely off guard, Diyaka didn’t have time to react. She let out a muffled groan as she too was blasted several meters back. Thankfully, that terrifying force wasn’t aimed at her, so she didn’t suffer any real injury.

Yet before she could move, two figures almost simultaneously shot out through the blasted opening—one shrouded in deep darkness, one covered in sacred radiance. One dark, one bright, so extreme it seemed to drain the sky of color itself.

The two figures streaked into the air without the slightest pause, then—with eerie, perfect coordination—fled at high speed in two different directions. As that dark presence swept away, Diyaka vaguely heard a mischievous, wicked little giggle.

"What...?"

Diyaka froze. The power of those two auras was beyond anything she could imagine. She couldn’t understand why such terrifying experts would burst out of Young Master Muen Campbell’s ward together.

Had something happened to him...?

Fear rose in Diyaka’s chest—but before she could confirm anything—

Another aura rose, even more terrifying, surging up in an instant.

This one was truly terrifying to the extreme.

The entire academy medical building trembled under that pressure, as if an ancient primordial beast had awakened in fury, ready to tear apart any petty thing that dared offend her. Diyaka was Her Majesty’s personal guard, trained from childhood so harshly that she would never take one step back even before the most ferocious magical beasts...

Yet right now, she couldn’t stop herself from trembling.

And that aura felt extremely familiar to her, as if it were... Her Majesty?

But why would Her Majesty be so furious? And why would she, like those two mysterious experts, come out of Young Master Campbell’s ward? Hadn’t she already left last night?

Diyaka’s mind turned into a mess. She had countless questions, but pressed down by that terrifying presence, she lowered her head and knelt on the ground, not daring to look up and confirm whether it truly was Her Majesty.

"Hmph!"

That majestic voice let out a cold snort. The ward finally collapsed completely, and Diyaka’s body jolted—unable to withstand the pressure—before she passed out on the spot.

The figure rose into the sky, paused for a moment, then in the end chose to chase after that deep darkness that had fled while giggling like a little devil.

"Bitch, die—"

The figure departed, but those words—almost squeezed out between clenched teeth, saturated with murderous intent—were so cold they seemed ready to freeze a soul solid...

...

...

Diyaka woke up again.

This time, what she saw wasn’t the corridor ceiling, but a blue sky, and... a handsome face more dazzling than the sun.

"You... Young Master Campbell!"

Diyaka snapped to attention by reflex, but her body was still stiff, not yet recovered from the shock earlier, so her movement ended up awkward and half-formed.

"No need to be nervous. I don’t have any kind of incredible status right now. You don’t need to salute me."

Muen smiled and waved a hand, his tone gentle.

"What about you—are you alright?"

"I... I’m fine."

Diyaka moved her limbs slightly. She’d fainted, but in reality she hadn’t been hurt.

That terrifying pressure earlier had clearly been targeted. She had only been caught by the aftershock.

"Oh, right."

Diyaka suddenly reacted and anxiously looked Muen over.

"Young Master Campbell is the one—are you really okay? I’m very sorry. Even though Her Majesty handed me the duty of protecting you, I didn’t even do my own job properly."

Thinking of that, Diyaka couldn’t help sinking into regret again. What exactly had this pure-love warrior even protected? She hadn’t protected anything at all!

"I’m fine... aside from my waist being a little weak right now. If anything, my spirits have never been better."

Muen patted Diyaka on the shoulder, comforting her.

"Don’t worry. This time, Celicia won’t blame you. And compared to you... in certain ways, I’m probably going to be blamed even more."

"Huh?"

Diyaka blinked, bewildered.

"What do you mean?"

"It’s nothing."

Muen smiled with a complicated expression, then pointed behind him at that pile of ruins.

"I was just thinking... how I’m supposed to explain to Headmaster Hathaway that I only stayed in the infirmary for one day, and managed to get half the ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) academy medical wing demolished."