The dark side of his soul became active again with the two beauties on his embrace, he closed his eyes to get that under control. After some time he finally calmed down a little. Nonetheless, it was still the prominent side. He did not notice the gritted expression of Violet and the tenge of red on Ellie as a result of his actions until he got the dark side under control.
Aile wondered why they were here. He then imagined, "Ellie coming to ask for something and Violet followed to keep an eye on her." He planned to ask them once they were awake.
After a few minutes, he decided to wake them up, he was going to spend the day and night with Leia as he promised. Aile massaged their hands, shoulders and upper back to wake them up, avoiding any area that could excite the dark part of his soul too much. He had used such a method for Leia and Laila, so without thinking twice about it, he used the same for Ellie and Violet. Like this, he noticed their bodies wiggle a little to accommodate the massage and guide his hand.
After a while, he discerned some unusual movement from Ellie's side, noticing that she was awake now. Aile whispered to her, "It is time to wake up, good morning."
He received a shy, "Good morning," from Ellie and then she quickly left to the bathroom. Aile continued to massage Violet, and after a while, she opened her eyes with somewhat of a bitter expression.
"Have you taken enough advantage?" She then moved her hand towards Aile's face cover.
The face covers were made for ease of breathability and comfort. Therefore, most people slept with them, especially during missions.
The door of the room opened.
Violet was now on top of Aile, as her hand was going for his face cover.
"Boss...
Mistress...
Breakfast is ready."
The door then closed as three left with a smile.
Violet had gotten red from the combination of anger and shyness, she humphed and left towards the bathroom too, without completing her goal of seeing his identity.
Aile used water, fire, and air gathering ruin to wash his face and went to eat breakfast. He noticed something was wrong with how three just entered without knocking but did not pay too much attention to it. A lot of weird stuff had happened, but Aile's mind was on his date with Leia, forgetting about minor anomalies. If anything serious happened One, Two and Three would have informed him already. If he did not detect danger from his eyes of fate, or get the feeling of threat, he would not be too bothered.
The food was ready, and soon Ellie and Violet arrived. They had breakfast, and Aile was the first to finish. Three had told him the news about Hunter. He apparently was fine and was spotted today in town all good.
Aile gave the news to Violet after she finished the food. Then she got ready to leave. When she asked Ellie to follow, Ellie said that she will visit her mother and handed Violet a message, to read once she arrived at the house. Violet felt something was wrong, but urged Ellie to at least leave together out of the mansion, with that Ellie and Violet left, and Aile kept an eye on them from afar. Halfway through the journey, Ellie gave Violet a goodbye hug as she went towards the Aile mansion.
Violet was a bit concerned about Hunter. Therefore, she quickly headed towards the White Clan's headquarters. Once Violet got there, she was immediately taken to Hunter. She then realized that Aile had not sent news of her safe arrival seeing the concern from the guards, making her angry, as she waited for Hunter to finish the meeting. In the meantime, Violet read the letter from Ellie.
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After reading it, she used her lighting element to burn it and sighed. The letter basically stated that Ellie will no longer stay with Marcus and that she would leave with her mother, and Violet should keep it a secret temporarily. Only saying that they separated in Port Kiar. It was also a goodbye letter to Violet and how Ellie will try to find her and talk to her occasionally if she remains in Port Kiar. She finally realized the reason for Ellie's recent unusual behaviour. She had mix feelings about this, her friend was going to leave her, at the same time, she understood her situation and was glad that she took this step.
Ellie reached Aile's place and went to find Diana. Aile too arrived and went to his room to find Leia.
Once Aile arrived in the room, Leia was ready, she had already packed some lunch. Then began Aile and Violet's date, as the city became more and more unstable.
First Aile and Leia went to find some landscapes towards the west of town in the direction of Cape Tie. Leia drew a couple of sceneries and the drawing of both of them on the mountain top. After that, they had some food, talked and flirted. With the joyous atmosphere, it only took a blink of an eye for the day to turn tonight. Aile then created a campfire and roasted some meat, while Leia described the sky to Aile the same way she used to do it for Laila. They enjoyed the presence of each other under the moonlight and hugged each other to sleep.
The city had a major upheaval during this time. Hunter demanded an explanation from the Royal group. They rejected his conjecture that they were the cause of the attack, claiming that they were all injured too, it would not be possible for them to strike. Hunter was not too forceful to get to the bottom of it, being on the weaker side now, without the support of the 6th level old man. The response of the royal side did not surprise him. He would deny being in the wrong in such a situation too. However, while that did stop the issue on the surface, violent undercurrent was brewing underneath the town.
The news of Aile's Merchant Union losing money spread and Hazel announced that they will be letting go of a part of their force. With the loss of manpower, the iron clad influence of them shrank, allowing each power to contend for Port Kiar's militaristic dominance.
This caused another problem, as now the strongest force in Port Kiar would be the royals since they still had 2 above 6th level powerhouses. Their dominance gave the illusion that they were indeed behind the attack against the White Clan, intending to take over the town. They would get the influence no doubt once they were healed.
The other competing adventurers' union also had a loss of manpower as their force was divided between the royals and White Clan. Facing more losses in the White clan's side, they were leaning against them, creating more instability.
Hunter sent news of the problem to White Clan asking for reinforcement.
He then requested an audience with Shadow to create a temporary alliance as to not be defeated by the royals. However, he was told Aile's unavailability and that he should return tomorrow. Giving him the illusion that Shadow did not care. The Sun Merchant Union had a better connection with the royal side, so he was not surprised. He was notified of some conflicts between them, so he was hoping to capitalize on that.
There was another contest in town which was to find out who will absorb the broken part of Hazel's adventurer union. Which resulted in another competition between the royals and White clan. While they were arguing, it was proclaimed that they were obtained by the Moon Merchant Hall. The group gave the excuse that they are already familiar with working with merchant unions. Therefore they made this choice.
This did calm down the tension. As the White clan made their first win of the day due to their alliance. A loss by Aile's Union and a gain by Moon Merchant Hall showed a reduction in the power from the royal's side and an increase in White clans side, restoring the balance by a little bit.
Although it was not a significant breakthrough for the White Clan, the small victory did improve their moral. After receiving this good news, Hunter showed up at the main building of Moon Merchant Hall and tried to find Aile again. Once again, he was told that the Boss is out of town for a meeting, and he will be back tomorrow night. However, his appearance and visit to the employee only area showed his affiliation and support to the Moon Merchant Hall.
Violet was also there, Hunter usually did not see Violet volunteer to go places with him. But seeing her this time made him curious about her action to follow him. However, she only looked at the employees of the hall for a bit, and then returned to her cold persona not being interested in anything. In fact, she was reacting much more detached now after Ellie left her. Hunter created an appointment tomorrow with the Boss of Moon Merchant Hall and then went back to White Clan's headquarter.
In the meantime, One, Two and Three had their own mission.