Preparing for the bath Avian brought everything they needed to clean themselves, keeping the small Dahlia by his side they walked to the bath and as they opened the door to the bath, they noticed the steam and hot water coming out, the bath already being prepared by the time they went to fetch the necessary items.

-W..WELCOME MASTER! Please come in!

-Huh…sure.

Avian replied, not sure how to reaction exactly as he saw a half-naked Gabriella standing inside the bath fully wrapped in a towel and a flushed red face looking incredibly embarrassed.

Avian couldn’t see the important parts, but he could see her exposed naval, arms and legs a few scars were visible here and there, but they did nothing to hide her solid and beautiful built that was on full display.

Seeing her like this an incredible contrast was created inside Avian as he always saw Gabriella as a serious no nonsense woman who only had fighting and revenge in mind for her noble lady, but seeing her like this now that imagine immediately shattered making him unsure how to view her anymore.

Avian didn’t even fully understand why she was here to begin with, he already guessed that she must have misunderstood something that he said earlier, but how she ended up with the current conclusion was beyond him.

Avian considered asking, but thinking about it, he started to think that this was more trouble than it was actually worth, Avian was not patient enough to humor his subordinates every misunderstanding, and besides he didn’t really care that she was here in the bath with him, but that didn’t mean his body didn’t care.

Even though Avian didn’t look like it, he had been with a lot of women in his time, not for romance per say as such things didn’t have a place in his life back then and even now really.

The reason he slept with women was mostly related to either business or venting his male urges.

As a man and most importantly as a human being, Avian couldn’t just go in life without feeling those things since he wasn’t a machine, so he sometimes purchased the services of special types of women to get rid of his urges, Avian had already lost count with how many women he had been and how often he did in a regular basis, but he hadn’t touched a women ever since he came to this world, mostly because he had far more important things to do such as studying his surroundings and understanding his situation and planning for the future ahead.

Those things kept his mind significantly busy, but they also accumulated a lot of stress which Avian usually solved through exquisite food and stress eating to relieve himself.

If it wasn’t for Avian keeping a very heavy workout regime he would have likely gained a lot of weight from the past few years, though actually he did gain a significant amount of weight because of that most of which had been turned into muscle.

Avian always could have used his money to hire the services of a woman in this world, but he never did as he thought his money to be too important at the moment to spend on fickle pleasures such as that, he was also heavily surrounded at the time and maybe even monitored which is why he couldn’t do those things even more.

Seeing the current Gabriella, a deep urge resurfaced itself, since Avian had also returned to his teenage body, his hormones were at full-throttle as well making him furrow his brows a little bit as he started to feel warm inside, Avian had always been controlling himself no matter where he was, even when he was at the slave market, seeing all kinds of exotic and beautiful women, he didn’t once think about buying a sex-slave as it simply didn’t benefit him in any way currently.

Of course since he only bought women as slaves, he could have always asked them to relieve his urges in bed since they couldn’t go against him with the [Slave Mark], but Avian didn’t as doing so could jeopardize their current relationship, he didn’t particularly care if they hated him, but it was always better to be liked then to be hated.

After all they were going to be an adventurer party from now on, people who entrusted their backs to each other as they fought, while Avian didn’t put his trust into anyone, it didn’t mean he didn’t want that trust as it could help them to grow stronger.

But then again there was also another option, which was to romance the person and turn them into a willing subject to go into bed with, this too had its complications, much more so as that would mean Avian had to take care of the relationship while juggling everything else at the same time, this by far was the most difficult as a relationship would mean a lot of things especially in the context of their party, Avian always took extremely great care to separate their professional life from their private life, it was through the experience of his elders that he knew that mixing these two was bad for business.

Avian told himself repeatedly that he shouldn’t fall into such pitfalls, but the rising heat in his chest and the way Gabriella stood so formally with only a flimsy towel wrapped around her while being red in the face put his hormonal body into extreme heat.

Gabriella wasn’t Dahlia after all, one was a fully adult woman while the other looked like a small child, Avian didn’t particularly have any preferences when it came to women, but he still preferred older women compared to younger girls.

This fact made him uncomfortable as he wasn’t sure whether or not he could really control himself and not do something bad, maybe staying in the bath with Gabriella wasn’t such a good thing after all.

-Master…master…?

Dahlia called out to him, momentarily awaking Avian from his thoughts as he realized he was staring hard at Gabriella the entire time while thinking.

Looking at her he saw how shaken Gabriella seemed as she was so red she could be mistaken for a tomato while her shoulders trembled and her eyes had small tears in them.

Gabriella had been enduring Avian’s had glare the entire time, even though Gabriella had fought fearsome monsters and strong knights, she never witnessed a glare like that, Gabriella had felt helpless a lot in her time, but she never felt as helpless as she felt today, in a sense it made her intimately aware that she was in the end a woman and not just a [Knight], the fact that her own master was looking at her that way only reinforced this thought, she couldn’t even look straight at him anymore as her heart would feel as if it was about to jump out of her throat whenever she looked at her master.

Looking away, she thought things would be fine, but as soon as she did that, loads of other things invaded her, one of them being stories of female [Knights] just like her who all usually ended up marrying the master they served so they could protect him even better or become quote on “One” everyone night.

At that point she didn’t even know whether the steam in the bath was hers or the water’s, but Gabriella started to realize that her being the bath with her master was starting to be a bad idea.

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It wasn’t that she was running away or anything!

Gabriella just thought a tactical retreat would be for the best!

-I…I…I am sorry! Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all! Please excuse me!

And with that Gabriella quickly started to walk towards the exit of the bath, Avian was about to let her go, but seeing her walk, a type of carnal instinct momentarily took him by surprise as his hand reached towards her grabbing her arm stopping her in place.

-HYAAA!

Gabriella screamed, even Avian couldn’t help but admit that it was quite a cute scream, but he also realized that he made a terrible mistake for being caught off guard by his desires, unfortunately by the time he realized it, it was already too late as Gabriella stopped and they both looked at each other’s eyes.

Avian repeatedly told himself to not make a mistake, but unfortunately his body wouldn’t listen. Gabriella too had no power resist, ever since she came her she felt as if all her strength was siphoned away at a constant rate and now with her master holding her, she couldn’t move even an each as they locked gazes.

-(Actually…maybe this isn’t so bad after all, I…I don’t care anymore, whatever happens, happens, he is my master and as his [Knight] it is my duty to do anything he says…even if…)

Being in such a close proximity and touch, Gabriella’s brain quickly started to fry as she no longer could care anymore.

Avian deeply thought about his next words to make this situation better, but seeing how Gabriella suddenly turned dazed while looking into his eyes, he felt that everything was already too late.

-Stay, I’d like you to stay.

-Ye..Yeshh…mashter….

Gabriella said, her voice slurred, but neither of them really noticed as Avian started to take off his clothes while Gabriella absentmindedly returned to the bath and sat inside not avoiding her master’s changing figure.

A deep steamy silence came to be while the only person who didn’t seem to be involved in this Dahlia felt confused as she had no idea what just happened, in her mind, she simply thought that Avian and Gabriella were becoming better friends.

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-Ah…

-Keep still, I am sorry if it hurts, but I need to clean it.

-Ah…yes.

Dahlia said, naked as she sat on Avian’s laps who was also naked with a towel wrapped around his waist.

With her body exposed you could see all the scars and burns on her body that she had sustained all these years covering her body like a spider web the details which Avian didn’t want to even think about as even her toe nails weren’t spared clearly been ripped from her feet, the amount of damage was astonishing to say the least, so astonishing that it was surprising she was still alive without too many health problems other than her significant mental scarring showing that her body was extremely resilient since she had died.

Dahlia had also taken off her blindfold, revealing her eyes for the first time as Avian finally saw what her entire face looked like.

And to be completely honest, Dahlia looked much better with her blindfold as the grizzly scene hidden behind the blindfold was best left hidden as it revealed a grotesque scarred wound on both of her eyes.

At first Dahlia was extremely hesitant removing her blindfold while bathing, she had thought that she could have kept her blindfold while bathing, but Avian explained that it wasn’t hygienic, Dahlia didn’t want to, but Avian assured her that everything was fine and that she was safe.

Avian’s comforting words and his assuring voice reached Dahlia as she gave into removing her blindfold, Avian’s expression and neither his thoughts didn’t change one bit when he saw that state of her eyes, but Gabriella wasn’t the same as she instantly cooled from her heated state as soon as she saw Dahlia’s eyes and how horrible It was.

A good way to describe Dahlia’s eyes was to imagine 2 dark pits in place of a normal person’s eyes, of course Dahlia didn’t literally have 2 big pits for eyes, her eyes were actually shut with her eyelids, but it was clear that there was nothing inside those eyelids as the scarring that went into all directions proved that her eyeballs had literally been scooped out with an extremely rough instrument of some sort that left those scars behind.

It made Gabriella feel cold from the sheer horror it must have been not just the damage on her body, while also soon making her feel hotter than a star from sheer anger as she couldn’t imagine what kind of monster could do something like this, if not an actually monster, which was not very likely considering Dahlia was still alive by the blessing of her resilience and likely kept that way by whoever did this to her.

The only saving grace and comfort she felt was when Avian told Gabriella that whoever did this to Dahlia likely wasn’t alive anymore considering the tribe she came from and likely culprit had been mostly annihilated by a previous monster horde.

This is as much as Avian said about Dahlia while whispering so Dahlia wouldn’t hear as he wanted to completely avoid any topic regarding her past so she wouldn’t be forced to remember painful memories.

Gabriella understood that keeping her mouth shut, Dahlia too didn’t speak much while Avian washed and cleaned her body, but it looked like she was actually enjoying it a lot as a faint smile could be seen on her face that didn’t smile often.

-Okay, we’re done, let’s go and start soaking in the tub.

-Okay…

Saying as such, Avian princess carried Dahlia into his arms before walking to the tub where Gabriella sat and gently sitting down with Dahlia in his arms.

Dahlia was quite sensitive to the heat and shivered a bit the moment she submerged her body in the hot waters, but quickly enough, her mind started to melt with the hot water as she felt incredible type of relaxation she had never felt before, including Avian, she felt like she was in heaven getting surrounded by all sorts of warmth.

Unbeknownst to her she was making exactly the kind of expression one would assume someone who was in ecstasy was, making both Gabriella and Avian smile for a second as they watched Dahlia sink into happiness while also slightly feeling sad for her as this was likely the first time she experienced something like this.

It was because of Dahlia that both Avian and Gabriella momentarily forgot they were sharing a bath together half-naked, Avian too had something to talk about as he thought this was a good time then any to speak with Dahlia when she was the most relaxed.

-Dahlia, do you know what blessings are?

-Blessings?

Dahlia asked, clearly not knowing anything about blessings which was the common sense of this world showcasing that she was likely never taught close to anything in her life as she was kept captive and tortured almost every day.

The fact that she could speak at all was quite a miracle, but even then Avian noticed how she clearly didn’t know a lot of words either, but he wasn’t discouraged as he planned to teach her as much as he could in time while patiently explaining the common sense of this world to her, even though he was a complete outsider himself.

Talking to her, he gave her a very basic and easy to understand rundown of what blessings were and what they did, since Hilton knew what her blessing was, he clearly had used the Divine Orb on her meaning that Dahlia should be able to access her own information easily which he taught her how to do.

-It says…my…blessing is the [Shaman], I have 3 abilities [Meditate], [Spiritual Sense] and [Spirit Contract].

Dahlia explained, with much difficulty explaining what each of her abilities did as she spoke.

[Meditate] could be skipped as it was the basic ability all magic users got to increase their mana pool, [Spiritual Sense], was similar to Avian’s [Blood Sense] ability, but instead of sensing anything that had blood, Dahlia was capable of sensing anything that had a” Spirit” or “Spiritual Power”.

This was one thing neither Gabriella nor Avian could completely understand as Dahlia wasn’t able to convey it very well with her limited speech, but they basically understood that Dahlia had the ability to see things others couldn’t, when asked if she could see Avian or Gabriella with this ability, Dahlia replied yes as she could see their basic outline which made them think that maybe it was magic power she could see specifically, but when she said that she could also see the outline of rocks, trees and other things, their theory completely went out of the window as it couldn’t be exactly mana that she was seeing.

One odd thing was that Dahlia seemed to be unable to see the outline of manufactured or man-made objects as in her words those things didn’t possess a “Spirit”, only confusing Avian and Gabriella more as they didn’t understand what things counted as having a spirit and what didn’t.

Either way this ability wasn’t that important, what was important though was her third and final ability [Spirit Contract].

Why was it important?

Because it was the one ability she could use to actually cast spells!

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