“And how’d you manage that?”

“Easily. All I had to do was make an arrayment that lets me see farther, and picks up on different temperatures. Living creatures tend to have different body temperatures than the environments they’re in, so…”

Nolan was genuinely impressed as he stared at her with a slightly slack jaw. She was intimidated by creatures that could hide their aura, so she just casually invented an internal-energy-oriented version of thermal goggles? It still wouldn’t be of much use against cold-blooded creatures, but it was an incredibly genius idea considering she could lend herself such vision, especially considering that her ordinary vision was so strong that she could make out many details about things that were many kilometers away from her.

“You’re something else, I swear.”

The laugh that came was a confident one. “I got the idea from you, actually.” She slid off of the tree stump and walked over to him, hugging one of his arms. “A while ago, you were drunkenly rambling about something called those special devices in your home world that allowed you guys to see things at nighttime, and ones that detect people based on their body temperatures. I found that especially interesting.”

“Apparently,” he grinned, enjoying the contact between them. “I’ve gotta say, I’m really impressed.”

“You say a lot of smart things when you’re drunk, you know.”

“Not nearly as much as the stupid things I say, I’d imagine.

She shrugged, giving him a look that lit a fire within his loins. “You said you made a little house to lay that Delia woman to rest in, right?” She motioned around at the splintered remnants of the mausoleum. “Could you reassemble it?”

“Why?”

“For privacy.”

Thinking of what happened with May earlier, Nolan felt conflicted.

“What is it?”

He cleared his throat and began drawing out a diagram to reconstruct the little building that he’d destroyed. “Nothing.”

Once it was reassembled, something caught his notice. “Huh. There’s a piece missing.” Nyla hadn’t let go of his arm, so Nolan pulled her along to look up at the middle area of the triangular pediment, where the epitaph he’d written had originally been. The wood that he’d carved out was missing. “I wonder what happened to it.”

“Does it matter?” she said, pulling him inside and sealing the door with a quick arrayment. She scattered some spirit stones around the room to light up the place, and then quickly pulled him in for a fierce session of kissing.

Feeling guilty the entire time, Nolan wanted to crawl into a hole. The conflicting part was that so did his Johnson.

“Ah,” he muttered, eventually pulling back. “Nyla, wait. We need to talk about something.”

She frowned, giving him an analyzing look. “And what is it that we need to talk about?”

Face heating up, his words came out a bit awkwardly. “Remember back in Hauss, when we were staying in that town and I brought up the idea of us two settling down together? You know, as a couple?”

“What of it?”

“Remember what your response was?”

“I do.”

“Do you…still feel the same way?”

She took her time thinking before providing him with a response. “Is this because of May?”

“Well, could you just answer the question?”

“If I say that I don’t, will it change anything?”

The excitable mood had completely died down, replaced with one that seemed a bit confrontational.

“Of course it will.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Let me ask you. Are you willing to give me at least fifty children?”

“Fifty…?” He didn’t even want one, let alone that many. After all, his mind was only twenty-two, and his body seventeen. Even if he were in his thirties, fifty children simply seemed like far too many. “Where’s this coming from?”

“I owe it to my family to do everything I can to recreate the Ravenwing Clan. There used to be over a hundred thousand of us, and now it’s just me. Even if I don’t want to, I’m obligated to do everything in my power to—”

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“I’m sure your parents wouldn’t want you to be the neighbourhood bicycle.” Seeing that she didn’t understand, he said, “Look. The fact that you’re alive and have made so many achievements at such a young age would probably be more than your family could have ever hoped for you. You can still revive your clan—we can still revive your clan. But you don’t have to be in such a rush to do it. Don’t forget that, even if we stop cultivating forever, we’ll still live for another few hundred years. The stronger we get, the longer we live. We have plenty of time to fulfill your obligations.”

“It’s not that I’m in any rush to do it,” she admitted. “If and when I start making the attempt, it’ll be after I’ve obtained all three inheritances that my ancestor left behind, and that could take years.” She seemed a bit exasperated. “Honestly, you act as if I’m speaking nonsense. What’s so weird about having multiple partners? My sister had three husbands, and all of my aunts had at least two. I don’t know how it was in your world, but here on Venara you can have as many lovers as you want as long as you’re capable of it.”

“Do you really want to be with other guys?”

“Well…no. I really don’t. But that’s not that point.”

Nolan was growing frustrated with the conversation. “Look, Nyla. I like you a lot, and not in just a friendship kind of way. You’re my best friend in this world, you have been since I first got here, and I would do anything for you.”

“You’d do anything, aside from accepting my decision?”

“It’s a crazy decision!”

“Nolan, it’s not even a for-sure thing. I have no idea where I’ll be in ten years, or what I’ll feel. For all we know, I’ll completely change my mind, and decide to settle with the guy I like most…” She tugged at his sleeve in a placating manner, not to pull him in but to convey her affection. “Maybe I’d think differently right now if you practiced what you preached.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think I’m blind?” She pointed to the eye that had briefly been enhanced with her ocular technique earlier. “You say these things to me, but it hasn’t been an hour since you were clinging to that vixen.”

“That’s why I started this conversation.” Seeing the jealousy in her eyes, Nolan felt a little humbled. “Look, I know I’m being a hypocrite here, but what am I supposed to do? As far as I know, I’m gonna have to share the girl I like with some randoms. Should I just accept that and ignore every other girl that promises to be with me and only me?”

“She said that?”

“Well, yeah.”

Nyla let out a conflicted sigh. “I get where you’re coming from, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I made an oath to myself after my clan was destroyed that I would rebuild it no matter what the cost. If I break that oath, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“Seriously, though. Fifty kids? All you need are like five. As long as they all find a partner and have five kids each, and those kids do the same, then in a century or so you’ll have hundreds of offspring.”

A bit of sadness seeped into her expression. “I just don’t want to let my family down. My parents, my siblings, my cousins, my friends…I’ve already let them down enough.”

By this point in the conversation, Nolan could tell that she had never been entirely serious about the idea of being a polygamist. She must have mentioned it as a joke back in Hauss, and now was clinging to the idea out of jealousy after having witnessed him and May kissing for a good deal of time. As far as he could tell, the entire conversation had developed in this way because she was simply jealous, else she would never have dragged him off to this place to seduce him.

Fuck sakes, why are girls so complicated? Just say what you feel, goddamn it. Hiding her true feelings, and then getting annoyed with him when he doesn’t read her mind?

Thinking of Hala, May and Nyla, Nolan had a premonition that he’d bitten off more than he could chew. Faced with Nyla’s saddened expression, however, he decided to shelve such thoughts until he had time to freak out in privacy.

“By surviving? That’s nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, you should be proud. Everyone you knew and loved, they still exist inside of you. You’re the only one that remembers them now, which means that you’re the only proof that they ever existed.” He pulled her into a tight hug, her head resting against his shoulders as she blinked a bit of moisture from her eyes. She rarely became emotional, so he decided to pat her head in a soothing manner as he continued to assure her that things weren’t as bad as she thought. “Whenever it is that you finally have kids, you can tell them stories about your family, and they’ll continue to live on in the memories of your descendants. That’s just a part of life.”

“You make a good point, Nolan.” She stepped back, collecting herself as she crossed her arms in a hug-yourself sort of way. “I’m sorry for causing you pointless stress. When I said that stuff back in Hauss, I wasn’t really serious. I just wanted you to leave me alone.”

“Leave you alone?”

She blushed a bit. “We were constantly sharing the same bed back then. Do you know how annoying it is to be groped and poked all night?”

“I…”

“You move a lot in your sleep,” she said, giving him a light, playful shrug. “Why do you think I always got up earlier than you?”

He suppressed an outward cringe. “Sorry about that.”

No wonder every time he’d woken up back then it had been to an empty bed.

“It’s not that I didn’t like it. Just, we were having life-and-death battles all the time back then, and I was hardly used to it. Having a lot on your mind in battle isn’t a good thing.”

“Hey, I get it.” Sensing that the storm had passed, he grabbed her hands and looked intently into her eyes. “So, you’ll only be with me then?”

“For the foreseeable future…”

He almost rolled his eyes. “Can’t you just say yes?”

She kissed him slowly, sensually, and said half-seriously, “Just quit while you’re ahead.”

Annoyed as he was at the ambiguity, it gave him a free pass to not feel so guilty about the other girls in his life. At least, that’s how he saw it.

“Good advice…”

She activated her ocular technique and considered the easternmost wall for a few moments. “May and Delia are at the top of the mountain, and everyone else is still busy with practice. Since that’s the case, shall we give this gloomy room a brighter purpose?”

What were those two doing together? No, more importantly…

“You can see through walls with that arrayment?”

“Why wouldn’t I add that function? I can even sense those two on the mountain because of their body heat, so it’s a pretty useful technique. I’ll teach it to you sometime.”

He let out a light chuckle. “Uncle Grey was right. You really are a prodigy.” He felt that if the spirit of the Ancestral Body Technique’s original owner were here—and indeed he was residing somewhere deep within Nolan’s psyche—then even that old master would appreciate Nyla’s talent.

“Compliment me more.”

What happened in the minutes that followed left them with no time to talk, however. Over the next half hour, Nolan did his very best to convince Nyla that he was the only man she needed, all without hardly speaking a word.