Chapter 587: Sleep
"Wait, what? The manor back in Grimholt was destroyed?" Esme asked with a gloomy expression.
Elion bit his lip lightly and crossed his arms, taking his seat among them once again.
"Unfortunately..."
He had just finished recounting his adventures during the bloodline trials, and, of course, the conversation had eventually led here.
"Yeah. There’s pretty much nothing left of it."
Esme’s shoulders visibly slumped.
"That’s... unfortunate."
Elion nodded solemnly.
Ophelia frowned as well. They hadn’t owned the place for very long, but it had still been something they had bought specifically for Elion.
The financial part of it didn’t really bother her; their little cohort of succubi could be said to be drowning in gold, between the four of them at least.
Veyra and Miranda, perhaps not so much.
Elion assumed that Esme must have briefly explained what had happened for him to leave the academy, so he had left that part out of his explanation.
However, he still briefly explained the ongoing feud with the Dawncrest Duchal Family, and in turn, the fact that they were currently travelling to Haven to settle things.
Ophelia put on a thoughtful expression.
"So, what do you intend to do with this Dawncrest?"
Elion shrugged.
"Regardless of how things go with the trial in Haven, he is a dead man already. And William too."
His expression remained calm.
"If, for some reason, things end up going against us, simply leaving will be quite easy. I’ve been told that Dawncrest will be looking to band together with his allies for support and use them to help justify his actions, or at least curb the damage."
Elion leaned back slightly.
"So, assuming those responsible for the trial don’t want to see reason and end up acting as foolishly as those elders back at the academy did, well..."
His eyes narrowed.
"I’m going to take matters into my own hands from there."
’Well, Zenith will do the honours, of course...’
"Other than that, I also have the support of the vampires with regard to the matter..."
"And, if I may ask, how exactly do you have the support of the vampires?" Jaeneva asked with a raised brow.
With a proud smile, Elion explained his relationship with Celeste, as well as the fact that she was carrying his child.
A brief, stunned silence followed.
The six succubi stared at him with varying ranges of shock.
Ophelia was the first to break the silence, chuckling softly.
"As expected of you, Elion... You won’t even let royals escape your clutches."
Elion could only smile and shrug.
"Anyway, I’m hoping that maybe that will deter them a bit. After all, I wouldn’t want the entire kingdom becoming my enemy just because I disobeyed a royal order."
If he could help it, Elion had decided that he would rather settle things properly before quietly getting rid of the Dawncrest family, of course.
Whatever speculation went around after that... Well, it would only be speculation.
"Talk about me aside, what about you guys...? Was it wise to simply leave your lives behind like that?" Elion asked. "Ophelia told me about the brothel you owned, and judging from what that dragon said before we left... Is it simply going to be closed down?"
Jaeneva shook her head.
"There are a few people I trust. They should keep things running, at least for now. The brothel was quite popular, so I don’t think Jammud will let it close down that easily either. That way, if we do return one day, it will go back to being business as usual."
She sighed.
"Though it will probably see a massive drop in customers and revenue without us there. We weren’t actually courtesans, but some of the more high-profile customers would pay generously just for a cup of tea in a private room with one of us."
Elion nodded thoughtfully.
"And the dragon I killed... Won’t his kin come looking for revenge or something? I hope that won’t cause problems for your people."
Veyra shook her head this time.
"That was our problem to begin with... And that’s very unlikely. Dragons view these things quite differently from the other races. If one of their own is killed in battle or during a feud, they usually just wave it off. Most would simply say they died because of their own weakness."
She paused.
"There are exceptions, of course..."
Her gaze shifted toward Elion.
"Though I should mention, they place quite a great deal of importance on recovering the bodies of their dead kin."
Elion couldn’t help but smile wryly.
"Well, that certainly makes things a bit complicated," he said out loud.
Hadn’t he just devoured Vel’dranor’s body, leaving absolutely nothing behind?
There was no body to return.
"Do you think his kin will cause trouble because of that?"
"Hard to say. Like I said, dragons generally don’t seek revenge simply because someone lost a battle. Death through strength is a natural part of our culture. But their bodies are different," Veyra continued.
"Dragon corpses are incredibly valuable. Scales, bones, blood, horns, organs... almost every part of a dragon can be used for something. They are treated as an extraordinarily rare resource in most parts of the world."
Elion nodded.
That much he could understand; he already knew about using bones as crafting material.
"And that’s exactly why they don’t like outsiders keeping them," Veyra added. "To dragons, allowing another race to carve apart one of their kin and turn their remains into weapons and artefacts is..." She tilted her head, searching for the right words. "Humiliating, I suppose."
"That explains why that guy wanted me to leave the body."
Hadn’t the man seen him destroy the body, or did he assume Elion had simply hidden it somewhere?
"But he also probably didn’t want to be the one explaining why a royal-blooded Greater Dragon died in his city and then mysteriously disappeared. The matter will depend on if any of his kin do come looking for his body, which I’m willing to bet his brother eventually will, sooner or later. They were a bit close..."
Elion rubbed his forehead.
"Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now." He sighed deeply.
How could he have known about some unspoken rule about dragons’ bodies being sacred beforehand?
Devour had already done the deed, and it seemed he would have to face a few problems in the future because of that...
"So..." Miranda began, a particularly excited smile spreading across her face. "Now that we’re here, how are we going to go about our breeding sessions?"
The sudden change in topic caught Elion completely off guard.
He slowly lowered the hand he had been rubbing his forehead with.
"...What?"
Miranda blinked innocently.
"Our breeding sessions, you knocked up two of my sisters already. I take it you were not simply in a rush; the two of them must have jumped at the first opportunity they got?"
"You really couldn’t have eased into that topic?" Ophelia asked...
"Why would I?" Miranda asked, genuinely confused.
Elion stared at her.
Veyra immediately perked up beside her.
"Oh! I was wondering about that too."
Elion massaged the bridge of his nose.
"Why the hurry? We have all the time in the world."
Honestly, right now, he just wanted to sleep.
Elion hadn’t slept in a long time, and he didn’t need to do so nearly as often as he used to, but that wasn’t the problem he was currently facing.
Using that flame ability had taken more out of him than he had initially thought, more than just his mana.
His head felt awfully heavy, and so did his eyelids.
His mana was recovering quite rapidly, already almost recovered halfway... But the throbbing ache in his head kept coming back now and then.
Miranda seemed to notice his exhaustion only then, her excited expression softening slightly.
"Are you tired?"
"A little," Elion admitted, leaning farther back into his seat. "Those flames took quite a lot out of me to maintain."
Ophelia’s brows immediately furrowed.
"Then you should have said something earlier."
"It’s nothing serious."
Zenith came forward just then, seemingly taking that as her cue that she was being summoned.
"I can heal you..."
Elion nodded.
"Thanks..."
She placed a hand against his head, and a gentle warmth began to trickle through him. He certainly felt warm, but even after a few seconds passed, he didn’t really feel any better.
[Mental exhaustion suspected. Healing won’t work...]
[You should be fine after a good night’s rest, Host.]
’Well, I guess that’s that...’
He had suspected the same thing as well.
Elion gently pulled Zenith’s hand away from his head, but even she was frowning, having realised that her healing attribute wasn’t working as intended.
Elion shook his head.
"Looks like that won’t work. I’m going to need to rest normally for once, I guess."
"In that case..."
Ophelia beckoned for him to come to her, adjusting her position more comfortably in her seat before patting her thighs.
Elion smiled, immediately understanding her intentions, and got up without complaining.
Sleeping within the comfort of Ophelia’s motherly thighs?
’Hell yeah!’
The other succubi beside Ophelia moved away, giving Elion enough room to lie down comfortably across the couch.
A moment later, he was resting on his back, his head absolutely comfortable against the plush lap pillow, despite the throbbing.
"Now this is the life..." Elion sighed in satisfaction, closing his eyes.
He waved lightly toward the others.
"Welp, you ladies have fun..."
Isla and Zenith had already introduced themselves, but as usual, Isla was being awfully shy around the new faces.
In that regard, Elion suddenly got a weird sense of déjà vu.
Events were lining up to be eerily similar to that time after he had just returned from the trials.
’Hopefully, things will be a little less chaotic this time...’
With that final thought, he felt his consciousness gradually slipping away, allowing every one of his senses to shut down completely for once.
It didn’t take long before he was fast asleep.