Azel didn’t know what to say.
The words caught in his throat and he couldn’t say them no matter how hard he tried.
How do you just tell someone you care about that you’ve been sleeping with their mother?
The very thought made his stomach churn with dread.
It wasn’t just awkward... it felt like a nightmare in human form. It was too much.
"Don’t worry, I’m not mad," Naelia said, waving it off with a casual flick of her hand. "To be honest, I expected it. Mom reads a lot of romance novels, and Father barely gave her the time of day, so I guessed it would happen."
Azel blinked, stunned by her calm.
He was expecting anger, maybe a slap, but her nonchalance threw him off.
Naelia wasn’t thrilled too much... her tight smile betrayed that much but she couldn’t entirely blame him.
Her mother, Edna, was undeniably alluring, after all she was the wife of an Emperor and so she had a charm that could catch any man she wanted... at least most of the men.
Naelia suspected her mother had seduced Azel which didn’t seem to far off seeing how she looked at him in the castle.
"Err... we have a kid together... a girl." Azel said, there was no use hiding what would be shown later... He would just have to take it like a man he was.
The air seemed to freeze as he said it.
Naelia’s eyes widened and she took a deep breath.
A kid?
With her mother?
The sheer audacity of it hit like a punch.
Only after saying it did Azel understand how bad it really sounded.
He expected her to end anything they had right there, and he wouldn’t have blamed her.
"...Oh," Naelia said.
She took another deep breath.
"When can I meet my sister?"
’Eh?’ Azel thought with a confused expression.
Where was the shouting?
The slapping?
"Huh?" he managed.
"I meant when am I meeting my sister," Naelia repeated. "It’s my job as the big sister to take care of my little sister and keep her from lying men like you."
She turned and strode toward the lift, without waiting for Azel to reply.
She wanted to be angry... but she couldn’t bring herself to do it because why did she find it hot...
The fact that he already had a child with her mother... did he plan to do that to her too?
’I’m not as perverted as Mother... am I?’ she thought with a sigh.
She was in too deep for him.
Azel speechlessly followed to the lift and Ravik joined them with curious eyes.
...
"How does it go down?" Azel muttered, staring at the lift platform beneath his feet.
There were no visible levers, runes, or even buttons... it was just a flat metal surface held up by thick cables.
"I don’t know," Naelia admitted, tilting her head. "I used wind magic to fly up."
Azel sighed.
"Of course you did..."
Maybe they’d have to rely on the same method to get down.
It was less reasonable than destroying the whole thing.
Before he could say anything else, Captain Rhun stood on the wall just before the platform folding his arms proudly.
"Well, it’s actually pretty simple."
He stomped the floor once... hard.
The entire lift jolted before dropping at a terrifying speed.
Wind roared past their ears, and the ground rushed up to meet them in a blur of gray and brown.
"Don’t worry!" Rhun yelled cheerfully over the noise, "You won’t crash to the ground... hopefully!"
Azel blinked once. "What do you mean ’hopefully’?"
But his words were swallowed by the howling wind as they plummeted.
Naelia screamed and instinctively threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest.
"Overreacting much?" Azel asked.
This wasn’t much.
The rush of wind was pleasant to him.
"You can slow the descent with your wind magic, you know."
"I hate heights!" she yelled back, clutching him even tighter. "I only went up because I wanted to see you!"
He sighed. That was... actually kind of sweet.
Meanwhile, Ravik who was standing beside them was flailing both arms wildly as he screamed at the top of his lungs.
"We’re gonna die! We’re gonna dieee!"
Azel glanced sideways, completely deadpan. ’A werewolf afraid of heights. Wonderful.’
The platform kept falling for several long seconds before suddenly slowing down on its own.
The cables groaned, groaning as they absorbed the momentum, and the lift finally came to a smooth stop just a few meters above the ground.
It had stopped.
Naelia was still clinging to him, trembling a bit..
When she finally realized they had stopped, she pulled away, cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
"That... was awful. But don’t think I’ve forgiven you yet."
"You’re fine," Azel said, stepping off the platform and stretching. "Come on."
Ravik stumbled off next, completely pale.
He quickly fixed his hair and tried to look composed, but was failing at it... He looked anything but.
"The town looks pretty nice from down here," Ravik said after a moment, scanning the streets ahead.
Azel followed his gaze.
Karan Town was much livelier than he expected... You could tell by the way people moved around and how lively the streets were too.
It didn’t look like a "military town" at all.
’Strange,’ Azel thought, frowning slightly. ’You’d think a place like this would be crawling with soldiers.’
Maybe the name came from something else... maybe there were factories that made weapons, or the sheer number of guards stationed near the walls.
"Well, let’s g—" Azel began, but the words froze in his throat.
A sharp noise rang out.
Bang!
Bang!
An old man stumbled back into the street, clutching his chest as two young men towered over him with their weapons raised.
He hit the ground hard, blood splattering across the stones as one of the gunmen fired again.... two... three... more times.
The shots echoed across the street and immediately people scattered in all directions, the street was empty within minutes.
Azel’s eyes narrowed.
’What audacity...’
To shoot a man in broad daylight? Wasn’t that murder?
"It’s pretty normal around here." Naelia said while adjusting her hair, "He must have owed them money."
[Author’s Note]
Sigh I’m not doing too good, I feel sick... we might return to our regular updates tomorrow or the next, I’m tired.