The ring of teleportation–a tool that helped the hero’s party move easily throughout their known world. Without it, traveling would be a pain, but what would be worse was losing it to an enemy. Nothing of the kind had been made by anyone else yet, at least nobody that the party knew, not even the king’s men from a while ago, as they clearly were trying to make their journey back on foot. Thus, before offering it to another person, Raven needed to know.
"You’re going to be more loyal to me than you are to yourself," he said to the women, his hands still outstretched for them to take the rings.
Unsure why it meant so much to him, the women stared at him for a while until Jess eventually decided to ask.
"What does that mean, exactly? To be loyal to you..." The girl, just a year younger than Raven, was flustered by the thought, after all, to be loyal to a man that to more than herself, she knew what it meant, but she had to hear it from him first.
Instead of a direct answer, Raven moved his hand towards Rose, Brenna, Aerin, as well as Daine’s family, Tanya, Aura and Moxy, holding his hand at them, he urged them to speak out on what exactly it meant. One after the other, the women explained what it meant for them to be loyal to him.
Love and duty came up as the most important aspects of their loyalty. And to that, the women wondered if it meant joining Raven’s harem. Blushing at the thought, both Holly and Jess glanced at each other with a visible uncertainty held within their eyes.
"I...I don’t know what to say," the mother was the first to speak, and before Jess could say anything, Raven replied.
"Then let me drop you off at Eclanor, you’ll be safer there." Although the idea was tempting, none of the three wanted to leave. But staying came with the possibility of death, especially with someone as timid as Josare around, who could end up getting killed due to overreaction or anxiety.
"C-can we think about this?" Jess asked, her pointer finger pointing upwards.
"Sure, but we only have a few hours before Arche clears the forest. We are already having casualties, the horrors are finally showing their faces, and the last thing I want is for them to come here and hurt you guys or anyone else in here." Opening his fists again, Raven moved his hand forward. "With these rings, you can teleport back to your city’s inn in just a blink of an eye, so think carefully because we cannot spare even one soldier to take you back foot–that would be worse than suicide, traveling alone in that damned desert."
"Just take it," said Maine, breaking her silence after being quiet throughout the day.
Sparing her a glance, both the mother and daughter weighed the consequences of agreeing to the deal, but in the end, as it was their only way to be present and make sure that Frazer was okay, their hands reached for the rings, and they quickly wore them on their fingers without thinking of anything else.
’We’ll see what happens later.’ Was their train of thought, not realizing that being loyal to Raven also meant that they were now his women. But the time for them to find that out would come once the only remaining member of their family had been saved.
As for Raven himself, he turned his attention to the slime girl and, instead of waiting all day, he grabbed her hand and placed the ring on her finger by himself. Not struggling at all as she wanted the security of being able to teleport away, but couldn’t speak up from fear, Josare accepted her fate as it came. Securing them from possible deaths, Raven rose to his feet again and turned to his other women.
"Keep an eye on them, and if anything gets close to this tent, leave and don’t come back. I will come to look for you later, I swear."
Nodding back at him, the girls remained by the family and Josare while Raven turned to the exit and walked outside. As soon as he was out, however, he noticed Dandy standing by the tent with her back leaning against the cloth. Standing upright, the dark elf stood before him with her hands folded under her chest and a blank expression on her face.
"I thought you were an asshole when I first met you, at least that’s the impression that other dark elf gave when she came back to my shop."
"Came back?" Unaware that Aria had a talk with Dandy alone, Raven raised an eyebrow, not sure what she was talking about.
However, breezing past that topic, Dandy walked closer to him and got on her toes to match his face. Looking deep into his eyes, squinting, she tried to judge his character, but couldn’t tell much from a glance. Either way, having overheard his conversation with Frazer’s family, she leaned forward with her hands resting on his chest and planted a brief kiss as thanks for everything that he’d done to help them.
"Thanks for...everything, ’not-asshole’..." She said, her expression easing up a little.
"Hmm?" Touching the spot that she’d kissed, Raven stared at the elf with a confused look on his face. "Why do you care about them anyway?"
"I guess for the same reason that you do," shrugging her shoulders, she took a step back and smiled. "Because they’re nice people who deserve better than what they’ve gotten in their lives. Anyways..."
Stopping momentarily in her tracks, she moved her hands behind her back and said before disappearing into a cloud of mist.
"Keep impressing me, and maybe I will think about that elf’s offer, after all."
"What?" Raven muttered to himself, but as the elf was now gone, he had no way of knowing exactly what she was talking about. Thus, putting it at the back of his mind, he decided to focus on the last-minute preparations which were left before Arche finally clears a path, right up to that alleged nest of the demon general.
’A few hours more, and all of this will be over.’ He said to himself, but life...well, it doesn’t always go as planned.