Chapter 219 - Reyna Barther(1/3)

As there wasn't much of a road separating the Twilight Manor from his home, Ethan took a few minutes to get there, but not having seen any Loki familia members re-enter on the road, he was pretty sure that Ais wasn't here yet.

Passing through the undisturbed gate, Ethan walked slowly towards the house and before he could even make his presence known, the front door was already open, revealing Glenda with a smile on her face.

"Welcome back, Master.."

Ethan was surprised by that. After all, he wouldn't have expected Glenda to be able to detect him, but before he could add anything else, she was the first to explain.

"I was able to sense your presence from the moment you arrived outside the gate, I think Master became much stronger in a short amount of time, and it seems to have also affected my ability to locate you"

No, it wasn't the connection between the two that suddenly strengthened as she thought, it was as if something had been released into Ethan, as if there were chains before to block his power and all of a sudden this power was released.

'...an Explanation?'

Ethan glared at Níðhöggr, It would make sense if it was Maple who pointed out that he had become stronger. From what he understood, only people who had a spiritual contract with him had the advantage of recognizing his strength even though he hid it, because spiritual contracts were fundamentally more important than normal ones, but Glenda had a normal mana contract, and that didn't explain how she was able to feel the change in strength in Ethan.

'Strange. This girl doesn't share any form of spiritual contract with you, and although there is no trace of actually active spiritual energy flowing in her body, she still managed to perceive it.'

Even Níðhöggr had never heard of such a thing, generally those who haven't yet unlocked their spiritual energy, had no way of perceiving that of others, but if she was the first possible case, Níðhöggr couldn't help but think that Glenda had an unusual talent for spiritual energy.

'...Master, It is better to teach her as much as possible about spiritual energy. I am convinced she will prove to be a rather useful tool in the future.'

Ethan understood from the explanation that Glenda would be 'useful' in the future, but for now he decided to leave it alone. Not only was it not the time for other explanations, Ethan felt a bit tired at a mental level, So he chose after conversing with Reyna, given the welcome back to Ais and served dinner, that it was better to take the rest of the night to relax, since he felt like it was a good bit of time that he did not take a moment to rest.

Sighing to erase these thoughts for the moment, Ethan smiled at her.

"I see. How did it go with Reyna, Is she a little more used to the house?"

Ethan wasn't only curious, but also a little concerned. Occasions where the house would be totally empty were certainly be rare, so he would like to help her a little, now that he finally had the opportunity since no one else seemed to be at home except Maple.

"Before that, Master..."

She hadn't yet asked questions, but now that her Master was practically at the entrance of the house, Glenda could not stop asking why Ethan had what appeared to be a snake about four feet long, with various scales of a dark green colour in a mixture of black on his shoulders, although Níðhöggr had masked its attribute, its appearance was still disturbing to the eye.

Noticing what she was looking at, Ethan didn't hesitate to explain that, like Maple, Níðhöggr was a kind of animal he had found in the True Dungeon, and had a contract where he had already ordered the latter not to attack anyone if it wasn't attacked first, which reassured Glenda, knowing how heavily his orders affected on someone's own will.

Upon entering the house, Ethan first asked what Reyna was taking care of, and he learnt that she was devoting herself to cleaning the various rooms, while instead she was cleaning the areas like the kitchen. Maple instead, maybe because she didn't want to interfere with their 'job' or maybe because she just wanted to be in that same place she was used to, was laid on the couch near the kitchen.

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He allowed Níðhöggr to remain on his shoulders since he didn't want it to go around alone, at least until the others had become aware of the snake itself. Ethan was afraid that someone like Ais would undoubtedly try to attack it, and to avoid these unpleasant situations, he chose to let it be.

Ethan believed that talking to Reyna wouldn't bring many results, it had been too little time since she had formally become his subordinate, but they have never spoken seriously since then, and he was afraid it would be too late if he didn't take any actions. He was also intrigued that there had been a time when her loyalty to him had increased greatly.

'I have no idea why, but I'm here to find out more.'

Using their contract as a means to recognize her approximate whereabouts, Ethan found himself in front of what used to be Lefiya's room.

'If she's cleaning this room, it means she's cleaned the rest of the house.'

On second thought, Lefiya had always been in his room, whether it was with Ais or alone, so he could say that her room was the cleanest in the house.

But leaving aside these details, Ethan entered the room closing the door behind him, and that was enough to make Reyna turn around with a questioning gaze, but as soon as she saw Ethan, she immediately turned, cleaning as if she had never seen him in the first place.

'... I was wrong, this is even more exaggerated than Lefiya'

But even if that was true, he certainly wouldn't have stopped. He wanted to find out more, and at this point he didn't know if he would have another chance to melt the ice between them.

"Can I talk to you for a bit?"

Reyna felt so aware that she and Ethan were in the same room that she hadn't even noticed Níðhöggr, but when he said these words, she nodded. Although she was essentially very shy, and above all she was afraid to make mistakes because of her traumas, as Ethan was curious about her, she was also curious. She wanted to know what pain he felt, and how he managed not to turn it into a trauma that would mark his life forever. Both had something they wanted to achieve, the only difficulty was to eliminate this embarrassment and insecurity, and even Reyna didn't know how to do it.

"Y-Yes..."

She was trying not to look him in the eye, but to not seem too rude, she had turned again to 'face him', and this time she found herself looking at the height of his neck, finally noticing Níðhöggr.

Seeing where her gaze had set, Ethan was ready to calm her down by explaining why he had such a frightening snake on his shoulders, but her reaction surprised him, in fact the stress and embarrassment of Reyna seemed almost to ease, and she casually asked if it was a new animal of his or even it was an intelligent life form that couldn't speak their language. Ethan didn't answer for a moment, but realizing that Níðhöggr could be of great help in order to calm her down, Ethan told her that yes Níðhöggr was smart, but he wouldn't attack her and that if she wanted she could also try to keep it on her shoulders, Of course, he warned Níðhöggr not to attack her under any circ.u.mstances, even if she accidentally showed hostility, he knew that simple order was too easy to circ.u.mnavigate.

Even more surprised, Ethan saw Reyna nodding, and she had no hesitation in taking it in her arms. He understood that her character was nothing more than the result of all the abuses suffered. To see her as a weak girl was fundamentally wrong, as she wasn't only good at fighting, but she was not completely clumsy as any person had her as a subordinate before him thought.

'The only problem is there's no real way to stop them. Even going against my words and trying to get Orario under my command and taking control of all contracts of 'slaves' whether illegal or not, it would still not be enough to make Reyna feel at peace with herself. The only thing I can really do is show her how wrong those people were, huh...'

No. There was another way. Just as at Glenda, Ethan could with the help of Níðhöggr, train Reyna in perceiving the spiritual energy, so that she could become essentially strong, strong enough to be of help to him too, something that was sure Reyna needed to feel, to feel really useful to someone.

"... Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?"

Sitting on the bed with the snake in her hands, Reyna was clearly using the latter to distract herself from her embarrassment, and although it wasn't a complete change, she felt less embarrassed anyway, Instead of looking away, she was busy looking at something else.

"Actually, yes. To be honest, I'd like to try and have a conversation with you. I don't know anything about your past yet, and I'm not going to ask you to talk to me about it right now, but I want you to know that you don't have to be afraid to approach me. If something goes wrong just talk about it, I could never hurt a subordinate of mine."

That's what he wanted her to know. He would never touch Reyna without her permission, and he certainly didn't want to look like he already knew everything she'd been through. He had no idea what she had really been through, so instead of pretending to understand, Ethan decided to tell her that he was at her disposal if she wanted to talk about it. Although she was the subordinate, as a Master this is the least he could do, or at least according to his perspective.

Reyna was surprised, although she understood what kind of person Ethan was, she certainly wouldn't have expected him to put it that way, and heard that essentially Reyna could ask him anything he wanted, as if he were stronger than she was, Reyna let loose a question she didn't know if she really should have asked.

"..Then, can you tell me.. how did you find Maple? When you mentioned the topic last time you seemed pretty lost in the void..."

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(I have a discord server. discord.gg/cpVr5X8. You may ask me: "Why should I enter the server?". Well, I'm replying to every interesting question you readers are asking in my chapters, so, you should absolutely enter if you want to read my answers. Ah, and you can find some image reference of items in the story such as Light..! (Soon even Qienta).. so it's recommended to join, I frequently post polls as well, regarding things that(most likely) will be present in the story. One last thing, I post chapter updates in my discord right after I posted on , so I guess you can join to be able to know when I post chapters faster.)

(Poll going on in the discord: Vote what you think is better. I only want to introduce one of these three, the ones with most votes when I feel like it wins. - Light being able to interact with the real world. - Qienta shows up before planned. - More power ups than planned for the girls and Ethan himself.)

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(Alternate Titles: "So, how can Glenda feel Ethan's powers?", "The fact everyone will be scared of Níðhöggr for its appearance is sad, y'all shouldn't discriminate....", "Níðhöggr is a new toy for Reyna, that's created only for that purpose btw")