CHAPTER 244(Happy & Free)

Please read the author's notes.

Discord: https://discord.gg/K7f8qGpvuk

pat.treon:/Keanu_Eugene

CHAPTER START---

"Mmm," Yang groans while rolling over in bed. Laying beneath his blanket he felt a new weight on the far side of his mattress.

Barely opening his eyes he rolls over to find two silver eyes staring up at him. At almost an hour past midnight, he could barely see Freya's outline about the slide under the blanket, long hair loose and draped behind her back. A loose shirt and a pair of shorts.

They both froze, his eyes widening as the image of exactly what he was seeing took time to process.

Freya was most unsure about exactly what would happen next.

Instead, the only response she got was a soft groan before he pulled her into bed, beneath the blanket, pressing her into his chest and draping an arm around her. Her body was still rigid, frozen, but she quickly relaxed into the warmth he provided.

Resting her head against his chest she closes her eyes and listens to his heartbeat.

His gentle words are the last things she hears before they both drift off to sleep, "together for all my lifetimes, starting now..."

---10 AM...

Hours later with the sun high above Yang stirs awake to once again see Freya staring at him. This time sitting against the backboard and stroking his hair.

Yang rolls onto his back and spreads out, enjoying the feeling of her soft fingers passing through his hair.

"Hephaestus told me everything," Freya says. "I went to see her before coming here, I...wasn't sure how you felt, if seeing me would make things worse. I'm sorry things didn't work out as you wanted."

"Are you really, or are you just saying that because you think it'll make me feel better?"

"The latter," she admits. "But I don't think me showing up with a cake, ready to celebrate the outcome would be a good way to continue our life together."

"Probably not," Yang says. "But honestly, I don't think I'd really care."

Freya stops playing with his hair and takes a closer look at him. Seeing his soul still fractured, but now a piece of it was missing. As if someone tore a moon-sized fragment out of a planet and it simply disappeared.

"You feel nothing?" She asks, sliding down on the bed to lay beside him, interlocking her fingers with his.

"I feel---" Yang thinks about it for a long minute, before a small smile spreads on his lips. "Free, I feel free, and I'm happy with how things went."

"After all of that suffering and fighting, you're...happy?" her tone was full of disbelief.

Yang chuckled and rolled onto his side, taking a closer look at her beautiful face.

"I guess part of me always knew that my life here would be better than going home, and that my parents would want me to stay here. But The Angel just, made my desire to go home so overpowering I couldn't accept it, so yeah. I feel happy with how things went, and I'm free to do whatever I want."

"No," Freya says. "WE, can do whatever WE want, together. So what does Yang Shen want to do now?"

Yang chuckles, "the most beautiful woman in the world is in my bed and I've just spent a few weeks in the dungeon...what do you think?" he gives her a wolfish grin.

Freya immediately pushes him onto his back and straddles him, placing both hands on his chest and leaning forward to give him a long breathtaking kiss.

"You always say I'm a handful," she says. "Sure you can handle me now?"

Yang groans and rolls his eyes as she takes off her top. "I get it, I've got one hand, will you be making these jokes all day?"

Freya giggles and tosses her top aside, "I've only prepared a handful..."

---3 PM...

Sitting on the floor of his living room Yang has a plate of scrambled eggs and toast on the coffee table in front of him. Beside it is a glass of orange juice and a stack of books.

Each book was black and leatherbound, enchanted so only members of The Trifecta, Tsubaki, or Hephaestus could open them.

Taking a bite of his bread and a mouthful of eggs he continues writing. Each of these books is marked with simple gold numbers along the spine and front cover. He was currently writing in a book labeled '103', labeled for the floor it contains information on.

Like all these other thick, textbook-sized journals. This had the map of the floor, monsters, and plant information, along with anything else an adventure may need.

Sitting behind Yang, Freya leans back on the couch with an adventure novel in one hand and a fork in the other. Eating from the plate of food on her lap, the same meal as Yang.

She glances over at him, carefully watching the muscles on his bare back move and flex as he hunches over the table. One arm, missing the hand, rests on the book to keep it steady, and the other rapidly scribbles away to fill it with notes.

Each book is worth more than a small fortune. Only The Trifecta has this information. And with the exceptions of Riveria, and Freya, both of whom have seen just how high the numbering on these books go, nobody outside of Hephaestus's executives even knows the dungeon goes beyond one hundred floors. Aside from Ouranos himself that is.

Freya finally puts enough pieces together, from the outside The Trifecta is an impossibility. No real proof to the public of their dungeon exploits without the grand events they've been a part of on the surface. Never making their expedition records public like Loki familia, a practice which garners fortune, fame, investors, and recruits.

Operating so deeply in the dark that not even she knows everything.

"What do you know?" she asks, curious but confident, sure that he had the answers.

Yang stops writing, moving to grab another book while he answers, "about what?" he grabs another book and begins writing again.

"The dungeon, the monsters, everything, anything?"

"Everything," he says casually, shrugging his shoulders, not even looking back at her.

"Ouranos is assumed to be the only person who knows, so he told you?" she sets down her book and gives him her full attention.

Yang laughs and looks back at her, "nope, I figured it out."

"You...figured it out?" she's stunned by his confession. "You just figured out the mystery of the world that no man nor god has ever come close to solving, really?"

"Really," he nods.

"And how are you so sure?"

"That's easy," he says. reaching back and taking a book labeled '100' and opening it. "When I figured it out, I was told never to tell any person or god, that means I was right," he hands her the open book.

"Floor one-hundred," she says while looking down at the book. "You're willing to let me read one of these journals now?"

"Doesn't really matter anyway, you'll never be able to solve the question even if I gave you all the clues, you're just blind to it, plus," he raises his hand and summons a single sheet of paper, resting it on the book.

"This is---"

"My Stat Sheet, I assume it's the first level-9 Stat Sheet you've ever seen. If we're gonna be in this for the rest of my life, you should know what you're dealing with," he turns back to his journal and continues writing.

While Yang is writing Freya's eyes widen to saucers and stare in a mix of horror and surprise at his Stat Sheet.

Her eyes shift from the page to the man sitting on the floor eating breakfast. Then back to the page.

Almost a dozen times she does this and it still doesn't add up.

'How can someone so powerful be so...inconspicuous,' she wonders.

"Are you sure you're only human?" she asks. "I know The Shard helped but still..."

"I'm only human babe, no spirit or demon blood, just human."

"Hmm," Freya quirks a brow at him, a curious thought forming in her head. "Do you think this is genetic, can the kids go beyond S in their stats?"

"No idea, and it'll be years before we find out," Yang says. "A lot of years."

"Tch, we'll see about that," she mutters.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" she sets the page aside and turns to the book he gave her. "Speaking of baby-making, have you spoken to Riveria, I'm sure she'd be happy to hear the good news."

Yang sighs, "you know, you've got a lot of work to do with Riveria after everything you put her through, maybe don't talk about her like a breeding tool, that's a good start. And she seemed excited when I not-so-subtly slipped it into my conversation with Finn."

Freya flattens her lips and looks away, "that's good, and good point, wives need to get along enough to at least not kill each other."

"Girlfriends, " Yang corrects her.

Freya laughs, she laughs so hard that she bends over holding her belly, "ahh, you're the one one who still thinks we're just your girlfriends, it's adorable."

Yang turns and gives her an unamused look. "Don't Riveria or I get a say in this?"

"Marriage is a ceremony performed in the name of a goddess of love," Freya points at her own face, "so no, you don't, and obviously Riveria would be on my side, the only thing stopping her from packing her things and living here is Loki and her commitment to training Lefiya."

Yang groans, "add this to the very long list of creepy things you've done..."

"Excuse me? I've never done anything of the sort to you?"

He raises his right hand and uses his fingers to count, "stalking, threats, trying to force Riveria into having my baby against her will, probably murder at some point, spying, the fact that I woke up and you were crawling into my bed this morning, really?"

Freya huffs and folds her arms under her chest, refusing to look at him, "I was being romantic, and it all turned out for the best anyway."

Yang sighs and returns to his work, "no wonder the dungeon couldn't kill me, I survived this long sleepy beside a psycho."

"I'm not crazy!"

"That's what they all say," Yang mutters.

"Mmm, if you must know, this morning I didn't break-in. You never changed the enchantments or even emptied my side of our closet, seems to me like you were hoping for this as well," she accuses.

"Yeah part of me probably was," he shrugs. Completely knocking the wind out of her sails, she was hoping to at least make him blush.

Freya sighs and leans back on the couch, setting aside the book and her now empty plate she looks out the large windows, seeing the wall around the city far in the distance.

"I never imagined I'd actually get here," she says. Moving to sit on the floor and rest her head on his back.

"Get where?"

"Here, happy with my Odr. Part of me just, gave up. I was miserable collecting unique souls for my familia and never finding love, but on some level I accepted it, and now we're here."

Yang chuckles, "and I never thought I'd be pulled into some magic world and marry a goddess and Elf Princess, but here we are, and we're all in this together."

Freya giggles and wraps her arms around him, pulling him to the floor with her, "yeah, together..."

---7 PM...

BANG!

Freya and Yang jolt awake, completely naked and skin covered in dry sweat on the floor of the living room. Clothes tossed aside they try to understand what's happening but can barely focus before Hephaestus appears before them.

"We have a prob!---" Hephaestus immediately turns away from the couple, eye wide and very startled at the state they were in. "This is the damn living room!" she yells.

"It's my place," Yang retorts as they get up.

Both he and Freya notice Hephaestus was only wearing a red robe with black trimming. In her messy state, her hair was undone and strands stuck to her skin -likely for the same reason Freya's did-, the loose form of her robe revealed small bruises along her arms and neck, and marks from a trail of rough kisses led up her legs.

Yang and Freya shared a knowing glance and smiled, 'Welf plays rough,' they both thought.

"What's going on sister?" Freya asks, trying to find her top.

Hephaestus folds her arms and keeps her back to the couple, "I sensed The Angel, it's awake and growing fast, and why wasn't your message ring out?!"

"Uh," Yang looks down at his missing prosthetic, "I'm so used to not needing it that it slipped my mind..."

"Meeting room. Five minutes. Both of you!" Hephaestus says before storming out.

Freya frowns and turns to Yang, "what did I do?" but only gets a shrug in response...

END CHAPTER---

The world is just better when Yang and Freya are happy together.