87 A naked girl on a moonlit night

A/N: Don't let the title give you false hope. It's not rated R18+ for a reason.

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[Aurora's POV]

She opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was the figure of a fully armored person.

From her horizontal position, with her face looking towards her right, she saw him sitting with his right hand on his curled-up right leg and the left hand lying down. His head was down and he sat still as if he was dozing off.

Blankly, and still feeling dazed, she stared at him for a little while, trying to make sense of who he was and why he was there… Why she was here.

It took her a moment to finally remember the knight in black armor and with that, the things that happened before she closed her eyes.

The horrid memories of long-spanning confinement, the mental torture, the realization of her situation then, the depression, and her losing of all hope, then one day her going berserk and at the same time, his arrival. The massacre that followed and the wails and gore. Everything hit her at once and she whimpered, and winced, but couldn't cry or call for her as her body refused to do so.

She lay there struggling mentally, yet her body lay still.

After what felt like an eternity of undefinable pain, she finally managed to get a hold of her body and after much struggle, pushed herself from her bed.

For whatever reason, her head suddenly felt light. As if something had just washed over her, making her forget about those horrid memories. It tried to softly paint her mind white. It tried to cover reality with a blanket and rendered her mentally blank.

Once again, she felt hazy, but she was in control of her body at least.

So, she stood up, wobbling and finding the exit of the place she was in. Apparently, it was a tent. She had been lying on a rather soft mattress on top of a stony dirt floor. The tent was lit up dimly by a small yellow magic stone which allowed her to take a glance outside of the tent which was otherwise covered with darkness.

There wasn't much to see inside other than the knight whom she had curiously already seemingly all forgotten. As if he hadn't been her first and foremost point of interest.

As she made her way out of the tent undisturbed by the forgotten figure in metal, she found… "something" lying close by, in the guise of the darkness where the tent's light didn't reach. Parts of it still seemed to shine a little, reflecting the dim yellow light coming from the tent, forming a very rough yet strange figure. It was hard to make sense of it, especially when she felt herself not fully accustomed to the darkness.

Curiously, she didn't feel any sense of unease or anxiety. As if the previous mental whitewashing was still in effect.

She couldn't make out its features and she didn't feel any moment from it. So instead, she focused her attention on the surroundings.

It didn't take her much effort to find the exit of what seemed like a cave.

As she made her way towards it, a gentle sound of water pouring down from somewhere in the background could now be heard in the otherwise quiet place.

'Where am I?'

She finally pulled herself together enough to ask, but the only one who could answer her question, she had ignored and moved past.

It was still difficult to stand— even more, to walk. But she still forced herself to get out and see where she was.

Slowly, she made her way out.

Unknown to her, the "something" she had moved past opened its eyes and its pitch-black eyes stared behind her back. But it didn't move or make a sound, not disturbing Aurora's walk in the darkness, towards the silver light of the night.

When she was close enough to what looked like the exit of this place, she finally noticed the silver light radiating the surroundings, even though it was admittedly still fairly dim where she was standing.

Wishing to reach it and more, she walked, barefoot, on the cold stone floor. Finally, she could make better sense of her surroundings.

It was a cave, a shallow one, where the tent inside which she woke up was erect. The outside of the dark cave was beautiful and picturesque scenery.

A small lake surrounded by dense trees and a naturally generated wall of stone covered a large portion of her vision, hiding the place she stood from outside of the small but serene open space she could see. Water lightly fell from the top of the stone wall, settling down and forming the lake in front of her. Above, the sky was littered with twinkling stars and a full moon shining almost silver.

It was indeed a scene that could move someone's heart if they stood to watch, but Aurora could feel no such thing.

Silently, she walked on the loose dirt outside the cave's entrance and before long she reached the small body of water.

Then, she leaned down and touched it. It felt cold and refreshing.

It barely reflected herself, though her face and torso were distorted by the ripples her touch had created.

Without realizing what she was doing, she dropped the cloth she was wearing, not noticing that her clothes weren't the rags she wore before. And soon after, she entered the clear lake, not fearing once if there was a possibility of a monster hidden inside it or around.

At that moment, her body was moving without her command, and her mind was a mere observer.

As she felt the cool and refreshing touch of the water, her hazy mind gained a minuscule amount of clarity and she was reminded of one thing.

It had been a very long time since she had taken a bath, especially one in such a fresh natural source of water.

Again, unknown to her, her body was in fact fully clean, with not an ounce of dirt or gore that she had accumulated before she had lost consciousness. If anything, she looked completely perfect.

And so, with that lack of knowledge, and because the water seemed to almost invite her in, she went inside. Before long, she was fully submerged. At that moment, when in fact she couldn't breathe for the time she spent inside, she felt not uncomfortable but supremely calm.

And it hid the tears that she shed silently without even herself realizing.

Then, sudden waves of deep depression and an even deeper hatred washed over her mind as she once again remembered the events from before, but she felt something making her mind hazy again, refusing to let her mind get swallowed by it.

At least mentally, she was at peace.

So then, why did she cry when her mind wasn't thinking about the painful past? Perhaps, while her mind was kept from thinking about it by some unknown force, her body still remembered. And so, it wailed on its own at the things that happened to her and the things she had done.

And so, while her tears reflexively shed and mixed in the clear water, she felt a sense of calm, even if it was forced on her.

[End of Aurora's POV]

***

"Neigh…"

I jerked into motion when Nebula shoved her head inside the tent and neighed, reminding me of Aurora's disappearance.

"Shhh. It's alright, girl. I know she's not here."

I replied to my familiar calmly, but I couldn't help but feel strange inside.

Truthfully, I was awake when she woke up and left. I pretended to be asleep to give her free reign over the situation and see what she does. Because I didn't want to force her to react or speak, in consideration of her possibly disarrayed mental state. I wanted her to take things at her own pace, hoping she would wake me up and ask questions.

I even half expected her to go berserk and attack. But her reaction wasn't quite what I expected.

'It's good to see she didn't try attacking me in my sleep or something. That means she's not in a bad mental state at least… but she just straight up ignored me and went out… Huh.'

Initially, I was unsure why she didn't try to wake me up... or, you know, even look in my direction. But it was obvious that it was due to her current mental state.

'Anyway, I should still keep a watch over her and not get distracted. Though the ring seemed to be keeping her mentality intact, I have a bad feeling about it still for some reason.'

My instinct told me she was still not out of the dangerous state.

To help her not lose her mind again, for the time being, I had given her one of my newly acquired rings, the Ring of the Old King. So she could resist the mental ailments better. Though it wasn't as helpful for her as necrotic status effects were slightly different than your usual negative mental status effects. They were unusually adhesive and destructive in nature and required specific means to disappear fully.

I had just the item to help with that.

'If she agrees, I can make her wear that necklace. It'll help a lot. But…'

Shaking my head and leaving that worry for later, I quickly made my way to the outside of the cave, where I had stopped to spend the night. The place was a fair distance away from the town I had rescued her from, her hometown.

Reaching outside, I looked around and I found her. Naked. Submerged underwater, her head barely visible on the surface.

'… Huh?'

Much to my surprise, she was taking a bath in the pond at this hour. Her clothes lay messily on the ground near the lake.

'Wait, the water should be cold as fuck at this hour. I need to get her out of it before she catches a cold. She really shouldn't be taking a bath this late.'

It was near autumn and at night, the surroundings became much colder.

As I made my way toward her, I finally saw her head come out of the water.

And then she stood still, half-submerged, with no regard for shame or awareness of my presence a little distance away from her. Fortunately, or unfortunately, her privates were hidden from my direct view as she faced away from me and her hair covered her back. Speaking of her hair, it was dark brown on the scalp and took a sharp change to a deep purple shade as it fell downwards, finally turning silver at the endpoints. A few strands with more silver than purple and a few with more purple than silver, giving her a rather peculiar triple-colored hair.

Interestingly, the purple and silver part was one of the effects of using and overusing her magic, respectively. Currently, it was just the endpoints but it would, in time, overtake the currently dominant purple and her hair would turn almost completely silver, with barely a hint of purple, if there was no interference.

For now, though, it just looked like a curious mix of fashionably dyed hair.

[I like her hair.]

Iris commented and I couldn't help but mentally nod as I walked closer.

'Me too.'

In the game, she once told one of her companions from the cult how her hair turned from a plain dark brown color to the almost silver she would have a few years later if she kept using her powers.

It was an insignificant detail, but for some reason, I was reminded of it when I looked at her beautiful hair.

Rather than approaching straight to her back, I moved towards the side, slightly curious as to why she was standing so still and also because I didn't want to surprise her by approaching her behind her back.

[You know. This can technically be called peeking.]

It was by no means an attempt at peeking at her privates, I swear! And Iris knew that. But she probably also knew the hidden excitement I was trying my best to suppress because it wasn't appropriate and I didn't want it to feel like what it was.

'Maybe I should visit the succubus café in the future after all. It's annoying to deal with this increased… vitality and desire.'

I had lost count of the times I felt a sudden rush down below and had to suppress it. The traits gained from my bloodline had grown in effect in the past few months as I gained more power and stats.

[Your increased stats will inevitably strengthen your traits and perks which work on your current base stats. You should definitely make a visit there. Fufu.]

'Yes. I will. Heh.'

There was another reason why I had to make a visit to that place, but it didn't need to be conveyed among us. But I had a clear plan and if I succeeded, I would have at least a dozen succubuses working under me. They won't be able to refuse me.

'Let's see how they like my vitality.'

[Oh, they'll likely go crazy for you. Just make sure to not let them tag you with their mark.]

'Hmm. But let's talk about that later. Right now, I need to deal with her.'

Finally, Aurora's face came into view and I could see her side profile.

***