Endless Path : Infinite Cosmos
chapter-174

After awakening in the real world, Vahn got out of the bed and made his towards the door. Opening it, he came face to face with Tina who had been waiting for him patiently. The moment he saw the cute little girl, he couldn't help but pat her on the head with a bit of affection. Though it had only been a few seconds for her, it had been three days since Vahn had seen her last. He was beginning to realize how peculiar it was to transition between the two different worlds.

Tina didn't know what Vahn was being so affectionate, but she just closed her eyes with a subtle frown as she resisted mewling out due to the pleasant sensation. Vahn then made his way to the dining room and relaxed with the boys while all the girls took their bath. After Tina had shown up, the children were quickly beginning to open up more and more. It had only been a day since her arrival, but they were already making an effort to be more open with him, so Vahn was very pleased. He asked about what each of them was studying and offered a bit of advice on the subjects that he understood.

Once the girls had finished their bath, Vahn and the other boys entered for a couple of minutes before leaving and preparing for an early dinner. Unlike the previous days, the girls had started preparing the meal using ingredients that had been stocked in the kitchen. Tine had convinced Anubis and the other girls that it wasn't appropriate to rely on Vahn to bring fully prepared food home for each meal. Since she had helped her mother when cooking for the Inn patrons, Tina was actually relatively skilled when it came to cooking the basics.

Though it wasn't nearly as delicious as the normal food Vahn ate, he actually preferred the meals that had been cooked by the people he cared about. After the meal was finished and everyone cleaned up, Vahn made sure to give heavy compliments to the young cat girl. In response to his words, Tina's tail flicked up around slightly and Vahn couldn't help but notice it was a distinctly different motion than when chienthropes were happy. It seemed that cat people tails 'flickered' while chienthrope tails 'wagged' or spun around when they were excited.

After dinner, everyone idled around and Vahn even attended the lesson of Anubis and Tina before parting ways with the rest of the children when it came time for bed. Vahn gave his evening pats to Anubis and Nanu before retiring to his room with Tina in tow. She was significantly more comfortable than the previous night, but Vahn noticed she was still overly cautious of the change in her living conditions.

Without being told, Vahn had already turned his back to her as he began preparing for bed on his own. Tina stared at him for a few seconds before changing into a cream-colored nightgown of a similar design as her light-blue one. She then waited for Vahn to climb into bed before she crawled under the covers before appearing next to his side with a somewhat bashful and happy expression on her face. Vahn smiled and pet her ears for a little bit as he allowed her to use his shoulder as a pillow.

Since she had been in high-tensions all day from interacting with the other children, Tina fell asleep very quickly and curled up into a ball next to Vahn while holding on to the edge of his loose shirt with her small hands. Vahn gave her a kiss on the forehead before he too fell asleep after reminiscing about the day's events. He still couldn't easily wrap his head around essentially spending an entire week of time for every day that passed. It felt like his meeting with Chloe and their promise was several days ago, when it had, in fact, happened only about seven hours prior.

Vahn awoke a few minutes before it was time to re-enter the orb, and he noticed that Tina had been sticking to him more than when she fell asleep. He helped fix her posture and pulled down her nightgown which had been riding up her stomach yet again. After patting her on the head, he relaxed his body and pulled out the orb in order to meet with Eva as punctually as he was able.

Learning from past experiences, the moment Vahn entered the orb, he unequipped his tunic mere milliseconds before Eva pounced on his body. They kissed and cuddled for nearly two hours as she drew his blood and 'enjoyed his warmth' as she put it. Vahn was quickly falling into the new routine he had established inside the orb and spent about 70% of his time forging while investing the remaining 30% in resting and tending to Eva's needs. She had remembered his parting blow from last time and made sure to get her revenge twice-over before Vahn finally conceded defeat and apologized.

One thing to note, though he had expected it, Vahn was still surprised when there were small saplings growing in the garden as well as a variety of bushes, plants, and flowers. They were all neatly arranged and tended to, and Vahn could see the care and affection Eva showed for each individual plant. The hobby she had taken up was painting, and Vahn noticed that she had an incredible amount of talent after seeing the various landscapes she had drawn from her memory. She had even, though it embarrassed Vahn greatly, painted a picture of his nude form striking a heroic pose.

The amount of detail she had put into his body, including his genitals, had unnerved him a bit. Perhaps she had noticed his concerns as, shortly thereafter, Eva actually gave him a second painting after making him swear to never reveal it to another person. After making the promise, Eva pulled out a large painting that had been beautifully framed before revealing its contents to Vahn. The moment he laid eyes on it, Vahn felt slightly faint as an itchy feeling appeared in his chest. Within the frame, there was a picture of a beautiful doll-like girl with long golden hair that barely protected her modesty as she laid in a pose on her side while supporting her head with one hand. The piercing ice-blue eyes of the girl were striking to behold, and Vahn felt like the painting possessed a life of its own. The painting which she had gifted him ended up being a full-scale replica of her nude form laying down on a regal looking couch while staring at the viewer.

Keeping the painting safely into his storage, Vahn was then pinned to the bed for the remaining hour or so until he was freed from the space. Unlike last time, Vahn didn't have any energy to tease Eva as she had thoroughly exhausted his body both physically and mentally. As a Shinso Vampire, as long as she had mana, Eva actually never got tired and immediately healed from wounds. Though she could be in an excited state, she never lost control and always managed to get an advantage over him unless he used his [Will of the Emperor] and [Hands of Nirvana] to force a stalemate.

Waking up in the real world, Vahn went through his routine of trying to wake up the sleeping Tina so they could prepare for the coming day. He noticed she wasn't much of a morning person and it took a few minutes for him to rouse her from the bed. They then dressed in silence before meeting Anubis in the corridor and setting about and executing their daily routine. Vahn helped the children train before enjoying breakfast and then teaching Nanu blacksmithing for the first half of the day. During the afternoon, he walked to the Hostess of Fertility and interacted with Chloe for around an hour or so. He had talked it over with Mama Mia and permanently reserved one of the private booths Monday-Friday and paid the fee in advance.

During his visit, Chloe had been much more mischievous than in the past and took to the role of teasing Vahn. He never expected her to act so spoiled and it almost felt like their roles had been reversed as she laid on the booth with her head on his lap as he fed her grapes. She told Vahn that it was her dream to be spoiled by handsome young boys, so Vahn assumed the role and treated her in an overly affectionate manner.

To reward his effort, Chloe allowed him some liberties to stroke her stomach and even fondle her chest a bit as long as he wasn't too rough. It was also worth noting that she had forbidden him from grabbing her tail unless he wanted her to bite him hard enough to leave a permanent mark. Vahn learned that it was the trait of cat people to mark the partners that had grabbed their tails by biting into their shoulder hard enough to leave indentations that wouldn't fade away. Remembering how she had instantly bit his tunic the last time he grabbed her tail, Vahn was almost tempted to go against her wishes but stayed his hand in the end. He was afraid of what Eva might think if he showed up in the orb with a bite mark on his neck other than the ones she often left.

Interestingly, when Vahn was preparing to leave, it wasn't Chloe who was to see him off, but Syr. Vahn was a bit confused by the strange change, but Syr chuckled at his reaction and explained, "Don't mind it too much, I just asked Chloe to allow me some of your time. I'm not a bother, am I, Vahn?" Vahn shook his head and responded, "It's not trouble at all, Syr. I would like to be friends with you, and I've got plenty of time if you need it."

Hearing his response, Syr couldn't help but chuckle with a very pleased and cheerful expression on her face. She sat in the booth next to him, instead of the one across and Vahn had to give way a bit or they would have been sitting close enough to contact each other. Syr hadn't missed his reaction and she even leaned on the table a bit as she propped her head up and asked, "Vahn, is it true that a bunch of girls that might be your potential love interests gathered together the other day? I had asked Chloe about it, but she only gave me vague details without explaining anything."

Though she had a somewhat 'sad' look in her eyes, Vahn could see that she wasn't really affected by the story and was likely just interested to know about the information. Her strong aura remained stable and didn't show the signs of being flustered or confused. Instead, it was gentle and watery and had a subtle silver color with hues of a sunny yellow showing that she had no malicious intentions.

In response to her question, Vahn nodded his head and explained the purpose behind their meeting without expressly giving away any details. He didn't want to be the type of person that was ashamed of his relationships with others, so he had no inhibitions talking about the women he interacted with. Syr listened to him with clear intrigue on her perpetually cheerful face as she asked leading questions to try and get more information out of him.

Because of his ability to see auras, Vahn wasn't easily misled by her questioning, but he was still curious about her motives. She had such an elegant disposition and acted very kindly towards everyone, but Vahn also felt like she had a mischevious personality with an apparently insatiable curiosity. He noticed that she stared at his expression in a very similar fashion as Eina, and was likely able to intuit more information from his expression that he was willing to divulge normally. He felt like, even if he wanted to lie to her, he wouldn't have the ability to do so.

From Syr's perspective, she couldn't help but marvel about the accomplishments and 'prowess' of Vahn. Because he recounted everything honestly and only misconstrued a bit of information that related to privacy and other people, she had a very good impression of him and wanted to know more and more. Though they were only two years apart in age, he had lived such a 'colorful' life and was now surrounded by capable people that would likely give him incredible influence in the future.

As the conversation progressed, Vahn noticed that Syr had oriented herself closer to him and she never seemed to drop eye contact while they were speaking. Eventually, almost as if it was natural, she subtly contacted his body as she continued to make conversation without seeming to notice. Though he had the opportunity to touch her before, Vahn never came into contact with Syr previously and now he couldn't help but pause a bit at the information that appeared in his head.

//Syr Flova: Affection +43, Intrigue +50//

[Syr Flova]:Affection: 93(Amour), Intrigue:100(Insatiable Curiosity)

Syr noticed his dazed look as a gleam passed through her eyes and she asked, "Vahn, what's wrong?" As if it were the natural thing to do, Syr placed her right hand on his face and turned Vahn's head toward her as she looked into his eyes as if she was trying to find something concealed within.

Vahn's mind was still in a daze as he was trying to process what happened. Generally speaking, a person started at values of 50/50 for affection and intrigue respectively. When Vahn finally contact someone, he would receive all of their hidden values in an instant which meant that, since the time he had met Syr, she had somehow developed an entire 43 points of affection for him while reaching capacity for her intrigue. He couldn't help but wonder what he had done to so deeply impact the cheerful young girl.

Instead of answering her question, Vahn looked at her strangely and asked, "Do you like me, Syr?" Syr had been staring into his face for a while and didn't seem to process the question that he just asked her. After a brief delay of around five seconds, her eyes twitched a bit and she broke eye contact with him for the first time as a clear blush almost immediately covered her face. In a manner similar to Lefiya, she turned completely beet red as she whispered in a low and begrudging voice, "Don't tease me, you meanie..."

//Syr Flova Affection +5//

(A/N: Alternate Titles: 'Assemble the Avahngers','Complacency can be dangerous','Nom Kitty')

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