Frostfire Legacy

"Ugh..." Aster stirred, opening his eyes.

A sharp pain attacked his head as he tried to raise his body. He tried to move his hand, but realized that he couldn't.

Looking down with his blurred vision, he saw a head of orange and silver on either side, hugging his body tight and using his arms as pillows.

"... Huh?"

The scene confused him even more!

His mind quickly operated, trying to bring up the memory of how this situation came to be. However, the last he could remember was sitting down on the sofa and resting. He felt frustrated, unable to recall what happened!

"Mmm... Hmm?"

But then Cassy woke up, raising her head to stare into Aster's eyes from up close.

"Ah, you're finally awake!" She whispered in a lethargic, half-asleep tone, each syllable trailing off by quite a bit. "Good morning~!"

"Yeah... Good morning." He greeted back before asking. "By the way, what happened last night? I can't seem to recall how I got to bed..."

"Hmmm? Hnnnng~!"

Cassy started to stretch her body without moving away from him, causing several parts to get pressed tighter against his body. He tried to keep a straight face, of course, but a certain part of him was about to react!

"K and Tinya's combination punch knocked you out, so we just put you here!" She replied with a smile.

Hearing that, Aster's memories returned a bit. "Right, a fight broke out, and I..." he muttered before looking around. "Where's Tina?"

"Ah, she left shortly after I lectured them. She said she's going back to her lodging to prepare or something."

"Nnnn… Shut up..."

While the two were talking in hushed voices, Kali suddenly raised her voice of complaint. They forgot that there was another one with them and ended up waking her up with their talks!

The first thing that Kali did after waking up was to slightly raise her body before reaching over Aster's face and toward the bedside table, fetching her phone.

As she was literally extending forward like a cat stretching before his face, he ended up staring straight at her underboobs. What followed was an act of heaven and something he couldn't control—something was rising.

"Huh?" Cassy noticed it immediately and raised a voice of confusion. "What's this? Something is poking out of the blanket..." She muttered before trying to peek under it.

Although he wanted to use his hand to hide "it," both arms went numb and wouldn't be moveable until a few minutes later, at least.

"Please don't. Please..." Aster wanted to bury his face in embarrassment!

Hearing the two's words, Kali glanced down. She saw Aster's red face, warped in agony, with Cassy trying to find the edge of the blanket to peek. Her eyes trailed a bit lower, and she saw it.

"...!"

Her face turned beet red before she noticed her current position. She quickly pulled back herself before crossing her arms before her chest, glaring at Aster. But the conspicuous "tent" was pulling her gaze!

"Pervert!"

"..."

At that moment, Aster felt like dying.

---

Around 4:30 a.m., Aster's party arrived at the guild. The gathering time for those participating in the Rogue Boss Hunt was 5, so they still had half an hour of leeway.

As if their eyes were being guided, they found Celestinya sitting at a random table. The reason they found her so fast was because nobody was daring to come close to her table. There's a large gap between her and the next adventurer's seat!

"Hey, hey, look at him... He's heading straight for that Lineage Breaker girl!"

"Shit! We're going to see another tragedy unfold!"

"Wait... isn't he that newbie? The one who partied with that useless rabbit?"

"I don't want to watch...! Just watching someone have their jewels crushed is enough to make me feel pain too!"

The gallery was raising a commotion, seeing how Aster and the two were walking straight for Celestinya. Of course, most of them weren't present when Aster added her to the party, so they were clueless about it.

"Good morning, Tina." He greeted her as soon as they approached. "Have you done your preparations properly?"

Since she was the only one separate from them, he had to ask her directly for confirmation. Celestinya turned her head; her blue eyes opened wide before a crescent smile crossed her lips.

"Of course, darling. I double-checked my pack already." She answered promptly.

"Good! Then..." Just as Aster nodded his head, he realized something. "Wait, darling...?"

Right then, Celestinya moved, pulling Aster's arm into her embrace. A sweet smile, but filled with a scary shadow, covered her face. "Right. My darling~!"

"...!"

Aster felt shivers run down his spine. He tried to escape immediately, but her grip was too strong for him to even slip out! After trying to act calm, he decided to talk with her first.

"W-Well, why did you start calling me darling, then?"

"You don't know? You already did the Threefold Proof of Devotion to me!" She exclaimed in a happy tone.

"You showed mercy to me, allowing me to harm you despite having the ability to take my life with a casual swing of your hand three times. As such, I decided to accept your Threefold Proof of Devotion and take you in as my fiancé~!"

At that moment, the gallery got noisy once more. They were already shocked that the Lineage Breaker, Celestinya, was acting like a devoted wife to someone before their eyes. And now, they heard someone was brave enough to undergo the Threefold Proof of Devotion.

"What fiancé?! Keep your bullshit in your sleep, you vixen!" Kali growled at her, pulling her off of Aster. "And what Threefold Proof of Devotion? You arbitrarily attacked him three times! And he's not receiving it because he wants to!"

Right. Although Aster does have the ability to kill Celestinya, as she claimed, it is also true that he didn't possess reflexes fast enough to dodge her "advances."

Aster tilted his head, confused. In the first place, he didn't even know what the Threefold Proof of Devotion was.

While he watched the two cats quarrel, Cassy moved to his side and whispered in a small voice. "The Threefold Proof of Devotion is a practice where the man accepts three hits from the woman he loves without fighting back."

"... Then what if the man dies?"

That should be a pretty valid worry, as there's this thing called levels in this world. Just being a man doesn't mean they're stronger than a woman anymore!

"That? If they died, that simply means they lacked devotion." Cassy scratched her cheeks. "It's an unlikeable practice; that's why it's no longer in use... unless they are from a big-name family, where that practice is still followed."

"..."

Cold sweat fell from Aster's forehead. After all, he knows that Celestinya is the "princess" of the Zirroth Family, a big name in the construction industry. In short, her words a little earlier were no joke.

She was dead serious about taking him as her fiancé!