Chapter 1612 - 227 - Love and War (1)
I finally made it back to Milham.
The moment we returned, my other girlfriends immediately rushed over and pulled Titania into a warm, tight hug. Well, it had been an entire month since they had last seen each other, so seeing them react like that honestly wasn’t surprising in the slightest.
"We were actually planning to come looking for you ourselves," Trill said, her eyes already beginning to water. "What took you so long? We were getting more and more worried with every single day that passed."
"You don’t have to worry anymore," Titania replied with a gentle smile that immediately eased everyone’s nerves. "I’m not going anywhere again anytime soon, so you can all relax."
Watching all of them together honestly warmed my heart more than I expected it would. More than anything else, it felt like this was exactly how things were always meant to be. Seeing everyone reunited after everything that had happened somehow made the weight on my shoulders feel just a little lighter.
The girls spent quite a while talking among themselves, and Titania told them everything that had happened during our stay back in the kingdom. They were relieved to hear that she had made it back safely, and after learning about her father’s death, all of them couldn’t help but feel sorry for her as well.
Even with everything that had happened, they were simply happy that they could all stand together again. That alone seemed to matter more than anything else at the moment.
Seeing all of them laughing and smiling together made me smile too. Moments like these reminded me why I kept fighting in the first place, even when things became far more difficult than I wanted them to be.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t spend the entire day standing there watching them catch up.
The amount of work waiting for me had only grown while I was away, and something told me things were only going to become even busier from this point onward.
After leaving them to continue their conversation, I decided to take a walk around the city by myself.
As I wandered through Milham, I noticed people working almost everywhere I looked. Some were carrying lumber, others were reinforcing walls, while many more were repairing houses or strengthening whatever they could in preparation for what was coming.
Honestly, that reaction made perfect sense when you really stopped to think about it.
Milham had become one of the places most likely to be targeted if the Republic launched a large-scale bombardment. Knowing that, the citizens naturally wanted to reinforce their homes however they possibly could, even if it meant exhausting themselves from sunrise until well after sunset.
Even so, I already knew that what they were doing probably wouldn’t be enough.
Zoey had already explained the terrifying capabilities of the Republic’s bombs during one of our earlier conversations.
According to her, some of the latest models possessed enough destructive power to completely pulverize an ordinary house into nothing but dust. They weren’t ordinary explosives that merely left behind shattered walls or piles of rubble for people to dig through afterward.
Once one of those bombs landed, there would barely be anything left worth calling ruins.
Knowing that made everything I was seeing feel strangely bittersweet.
The people were pouring everything they had into protecting their families, but deep down I already understood that these reinforcements probably wouldn’t survive a direct hit from those weapons.
Still, giving up before the battle even began wasn’t something anyone here was willing to do.
Right now, the only realistic choice was to reinforce whatever we could and hope it would increase our chances of surviving, even if only by a small margin.
Meanwhile, everyone I knew who specialized in magic had been working together on something much more important than strengthening individual homes.
They were creating a barrier.
One powerful enough to protect Milham, Bethlan, and even the Great Forest if everything went according to plan.
Naturally, a project on that kind of scale wasn’t something that could be completed in just a few days.
It was going to require a tremendous amount of time, effort, and coordination before it was finally finished.
All any of us could really do was keep working and pray that we managed to complete it before the Republic decided it was time to attack.
As I continued walking through the streets, a familiar feeling suddenly crept over me.
Someone was following me.
The sensation refused to disappear no matter how casually I tried to ignore it, and my instincts continued warning me that I wasn’t imagining things.
Rather than confronting whoever it was immediately, I quietly slipped into the corner of a nearby alley and patiently waited for them to come closer.
Several moments passed before someone finally rounded the corner.
The instant they came into view, I stepped forward and grabbed them with both hands.
Only then did I realize my mistake almost immediately afterward.
I’d caught the wrong person entirely without meaning to.
The man standing in front of me was just an elderly passerby who had unfortunately chosen the worst possible time to walk through that alley.
He stared at me with wide, frightened eyes, looking as though he genuinely believed his life was about to end right there.
Judging from the horrified look on his face, he probably thought I was some lunatic preparing to murder him in the middle of a deserted alleyway.
"Sorry," I said awkwardly while immediately letting go of him and taking a step back.
The old man continued trembling for another few seconds before hurriedly walking away without saying a single word to me.
Honestly, I couldn’t even blame him for reacting like that after what had just happened.
After he disappeared from sight, I stepped back onto the street and carefully looked around once again.
I searched in all directions, hoping to catch even the smallest glimpse of the person who had been following me earlier.
Still, I couldn’t find anyone at all despite checking repeatedly.
My surroundings looked completely ordinary, almost as though nothing unusual had happened in the first place.
That couldn’t have simply been my imagination because the feeling had been far too real to ignore.
If my instincts had somehow fooled me this time, then I guessed I had become a lot more paranoid than I cared to admit lately.
While I continued thinking about the whole situation, I eventually decided to head somewhere else instead and see if I could find any clues there.
***
I eventually made my way over to Dorothea’s place without wasting much more time.
The moment I stepped inside, I immediately recognized the familiar scent lingering throughout the room.
The entire place still smelled like Dorothea had been masturbating practically everywhere she could.
Thankfully, I didn’t end up walking in on her actually doing it this time like I had during our first meeting together.
At least that counted as a small improvement, even if the room itself still told quite a story.
"What are you doing here, Master?" she asked the moment she noticed me standing near the entrance.
As soon as our eyes met, her cheeks instantly turned bright red without the slightest hesitation.
Seriously, was there anything going through this pervert’s head besides sex? Sometimes I honestly wondered if she dreamed about it twenty-four hours a day.
"I wanted to ask you something," I said while looking directly at her. "Have you seen Luna recently?"
The instant Luna’s name left my mouth, Dorothea’s expression changed just enough for me to notice it.
The blush covering her face faded for a brief moment before slowly returning as though she had hurriedly forced herself to remain calm.
"Um... no," she answered after a short pause that lasted just a little too long. "I haven’t seen her."
She had definitely seen her.
That reaction alone was enough to convince me she was hiding something from me.
I narrowed my eyes slightly while quietly studying her face for any other clues.