Ch.249……doing OO

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound of fingers tapping on the desk echoed throughout the room. Charlotte sat on the throne in her office, making no effort to hide her discomfort as she handled her administrative duties.

A short distance from Charlotte stood the Royal Knights Commander, Alessia Beneviento, with her fiery red hair. Her silver armor gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight.

Her expression was extremely stern, yet also carried a hint of puzzlement. Something incomprehensible had happened that left Alessia completely baffled.

Her monarch, who had possessed far more mana than all other magicians in the world combined, had suddenly appeared with not even a trace of residual mana.

Having witnessed Charlotte’s miraculous magic up close all this time, Alessia’s confusion only grew deeper. What on earth could have happened in just a few days?

Yet she dared not ask the reason. Even if Charlotte had lost her mana and become an ordinary person, Alessia’s loyalty remained unchanged. She was still a Royal Knight after all.

“Tsk.”

Charlotte clicked her tongue, crumpled the document she had been examining, and tossed it into the corner of the room. Normally, she would have used magic to disintegrate it, but that was impossible now.

Her work efficiency had become ridiculously slow. Usually, she would use magic to read hundreds of documents simultaneously and sort thousands of agenda items, but now she had to carefully examine each piece of paper one by one.

Having to physically crumple and throw away documents deemed useless was irritating enough, but having to manually sign those she kept made her twice as annoyed.

Charlotte was tapping her fingers on the desk, trying somehow to control her bubbling frustration. With such low physical abilities, trying to vent her anger would only hurt herself.

Sadly, without mana, Charlotte could be subdued by a single finger from Alessia standing behind her. Every time she recalled this fact, her blood boiled.

Though Alessia would absolutely never do such a thing to Charlotte.

“First Knight Commander.”

“Yes, Your Majesty! I await your orders!”

Responding to the low voice calling her, Alessia answered with military precision. Royal First Knight Commander—a title that now belonged to Alessia, not Serena.

The main reason was that Serena had withdrawn from the Royal Knights.

She had wanted to quit that “damn Royal Knights” for a long time, and with no reason to stay, the withdrawal process proceeded swiftly.

Additionally, thanks to the catastrophe that Olivia and the other three had caused in the capital, most of the Royal Knights had perished, leaving the position of First Knight Commander to fall unexpectedly to Alessia.

The problem was that she never wanted to be promoted this way, with all her comrades dead.

“You may leave now.”

“Pardon? Your Majesty, but…”

Alessia was taken aback. Charlotte was now a completely ordinary person. If someone were determined to take her life, she would die without being able to put up proper resistance.

In such a situation, dismissing her guard? While the palace defenses remained solid, dismissing her personal guard was an entirely different matter.

But Charlotte, brooking no objection, repeated her command in a stern voice.

“I ordered you to leave. Or are you defying my command?”

“N-No, Your Majesty! I shall withdraw immediately!”

Alessia bowed deeply and hurriedly left the office. Click, the door closed. Left alone in the vast room, Charlotte sank deeply into her throne.

Whew, a heavy sigh escaped her lips.

“…My lord, where are you?”

It had been a week since Abel disappeared. During that time, Abel had not shown himself even once. She couldn’t understand what he was trying to do by taking their powers as well.

Work was impossible to focus on. She had been sitting on the throne in her office for six hours already, but hadn’t even completed a millionth of her usual workload.

It was fortunate that he had promised to return within a week; otherwise, Alessia would certainly have had an even more difficult time with her guard duties.

Just as Charlotte, swallowing her indignation, was about to heave another long sigh—

A subspace opened right in front of her, and a letter fluttered down. Her blood-red eyes immediately fixed on that small letter.

There was no need to wonder who had sent it. Charlotte picked up the letter that had fallen on the desk with trembling hands.

And opened it.

“…”

Serena stood with her eyes closed, legs shoulder-width apart, holding a wooden sword positioned in front of her lower abdomen, pointing the blade slightly upward from the front.

A gentle breeze blew, caressing Serena’s entire body. Her golden hair, shining as if molten gold had been poured into it, fluttered in the wind, tickling her forehead and cheeks.

It had been over five hours since she had entered this meditative state. Despite the long time that had passed, Serena remained motionless.

The reason Serena was maintaining this posture was simple. Unless she pushed herself like this, she couldn’t handle the emotions that were welling up and overflowing within her.

Whooosh, the wind blew, scattering the grass in all directions. Before that gentle breeze could wrap around Serena’s body and pass by again, blue eyes briefly appeared between her slightly raised eyelids.

—Swoosh.

Serena lightly swung the wooden sword in her hand and thrust its tip firmly into the ground. The wooden blade, penetrating the soil perfectly vertically, vibrated slightly.

Then, the wind blowing toward Serena split in two.

Her fluttering bangs settled downward. The surrounding grass stopped its dancing and stood straight up. Leaves that had been floating on the wind fell helplessly to the ground.

Having split the oncoming wind in two, the area around Serena had transformed into a perfect windless zone. The wind dared not enter that space and instead swirled around it.

Yet the expression of the person who had performed such an incredible feat remained completely nonchalant.

In truth, splitting the wind might be astonishing for ordinary humans, but from Serena’s perspective, it was merely the result of a slight swing of her sword without even using mana.

Splitting the wind? That was a level attainable by anyone of Knight Commander rank in the Royal Knights. Setting aside the fact that doing this without mana was impossible.

For someone like Serena, who could cut through time, space, and even the concept of existence if she wished, being impressed by such a trivial matter would be stranger.

“…”

Serena gazed at the sky with yearning eyes. A week had already passed since she had been separated from her lord. A week without seeing his face, hearing his voice, or smelling his scent.

The sorrow stemming from her sense of loss was so immense that she had to calm her mind this way; otherwise, it was difficult to pacify her thoughts.

She couldn’t even create a Wind Shear to train her swordsmanship or gather mana. After all, her lord had taken all of her mana.

Of course, Serena believed that if her lord wanted it, that was how it should be, and unlike Charlotte, who had become less than an ordinary person, she didn’t rely heavily on mana, so there was no particular problem.

Just now, hadn’t she split the oncoming wind? For Serena, mana was a matter of activation speed, not whether she could activate techniques at all.

“…My lord?”

As Serena was about to pick up the wooden sword she had thrust into the ground while absently staring at the forest, a subspace suddenly opened before her eyes, and a fluttering letter appeared.

She reached out her right hand and caught the letter in mid-air. It was obvious who would send such a thing to Serena. Her delicate fingers tore open the envelope.

“Know the omnipotence of God’s power, and that eternal light will unfold for believers; you shall gladly accept any tribulation and hardship that blocks your path. God always watches over you…”

Christine was shut away in a temple built in a corner of the mansion garden, offering prayers to her god.

The inside of the temple was starkly empty. Nothing else existed, and all the materials that made up the temple consisted solely of black-painted marble.

Not a ray of sunlight entered the interior. There were no windows, no decorations, no statues. Only the empty interior and a massive door made of black marble.

Christine had been confined in this absurdly austere temple for a full week, completely secluded. Precisely from the moment her god disappeared until now.

Since her god had taken all of Christine’s divine power, she had a body no different from an ordinary human.

Her skin, kneeling on the marble, was torn and bleeding, and her legs were so numb that it was questionable whether they were still properly attached. Her entire body was also drenched in sweat.

But Christine didn’t mind at all.

The pain of torn skin didn’t bother her, she had no intention of standing so it didn’t matter whether her legs worked or not, and since no one else was present, it didn’t matter if her body was a mess with sweat.

So there was no reason to care about her physical condition.

“Hmm.”

In fact, the driving force that allowed Christine to do nothing but pray for a whole week after losing all her divine power was largely due to a small miracle residing in her body.

It was true that her god had taken all her divine power. However, the subject of the miracle was still Christine.

Since her thoughts and actions were subordinate to her god, she couldn’t perform greater miracles, but she could ensure that her determination to never stop praying until her god appeared again would be fulfilled.

Thanks to that small miracle, she had been able to pray for a week straight despite having a body no different from an ordinary person.

Of course, even this miracle was approaching its limit. The fact that Christine had manifested a miracle at all was itself miraculous, and her severely depleted physical strength remained unrecovered.

Her head kept drooping downward. Each time, she hurriedly raised it, but the frequency with which she needed to do so was noticeably increasing.

“…Hnngh.”

A faint moan escaped her lips.

If time continued like this a little longer, Christine would undoubtedly collapse from exhaustion and die of dehydration, but she had no intention of stopping her prayers.

What meaning was there in a life without her god?

“…Ah?”

As she continued praying with such thoughts, a subspace opened before Christine’s eyes, and a letter fluttered down. Her yellow eyes stared blankly at the letter on the marble floor.

Sensing the faint remnant of her god’s presence from the letter, Christine, tears streaming down her face, reached out both hands as if entranced and carefully picked it up. Then she hugged the letter to her chest.

After praying for who knows how long while tightly embracing the letter, Christine, having carefully finished her worship, prostrated herself flat on the floor with her head bowed and cautiously opened the letter.

“I wonder when Abel will return…”

Unlike Charlotte, whose already sharp personality had become more hysterical, Serena, who repeatedly swung her sword unable to control her emotions, and Christine, who spent all day praying in the temple, Olivia was spending relatively normal days.

Currently, Olivia had the most normal personality among the four, except for occasional instinctive jealousy.

She knew that Abel didn’t want to tell them why he had to leave for a week, that he had firmly resolved something, and that it was a very important matter that absolutely had to be done.

So there was no reason not to wait a mere week. That’s why she could spend her time relatively leisurely.

Of course, even Olivia wasn’t completely unaffected by Abel’s long absence, and she hadn’t been able to sleep properly for several days.

Still, compared to the other three, nodding off during the day due to lack of sleep was an extremely normal reaction. Though none of them cared how the others were doing.

“It must have been something really important, right?”

Olivia had her own theory about why Abel had left with such words. Looking at how he couldn’t tell them the reason, it was probably related to them.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have disappeared alone, taking all their power, without revealing his destination or taking anyone with him.

She knew very well that Abel had been worrying about how to create even a lukewarm relationship between the women around him, and recently those concerns had deepened.

So she had been trying her best not to pick fights first, but despite her efforts, the others would initiate conflicts, leading to several fights.

Even if she didn’t start fights herself, she couldn’t just meekly endure provocations from others like a pushover.

She thought this current situation might be an extension of that. The day before Abel left—

‘…Can that even be called the day before?’

Just recalling it made Olivia’s body flush hot and her thighs grow damp. When she lightly traced her slit with her finger, sticky fluid was already coating it.

That’s how intense the pleasure had been. She had thought her mind might burn up from pleasure, and on the last night, she had lost consciousness and her memory had completely vanished.

Because Abel had turned back time again and again, the same night had been repeated easily hundreds of times. Being extremely generous, if one night of 6 hours was repeated just 500 times, that was already 3,000 hours.

Throughout that repeated time, all four of them, including Olivia, had been thoroughly taken and had climaxed wildly. It was questionable whether that could really be called “the day before.”

‘I shouldn’t think about it.’

Shaking her head to dispel these distracting thoughts, Olivia, whose lower body had already become damp, rubbed her thighs together and tried to focus on her original train of thought. Even just the day before Abel left, they had gone at it intensely.

Her resolve not to recall seemed rather ineffective, as Olivia’s cheeks grew increasingly flushed. Then a subspace opened before her, and a letter flew in.

“Ah, it’s here.”

Olivia quickly grabbed the letter. Sniff, it smelled like Abel. Smiling brightly as if she hadn’t just been having lewd thoughts, Olivia opened the letter.

The moment they opened the letters, all four were transported to a different space.

Brilliant sunlight shone down. Though the sunlight was intensely bright, strangely, it didn’t feel hot or scorching. Instead, only a warm comfort could be felt.

A gentle breeze mixed warmth and coolness just right. It was a wind carrying a sweet fragrance that made one want to keep inhaling it.

“This place…”

The four stood inside a building similar to a temple, made of pure white marble.

Tall, round columns with densely carved vertical grooves supported the massive ceiling, which was engraved with all sorts of geometric patterns. Through these patterns, sunlight broke into fragments.

Beyond the columns, surrounding the temple, flowers bloomed abundantly as far as the eye could see. Charlotte immediately recognized what these flowers signified.

Every single one had a flower meaning related to love.

A short distance from the building rose a mountain densely covered with trees, and from the cliff at the base of the mountain, a massive waterfall flowed down, forming a river and valley that stretched outward.

Chirp-chirp, the sound of insects came from somewhere. Though these insects should only sing at night, they were earnestly performing their melody and creating beautiful music despite the bright daylight.

But more than anything else, something else powerfully captured the attention of the four: black roses, dyed as deeply black as Abel’s hair and eyes.

Exactly eight of them.

As Serena, Christine, Charlotte, and Olivia looked around as if entranced, they heard the voice they had been desperately longing for inside the temple.

The four turned their heads simultaneously.

“Ah……”

And, almost in unison, they gasped in amazement.