Glimpse of Eternity [A Reincarnation Isekai Fantasy]

Reivan and Mordred had some difficulties having him replace the thing that had taken his place while he gallivanted around.

While Dame Mordred could play around with someone's perception as she pleased, if someone—such as a battlemage with scrying powers that was specifically tasked to keep an eye on him—was looking hard enough, they would notice something weird afoot. That's why they had to wait for the battlemage to either fall asleep or for their attention to wane.

Unfortunately, said battlemage was dutiful to an unnecessary level, hanging around the puppet Clover's room and presumably having his invisible spirit beast peek inside without regard to privacy—not that a corpse made to look and act like a living human needed such luxuries. Mordred had worked around it on the train because apparently, the battlemage had manifested its spirit beast for a few moments to feed it snacks instead of having it tail Reivan in secret.

As it turned out, however, few human beings could remain in a state of constant focus all day.

And so, when the battlemage had to go to the bathroom, Mordred had Puppet Clover ride a carriage farther away. According to her amused remarks, the battlemage was devastated when they found out—presumably through the spirit beast—but one did not just refuse the call of nature when it came.

Understandably, the battlemage was left completely in the dust. Or the outhouse, in this case.

“That was a bit more complicated than it had to be, wasn’t it, Your Highness?” Dame Mordred giggled as they snuck into the moving carriage that the puppet chartered to a nearby brothel.

“Indeed.” Reivan sat down next to the thing and held back a grimace. “What do we do with this thing?”

Beside him was Clover Salwyn. There were no two ways about it, the thing looked like a carbon copy of the man Reivan saw in the mirror for the past month or so. Following its previous orders, it continued to act like Clover Salwyn, utterly ignoring the existence of the other two people inside the vehicle.

“It is technically an item,” Mordred gestured at it lazily, even kicking its shin and snickering at its lack of a reaction. “So you can store it in a spatial storage ring and use it as you please. Or you can throw it away. Up to you, Your Highness.”

“An item…” Reivan murmured. Even if it wasn’t, he could have stored it inside Zouros, but he was curious if he could really store it inside a ring. He placed a palm on the puppet and a moment later, it was gone.

‘Holy fuck.’

Seemingly finding his reaction amusing, the loli knight—a name he would never mention out loud, as he knew that it would definitely offend her—giggled. “Do take note that it will, at most, last about a week of uptime before it falls apart. Also Ascendants will detect the ruse quite easily. Mortals would be none the wiser. Sorry, I'm still in the middle of improving the technique, so its use is very limited.”

“That’s amazing, Dame Mordred…” Reivan tried very hard to keep a straight face. “I didn’t even know something like this was possible.”

The puppet had been so realistic that even he would have gotten tricked if he hadn’t manually checked its status screen. This experience would probably have him obsessively checking anyone he was talking to out of sheer paranoia until he became an Ascendant himself and gained whatever seventh sense allowed them to tell humans and puppets apart easily.

Just another reason to seek strength, it seemed.

“Yes, it’s one of the most recent fruits of my studies into the dark arts.” Mordred smiled. “I’ve been meaning to pen my musings into a manual so that future knights can learn it too, but I’ve yet to find the time to truly get into it.”

“Ah, yes...You’ve been busy in Sutherim.”

“Indeed. Ah, you have the darkness affinity, yes? Perhaps once everything’s in order, I can instruct you personally? Doesn’t that sound nice, Your Highness? You can make your own little corpse puppets.”

Reivan gulped. “I’m not sure I deserve the honor…”

“Oh, perish the thought.” Mordred giggled, eyes gleaming with mischief. Or something else. “I find you quite interesting, Your Highness. It would be an honor to pass my knowledge on to you.”

“I see… Well, it will have to wait until we’re not quite as busy anymore.”

“True.”

With that, Mordred said her farewells. And just like that, she was gone.

Reivan took out the puppet again and stripped it of its clothes before throwing it into Zouros’ stomach, which had all sorts of shit inside at this point. It would consume whatever energy Mordred used to create it just by existing, so it was better to store it inside his buddy’s stomach instead of a spatial ring, given its time-freezing property.

And then, with a deep grimace, Reivan transformed back into Clover Salwyn and donned the clothes that a literal corpse had just been wearing. Yet another thing that would cause some trauma. He wasn’t exactly lacking in those, so another one wasn’t a big deal, right? Surely. Maybe he would get some kind of cosmic reward if he gathered enough.

“Fuck.” Reivan cursed under his breath. “I wanna go home…”

Truly, nothing would make him happier than going back into the comfiness of the royal palace. The maids never let him wear nasty clothes worn by dead people. They made him tea and gave him compliments that may or may not have been lip service. If he wasn’t so disciplined, they probably would have let him sleep in whenever he wanted to.

But no. He was all the way out here in the bleak cold lands of Arkhan. The carriage he was riding looked fancy too. Mordred probably hadn’t thought about stuff like prices and whatnot because she, like all old knights, had more money than they knew what to do with. Reivan's present financial state wasn't as great as hers though.

‘Goddamnit, how much am I gonna have to pay when I get out…?’

Reivan, or rather, Clover Salwyn got paid a bit higher than most of his colleagues because he was an “officer” in their squad, but all the same, he had limited resources. Spending it on slightly nicer seats and an enclosed space was… well, it was nice and Reivan Aizenwald would have paid the extra amount for the added comfiness, but it wasn’t what Clover Salwyn would have done.

If the Tower brought that up, Reivan would have a bit of trouble explaining it away.

‘Eh, I’ll just say that I wanted to try it out at least once…’

A floppy reason, but he’d have to make it work. Besides, the Tower's days were numbered.

 

---

 

Given how Clover supposedly went out of town to blow off some steam, Reivan, to maintain the ruse, had to spend the evening with a lady of the night.

It wasn’t his fault that he had to pick out a really pretty lady with a nice pair of melons to sleep with. He was forced into it, by dire circumstances beyond his control. National interests and all that. Very important stuff. Reivan had a role to play and he would play it diligently, even to the extent of defiling his innocence with women he didn’t love.

Oh, the horror.

And it definitely wasn’t his fault that he felt like going for a second and third round that night. With two other ladies than the first one.

‘Well, I guess I’m going to hell for this.’

Or not. Maybe if Helen found out, she wouldn’t let him die. She’d make him suffer.

Obviously, that was an exaggeration. She'd probably make her blows a bit heavier during their spars, but that was all. And it was a good thing too, because it kept him abreast of how strong she’d become. Reivan couldn’t deny that growing up around battle junkies had made him a bit of one too, so he enjoyed the occasional roughhousing, even if he came out bruised afterward. The pain told him he was still alive.

No, she’d probably be somewhat upset but come to accept it as long as there were no feelings involved. She didn’t mind the array of concubines he would have at some point, and she saw Elsamina as her only significant rival.

Everybody else was, in her words, a passing fancy.

‘I kinda wish she’d be more… jealous, in a way.’

It made him feel like trash to think like that, but who didn’t want their woman to like them so much they got jealous? Surely he wasn’t the only one. And maybe he was trash. Maybe it was time to own it.

On that note, both his fiancees were a bit too blase. He’d expected them to take issues with him literally making babies with a few dozen women. But then again, he appreciated how understanding they were. Especially Elsa, who didn’t even know who he really was but didn’t mind him being legally married to a bunch of other women.

‘She’s the best… Fuck, I miss her so much… I wanna go home!’

Reivan clenched his fist and fought with his homesickness as he got off the train at Vel Ayala, looking up at the Tower in the distance. It was just as big as he remembered and he couldn't help but imagine what it would look like snapped in half under the power of multiple Transcendants. And though he tried not to, he also remembered Maya saying how the Tower looked like a giant cock.

It did. It did look like a giant cock. Or maybe he just had a dirty mind.

'In the first place, why build a Tower? Castles are awesome. You could even build towers on castles.'

Reivan couldn't think of a reason to choose a Tower over a castle other than wanting to be different. Both the empire and the kingdom still used them, so perhaps the Sage King wanted to set himself apart by building a tower. But then again, he supposed he'd never know. A puny little battlemage like him would never get a meeting with the head honcho himself—unless he revealed Dom, who possessed the spirit king seed.

Continuing to go through the motions of returning to the Tower, he rode a stagecoach that took him from the city outskirts to the center of Vel Ayala itself. All the way into the tower’s teleportation platform.

Shortly after teleporting into the squad’s common room, however, Reivan suddenly had to duck past a pillow that would have hit him on the face and possibly messed up his glasses.

‘Fuck. Shouldn’t have dodged that.’

Reivan had dodged it purely out of reflex and intuition but he should have let it hit his face. Still, he shouldn’t have had to dodge at all; he'd walked into his squad's common room, not a battleground. With a withering gaze, he looked at the source to find Aldimir with a slightly shocked look on his face.

“Of course. It’s you again…” Reivan sighed, picked up the pillow, and used it to swat away a second one. “Quit it, will ya?”

“You could’ve invited me to have fun outside, man!” Aldimir complained immediately. “I was so lonely!”

Naturally, Reivan couldn’t just tell him why he wanted to go alone, so he made up a completely innovative reason.

“I really had to go. And you didn’t really seem to be in the mood for that kind of thing after what happened in Lageton, so…”

Aldimir paused, taken aback. “Wait, are you telling me you were so horny after almost getting killed?”

Reivan shrugged, not bothering to correct him.

“Damn, Win… I never thought the day would come that I'd say it, but you’re worse than me.”

“Hey, you take that back…” Reivan warned him seriously. "I won't stand for such an insult!"

They bickered like idiots for a bit but had to stop when someone came out of her room, stretching and yawning.

“Good morning, everybody,” Mira said, her usually droopy eyes being extra droopy at the moment.

Reivan raised a brow at her. “It’s almost twilight, Captain.”

“Ah…” She froze, looking at a nearby grandfather clock. “Well, that doesn’t seem right…”

“Your head doesn’t seem right.”

"Wow, why are you being so prickly this early in the morning?”

“We’ve already established that it’s afternoon now.”

“No, no, no.” Mira shook her head and parked her ass on one of the armchairs nearby. “That clock is wrong.”

Reivan sighed. “The current absence of the sun in the sky says otherwise. I was just outside so I should know.”

The slovenly captain sheepishly laughed as she stood up. “Anybody up for a bite? What about you, minion?”

“I’ll pass.” Aldimir shrugged. “Not hungry yet.”

“Okay.” Mira nodded before turning to Reivan. “How about you, Clover?”

Reivan was just about to refuse, stating how he’d just eaten. But then he remembered Dame Mordred’s words about seducing Mira and bringing her over to Aizen. “Yeah, sure. May as well.”

“Great!” She smiled. “I didn’t really want to eat with my fellow second years.”

“Oh? What’s up?” Aldimir latched onto the opportunity for gossip.

“It's nothing…”

“Romance troubles?”

Mira’s brows shot up as she gazed at Aldimir. “How’d you know?”

He shrugged. “I mean, that’s what it usually is when women make that face.”

“I made a face?”

“You did.”

“Darn… Was it a pretty face, though?”

Aldimir chuckled. “Yes, Captain. I'll give it an eight out of ten.”

“Hey, that's a pretty good score considering I just woke up. I'll take it.” Mira giggled before shrugging. “Some crazy girl apparently thinks I’m trying to steal her boyfriend and made a scene about it in our Mess Hall. So now it’s kind of awkward. And my old squad members are out on a mission so I’m completely alone in there!”

“Seems rough.” Reivan chimed in.

Mira bobbed her head wearily. “Tell me about it… Like, I don’t even know who she was talking about. Lots of people come to talk to me. How the heck am I supposed to know who’s who and who’s taken? None of them’s a prince from Aizen, so why should I even care!?”

Reivan found himself exasperated by how serious she seemed about her pursuit of foreign royalty. He’d initially thought that while she was being truthful about her desire, she still saw it as unlikely. Now he was beginning to think that she was more serious about the notion than she let on.

‘Maybe I don’t even need to coax her into coming at all. I could just bring her somewhere and show her who I really am.’

That was the problem though. Given how the Tower had just lost an Ascendent spirit king seed—or was it a spirit king already, not just a seed?—they would likely be guarding Mira like hawks, not letting her out of their sight. At the very least, that’s what he would do if he were in their place.

No interaction with her would go unobserved.

Still, he supposed there was no harm in trying. The plan to destroy the Sage King was already underway outside. But taking Mira away would help their purposes should the plan fail. Reivan highly doubted it would, but one had to prepare for the worst outcome in order to attain the best one.

Or something like that.

He could also just find a quiet place and have Dom eat Mira’s spirit king seed. That would remove her as a variable in the Tower’s interests, reducing her to an ordinary battlemage. It would also push his own spirit beast closer to Ascendance.

One could say he was hitting two birds with one stone. He just had to be careful that the stone he threw wouldn’t end up breaking his own window, so to speak.

The part he was stuck on was getting her to come with him to a place where he could do all that. Preferably Aizen itself, disguised as a pleasure trip for her to sate her very obvious curiosity about the foreign country—a curiosity that wasn’t unique to her, as plenty of Aizenians were curious about the republic too.

When she stepped foot in Aizen, Reivan could make up any excuse. After all, “Clover Salwyn” was but an insignificant mortal. What could he do if Mira and her Ascendant guard suddenly vanished? Hell, at that point, Reivan could already abandon the Clover Salwyn persona he had. Mira was more than enough to make up for the loss of an insider in the Tower. Reivan would not need to go back afterward.

But given recent events, he highly doubted the Tower would allow Mira to leave the country for any reason, making the ideal scenario just that—an ideal. She probably couldn’t quit being a battlemage either, not before the Tower made someone eat Fawks.

‘I wonder how I can play this…’

Honestly, one way of doing things was to just sacrifice his identity to assassinate Mira.

He had very dangerous and powerful runestones tucked away that nobody expected him to have. As long as the attempt isn't made in the Tower, he was confident he could eliminate Mira regardless of a protector and then ring the Sword Star’s bell to make a clean getaway. That was an option he wanted to leave last as much as possible, however. And besides, he still had to get enough spirit dew to have the capability of producing it with his special ability.

“You ready, Clover?”

Reivan nodded at Mira’s question, not particularly sinking too deep into the mire of his own thoughts this time. He was, after all, in enemy territory. Presence of mind was par for the course. “Let’s go?”

“Uh-huh.” Mira nodded and donned her formal robes, the thick and heavy mantle concealing her feminine figure. “To the shared Great Hall, then!”

Aldimir waved at them as they stepped onto the dark purple platform. “Have fun, you two~!”

Reivan frowned as the light of teleportation enveloped them. He’d have to learn a few good hexes to use on Aldimir. Preferably ones that caused muteness.

 

---

 

Trainees like Reivan and the others had access to two different halls for dining: the Mess Hall for their particular batch of trainees and the Great Hall—where battlemages of all ages and seniority ate.

Most trainees tended to eat at their own Mess Halls, but given Mira’s current troubles, they chose the latter option.

Which, understandably, made the two of them a bit nervous because of all the seniors and elders just walking around. Anyone you bump into could be quite important and personally powerful. Fortunately, everybody in the relatively occupied chamber just tended to mind their own business unless they were acquainted, aside from the occasional smiling nod when an elder saw two newbies scuttering around anxiously.

‘Well, it wouldn’t be a Great Hall if it wasn’t great.’

It was even more massive than the chamber with the giant flaming ball of fire in it. This one had no such decorations, however, just a supersized version of the first-year Mess Hall—simple and functional.

“It’s really something, huh?” Mira commented with an awkward smile after they found an empty table. “Look at how many people are in here. And they’re all sorcerers. Most of them can squish us like we’re made of pudding too.”

“You weren’t so bad yourself, back there.” Reivan smiled, sitting down and gesturing for her to order first. “Actually, you were pretty incredible.”

She laughed as she tapped on a cold metal plate, already having a meal in mind. “Ooh, compliments? Usually, it’s supposed to be the girl saying those things to a guy, right?”

“I suppose so. Still, thanks. And sorry for being kind of useless back there.”

“It’s no biggie~!” Mira laid her head on the table, her white cheeks smushed against the cooled surface. “I’m a year ahead of you so it’s perfectly understandable for me to know a few more spells, y’know? Stop making such a big deal out of it, you big doof.”

As they waited for their food to arrive, Reivan was made to face the reality that he wasn’t as good with women as he thought. Because no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t think of an angle of attack. She had already made it clear on multiple occasions that she wasn’t entertaining romance at the moment, so that would provide an additional hurdle.

‘Damn. How do ordinary guys get girls, anyway?’

He had to admit that he may have been leaning on his looks and his money a lot in the past. Now, as a broke and slightly above-average young man, he had no idea how to seduce a girl. Much less, a very attractive one like Mira who was actively avoiding romance.

As Reivan, or as any of the identities he used during his experiments, he had a multitude of ways to break the ice and artificially induce positive feelings. Like stealing their wallet and “returning” it to them as a handsome young man. Or he would drop something and bait them into returning it, allowing him a clean excuse to ask them out as “thanks”.

A pretense, so to speak. Sometimes, that was all one needed to get the ball rolling.

He would be a lot more trustworthy if they thought he didn’t have ulterior motives. Almost as if the meeting was the result of fate or serendipity. According to Valter, women ate that shit up. While running straight up and asking worked well enough, a spy needed a bit more than that to create an actual asset. Things had to appear more natural, even though it was completely artificial.

Suddenly though, his usual weapons were absent. His looks, his money, his status, his information network, and his lackeys. Gone. All he really had was Clover Salwyn’s identity.

And that, right there, was the problem.

Reivan never thought himself some kind of casanova who could invoke moisture in a woman’s loins through conversation alone, but he had this image of himself as being average or decent at it. Sadly, average didn’t seem to be good enough to bag a chick like Mira, who had her eyes set on a goddamn prince.

His toolkit was severely limited here.

‘Eh, fuck it. What do I have to lose? This ain’t my identity anyway. I'll just keep throwing shit until something sticks!’

“Hey.”

“Hmm?” Mira looked up, her droopy eyes making her look permanently drowsy. “What?”

Reivan hesitated for a moment before throwing caution to the wind. “Are you busy? Tomorrow, I mean.”

“Not, really, no. Why? Are you having trouble with a spell? I'd be happy to teach you if you say please. And maybe give me your pudding. For a month.”

“No, I was thinking of inviting you to look around the Upper Cities with me. Or maybe explore new places in the Lower one.”

Mira’s brows rose so high her bangs hid them. “So… Uh, you wanna play in the city? You know, that's a great idea. Let's invite the others too…”

Reivan shook his head. “That sounds nice, but I wanted it to be just the two of us, if possible.”

“Just the two of us…” she murmured. “So you want to be alone with me…?”

“I believe that was implied, yes.”

“Seriously…?”

“Yes.”

"Is this... you know, a date. Man and woman, that sort of thing?"

"There you go. You got it right."

Mira bit her lip and averted her gaze. “Why though?"

"Well..." Reivan raised a brow. "What do you think?"

"Urgh... Is it because you've finally gotten fed up with me and want to assassinate me, taking my place as captain?"

"No. What the hell?"

"But..." Mira looked away. "You know, I don’t think I made a very good impression…”

Reivan hummed in thought before he brought up her Favor stat, which was at 39, at the moment, still displaying that she felt interest, trust, and goodwill toward him. While he had limited weapons at the moment, he still had this.

If he just watched how the numbers fluctuate, he could figure out which answers she liked.

‘She always seems pleased by compliments to her looks so…’

Reivan shrugged. “Can’t it be just because I find you pretty?”

Right after saying that, he checked again and found, to not much surprise, that her favor had dropped by five points. Which was quite sharp, to be honest.

‘Welp, guess she’s not as superficial as she let on.’

“You’re so direct!” Mira exclaimed in exasperation before sighing. “Alini’s pretty too, though? Why not go for her, instead?”

“Why are you suddenly talking about her?” Reivan tilted his head.

“C’mon. You’re not that thick. Surely, you’ve noticed by now.”

“...Okay, fine. It’s kind of hard not to when she keeps looking at me.”

‘Also, I have a nifty skill that tells me when people like me.’

Mira nodded. “Right?”

Reivan drummed his fingers on the table and sighed, staring deeply into her watery eyes. “Even so.”

She groaned under his gaze, though with how her favor bumped back up by one point, it seemed he wasn’t worsening the situation somehow.

‘If looks aren’t the key, then…’

Reivan pushed on, following Valter’s words to strike while the iron was hot. “Besides, I have a feeling it’d be more fun with you than with her.”

Mira groaned, and again her favor increased.

“She’s a good girl, don’t get me wrong.” Reivan rested his elbow on the table and palmed his chin. “You seem like more of a fun person, you know?”

“The heck is that supposed to mean…” She muttered in feigned disgruntlement, turning away even as an invisible screen betrayed her true sentiments. “E-Even if all those things are true, can’t we just be friends…?”

“Perhaps.”

“Right? So—”

“Mira,” Reivan cut in softly, freezing her in her tracks. “You know, I’ll admit that I didn’t have a great first impression of you.”

“Okay, ouch.” Mira chuckled sheepishly. “Understandable though.”

“But that thing… What happened in Lageton? That turned everything around.”

“It really wasn’t such a big deal...”

“Maybe not to you.” Reivan shrugged, smiling as he looked straight into her eyes. “But you were really impressive back there. Can you blame me for being interested in someone so skilled? We’re sorcerers who’ve decided to make magic our life, after all. I want to get to know you more, and maybe some of your greatness can rub off on me too. Maybe we can be even greater. Together.”

Even he thought that was a bit of a leap in logic. Reivan was trained as a knight, after all. How the heck was he supposed to know how sorcerers ticked? But in the same way, his eyes shined whenever Helen beat the crap out of him in an artform he considered highly, it wouldn’t have been strange, in his head, if a sorcerer grew interested in an incredibly skilled magic user of the opposite gender.

Admiration, after all, easily turned into infatuation.

And it seemed that citing her skills did wonders to her Favor, more than anything else he ever said. A whopping ten points at that, bringing up her total to 46—which was, from his research, more than enough to secure a date.

Proverbially speaking, he now had a foot in the door.

“So persistent…” Mira crossed her arms, a very faint blush across her cheeks. “Fine! I haven’t gone out in a while anyway.”

Reivan smiled. “Great.”

“But first!” She slammed her hands on the table with a huff, though seemingly not as hard for fear of disturbing the hundreds of seniors and elders all around them. “I have some stuff to clear up.”

“Uh, okay. Let’s hear ‘em, then.”

“First. I don’t know what other impressions you have of me, but I’m a country girl, okay? I was raised in a small, old-fashioned town in the north. Maybe we were a little wealthier than most, but still.”

Reivan pushed up his glasses to give him time to digest that information. But even then, he couldn’t understand the point of it. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Mira groaned, her ears truly reddening as she spoke. “It means I’m not like all these city girls! I’m not just going to… to come with you to an inn afterward. O-Or go around kissing and stuff.”

“Oh.”

“That sort of stuff… It won’t ever happen until I introduce you to my parents and they like you…” She continued with embarrassment, but her eyes told him that she was serious. “They’ve taken really good care of me so I’m not going to entertain anything more with someone they don’t approve of.”

“Huh. That's nice. I am completely fine with that.”

“Are you sure? Because I’m not going to change my mind on this.”

Reivan chuckled and shrugged. “Understandable. I was raised in a small town too. Out west. I’m just as old-fashioned.”

“Well, you could've fooled me.” Mira rolled her eyes. “Don’t think I don’t know about your sexcapades out of the city. I’m a modest rural maiden but my squadmates last year were the opposite of chaste and I’ve just about heard it all. I know what guys get up to when they leave the Tower with stupid grins on their faces.”

“Ugh…”

“You probably had a good time before coming back, huh?”

Reivan pursed his lips. He really couldn’t say anything back because it was all true. As it turned out though, everything she was saying wasn’t enough to take a point out of her Favor. A silver lining, that was.

Or maybe her Favor had already dropped earlier before he started checking.

“So, yeah. That’s it.” Mira crossed her arms and glowered at him. “If you’re just trying to get under my skirt, you better give up now.”

“As I’ve been trying to say since earlier, I’m fine with it.”

“...Really?” Mira frowned, muttering to herself in a voice so soft that Reivan could barely hear it. “Darn, guys usually back off after that…”

“Yes, Mira.” Reivan nodded slowly and deliberately. “I have no problems with that.”

“Really, really?”

“Yes…”

“Really, really, really?”

“I’m not fucking doing this,” Reivan snapped, only to chuckle in exasperation a moment later. “Treat this more seriously, please… You think it’s easy to come out and ask someone out?”

“For a manslut of Aldimir’s level, yes.”

“Hey. You’ve gone too far. Take that back right now or the wands come out.”

Mira paused for a second before relenting. “Okay, I'm sorry. You’re still a manslut. But not at Aldimir’s level.”

“Thank you.” Reivan dipped his head. “I’ll accept that, given my recent actions. If it means anything at all, I’ll refrain from those kinds of services and entertaining other women while we get to know each other.”

‘Finally, a decent excuse.’

While deep down, Reivan enjoyed his little brothel trips, he was also relieved by the ready-made excuse not to continue. He was already racking up quite a bill, and that didn’t just pertain to money. At some point, he was probably going to confess his sins to his fiancees. This was a different world with different morals that allowed men to marry more than one woman, but it wouldn't sit right with him to be sleeping around so much without at least informing the women he promised himself to.

Of course, he would confess but he wouldn’t apologize. He did it for Aizen, after all. Mostly, anyway. It was his duty to use his junk for the greater good, even if he only really liked using it on those he loved.

“That’s…” Mira raised a brow at him, gazing deeply into his eyes. “Surprisingly sincere. You don’t have to, you know? We’re not even in a relationship. I just agreed on one date.”

Reivan shook his head and didn’t break eye contact. “No. It’s only right to do so. Until you turn me down decisively, I will devote myself to you.”

She hummed appreciatively. “Well, okay. Suit yourself.”

It was then that their food finally arrived and they ate their early supper in relative silence, with Mira only offering curt answers to his attempts at rekindling conversation. The agreed-upon date was still on the cards, apparently, because she confirmed what time they would go before they parted ways, saying she had “stuff” to do somewhere she wouldn’t say.

Reivan watched her scurry away to the teleportation platform with an amused smile. The nice big "50" in her Favor stat told him that he’d made good progress.