Ava’s smile blossomed beautifully at Zorat’s direct response, washing away all of her earlier insecurities as she gained the courage to say her next words...

"Then.... Should we.... Do it again?"

Saying this, her cheeks flushed even redder as she quickly averted her gaze from Zorat.

At first, it was a little scary for Ava’s first time, but after having that first experience and she and Caleb becoming so connected in that way, including the euphoric feeling that accompanied that connection.....

Ava had not been able to get her mind off it, and was very eager to share such an experience with Celeb once again after so many years of them just letting life run out of their hands without sharing such a special experience.

"I would love to, Ava...."

Hearing Zorat’s response, Ava became even more self-conscious and flustered as a blossoming joy spread through her chest, but Zorat’s continued statement caused her to dial it down a little.

"However.... We can’t do that here, with a guard literally right outside, right?"

"And, Ava.... you know you can be a little loud when...." Zorat whispered in a tease to her ear as Ava became more flushed and embarrassed while nodding shyly in agreement.

She understood their relationship had only just begun, and they would get a lot of opportunities in the future to explore these things, which caused Ava even more joy in expectation.

Then she said...."Can I maybe sleep here for the night?..... don’t worry, Caleb.... No one will see me leave."

"Sure."

Zorat said simply with a soft smile on his face.

He did not doubt that she could easily evade the senses of the others, and Zorat really didn’t care anymore if she was seen coming or going from his tent.... Just the unannounced part might become an issue.

Ava smiled beautifully as she shyly climbed fully into Zorat’s futon.

Zorat joined her in, lying on his back, and as expected, Ava began to slowly scoot over until she was pressed flush to Zorat’s side, her soft, perky breasts and nipples poking from the side as she crossed her thigh over Zorat’s legs, with her head to his slowly beating chest as a makeshift head cushion.

Zorat watched her slowly adjust, only she was in a position she deemed most comfy before she smiled, falling quickly into a deep, restful sleep.

Zorat heaved a heavy sigh before closing his own eyes and slowly falling into deep slumber.... He had a lot to do the next day... and the first on the agenda was carrying out his plans to fulfill Ariana’s desire.

The morning sun soon crept into the small tent as Zorat opened his eyes to see that Ava was still sleeping soundly, now wrapped tighter around him, reminding him of another person he had left back at the palace. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

After successfully waking her up, Ava hesitantly vanished from Zorat’s tent and headed for hers in preparation for the day’s adventures.

Ariana was Zorat’s current target to extract her embedded divine authority fragment.

And out of all the other heroes, her own desire was actually amongst the nearly normal ones, though still a little bit unhinged if you looked at it from a different angle.

When Zorat had run his authority of desire ability on Ariana, he found her deeply buried desire to be oddly specific and straight to the point, unlike that of Erica’s, and almost even childish.

Ariana’s desire was to be rescued princess-style, by a prince charming-like figure from a life-threatening situation that was completely out of her control to do anything at all about. That was her weird desire.

Considering how strong Ariana had now become, being one of the strongest heroes, situations where she would be unable to do anything about, and would threaten her life, would be impossible to orchestrate somewhere like the palace, where violence was not permitted and was very secure.

And even the forest of Algove still does not meet that requirement; that’s why Zorat was waiting patiently for them to journey into the forest of no return.

There, he was sure to find several existences that could really threaten this young maiden’s life, and allow him to come in for an ’accidental’ rescue.

It’s almost fitting for someone who always seems so hell-bent on maintaining absolute control over everything to wish deep down for a situation that was entirely out of her control and for a powerful figure to come take charge in her stead.

From Zotrat’s experience. Sometimes, the roles humans play in life stick to them in such a way that doing anything else would seem odd to others and rub them the wrong way if one tries to branch out and try something new..... Like becoming less rigid, perhaps.

It can become so expected and exhausting that one wishes for a reprieve, for them to instead lean on someone else.....

For someone else to be their prince charming, someone else they can depend on, since everyone else expects them to be that person for them.

Looking at Azaria’s life, being the class president and always the one to shoulder such responsibilities because of her ’personality’.

It might have been a role she had to play from her younger years, as it was all she knew....

But there’s always been a part of her that wished to play the role of a dependent..... And not someone who was always depended upon.

And Zorat was going to be that for her.

Of course, he will be the one orchestrating the danger..... But she doesn’t need to know all that. And as long as she doesn’t know.... His authority sees it as fair game.

Like a well-oiled machine, the heroes got back into the rhythm of slaughtering beasts and paving the way as they continued their journey through the forest of Algove.

As usual, both ladies were still trying to see who could offer more kills to Zorat, while Lily continued to frown at their obvious favoritism when she should be the most valued in the team.

But she was also taking down beasts on her own. Even though not as strong as they rest, she was also nearly as strong with properly trained fighting skills, and also, the other heroes sent more kills her way, seeing what Ava and Erica were doing.

At this point, all could already tell there was something more between Erica and Caleb; it seemed like a love triangle to anyone who bothered to look long enough.

Aside from Jacob’s rains of attacks getting strangely progressively closer to wherever Caleb was resting, the journey continued swimmingly, and as the moons slowly blocked out the double suns in the sky....

They finally arrived at the fringes of the forest of no return.