The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 343 - Warmth On Wounds In A Cold Logic World

Pressing the new scar tissue with a touch as clinical as it was tender, Elua roiled in her thoughts.

’Most cultivators don’t know how to properly neutralize Void ichor. They treat it like a poison that can be siphoned out when it’s closer to an infection that needs to be burned away. The scar should heal cleanly.’

"...You’re lucky I was there. "

"Well, it was because you were... that the fight happened when and how it did in the first place. But you’re right. I’m always grateful you are here, mint-drop."

While her cheeks were already flushed slightly pink from the hot spring, it deepened before she sank into the water. Far enough down that it covered the lower part of her chin. With lips poking just above the surface, a flustered ’sweet’ voice called upward.

"Y-you should take your turn soon. The heat will help with any remaining tightness and I’ve been in here a while already?"

Her rushing speech had almost nothing to do with wanting to see the rest of her husband-wife’s musculature on display. Almost nothing. But that ’almost’ could be felt by Qatrand. freewebnσvel.cѳm

"Okay. In a moment."

The distant sounds of wildlife provided a peaceful backdrop so different from the rest of the tension of war. Here, animals were not hiding away from the invaders. And here, they could take a few moments to pretend that there wasn’t always more to do.

Elua closed her eyes, deliberately lowering the physical energy pressed across her skin to better absorb the spring’s natural properties for the last minutes. When she shifted to relax against a spot to sit, a hiss broke the tranquility for them both... before a rather tame curse.

"Blast it!"

"What happened?"

Qat was rolling onto her feet instantly to search for enemies with a hand reaching for her sword. Soon enough, the heiress waved her off while pressing ’safety’ through their fragments... though wincing as she turned a quarter to face her.

"Nothing serious. Just scraped against a sharp rock underwater. Caught me right after I lowered my physical protection to enjoy the heat more."

A thin trail of blood seeped into the water from a small cut on Elua’s lower back. Barely enough to even call bleeding... but Qat’s protective instincts flared immediately. Her hand shot out over the water, firm and unyielding as it waited for the smaller girl to hold on.

"Out. Now."

"It’s barely a-"

"Now, El."

The brunette complied with a dramatic sigh, even as her spirit did tumbling flips at the commanding attitude. Keeping her back to Qat, she turned as she rose partially from the water. Impatiently, the taller cultivator surged off an retrieved a few spare lengths of cloth from her pack.

Wrapping one around her wife’s shoulders to drape over her front to protect her modesty - and handing over another to hopefully cover lower if it was required for her to turn around at all... the Continental Army trained cultivator assessed the wound. Like a battlefield injury and not a small boo-boo.

"It’s shallow, but we should clean it properly."

"The water itself here is sterile enough, but if you-"

"But nothing. All these years... it’s finally my turn to play your ’medical fairy’. Okay?"

A tremble before a few *very solid* nods. Qat retrieved the small pot of healing salve from Elua’s own satchel without asking and a faint smile spread on her face as she recognized the old container. But she knew it was a relatively fresh batch.

Her wife always prepared for everything she could, including potential injuries! With her focus on that, the illusionist had taken the time to sit down outside the pool of hot water. Kneeling behind the girl, Qat applied the ointment with two gentle, calloused fingers.

The brunette shivered at the contact - not from pain, despite how she kept her physical energy intentionally from the area now that her beloved was tending to it... but from the intimacy of the moment.

"Looks like your soaking time is over."

"I got to see part of you without your blazer and shirt covering it again. And... now you’re lovingly touching my back. A more than fair trade for the few minutes more I would have stayed."

Qatrand’s fingers paused momentarily at the frank admission before continuing their careful work. If she let every little thing that made her wife have her ’evil thoughts’ affect her... then she pretty much couldn’t do anything.

’Rather, even doing nothing in her presence but standing, sitting, or lying down can make her... *hunger* return. Let alone...’

"This reminds me of the story you once told me. About the wounded Defier and the mortal farmer who attempted to tend her wounds without knowing her true nature."

He woke up the next day with a bag of gems on the table he had no earthly use for, no reliable way to trade without being robbed, and half of his pantry raided. Thirty years later, when bandits were reported as flooding to the region, they mysteriously never made it.

And the plate of preserves left out every Autumn, on the full moon after harvests, was once again gone by morning. Though that year... a watery eyed little grandchild would swear they saw a robed woman settled on the rooftop under the moonlight, to the grandfather farmer who could no longer walk around much.

"You remember that?"

"Perhaps not by rote, but I try to remember every story you’ve ever told me. Especially through letters that I can read again and again."

With that, a reincarnator fell silent. Her spirit fragment pulsed with a complex mixture of emotions in the now blonde-haired girl’s chest. The mention of storytelling touched something deep within. She’d done it only to pass more and more letters between them when she ran out of things to say... about her *present* days...

"There. All fixed."

Hands lingered longer than necessary before reluctantly pulling away from the soft, smooth, and hot spring slick skin. The swordswoman stood and turned, beginning to remove her outer garments with a lack of hesitation that made the distracted heiress jolt to attention.

"W-wha?"

"My turn to soak, right? Now you keep watch. And El?"

"Y-yes?"

"If you would, please stop hoping I will sit on something sharp as well."

With a hand spread over her mouth, a scandalized look on her face, and a hand gripping the cloth on her lap tight...

"Well, I have never heard such a rude accusation!"

Tendrils fluttered in uncertainty and Qatrand turned sheepish - but didn’t look behind at the performative little cultivator.

"Was I wrong...?"

"Of course you were! I was only thinking of how I might *convince* you that you had done such a thing... and that there was a spot bleeding out of your sight that, naturally, I needed to-"

"El..."

Both of them felt far removed from the machinations of war and politics in that moment of shared ’mischief’ and ’exasperation’. The two young newlyweds simply held tight to their vows and their personal promises, unaware that across regions, plans were being laid. Plots that would target everything they held dear.

However, for the Qat focused schemer and the El blessed swordswoman... that was nothing new.

⟠ ⟠ ⟠

Lord Madrigil, an exiled noble from outside the continent which he had currently been traveling through for over a year, hunched over his workbench. It was set up in the cramped quarters he’d secured after much persistence within the fortress - which is to say, a storage room that the base commander finally took pity on him for.

Which is also to say, was tired of being talked to and wanted him out of her hair. She’d already had enough trouble with a different former noble fancily talking circles to get the last private room before the Descent started.

Apparently, sharing the big space as fellow foreign nobles was like suggesting a white tiger and a steel feathered peacock take the same cave during a storm. Or so the sentiment was conveyed by both of them, with rather similar wording, in private. The commander wanted no more private meetings with nobles.

"Remarkable..."

A large magnifying apparatus specially crafted and ritual-assisted was held firm before the man’s face, allowing him to examine the small green gemmed brooch with excruciating detail. Fingers adorned with rings of various metals - none silver - traced the table around the healing brooch like he was copying the intricate patterns he saw.

The micro-sigils etched into its surface were all but invisible to the naked eye. Though if you compared the coloration of the gem enough to a cut but unsigiled version... there was definitely some quality about it that could allow you to tell the difference! He assumed it was probably done so that the merchants dealing with them could tell fakes apart.

"Genius..."

Their intricate patterns had caught his attention years ago, from the moment a wounded soldier had told him how it accelerated recovery. Even if it was not by a tremendous amount, the craftsmanship alone could be applied to so many things. The noble was no fool.

’I had no interest in the lands of my forefathers, but that does not mean I did not have to learn. What would even a mere 5% increase on *many* factors do, combined together, over time? Would it not slowly change everything about the society of a whole continent - nay, the world?!’

Creaking sounds of the door opening and admitting his hired assistant did not make him look away from his study. Not for the first time, the cultivator frowned and wondered how this man had not yet been robbed.

"Any progress... my lord?"

"Indeed. Look at this junction here - see how the outer sequence folds back on itself? It’s not just because that was all the space that was left. It creates a resonance chamber for spiritual energy that shouldn’t theoretically be possible at this scale."

The ’assistant’ peered through the apparatus, seeing only blurry lines. He had neither the training nor the aptitude to appreciate what fascinated his employer. As an unguilded cultivator, he really only learned through his own self practice... and that was mostly martial pursuits.

Though lately, after some encounters at the competition, he had grown interested in learning more social battlegrounds. Aleck had done his best to split his attention between this side job and the urge to man the walls with the soldiers. But local fighting had been sporadic.

"If you say so, my lord."

The meteor-hammer wielder really envied Leysah. At least her noblewoman had ’released’ her from service... after making deals and agreements that the curved blade wielder be placed on that strike force being created. Meanwhile, he expected he might just have to run away one night.

’Just like the last three dozen assistants he told me about... ha...’

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