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When Camilla woke the next day, unusually late, with the sun shining through the wooden slits of the window, Kagriss was already awake.

She sat next to her with a book in her lap, seemingly completely absorbed in the text, so she didn’t notice when Camilla opened her eyes.

It was only when Camilla groggily sat up did Kagriss look up from the book and smiled a smile as radiant as the sunlight outside.

“Good morning, Milla!”

Camilla doubted her ears. What did Kagriss just call her? She must be still asleep. What just happened was just a dream…

“Did you rest well?”

When Camilla was laid down and was about to “wake up” again to see if anything changed, Kagriss set down the book and reached over.

Kagriss tenderly cupped her cheek with one hand while maintaining that radiant smile. “By the way, is it okay if I call you Milla from now on? After that, um…I feel our relationship progressed a little. Camilla doesn’t feel close enough anymore.” Her pale face became tinged with a barely visible hint of red.

Despite it being so early in the morning, Camilla felt her face heating up as well. Since the tiny wounds in her muscles were deemed not a big enough hindrance for immediate repair, her lower body was still sore.

However, Kagriss’s words reached into her heart, making her melt a little. Milla…not even her mother had called her that before.

Smiling, Camilla reached up and hung herself off Kagriss’s neck, pulling the taller girl down with her weight.

Floundering a bit with the sudden weight on her, Kagriss fell down on Camilla.

It was morning, and yet, Camilla still looked so inebriated. There was a hint of that daytime Camilla, but it wasn’t quite there.

Her eyes widened when Camilla pecked her on the cheek near the corner of her mouth before moving to block her whole mouth, speaking between each kiss. “Of course…you can.”

It didn’t take long for Kagriss to recover from her shock, but the whole thing still felt unreal, even while she began to kiss Camilla back. Camilla was actually kissing her when she hadn’t even made a move yet.

It was a welcome change.

Their kisses were deep, draining both of them of their breath. Kagriss shifted positions so that she almost straddled Camilla’s lower body, leaning down on top of Camilla to continue their kissing.

Camilla enjoyed the feeling of Kagriss’s skin against her own, directly and through the silk negligee. Kagriss’s weight was reassuring too, like a heavy blanket to hug at night. Comforting, like a mother’s embrace.

Last night, she had been too muddled to notice, but she really felt safe around Kagriss. She never thought about it before. If anyone else were to try and take Kagriss’s place, there was no way that she’d allow it.

Only Kagriss gave her that sense of security that allowed her to just drown in that blissful eden that Kagriss took her too, where no matter what happened outside, nothing could reach her.

As they broke apart again, in the new morning light, Camilla caught a gaze of herself vaguely reflected in Kagriss’s purple eyes. It surprised her.

There was that blush that she had only ever felt on herself yet never seen. But that was normal. It was her expression that caught her off guard: her eyes looked wet and unfocused, her mouth relaxed, opening and closing slightly as she gasped for breath. Her tongue was still peeking out from her kiss with Kagriss.

She’d never known that she looked so immodest…

But that was all Camilla saw before Kagriss blinked and shattered the image, drawing Camilla from her minor introspection. That’s right, the only reason why she could see that image was because Kagriss was looking at her.

Because Kagriss thought she looked beautiful.

A giddy feeling bubbled up and Camilla pulled Kagriss down toward her again. When Kagriss fell on her, her ample breasts pressed up against Camilla’s. With that, they began to tumble under the sheets again until they were both disheveled messes.

“I love you…”

“I love you too.”

“…but I love you more…”

Instead of answering with her words, Kagriss used her mouth to nibble at Camilla’s neck, sucking lightly. Feeling that ticklish yet oddly sensual feeling, Camilla suddenly remembered that she had bitten Kagriss on the neck last night a few times when Kagriss was hugging her.

But when she looked, there wasn’t a teeth mark anywhere on Kagriss, which made Camilla doubt her memories a bit.

“What’s wrong?”

“No…it’s just, did I bite you?”

“Yeah. But it was a bit conspicuous so I healed the wounds…”

Camilla nodded. Kagriss had woken up earlier than she did, after all. But why was Kagriss up so early?

At her question, the soft, carefree expression disappeared from Kagriss’s face, replaced with a serious one that meant business. Camilla had only seen it a few ones before, once which was when Kagriss was trying to protect her from Victoria just a few days after they first met.

Camilla’s good mood faded as well. “What’s wrong?”

Originally, Kagriss had wanted to find a suitable time to tell Camilla, but since she was being asked so directly, Kagriss didn’t bother to beat around the bush or hide anything. She pursed her lips.

“Before we went down to bathe last night, we set up a few barriers and formations in and around this room, right?”

Camilla nodded.

“Well, last night, I was woken up when a few of them tripped. The one that matters is the one that detected holy magic. We had a visitor last night that could use holy magic and in fact did use it, but it didn’t come in.”

“It must have sensed the other formations and decided to withdraw then.” Camilla sighed. It would’ve been nice if the visitor was a bit more daring, since behind the sensor formations, there were a few magical traps. “Any undead?”

She was a bit worried about Orlog monsters and the unease she felt disappeared when Kagriss shook her head.

Still, Camilla frowned. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

The disappointment on Camilla’s face made Kagriss shrink back. Not that she was afraid, but she didn’t want to do anything that made Camilla not like her. Logically Kagriss knew that it would take something immensely against Camilla’s interests to make Camilla hate her, but she would rather that meter never ever rise.

With daytime Camilla’s return, Kagriss found herself acting a lot more demure. She fidgeted with her fingers, unsure how to answer.

She knew that Camilla would be upset if she didn’t wake her up for a possible intruder, but at the same time nothing came of it in the end, so waking Camilla would have ended up being pointless. Not to mention Camilla looked so at ease that Kagriss couldn’t bear to.

Even if the intruder decided to force their way in, Kagriss felt she could handle them just fine with the help of all the formations in and around the room.

She was afraid to look at Camilla’s piercing gaze, and in the end she just kept silent until Camilla sighed and dropped the topic.

Camilla slid off the bed and held up the moonstone. The lingerie on her, no longer holding the same charm as it did before thanks to the business-like atmosphere, turned into blood and poured into the stone.

The red dress that Kagriss left on the floor did the same, only to appear on Kagriss body shortly after.

After refilling the moonstone with blood mana, Camilla tossed the moonstone over to Kagriss, who stored it inside her chest again. Camilla herself donned an armored dress straight from her own blood.

In seconds, they were as ready as they could be.

Although Camilla was upset that Kagriss didn’t wake her up and didn’t give her a reason, her bond with Kagriss was too strong to even be strained by it and they quickly shrugged it off.

She walked over to the door and yanked it open.

Formations, intangible to Camilla and Kagriss but as powerful as a wall of steel to anyone else, appeared before them. After checking to see that no one was nearby, Camilla nodded to Kagriss, who reached out.

They weren’t gracious enough to simply let this unknown intruder leave. There was a reason Kagriss didn’t bother waking Camilla up, nor did she chase after the intruder. They were confident that they’d be able to find whoever it was.

The air in Kagriss’s outstretched hand warped and she closed that distortion in her fist. When she opened her hand again, she was holding a small glass cube that had previously been hidden by an illusion set by Camilla.

In terms of spellcasting, what Arvel could do, she could do better.

Kagriss was the undead equivalent of an archpriest—a high mage. It wasn’t very difficult to modify a sensor formation to become a collector formation.

The one she made gathered the mana that set off the sensor and funneled it toward the cube that Camilla got from Arvel just in case they ran into more monsters.

With Camilla’s help, the formation could gather and store both undead and holy magic. While it wasn’t very efficient thanks to Kagriss coming up with it on the spot, it was passable.

When Kagriss showed the box to Camilla, Camilla nodded with satisfaction. Golden mana swirled within, trapped and preserved. While it will eventually break down, the cube slowed the process quite significantly.

If they gave the sample to Arvel, they’d be able to figure out who the culprit was.

After storing the cube somewhere safe, they began to repair and reset the formations that had been tripped.

“Who do you think it was? Do you think it’s someone we know?” Following Kagriss’s directions, Camilla constructed a simple spell, added her formation into a puzzle of formations that Kagriss had already made.

This one worked as a long-distance communicator that let them know if someone tried to enter.

Kagriss thought about the question for a while before she shrugged. “I don’t think it’s anyone I know,” she finally said. “But since you were a templar, it might be an acquaintance.”

“…perhaps.” She hoped not. Even if she was now a vampire, Camilla didn’t wish to fight former friends and acquaintances. She’ll show no mercy, though. “Still, no one you know? Not even Pavlor?”

“No. He looks like the type to just blast the formation part.” Kagriss’s mouth twitched, scowling as she remembered the annoying and narcissistic archpriest.

In her eyes, only Camilla was worthy of that kind of pride!

Axiom’s Note

About to commit not-alive because of my classes. Semaphores, forking…blerrghhh. An entire letter grade off for one of my classes because of one assignment. Dead.

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