Chapter 271 Taming The Shrew

"You now can use magic like you could before, but you have to be careful because you are almost as strong as you were before with this, but I can still take it back in an instant. Even more so now because I was the one that gave it to you, and I can do it without being near you," I explained, and Claire snapped out of her revelry, reaching her hands out.

"I have too much, so let me do this," Claire said, now sitting on my lap, still in my arms.

"Sure, show me the power of the Holy Beholder," I said and kissed her cheek, making her smile and blush as she started to concentrate.

I watched as the surroundings of the Spatial lodge started to distort, and a spell circled appeared, making Claire gasp and almost lose her spell, but I grabbed her forearms gently and helped her guide the spell. This was usually a straightforward spell, but this magic was my Blessing, and that meant that Claire could now not only wordlessly cast but also edit her spells like me. The spell was just a way to edit an existing Spatial Lodge, but many things were added with a ton of Pure Magic poured in. I was almost concerned that it might tear the fabric of this world, and when we opened the door, we could be in a different world, but Claire had everything under control almost better than I could have.

The white three-foot wide spell circle snapped into place, and then suddenly, there were spell circles hovering over every surface, and everything flashed. I heard Elfinia scream, but she would be fine. I was more concerned about what kind of place Claire had constructed with that silly amount of Pure Magic. The spell was elementless, so it could be cast with any of them, but Pure Magic was a different beast regarding spells like this.

"Welcome to the new and improved Spatial Lodge!" Claire exclaimed as she hopped down, looking at everything with wide eyes. "I made all of the rooms larger so that we wouldn't have to squeeze in any more people than we need to!"

I looked around at the massive lodge now; it was easily a hundred times bigger than before! We could hold armies in here if needed, but what was even more impressive was that there were three floors! It wasn't like a regular house where you had one floor for sleeping quarters and another for living quarters. This place had three levels of perfect equality, each two stories high!

"This is amazing...but how did you do this?" I asked as I walked over to look out one of the windows onto the town. From up here, everyone looked so small, but it gave us an aerial view in case anyone should try anything funny today from up on rooftops or something foolish like that.

"It's called World Shaping, but I could do some pretty interesting stuff with this new magic you have given me. I went basic, but tomorrow we can change it again, and I will make it into a palace fit for goddesses. That should make everyone happy!" Claire explained while walking over next to me before Elfinia joined us after getting over her shock about being moved without warning.

"You all could have warned me before throwing me around!" Elfinia snapped as she entered the room with arms crossed across her chest, and I grinned.

"Sorry, but the place does look a lot better. I will only have two hotel rooms tonight to see if we can lure some Cult Members out. We have Melly, but there are sure to be more hiding in the village as spies or will be sent here because we are here now," I said, and Claire nodded before walking over to the central part of the house.

"I will leave you while you do the ritual. Don't resist him, Elfinia; you will only make things harder on yourself. Galio is only trying to help, and you acting like you don't want this will only make things harder," Claire said with some of her confidence returned as she left the room with Elfinia glaring between us.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Elfinia demanded, and I sighed as I walked over to stand across from her.

"Claire is just trying to help you see that what you are doing isn't going to work out in the long run," I explained, but Elfinia crossed her arms defiantly as she leaned back into the wall with a huff.

"And what do you know about helping people?!" Elfinia demanded as she looked at me with narrowed eyes, and I shrugged nonchalantly in response.

"A lot more than you would think...but we don't have time for this right now," I said before walking over closer to where she was standing since it seemed like this was going nowhere fast.

"I am not going to let you have your way with me again," Elfinia said as she put her hands on my chest, but I gently took hold of both of them and looked down at her.

"You really think that this is about the kiss for me? Or do you think that maybe...just maybe... I care for you?" I asked pointedly as Elfinia's eyes widened slightly in shock before she tried to look away from me, breaking our connection.

"W-What are you talking about?! You don't care! You just use people!" Elfinia exclaimed defensively while trying to wriggle out of my gentle grip.

"That is a load of crap, and we both know it," I said plainly while looking directly into Elfinia's silver eyes before sighing deeply when it was clear that this was going nowhere like this again.

"Fine! Have it your way!" Elfinia exclaimed as she tried to push me away, but I just tightened my grip on her wrists and looked down at her.

"That is not what this is about," I said plainly, but Elfinia refused to look up at me. "I know that you are scared of letting people in because of the pain that it had caused you in the past when I left you. I am not going to leave you again."

"S-Stop it!" Elfinia cried, and I pulled her into a kiss as I filled up with more magic. She tried to fight me at first but then threw herself against me in the kiss and returned it. This was going to be more challenging than I thought, but the sooner we got this done, the better.

I slowly poured my magic into Elfinia until it started glowing brightly around us. The glow eventually got brighter and brighter until even with our eyes closed, we could still see each other perfectly without issue with how bright this place was becoming! Finally, when everything seemed nearly at its peak brightness, I pulled away slightly while ensuring neither of us collapsed on the floor in exhaustion.

Elfinia's eye glowed with silver light, and she had a genuine look of happiness on her face, and then she pounced on me to kiss me more to my surprise, pushing back to the bench seat.