Chapter 171 - Lecturing

Now exhausted, Ethan now in the room did not hesitate to arrive at the bed and, as he stood at the opposite end of Lefiya's, Ethan closed his eyes as he could feel Ais' hands wrap him in an embrace while at the same time, the latter brought him closer to her...

With this happening and Lefiya getting used to the sight of the two snuggled in that way, the night passed quickly and, before they all realized that they had fallen asleep, Ethan slowly opened his eyes before realizing the night had already passed...

'I had to be exhausted if I fell asleep so fast..'

Yawning and stretching his arms, Ethan felt the urge to have breakfast and, by checking the system time, Ethan understood he couldn't let the two of them sleep much longer...

Putting a hand on Ais' head, Ethan stroked and shook her gently as Ais normally only needed this to wake up while for Lefiya, he had decided to be more rough, just because he knew she would still have some reactivity problems when she woke up.

Bringing a hand on your shoulder, Ethan began to shake it and seeing that Lefiya seemed to wake up but didn't seem to want to stay awake for long, he added

"We both have work to do, Lefiya. If I could have done the job for you, I would have done it and let you sleep, but unfortunately I won't have time to take care of the house today.. "

To his answer Lefiya's eyes regained awareness and, hearing what he was saying, got out of bed while she remembered from his words she actually had work to do.

Ethan, on the other hand, hadn't refused to let Lefiya sleep to focus on training but it is precisely because after it, Ethan had decided to discuss with Riveria about the strange answers the system was providing him, but especially about his training to be able to unlock his domain, which didn't seem possible for him to complete and unlock in just a week with his current pace. He had told Light that he would succeed in the two-week period she had set for them to reunite, and not wanting to disappoint her, Ethan was ready to do everything he could to stay within that threshold as a time limit, although after the recent episode with Riveria, Ethan still had rather confused ideas about how he should interact with her.

This was because that gesture was as if it had marked him deeply, and although there are usually few things that embarrassed him, face Riveria had now become quite difficult on a psychological level for him..

But his feelings weren't nearly enough to stop him. He didn't care if he had to face those strange feelings again, Ethan was ready for the worst if it was necessary to obtain what he wanted.

Gulping, Ethan decided to ignore these feelings for the time being and, while announcing that he would go downstairs to wash his face as he opened the door, Ethan found Hestia and Lili going in the same direction he was heading, and of course it didn't take much to figure out what they were going to do.

But without paying much attention, Ethan nodded with a salute as he yawned, continued to head to the 1st floor with Ais following him while Lefiya, still behind from the half-asleep state, shouted "W-Wait I'm coming too!!"

To her words, however, Ethan smiled back as he answered

"In any case, you still have to develop a resistance against this phenomenon, and what better method than that of training day after day trying to wake up when someone calls you seem like the fastest way, and I'm going to keep doing this in the future until you get used to it..."

At his words, Lefiya's smile petrified while with a shaky voice, she responded to his words

"T-There's no need..for you..t-to do that... but I appreciate the thought--"

Before she was able to finish the sentence, Lefiya noticed Ethan was serious, which led her to sigh knowing that she had no chance to persuade him now...

While this scene was played in front of Hestia and Lili, these two could only wonder how close those three were while a question flashed in Lefiya's mind, noticing the absence of Maple...

"Anyway.. is everything okay with Maple? Last night I couldn't even ask you this because of my sleepiness..."

When asked, Ethan nodded before giving a quick explanation of what had happened, as Ethan had only moved her body elsewhere and nothing unusual had happened, but other than that, he decided to reassure Lefiya.

".. Ah, after I finish the bathroom I'll check Maple to see if everything is okay and in case something strange happens, I'll be there for her..."

But Ethan had not taken off his shirt to show off his body to everyone present, instead it was just a habit he had found himself having, and the thing was difficult to avoid but, the circ.u.mstances he was in forced him to put on his shirt while Lili's happy expression turned into a disappointed one, but without paying too much attention to it, she approached Hestia and, also taking some water where Hestia was washing, she bathed her face with it.

Although Ethan intended to go back into the shower, he was genuinely concerned that Ais would be able to reassign Lefiya the role of remaining with the rest of the group, which would anger Lefiya and thus lead to an argument, So Ethan had reached the solution that if bathing alone wasn't good, then he had no choice but to bathe with them, even though that meant they had to use towels to cover s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e parts.

In this way, with Lefiya being a bit embarrassed, Ethan trying to avoid her gaze as much as possible to not increase the pressure she was feeling, and Hestia, Lili and Ais witnessing all this, the whole group came out refreshed from the bathroom and, having previously had occasion to choose the order with which they would perform the various tasks, the first task they had to accomplish was prepare breakfast, which they would all undertake while Ethan had to take care of Maple.

Dividing in this way, the girls began to prepare breakfast while Ethan, now in Maple's room, clapped his hands lightly to let his presence be known to her as he was curious to see if she would wake up from even the slightest interference but, noticing that this didn't seem to be the case, Ethan sighed with a small smile as, approaching her, he began to call her with a gentle voice and this time, he could see how it was effective.

Now awake, Maple looked around and, noticing Ethan was looking at her, she leaned her head slightly as if to look at him better to try to understand what his feelings were but, while she was busy doing so, Ethan picked her up as he started talking to her, even though he knew she wouldn't be able to understand his words at all...

"I'll take you to the bathroom, and after that you can have a relaxing bath until dinner is ready..."

He felt at that precise moment that he had understood a little what people with animals felt, even if their pet wouldn't be able to understand their words, even for Ethan it seemed too strange to just take her to one place or just make her do what was needed. It was as if it lacked something, and even if talking didn't help to understand each other more at all, he was confident that by continuing to show her something and tagging a word to it, Maple would have no problem learning the meaning of that single word, precisely because she was no ordinary fox.

With these thoughts in mind, Ethan once again made his way from Maple's room to the bathroom and, taking a look at how he was doing in the kitchen, he could see that a kind of collaboration between Ais and Lefiya, and in the same way between Hestia and Lili had arisen, but besides this, the two small groups compensated for what the other one would have to do later, reducing the time it took to prepare the food, which led Ethan to smile in their direction, because he appreciated the fact they were cooperating so actively and, from Maple's point of view, seeing there was some sort of harmony flowing through the whole kitchen, Maple closed her eyes again and let Ethan carry her wherever her presence was needed.

Unlike the beginning where Maple was also very wary of the fact he could hold her so easily, now Maple felt really lucky to be able to enjoy these moments since not only being in Ethan's made her feel protected and loved as only a few times since very young she could feel this feeling from her own parents, but on top of that, Ethan was very kind to her and others, to the point of having so many people around him and trying to do the same for him, which had encouraged Maple to 'join them in their mission' when she could be able to do so...

Opening her eyes and finding herself in the bathroom, Maple had understood what Ethan wanted to do and, although she would have been against it before because it would have meant somehow showing her body to him, Maple had decided to ignore the various meanings behind the actions he carried out because not only she was sure he didn't mean many of the things he should have meant by certain actions, but even if he wanted to explain to him there were things he technically couldn't do, Maple didn't want to waste Ethan's resources on something so unnecessary, since in reality she didn't make much distinction knowing there there was no correlation between the meanings of the actions and the actions themselves...

---

(I have a discord server. discord.gg/cpVr5X8. You may ask me: "Why should I enter the server?". Well, I'm replying to every interesting question you readers are asking in my chapters, so, you should absolutely enter if you want to read my answers. Ah, and you can find some image reference of items in the story such as Light..! (Soon even Qienta).. so it's recommended to join, I frequently post polls as well, regarding things that(most likely) will be present in the story. One last thing, I post chapter updates in my discord right after I posted on , so I guess you can join to be able to know when I post chapters faster.)

(Poll going on in the discord: Who do you prefer? Qienta or Light? | Cat-girl or Renard(Fox) | Are you liking the interactions between Maple and Ethan?)

(Do you enjoy reading my novel? If the answer is yes, then thanks. I'll leave my ******* here. w ww.pat reon.com/watashiwavdesu)

(Alternate Titles: "Maple doesn't mind being n.a.k.e.d in front of Ethan...But don't worry, Ethan doesn't see her in that way anyway","Girls in the kitchen, doing their job", "Ethan in the bathroom, doing his job with Maple")