Chapter 498 Moving Back Home

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"Well, see you in a few days, or maybe a week?" Wondered Ruby.

"Sure, sure! We'll come back as soon as we can, thanks for the hospitality." I said.

"No problem Maria, I hope we can become friends in the future." Ruby said with a humble smile, yet I could notice there was a lot of greediness behind such a charming beauty.

"Sure, I hope I can get done the cleansing of Miasma in the dungeon as soon as possible so we can begin the grand plantation plans." I said.

And like that, Ruby asked her "car" to leave us right in front of Aquamarine's home, where we had left the twins with Lucifer's sister, Brunhild. The twins had not come because I didn't wanted to bring them to that meeting between adults, as they would end up making things a bit too hard to deal with.

And well, as for Brunhild, she's still sleeping. Lucifer and I really wanted to talk a lot with her, but we were unable to do so because she was too tired. She said dragons' naps might take several days or entire weeks. She was trusting us a lot to fall asleep in that bed for all this time though.

"We might end up having to bring her back home by carrying her if she keeps sleeping like that." Said Partner. "She's really like a granny!"

"I hope she woke up by now…" Sighed Emeraldine.

"I hope so too. I want to ask her so many questions…" Lucifer sighed.

"Ugh, the twins are going to get mad we had such a big feast without them. I'll cook them something delicious for now… Ah, maybe Aquamarine feed them well. She had taken a liking on the kids." I said.

"I hope so…" Emeraldine said. "I want to go sleep right now…"

"Me too…" Partner sighed.

The battle we had yesterday was really quite too exhausting, especially because everybody was forced to empty their energies several times. We fought against several big bosses and thousands of monsters too, I guess everybody got a lot of accumulated exhausting, me included… After all, my soul shattered into pieces constantly. I've managed to recover a large part of what I've lost, and I've stitched and stuck together all my surviving fragments, but I am still not completely okay.

Although I "ate" a large part of that Fragment's energy, nothing within me awakened or something, and it didn't helped at recovering or regenerating my soul damage either. Also, my Aether inside my Status suddenly dropped to 60 out of the blue, and it was even worse at 40 before, but it has been recovering over time.

Could this 100 Aether mean something like a percentage of my total soul? Maybe if I one day exceed this number, it'll meant my soul grow stronger. Maybe if I evolve the next time, my soul might be able to fully repair itself and grow bigger and stronger as well, evolution always works, though I am still halfway through it.

However, I do remember that eating souls recovered my soul damage too, and it also recovered my MP and even HP, so maybe I should begin snacking on souls. The thing is, I don't want to eat innocent souls, it'll make me feel awful.

So I'll have to select souls in specific, maybe from monsters? Though most of them had been repurposed into Undead, as I now have an army of several hundred Abyssal Ants which are being taken care by Lancelot.

Also, just sleeping and letting my soul recover works too. Maybe I also need a long nap. The pain is still inside of my soul, like an old wound that takes a while to fully recover. When we returned to our area of residence, Helga and the dwarves decided to go their separate ways back home.

"Take care, have a nice trip!" I said.

"Yeah, we'll do. Make sure to get back safely." Helga said.

"We'll do."

As we entered Aquamarine's home, we were greeted by her and the three old dwarves, they were currently having lunch with the twins and… Brunhild.

She was awake!

"Welcome back you guys, it really took you a while to come back. Come, we just began eating lunch." Said Aquamarine.

"Ah, we are already stuffed though…" Emeraldine said.

"Food! I can eat some more food!" Partner immediately decided to join everybody. Who would had known a vampire would have such a big appetite for normal food… Then again, it is a way for her to deal with her anxiety caused for her craving for blood, eating tons of delicious food can certainly make her forget about it I guess.

"Your stomach will burst if you eat more!" I reprimanded her.

"Ehehe, I am hungry though." She said, sitting next to Takeshi.

The twins quickly ran to my side, hugging me.

"Mama welcome back!" Said Takeshi.

"Mama, how was it?" Laura wondered.

"M-Mama again?!" I asked, feeling like I was about to pass out.

"You don't like us calling you like that?" Wondered Laura. "At this point you've been taking care of us and loving us so much… You really feel like the mother we never had."

"Yeah… You don't want me as your son, mama?" Asked Takeshi while looking at me like a sad puppy.

"Uwah… Of course I do, you're my two lovely kids…" I sighed. "I just get a bit embarrassed, that's all… I never thought you would ever see me like a mother, but I… guess I secretly always wished for it." I ended hugging both of them and giving them kisses all over their faces.

"Everything went well too! We got a big business going, we'll use that big dungeon to convert it into a gigantic farm. Like that, we'll have tasty veggies and fruits at home any time we want." I said with a smile.

"Oooh!" Takeshi got happy. "Fruits! Maybe we can make jam! I want jam…" He sighed. Apparently it was one of the things he liked from his previous life. "Also we could plant rice and make Mochi…"

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