The High Elf Royal, Riveria Ljos Alf, was currently clutching her chest with both hands. Her erald-green eyes were completely blown wide in sheer, unadulterated shock. Her entire brain seed to have instantly short-circuited as she simply stared blankly at the intruder floating directly in front of her.
For the very first ti since acquiring it, Aiden truly felt that the Divine Protection of the Water God had... completely screwed him over.
The entire area was plunged into a dead, suffocating silence. Even the howling wind seed to freeze in place.
Moving his neck with stiff, robotic motions, Aiden rapidly glanced around his imdiate surroundings. That single glance was enough to plunge him straight into an icy abyss.
He was completely surrounded by young won, all of them currently embracing nature in its purest form, leisurely soaking in the pristine water. Furthermore, he practically recognized the vast majority of them.
There was Ais, tilting her head with an expression of adorable confusion; Lefiya beside her, looking like she was about to pass out on the spot; Tiona, resting her hands on her hips and clearly enjoying the ensuing drama; and Tione, crossing her arms with an incredibly dangerous, highly amused smirk... Every single pair of eyes was currently locked onto him with the terrifying intensity of military searchlights.
The air was thickly saturated with an overwhelming blend of sheer awkwardness, utter shock, and... a very real, completely unconcealed trace of murderous intent.
"My, my! Little Aiden, did you also co down here to take a nice cold bath?"
Ultimately, it was the fearless Tiona who broke the suffocating silence. She planted her hands on her hips and leaned forward curiously. Her completely unguarded, entirely unapologetic posture made it incredibly difficult for Aiden to figure out where he was supposed to safely rest his eyes.
"You usually look so incredibly proper and serious. I really never expected you to be this bold," Tione purred. Brushing a lock of wet hair aside, she stood up leisurely, a highly dangerous, predatory smile curving her lips.
As expected of the Amazons.
"WAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
On the other side of the pool, Lefiya's CPU finally completely overloaded. Her face turned furiously red, literal steam seemingly practically pouring out of her ears. Her eyes morphed into dizzying spirals as she let out a completely incomprehensible wail of absolute despair.
"Y-Y-Y-You... you utterly insolent scoundrel!"
Alicia, the blonde Elf, frantically covered her chest with one hand while instinctively throwing herself in front of Riveria to act as a human shield. With her free hand, she pointed a trembling finger at Aiden, shaking with uncontrollable rage.
"Um... if I said this was a complete accident, would any of you actually believe ?"
Aiden slowly raised both of his hands into a flawless surrender pose, his mouth twitching violently as he desperately tried to force out a smile of total innocence. He swore to the heavens that he genuinely just wanted to float downstream and wallow in peace. How in the world was he supposed to know that the river dumped straight into the Loki Familia's private girl-group bathhouse?
"Why... did you fall from the sky, Aiden?" Ais asked, her brilliant golden eyes filled with pure, unadulterated confusion.
Instinctively crossing her arms over her chest, a faint, incredibly cute blush dusted her pale cheeks as she stared blankly at the uninvited guest floating on the water.
"I literally just floated down from the upper stream! I swear on my life, I absolutely did not co here to peep!" Aiden cried, his face scrunching up in absolute misery. Keeping his hands raised high above his head, he frantically tried to explain away a predicant so completely damning that even jumping into the cleanest river couldn't wash away the guilt.
"Who the hell would believe you!?"
"To actually dare disrespect Lady Riveria in such a manner... this is absolutely unforgivable!"
"I don't want to hear it! Excuses are just wind! You are completely dead today!"
"To protect Lady Riveria's purity... Flascion, you aren't leaving this place alive!"
Aiden's desperate pleas for understanding fell on completely deaf ears. In fact, they only served to detonate the massive powder keg surrounding him. The fully ard female guards on the shore instantly tightened their periter, completely sealing off the entire spring. Several of the Elf maidens had already drawn their bowstrings to maximum tension, the cold, glinting arrowheads aid squarely at him. Judging by their absolute fury, they were entirely ready to turn him into a human pincushion at a mont's notice.
Aiden opened his mouth, entirely out of tears to shed. Feeling the practically materialized, murderous glares of the surrounding girls bearing down upon him, he knew that any further explanation would be completely futile.
Deep within his soul, an overwhelming, primal desire to survive was violently awakened.
"Hehe... I want to live."
He muttered the words under his breath, the absolute panic in his eyes rapidly cooling into steely determination.
"Sorry! I'll explain everything later!"
Before the words had even fully left his mouth, his chant rang out sharp and clear.
"Ride Upon This Wheel of Fla!"
His enchantnt magic activated instantly. Searing, violently hot flas erupted from his body. The mont the intense heat clashed with the freezing water of the pool, it instantly generated a colossal, billowing cloud of thick white steam.
The dense vapor exploded outward like a massive curtain, completely enveloping the entire hot spring area in a matter of seconds and instantly blinding everyone present.
"Crap, he's trying to run!"
"Stop him!"
"Block all the exits! Do not let him escape!"
Amidst the dense fog, the panicked shouts of the girls echoed relentlessly.
Alicia, who was standing the closest to Aiden, reacted the fastest. Acting entirely on pure instinct, she lunged toward his blurry silhouette, desperately trying to grab hold of him.
However, Aiden's reaction speed was vastly superior. Just as Alicia's hand was about to clamp down on his shoulder, he ducked swiftly and precisely caught her outstretched wrist.
The Elf maiden's wrist was incredibly slender and warm, yet her skin carried a faint, surprising coolness, feeling unbelievably smooth to the touch. Using the montum of Alicia's forward lunge against her, Aiden seamlessly redirected her force, tossing her smoothly to the side.
Alicia felt a sudden, clever application of force hijack her body, sending her flying out of control. In the brief fraction of a second they crossed paths within the dense fog, she could have sworn she saw a pair of incredibly close, deeply apologetic blue eyes.
"Kyaa!"
With a yelp of surprise, Alicia crashed directly into the dizzy-eyed Lefiya, sending the two of them tumbling into a tangled heap in the water.
"You think you can escape!?"
Tiona and Tione violently lunged at him from the left and right simultaneously. Their highly honed Amazonian instincts allowed them to roughly pinpoint Aiden's exact location even through the blinding steam.
But Aiden moved like an incredibly slippery eel, nimbly diving straight down beneath the surface of the water. With the absolute support of the [Divine Protection of the Water God], navigating underwater felt as natural as breathing. His speed was genuinely terrifying.
Like an aquatic phantom, he darted rapidly past the completely subrged bodies of the girls.
"Kyaa!"
"Sothing just brushed against !"
"It's that pervert!"
A fresh wave of even more piercing, terrified shrieks instantly erupted from beneath the water.
By this point, Riveria had completely rebooted from her stunned state. Her erald-green eyes flashed with an incredibly complex array of emotions through the mist, yet she made absolutely no move to attack. She simply watched silently as the dark silhouette broke the surface with a loud splash, leaping onto the shore and vanishing instantly into the thick fog.
Once he was on the shore, the thick steam still offered so cover. However, for battle-hardened adventurers, a bit of fog wasn't nearly enough to entirely rob them of their vision. The guards on the shore imdiately launched a fierce barrage of attacks toward his blurry, fleeing figure.
But Aiden was no amateur. The true heavy hitters of the Loki Familia were currently entirely naked and still soaking in the water. They absolutely couldn't just charge up onto the shore to hunt him down.
Moving with the agility of a ghost, Aiden bobbed and weaved through the sporadic attacks, effortlessly bypassing several of the girls attempting to box him in. Freedom was practically within his grasp.
Just then, several more girls snapped back to their senses, violently cutting off his escape route from the front and instantly forming a brand new encirclent.
In that absolute life-or-death mont, a cold, incredibly familiar chant drifted quietly through the nearby trees.
"—Co, wandering wind, roaming traveler."
"Luminous Wind!"
Following the intense surge of magic, several blinding orbs of light hurtled forward alongside a howling gale, landing with pinpoint accuracy right at the feet of the girls blocking his path.
Boom! While the concussive force of the explosion wasn't particularly strong, it perfectly succeeded in disrupting their encirclent, tearing a small but vital gap in their formation.
Beautifully done, Ryuu, Aiden praised internally. Seizing the fleeting opportunity without a second's hesitation, he shot through the newly created opening, his figure rapidly disappearing into the dark, dense depths of the forest.
"Damn it, he got away!"
"He actually had an accomplice!?"
The girls of the Loki Familia who were left behind stomped their feet, crying out in a mixture of extre fury and bitter frustration.
When the thick water vapor finally dissipated, the scene at the hot spring was one of absolute, unmitigated chaos.
Lefiya, having been unceremoniously used as a human landing pad, was frantically trying to help Alicia steady herself. Having finally recovered from her overloaded CPU, she practically panicked as she asked, "Miss Alicia! Are you okay!?"
"I am fine... but he managed to escape." Alicia shook her head, gently rubbing the spot where she had crashed. She bit her lower lip, her face flushed with a mixture of intense embarrassnt and deep-seated indignation.
The brief, fleeting contact in the fog—the warmth and surprising strength she had felt on her wrist—refused to fade from her mind.
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