Rise of the Living Forge

Chapter 149: Confessions & Armor

“I have a confession,” Lillia whispered around an hour later. At least, Arwin suspected it was an hour. He’d been a little distracted with other matters.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now. I’ve never thought about anything like this before. Are we married?”

Arwin nearly choked on a mixture of surprise and laughter. “I — no. I believe we would be dating. Is that not how it works for demons?”

“No clue. I never had a chance to talk to anyone about anything like this,” Lillia said, speaking into Arwin’s shoulder. Even though he couldn’t see her face, her embarrassment was clear as day. “When did you get a chance? Have you… dated before? And what’s the difference?”

“Dating is mostly getting to know the other person, I think. And as for how I knew…” Arwin’s expression flickered and a small smile pulled across his lips. “Blake had a girlfriend. He told me all about her and what they’d do in their free time. More than I wanted to know, if I’m being honest.”

“Oh. I guess you’ve got the advantage over me, then.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Arwin said with a muffled laugh. “It sounds as if I’ve got experience. I’ve just heard a few things. I don’t reckon that I’m much better off than you are beyond knowing the definition of the word.”

“Then we’ll just have to learn together.”

Lillia pushed herself upright, untangling her tail from Arwin’s side. He pushed away his disappointment and did the same. It had been some time since they’d gone to bed.

Time didn’t stop running for them, no matter how badly he wanted it to. The others would probably already either be awake or close to it. There was too much to do to let the day waste away. Getting up was probably the right decision.

There was just one problem. Lillia hadn’t uncrossed her legs from his, and he couldn’t rise until she did. Despite his internal resolution of mere instants before, it was an issue that he had no desire to revolve.

Lillia leaned forward and pressed her chest against his. Her forehead touched Arwin’s and her hair fell around her head, brushing across his shoulders.

“If we’re dating, does that mean I can kiss you?” She whispered.

Arwin, with all the extra experience that had been bequeathed upon him by Blake and his stories, could muster nothing but give a rather overeager nod. It was possibly one of the easiest questions he’d gotten in his entire life.

Lillia pressed her lips to his cheek, just beside the corner of his mouth. She kept them there for half a second before pulling back and finally untangling her legs from Arwin’s. Lillia rose to her feet and found his hand, pulling him up to stand beside her. Her arms snaked around his sides and she pulled him into a tight hug.

“I look forward to learning about dating with you,” Lillia whispered into his chest. She let an arm slip down and found his hand. She gave it a small squeeze. “We should probably head out before the others really start to wonder.”

It took a supreme force of will for Arwin to gather himself to respond in a normal tone. Lillia had brought up a rather important point. “What should we do about the others? Do we tell them?”

“I don’t think it should cause any issues,” Lillia replied after a second of thought. “I only didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want to foul the air between us before something important.”

Arwin’s cheeks reddened again. “That was my reason as well. I think you’re right though. None of them should have a problem with it. I don’t see a reason to keep it secret. It’s just… surprisingly embarrassing to think about sharing.”

“Just one thing,” Lillia said. “We can’t let Reya know about how this happened.”

A shudder ran down Arwin’s spine and he nodded. “She’d never let us live it down. Agreed. That dies with us.”

With that, Lillia guided Arwin out of the room. She didn’t release his hand until they were well into the kitchen and close enough to a light source that he could already see the outline of her back in the shadows.

They both stepped out into the common room. Arwin was entirely unsurprised to find that they were the last ones to arrive. Rodrick and Anna had bundled themselves together with their bedding and sat on one of the chairs as they had the day before.

They’d been joined by Reya and Olive, both of whom had wrapped themselves in an individual bundle to ward off the cold. Arwin was struck with the realization that it was just as cold today as it had been the day before. He’d just been so caught up with Lillia that he hadn’t even noticed.

“Morning,” Rodrick said. “I’d wave, but that would involve removing my hand from my blankets, so just pretend.”

“Can we have breakfast soon?” Reya asked. “I’m starving. And good morning.”

“You’re supposed to start with the good morning,” Anna admonished. “But breakfast would be lovely whenever you’re ready to make it, Lillia.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Before that, there’s something important we need to tell you.” Arwin steeled his nerves. Everyone looked over to him, worry passing over their features at his serious tone.

“What is it?” Olive asked.

Adrenaline ran through Arwin’s veins and he nearly let out a nervous laugh. He was somehow just as stressed about this as he had been for some fights against literal monsters trying to rip his throat out.

Maybe more stressed. I don’t care what the monsters think of me.

“Lillia and I are dating,” Arwin declared. He forced the words out through his lips as quickly as he could before he could get too caught up in his thoughts.

Four gazes bore into him. Reya’s brow furrowed.

“And?” she prompted.

“And what?” Arwin asked with a blink. “That’s it.”

“Oh. Why are you saying it like that?”

“I… okay, I’m lost,” Arwin admitted. “What do you mean why? It was a revelation.”

“Arwin, we all knew,” Rodrick said with a snicker. “You were both coming out of the same room nearly every single morning. Why is this being framed as new knowledge?”

That certainly wasn’t the reaction that Arwin had been expecting. He glanced to Lillia for help, but she looked just as surprised as he felt.

“Ah… we only just started dating this morning,” Arwin said.

“What were you doing before, then?” Reya asked. “Actually, on second thought, don’t tell—”

“We were just sleeping together,” Lillia said.

Reya’s cheeks went bright red. “I really didn’t need to know that.”

“Reya, she meant in the literal form,” Olive said. “But I thought you two were already a couple as well.”

You’ve known us for a few days. How did literally everyone know about us before we did? Were things really that obvious? We’re lucky that they just seem to think we never made things official.

“Ah,” Arwin said. He cleared his throat, then scratched the back of his neck. “Well, that’s that. Now you know.”

“We knew,” Rodrick said.

“Yes, thank you. On to other things,” Arwin said, desperate for a shift of topic. “Olive, you proved invaluable yesterday. Do you have any interest in properly joining our guild? Long term, not just until you pay off your sword.”

Olive blinked, a flicker of surprise passing over her expression before she could get it under control. “Seriously?”

“Yes. It might not be official yet, but you’ve proven yourself an apt swordswoman and more than reliable. We could use someone like you.”

The others all nodded. A small smile pulled at the corners of Olive’s mouth. “Well, if you put things like that, I don’t think I can refuse. It’s hard enough to find a group of adventurers that I can tolerate enough to do a single dungeon dive with, much less anything more. If you want me, then I’ll be glad to join.”

Arwin smiled. Olive had more than proven herself in last night’s fight, not to mention how she hadn’t shown even the slightest amount of greed toward Wyrmhunger. She would be a fantastic addition to the guild.

“Welcome aboard. Then, in that case, I think we should properly come clean. No point keeping all our secrets any longer.”

“Clean?” Olive asked. “About what?”

Arwin summoned Verdant Blaze to his hands. The rest of his armor followed after it and took form on his body. He wasn’t sure what the best way to go about this was, but Olive had always said she preferred things straight on.

Then he revealed everything’s information. Olive locked in place, her mouth parting in disbelief as her eyes flicked back and forth in the air, reading the information that the Mesh was bringing up before her.

“How?” Olive whispered.

“I can make magical items,” Arwin replied.

Olive swallowed heavily. Her eyes moved to Rodrick, then to Lillia. “You mean everything you’ve all been wearing is…”

“All of my armor,” Lillia confirmed with a nod. “Rodrick’s as well.”

“Why are you living in a rundown place like this if you can do that?” Olive asked in disbelief. “You could be the richest person in Milten — no, scratch that. The richest person on the outskirts of the Kingdom.”

“Because I’m picky about who I make magical items for,” Arwin replied. “I won’t make them for just anyone. And what’s the benefit of being rich? When I need money, I’ll get it. I don’t need people beating down my door before I’m ready to deal with them.”

“I — yeah, I suppose that makes sense.” Olive swallowed again. Then her eyes narrowed slightly as a thought struck her. “Wait. No wonder you let me have that sword. You could make better.”

Arwin shrugged. “It’s still a magical weapon and you really seemed to want it. We didn’t know each other well enough for me to go revealing my abilities yet. I didn’t want you joining up because you wanted access to free magic shit.”

Olive blew out a breath and shook her head. “That’s a fair response. I don’t blame you for that.”

It looked like she wanted to say more, but she restrained herself.

While we’re on the topic of revelations… should Lillia and I tell her about our past? I don’t think Olive would betray us to the Adventurer’ s Guild. Then again, I don’t know if there’s anything to be gained from sharing that.

I think it might be best to wait a bit longer. I trust Olive, but there’s no reason to take risks excessively. We can see how she handles one big secret and then deal with things as they come after that. If she’s still trustworthy in a few weeks, we’ll tell her.

Either that, or she’ll start to wonder why Lillia literally never takes off her supposed makeup.

“I’m going to go get breakfast started, then,” Lillia said, breaking the silence an instant before it could grow awkward. “Welcome to the team, Olive.”

Everyone else mirrored her words, causing a faint blush to color Olive’s cheeks.

“By the way, we’re going to head out and collect everything we can from the fight yesterday after we get breakfast,” Rodrick said.

“I can help,” Arwin said reluctantly, but Rodrick was shaking his head before he finished the sentence.

“Why waste your time? It’ll just be collecting the scrap,” Rodrick said. “Just do your work and we’ll do ours. I was just letting you know where we’ll be.”

Arwin smiled and nodded in appreciation. Lillia slipped into the kitchen and got to work. It would probably be a little while before she had anything ready to eat, and that meant Arwin had time to check in on how Ridley was doing with his smithy.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Arwin said as he headed for the tavern door.

It wouldn’t be long before it was done if it wasn’t already. He could barely wait. Once the smithy was repaired, he’d be able to set up a proper shop.

I’m not letting the situation with the Iron Hounds happen again. We aren’t going to get caught so badly off guard. If we’re going to make our guild official and be ready to face anyone new that tries us, we’re going to need a whole lot of money.

I think it’s just about time for Ifrit to make his return. I’m going to need make a whole lot of armor.