110

Opening my eyes after a quick nap I see the sleeping face of Shea resting on my outstretched arm and I smile. I reach out and tuck some hair behind her ear and she scrunches her nose and wrinkles her eyebrows.

I pull her closer when her eyes start fluttering open and she seems pretty surprised by the current circumstance. She rests her hands on my chest and looks around before her face slightly pinks and she meets my eyes.

Her deep and electric purple eyes capture my entire concentration as I focus on every detail they have. from the smaller lines running through them to the reflection of my own eyes.

"Morning sleepy head." I rub a hand up her back and down to the small of her back as she flutters her eyelashes.

"Morning Nova, how long did we sleep?" I check the time with my 'homemade' patent pending standard issue Nova pocket watch.

"A few hours, two hours, and thirty-seven minutes to be exact give or take a few seconds. Still got a few kinks to work out of this thing." I spin the watch on my finger before sending it back to my inventory and snuggling into Shea.

"We need to go back?" She almost seems to be asking more for me than herself so I shake my head and just enjoy the body warmth.

"Nah, I like laying naked outside with you, it feels liberating." She smacks my side and blows on my ear.

She found out my little pointy ears are quite sensitive and won't leave them alone, quite a pain in the butt.

"Hold still." I freeze as if time itself stopped and she laughs as she leans in and takes a nibble of my ear, my body shivers and fear grows in my heart.

I might get addicted to her soft fluffy lips pulling on my ear!

"We should at least put some clothes on, Nova~" I snap dramatically and a circle equips us both in a set of my clothes, a baggy casual outfit for Shea. I won't confirm or deny that I have some of her clothes in my inventory but wanted to see her in my clothes instead.

Kind of like draping a flag over a conquered castle in medieval times.

"How are you feeling?" I loosen my grip on her as we sink into a comfortable position and she nestles her head between my head and shoulder.

"Fine? But I feel like you mean something bigger by that question." I nod.

"It is bigger, I mean are you fine overall? A lot of things have been flying by and I haven't stopped to ask you how you feel about it all. You are just adapting to my flow and being carried along as I franticly try to prepare for the end of the world." She turns her head and kisses my cheek.

"I am fine, I wouldn't have lasted as long as the leader of the Darkmoon if I was weak-willed. They purposely pushed me down and kicked me every chance they got to keep me from recovering the estate. Compared to that running the entire empire is a cakewalk." I detect a hint of sarcasm but also a lot of sincerity so I leave it at that. "How are you with running around trying to stop the end of the world?"

"I am also fine, just trying to bridge as much over the gaps as I can before things hit the fan. I am confident if my next big plan works out the way I want we will stand a good chance of beating the Abyss before they can become a big problem." I pull out a water bottle and offer her some but she shakes her head and I take a sip before sending it back.

"What is this big plan?" I smile.

"Robbing the Angels in the human world while they sleep. I will rip them off for all they are worth and in the process prevent Abyss from getting what they have. I also get a cute little Phoenix daughter to raise." I can't wait to get the egg over everything else, to be honest, the boots will be fun but more useful for Izzy than me so I am leaning toward the fire chicken to be my main reward.

Other than trying to take the Book of creation for myself.

"Sounds stupid and dangerous, definitely something you planned at three AM when you should have been sleeping but you just had too many hair-brained ideas bouncing around." I gasp and try to defend myself but I think I was with Zola at the time and the chances of it being late by the nature of our research there is an as good chance she is right.

"Truce." She giggles and my heart melts as she lets loose and I get to enjoy the real Shea.

I need to do this more with her, she is a sweet person under all that conditional training and years of oppression.

"Hey, Nova." I hum and she tightens her hug and sets her head back down. "I think I might love you."

----

"Welcome to Team Nova, it is our pleasure to give you your honorary badge of employment." I hand the dark-haired girl a badge I just made with gold from the ground and she smiles wide with twinkling eyes.

"I love it!" Olypheus, a character that suffered because Satan's mark on her would be half triggered and made her a half puppet for the false god. Chen Rui had a way to immediately fix it but it involved having sex with her and he had some 'reservations' about screwing the girl.

I don't even know where to begin to help here but I will try my best.

"Let's get you some Pudding." She perks up hearing a new word.

"What's Pudding, is it as good as other foods you make?" I nod and she bounces next to me and grabs my hand. "Then let's go and not be late! Come on and go! Go!" I smile as she leads me out the door with no clue where to go, with a sigh I teleport us to my house.

----

"Here, don't make a mess and I will give you more." A huge industrial-sized bowl filled to the top with pudding and mixed in bananas and whip cream with crushed vanilla cookies. The human world ingredients came in clutch for some recipes that were missing some trademark flavors.

"It's good!" She shouts excitedly and I notice Krobelus come into the room following her hound dog nose. She crosses her arms territorially after she sees a little black dragon girl smacking her lips and killing a bowl of pudding.

"Who is she, Nova?" The same girl who slicked herself off to me railing her best friend barks out a harsh tone seeing the other dragon.

I step up and put a hand on Krobelus head and ruffle her hair.

"Don't be so standoffish, she is a pitiful little orphan and needs some basic people skills. She has been living on her own mostly since her mom died." Krobelus mood one eighty flips and now looks sadly at the girl.

"Come here." She hugs the still-eating Olypheus, I spot Krobelus stealing some pudding but I won't say anything.

"You two hang out for a second while I make the brownie-flavored one to try." They nod and I get to work.

----

I finish breaking the brownies into little pieces and scattering them into the cholate flavor pudding and stir it all together and by the time I am done and turn around to let the test subjects try it I bump into both of them.

"Give it over." The black dragoness barks like a raiding pirate and Krobelus knocks her on the head.

"Ask nicely." Though she is also drooling and looks ready to dive in.

"Please give it over!" I hold it out and it disappears in a blur of speed and they both are at the table eating. I throw the empty bowl into my inventory to wash with the hose later and head out of the room.

It seems Krobelus adopted her so I can relax a little bit, I was worried about it when Olypheus got in contact with me but all seems well.