Chapter 35

Back to the situation at hand, I politely nodded and went to leave.

"Wait!" Julian called out and grabbed at Luna's wrist, so I put my own in between the two and he ended up grabbing mine.

"Yes?" I turned around and asked.

"U-uhh." He froze at the unexpected turn of events, unable to think on his feet.

I watched as his eyes traced down my arm and to the bandages wrapped around my hands. Then he smirked.

He looked at me and then to Luna, then back to me, a hungry look on his face. His expression twisted into a mixture of extreme pride, arrogance and superiority. He looked back at Luna once more and a lustful look took over, then he… winked?

He looked back at me and laughed.

"Kekekeke, I just wanted to shake your hand since it's been so long." He said as he forcefully took my hand and started shaking it, not giving me the chance to refuse.

As he gripped my hand within his own, I sensed a slight killing intent from behind me. I shot Luna a glare, telling her to back off. I don't need my perfect little puppet to get killed after all the work I put into him, I even strung along Marquis Sergio over to his side.

He started gripping so tightly veins started building in his wrist and on his forehead. Once it started getting a little intense, I lightly willed mana into my muscles and bones, it was a technique that made it undetectable and only I could use. It wasn't very hard to do with mana, however only I could do it as no one else knew about the specifics of the human body, such as bones, muscles, tendons, nerves, joints, and everything else in the same detail I did. Courtesy of the 7 year void of course, but whatever.

I didn't need to do this as he wasn't strong enough to harm me, but for some reason I did.

And oh boy was I glad that I did a second later. Julian's hand started to glow faintly and the pressure he emitted increased explosively.

Oh? Should I say as expected of the grandson of a grandmaster and someone from a military household? He must nearly be a sword master as he is on the threshold of using aura. His strong desire to crush me must have sparked something within and led to a breakthrough.

Now, his faint aura was very different from the one Luna used when I first met her. Aura is something very hard to control and use, unlike mana. Mana is easily to influence and bend to your will but aura is slightly different, which means that if you can control your aura, you must be very skilled, just like Luna. However, the one exception this is when you can barely bring out aura, even thought you can't control it, like Julian right now, you also can't properly bring it out, so it looks very faint and similar to someone who has mastered the use of aura.

Because you gain more strength from your aura the deeper it is inside of your body, this usually directly correlates to it being a fainter light and more hidden, however, Julian is just a newbie and an entirely different example.

Well, I was fine because his aura was incomplete and I had used mana to reinforce my body. However, it still did hurt a bit, and nearly injured my hand once again, because strengthening your body with mana was a lot less efficient than when you do it with aura, he was currently stronger than me.

Hmm, well, I don't know if less efficient is the right way to say it, it's just different, and weaker.

Either way though, I couldn't escape from the glowing purple eyes and killing intent currently emitting from Luna. I tried to show her a look that I was fine, but it didn't help much, although she did reel in the killing intent so it wasn't as obvious, it was definitely still there.

Oh well, Julian will release my hand soon right?

Right?

I looked back up at Julian only to see his brows furrowed and his forehead damp with sweat. He's been trying to crush my hand for about a minute now, and every second he continues to try he gets closer to the death looming over him. He really had no clue how scary Luna could be…

I tried to free my hand, to save his life, but he was gripping harder than I could force my way out of with just mana reinforcement.

So I moved on to plan B.

"AHHH! OW!" I screamed out as I fell to my knees.

I could see Julian's face contort into a twisted smile.

"What's wrong?" He asked, as if he didn't just spend like 70 seconds just trying to crush my 'injured' hand.

I looked up at him with pitiful puppy eyes.

"N-nothing." I stammered.

This seemed to have invoked the tiny shred of guilt he felt as he immediately released my hand. Ha, even he can't beat the puppy dog eyes.

He just continued to look down on me.

"Ha… ha… What's with your…ha…pathetic state right now?" He asked while panting heavily.

You're not looking too much better there, kiddo.

"He looks like Donald Trump after 2 minutes with Stormy Daniels… allegedly." Luna whispered.

I bit my tongue and held back my laughter.

"He looks like Terry Fox after running a marathon with one less leg." I whispered back.

"Pfft!" Luna cracked.

However, this only fueled the colossal ego of my brother.

"Even your maid is laughing at how pathetic you are, bro-th-er! HAHHAHAHA!" He laughed before wheezing heavily as he hadn't caught his breath yet.

"Alright, Darth Vader, catch your breath first." Luna mumbled, clearly annoyed.

After a minute Julian could finally breathe again. He creepily leered at Luna.

"You are pretty hot. We should meet again sometime, without this… loser… around." He looked at me pointedly when he said loser.

"Is that so?" Luna asked with a scary smile on her face.

"Mhm, you should crush your allegiance to a failure like him. You would be much better off as my maid." He said as he licked his lips.

"I would LOVE to crush something right now." Luna said joyfully as she sent a glance at his groin.

"Hahaha! Of course! Just like all the other cute ones, I'd treat you, properly, if you were to join me." He smiled, extremely lustfully, before turning away and leaving.

Once he was gone, Luna immediately crouched down and grabbed my wrist.

"Are you alright?" She asked, concerned.

I cut the fake injured act and smiled.

"Yeah, he didn't do anything, I just strengthened myself with mana. Also, you can't castrate him… at least not until he becomes king, otherwise people would complain that he couldn't bear an heir and his position as prince would fluctuate."

"... So I can after he already becomes king? Wait! More importantly what do you mean you used mana, I couldn't feel anything! Also that little shit nearly used aura!"

"Well, yeah, even though I've thought of neutering him before, it would probably be a good thing for this country so he doesn't end up like my dad." I replied.

She nodded sagely. "I see, I see… Wait what more importantly, how did you use mana without it being visible or detectable!?"

"I just used it to strengthen deep within my body, like my bones. It makes it undetectable. Actually you should learn how to do it with aura, it increases the strength of it and isn't that hard to do with mana. So it should be good for your aura. I'll teach you about the human body and all the different muscles, tendons and bones. Once you know that, it's not that hard."

"Really, you're the weirdest person I've ever met. You're also an asshole, you could have at least told me you were fine, I was about to kill that prick." She grumbled.

"Well, don't kill him yet. I need him to become king." I reminded her.

"Yeah, yeah. I know, but I despise people like him the most. Fucking creepy perverted fuck, who looks down on people for no reason and thinks he's great cause him mommy wiped his ass for him when he grew up. His little pea size brain pisses me off! That ignorant horny fuck!" She started yelling.

I raised my hands and started trying to calm her down.

"Okay, okay. I get it. You're right, I hate people like that too, but don't yell it in the castle."

She finally realized where we were and her rising anger quickly plateaued and started to fall.

"Yeah, you're right. Let's go get food." She said after calming down.

I have no idea why she got that angry there, but I'm glad she was rational again.