Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP

Chapter 399: Chapter 399: You Look–

A few days later, Athanor and Lysia attended the twenty-fifth birthday banquet of Hestia, daughter of Zeus.

Zeus had fathered a great many children across a great many women, but only one of them had ever been his official wife.

And since that pair were both god-created celestials, the four children born of it came out immortal, exactly as their parents were.

Athena and Ares were the reliable ones, the two Zeus actually leaned on. Artemis had wanted a life of her own and gone off to find it. And his son Hercules had died for his rebellion.

Beyond his main wife, Zeus kept four other consorts. Hestia had been born to one of them.

-x-X-x-

Athanor stood outside the palace where the banquet was to be held, quietly cursing Lysia’s name.

She’d peeled off from him half a day earlier to collect her gown and have the final touches done at one of the capital’s most renowned fashion houses.

Then a familiar carriage rolled up beside him, bearing the insignia of his own house, and a gorgeous figure came down the short steps.

Her elegance and her beauty stopped the arriving guests dead in their tracks. They stood there mesmerized, half of them already assuming she was some newly risen high noble stepping into their circles for the very first time.

Not one of them bothered to reach out and sense that she was, in fact, a mere slave.

Athanor was no better. His eyes locked onto her and refused to let go, and something in his chest went through the exact same thing it had the very first day he laid eyes on her.

He traced her walk toward him, and took in the dress.

It was a floor-length gown of midnight blue, woven from the finest moon silk, the fabric flowing loose and natural around her figure with every step she took.

Delicate silver embroidery traced its edges. Below it, a pair of white knee-high leather boots, cut from the hide of some rare celestial beast, hugged her legs perfectly, faint silver patterns running along the sides.

A sapphire necklace ringed with tiny diamonds rested at her throat, matched by elegant earrings and a pair of silver bracelets that finished the whole thing without ever tipping into excess.

The instant she reached him, the entire elegant act evaporated. “So? How’d I do?” She leaned in, bursting with curiosity. “Every single eye was on me, wasn’t it? Come on, tell me. How do I look to you?”

Athanor’s mouth betrayed him before his brain could intervene, already halfway through saying exactly what his heart could see. “You look—”

He caught himself right at the edge of the cliff. Because if he ever finished that sentence, Lysia would spend the next five years making an absolute fool of him with it.

But she wasn’t about to let him off that easily. Her chin tilted up, and she pressed in close enough to read every twitch on his face. “Say it. Say it. Say it.”

Athanor sighed. “You look expensive.”

Lysia puffed her cheeks out and folded her arms. “Do you have any idea how much effort I put into this?”

“I couldn’t speak to the effort,” Athanor said. “But you certainly put a great deal of my money into it.”

“Someone has to take responsibility for that treasury of yours.” She waved a bracelet at him.

“What is even the point of stacking up mountains of gold you never once spend? It was genuinely painful to look at. So I sacrificed myself, took all the blame, and saved your poor gold from rotting to death in the dark.”

Athanor sighed again. “Fine. You win. I don’t have the time to play with you, we’re already late thanks to all of your effort.”

The two of them walked inside, and the whole way in, Athanor kept reciting the points he’d drilled into her before they ever left home.

“Do not leave my side for a single second.”

“Do not indulge yourself in any fights.”

There were more, a whole list of them, every one a condition for Lysia being allowed to attend at his side at all. And she nodded along to each with the solemn resolve of a knight taking her vows.

Then Athanor spotted the crystal decanter sitting on the wine table across the hall, and added one more term. “And one more thing. Do not drink any alcohol here. It’s exceptionally strong, brewed for celestials, unlike the watered-down things we keep at home specifically for you.”

He turned his head for the nod, or any response at all.

She wasn’t there.

He found her a moment later, already halfway across the hall, marching toward that wine table like iron filings toward a lodestone.

Smack.

Athanor’s palm hit his own forehead. ‘I knew bringing her would be a disaster.’

He was about to give chase when he realized every eye in the room had settled on him instead. And he understood exactly why.

So he stopped, turned, and bowed. “My sincerest congratulations on this special day, Princess Hestia. May fortune and happiness accompany you in all the years ahead.”

Hestia gave him a smile in return. “Isn’t it just a touch rude to call it a special day, and offer congratulations, while also arriving later than the birthday girl herself?”

Athanor bowed lower. “I apologize for—”

“Relax.” She giggled. “I was only joking. Although there’s no denying you kept me waiting a very long time.”

Athanor couldn’t work out what she meant by that, and before he could ask, Hestia extended a hand toward him.

“Since you’ve made me wait,” she said, “I do believe I’m entitled to a little compensation. Would you grant me the first dance?”

Athanor scanned the room before answering. Gossip and jealousy, sharpening on every side.

Because beyond that ethereal beauty of hers, Hestia was rumored to be the most ambitious child Zeus had ever produced.

From a very young age she’d buried herself in the family’s affairs while quietly gathering the support of the higher nobles, one by one. Every move that woman made had some motive tucked behind the smile.

And right now, Athanor’s instincts were screaming.

He couldn’t decline the hand, that would be an insult of the highest order. But taking it would sprout a whole garden of idiotic rumors about the two of them.

In the middle of that dilemma, his eyes found Lysia. She had somehow claimed an entire decanter for herself, sitting there with it like a prize, and was collecting stares from every man within thirty feet which Athanor didn’t liked at all.

He took Hestia’s hand. ‘Let’s get this over with quickly. Before that woman starts a riot.’

The two of them walked down to the floor, and the music began.

Hestia rested a hand on his shoulder. “Come now. Give us a smile.”

Athanor stayed cold as ever, following her rhythmic advances without expression. “I don’t much like beating around the bush. If there’s something you want from me, I’d rather you simply say it.”

“My, my.” Hestia let herself be swung out and drawn back in. “The rumors were true after all. You really are as cold as they say.” Her smile widened. “Though I suppose that happens to be exactly my type. I dislike wasting time every bit as much as you do.”

“So I’ll get straight to the point.” She leaned in. “Marry me.”