NOVEL NEXT Chapter 245: Impromptu Therapy
Francis
Francis heard his wife’s scream and, only wearing a pair of shorts with shaving cream still covering half his jaw, he ran into their bedroom to find Lord Aalam pacing back and forth in the room with a terrified expression on his face, his hands and sometimes his entire body involuntarily twitching. And this in turn terrified Francis, as anything which could scare their sovereign was almost certainly something neither he nor Sally could deal with.
“Aalam,” Sally asked, pulling their bed’s covers up to more completely cover herself as she used a tone of voice one would expect from a therapist to a patient clearly having some kind of panic attack. “Is everything okay?”
“No. Nothing’s okay.” Lord Aalam didn’t even look at them, just continuing to pace and twitch.
“Could you elaborate?” Sally turned to Francis with a worried expression and then back to Lord Aalam.
“Everything was going well. Mila initiated the sex and I think I did well.” Lord Aalam turned to look at Sally. “She at least seemed to orgasm more than you do with your husband. And she agreed to marry me. That seemed like a good sign.” Lord Aalam started twitching even worse. “But then, after we were married, she got mad. Then she got sad. And then she told me to leave. But I don’t know what I did wrong.”
Sally turned to look at Francis again, her expression and aura showing all the same mixed emotions Francis was feeling, but, being good at her job, she held back the question both of them probably wanted answered the most as she turned back to Lord Aalam.
“Aalam, when you say you got married, what exactly do you mean?”
Lord Aalam looked at Sally like she was an idiot. “As sovereign of the planet, I approved our marriage after she agreed to it.”
Sally again briefly turned to look at Francis and, while she didn’t let out a sigh, Francis knew his wife well enough to know she wanted to. Then she turned back to Lord Aalam. “And, when Mila was having an emotional reaction to this, did she say anything?”
“She was yelling about flowers, rings, and white dresses. Wedding stuff. Pageantry.” Lord Aalam was still twitching, but his face had changed to show confusion, not fear. “But Mila hates pageantry.”
“And how do you know this?” From Sally’s expression, Francis could tell she’d pretty much figured out what was going on, but he himself was lost, feeling like he was missing some facts.
“She told me.”
“When?”
“Back when we were dating.”
“And is there something else she was doing back then?” Sally smiled slightly at their extremely deadly and powerful, but not all that wise, ruler as everything clicked into place in Francis’s mind.
Then they both watched as Lord Aalam’s face showed even more confusion, followed by a look of realization, followed by a look of anger. “Wait! Why do I have to get yelled at for listening to her?” He stopped moving and glared at Sally, but both Francis and his wife could tell his anger was not directed toward them. “She said she wanted a no hassle courthouse wedding with only Diana as a witness. But Diana is currently dead.”
“Well,” Sally interjected, something Francis thought unwise, “It has been many decades since then. And she has family she doesn’t actively avoid now.”
“Oh.” Lord Aalam looked from Sally to Francis, then from Francis to Sally, and then back and forth one more time, the twitching of his body slowing down slightly. “Right. She’d want Irena, the two of you, and Silvia to come.”
Francis sensed an immediate shift in his wife’s aura, anger and rage suddenly appearing—though they didn’t show on Sally’s face—but he couldn’t understand why.
“What has that man done to my beautiful little girl?”
“Dai-Zhao?” Lord Aalam suddenly looked like a deer in headlights, like he’d accidentally revealed something. And, while watching his wife nod angrily at Lord Aalam’s question, it finally clicked in Francis’s mind that there was only one reason Lord Aalam would list them as members of Ms. Li’s family, and several items on their dresser, which he was standing next to, started to float due to his rage.
“I don’t think it’s my place to say.”
“Aalam.” Sally’s voice had become cold, not at all like the comforting tone she’d been using before. “You will tell me what is going on with Dai-Zhao and my daughter and you will tell me now.”
“They’ve been sleeping together for at least a decade and Silvia is now five days pregnant.”
“Do you think she’ll be able to carry the baby to term?” Francis sensed his wife’s aura fluctuate, Sally likely feeling the exact same mix of emotions he was, anger at who their daughter had chosen but excitement at the idea of becoming a grandparent.
“Yes.” Lord Aalam nodded and the part of Francis’s mind not occupied with ideas of killing Dai-Zhao and becoming a grandfather noticed their ruler had mostly stopped twitching, seemingly having been scared out of his own internal spiraling thoughts.
“Where are they now?”
“At their offices.”
Francis watched as his wife seemed about to get out of bed, ready to head toward her closet to get dressed and then immediately travel to the base of The Watchers, where Silvia and Li Dai-Zhao worked, but then she looked at Lord Aalam again, seemed to think better of her decision, and pulled the covers up a little more.
“Aalam, you have a sensory domain, right?”
Their ruler nodded.
“And, if I’m remembering correctly, the range of that domain is larger than England?”
“Back when I was an E rank, yes.”
“And how much detail can you see within that domain?”
“Everything.” Lord Aalam’s fear seemed to have turned into confusion.
“Dear God, that’s creepy.”
“Actually, the Christian God, the Lord of Light, was killed by—”
Francis watched in horror as his wife raised her hand and interrupted the most powerful being on the planet. “I know. It’s just an expression.”
Then, without bothering with the fact she was only wearing one of Francis’s shirts and nothing else, Sally got out from under the covers and started getting changed as if Lord Aalam wasn’t in the room at all, Francis just standing there awkwardly until she glared at him, almost certainly because he was nowhere close to ready to leave. So, while maintaining an angle where he could still see both his wife and where Lord Aalam had stopped pacing in the mirror, Francis quickly moved back into the bathroom to finish shaving.
“Now, Aalam,” Sally continued, not actually looking at Lord Aalam as she focused on getting changed, “normally I would spend some time and guide you into realizing what you should be doing, but I don’t have time for that right now as I have to go kill my daughter and your grandfather-in-law. So, instead, I’m just going to tell you what you need to know.
“Mila, no matter how good at manipulating people she is, has no more experience with true romantic relationships than you do, and, no matter what you might think, she is probably worse at them than you are as you at least naturally default to the open and honest communication such relationships need. So I’m not at all surprised she failed to communicate to you what type of wedding she’d really want.
“Still, you are an idiot for not realizing yourself that you might not know. And you are an even bigger idiot for doing something like marrying the two of you immediately after your engagement. Now you are in fix it mode, and it is entirely your fault.”
Sally pulled a dress down over herself and glared at Lord Aalam as she sat down on the bed to put on her socks. “From what you’ve said, Mila wanted the type of pageantry you yourself dislike for your wedding. So, what you need to do is twofold. First, make her the most amazing engagement ring in the universe. For you, this should be rather easy. Second, find an excuse for a do-over and go overboard in the way you give the ring to her. Don’t do what you usually do and let Mila handle all the arrangements and planning. Do that part all yourself and make it amazing. Think Hollywood prince and then go three levels more ostentatious.”
Sally started putting on her shoes and looked over at Francis in the bathroom. “Honey, hurry up. You’re not even dressed yet.”
Then she turned back to Lord Aalam, who looked to be thinking, only his left hand still twitching. “And you, go away. Also, next time find me during my office hours, not at my home. Or at least call first.”
Lord Aalam, possibly already the most powerful D rank in the universe, quickly fled, teleporting away and, as Francis walked out of the bathroom with his jaw smooth and hairless, he saw his wife’s glare and felt the same type of fear as his lord, quickly starting to get dressed.
Then, when he was finished, they both quickly moved toward the private teleportation formation in their home.
“Honey,” Sally said as Francis was putting in the mana necessary to activate the formation, “when we’re done killing Silvia and that monster, could you do something for me?”
Francis, still mostly angry, felt a slight bit of relief, almost as scared of her at the moment as he was angry with Dai-Zhao. “Sure. Anything.”
“Could you consult with Aalam and see what tricks he figured out for the bedroom? I highly doubt he was watching us on purpose, but, given how he is, his words are almost certainly accurate.”
Francis didn’t know how to reply, but then, thankfully, the teleportation formation activated and they were within the same building as Dai-Zhao and their daughter, so it wasn’t the right time to continue the conversation.
