NOVEL NEXT B4 | Chapter 46
The Royal Palace of Atlantis
Nerissa Atlantus Azurion grits her teeth as she leans over her desk in her suite of the royal palace. Just looking over the reports about the war with the Demon King. Or to be more specific, the losses they've faced while dealing with the fallen demons spawning all around the world of Atlantis. Which are far too many.
Nerissa raises her head before turning around when she senses Azura appearing on her balcony. With the man grinning like a madman while holding up his phone and walking over to the doors of her office.
What's he doing here? And why doesn't he ever use the door?
It's been bothering her for a while now. The fact that her older brother has never once used the door when visiting her.
He uses the door when he isn't visiting her, but when he is visiting her he always just appears out of nowhere in random places. Whether it's inside of her office itself, on balconies, or in her suite.
Even though they have spent the most time with each other amongst their siblings, other than with Sel, who they've also spent plenty of time with, Nerissa really wishes he would learn to use a door.
Right when she's about to scold him, her eyes glance at his phone. Where she finds a read notification on his messages with Aria.
Nerissa's eyes immediately widen and a smile spreads across her face.
Aunty is finally back within reception!!!
Without hesitation, Nerissa stands up from her chair, rushes to the balcony doors, grabs her brother, throws him into the seat at her desk despite his surprise and confusion, then runs to the teleporter in her office. The one leading to Aria's ship. All while shouting back at her brother, "You deal with that paperwork for me!"
She vaguely hears him shouting behind her about something while using that Little Blue nickname of hers that her Aunty made, but she ignores him and just steps onto the teleporter before activating it. Sending her straight to her Aunty's ship.
Please be on your ship…
Nerissa waits a second for the teleportation to finish before she immediately asks out loud, "Crimson, is she back yet?!"
The ship responds a few seconds later.
|She has called for a shuttle and will be arriving soon.|
Nerissa pumps her fists into the air in a rare show of excitement before clearing her throat. Then she calmly leaves the teleportation room and heads over to the bridge, where she just waits for an entire hour in expectation of her Aunty's arrival.
But when her Aunty finally enters the bridge, she finds herself… confused.
Because when she walks in, she does it with two children. Both of whom look around ten or so years of age.
What is… huh?
Of the kids, the girl has long black hair that goes down to her mid-back with a single red streak and styled in a similar way to the simple straight style that Aria uses. She is wearing a black and red blouse with a black skirt, and has a single rose hair clip in her hair. Meanwhile the boy has layered black hair that's about three inches long with a blue highlight in it, and he is wearing a simple t-shirt and shorts. With a cap on his head. All of a similar color scheme to the girl's except with blue instead of red.
Nerissa begins to open her mouth to ask who they are, only for the boy to rush into the bridge and begin looking around everywhere with the obvious curiosity of a child. Meanwhile the girl calls after him, "Ryan, don't touch anything unless mom says you can!"
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
And a single word from that makes Nerissa freeze in shock.
M-mom?! Did that girl just say… what?! How?!
Her mouth hangs open as she watches her Aunty fail miserably to hide a chuckle behind her hand as the immortal watches at her. Only for her to fall even more in shock when Aria says to the kids, "Go ahead and look at whatever you like. Crimson will lock down anything you shouldn't touch."
The boy between the twin kids lets out a whoop while the girl calmly walks over to the panels with a look of interest in her own eyes. One that she is clearly trying to hide but failing.
What is going on here…
"Cat got your tongue there, Little Blue?" her Aunty asks with a grin on her face that she's not even trying to hide anymore. Only for her to blink and glance down at the immortal cat that sticks its head out of her breast pocket and add, "Not you. It's a metaphor."
Nerissa just stares blankly at her Aunty for several seconds, even as her Aunty looks back at her while clearly waiting for some sort of response.
Aria Crimson… a mother… how? Did she adopt them? Raise them? She found them on an abandoned planet, so how…? And is she even capable of being a mother? She can't even keep up with her paperwork… can she really?
Nerissa's mind goes in circles for several seconds as she tries to figure out what the hell is happening.
Then her mind all snaps into place at once and she defaults to her usual greeting.
"Before anything else, make sure to handle your paperwork," Nerissa says with a stern look on her face.
One that wipes the smug look off of her Aunty's own face in an instant.
Aria
She's cruel. That's the only thing I can think of to describe Little Blue right now.
Does she know me too well now or something? I just wanted to see her shock at the sight of me being called a mom, is that too much to ask?
Although that was hilarious.
Until she brought up paperwork.
I let out a sigh before glancing up from my office desk inside of my ship at the couches surrounding a round table near one of the walls. All of which is largely red and black in color. And I find the kids playing with Little Blue over there, with all three of them having fun. And Little Blue obviously being more skilled at handling kids than me.
Although the kids still seem to like me more. Probably because they consider me their mom.
Little Blue wasn't very surprised after she learned exactly what happened. Almost as if what I told them was exactly what they were expecting of me in that sort of situation.
I get the feeling that part of that reaction was about how I pretty much had the Death Spirits take care of them in any non-social ways instead of doing it myself.
Which feels a little insulting, if I'm being honest. Even if it's, uh, not really, unwarranted.
Oh, and the kids are treating her as if she's their cousin. All because Little Blue told them to consider her their cousin.
So that's interesting.
Then again, Little Blue still calls me Aunty, so it makes sense she'd want that.
Apparently she was dealing with quite a bit of problems on Atlantis thanks to the Demon King before arriving here. Problems that she just kind of foisted onto Azura.
Rest in peace Azura.
I know your pain.
On that note, I glance down at the paperwork in front of me with a slight frown.
Atlantis isn't the only place dealing with that – obviously – because, according to these documents, the Demon King is causing issues with the mercenary company as well. The Pale Mercenaries.
Although these issues are actually beneficial for us, seeing as a lot of people are hiring the mercenaries of my company to deal with the Demon King's forces. And to deal with the fallen demons covering the many worlds.
After all, not every world has armies of their own capable of dealing with fallen demons. So they have to branch out and use mercenaries.
Which makes a lot more income for my company, no matter how dark that is.
It's kind of sad how war means money in a lot of ways just as much as it's bad.
I continue reading through the documents for a bit before just dealing with signing them. Because at the end of the day I don't really care much about the company. What with that being Little Blue's job.
I'm just here to sign documents and make profits from it.
That thought makes me nod my head firmly once, only to look down when I feel the kids both climbing onto my lap on their own. The twins having approached me while I was thinking about the documents.
"You having fun?" I ask while tilting my head a little, and both of them immediately nod their heads with bright smiles on their faces. "That's good."
I glance up at Little Blue to find her jealously staring at the three of us.
Guess she wishes they would climb on her lap instead?
I look at her gaze a bit before a possibility crosses my mind. But I wipe that possibility away immediately.
She's an adult after all. Even if she used to climb on my lap as a kid as well.
There's no way she could…
Yeah, I'm just not gonna think about it.
Back to paperwork.