After escaping from the orphanage, Sincir and the girls lived from inn room to inn room for a good while.

  However, by the point they came to Elderspire, they had saved enough money to afford renting a house for the three of them. Although he was initially against the idea, Sincir has to admit having a backyard where they can train has made things much easier.

  The house they went for is far from a mansion, and its most appealing features are its aforementioned backyard, its proximity to Inquiry, and its size; Which is to say, the house is old, but sturdy and big, having two floors, five bedrooms, a kitchen, an outside toilet, an outside bathhouse, as well as a basement.

  Both the toilet and the bathhouse are located in the backyard, which is surrounded by wooden walls on all sides.

  All things considered, the house is perfect for them, and much better than Sincir had expected to find… The only problem is its rent, which requires all three of them to pitch in a good chunk of their saries every month.

  Since he wanted to save as much money as possible for now, that is a huge drawback, and the main reason he was initially against the idea. However, the Explorers Guild is the reason he eventually conceded to it, or, more precisely, the fact they should be able to make more than enough money from the guild after being accepted into it.

  Now, having finally reached the necessary age (at least as far as his ID is concerned) all that’s left is for him to quit his current job, and take the guild’s entrance exam, which Eleanor said is going to be a joke for him.

  She’d know, since she joined the guild a year ago, now… Against his wishes, mind you. But after she told him she would actually murder the next tavern patron to hit on her, sp her ass, or try lifting her shirt… Well, he had to concede, though he did so under the condition that she’d not approach any of the nests and that she’d come home every day.

  While his restrictions made so that her earnings have been rather meager so far, at least he’s able to sleep at night.

  …No, he’s not overprotective. Why would anyone ever think that?

  Anyway, as one might imagine, Ena was over the moon about the idea of joining the guild with Eleanor… Until Sincir crushed her dreams by saying she’d only do so over his dead body.

  Why?

  First, Ena is not Eleanor.

  Eleanor is calm, calcuting, and able to keep a cool head under pressure.

  Ena is the type to throw herself in front of an arrow to save a friend… Which is a good character trait, so long as one of her friends is never actually targeted by an arrow in front of her.

  Sincir half regrets teaching her to be a fighter, but at the end of the day, he knows it is better to know how to and not need it, than to need it and… Well, you get the point.

  Besides, Ena doesn’t seem to mind the drunken patrons nearly as much as Eleanor, although Sincir wouldn’t go as far as to say she enjoys their harassment… Still, ever since, Ena has gone out of her way to show her dissatisfaction with what she calls his ‘overprotective behavior’, finding fault even in the smallest things he does, regardless of intention or context.

  She’s going through a rebellious phase, in other words... A rebellious phase Sincir innitially expected to st a week or two, and has gone on for a whole year, now.

  These days, it is becoming hard to keep track of all the reasons she might be mad at him, so he doesn’t try anymore, and as punishment for having been a bad kid this year, he still hasn’t told her she’ll be joining the guild with him soon…

  …Yes, he does realize she might’ve been much easier to handle had he told her that, but truth to be said, he hadn’t decided on allowing her to or not, until recently.

  He still has dreams about what happened at the chapel. In them, he’s the only one to escape alive from there… So, she can call him overprotective as much as she wants.

  Upon finally spotting the house, Sincir sighs exasperatedly.

  Damn it, what has living as a human turned him into…?

  Of course, after what happened, he has made sure nobody else was following him before coming home, though his address isn’t exactly a state secret. After all, he and the girls have lived upstanding lives thus far; They have no reason to believe they would targeted by anyone, aside from the cult leader who murdered Eleanor’s mother, and they should believe Eleanor dead, because of what happened at the chapel.

  Still, the house is protected by several runes he keeps active in his absence, so any average thug to attempt entering it is in for a couple of nasty surprises…

  As he arrives at the door, Sincir makes sure he is not being watched, before deactivating the rune that protects it, then entering as he immediately removes his shoes and pces them near Eleanor’s boots.

  Her backpack is also near the door, still filled with the supplies she usually takes on her daily contract runs, which Sincir has been told, involve mostly sying goblins.

  Looking at it, Sincir can’t help but smile a little. Eleanor has come a long way in these past five years, and he isn’t afraid to admit he’s proud of her.

  Ironically enough, since Krador is Estrein’s enemy, nephilim aren’t exactly well accepted by the local popuce, and you could say, in a way, that hers and Ena’s situation has been reversed for these past five years.

  Eleanor is a strong girl though, and rather than her being bullied, Sincir feels bad for anyone who tries to treat her with anything other than respect.

  The number of noses she broke while working as a waitress is not something to scoff what...

  After having removed his shoes, Sincir heads down the corridor and through the silent house until he reaches the backyard, already knowing he’d find her here by the sound of her sword swings.

  Sure enough, Sincir immediately spots Eleanor training under a ntern’s light as he walks out into their backyard, the sweat covering her skin obvious even under the poor illumination.

  Five years prior, it’d take a single look from a non-blind person to tell Eleanor was going to become a beautiful woman one day.

  At nineteen, and having trained her body for most of her life, Eleanor has put on a decent number of muscles, but since most of her training consisted of making herself nimble (under his instructions), she still looks far from masculine.

  Under the light of a single ntern, wearing nothing but shorts and a small top which covers only her breasts, Eleanor would cause men to leave their families and give up their fortunes… In other words, nephilim or not, Eleanor is hot enough to light a fire whenever she goes, so much so she has recently taken to using a hooded cloak when going out to work.

  Nevertheless, her clear blue eyes are as cool as always, and her light blond hair is still cut shoulder length…

  “Eleanor, how many times do I have to tell you to put something on if you’re going to train at night?”

  Eleanor’s weapon being a simple short sword, she doesn’t stop her dance-like movements as Sincir walks up to her… In fact, she doesn’t even gnce in his direction.

  Sincir grimaces. “Hey, answer me when I talk to you.”

  “…You’re two hours te,” Eleanor finally groans, still not looking at him.

  “I was working,” Sincir lies, “Still, we are supposed to meet Ena at the tavern today, remember? I thought you were going to be ready by the time I got here, and you haven’t even taken a bath yet.”

  “…I’m not going.”

  Sincir frowns. “How long have you been practicing for?”

  When she simply continues to ignore him, Sincir’s eye twitches, and he smiles coldly.

  “Eleanor, you have a minute to get into that bathhouse, and ten to finish dressing yourself; I’m not kidding.”

  She snorts, stops her sword, then finally turns to face him, expression emotionless. “Or what?”

  Sincir clicks his tongue, casting a wind spell which has the nearest wooden sword they use for training flying in his direction, which he catches midair.

  Eleanor smiles, making it clear she was after provoking him this whole time. Then, sheathing her steel sword, she imitates his trick, though she takes almost twice as long to get her wind spell off… Which is miles from what she was capable of when they first fought atop the orphanage’s ceiling, five years prior, but still not exactly impressive.

  “Slow,” Sincir admonishes, causing her to frown.

  “We buffing?” she asks, while assuming her fighting stance.

  Sincir shrugs. “You can, if you want to. It won’t make a difference.”

  Eleanor smiles coldly enough to freeze a firepit, then dashes at him with a sudden, quick thrust aimed at his right shoulder, his sword arm.

  In pure strength and speed alone, being older, and a demi-human to boot, Eleanor easily surpasses him; Moreover, her attack was executed fwlessly, aiming at his weak spot and giving him little chance to counter-attack.

  However, having been to one to teach it to her, how could Sincir fall for it so easily?

  As Eleanor’s sword is about to strike true, his crashes against her hand in virtue of a swift movement of his wrist, causing her thrust to miss by a hair’s breadth.

  “Were we using real swords, I wager most of your fingers would be on the ground right about now,” Sincir points out, as she comes at him again.

  Eleanor pays no attention to his taunting, expression focused and movements sharp as she steps in and trusts again, this time aiming for his head, which Sincir tilts out the way, then lowers, once she abruptly turns her thrust into a swing by twisting her body mid-attack.

  “Good idea, but you were a beat slower than usual... You’ve been practicing since afternoon, haven’t you? Did you at least stop to eat something?”

  Eleanor comes at him, her movements relentless and sharp, yet calcuted. As taught, she makes use of her bigger reach and superior speed to keep him from striking back, often forcing him to step back, while at the same pnning her movements so he’ll have no space to step in.

  She is good enough now for Sincir to feel some pressure… Not that he’ll admit as much out loud, of course.

  “C’mon, is this all you’ve got? I’m growing bored over here…”

  Eleanor’s jaw tightens, and she suddenly rushes in, stepping into his range as she aims a kick toward his stomach which Sincir sidesteps, then a follow-up with the pommel of her sword which grazes his forehead.

  The sudden change in her rhythm might’ve caught Sincir by surprise… Had he not been the one to instigate it.

  As it is, after dodging her second blow, he strikes against the back of her knee, taking away her bance, then, having ended up behind her, touches the side of his wooden sword against her neck.

  “…Dead.”

  Panting heavily, Eleanor throws him a sidelong look from her kneeling position. “…Again,” she says.

  Sincir shakes his head. “Tell me what you did wrong.”

  She clenches her teeth. “I was provoked by your words… Then, after having my bance stolen, I should’ve allowed myself to fall and rolled away, rather than staying in striking range of your sword.”

  Sincir smiles. “Good... Though, don’t forget your leg would’ve been severed had we been using real swords, and that would’ve been it for you regardless.”

  Once Eleanor continues to stare at him fixedly, Sincir narrows his eyes.

  “Eleanor…” he warns.

  She sighs, finally averting her gaze. “Fine, I yield… I’ll go get ready, but don’t bme me if somebody ends up getting hurt tonight.”

  Removing his wooden sword away from her neck, Sincir smiles as he throws it aside.

  “Forget the bath, we don’t have enough time left anymore.”

  Walking up to a bench they have near the bathhouse’s side, Sincir gestures for Eleanor to come and sit, which she does after a moment of hesitation.

  “I can do it myself…” Eleanor murmurs as he kneels in front of her.

  Sincir ignores her. “Left foot,” he says.

  Eleanor sighs, but she does raise her left foot for him to inspect it, and as he expected, her sole is filled with blisters and cuts.

  After taking a look at how bad it is this time, Sincir grimaces at her. “You always take it too far. Have many times have I told you that too much training will destroy your body, rather than make it stronger?”

  “You’ve also told me using healing magic every day is bad for the body,” Eleanor counters.

  “And so, you just kept going, while getting hurt?” Sincir asks, incredulously, “How long has it been since you’ve had these? And don’t lie to me, I can see some of them are begging to heal on their own already.”

  “…I healed myself a week ago. I was going to do it again tonight.”

  So, after what he told her, she’s been using healing magic on herself once a week?

  Sincir curses.

  In truth, he told Eleanor about healing magic being dangerous because he hoped it’d cause her to slow down a little. Though it wasn’t a lie, exactly, for small wounds like this, it’d probably be fine, even if she healed them every day…

  But she shouldn’t be training every day to the point her feet and hands begin to bleed! Is she stupid?! A masochist?!

  Sincir sighs. “Eleanor… I’ll admit, I lied to you.”

  She blinks.

  “When I told you healing magic would hurt your body in the long run, I exaggerated matters, because I wanted you to train a bit less… For wounds like this, you can heal them every day.”

  Eleanor opens her mouth, then closes it again.

  It has been three months since he told her about healing magic. If she has been healing herself only once a week ever since, but without lowering how much she pushes herself every day, she must have gone through a decent amount of pain during this period… Sincir doesn’t know if he should be impressed, or exasperated.

  “Sorry, this will hurt a little…” Sincir warns her, rubbing his thumb against her sole from the heel up as he casts a small healing spell which causes Eleanor to immediately shudder.

  Once he is done with her left foot, Sincir heals the right one, in spite of her protests of being able to do it herself.

  He also massages them a little. Though he is far from being at Salmorol’s level, working the newly healed tissue like this should make the healing process feel more natural for the body… Salmorol’s words, not his.

  By the time Sincir is finally finished with both her feet, Eleanor is staring at him fixedly, clear blue eyes containing in them something he can’t quite identify.

  “…How does it feel? Better?”

  Eleanor blinks. “Yes… It feels much better than when I do it myself. What was that?”

  Sincir smiles. “An old friend developed it. She calls it a healing massage, and the real version is leagues beyond what I just showed you... Now, give me your left hand.”

  Rather than obeying, Eleanor stares at him silently for a moment. “…Was that friend also a demon?”

  “Naturally… Though now that I think on it, she might’ve been the nicest demon I’ve ever met.”

  Eleanor nods, slowly.

  During these five years, she eventually came to accept his nature as a demon, since Sincir never bothered to pretend to be something else, after the initial reveal at the ship… Speaking of which, some of the runes throughout the house, including the backyard, keep in the sound and also make sure their mana won’t be noticed from the outside, which makes it so they’re able to train and speak without fear of being overheard.

  At st, Eleanor extends her left, bandaged hand in his direction. Since she began to wear them a while ago, Sincir never thought much of it, but now he clicks his tongue as he unwraps the visibly worn cloth away from her skin.

  She’s usually so self-sufficient, that he tends to leave her alone, but now he sees that doing so might’ve been a mistake; In a way, Eleanor might’ve needed his attention even more than Ena.

  But… Did he mention Eleanor is hot?

  Did he mention she is usually wearing almost nothing, while she trains?

  He is not a saint. When she is good-looking enough to hurt, keeping things purely innocent between them is not easy for him, especially after she began to develop as an adult woman… Furthermore, as much as he might treat her the part sometimes, she is not actually his daughter.

  Staring at Eleanor’s bloodied palm before him, Sincir sighs under his breath. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “If I had been honest with you from the beginning, you wouldn’t have hurt yourself to this extent… Ironically, I guess I only made things worse, by meddling in.”

  Once Sincir gnces up, he realizes Eleanor is staring at him, expression neutral and eyes carefully devoid of emotion.

  However, by now he has known her for long enough to know when she’s hiding her emotions from him.

  “What?” he asks.

  “Nothing… The thing you did with my feet, it felt really good… It’s… It’s nice to be cared for.”

  Sincir can tell it took a lot of her to admit it, and so he smiles at her to lighten the mood. “Even by a demon?”

  Eleanor rolls her eyes. “Don’t ruin it.”

  Sincir chuckles.

  Both he and Eleanor remain silent as he treats her hands the same way as he did her feet, also giving them a small massage after healing them.

  “…I guess this will have to do,” Sincir murmurs, once he’s done, “Tell me if they’re hurt again, and I’ll heal them for you… And before you pretest, I’m not asking. I won’t forbid you from training, but this much is non-negotiable.”

  Though she has an exasperated look on her face, Eleanor nods.

  “Good. Now go put on something decent… I’ll meet you at the exit in a minute.”

  Having said as much, Varzath cast a cleaning spell on her, then one over himself; Of course, he could do so every day, but again, cleaning spells are not exactly a pleasant experience, so he’d much rather not.

  Eleanor is the first to enter the house, but he follows suit. Since the pce is so big, they all have their own rooms… Or, at least, that was the pn, until Ena insisted on sharing a room with him.

  …Yes, they sleep together; And no, nothing sexual has ever happened.

  In his defense, sleeping with her when they were all sharing a single inn room and he was still a kid felt natural; He just didn’t expect her to insist on continuing to sleep on the same bed after having rented a house with five bedrooms in it.

  In between Eleanor, and having to sleep on the same bed as Ena, Sincir has as of now officially bestowed the title of saint upon himself by virtue of having never tried anything sexual with either of them during these past five years.

  The next angel he meets better bow their head at him…

  Having told Eleanor to dress herself, Sincir also heads into the room he shares with Ena, in order to change from his work clothes.

  As for what he dresses instead, it is a simple pair of bck pants and a rge shirt which leaves a good chunk of his chest exposed; Albeit simple, the get-up works for him in virtue of his defined, well-trained body, thouth he wouldn’t go as far as to say he’ll be turning on nearly as many heads as Eleanor, of course... If he was still Varzath, maybe.

  And sure enough, Sincir has to stop himself from staring once he meets her at the door.

  Now dressed in a simple pair of white pants, sandals, and a blue top which is a shade darker than her eyes, Eleanor is simply stunning, so much so that Sincir almost regrets having told her to dress up.

  The thoughtless man invites problems, while the wise one avoids them… But, to Hell with it, the girl deserves a normal night out every once in a while, and since he’s going to, he should be able to diffuse anything before it grows out of proportion.

  He’d hate to see Eleanor’s top stained with blood…

  “I never knew you had these,” Sincir confesses, “They’re beautiful.”

  Eleanor shrugs. “Ena bought them for me, st year. I just never had a chance to wear them until tonight.”

  Damn, the three of them really do work too much… But that should be about to change soon. From now on, he’ll pay more attention to the girls, and make sure they’re also having some fun every once in a while.

  “You’re ready? Let’s go?” Sincir asks Eleanor.

  Taking a gnce toward his bare feet, Eleanor raises an eyebrow. “I know you don’t like closed shoes, but you do know sandals exist, right?”

  Sincir ignores her. Unless he’s forced to wear something down there by w, like at work, his feet will remain bare, thank you very much.