Chapter 74: Travel back to Earth!

Their house was quiet and neither of them was sleeping.

Eren captured a yelping Emily in the bathroom and he kissed her legs for some extra play.

She also used a small bath flower on his head to knight him.

Their nightly games had gotten weirder over the past month, and Eren had completely lost track of how they had ended up in this strange knight-and-princess melodrama.

According to Emily he had to kiss the back of her leg and she would be free from an evil dragon and give him royal status. Then he would kidnap her from her evil parents.

They would marry in the middle of a forest and be happily ever after.

At least, that was how the story worked in Emily’s head. Eren wasn’t totally sure because he had stopped listening the moment the leg-kissing part began.

For almost two hours they spent time together in the bath tub and there were as much whispers as moans today.

He had to say some calming words in her ear to ease her worries.

..

Two hours later, they were finally calm.

Emily sat cross-legged on the couch with her back against his chest and his arms wrapped around her waist.

She’d changed into the thin cotton shift she wore to bed and Eren could feel every part of her body through the fabric. The curve of her spine against his stomach, the warmth of her thighs on his legs, the way she kept shifting her weight and pressing closer like she was trying to memorize how he felt before he left.

“You are making me crazy.” He whispered with frustration.

“How?”

“You are too beautiful. It’s too much, do you get it. For example, I want to bite your tummy right now.”

“Noooo, don’t eat me Mr. knight!”

Eren found out Emily really liked knight and princess stories after messing with her. She was really sweet and funny with her weird expressions.

It was a nice evening.

[Dungeon Heart Fragment: 987 / 1000]

“What do you miss most about Earth?” Emily asked. Her fingers were tracing circles on the back of his hand.

“My family. Aldo ordering food to your door with a phone call, someone just brings it to you and it’s so comfy.” He thought for an extra second. “And chocolate.”

“Chocolate?” She didn’t know anything other than sugar. And their sugar was harsh and weird coming from a wild flower’s roots. Eren didn’t like it’s taste even when they cook it in the sweets. Honey was the way to go in this elven village.

“Best thing ever created on Earth. Sweet and dark brown and it melts in your mouth. Imagine honey but a thousand times better and solid.”

Emily turned her head to look at him and her eyes had that specific shine they got when egzotic food was involved. She had a very weird relationship with food and Eren had learned never to joke about it because she almost grow up alone and ate the things villagers shared with her. Most of the time she couldn’t pick what she wanted to eat.

“You have to bring that. I’m serious Eren.” She switched to her own language like the point needed extra emphasis and settled back against his chest.

“Anything for my pervert princess.” He got a small punch into his stomach.

“I wanted to come with you.” Her voice was softer now.

“You will. When things calm down and the baby is bigger. I’ll show you everything.”

“The big metal animals that carry people?” Cars.

“And those tall buildings you talked about.” Skyscrapers.

Eren smiled. “Some of them have fifty floors stacked on top of each other.”

“Fifty floors…” She tried to picture it like fifty of her house on the top of each other and she wasn’t that wrong about the concept.

“How do people get to the top?” She muttered.

“There’s a metal box inside the building that moves up and down. You step in and press a button and it carries you.”

“A box that moves by itself?”

“Powered by something called electricity. Like tamed lightning.”

Emily pulled away just enough to turn and stare at him. “Tamed lightning isn’t magic?”

“No.”

She also wanted to know about this TV thing in the last weeks. She crushed the word between her teeth like it was fighting back.

“Did I say it right? Vizonty?”

“Close enough. Television.”

“And people get memorized inside it?”

“Yeah. Nobody lives inside the TV. It’s more like recordings of people and stories kept inside it, so you can watch plays and all kinds of other things whenever you want, silly.” He kissed her cute nose and messed with her hair.

“Don’t call me silly, mister! Only I get to use that word.” She poked his chest with one finger but didn’t stop his kissing on her face.

After five minutes of wet and intense kissing, and some other things they finally calmed down again.

“But explain. You said images of people move inside a box. Where do the people go when you turn it off?” She asked.

“They don’t go anywhere because they were never in the box. They’re just pictures that move very fast.”

Emily stared at him for a long moment like she was deciding whether he was lying or just insane. Then she shrugged and leaned back into his chest. “I guess, I need to see it myself because memory and colorful images parts…I just can’t picture it in my head.”

They sat like that for a while. Emily’s breathing slowed and her fingers stopped tracing circles but she wasn’t sleeping. Eren could tell from the way she held his arm, tight and deliberate like she was making a point about not letting go.

“Be careful over there.” Her voice was quiet but steady. “No monsters on Earth but you said humans can be dangerous sometimes.”

“I grew up there silly. I know how it-”

“Don’t silly me. I’m being serious.” She turned around in his lap so they were face to face. The moonlight from the window caught her green eyes and her blonde hair fell across her shoulder and Eren had to actively remind himself that they didn’t have time for what his body was suggesting.

“You’re a half-elf now. You have pointed ears and a face that makes people stare. Hide them or you’ll cause problems.”

He touched his ears. He kept forgetting about them. “I’ll find a hat. My dad had some in the closet.”

“Good.” She held his face between both hands. “And if you take too long coming back…”

“I won’t.”

“But IF you do.” She leaned closer until their noses almost touched. “I would travel the whole world to find similar skills to open a similar door and I will come through to drag you back here by your ears.”

“You wouldn’t…” Eren was genuinely impressed by her resolve. If one of them didn’t have to stay to protect the village, he would gladly take her to Earth. Also for a check up in a hospital.

A hospital visit in the upcoming months was a must!

He kissed her. She kissed him back harder and for a few seconds neither of them cared about portals or Earth or chocolate.

Then the marble in his pocket pulsed with warmth and a faint green light leaked through the fabric.

[Dungeon Heart Fragment: 1000 / 1000 (Fully Charged)]

They both felt it at the same time. Emily pulled back and looked down at the glow coming from his pants. “Full.”

“Full.” He repeated.

..

Eren changed into the plainest clothes he owned. Left the kobold scimitars by the door. Tucked the dungeon fragment deep in his right pocket and ran the supply list through his head one more time. Salt, knives, rope, nails, lighters, antiseptic, painkillers, bandages, birth kit, batteries, phone charger, flashlights. Emily’s list plus his own additions.

He walked to the bathroom. Portal opened from his bedroom, and it was always the same connection.

Emily stood in the doorway. She didn’t hug him or cry or make a speech. She reached up with one hand and pressed her fingertips against his forehead. Light touch. Barely there. More intimate than any kiss they’d shared.

“Go and come back fast..”

Two words. That was it. That was enough.

Eren gathered every point of mana in his body. Five hundred and fifty. Full pool drain.

“Door Master.”

[Door Master – Level 5 activated]

[Destination: Earth – Previous Location Locked]

It was the usual portal skill and he was used to it by now. But this was his first usage of it really.

The wall shimmered and built for five seconds.

Then his Earth bedroom appeared on the other side. Same tiles. Same cracked mirror.

The smell came through first.

Exhaust and concrete and cooking oil from the apartment below. The air was heavier here. Dirtier. His half-elf lungs noticed the difference the way you’d notice stepping from a mountain into a parking garage.

He looked back. Emily stood in the Evon doorway. Her face calm. Her green eyes bright with the portal light.

“See you.”

She nodded once and didn’t say a word.

He stepped through. The portal snapped shut behind him and the green light disappeared and suddenly he was standing on cold tile in complete darkness.

His mana read zero but he could feel the mana in the dungeon fragment in his pocket. His return ticket was safe and secure.

He tried to regenerate his mana but it was impossible like he theorized.

“I am a fu*ing a genius to never come this side without a back up!!!”

Wolf Eyes activated on instinct and the bedroom assembled itself in shades of gray. Earth darkness was different from Evon’s. It was muddier.

His feet made no sound on the old wooden floor even though he was bigger and heavier than the last time he’d walked here. Past the framed photo of his parents on the wall that he couldn’t see in the dark but knew was there because he’d looked at it every day for years.

The room smelled like dust and old sheets. His bed was unmade the way he’d left it almost a month ago. The desk still had his laptop sitting on it with the charger cable hanging off the edge.

But the notes were gone.

Every single one. All the messages he’d been throwing through the portal for days. The glowing stones he’d sent with them. They were all missing.

And the things he’d left on the dresser before his first trip, his keys and a few bucks and his prized pen from last job, had been lined up neatly in front of the mirror. Arranged with care by someone who wanted him to know they’d been here.

The hair on his arms stood up.

Eren reached for the light switch on the wall. His fingers found it from muscle memory in the dark.

He pressed it.

The light clicked on.

And everything was exactly where he’d left it except for the parts that someone had touched on purpose.

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