Chapter 297: A Pool of Sunken Treasures

When Ren finally fluttered her heavy eyelids open, the ambient light filtering through the high archways of the obsidian castle told her it was already well past noon.

She was tucked back into the nest on the fur bed. The first thing her blurry vision focused on was Syris. The Snake King was laying beside her, his head casually propped up by his muscular arm as he quietly, intently stared at her sleeping face.

As Ren’s vision fully cleared, her gaze naturally dropped from his beautiful, sharp jawline down to his bare chest. The sight of his severely peeling, red, sunburnt skin instantly jolted her memory.

“The vial!” Ren gasped, shooting straight up.

It was a massive mistake.

The second she moved, her entire body protested. Everywhere hurt. Her core ached, her lower back throbbed, and her legs felt like they had been run over by a freight train. Her muscles screamed in pure agony as she tried to swing her legs over the side of the bed, her knees instantly buckling beneath her.

Syris quickly reached out, his cool hands gently gripping her waist to stabilize her.

“Rest a bit longer,” Syris murmured softly, his amethyst eyes filled with a dark, satisfied warmth. “Your body has been pushed past its limits. You are not ready to walk.”

“I can’t rest!” Ren argued frantically, her hands gripping his forearms. “Syris, I dropped an incredibly important ingredient for your sunburn remedy in the water! It sank to the bottom of the pool! I need to go find it right now before it gets washed away!”

She tried to push herself up again, but her legs were useless. Her body was simply not ready to be operational yet. She flopped pathetically back onto the furs with a frustrated groan.

Ren looked up at the towering Beast King. She knew he wasn’t going to let her crawl all the way to the bathhouse. It was time to deploy her ultimate, secret weapon.

Ren deliberately softened her gaze. She pushed her bottom lip out in a slight, trembling pout, widening her bright green eyes to their maximum, sparkling capacity. She stared up at him, giving him the most pathetic puppy-dog eyes known to mankind.

“Please, Syris?” Ren pleaded, her voice a soft, incredibly sweet whine. “Please help me?”

Syris completely froze.

A flush rapidly crept across Syris’s high cheekbones. She looked so cute looking up at him like that. His heart did a strange flutter in his chest.

He couldn’t say no to her.

Syris let out a defeated sigh, looking away to hide his blushing face. “Fine. I will go look for it.”

“Take me with you!” Ren instantly demanded, throwing her arms up. “It’s a tiny glass bottle! It might be really difficult for you to find it, and I can help spot it from the edge!”

Without another word of argument, Syris effortlessly scooped her bare, aching body up into his arms. He carried her back to his private bath area. He walked over to the edge of the steaming pool and gently set her down on the smooth obsidian steps, making sure she was comfortable.

Syris waded smoothly into the warm water and immediately began searching the bottom. The pool wasn’t really deep—only reaching his waist—so it honestly shouldn’t be too hard to find.

However, Syris didn’t exactly know what a ’glass vial’ was.

“Is this it?” Syris asked, emerging from the water holding a perfectly smooth, glowing blue swamp pebble.

“No, Syris, it’s clear,” Ren sighed, resting her chin in her hands.

A few moments later, he popped up again. “Is this it?” he asked, holding up a random, waterlogged piece of a lily pad.

“No,” Ren giggled.

While he continued to sweep his hands across the submerged stone floor, Ren watched the muscles of his broad back flex. A random, lingering thought from yesterday suddenly popped into her head.

“Syris?” Ren asked casually, trailing her fingers in the warm water. “What do you think about having babies?”

Syris completely froze underwater.

He slowly stood up, the water cascading down his chest. He turned to look at her, his amethyst eyes wide. He confessed, his voice dropping an octave, “I… I have never really thought about it before.”

He swallowed hard, stepping closer to her. “Why? Are you pregnant?”

Ren tilted her head, watching his panicked but entirely focused expression. “If I was… and they were yours… would you want them?”

“Of course I would want them!” Syris responded instantly, his tone fierce and incredibly territorial. He didn’t even have to think about the answer. “They would be mine. They would be our hatchlings. Why in the world wouldn’t I claim them?!” He reached out, his wet hands gripping her knees. “Ren. Tell me. Are you pregnant?”

“No, I’m not,” Ren quickly reassured him, patting his wet hand. “Not right now, anyway. But I could be eventually. My body is still adjusting to everything.”

She didn’t give him much more of an explanation than that. Trying to explain the long-term fertility side-effects of an expired, forcefully-removed plastic Earth contraceptive to a prehistoric snake beastman was a headache she absolutely did not want to tackle.

Fortunately, Syris didn’t ask anything further. He let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like relief mixed with a tiny hint of disappointment, and turned back to his task, diving completely underwater to search the deeper end.

Ren watched the surface of the water bubble. A few seconds later, Syris breached the surface.

He stood up to his full, towering height, violently whipping his head back to clear the water from his face. His incredibly long, silky black hair flew backward in a perfect, slow-motion arc, sending a spray of sparkling water droplets into the humid air. The warm bathwater trickled flawlessly down his broad shoulders, tracing the deep, pronounced V-line of his abdomen. His pale skin practically glowed with the wetness under the ambient light.

Ren was completely enthralled. Her jaw went slack. Her brain completely stopped functioning as she shamelessly drank in his raw, masculine beauty. He looked like an ancient river god.

Because she was so intensely busy drooling over his abs, Ren completely failed to notice that his arm was extended toward her, proudly holding the tiny, perfectly intact glass vial pinched between his long fingers.

“Is this it?” Syris asked.

Ren didn’t answer. She was just staring blankly at the water dripping down his collarbones.

Syris’s lips curled into a smirk. He had noticed her glazed-over, lustful expression.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Syris teased, his deep voice laced with dark amusement as he took a slow step toward her. “I honestly do not think you will survive it if we go another round right now… but I might want to test your limits if you are truly that eager for me.”

Ren snapped out of her trance.

She cleared her throat, her entire face flushing red as she quickly looked away, suddenly finding a random crack in the obsidian wall incredibly fascinating.

“I—I wasn’t staring!” Ren stammered defensively, her voice cracking. “I just… I lost my train of thought! That’s all!”

Syris only chuckled, a low, rich sound that echoed beautifully in the bathhouse.

Ding!

[System: Congratulations, Host! You have successfully improved the Snake King’s foul mood! Objective complete!] [Reward: One (1) Magical Swamp Ingredients Log Book has been added to your inventory!]

Ren gasped, her eyes lighting up with excitement. She had actually done it! The magical encyclopedia of weird swamp plants was finally hers! She couldn’t wait to go through the book later and find all the incredible new culinary spices and healing herbs she could exploit!

Syris, having received no confirmation about the tiny, weird object in his hand, and assuming it was just another useless, random piece of swamp trash since Ren was entirely ignoring it, casually wound his arm back.

He was going to toss it over his shoulder.

“NOOOO!!” Ren screamed, lunging forward with her arms outstretched.

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