a级黑粗大硬长爽猛出猛进

In the meantime, I spread my wings and took to the skies with Emilia still in my arms, figuring that with a fire like that, no one should be looking up anyway. And even if I was seen by someone, they shouldn\'t be thinking that I was carrying Emilia away from the ship.

I followed the road below until I found the manor, which wasn\'t really that hard anyway since the building itself stood out.

I dove down towards the ground before flaring my wings at the last minute, slowing my descent to touch down on the ground in front of the manor.

Making my way to the front door with Emilia in my arms, I wondered briefly how I should open the door when both my hands were occupied when it swung open on its own.

I was expecting it to be Mary behind the door but surprisingly, it was Mother who stood there.

"Ufufufu~ Welcome home my little one. Ara, ara? I see you\'ve taken Mama\'s words to heart and brought back someone you are interested in~"

I blinked at her and it took me a moment to remember that Mother did tell me to bring back any slaves that caught my eye before she left.

I was about to tell her that it was Emilia that I was carrying in my arms before she giggled, "I\'m joking, my little one. Now hurry and take your new harem member inside and let Mary take care of her~"

New harem member? What is Mother talking about? I don\'t have that relationship with Emilia.

I decided not to ask and simply carried the unconscious Nekomata into the manor, handing her over to Mary who was waiting right behind Mother.

The Trasif simply took her from me without a word before carrying her upstairs.

I turned to Mother, "Does Mommy know about what happened at the harbour?"

"Ara? Is my little one asking why the ship exploded like that?"

"Err… I was actually wondering if Mommy even knew about her ship exploding but yes?"

"Ufufufu~ I think it would be better if Emilia tells you about it herself, my little one~"

"Oh… Ok."

I guess it\'s better if I hear it from the person herself I guess.

Right then, the door opened again and everyone else burst into the main hall, the girls crowding around me while my Shadow Guards simply went back into my shadow.

"Are you alright, Mistress?" Katsuki asked.

"Hmm? Why wouldn\'t I be?"

"You went into the burning ship by yourself, Mistress. I was concerned that you might have burned yourself."

"What?! Are you alright, Aster?!" Lisa cried out, already fussing over me.

Delmare was also silently patting me to make sure I was fine with a very serious but cute look on her face.

Odeta let out a laugh, "Wahahaha! There\'s no way some small fire could hurt Sister Aster! She could have just blown all the fire away on her own!!"

Err… I don\'t think that fire could even be considered \'small\' Odeta… Pretty much half of the ship was in flames you know? And did you forget how big The Float-- Ahem… I mean… How big Emilia\'s ship is.

Anyway, I can\'t say much since I didn\'t even get burned while I was saving Emilia.

Now all we have to do is wait for her to wake up and I\'ll ask her what happened on the ship.

*

It was breakfast the next morning when Crystal came into the room looking a little uncertain of herself.

She should still be training under Vehyia and Dehyia along with the rest of her family so I was wondering what she was doing here.

"Umm… Mistress? Ermm… I think your friend has woken up…?"

Why is she being so unsure of herself? Also, what friend?

Oh wait, she must be talking about Emilia right?

Dehyia then appeared from the corner and shook her head, "Why are you phrasing it as a question? Are you here to report to your Mistress or to ask her a question? And which friend are you talking about? Be more specific."

Crystal immediately straightened herself, "Ah! Yes! Umm… Mistress, Miss Emilia has woken up."

I giggled, "Seems like they\'re really training you hard eh?"

"I… I\'ll do my best to serve Mistress!"

"Unnecessary," Katsuki cut in from the side.

Jeez, no need to be jealous, Katsuki. You\'ll always be my personal maid!

I quickly finished up my breakfast and excused myself from the table, letting Crystal guide me towards the room where Emilia had spent the night to recuperate.

Opening the door, I found her standing near the opened window, looking outside with a wistful gaze.

I noted that she made sure to stand in the shadow beside the window frame instead of directly in front of it, probably to make sure that she wouldn\'t be spotted from outside.

"Emilia?" I called out to her.

She did not move so I thought she didn\'t hear me and stepped into the room before calling her again, "Emilia?"

Still no response.

Crap, she couldn\'t have lost her sense of hearing from the explosion, could she? I don\'t even know if my healing magic is strong enough to mend that… If it can\'t, we\'ll probably need to get a better healer… Or maybe ask Lisa to make some kind of potion for her?

"Aster…"

I almost jumped at the sudden call of my name from Emilia\'s direction.

Oh, she\'s looking at me now.

Err… Let\'s see…

I started waving my hands around in a vague attempt at trying to mime out whether she was ok or not.

She furrowed her brows at me, "What are you doing? Is that some kind of magic ritual or something? Why aren\'t you speaking?"

I looked at her, "You didn\'t lose your hearing?"

"No?"

…

Let\'s just ignore everything that happened in the past few minutes ok?

I cleared my throat, "Ahem… So how are you? Do you feel fine? That was a pretty big fire I pulled you out from."

She hesitated for a moment before sighing, "I\'m fine… At least physically I would say. Thank you for pulling me out of there, Aster. I\'m pretty sure I would not even be alive if you weren\'t there yesterday."

"Well… We\'re friends right? Isn\'t it normal for me to save a friend?"

"Friends huh…"

She had a far off look in her eyes again before she sat down on the bed.

There was a minute of silence and I recognised that she was currently consolidating her thoughts so I stood at the side and waited patiently for her to speak again.

It took maybe about a minute or two before she spoke again.

"Aster… Just kill me… Or throw me away, I don\'t care anymore."

"What the heck? I waited here for you and that\'s the first rubbish you spilled out of your mouth?" I answered her without thinking.

She turned to me and I realised that there was no light in her eyes, a clear indication that she had given up.

I frowned, "What\'s wrong? Did your family do something again?"

She went back to looking at the ground, "I… Lost everything, Aster… Everything."

This sounds like it could be a long talk so I went to sit beside her, "What happened?"

She sniffed, "They… They knew… I don\'t know who talked or how they found out… But they knew that I knew… And they already planned ahead of time to deal with me…"

"Umm… So what about that explosion on the ship?"

She sucked in a breath, "I… Had prepared a farewell \'gift\' for them. I got several explosives set up on the ship that I had intended to set them off on the day I would leave, which would have been tomorrow… They found out about my plans to leave so when I was about to warn you today, they gave everyone the order to subdue me."

I could see that her shoulders were shaking slightly but she continued, "They\'ve already seized all my assets at that point without me knowing and I decided to just set the explosives off today and take them all down with me."

"That… Seems like a rather extreme answer to that… Couldn\'t you have fought your way out anyway? I know how strong you are."

"What\'s the point? They already took the most important thing to me… I might as well just die already."

"Eh? Most important thing?"

She nodded, "I… Before they came into the room, I was preparing to meet you… So I opened the safe in my room and… It was empty. They took it all… All my Creas… All gone!!"

She then started crying into her hands.

…

Ok… How do I deal with this?