Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 1038 - Taming Contentment - 6

Liora put them on.

When the system responded to contact with her mana, the precision of the adjustment was the kind that didnʼt happen by accident, and Liora thought about all the times Ren had been nearby without her knowing he was seeing exactly what she was, not just the surface of it, and that information went to the place where the others of its kind lived and where it was going to keep existing for a long time.

She didnʼt cry.

It was a conscious decision. A difficult one... It was close.

The third pair arrived in Lunaʼs hands.

ʼBEAUTIFUL EARRINGS!ʼ

Luna received them with both hands a moment early, because Lunaʼs body had its own priorities when the nervous system was processing several things simultaneously. But Ren helped cover the small slip by making a deliberate gesture of finality, the kind that read as ”task completed” and redirected attention toward completion rather than the beat before it.

ʼHE MADE THIS EARRINGS HIMSELF. NOT JUST THE DRESSES. WITH RUNES. DESIGNED FOR OUR SPECIFIC MANA SYSTEMS!ʼ

ʼWhen did he do this? When did he have time? He has been doing Goldcrest paperwork and protocol sessions with Larissa and training and…ʼ

Externally, Luna Starweaver held the earrings with the composure of someone evaluating an artifact of significant quality.

Internally, she still could not calm down, and she thought she could feel the white crystal inside her shadow glowing with slightly more intensity than usual.

ʼMOTHER IS WATCHING THIS. LISTENING TO MY HEART BEAT LIKE THIS AND SAYING ”I TOLD YOU SO, INTENSE LOVE” WITH A TRIUMPHANT FACE, DEFINITELY!ʼ

ʼDonʼt cry. Donʼt cry here. There are hundreds of noble families watching...ʼ

She put them on.

ʼThey fit perfectly. Of course they fit perfectly. Naturally they fit perfectly.ʼ

She hated how…

No. Thatʼs a lie.

She didnʼt hate it at all.

♢♢♢♢

Ren, with the empty boxes returned to Julius and the Mantis holding his posture with the exactness Larissa had spent weeks calibrating, looked at the three of them and gave a single nod, expression still cool and composed.

Julius retook the position of central speaker.

”The territory of Goldcrest,” he said, in the tone he used when something stopped being what it had been and passed to being what it was going to be from that point forward, ”in recognition of the person who administers it and has transformed it in documented ways, will officially be known as Patinder Territory.”

The hall processed that differently from the betrothal announcement, because it was a different class of information. Not the confirmation of something many had already suspected, the formal registration that a family which hadnʼt existed in any map of power eight years ago now had a territory with its name on it. A name that would appear in documents, in trade routes, in negotiations for generations. A name that had been made rather than inherited.

Julius continued.

”And this chamber has the honor of witnessing the formal announcement of the engagement between House Patinder and the houses Dravenholm, Starweaver, and Ashenway, which from this day forward will form the central pillar of…”

♢♢♢♢

Fern squeezed Reedʼs hand.

Reed squeezed back.

Both of them were tamers with the same two beasts, one of Iron, representing where they had started, and one of Gold, representing what they had become. They had cooked for others for most of their lives in the zone where low-rank tamers survived by doing what they could with what they had. The noble craft of healing was something they had learned relatively late. But none of that was the definition of who they were.

What they were was this: two people extremely proud of their beloved son, their eyes shining as they gaze forward looking forward in the main hall of Yano, hearing a surname that was theirs spoken in Julius Dravenholmʼs voice in a context that made it sound like something from an entirely different category from the one they had always occupied.

Reed had the jaw of someone trying not to do something he was clearly going to do anyway.

Fern had already stopped trying.

♢♢♢♢

Taro, from where he stood, had the uncomplicated happiness of someone who found something good and expected and didnʼt need to elaborate it further. He was happy for his friend who deserved it. Just that.

Liu was smiling with the face of someone who had been waiting for this moment from far enough back that the satisfaction of seeing it arrive had accumulated into several layers. He had his eyes fixed on Ren and the three girls with the energy of someone who has been on the right side of a long bet and is watching the payoff in real time. He wasnʼt going to let anyone ruin this.

Klein had his lips pressed together with the expression of someone processing multiple things simultaneously who had decided the most appropriate face for the moment was neutral, even though nothing he was processing was neutral. But he also felt that this was right. Whatever else was complicated, this part was right.

Mayo looked at Min.

Min was already looking at Mayo.

They had the same expression, the look of people who had been too close to a situation for too long for the formal announcement to arrive as a surprise, but who felt the weight it carried when it arrived in the right place in front of the right people regardless.

Mayo reminded Min he had something to do.

He had been positioned since before Julius started speaking. Position calculated, equidistant from the two groups that mattered. The active concealment capacity engaged from the moment Julius began, which meant the full mana suppression that very few people in this room knew Min possessed, because Min rarely needed to use it and when he did he tended not to leave comfortable witnesses.

♢♢♢♢

Aldric listened to the betrothal announcement without changing his expression.

He had calculated it. Not the details, the general direction. Selphira and Julius had spent years building a structure that made defensive and political sense simultaneously, and the element that had been missing during that time was exactly the kind of element that appeared when a generation produced someone who hadnʼt been in any prior calculation.

It didnʼt bother him.

It was what it was.

Seiya, beside him, wasnʼt looking at Julius when Julius spoke.

He was looking at Luna.