Galatea stumbled from the tent, covering her face that burned like a furnace, unable to face the people standing outside with hopeful eyes. She quickly dashed through the crowd, scared they might smell this salty, fishy scent covering her hair and face.
'What happened?! Why did I do such a sinful... profane act?!'
Though the aspect of chastity wasn't as intense in Babylon, it still existed. Especially for most women and to knights, it was almost sacred.
"Why..."
She scooped the water drawn from the large well beneath the outpost, carefully splashing her face to avoid the water contaminating the rest.
"Haa... I can still.... taste it.... and feel the heat of his... pressed against my lips."
She made a circle in the air, a little wider than her wrist, using her fingers. The shape of his hot, hard thing, which she touched instinctively. At the time, she felt as if some voice inside shouted for her to go for it and never look back.
"It was truly long and..." She subconsciously rubbed her sword's hilt and calculated the difference. 'More than twice as thick...' before shaking her head.
Yet it remained even after the act.
Another voice inside her.
The lingering voice appeared after seeing those strange memories where she endured the horrific fate after Babylon fell to the horde of goblins.
'All because of the hobgoblin Luka and my Grandfather managed to slay...'
She couldn't help but doubt her sanity.
'What's going on with me?
The woman who guides me, are you enemy or foe?'
After cleaning her face and cooling her mind, Galatea threw off her heavy pauldrons and gear, sitting in her customed gambeson in the form of a dress.
She stretched her long, muscular legs and placed her feet on the chopped remains of a massive tree trunk.
"What if Luka is angry about what happened... he has a fiancée in the capital..." Galatea covered her face, but the thick scent of his seed remained, only serving to remind and immerse her in that moment again.
"Ah..." She reached between her thighs and closed her eyes tightly, the familiar damp heat that leaked through her clothes. "Such a sinful harlot... to get aroused when the Lord was suffering so much."
But then a strange thought flowed through her mind.
[I wonder how amazing it would be to have Lucifer's huge thing inside me!]
Galatea knew these thoughts weren't just hers anymore and couldn't help but doubt her own mind further.
"W-What?! Who's there... that cannot be me... and who is Lucifer?!"
Even though she instinctively knew that Luka was gone and that man, the one who held her head down with such force as he filled her mouth and covered her lips with his hot...
"Latea, what's wrong?"
"Eh?"
Suddenly, a voice interrupted her lascivious thoughts.
'He's alive!'
The woman screamed inside her.
"Grandpa?"
Gerard froze solid upon her words, his lips trembled before smiling brightly, "What kind of events brought you to call me such a thing? You have not called me in such a manner since I failed to protect your mother and father..."
[Grandpa... Grandpa...]
The voice couldn't be called another person's anymore.
Galatea shook her head, struggling with the intense mix of emotions, one part of her dull and pained whenever she saw his whiskery beard and grey hairs. While the other was intense like a raging sea that refused to accept his failure.
[Please don't hate him, you will regret it in the future.
I beg of you to stop and listen!]
Once again, the voice, her voice, called out.
She glanced at the man who served as her idol growing up, a tightness growing in her chest as he struggled to sit beside her. "Come here, stop being so stubborn." She scolded, helping him remove his chestplate and other cumbersome armour. "There is no need to wear this right now, okay?"
"B-But if there's an attack..."
'He really hasn't changed one bit.'
"Then I will step up to face them, Grandpa. I am the knight captain now! Please stop blaming yourself, although my mother passed on like that. It wasn't your fault!"
"Latea...?"
Gerard's eyes widened at her words. His shoulders shook, a subtle tremble at first, but then covered his face. He took a deep breath, grumbling to himself like an old man.
[Can you really keep hating him, knowing the truth?]
'Shut it! I still haven't forgiven your actions in the tent with Luka. I don't have those feelings about him, and you even made me...' Her thoughts trailed off as a glistening tear dripped down her grandfather's cheek as he struggled to clear his throat.
[You say that... and I agree.
We didn't think of him that way, but Lucifer?
Can you truly deny that you didn't feel that urge, the unmistakable heat in our lower body?!]
Even though she argued back, Galatea couldn't truly disagree with the woman who claimed to be her older self. The Luka of today and yesterday changed too much, and his actions served to draw her attention and desires.
Though she tried to refuse it and sought an escape.
The salty, sweet taste in her mouth still lingered, dragging her back to reality.
[Don't rush, Lucifer will likely be just as confused.]
'Stop, I don't want to think about this right now!'
[Then why do you keep licking the inside of your cheeks where his taste still lingers?]
Galatea didn't answer and chose to stop listening to the voice.
The death of her mother struck Galatea hard. It shattered many of her future dreams, the image of her strong mother, a descendant of a warrior tribe and her ability to place trust in others.
"Grandpa, do you still blame yourself?"
His throat hummed as he swallowed down his tears and emotions.
"M-Me? Of course, little one. That day, if I'd have checked the borders more thoroughly and declined the lord's invitation for a drink..." His voice trailed off as he glanced into the sky, a bitter smile spreading across his lips.
As she listened to him speak, the voice inside became silent.
Galatea hadn't given her Grandfather the chance to explain his side of things in the past, and now, finding it a little ironic after what happened in the tent, she sat and heard him out.
"I promised your Grandmother... to protect your mother and you. But if she found out I failed, that woman would probably beat me into an early grave and seek revenge herself."
She'd never spoken or learned much about her Grandmother.
Only that she was a warrior who protected the village beside her Grandfather for decades before they married. Or that she came from a distant village, where the women grew strong and fought to protect, while men remained at home.
"Was Grandmother that extreme?"
Gerard's lips curved, shaking his wispy beard. "Of course! Latea, you're much like your Grandmother, fierce, steadfast and strong!" The wiff of ale on his breath lingered as he spoke, but he remained quite lucid in his words.
[Grandma was awesome!]
Once again, the voice spoke, joining in on her Grandfather's words.
However, this time, Galatea didn't rush to silence or drive away the voice. She'd slowly been adjusting her mind after the incident with Luka. Now she felt a sense of clarity and leeway to accept everything, whether she liked it or not.
So she asked a question related to the scene she saw in her dreams.
"Grandpa, if the Lord didn't appear today...
Would you have been able to defeat it, the hobgoblin?"
"Hm?"
He turned to face her with a clear gaze he shook his head. "No, I would have died within five moves if the Lord hadn't used that power to save my life." Gerard gripped his fists tight into balls and slammed the wooden trunk beneath them. "If I were stronger, younger and more capable, he wouldn't have forced himself into such a state!"
"Don't blame yourself, Grandpa."
Although she couldn't bury her grudges instantly.
Galatea no longer saw him as an enemy, but rather admitted how much effort he went through for her, after seeing the battle today. She discovered just how powerless a single person was in the face of the machine called war.
"Mm, I just hope the Lord will recover soon..."
She instinctively pressed her fingers to her lips and squished them before smiling for the first time since leaving the tent.
At the moment she accepted such thoughts, the dull and brilliant golden eyes overlapped, and she muttered something to herself.
"You don't have to worry, our lord is extremely virile."