Free Web NovelChapter 21: Valoria’s Women Leaders’ Meetings 6
Then they all turned their heads toward Lyriana.
The dark elf froze.
"Why are you all looking at me like that?"
Elena smiled.
"Because you were here first."
Lyriana frowned.
"Elena was here before me."
"Yes," Elena replied. "And I’ve already been here."
Isadora added calmly,
"Me too."
Shiora rested her chin on her hands.
"So, according to the order of the encounters, you’re next."
Lyriana remained silent.
Her elf ears barely twitched.
An almost imperceptible detail.
But all the women around the table noticed it.
Selene smiled.
"Oh?"
Elaria adjusted her glasses.
"Interesting."
Vespera smiled slightly.
"She’s pretending to be calm."
"I am calm," Lyriana replied.
Shiora sneered.
"Of course."
Lyriana looked away.
But the slight blush on her cheeks betrayed her completely.
Elena approached her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You like him, don’t you?"
Lyriana didn’t answer immediately.
Then she sighed.
"He’s... different."
"We noticed," Shiora replied.
Lyriana gave her a cold look.
But her tone softened as she continued:
"He surprised me back in the Black Forest. The way he remained calm. The way he observed. His lack of fear when he didn’t understand something."
She paused.
"And most importantly... he doesn’t see me as a weapon."
Elena understood immediately.
Lyriana had been trained as a scout, a guard, an assassin, and a representative of her people.
To many, she was first and foremost a blade in the shadows.
A protector.
A silent threat.
Adam, on the other hand, asked her questions.
He listened to her.
He gently mocked her reactions.
He treated her like a person.
Not like a function.
Isadora smiled softly.
"So it’s decided."
Lyriana looked up.
"Wait. I didn’t say that—"
"Too late," Shiora replied.
Selene nodded.
"The rule is simple. Meeting order."
Elaria counted calmly on her fingers.
"Elena. Isadora. Lyriana." Then Selene, since Adam met her at the Adventurers’ Guild. Then me at the Artisans’ Guild. Then Shiora at the Merchants’ Guild. And finally Vespera at the Mage’s Tower."
Vespera raised an eyebrow.
"Why am I last?"
Shiora smiled.
"Because you’re terrifying."
"So what?"
"Exactly. We have to give her time to toughen up mentally."
Selene burst out laughing.
Even Isadora couldn’t help but smile.
Vespera crossed her arms, feigning offense.
"I see. You’re all afraid of me."
Elaria replied calmly:
"Yes."
The answer was so direct that even Vespera remained silent for a second.
Then she smiled.
"At least you’re honest."
Lyriana, for her part, still seemed torn between embarrassment and resignation.
Elena leaned toward her.
"Don’t worry. Adam will never force you to do anything."
"I know that."
"Well?"
Lyriana looked at the door through which Adam had left earlier.
For a moment, her expression became more serious.
"Then I want to talk to him first."
Isadora nodded.
"That’s better."
Lyriana continued:
"I don’t want him to think this is all just a game between us."
Silence returned.
This time, no one joked.
"This isn’t a game," Elena said finally.
"No," Isadora confirmed. "Not with him."
Shiora sighed softly.
"That’s precisely what makes it so dangerous."
Adam wasn’t just attractive to them.
He represented something they had never known.
A man capable of desire.
Of strength.
Of tenderness.
Of ambition.
A man who didn’t crumble before them.
A man who seemed able to walk beside them rather than behind them.
In a world like theirs, such an existence was almost unreal.
And each of them knew it.
Selene rested her elbows on the table.
"So we’ll stick to this rule. The first time alone. After that, if the connection is clear, things will be freer."
Shiora smiled.
"Like our old parties."
Elaria coughed.
"With a little more organization, I hope."
"Organization sometimes kills the atmosphere."
"Chaos sometimes destroys the furniture."
"Again with your furniture..."
Isadora raised a hand.
Silence returned immediately.
"Very well. It’s decided."
She looked at Lyriana.
"You’ll be next. But only if Adam wants it too."
Lyriana nodded slowly.
"I know."
Then her gaze softened.
"I want him to choose."
Elena smiled.
"He will choose."
"You seem quite sure of yourself."
The knight shrugged.
"I saw him looking at you."
Lyriana froze.
"When?"
"Several times." "
Shiora burst out laughing.
"Oh, now this is getting interesting."
Lyriana immediately looked away.
"This meeting is over."
"Not yet," Selene replied with amusement. "I still want details on—"
"Over," Lyriana repeated.
She stood up, straight and dignified.
But her flushed cheeks completely ruined her usual image.
The other women burst out laughing.
Meanwhile, far from this turbulent meeting, Adam had just arrived in his room.
He placed the books on his desk, locked the door, and then took out the Urban Barrier Plan.
The scroll unfurled slowly before him.
Thousands of runes glittered in the light of the magic lamps.
Adam sat down.
For a few seconds, he remained motionless.
Then he picked up a quill.
"Good." "
His expression became more serious.
"Let’s see how far I can go."
He activated Analysis.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Analysis
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Target: Urban Barrier Plan
Grade: Purple
Complexity: Very High
Structure: Partially Understandable
Optimization Possible: Yes
Current Estimated Rate: 3 %
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Adam stared at the last line.
"Only three percent..."
He smiled slightly.
"It’s a start."
He then opened his notes.
And began to work.
The hours passed.
Adam compared the circuits.
Recopied groups of runes.
Isolated functions.
Established correspondences.
Mana input.
Storage.
Distribution.
Detection.
Reaction.
Protection.
Recycling.
The further he progressed, the more his mind regained familiar reflexes.
It wasn’t exactly code.
But it wasn’t entirely different either.
Each rune had a role.
Each connection had a function.
Each loop had a logic.
Each error caused a loss.
And each optimization allowed the overall system to become more fluid.
Adam felt his intellectual excitement growing.
"This world uses magic as a technology..."
He drew a new line.
"But no one treats it like a programmable language yet."
At that moment, a small notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Boundary Skill Activated
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Analysis Lv. 1 + Accelerated Learning → Eyes of the World Lv. 1
Mana Control Lv. 1 + Body Control Lv. 1 → Mana Body Level 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Adam stopped.
"Delimiter?"
Another window appeared immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Boundary
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Detects boundaries.
Exceeds them by finding an alternative or creating a new path.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Adam slowly laid down his quill.
"So, Limiter isn’t just for seeing boundaries..."
His eyes lit up.
"It can also show me how to cross them."
A smile spread across his face.
This skill had just become far more valuable than he had imagined.
He immediately resumed his test.
Unaware that just a few corridors away, several powerful women had just decided the order in which they would approach him.
And unaware that, among them, a dark elf with silver hair was already considering how she would speak to him.
Lyriana walked alone through the halls of the manor.
Her face had regained its usual calm.
But her heart was beating faster than usual.
She thought of Adam.
Of the forest.
Of his gaze when he spotted her from over a hundred meters away.
Of his strange questions.
Of the way he never treated her like a mere shadow.
Then she sighed.
"Elena is right..."
She stopped in front of a window overlooking the manor gardens.
The moon shone brightly above Valoria.
"I must speak to her."
Her reflection appeared in the glass.
A dark elf.
An heiress.
A spy.
A warrior.
A representative of her people.
But tonight, for the first time in a long time, Lyriana wasn’t thinking of any of those titles.
She was simply thinking of herself.
And of the strange man who had just entered their world.
The man whom fate seemed to have placed at the center of all their lives.
