The Demon King's Paladin

Chapter 51. Flash Forward

I woke to the feeling of something soft touching my cheek. I open my eyes to see Anna standing above me. We both stare at each other for a minute. I then ask the obvious question.

" Anna how did you wake me up?"

Anna stared at me with a look I have become familiar with this past month. Her cheeks are a bit red, and her eyes turn a darker shade of green, the eyes on her arms and legs start to look at me as well. Simply put she's embarrassed but wants something lover-like from me. After a few moments she responded to me.

" I kissed your cheek, Master."

This behavior is a reaction to Sarah. After about 3 weeks since that night, Sarah began to become more openly affectionate with me, this includes but is not limited to hugging and kissing me on the cheek in front of everyone during training or dinner. While I didn't mind little displays of her affection like this, in fact I craved them just as much as Sarah, there were however 2 big detractors of it. the 1st was Asha. After a few days of Sarah and Asha arguing back and forth, Sarah spoke to Asha alone. After this Asha stopped offering resistance to what she does. Instead, she along with Sharon and Cynthia have a weird look in their eyes when Sarah does something to me.

Warrick and Aqua just take it as Sarah attempting to deepen our bond as a couple. Now for the 2nd person to take Umbridge with Sarah and I. Anna has started to seek any opportunity for affection she could. From kissing when no one is looking to hugging and holding hands as we walked from destination to destination in the palace. It seems today is no different.

While I was thinking of the difficulty of the past month, Anna was staring at me with that look of hers that is expecting something from me. I opened my arms and she jumped into my chest. One of the things she has asked of me is this. To hug her when she wakes me up. However, through this, I have noticed that she has upgraded from waking me up with her voice to holding and squeezing my hand, to now kissing my cheek. I thought about asking her to stop just in case someone might see, but honestly, I want to do these things just as much as Anna. I want to hug her just as much as she wants to hug me as well.

After our morning hug, Anna proceeded to begin the next new addition to our displays of affection. Simply put she has started to hand feed me. I asked why she wanted to do this, since I saw it as a little embarrassing, but she insisted on it. She explained that since our time was scarce in the morning this would be an effective way for her not to act in a jealous manner during the day. I tapped out and just let her do as she pleased. I've noticed as she feeds me, the eyes on her body start to blink slowly at me. Along with the warm smile she has, it's easy to see how happy this makes her.

After breakfast I took a morning bath and brushed my teeth and headed to Aqua's class. Since a month ago we had continued to experiment with Holy Magic, and I was able to pick up 2 more spells since then. I still feel like my arsenal of spells isn't complete, but my understanding of Holy Magic has deepened more. I feel like the 2 that I learned are the rest of the basic skills I can learn for now. Today I'll be looking at my current status from the Appraisal Orb, to see what has changed since the last time I checked it about 2 weeks ago.

As we made our way to the classroom, I made note of the way the other servants have begun to look at me. Before, they looked at me with indifference. Now from everything that I have done, along with Sarah's teasing of me the past few weeks, along with the friendship I have with Warrick and Aqua, I mostly get 1 of 2 looks. most of the maids look at me with embarrassed looks. No doubt due to my prince charming act of saving Sarah not once but twice, but also due to her kissing me every chance she gets.

The rest of the maids and the butlers have started to look at me with resentment. If I had to guess, I assume it is due to them believing I would've died at some point, but instead I've survived and I'm doing better than ever. Regardless of that however, Anna would diligently watch the servants with her well trained dodomeki eyes as we passed them. Not because of those looks I would receive, but because she would immediately link her arm with mine as we walked when the coast was clear. This cat and mouse game would continue until we hit Aqua's classroom.