Arthur opened his eyes only to shut them immediately after. Faint light entered his room through the wooden shutters covering the single window beside his bed but it was still painful, worsening the beast of a headache pounding between his temples.

He twisted in his covers with a groan. A sigh answered him. Arthur furrowed his brow as he looked over his shoulder, taking in the stranger sharing his bed.

A third party would call his lack of recognition cruel as he had obviously spent the night with the girl, even if his memory of the event was lacking. She was bare beneath the blanket, her blonde hair in disarray and her make-up smeared unflatteringly. She fidgeted in her sleep, eyelids trembling as she straddled the edge of sleep.

Arthur frowned. In the light of day and without a shroud of drunkenness, the girl really wasn’t much to look at. He wasn’t one to be picky about his partners but after spending too much time around Lou, her thrall, her wife, hell, even Alana, he found himself casting a more judgmental eye on women.

Most of the ladies from Graywatch weren’t, as his father would say, jewels of the sea. Aside from valuable courtesans from brothels backed by powerful pirate captains with the men and gold to protect their “jewels”, they had appearances suited to the rough lives they lived.

Few were the frail beauties preferred in the kingdom. He knew women with biceps thicker than his own, muscle gained from hauling cargo on the docks, dragging fishing nets all day, or browbeating their rowdy husbands. Their skin was rough and calloused from hard labor. Those that sailed the sea often had horrendous scars and missing digits, stolen by hungry monsters. Or lost in a drunken bet.

Coming from that, the girl beside him was a princess. However, compared to the adorable but mischievous thrall whose every action and look were meant to entice? To the savage, wild beauty of the elf who managed to be the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen while being strong enough to kick his ass with her pinky? To the admittedly less attractive but far more approachable knight wannabe who he itched to break of her holier-than-thou attitude? To the unashamed pervert with her finely sculpted body and familiar, smug confidence?

Arthur grumbled to himself as he got out of bed. There was no point thinking of the fine women. He didn’t have a stone’s chance in the ocean of bedding any of them. Lou was the captain and they were her women. Messing with the captain’s women was one of the quickest ways to end up dead on the sea, beaten only by shorting a man his gold and fighting an abyssal horror.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t see the noblewoman’s appeal to them either. She was interesting, far more fun than the rigid idiots that comprised much of their group of initiates.

She was hot and unabashedly a pervert. Probably a freak in bed, something he knew would draw the repressed libidos surrounding him like flies to shit.

He had no idea why the kingdom seemed to think two people getting naked together needed to be censored but telling someone they shouldn’t do something only made them want to do it more. Probably why so many water casters fought abyssal horrors, no matter how many were shredded by the multi-limbed monstrosities.

He didn’t know who thought putting a bunch of horny young people together with minimum supervision and free access to liquor after telling them not to have casual sex was a good idea but they were idiots.

Lou had money, or at least her wife did, and had no problem sharing. That would be enough to get her a harem a thousand strong in Graywatch, even if she was uglier than his father’s hairy ass and a raging lunatic.

On top of that, she was strong. Ridiculously so, considering her age. When he first arrived at the Hall, Arthur had challenged anyone who would accept to a duel, wanting to know the average power level of the initiates.

The results were disappointing. They might have been the most talented children of the kingdom, having two or even three affinities, but they were all useless. None of them had combat experience. Real combat experience, not just slapping swords with an asskisser hired by their daddies or throwing spells at targets that couldn’t fight back.

They panicked at the first sign of danger. A few bruises and broken bones had them crying for their mommies. Throwing dirt in their eyes, groping the girls mid-battle, and kicking guys in the crotch was called “dishonorable”, “cowardly”, and “unfair”.

Disappointing to the point he wondered if he could learn anything useful at the Hall.

Then he met that monster, Lou. He had been raiding with his father for years. Besides strong earth casters, no one had been able to utterly crush his stone constructs so easily.

Worse, the girl was as bad as any grayman when it came to “war etiquette” as his pretentious peers called it. She wanted to see her enemies hurt. Kicking someone in the crotch? Arthur wouldn’t be surprised if she castrated a man and force-fed him his balls.

She’d threatened to do exactly that to him more than once.

Yes, Lou was a captain. Rather than lose his life or worse trying to snatch her treasures, it was better to stick close and lick up any benefits she left in her wake. He wouldn’t get much, Lou was a stingy bitch to anyone besides the women she favored after all, but it was better than being trampled.

Occasionally, she was even in a generous mood. From his limited experience, usually after her wife fucked her to the Abyss and back.

His exit from the bed tipped the scales and his visitor slowly blinked open her eyes. A hand rubbed them as she sat up. He saw her brows furrow in confusion as she took in his room, stopping when her gaze found him. They went from his face to his crotch then to the wall as she averted her gaze hurriedly, face flushed.

Arthur snorted out a laugh, ignoring her to look for a pair of pants. He needed a shower and while his father had splurged a bit to get him a room in Silver Dorm, he didn’t have his own bath. He’d have thought the other young men wouldn’t care about him walking through the halls naked in the morning, not like they were seeing anything new, but after a dozen complaints, the dorm mother had threatened to kick him out if he left his room undressed one more time.

Behind him, the girl whose name he couldn’t remember cleared her throat.

He paused in pulling up a pair of loose trousers, looking over his shoulder. She still looked embarrassed but she was staring at him, head slightly raised, features pinched in an effort to control her expression. “What?” he asked gruffly when the silence had stretched on for too long.

“What? What do you mean what? Do you have nothing to say to me?” she asked, eyes widening with disbelief and voice growing louder.

“Shit, woman. Morning?”

She lost the battle to control her expression, lips turning down in a frown. “I would think you could muster up more than that, seeing as we just spent the night together.”

“You fishing for a compliment? It was alright.” Nothing to write home about. The women of Harvest were pretty tame. She hadn’t even wanted to suck him off.

Her blush intensified. “I’m not…” She took a deep breath. “When will I see you again?”

Arthur pulled his pants up the rest of the way and grabbed a clean towel from his dresser. “Eh? Why would we see each other?”

“…we just shared a bed.”

He laughed. “We did a lot more than that.”

“Eh-hem. Well, isn’t it normal to ask when the man who is courting me expects to see me again?”

Arthur turned to her and it was his turn to frown. “Courting? What are you talking about?”

She stared at him in growing confusion. “Why are you looking at me like that? You don’t ask a woman to your room unless you plan to court her.”

“Huh? I quite clearly said we were going to fuck. I didn’t say anything about courting or whatever the hell you’re thinking.”

Her pink face lost its color as she grit her teeth. “One doesn’t need to say it! It is simply common sense!”

Arthur tsked at the shrill tone. Where were the women like their guide for the qualifiers, who had been brazen enough to outright proposition him without any of this other garbage and get pounded by Lou in front of an audience?

“Woman, don’t yell at me. I told you exactly what I wanted and you readily agreed to it. Don’t make this into something it isn’t because you’re afraid daddy’s going to cut off your gold for slapping stickies with any guy that can get it up, fuck.”

Her face paled further. “Then, what? Did this mean nothing at all? Did you just use me for my body?”

Feeling an itch in his ear, Arthur scratched at it with a nail, absently rubbing off the earwax on a pants leg. “Of course it was about the sex. By the deep. When exactly were we supposed to have had a romance, huh? I did more drinking than anything else last night. You weren’t even the first girl I asked to my room, so it’s not like you can delude yourself into thinking you were special.”

He groaned as he saw her lower lip tremble. “You’re a disgusting bastard,” she spat.

“Yeah, yeah.” He was used to the women he bedded outside Graywatch making him out to be the villain so they didn’t have to face up to the horny truth that they had wanted to get laid as much as him.

He never lied to them about what he was or what he wanted. The women of Graywatch had disabused him of that notion. If he made false promises to the wrong girl, it wasn’t the father who showed up to kick his ass, as he was likely at sea. It was usually the girl herself, shadowed by her mother and aunts. He’d gotten his ass kicked by a grandma once, the old broad missing a leg and eye apiece but strong as a bear.

He didn’t understand the whole “women can only fuck guys they plan to marry” thing the nobles of the kingdom had going-on. They knew damn well he didn’t plan on “courting” any of them.

If going through the charade made them think better of themselves, he’d oblige. They’d scream, call him a pig, and maybe throw their shoes at him on the way out. Then, they’d take a seat at his table in the dining room or intercept him on his way back to his room later, eager for more.

“You—"

Her tirade was stopped before it could begin by something hitting the shutters of his window. Arthur opened them curiously, surprised to see Lou’s imp outside. His room was on the second floor. Was it hanging off the wall?

“Coo~”

The imp’s tail arched over its head. It took a minute to notice the folded paper it held. “Ah.” Arthur stuck out a hand to grab it. “Thanks, Bell.”

“Coo!” the imp shouted before dropping out of his sight. Arthur peered through the shudders, curious to see if it would hurt itself from the drop. Somewhat expectedly, the creature was completely fine, hitting the ground and darting off without a pause.

“What was that?”

He ignored her as he closed the shutters and opened the paper.

Oi, dog. Come to the house for dinner. My wife thinks I should pay more attention to my supposed friends and suggested we celebrate our success at the qualifiers. For some reason, she both thinks you are amusing and my friend. I can’t disabuse her of these ridiculous notions. That is the only reason you are invited.

Well, that and my thrall is ready to collect on our bet. You are dumber than those rocks you throw around for not running when you had the chance. Bring yourself, nothing and no one else. Can you believe William asked to bring a guest? Didn’t know he had friends. It made me think of you inviting guests. Don’t. I do not want to meet anyone who calls you a friend. I’ll kill you. I really will, bastard.

Your apparent reluctant friend, Lourianne Tome.

Arthur laughed in delight. “The sea shines for me today!” He was wondering how to get in touch with the noblewoman. He hadn’t forgotten about the bet either but he also wanted to get in the woman’s good graces. It was difficult when his very presence seemed to repulse her.

He had a feeling she didn’t hate him as much as she pretended, as he’d seen how she was with people she truly disliked, but she’d never willingly allow him into her presence.

“Are you going to answer me?”

He looked up at the girl he’d basically forgotten at the thought of the impending dinner. “I got an invite to eat some good grub,” he said nonchalantly.

“Grub?”

“By the deep. Food, woman. Really good food.”

“Someone invited you to a meal.” Her frown deepened. “A woman?”

“Yeah.”

“So, that’s why!” she shouted. “I can’t believe you…propositioned me while you were already involved with someone!”

He stared at her blankly. “I’m not involved with anyone, idiot,” he huffed.

“Who is she? Does she know her lover is sleeping with other women?”

Shaking his head, he balled up the note and tossed it aside as he left the room. He didn’t have time to listen to her nonsense. Tonight, he’d have his long awaited “date” with the cute thrall, Geo. It was bound to be…exciting.