June watched the students leave, maintaining her expression flat, even though inside she was urging them to leave as soon as possible. Worse, a group of students even ca to ask for advice on energy manipulations before they left.
While June would have liked to give them her utmost attention, the question they asked was sothing she had covered a couple of tis already in the class. Telling them she would explain these in later classes, she took a seat.
Finally, after all the students left, she brought out the communication crystal and called. Within a couple of seconds, the communication connected, and an illusionary figure of Warden ford in her mind's eye. He was, of course, grinning at her with that goofy smile.
"Hey, June, did you miss ?" his voice rang in her mind almost instantly.
"It hasn't even been three days," she whispered. Yet she didn't know why her expression grew wistful as she stared at him. She had been so urging them to call back when he tried to connect to her in the middle of the class. Sadly, she had to maintain the bearing of a teacher at least.
"Well, it's about a month for ," he said, raising his hand towards her as though trying to touch her. However, like her, he was also seeing an illusionary figure on her face. He couldn't touch her. "I have missed you. Missed you so much."
" too," she said softly.
He smiled. "Did I call you in the middle of a class?"
"You did."
"Sorry about that," he said, "I called you right the mont I got out of the rift and its isolation."
June's heart thrumd inside her chest.
"You know, sotis in the night," he said wistfully, "when I'm alone I thought if this ti dilation creates a barrier between us, perhaps end our relationship before it can begin properly... But with how much I longed to hear your voice... touch your skin— Well, the wait, the longing has taught how much I appreciate you... and that my feelings about you didn't change."
Why was he being so sweet? June's stomach fluttered in an unknown feeling of happiness. She simply stared at him, wordless, unable to put her feelings into words.
"The wait only endeared my feeling of you," he said. "So thank you. Thank you for your poor decision of choosing ."
The man can be charming when he likes, June relished the smile. "Just don't make regret my decision then," she said, unable to keep her cheek from turning red. "So how's your days like on the front lines, is it tough?"
"It's mostly boring," Warden said. "The captain, who's actually Jason's elder sister, has decided the best use of my talent is on repairing equipnt for the soldiers. Well, I have been on a mission in the first week and fought once in a skirmish, but for the rest of the ti, I've been labouring away."
"Why do you sound like you're dissatisfied with it?" she asked.
"Because I am."
"I thought you liked runesmithing."
"I do, but there's a limit to the enjoynt," he said grumbling, "while I have to carve the sa mundane runes every day. I'm beginning to understand why so many runesmiths seem to grow an attitude over the years; it's actually a boring, laborious job."
"At least it pays well," she said.
"If I wanted to make money, I would have just joined Dragonforge and made artifacts all day," he said with a sigh. "Anyway, I don't want to spend the rest of my monthly break grumbling about my work. How's your day?"
"The usual," June said. "It has only been a couple of days, nothing really changed."
"Oh~"
June studied his face for an extended mont. "You said your captain is Jason's elder sister, so can't you just ask her to let you do what you want to do?"
"I don't think she can help with the only thing I want to do right," he let out a deep exhale.
"What do you want to do?"
"I want to hug you tight and cuddle you all day."
June blinked, her cheek turning a deeper shade of red. As it was all his fault, she glared at him.
"You look so cute when you do that," he said.
They talked for over half an hour, about all kinds of mundane matters of what their life has been like in the absence of others. June didn't have much to exchange, so she listened in and gave her input. A part of her could not help but want to experience all this with him.
"Oh, about the essence vein that we scouted on my first mission," Warden said with greater enthusiasm. "Apparently, it was inside so inheritance ground—whose subspace has cracked open to create a halo of highly concentrated energy zones. There have been multiple groups of teams on expeditions there... I wonder what's inside that space like."
It was pretty easy for her to guess he wanted to go there, at least as a break from his laborious work of runesmithing.
"If you want to go, talk to your captain and see if she can do anything about it."
"I'll try," Warden said. "Yeah. But before that, I want to make the spear."
"Did you find a good blacksmith?"
"No, but I'm going to ask Dragonforge to send ," he said. "I have already completed a bunch of commissions I took before my departure. I'm going to cash in all my contribution points to get a master smith. Besides, I do have so expertise in it. It's not hard, just that my elent isn't the best of elents for smithing."
"Hmm, there are so great smiths who can actually give an attribute to the tal," June said. "Since your void energy is very volatile and destructive, communicate well for the attribute you want. I don't think anyone but you can help in making a void-attributed weapon, but the best you can have is probably a self-repairing attribute to the tal."
"Noted, thanks, June," he said. "I actually thought of that, but from my research, all I found is that only grandmasters and very few master blacksmiths are capable of giving an attribute. But I'll see what Dragonforge can give ."
"You know your worth, don't settle for anything less than you deserve."
Warden smiled. "Thanks for the advice, as always..."
June nodded. Looking at his expression, June could tell he was running out of topics to talk about, not to ntion that his break was only for two hours—which was a day in the front lines.
"Oh, did I ntion I actually made so friends?" Then he began talking about his new friends. There were a few of them, and all of them seed to be in the condemned unit.
June wasn't really surprised. Warden was soone who could sohow make friends just over a single eting. Just one impression was enough for him to charm a person or infuriate them. The problem was that most of the ti he didn't know if he was being charming or insufferable.
Eventually, their call ended. "I'll call you back in a month, which is like less than three days for you, hmm, unless I can sneak out of the camp to call you. But no promises, it's too hard with the ti dilation in place... Until then, you'll be in my heart."
His illusionary figure disappeared as the call disconnected. June wondered how he had grown to talk like that in the anti he was away... Well, until the next ti.
***
A day passed by the ti Warden ca back into the rift after calling June and the representative from Dragonforge, Miss Arden, who ntioned that soone would be coming to take the finished product as well as deliver new unfinished equipnt for him to work on.
As for the matter of a blacksmith, what Warden asked was difficult but definitely not beyond the scope of Dragonforge, which was undoubtedly the biggest enterprise in weapon manufacture. It was only a matter of scheduling.
His completed commissions in a short ti did put out a good ssage, she ntioned. Now it all depended on the schedule.
On his way back, Warden's eyes darted to the War-effort Emporium, the establishnt where you can turn in your contribution points to exchange valuable things.
Warden picked up his badge to check the number of contribution points he amassed. It was a sizeable sum of 4850 points—a good third of it ca from Agnes for repairing her armour. However, if he were to get the real sum for his labour, the number would be at least four tis higher.
Still, 4850 was a sizeable sum for an Iron ranker. For any common soldier, they would have to be fighting regularly to gain so much.
Considering he was running low on alcohol and spices, Warden strode onto the emporium. The inside wasn't really like a supermarket as he thought, though there were plenty of people to help him figure out how to progress with it.
"Good evening, sir," a plump woman in fitting clothing similar to other workers greeted him. "It seems like you're not very familiar with the emporium. Can I help you with your purchase?"
Warden nodded as she led him towards a big screen, where various items were listed.
"Sir, what do you want to buy?"
Warden's eyes lingered on the nas of items which were listed as popular this week. Unsurprisingly, alcohol was at the top of the list.
Warden wasn't really big on being a drunkard, so he began with the essentials. "Let's begin with cooking articles."
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