Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 65: No Utopia

"Because you’ll still be clever in my mind."

Eastiel... knew her like that.

The look they shared was one of old, familiar combatants. He had been her sharpest critic and her most challenging ally during her sainthood, the one who dared to debate the system itself with her, brick by stubborn brick. It had failed, in the end. But the rhythm of their verbal sparring was a touchstone.

"How about you ask me something," Cecilia suggested. "Something you don’t know, but only the real me could answer." She understood his lingering disbelief. Who would believe a woman with no heart who carried the scent of two apex predators even exist?

"Hmm," Eastiel hummed, closing his eyes in thought. After a long moment, he opened them. "Let me think... Ah."

He met her gaze.

"Why are you so bad at chess?"

"Oh, come on, that again!" Cecilia threw her hands up in exasperation.

Eastiel’s smile didn’t waver. "I’m not teasing you. I genuinely want to know."

Seeing him there, weak in bed but looking at her with those eyes...

"I’m not bad at chess," she muttered, a well-worn line.

"Stop saying what you’ve always said, or I’ll start seeing you as a hallucination again," Eastiel said sharply, cutting through the script.

Cecilia glared, folding her arms. "Fine. Listen. I know the rules. I know all the standard strategies. I know there are a vigintillion possible moves. I can predict most of them. Okay?"

"Okay," Eastiel nodded. "So why are you so bad at it?"

"Eastiel, I’m not bad at it!" she yelled. "I just hate it! I hate a game designed around choosing what to sacrifice in order to win."

Eastiel’s eyes widened slightly.

Ah.

Of course.

A woman like her, perceived as scheming and calculative because she fought to allocate resources from the stingy system to save lives, would despise the very premise.

"Just change the question. Any other question," Cecilia pouted, turning her face away.

"It’s just a game," Eastiel said gently.

She whipped her head back, glaring. "It’s not just a game! There’s a king, a queen, knights, bishops, rooks, pawns..."

"You’re seeing it as a metaphor for real life—"

"—and it’s stupid, I don’t—"

"—although it’s realistic in one way or another—"

"—care if it’s realistic, I want to just—"

"—and it’s different from your ideal utop—"

"—do everything I can to make the best kind of world, if you fucking say utopia, I’m going to—"

Eastiel pressed his lips together, forcibly stopping the word.

Silence fell.

This... this was the real Cecilia. A hallucination would stand there, smiling, half-transparent, offering nostalgic platitudes designed to wound his heart. It wouldn’t argue with him until it was red in the face. It wouldn’t get genuinely, beautifully annoyed at his needling.

He looked at her, flushed, irritated, alive, and felt the last shard of disbelief dissolve.

"Got it," he said softly, the warmth in his eyes deepening from a memory into a present reality. "No utopia."

SMACK!

"OW!"

"You said it!"

"I said no utopia! Stop! Stop, no, wait, alright, I’m sorr—"

Two figures stood in the shadowed alcove of a corridor.

Arkai leaned a shoulder against the cool stone, his arms crossed. Oathran stood beside him, perfectly still.

Through the open door, the low, familiar rhythm of an argument reached them. Cecilia’s voice, sharp with genuine irritation. Eastiel’s, weak but stubbornly prodding.

Arkai’s black eyes were unreadable, but the line of his jaw had relaxed a fraction. He’d heard the tension break in the Lion King’s voice moments before, the shift from desperate grief to exhausted, wary engagement. A good sign.

A king could be pulled back from the ledge of madness if something tethered him to the world. It seemed their heartless saintess made for a very sturdy tether.

Oathran’s gaze was more... gentle. He was listening not just to the words, but to the space between them.

The lack of a heartbeat from one, the frail but strengthening rhythm from the other. A corner of his mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly, at the mention of chess. It was such a human point of contention. So perfectly them.

They didn’t speak. There was no need.

When Cecilia’s frustrated, half-yell about utopia cut off, and the resulting silence held not emptiness, but a soft, living warmth, Arkai finally let out a slow, quiet breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He pushed off the wall.

Oathran gave a slight nod. The immediate crisis had passed.

They turned as one, melting back into the deeper shadows of the palace, leaving the two in the room.

Their walk through the quiet corridor was short before Oathran let out a low chuckle. "That is the first time I have seen the Saintess look her age."

Arkai scoffed. "Are you not jealous at all, Elder Brother?"

"Of course I am," Oathran answered, his airy. "But it is too late. A pointless jealousy. The ship for that particular harbor has sailed, burned, and sunk. She can bond with you and I, which means the impossible is possible. She could bond with him, too. I do not regret the path that brought us here."

The wolf beside him let out a low, involuntary growl of pure disagreement, which only made Oathran laugh louder, the sound echoing softly off the stone.

"How jealous you are of us, Brother?" Oathran asked, amusement threading his voice.

"Too much," Arkai admitted, his pride not allowing for denial. "If she looks her age beside him, and she looks like a woman beside you... what does she look like beside me?"

Oathran didn’t hesitate. "She looks like the moon beside you. A light in your particular darkness." He glanced at the flustered wolf. "Which is fitting... as you are the only one of our new little trio of brothers who met her after her old life ended. You see only who she is now, not who she was forced to be."

"B-brothers? Three—" Arkai blinked, stopping short. "My Lord, are you seriously suggesting we should... accept Lord Eastiel to... also...?"

"If he wishes. And if the Saintess wishes it. After all, she said it herself. She hates to ’choose what to sacrifice in order to win’. She can simply have it all," Oathran shrugged. "Is the concept so strange?"

Arkai’s ears burned, a flush creeping up his neck. "That’s... that’s a bit... uuhhh..."

"What are you imagining, Brother?" Oathran prodded. "A four-way... situation?"

"I can’t not think about it!" Arkai hissed, his voice dropping to a mortified whisper. "That’s no longer sex, that’s a... ahem. That’s... gang ba—"

"..."

"..."

"Ahem."

"Cough."

The two ancient, powerful beings stood in the hallway for a moment, masters of their respective domains, derailed by the implications of their own unconventional arrangement expanding.

"Our... ways," Oathran said finally, his voice strangled with repressed laughter, "will one day be the ruin of our poor Saintess."

"Yes," Arkai agreed, wiping a hand down his face. "We must... be more careful."

"Correct."

***

"System."

[Yes, Cecilia?]

"Let’s turn the Love Points and Love Affinity notifications back on."

[Of course!]

"..."

[...]

"..."

[...may we ask why?]

"I’m a bit scared Oathran and Arkai are jealous..."

DING!

[They are!]

Cecilia groaned.

"It’s... it’s my fault, isn’t it...?"

[That is not true, Cecilia!]

"Well, I never thought one more would appear..."

[It is not your fault that you are loved!]

"It’s still my fault that I didn’t know."

[...]

"Right?"

[You are definitely not dense, Cecilia. Just... emotionally intelligent men with their own significant issues are... complicated.]

"Are you cursing my husbands?"

[We are terribly sorry! That is not what we meant!]

"Alright, let’s talk again later. There are things I need to settle first."

The assembly of lords who had answered Eastiel’s summons had been... placated, hosted in the palace’s guest quarters. "Placated" was one word for it. More accurate terms might be tempted, convinced, compelled, ordered, or... forced.

"Forced" was perhaps too harsh. In reality, they had seen Oathran Alicei among them. They had heard Arkai Dawnoro confirm the Dragon Lord’s identity and his allegiance. Faced with that, siding with the Saintess was less a choice and more a simple matter of survival.

Who in their right mind would stand against the strongest being in the world?

The real question now gnawing at them was, what did "siding with the Saintess" actually mean?

Was it, as Eastiel had so passionately laid out, a march to war?

But was war even necessary now, with the most powerful entity standing firmly in their corner? Who would be suicidal enough to challenge the Dragon Lord directly?

It seemed the Saintess herself had other plans.