Jade Leywin POV
"Oof, finally finished" I said as I collapsed on my bed in the room I was assigned in Zestier's castle
"Tired?" Mai asked teasingly
I and all the earth mages of both armies spent the past week working nonstop to turn the artificial ravine into a giant fortified camp, when we finished instead of a ravine we had a rectangular camp roughly 2 square kilometers wide completely encircled with 30 meters tall walls, on top of the walls we placed all the siege engines pointed towards the inside of the camp, the only way to the top (aside from flying) was a series of staircases placed on the external side of the walls, on the inside countless tents had been pitched, these were actually just temporary housing, with time their earth mages would build proper houses for everyone, they wouldn't be anything big or fancy but they would be better than nothing, as for the work we assigned them some menial, time-consuming chores that required no technical skill whatsoever
"You didn't forget about tonight right?" she asked
"No, don't worry but please let me sleep first I'm really tired" I replied
"Okay okay, I'll let you sleep, see you later" she stated chuckling and exited the room
I set up the alarm on my bedside table and fell asleep
*Beep Beep Beep*
I reached out and turned the alarm off, groggily opening my eyes I checked the hour, 6 o'clock huh, I guess I should start getting ready
I crawled out of the bed and headed towards the bathroom to take a shower, after finishing washing myself I took out my outfit for tonight, since it's been quite some time since our last date I decided for once to prioritise looks over comfortability
I was wearing a black shirt with khaki pants and brown leather ankle boots, I removed my earrings which I usually always wore and only kept dimensional ring putting my conjuring and Lance rings inside the dimensional ring and styled my hair with some hair product a maid procured me when I asked, I used the same style as always I just made my hair look less messy
After an hour and a half I had finished and headed towards Mai's room, from what I can sense she's mostly ready already, I simply knocked once on the door to make her know I was there and waited for her ten minutes later the door opened and she walked out
Damn she went all out too with her outfit huh
She was wearing a long blue dress that went from her shoulders to her ankles, there was a belt-like part on her waist that put emphasis on her slim perfect body, the skirt had a long slit that went up to half her thighs allowing her to show off her legs which were left bare and at her feet she was wearing a pair of black high heels, her black hair were left free, flowing on her back adorned only with some white flowers and a pair of drop earrings with gems the same color as her eyes
"Wow" was all I managed to mutter
"Oh come on I know you can do better than this Jade" Mai teased
"Although I guess stunning you speechless is the best compliment I could get, you also don't look bad yourself"
"Thanks, since it's been so long since we went out I thought about dressing up more than usual and from what I see I take it you had the same thought?" I said recovering my ability to speak
"Yep, I wanted to surprise you"
"Alright then, shall we?" I asked while I extended my arm
She took it, wrapping her arm around mine we started walking towards the castle's gate where a carriage was already waiting for us, the driver opened the door for us and I gestured for her to climb on it first, once I climbed on it too the driver closed the door, returned to his seat and the carriage started moving
"So where are we headed for tonight?" Mai asked curious
"That's a surprise, all I can say is that for once I actually took advantage of my title as a Lance" I replied
The place I booked for tonight's date was Elenoir's best and most exclusive restaurant, usually it would only accept nobles and even then it would take at least a year in order to book a table there, luckily after casually dropping the fact that I was a Lance they gave me the best table of the restaurant
"Oho, someone's abusing his power" Mai stated poking my stomach with her elbow, a grin on her face
"What's the point of having a title if I don't use it every now and then" I played along
We spent the time of the ride joking and making small talk, 20 minutes later the carriage came to a halt and the door opened, I climbed down and turned around to help Mai
"Woah, how did you manage to get a reservation at this place?" she asked after seeing the restaurant
"As I said being a Lance has its perks"
She just giggled at my reply and took my arm, we walked towards the entrance and were welcomed by the receptionist
"Good evening, do you have a reservation?"
"Yes it should be under the name Leywin" I told him
"Ah there it is, this way please sir and madam" the receptionist said as he walked around the desk and guided us to a massive spiralling staircase, at the center of the spiral there were a series of elevators so one wouldn't need to climb for hundreds of meters
The receptionist opened the door of the elevator and gestured for us to enter, once inside he placed his hand on what I assume is the control panel and the elevator started to go up, I could sense several artifacts enchanted with gravity and wind magic, clever
The restaurant was carved into a giant tree easily 100 meters in diameter and several hundreds meter tall, at the base of it were the kitchen and other rooms for the staff while all along the tree trunk small rooms were carved at increasingly higher heights, these rooms acted as private dining rooms for the customers and the higher you went on the tree the better the view on Zestier would be, needless to say we were headed towards the very last room, the entire structure seemed to be made out of the wood of the tree and the most impressive part was that the tree wasn't damaged at all, it was perfectly healthy despite being carved out
"This restaurant was made with the efforts of tens of plant mages who manipulated the growth of this tree over the decades to make it grow around metal structures creating the various rooms we use today" the receptionist explained, I guess everyone that visits this place for the first time can't help but wonder how this restaurant was built
A few minutes later we arrived at the highest point of the tree and exited the lift, the receptionist guided us to the only door present on this floor and opened it, the room was only half inside the tree as the walls were only 1,3 meters tall and there was no roof, this allowed anyone "inside" the room to have a full view of the starry night sky, I could feel several artifacts placed inside the walls and the floor, some acted as an AC system so that the room was never too hot or too cold, others were casting an invisible barrier around the room so no sudden downpour or gust of wind would bother the hosts eating in here, another set was meant to make the room fully soundproof and casted an illusion so no one could see what happens in here from the outside allowing people to have some privacy, lastly there were several light emitting artifacts placed at the base of the walls giving the room a natural and suffused illumination
At the center of the room there was a table covered with a pristinely white tablecloth and set for 2 people, the receptionist tried to head towards one of the seats but I stopped him with a gesture, instead I went in his place and pulled back the chair gesturing for Mai to sit, she smiled at my antics and sat down showing off all the manners that had been engraved in her mind since she was a child, after she sat down I circled around the table and sat down myself
"Here is our menu, when you're ready to place your order press the button on the table and one of our waiters will immediately head here"
"Thank you" we both said as we took the menus and the receptionist exited the room
We quickly chose our dishes and placed our order, minutes later we were sipping some expensive wine as we waited for the dishes to be prepared
Speaking of wine I recently discovered I can't get drunk anymore, the regeneration given to me by the combination of being white core and having assimilated Yozora's will makes my body work through the alcohol faster than I can drink it, last month I tried to chug down an entire barrel of whiskey and I only barely got a buzz and even that was gone in a few minutes, sigh I'm 17 and my drinking days are already behind me how depressing can that be?
"When I've been at the Castle a couple of days ago mom asked me if we wanted to just get married already" Mai just suddenly dropped a bombshell on me
"*Mpf* *cough cough cough* WHAT?!" I choked on the wine
"Oho, so the thought of marrying me makes you panic like this huh, should I be worried about this?" she asked teasingly
"You know the answer already"
"Yes I know, I just wanted to mess with you a little" she said with a smug expression
"Well mom really asked me that although she was only joking about the fact that we act like a married couple already so she asked if we wanted to make it official" she continued
"I guess she is right we are basically acting like we're married already and it would be nice not having to sneak around my parents anymore, that said now isn't exactly the right time and I'm just not ready to be married man yet" I stated
"I agree on that, besides I know already that once we get married I'll just be pestered about having a child and I seriously can't see myself as a mother yet"
"Definitely not, we're not ready for that"
"That said, after that night (see chap 65) , sometimes I stop and fantasize about our future after the war, where we'll live, what we'll do and well I know I just said I'm not ready but I can't help but wonder how our kids will be" she told me blushing a little
"Well honestly I never really thought of that, I spent so much time worrying about the war, how to win, how to protect everyone, that I never really thought about what we'll do after it, I don't even know what to do with my life after all this, maybe I'll continue to serve as a Lance or maybe I'll do something else, I don't know" I revealed a little ashamed that despite being mentally in my 40s more or less I was at a complete loss when it came to my future
"Don't worry, we'll have all the time in the world to think about that once the war will be over, I can't tell you what to do with your life but I can be there and help you choose" Mai declared with a warm smile
After this our dinner arrived and we spent the rest of the night talking about more light-hearted topics
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The carriage we were riding and that was supposed to take us back to the castle stopped and the door opened, I climbed down and helped Mai do the same
"Jade? Why are we here?" Mai asked perplexed
"Let's just say that I have another surprise for you" I said before locking her arm with mine and we started walking into the park the carriage stopped at
The park was completely empty, despite the fact that we never established an official curfew due to the war almost no one would wander around at night and for once I was happy of this since this meant we had the entire park just for the two of us
I have to say that among all the places I've seen in both my lives nothing could compare to Zestier at night, the way the buildings perfectly blended with the massive trees becoming one with nature combined with the illumination provided by some bioluminescent plants hanging from the bigger branches of the trees gave this place a truly magical vibe
We kept walking until we reached a small clearing, in said clearing I used my golems to place countless little light emitting artifacts and several bioluminescent plants (Tess helped me with these) to create an impressive light show, all of this had been covered by my illusion magic the moment we reached the park so right now the clearing looked empty and dark
"Care to explain why we're here now?" Mai asked a little impatient
"Well it came to my mind that we never had that flying date you asked me" I said as I wrapped my left arm around her waist and pulled her towards me pressing our bodies together
"Really?" she asked, sparkles in her eyes and I just nodded
"But I thought that even white core mages could only make themselves fly and not other people" she stated
"Yozora showed me how, remember how she can run across the sky? well it turns out she can do that because she manipulates the environmental mana around her to form small, invisible, one-use platforms in the air she then uses as foothold to push herself, with some training I took that principle and modified it so now I can lift pretty much anything using environmental mana" I explained and I started manipulating mana to make us both fly
"Wah!" Mai let out a small, cute squeal as she felt herself lift from the ground
As we reached the correct altitude I dispelled my illusion spell and made all the lights in the clearing visible once again, at the same time I casted another illusion to create fireworks all around us and used sound magic to play one of the few songs from Earth I still remembered
"Wow" Mai muttered as she took in everything
We spent quite some time just dancing in the air before flying back to the castle
(A.N. the song he's using is Ed Sheeran's Perfect)