PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Of course, it was because an esper’s natural recovery abilities were so far superior to that of a normal human that an esper as powerful as Desmond was expected to recover quickly.

Also, Desmond was supposed to have at his disposal an esper with healing abilities who would help him in his recovery, this person was none other than Claire’s best friend from school; Melissa Collins.

A member of Desmond’s squad, Melissa Collins rarely spent time with the squad or went on missions with them as she was almost always taking crash courses in medicine while training how to combine medical knowledge with her abilities to heal with more efficiency.

During the bitter winter battle, Melissa was in the wound treatment center all the time working until she passed out to save as many lives as possible and it was her skills and devotion that earned her a lot of goodwill from the people she saved and from the people who saw her work which helped her fit more comfortably into the military.

What nobody knew about Melissa being the one in charge of treating Desmond’s wounds was that she had stopped doing it after a week of treatment, which was not because she refused to continue treating Desmond, but because it was Desmond who already had finished healing his wounds.

With the help of potions and the support of Melissa’s healing abilities backing up his natural recovery already amplified by the mana always flowing within him, Desmond’s wounds healed at an alarming rate.

That way Desmond should have finished his medical leave after his first week of recovery but that was where it was convenient to be the lieutenant in charge of the medical officer who treated him; without any shame in the world, Desmond ordered Melissa to falsify the medical records to make it look like it took Desmond all six weeks to recover.

With no choice but to obey her lieutenant, Melissa falsified the dates on the medical records and turned in Desmond’s daily recovery reports in terms of weeks instead of days.

.....

So Desmond was able to rest his six weeks of medical leave quietly... or so it was supposed to be but this was already the third week that Desmond spent training twelve hours a day to improve his control over mana on top of the time Desmond spent training his abilities.

So when Sasha told Desmond that he could take the day off, Desmond almost shed tears of joy as he knelt before the benevolent Sasha to kiss her feet.

Although Desmond’s reaction was a bit exaggerated, the truth is that he was dying to simply have a day to rest or better yet... a day where he could simply enjoy the pleasures of the flesh with Claire in his room because even the relentless Desmond had no energy for intimacy after 15 hours of brutal training which led to spending the last three weeks without sex which was basically torture for Desmond.

Who would have thought that Desmond’s happiness would be short-lived when Sasha dragged him into her lab to help her with her experiments.

It turns out that the real reason Sasha gave Desmond the day off was that she had a flash of inspiration that she was eager to try so she freed Desmond from training her so he could help her.

Because Claire was spending the afternoon with Melissa accompanying her on her medical duties and because Kyuru was playing with Athena, this was one of the few times that both Desmond and Sasha were alone; ignoring of course Revna who was still inside Desmond’s shadow as usual.

It was a shame there wasn’t even a hint of romance between them, with Sasha completely focused on her experiments, Desmond spending the afternoon acting as her assistant until Sasha seemed to have completed the potion she was looking for.

All the fine details of alchemy aside, the potion was in theory an elementally neutral version of a healing potion with high assimilation and absorption properties.

The idea was to use that potion as a base for other variations of healing potions with unique properties, although Sasha hadn’t made much headway in that field so far; mainly because the difficulty of creating the neutral potion was extremely high.

Having tried the core potion, Desmond and Sasha brainstormed ideas for the first variation of the potion, some of which sounded quite promising.

But after hours of trial and error, none of the combinations had worked so far, being genuinely upset and frustrated, Sasha and Desmond started trying the craziest formulas on the list trying their luck.

It wasn’t until the fifth option on their list of desperate attempts that the duo succeeded, ending up with a rather peculiar potion, somehow the potion closely resembled the liquid fire that came out of Sasha when she transformed and its effects were quite powerful.

Broadly speaking, the new potion was an ultra-potent version of an instant-type healing potion, adapting some of the effects of a magical fire fruit with berserk properties; the new potion burned a portion of the user’s life force and mana to heal wounds almost instantly.

The potion was perfect for healing minor wounds to prevent them from being a drag on the user, although Desmond would also have to take his stamina and mana even more into account when using it.

For serious injuries the use of the potion was not entirely ideal as it would burn too much of the user’s vitality and mana, not to mention that the instant healing of serious injuries often left behind hidden injuries.

Ideally, they would create another variation of the neutral potion that would focus on treating serious injuries that would be less aggressive; but that would be left for later.

Similar to a person who wins a bet after losing all night, both Sasha and Desmond felt a rush of adrenaline when they discovered that their last desperate attempt was a success.

Excited Sasha threw herself into Desmond’s arms and threw all her shyness out the window as she began kissing him passionately. Desmond was taken by surprise at first but was quick to respond, enjoying Sasha’s sweet lips.

In general, Sasha was the type of girl who was too shy to take the initiative but once things started to get intimate, she was usually the first to let go.

Likewise, Sasha’s arms wrapped around Desmond’s neck clinging to his tall figure as her soft, enticing body pressed against Desmond’s defined muscular contour.

Their tongues wrapped around each other, fondly stroking at times while at others they collided in tantalizing competition trying to dominate the other party.

With a push Sasha grabbed hold of Desmond by wrapping her legs around his waist, causing Desmond to have to lean against one of the work tables to stay upright.

The kisses became more and more passionate and the mist of lust began to blur the gaze of both parties, with unrestricted hands the caresses flowed affectionately between the couple.

Oddly where it was usually Desmond who took the initiative it was Sasha’s hands that couldn’t stay still, almost aggressively Sasha thought that Desmond’s clothes were getting in the way so she just decided to take them off.

Clumsy and inexperienced, Sasha took her time removing Desmond’s shirt but the girl’s thirst remained intense as she basked in Desmond’s loving touch.

Witnessing both Sasha’s passion and awkwardness, tenderness filled Desmond’s heart and he decided to let the girl take whatever liberties she wanted, allowing Sasha to bask in her inexperience while he basked in her fiery passion.

Sure, when all was said and done, Desmond’s hands weren’t still either but he tried to keep his demeanor as non-dominant as possible.

“Desmond.” Something between a moan and a sigh escaped from Sasha’s still hungry lips just before she started kissing Desmond’s neck all the way down to kissing Desmond’s chest right where his heart is.

“Thank you for beating so hard when this insensitive man met me, thank you for beating even harder when he got angry for me, and thank you for not stopping beating while he fought for me... I promise to treat you well” With each sentence, Sasha returned to kiss Desmond’s heart with growing tenderness until her words were honeyed and hot.

And a very simple realization came to Desmond’s mind at that moment or maybe it was more like he remembered something obvious that he hadn’t really thought through: “This is why I love her.”

And no matter how Sasha’s body temperature seemed to be rising to inhuman levels or how small flashes of vermilion fire appeared around her; Desmond decided that perhaps it was time for him to step forward and dare to play with this mischievous fire that was in his embrace.