PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

462 Chapter 462 A Garden Full Of Hidden Treasures (4)

The Astryd family was not particularly lazy. Almost every member of the family was too busy in their day to day and even when they were not, they spent their time with some hobby. The same could be said for the Garden girls, who spent half the day working and the other half training, with hardly any time to enjoy other things; Not that they had any complaints about it.

With all of the above said, after the feast that was served an hour ago, no one at the table had the heart or the energy to lift a finger. The digestion process of such special foods was more intense than anyone would have expected. That way, everyone present was no different from the beast they ate; they all looked like bears about to hibernate.

Seeing all the beauties around him about to hibernate, Desmond made the executive decision to do something where their bodies process food. In what can only be described as the most ordinary home environment in the world, Desmond, Claire, Sasha, Cecilia, and the Garden girls set up the conference room for a movie night.

Laughter sighs of emotion, and even tears, it was a relaxing evening and strangely lively at the same time. Desmond had even forgotten the last time he had done something so mundane.

Aside from those rare moments when Desmond shared his love with Claire or Sasha, he spent most of his time working and when he wasn’t, he was planning his next move. Not to mention the last three months that came with a hell of a job for newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel Desmond Astryd; Desmond had lived this way for years.

As one of the people who spent the most time around Desmond, Revna understood him as well as Claire, if not more. Revna understood that beneath the cold exterior of the always ruthless and manipulative, Desmond Astryd, there was a man who cherished and treasured these kinds of moments. In a way, it was precisely moments of mundane, simplistic pleasure like this that Desmond fought to protect.

Discreetly, a tendril of shadows pulled a camera out of Revna’s closet, dragged the object into the ideal position, and snapped a picture of the scene. Back in her hand, Revna looked at the photograph.

The photo was taken while a particularly terrifying scene was taking place in the film and captured everyone’s reaction. Sitting in the center of the huge sofa that was dragged into the conference room, Desmond had Claire to his right, clinging to him affectionately.

To Desmond’s left sat Sasha who was holding Desmond’s hand in one hand and Cecilia’s hand in the other. Cecilia sitting on the other side of Sasha seemed genuinely terrified by the bloody scene in the movie and she was clutching Sasha’s hand tightly as she trembled.

.....

On the other side of Claire, was Revna herself; well more or less. Revna had done what she wanted and was lying on her back over Claire’s legs, her head resting on Desmond’s lap.

The Garden girls made an arrangement with pillows and blankets under the couch where they all piled up under the feet of the people on the couch. With the oldest sister of the group in the center, all the girls gathered around Tania.

Noticing the alternate light source, Desmond caught sight of Revna on his lap, who was busy looking at the photograph. “What are you doing?”

“I think I found a treasure.” Revna replied.

For a moment, Desmond was taken aback, he could swear he had never seen Revna smile like that. It might just be an illusion, but Desmond thought he saw something warm and bright through the ever-present madness and obsession within Revna’s blue eyes.

Unfortunately, time waits for no one, and while almost everyone wanted to see the third movie, Desmond had to be the bad guy and call it a day. Seeing everyone looking so bummed out, Desmond touch his heart and promised to do a movie night at least once a month; a very well-received proposal.

At the end of the day, human beings were social creatures. This kind of friendly environment with people you could trust, in a safe place, where your guard could be let down, was extremely rare in the new world. Extremely rare and equally necessary, especially for the Astryd and Garden family, who had alienated themselves from the rest of the world for various reasons.

Whatever the case, movie night was soon to become a tradition for the Astryd family and by extension Garden. Speaking of tradition, if there was one other thing House Astryd had in common with Garden, that would be an obsession with training.

The Garden girls certainly hadn’t forgotten that their Master was here to test them all and they couldn’t wait to live up to their Master’s expectations.

The first few tests were a bit boring, as they involved shooting, surveillance device operation, and tactical combat. In essence, Desmond was testing Garden′s foundation as an elite paramilitary unit.

The most interesting part was obviously where the Garden girls had a chance to show off their special abilities. Strictly speaking, both Revna and Tania had already been tested throughout the day, so this part was meant to test the rest.

Since much of the real test for Sara would be Desmond’s opinion of her masterpiece, she didn’t have much else to prove. However, the girl still showed off her skills as a Hacker in front of everyone.

The problem was that no one really understood what Sara was doing, even Desmond only had a few notions of programming. But the results spoke for themselves, as Sara had managed to hack into some pretty important databases and obtained some pretty sensitive banking information on the mayor of Green Seed.

Sara was almost overwhelmed with happiness when Desmond congratulated her, his pats on the head had a lot to do with it. Desmond had also noted that Sara had just killed two birds with one stone, as getting that information was an important step in one of the plans that were in the folders that Desmond read.

The next one to be evaluated was Natalie, although her case was also somewhat difficult like Sara’s since her ability made her some kind of first-class detective/spy. In fact, given how active Natalie had been during Garden’s small operations, Desmond already had a positive evaluation of her; so this was more of a formality.

Looking at the little succubus in front of him, Desmond sent everything to hell and decided that he would just give her a small prize in disguise. Natalie might not seem like that kind of person on the surface, but she was just as in need of affection and approval as Sara; something Desmond knew.

The test was fairly simple, although as soon as Desmond described it to everyone, he could feel the temperature in the room drop a couple of degrees. Clearly, Claire wasn’t too happy about it, Sasha and Cecilia didn’t seem supportive either. The reason? It was a test of seduction.

They say that if you give a person an inch, he will try to take a mile; Desmond couldn’t agree more. Not more than twenty seconds had passed and Desmond was already regretting taking pity on Natalie by giving her this test.

Desmond couldn’t see the future; however, he could still be sure that if he had given Natalie another thirty seconds, the girl had probably tried to do things not suitable for minors.

“Approved.” That was all Desmond said. At the same time, a very satisfied Natalie could be seen licking her lips, and a Claire with a smile that was definitely not a smile was greeting Desmond.

Desmond made two mental notes, one to be more careful with Natalie in the future and one to make it up to Claire. Not even Katya, that unreasonably powerful archangel could hit Desmond hard enough to make him believe that was a smile.

Next was the turn for combat tests for Garden’s main vanguard, Yulei and Kira’s ultimate combo. Leaving aside the ambiguous relationship between the two girls, to which everyone turned a blind eye, the synergy of the girls in combat was really something else.

Yulei’s illusionary boxing style had reached a very high degree of development, were it not for him using the wind currents to read her moves, Desmond would have been easily fooled. Kira, for her part, used her long legs to unleash a barrage of kicks as fierce and endless as a storm; the aura blades hidden in her kicks were also hard to dodge.

Each of them was a strong fighter, with a rather complex unique style that was difficult to deal with. By their own count, each of them was as strong as a lieutenant, together they had more than enough to kill someone a level above their own; maybe two with the right equipment and conditions.

Not being an Aura user but a Mana user, Desmond actually had to put in a bit of effort to fight both girls. One had to take into account that Desmond was a fucking abnormal monster, for Yulei and Kira to get him to fight with a serious expression; was already quite an achievement.

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“Okay, that’s it. I’m so proud of all of you, I didn’t think my garden would have so many hidden treasures.”

Although all the girls in Garden were happy about the compliments, there was one who asked a question; that was Sara. “Does that mean you’ll give my plan your go-ahead?”

Desmond’s expression turned extremely serious. “I’m afraid so. It’s risky, but the results are too tempting. We’ll start tomorrow, so sleep early today; and girls... You are more important than any benefit that can come out of this, if you see that things start to go wrong, back off, I will deal with the consequences.”

Even more, than receiving any praise, Desmond’s last words filled the hearts of the girls in Garden with joy. Claire and Sasha, for their part, only pretended not to see the hearts shining in the eyes of all the girls.