Chapter 15: The Interlude
As the sun rose up after its night slumber, Katrina and Sophia left their beloved hayloft and went outside for their typical morning exercises. Villagers greeted the naked heroines with utmost passion, many of them eager to look at their vigorous routine. It was truly a sight to behold when the two did push-ups or pulls up on the nearby trees, squatted with their bare butts pointed at their spectators, and jogged around the village, letting everyone observe their bouncy breasts. It was still quite hard for Sophia to follow her partner given that the priestesses have never been given this kind of raw physical training, which Katrina took into account yet still never let the blonde slack off completely. Soon, the priestess was already short of breath while Katrina was only half done with her exercising. Sophia looked at the knight with admiration while standing near the well and drinking the water Oira had just brought for her.
"M-maybe you want to exercise with us?" The blonde politely asked her new friend.
"Sorry, lass, I've got no time for this," Oira waved her hand, "got lots of work to do now that all the cattle is back."
"Sure, have a nice day," the blonde cheerfully waved her with both hands, not even realizing that today she hadn't tried to cover up once.
After a refreshing drink, the priestess was going to help the locals who were more than eager to let a hot naked girl to do some of theirwork, but then she remembered: today was the seventh day of the week, and, just like during the third day, it was time for sun salutations! Katrina soon joined her friend at the well and casually poured a bucket of cold, refreshing water on top of herself to cool off. The priestess complemented the redhead's physical prowess, yet the next phrase had a hard time leaving her mouth.
"I... I wanted to ask..." Sophia started, "you know, I must do sun salute today, and, um... I thought maybe you... Maybe we..."
"Sun salutations? You mean that stretching thing?" Katrina's eyes shone with enthusiasm, "can I try too?!"
"Oh," Sophia blushed a little from this sudden exchange, "of course! We can do it together... I mean as a duo, you'll just have to follow my lead."
"Sure. Be my sensei," The redhead jokingly bowed and grabbed her friend's hand, ready to venture into the world of suggestive religious practices.
The two stood on grass where there was no trees around and the sunrays could freely reach the ground. Sophia hesitated a little, still very shy about this experience, yet mustered up the courage and grabbed both Katrina's hands, instructing her on the right poses.
"Alright, let's begin... Just a friendly salutation practice, a common occurrence," the priestess got giggly for a second.
Katrina was attentive and eager to learn. It was quite unusual to see her like this, a pupil instead of a teacher. In a minute, the girls turned around and touched with their naked butts. The pair salute was quite different from a regular one, with both girls needing to support and add to each other's poses to achieve true harmony under the gaze of the Solar God. They quickly began changing poses with grace and care, helding their hands throughout the ordeal. Their bodies touched time and time again in various places, but both were already quite used to that thanks to sleeping together. One pose even required one of the girls to lay on top of another and place her chin on the back of her head, which caused a couple of embarrassed giggles from Sophia and a smirk from her heroine.
There were some mistakes, of course, but Katrina made sure to apologize and correct herself each time she did something wrong. Teaching her turned out to be a pleasing experience, no wonder she remembered her training with The Supreme Judge so fondly. Soon, both girls were filled to the brim with solar energy and positivity, right when they needed to head back to Zardiw for their talk with those in power. When Ash, as loyal as ever, carried them away from the village, the folks showered them with flowers and complements, thankful for their hard and quite hot work.
The nude heroines arrived at the town hall at midday. The Mayor, Gunther and armor-clad Gerda met them here, all occupied with discussing current matters. Mr. Ridzwalt praised Katrina's work, telling her how great it is to have such a great wielder during this trying times. Gunther echoed his statements and gifted the redhead with a faint smile, a rare occurrence for his pale face. Even Gerda had to recognize all of the progress the naked heroines have made thus far, albeit with a stingy remark about how she's surprised the redhead wasn't dead yet. Katrina couldn't help but tease Gerda in return by "accidentally" dropping her sword and slowly bending down to get it, mooning the guard commander in the process. However, they quickly put their differences aside when Mr. Ridzwalt continued his talk.
"Right now, thanks to your invaluable efforts," the old man started, "Zardiw has only three rouge archmages left. The city is much safer, many of those who fled at the beginning of the craze are now coming back to their homes and our trade routeds with neighbouring towns are thriving once more. I can now confidently say that the town is saved from this plague and it'll only get better from now on!"
"We're honored by this praise," Katrina said while bowing with Sophia in unison, "but what about the remaining ones? Each archmage before seemed like a huge threat, we can't possibly leave three somewhere out there, can we?"
"Those remaining," Gunther started calmly, "are hidden from the public eye and don't pose an immediate threat. Miss Gerda, please."
"The city watch possesses information about one of them, Mr. Aaron himself," the commander said firmly, "we believe he's still roaming the ruins of his once beautiful academy along with his damned followers, entirely cut off from this side of the reaver. Two other former professors, Mrs. Alexa and Mrs. Bronta, a antimancer and a lightning wizard respectively, are missing and, quite frankly, are most likely already dead."
"Or you simply haven't been searching enough," Katrina humphed.
"With all due respect..." Gerda sighed, "there isn't much room to hide from my guards. We haven't heard any rumors, any sightings, anything at all regarding them in weeks. We will keep looking, but if there's fire, there must be smoke too."
"We all think you did a great job, miss Katrina," Gunther said, "trust us, we can handle the situation from now on. Don't worry about this trio, they cannot plunge Zardiw into chaos on their own. I would even go as far as to say that you can return to The Judge right now and inform him that your task is finished."
"No, I cannot," The redhead replied to the surprise of everyone, placing her hands on her majestic bare hips, "I promised to beat each one of those crazed wizards, to you, to my mentor, and to all the people of this town. We don't need a "stable" situation, we need it fully under control, otherwise any spark will ignite the fire once again!"
The redhead raised her voice a little and the air in the room suddenly became stiff.
"We... We think our help is still required here," Sophia said, smiling, while hugging Katrina by the shoulder with a smooth move, "maybe one of those wizards will suddenly show their face, or you'll need our assistance for something else. There are still Blackhearts, if I recall correctly, and... W-we need to figure out how all of this started, too."
Katrina simply nodded and patted her naked buddy on the butt, thanking her for being the voice of reason.
