Jonathan smiled. “We were. Well? What do you want to talk about?”

  “What should we do going forward? We have millenia to live, maybe longer if you achieve your goal. Even just continuing to level will extend our life spans over and over again.”

  “There has to be some threshold at which immortality is attained. At least from aging. I feel like the amount of power necessary to sustain oneself for a billion years is basically the same as the amount needed to live forever. I doubt the gods can die of old age.”

  “It can’t be that hard to extend one’s life with magic,” Eliza said. “I mean, we can both break mountains apart. I feel like that should correspond to a longer lifespan.”

  Jonathan nodded. “True.” Before he could respond further, the waiter came back, holding a tray with desserts. She laid down the plates, before walking off without another word, carrying away the tray.

  Jonathan looked down, and took in the cake on the plate before him. It looked much like a normal chocolate cake, but apparently, there wasn’t any chocolate in the world of Telvaria. Instead, they used a plant called alcaria root, which was supposed to be quite similar, at least according to Eliza.

  He picked up a fork and took a bite. It did taste surprisingly like chocolate, but it was a lot sweeter in flavor. Not just because there was more sugar in the cake. There was a different taste, more like stevia or some other plant based sugar alternative. One that came from the alcaria root.

  Jonathan looked up to see Eliza’s grinning face. “Sorry,” he said around a mouthful of cake. “We were talking about something important.”

  “No worries. Enjoy the food. I know you haven’t had any in over a year.”

  “So many small pleasures of life that I’ve missed out on,” he said absently. He gave Eliza a glance, only to find that she was looking at him, her face inexplicably red. “Eliza?”

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  “Sorry, my mind was on something else.” Her face flushed further. “Never mind.”

  Jonathan looked at her, bemused. Then he realized what she was getting at. “Oh.”

  She smiled bashfully. “We have been together for over a year. Don’t you think it’s time we…”

  “Yeah… I do. Well, we do have an ample window of time before us,” Jonathan said. “Perhaps we should… deepen our relationship some more.”

  ***

  The next week passed in a blur. It was quite cathartic, taking a break from all of the killing, to see what that killing had actually achieved. For a man who was rapidly forging his own empire, Joanthan didn’t really see much of it. Most of his time was spent in Tartarus, or in the yet unliberated Hells. There was so much to see in his own domain, things that he had never gotten to before.

  He and Eliza had spent a few days in an underground resort, built in one of the vast caverns of Cessation. Opportunists were taking advantage of the new safety of the realm to make their mark upon it. Built in the shadow of a vast underground waterfall, the statuesque villa complex was lit up by a false sun, sourced from one of the ruined cities.

  After that, they had traveled through a section of the Great Farm covered in jungle, where all manner of exotic fruits were harvested. After the circle’s liberation, and the killing of the monsters there, it was actually not unlike something one might find in the world of the living. The main hellish aspect of the Great Farm had been its society, and not its geography. Now that its society was fixed, it was quickly becoming a popular destination for sightseers.

  Jonathan was yet again surprised at just how quickly the Hells turned into something resembling a semblance of normality once the Circle Lords and their allies were removed from the equation. People naturally wanted to enjoy themselves, and live as they would normally, not as slaves to demonic entities that they could never defeat. The only way Jonathan was really able to see this was by hiding his identity, going without his armor for the most part. With it on, his citizens would have recognized him as their lord, and probably wouldn’t have acted in accordance with their normal behavior. As he wanted to simply take a break and explore, that wouldn’t work for him.

  His idyllic time with Eliza soon came to an end, though, and by the time he could feel a free floating anxiety tugging at the edges of his mind, calling him back to the Hells, Jonathan knew that he needed to return.