The Guide is Actually a Body-Switching Esper [BL]-Chapter 414: Switching Villas

The inspections continued as normal. Except that, after they docked their boats and returned to the shore, Damien no longer took multiple measurements per spot. Upon realizing how pointless it was, although he still felt uneasy about it, he gave up on those ’extra precautions’... The protocol had to be followed, but doing anything above that was unnecessary. Especially since, while measuring the Mana fluctuations two or three extra times might not have seemed like a lot, it would all eventually add up, effectively slowing them down.

Which was something they couldn’t afford. Their schedule was already tight as it was, if their progress slowed down, they would hardly get any time to rest. If it were just him alone, Damien wouldn’t mind, but he didn’t want to put his team through that for no reason. The Awakened’s constitution was incomparably superior to civilians, but that didn’t mean they didn’t get tired at all.

Thanks to that, they managed to finish their schedule for the day on time, and return to the Lakeside Villas for the night. Normally, if it were any other inspection, they would have just camped wherever they were... But since it was the Eldenveil with a developed infrastructure and a method of transport - the jeeps - available, the team could make their mission a little more comfortable. Or, well, the Allen Guild could, since it was Gia who arranged for their employees to drive the jeeps to pick them up after taking the last Mana fluctuation measurement...

That brought up another issue for Damien, though. That is, the need to decide which villa they were going to stay in.

"Miss Collins," he addressed Gia, as they were on their way back. It was just him, Lane, Ethan, Clara, and Gia inside the jeep (plus one of the employees borrowed from the Trailblazer Guild behind the wheel), so it seemed like the best time to bring it back. "I would like to make a change to the accommodation arrangement. We have decided that it would be best if I, Lane Allen, and Ethan Wagner stayed in the same villa, for safety reasons. Since my assigned villa has only one bed, I believe the best solution would be for me to be moved to the family villa that L... Allen and Wagner have been assigned. Thus, I would like to ask if it would be possible for you to make an official update, so that everyone would be able to find me in case of an emergency?"

"Oh?" Gia turned her head to glance at Damien, and then at Ethan, who was sitting in the back row. She was naturally already aware of what had taken place the previous night (at least the Ethan and Lane changing their accommodation part), so she wasn’t surprised by the request, but...

Ethan tried to signal her with his eyes, lightly shaking his head. Although he tried to make it as subtle as possible, it didn’t escape Lane’s attention, and instantly put him on high alert.

Why didn’t Ethan want to switch the location? He had proposed this solution the night before, when they were discussing the problem of Damien’s villa having only one bed. Had he come to like sleeping on the couch so much that he now held beds in a high disregard?

Of course not! Lane might not have been able to read Ethan’s mind, so technically, he couldn’t tell for sure, but that would be simply too ridiculous of an assumption. No matter how he thought of it, there was no good explanation for his change of mind...

At least not any that wasn’t hella suspicious.

Gia ignored Ethan’s silent plea, though. She thought for a moment, before saying, "I understand. I will make sure to inform everyone of the changes, so that everyone is clear about Team Leader Lennox’s location..."

Ethan’s face turned dark, but he didn’t protest. He just accepted his fate...

And what fate was it? Damien and Lane found out shortly after dinner, when everyone retired to their villas for the night, and they also went to their new accommodation...

Which wasn’t a family villa at all. Despite what the Allen Guild member had told them on the first day, the villa that had been assigned to them was a standard couple’s villa.

With only one bed.

And the worst of it all? There was no couch! Although the layout of the villa was the same as that of the one that had been assigned to Damien, most of the furniture was missing from the living room.

"Oh... I guess there must have been some sort of mistake..." Ethan muttered. "We should probably return to Team Leader’s villa. We can’t sleep here..."

Lane couldn’t help but give him a side-eye glance.

What were the odds that Ethan didn’t know about it? Slim to none!

That explained why he didn’t want to switch when Damien had brought it back earlier in the jeep. Because he knew that if they were to stay in this villa, he would have to sleep on the floor...

But why had he suggested they move here the previous night? And why had Gia approved of the switch? And, perhaps most importantly... Why was the villa that he and Ethan were supposed to be staying in together arranged like that?

Lane couldn’t understand it at all!

Unless... Unless it was so that the rest of the team wouldn’t know where Damien was? Although they couldn’t manufacture a real emergency, the Allen Guild could always raise a false alarm at night. Then, if it were to turn out that Damien wasn’t where he was supposed to be for some irresponsible reason such as ’wanting to sleep with his boyfriend’ or ’wanting to be more comfortable’, it could negatively affect his reputation.

Perhaps that was what the Allen Guild was aiming for now. Since Damien was Lane’s most reliable backer after Diana, they wanted to cause trouble for him, potentially even take him down... Dealing with Lane was likely more important to the Allens than recruiting Damien, after all.

Just as he thought of it, Ethan spoke again, "Team Leader, we should go. It’s getting late, and we should..."

"No," before Lane could even react, Damien shot Ethan down. "We’re staying here."

"But, Team Leader..." Ethan tried to protest, but Damien didn’t even listen to him.

"We have already informed everyone that we are staying here, and it’s too late to change it now. I’m sorry, but you will have to bear with it. If you don’t have a sleeping mat or a sleeping bag, I can lend you mine... I have all the necessary equipment in my spatial bag."

He didn’t even feel bad this time, making Ethan sleep on the floor. He just stared at the only bed in the villa with his brows furrowed so deeply that the crease between them could almost contend with the Mariana trench...

If he had sent Lane and Ethan back to their assigned accommodation the night before... How would their sleeping arrangement have looked like? Would they have shared the bed, or would Lane have taken the floor? 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Even if it was the latter, Damien didn’t like it. He didn’t like this arrangement even when he thought that it was a family villa with two or more bedrooms, but now, he disliked it even more. Although ever since he had appeared, Ethan had been trying to seduce Damien and had never made any moves at Lane...

They had been sexually involved before. Yes, it had been years ago, and it was all in the past, Lane wasn’t interested in Ethan in the slightest, but still. It just made Damien uncomfortable. He accepted Lane’s past, but that didn’t mean he was going to be cool with his boyfriend being close with his exes, even if they had never been anything more than ’flings’...

Ethan tried muttering some more arguments, but they all fell on deaf ears. Damien wasn’t going to disrupt everyone’s rest time to update them on another change of his location, and he most certainly wasn’t about to switch villas without everyone knowing, for safety and organizational reasons. So, Ethan had to eventually accept his failure...

And go to sleep in the living room, on a mat on the floor, wrapped in a sleeping bag. He didn’t even get a pillow, as all the spares were missing from the villa’s wardrobe...

At least it was a good-quality, comfortable mat and a warm, soft sleeping bag, since Lane was the one to lend it to him. As to why he had done it, it was of course because Lane would never allow Ethan to use Damien’s things, especially not something as personal as a sleeping bag! It was better to just sacrifice his own stuff instead. He was rich anyway, and had plenty of spares, even better and newer ones than those that he had lent to Ethan. After this trip was over, he could just burn everything that the Guide had used, problem solved!