Earth's SSS Pornstar to SSS Combat God in Another World-Chapter 45: Father and Son Reunite

After a couple of hours, Joji and his party reached the Cutler Estate without further trouble.

Joji leaned close to Walter as the walls came into view.

"Do not jump out and shout your name," he murmured. "Go to someone you trust. Someone with strength and status."

Walter nodded, swallowing hard.

The Cutler Estate was not a sprawl like Everhart.

It sat in the middle ground between a small castle and a proud manor, stone walls, a broad yard.

Wagons lined up in ranks like soldiers, sorted by sturdiness, by size, by speed.

Caravan wagons, merchant wagons, wagons meant to run when roads turned bad.

Guards poured out at the first sign of a large group, posture sharp, hands near steel.

Then they saw who led the caravan and relaxed by degrees.

Joveric waved once, easy and familiar, and the gates opened wider. Still, he did not set his broadsword down.

The man looked jolly, but his eyes kept measuring angles and hands.

He had allowed a strange little party to trail him, and he was not stupid enough to forget that.

An appraiser went straight to the Depth Salamander, lantern lifted, fingers already itching to judge the hide.

Men gathered and spoke in low excited tones.

Then a white haired man came down the steps from the main hall.

He wore a black suit that tried to make him look like staff, but the muscle under it refused the lie.

He moved like a man who had killed for coin before he learned to serve for pay. Even from a distance, he felt dangerous in the quiet way.

Walter started fidgeting, breath quickening. He leaned toward Joji.

"That’s Uncle Martin," he whispered. "I can trust my life to him."

Joji turned his head and met the man’s gaze.

Martin felt it at once. His eyes lifted and locked on Joji, not offended, not hostile, simply reading.

Joji did the same, a long haired stranger with an old man’s caution in his face.

Neither smiled. Neither blinked fast. It was a quiet appraisal between two men.

Martin’s brows rose, surprised rather than angered. The stranger was young in body, but his gaze carried years.

He approached, stopping at a respectful distance.

"Do you need anything, young man?" Martin asked.

Joji felt a small, private pleasure at the word young. An old man’s vanity inside a young man’s skin.

He pushed it aside and nodded toward Walter.

"My friend wants to speak with you in private," Joji said, respectful and plain. "Can you spare a few minutes?"

Martin’s eyes slid to Walter.

They shook. Recognition hit him in the face.

Those eyes. That bone structure under the dirt and disguise.

A flood of thoughts moved behind Martin’s expression.

He glanced back to Joji and found no threat in his posture, no hunger, no plan of harm aimed at the man beside him.

Only vigilance. Martin did not announce anything. He did not call for guards.

He only stepped in close and took Walter by the arm in a way that looked like a servant being guided, not an heir being rescued.

"Come," Martin said, voice flat.

Walter let himself be pulled. His knees felt soft now that the walls were real and the chase was behind him.

They cut along a side path where torchlight did not reach.

Martin produced a key and stopped at a section of stone wall that looked plain until he touched it. A seam revealed itself. A hidden door.

He unlocked it. The door swung inward with a heavy scrape. Solid stone.

The kind that would not budge without strength, or the right key, or both.

Inside, the air was cool and dry. The sound of the estate faded as if someone had shut a lid.

Walter slumped the moment the door closed. He slid down to the floor, back against the wall, breathing like a man who had been holding himself upright on pride alone.

His hands shook. He had nearly died more than once. He had seen monsters. He had seen a witch’s mansion rise out of a pond and sink back into mud.

He had travelled with a talking donkey in pants. His world had been turned inside out.

He wanted to tell Martin all of it. He swallowed it down. Not yet.

"Uncle Martin," Walter said, voice hoarse. "Two of my companions are knights. They are on a mission. By some stroke of luck, I joined them."

Martin’s surprise hardened into something stern.

"Knights do not travel like this," Martin said quietly. "Disguises. No banners. No horses. No open names."

Walter kept his mouth shut, but his eyes betrayed him.

The memory of speed and steel and the way Joji and Alaric had moved still sat behind his pupils.

Martin watched him a long beat.

"Did you see unspoken things?" Martin asked.

Walter nodded.

Martin exhaled through his nose. He did not look pleased.

Walter’s silence told him enough. Secrets had been shown. Secrets that could bring disaster if spoken aloud.

Yet the knights had not silenced Walter. They had brought him home alive.

That meant something.

It also meant the Cutler household owed a kind of payment that could not be counted in coin.

Martin left Walter in the stone doored room and moved through the estate with a stride that did not waste motion.

He went straight for Master Jonas’s quarters.

He did not knock.

He opened the door and crossed the room in three steps, then nudged Jonas awake like a man waking someone for fire.

Jonas jolted upright, hair wild, eyes sharp with the fear of a rich man who knew how quickly safety could rot.

"Are we under attack?" Jonas demanded. "Why are you waking me up?"

"I have news," Martin said, flat as stone. "But you need not yelp or shout in excitement."

Jonas blinked once, twice, then sat up fully and gave a tight nod.

Martin spoke low and quick. Walter was alive. Walter had returned. Walter was with two knights on a mission, traveling disguised, and carrying something important.

Jonas listened and his throat worked. Relief made his shoulders sag.

Walter alive. Walter home. It sounded like fortune.

Then Martin added the last piece.

"What more, Master Jonas," Martin said. "I think Young Master Walter has awakened aura."

Jonas’s face broke.

"What?" The word came out too loud.

Martin’s hand snapped up and covered Jonas’s mouth before the sound could become a shout that woke the whole estate.

"Master Jonas," Martin hissed. "Don’t be like this now."

Jonas froze under the hand, eyes bright, delighted. Martin lowered his palm when Jonas finally breathed through his nose and nodded.

Jonas whispered like a man trying to keep a fire hidden under cloth.

"This needs to be celebrated."

"It needs to be handled," Martin corrected, still calm. "Master, I think it is best we consult Young Master Walter first. He will have his own arrangements."

Jonas swung his legs out of bed and reached for his pants, hands trembling with urgency that had nowhere safe to go.

"Let me see him right now," Jonas said.

Martin nodded once.

Minutes later, father and son stood facing one another again.