Chapter 942: Trouble at Home
Quinlan cast his mind outward, threading his will through the unseen spiritual web that connected him to those who bore his mark.
He touched her essence.
[Master’s Link: Jasmine]
The connection snapped to life.
<Jasmine.>
A moment later, a breathless squeal burst into his mind, sounding as if a dam had just broken.
<Quinlan! Quinlan?! Quinlan, is that really you?! I was so worried! I’ve barely managed to get any shut-eye from anxiety… ! Are you home? Are you safe?>
Her voice was high and trembling, drenched in such raw emotion that it made him ache, feeling a bit guilty for taking so long to complete the trial.
<I’m home… I’m home, Jasmine. The separation wasn’t easy on me either… I’ve missed you every day. I can’t wait to hold you in my arms again.>
He lifted his hand.
<I’ll open a [Warp Gate] to you right now->
<No!>
Her voice cut in sharply, worried. Panicked.
<You can’t do that right now, Quin, please! There are people around me. I… I’m not alone.>
His flames flickered, narrowing.
<What kind of mission did Aurelion send you on this time around?>
There was a pause in the conversation upon his uttering the question.
A long, bitter pause.
<He’s furious…> Jasmine finally whispered, the anger buried in her voice was unmistakable. <Because I failed. Because I didn’t seduce the super rookie ’Devil’ into his shitty Gilded Exchange faction like he told me to. He’s lashing out. And things… things aren’t going well for him.>
<Go on.> Quinlan prompted darkly.
<He was trying to be the first non-combatant to reach Veil Walker rank… Accumulating contribution points like a man possessed. Stealing mine and many other people’s achievements to make himself look like a divine merchant without equal, or something typical like that. You know that Shadow Vanguard is the highest rank for non-combatants in the Consortium… He wanted to change that, to make becoming the first to surpass that limit his legacy.>
<…And now?>
<Now, he sees his chances slipping. With the outbreak of open conflict against the Greenvale Duke family and their vassals, the entire Vesper Consortium has been forced to break out of its shell.>
Her voice tightened, the bitterness becoming heavier with each word.
<We’re no longer just a shadowy force pulling strings behind the curtain. The Consortium is fighting a war, Quin. A real, public war. One we’re losing. And as you can probably guess…>
She gave a quiet, mirthless laugh.
<…the value of merchants and gold goes down in wartime. Drastically. We become secondary to the fighters and mages on the front lines. Even those crafting gear or maintaining the supply lines shoot up in value significantly. Contributions in coin mean less than the blood spilled for the cause. No one’s interested in profit reports when the skies are burning.>
Her words painted a grim truth only insiders could fully understand.
<And that’s what shattered his dream. He wanted to be the first non-combatant in history to earn the Veil Walker rank. To rise through pure economic contributions, to show the world that power didn’t need to come from violence. It was already questionable whether the Council would’ve accepted that bastard even at peak wealth accumulation, but now?>
She exhaled slowly.
<Now it’s impossible. No one is going to promote a merchant—no matter how rich—when soldiers are dying and the Consortium needs frontliners more than ever before. He’s been pushed aside. And rather than accept that he was aiming too high… he’s lashing out at the target he knows can’t bite back.>
<You…>
She didn’t even sound surprised by it anymore. Just tired.
<Yes… he blames me for wasting his best opportunity. He thinks if I had seduced Devil and leashed you to his side… everything would’ve changed. His status. His influence. His seat at the high table.>
Then, even colder, she added:
<And now that the dream is gone, he’s just using me to vent. A tool for his anger.>
Her voice cracked, small and raw:
<He sent me to a labor camp.>
Quinlan went still.
Utterly, terrifyingly still.
<He said if I were such a failure of a woman that I couldn’t seduce a single important person for him, I’d earn my keep through labor. Manual work. Isolation. No tools, no crafting aides. Just my hands and cheap junk. Every day, they bring me crates of scrap and force me to make worthless trinkets. I don’t even know where they go…>
The air around Quinlan shifted. Kitsara, halfway through whispering something utterly indecent into his ear, froze as the kiss she leaned in for met solid, frozen stillness. Her tails twitched. Her instincts screamed. Something was wrong.
The girls around him felt it too.
Lucille’s eyes narrowed.
Ayame’s hand drifted to her blade.
Quinlan’s anger was not the usual tempest. Not a shout. Not a flare. But a dense compression of wrath so concentrated, it warped the flow of mana around him.
The elemental harmony in his eyes destabilized.
Flame pulsed, scorching red.
<That worthless little insect…> he growled, voice low, guttural. <…dares to humiliate my woman? My Jasmine?>
The words rolled off his tongue as if they were mighty venom harvested from a legendary serpent.
The trees nearby trembled. Leaves curled. The air pressure dropped.
Back in the camp, Jasmine felt a chill run down her spine. Her fingers shook, and her heart raced. Something horrible was brewing, something primal and unrestrained. She knew him. Knew what kind of fire burned inside her man. How caring and possessive he was of his lovers.
This was… not good.
<No! Don’t worry about it!> she blurted mentally, desperation lacing her words. <I might be forbidden from speaking, and yes, I’m under constant watch, but… but the pathetic loser doesn’t know I succeeded. He doesn’t know you and I are together.>
Her thoughts sped up, almost tripping over each other.
<He doesn’t know I have [Master’s Link]! I talk to Aurora and the others through it all the time. I even know everything there is to know about our maids! They’re truly lovely ladies… That is to say, I’m not alone, I promise!>
Silence.
A long, pregnant pause.
Quinlan didn’t answer.
He was still staring into nothingness, the fury beneath his skin thrumming like molten steel trapped inside a sealed crucible.
When he finally spoke again, his voice was deathly quiet:
<You’re saying all that… so I don’t come there and burn it all down right now.>
It wasn’t a question.
It was a statement.
Jasmine didn’t reply.
She didn’t have to.
She was guilty. Of course she was. She wanted to run to him. She wanted to be swept into his arms, to sob and scream and kiss him and celebrate his return. But she couldn’t. Because if he came, if he really came for her… her father would retaliate.
And not against her.
But against her mother.
Her voice finally came again, tiny and trembling: <If you come for me… he’ll take it out on her. He always does.>
Quinlan’s fists clenched so much that his nails were making his immensely sturdy skin bleed. Flame coiled down his forearms like serpents. But he didn’t erupt.
The [Still Heart] within him beat once.
And he forced the fire to simmer.
<…That man… Aurelion has been standing between us ever since we met.>
He took a slow breath. The wind around him stopped rustling.
<He’s been there from the start. Always watching. Always shackling. Always limiting what we can be. I can’t even touch the woman I love without his shadow falling over us. Our relationship… has been stifled from the very first step because of that dickless bastard.>
And then…
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