Chapter 350: Back Home

The doors of the throne room swung wide open.

And at the far end, seated on the great golden throne with one elbow propped on the armrest and a smile on his face, was Mark.

At first, nobody reacted.

The wives who hadn’t known about his return stood frozen at the entrance, unable to look away.

Ely covered her mouth with one hand, Yuki’s eyes were glassy, and Emilia simply stood motionless, one hand resting on her belly.

"Hey, girls," Mark said, rising to his feet. "Sorry I’m late."

Ely was the first to break the silence.

"MASTER!"

She ran to him without a second thought, her white hair streaming behind her, and threw herself into his arms with such force that Mark nearly toppled back onto the throne.

Ely clung to his neck as if afraid he might vanish again and started bawling, completely oblivious to everything else.

"Where the hell were you?! Seven months! Seven months without a word from you!" she sobbed, squeezing him with all her strength. "I thought you were dead! I thought I’d lost you forever! Don’t you ever do this to me again, do you hear me?! Never!"

"Ely, you’re choking me," Mark managed to say.

"I don’t care! Deal with it!"

Yuki arrived right behind her.

She didn’t shout or wail like Ely; she simply wrapped herself around his side and buried her face in his shoulder. Mark noticed instantly that she was trembling.

"...You’re back," Yuki murmured, her voice muffled against his clothes.

"Yeah," Mark replied, wrapping his free arm around her.

"Don’t ever leave without me again."

"I won’t."

Zilu pushed her way between the two of them and, before hugging him, pressed her nose to his neck and inhaled deeply. Her rabbit ears shot straight up.

"It really is you, Master," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "I missed you so much... the bed was cold without you, you know?"

Behind them came the rest, more slowly, each carefully holding her belly.

Cali was first, her eyes still puffy from sleep and now from crying, too.

"Master..." she murmured, and hugged him gently, careful not to press her belly against anyone. "I knew you’d come back... I told Emilia every single day."

Emilia was the last of the three to approach. She stopped in front of him, looked him over from head to toe as if checking he was all in one piece, and then took his face in her hands.

"I was so terrified..." she confessed, her voice breaking. "I even started to think our child would have to grow up without a father."

Mark covered her hands with his own.

"I’m so sorry I made you feel that way..." he replied.

Emilia rested her forehead against his chest and wept silently, just like the others.

Luna was the last to arrive. She walked slowly, with Sarah at her side holding her arm, her swollen belly forcing her to move with care.

But when she finally stood before Mark, Sarah stepped back with a bow, and Luna looked at him with a teasing smile.

"Well, well... so you didn’t run away after all," she joked, trying to lighten the mood. "For a moment I thought that after seeing how many of us you’d knocked up, you’d decided disappearing was the smartest option."

Mark let out a low chuckle.

"I’m not that kind of man."

"You’d better not be."

Rose, Aria, and Alice watched the scene from the entrance without approaching.

After all, they’d already had their reunion in the early hours of the morning, and now they simply looked on at the others with satisfied smiles.

Mark stayed like that for quite a while, surrounded by arms, tears, and affectionate scolding. Until Ely pulled back a little, wiped her face with the back of her hand, and looked at him with a scowl.

"All right, I’ve got it out of my system... Now I want answers. Where the hell have you been all this time?"

Mark sighed.

"It’s a pretty long story..."

"We’ve got time," said Yuki.

But before Mark could begin, the side door of the room opened.

Bayle walked in in his humanoid form, wearing his battered black suit with Vorax resting on his shoulder.

The moment he saw Mark, the dragon stopped dead. Then he advanced to the center of the room and knelt, bowing his head.

"My lord," he said in his deep voice. "I knew you would return. I never doubted it."

"Master!" Vorax exclaimed from his shoulder, vibrating with joy. "You’re finally back!"

"Thank you, Vorax. Rise, Bayle."

Bayle got to his feet, but he didn’t take his eyes off him. His slit-pupiled eyes studied him closely, and his expression changed.

"My lord. You... have changed."

"Well, well, I didn’t think you’d notice so fast."

"It’s hard not to notice," Bayle replied, looking him up and down. "It feels like standing before a mountain."

He bowed his head again.

"I don’t know what you did in your absence, but you’ve returned as something far greater than what you already were."

"Mr. Bayle is right," Vorax added, more quietly. "I can feel it through the bond, Master. Your power is now... overwhelming."

Ely and Yuki exchanged a glance.

"We noticed it the moment we hugged you," Ely admitted. "I thought it was just nerves, but now I see it wasn’t."

"Your power is now equal to the Demon Lord’s," said Yuki. "No... It’s stronger."

The others fell silent, staring at him.

"What exactly were you doing, Master?" Ely asked, intrigued. "Because you don’t get something like this from seven months of training."

Mark scratched the back of his neck and let out a sigh before telling them the whole story.

He told them how Mary had stopped time on the plains and dragged him into her dream world.

And how she had prepared nearly a hundred summons there so he could hunt them one after another and level up without any risk.

He told them how he had spent his time killing monsters without rest until he reached level 99.

He also explained, in brief, that the soul bond had caused part of that progress to be passed on to them.

And that for him, all of it had lasted barely a week.

Even so, Mark didn’t tell them the whole truth.

He kept to himself the past Mary had shown him, what he had discovered about his previous life, and everything that had happened between the two of them.

It wasn’t hard to see why.

His wives had already detested Mary before this, and after she took him away in front of all of them and left them seven months believing he was dead, they probably hated her even more.

Telling them now that Mary had loved him since another life... or explaining what had happened in that valley...

No.

This wasn’t the time.

He had just come home. The last thing he needed was to start a war in the middle of his own reunion.

And when he finally finished explaining what had happened, the room fell silent.

"...That bitch," Ely said, clenching her fists. "When I see her, she’s going to pay for this."

"I knew it," Aria murmured. "I always knew it was her."

"I’ll wipe that smug smirk off her face the next time I see her," Alice said from the entrance.

"Get in line," Yuki replied.

But their rage didn’t last long. Little by little, the tension eased, and it was Emilia who said it out loud.

"Frankly, I don’t understand why she would do something like that..." Emilia said, frowning.

"Don’t stress yourself thinking about it, Emilia," Luna cut in. "From the way you describe her, she’s most likely just a deranged lunatic... so there’s no point trying to understand her."

"Miss Luna is right," Sarah seconded. "What matters right now is that he’s back."

"And he’s back stronger than ever," added Zilu, still clinging to his arm.

Mark felt an uncomfortable pang hearing how they talked about Mary, but he said nothing.

After everything that had happened, he couldn’t ask them to simply forget seven months of fear and loneliness.

"We’ll deal with her later," said Ely. "But for now, let’s celebrate that the Master is back."

"Yeah... I’m home. And you have no idea how glad I am to be able to say that."