Chapter 102: Collecting What is Ours

Chapter 102. Collecting What is Ours

My fingers slowly tightened around Ariel’s hand without me noticing.

What would happen if I combined multiple S-rank cores, stabilized them during forced evolution, then used the Core Imprint to establish loyalty before consciousness fully developed?

No. Better. Don’t suppress consciousness. Encourage it. Intelligence was useful.

A fully intelligent chimera with several compatible racial traits, evolved beyond SSS-rank and completely loyal through the core itself...

Oh, that was beautiful.

A slow smile spread across my face.

I could already imagine the possibilities. Adaptive elemental resistance. Regeneration. Maybe multiple cores...

"Rey?" Lily’s voice finally broke through my thoughts.

I blinked. "Hm?"

She stared at me. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

Ariel was also watching me. Her expression was slightly concerned. "Uh... your smile is weird."

My smile?

I looked around.

Three servants standing near the wall immediately looked away.

One of them visibly swallowed.

Another suddenly became extremely interested in the teapot she was holding.

I knew that reaction.

Apparently somewhere during my beautiful mental journey into creating an intelligent SSS-rank-plus abomination against nature, my face had developed the smile. The one that made innocent bystanders assume I was imagining how many people I could murder before lunch.

I wasn’t. I was thinking about magical genetic engineering. Completely different. Probably worse if explained properly.

I immediately relaxed my face. "I’m hungry." I reached for breakfast. "Let’s eat."

Conversation over.

I had absolutely no intention of explaining what had just crossed my mind.

Because saying, ’Sorry, I was imagining creating an intelligent chimera beyond SSS-rank and binding its loyalty directly into its mana core’, would not make me sound better.

In fact, it might make me sound crazier than the original Rey. So I ate.

The servants gradually stopped looking like they expected me to request a fresh corpse with my coffee.

Then footsteps approached from the corridor.

A moment later, Seris entered the dining room. Fresh clothes. Still slightly damp crimson hair. And my silver bangle gleaming unmistakably around her wrist.

Everyone looked at her.

Seris looked at everyone.

Then her eyes met mine, before she looked at another direction.

I stopped chewing.

After what we’d done in the bathroom, I’d honestly expected her to change into something considerably more defensive.

A high collar, perhaps. Something Phoenixkin-approved for concealing evidence. Instead, Seris had apparently chosen violence again.

Her dress was elegant, fitted neatly around her figure, but the neckline left enough skin visible that several faint marks remained perfectly obvious.

My marks.

Seris walked toward the table as though nothing was wrong. Those marks might as well have been accessories.

No.

Kingdom banners.

The victorious army had arrived, planted its flags across conquered territory, and Seris Ignara had apparently decided there was absolutely no reason to remove them before breakfast.

I paused with my fork halfway toward my mouth.

She reached her chair and sat down. "Sorry, I’m late." Her voice was controlled. Her face wasn’t. There was a faint redness across her cheeks, and she avoided looking directly at me for a moment.

So she was embarrassed.

That made it worse.

She knew. She had looked in the mirror, seen everything, probably stood there debating whether she should cover it, and then deliberately walked downstairs like this anyway.

Why? Phoenix pride? A declaration of victory? Psychological warfare against her husband?

Whatever her reason, it was working.

As for me... Embarrassed?

No.

Unfortunately, my problem was considerably more primitive.

I felt hot.

Ah, damn it.

My eyes betrayed me and drifted toward those marks again. One glance was enough for my body to enthusiastically remember the entire morning.

I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself down.

Seris shifted in her chair.

My heart thumped harder.

Damn it!

Apparently researcher logic had encountered an unexpected system failure.

Because beneath the Royal Magus, the corrupted researcher, and the lunatic who considered intelligent SSS-rank chimeras an interesting breakfast thought experiment, there remained one painfully simple biological fact.

I was still a man.

A married man.

And apparently my instincts had looked at this morning’s activities and concluded, ’I want to do it again.’

I took a slow drink. ’Behave,’ I told myself.

The others had noticed too. Nia’s fox ears twitched the moment she looked at Seris. Her eyes dropped briefly toward the visible marks before sliding toward me. She smiled into her cup.

Lily’s gaze bounced between us once, and her lips curled upward.

Ariel simply smiled at Seris. A very warm smile.

Liora looked at Seris, then at me, before calmly returning to her breakfast.

I waited.

Honestly, I’d already prepared myself for the teasing.

But strangely enough, none of them said a thing.

They noticed. There were knowing smiles, brief glances toward Seris, and occasionally someone looked at me before quietly returning to their food.

That was all.

And I was surprisingly grateful for it.

Really, it was almost unsettling how mature everyone was being about this.

No teasing. No embarrassing questions. No unnecessary comments about what two married people had obviously been doing upstairs.

Just quiet understanding.

I had good wives.

So I did the equally mature thing and continued eating while pretending I hadn’t spent the last several minutes mentally preparing for an interrogation that never came.

Eventually, the plates emptied.

Servants began clearing the table while I leaned back, finally satisfied. My body felt significantly better after eating, and the exhaustion from crafting had faded enough that standing no longer seemed like a personal challenge issued by gravity.

Because I had business to handle.

I wiped my mouth and looked around the table. "Do you girls have time for me after this?" My gaze settled particularly on Liora. "Especially you, Liora."

Liora immediately became attentive. That alone told her this wasn’t about romance. If I specifically needed the woman who managed our finances, there was usually money involved.

Seris glanced at the others. "We have time." She looked back at me. "Do you want to do something?"

"Yes." I smiled. "We need to collect our money."