Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2538: I’m Not Done Even If She Is

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Central Region, Central Academic City, Morningstar University District, Morningstar University Campus, Garden of Beginning, Time Vestige, Morningstar University 2nd Campus

”Call it blackmail or a threat—whichever suits you. I want the Southern Princess to have a seat on the council, and I want her to know she has my full support. You have one week,” I said, savoring the chance to show Lucine what it feels like to be played by someone you thought was a friend. She had taken me hostage using the time vestige. I still was, in one way or another. It was only fair she tasted the same treatment. ”By now, you should understand what happens when you cross me.”

Back when I was neck-deep in dark-realm trouble, the Southern Princess quietly struck a deal with the freedom fighters, who were desperately seeking my help to keep their bankrupt ass afloat and sinking cause alive. At first, I assumed she did it to spite me for taking her trusted aide, Field Marshal Lorn.

But things escalated quickly. Somehow, the world leaders stacking outside of the dungeons linked to the Yellow Plains planet found out about the deal. Instead of waiting any longer, they decided to launch a joint raid on the freedom fighters.

Desperate, the Freedom Fighters reached out to their new ally for help, only to find that they couldn’t reach the Southern Princess at all. Every attempt to contact her failed. Henricks even abandoned the battlefront to track her down, but she was nowhere to be found. As a last resort, he came to Lil’ Red Storm, where he had previously dropped off me and Field Marshal Lorn, hoping the Field Marshal could help locate her.

But the Field Marshal—who had recently become a devil merchant—had already entered sector WS9909 to pursue a higher level on the Martial Path. With no way to find her, Henricks eventually opened up to me, though it took a bit of nudging on my part.

Once I understood what the Freedom Fighters were facing, I negotiated my own terms before offering any help. It wasn’t until I officially took the Freedom Fighters under my wing that I learned the truth: the Southern Princess herself had leaked their situation to the World Leaders and had been avoiding them on purpose.

In the end, I gained both the Freedom Fighters and the D-rank Silver Beach Dungeon for a fraction of the price Henricks had originally demanded.

Why did she do this? It was her way of offering peace. She had orchestrated events that might cause Anna to lose her love for me—just as she had once lost her love for her mother by walking too far down the extreme path and embracing it. That same chain of events had also led to me taking Field Marshal Lorn away from her.

Finding out that she tried to reconcile by giving me such a generous offering caught me off guard. But I had no interest in making peace with her. How dare she meddle in my relationship with Anna? I was still undecided about who I should choose as my partner, but now I almost wanted to choose Anna just to spite her mother. Yet I knew that would be unfair to both Anna and myself, so I forced myself to calm down.

I couldn’t simply hand the Freedom Fighters back to her. They weren’t objects I could return—they were people, with hearts and will of their own. So I began searching for the perfect replacement, something I could send back instead, something that would deliver my message clearly.

And today, I finally found it. With this, she would understand that I wasn’t finished with Anna—not even if Anna was finished with me.

I couldn’t wait for the meeting Colleen had promised between the Southern Princess and me. I already knew exactly where she was, but I couldn’t just go to her. That would make it seem like I had nothing better to do, or worse, that I was so eager to see her that I dropped all my responsibilities just for her.

No—that was not how our first meeting should happen. It mattered too much. It would shape the tone of our relationship going forward. The stronger I appeared, the better. Ideally, I’d tear into her the moment we met, but she was too sharp for that approach. Still, this was good enough.

”Wyatt, you’re being unreasonable. This isn’t your neighborhood watch council where you can appoint anyone you like,” Lucine said, rejecting my demand outright. ”I can’t come up with a single logical reason to even propose giving the Southern Princess a seat on the council to the council—much less actually place her on the council within a week. It’s just illogical.”

She made it clear she wasn’t going to bend, no matter how much I pressed her.

”What’s truly illogical is how you all stripped the Southern Princess and her family of what rightfully belongs to them just because she married a jerk. You can’t justify rejecting her in the first place, yet now you’re worried about justifying why she should receive what’s already her family’s due.

And tell me—what’s the point of having members of the Southern Royal Family take an oath not to reveal the council’s existence or secrets to anyone outside those who already know, if you’re going to punish them for their choice of partner anyway? From where I stand, your Morningstar University’s time-vestige council feels no different from a gossipy neighborhood committee—acting on whims rather than the purpose it was created for.

Lucine, you know in your heart that the Southern Princess is the right choice for that seat. She’s proven herself again and again to the people of the Southern Region and all the other Four Regions. She’s the one currently leading the fight against the looming second demonic invasion.

Are you really going to ignore everything she’s done just because she once married someone who didn’t deserve her love or loyalty? Think about how absurd that sounds. And tell me this—weren’t you young once? Didn’t you make mistakes you regret now? Yet something good still came from them, didn’t it? The same applies to the Southern Princess.

So here it is: either you give her the seat, or I come for all of you.”

I laid it out plainly, making sure Lucine understood just how unfair the council was being—and that if they didn’t place the Southern Princess on the council by the end of the week, they wouldn’t just be slighting her. They’d be making an enemy out of me. The time vestige might be under the protection of the Time Supreme, Kronos, but their original campus back in the Central Academic City definitely wasn’t.