Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1672 Eccentric Void Mage

The mage didnʼt turn. Didnʼt so much as twitch in the direction of her commanderʼs voice, and the dismissal was so total that Lilithʼs sentence died mid-word, leaving the leader of the Scarlet Lilies standing with her mouth open and her diplomatic speech in ruins.

”Orc Boss wants to believe your cute and adorable ghost girlʼs story,” Void said, looking up at Quinlan with those open violet eyes and the lazy cadence that made every word sound like it cost her physical effort to produce. ”She wants to move past everything.”

A pause.

”But she and her old, stubborn head have issues with that...”

From behind, Scar made an indignant sound. ”This... woman just called me a cute and adorable ghost girl?”

”So hereʼs my proposal...” Void lifted one hand from beneath her robes, fingers loose, and the gesture carried the same exhausted nonchalance as everything else about her. ”Let us join you for a few days, watch you work... My partners are adventurers who have been accepting quests from dubious sources for a living for a very, very long time... They need to see, not to be told... Thatʼs how their brains are wired...”

Then she sent Morgana a glance and, just like the rest of Quinlanʼs girls, was openly amused by her predicament before adding, ”Certain circumstances have made working together even harder, but...”

She extended the hand toward Quinlan, open, waiting.

”Deal?”

The single word hung between them in the space where Lilithʼs speech should have been, and the silence that followed was the silence of four women watching the laziest member of their party conduct diplomacy without permission.

Quinlan looked at the hand. Then at the violet gaze above it.

”I donʼt like unknowns sniffing around at my back,” he said. ”Especially not ones on your level.”

Voidʼs grin changed.

”I see, but...”

The amusement drained from it in a single breath and what replaced it was older and colder, a smile that showed too many teeth and reached her open eyes with a cruelty so casual it was clear sheʼd always chosen not to use it.

”You already have the best blackmail material you need...” she said, and her tone didnʼt waver, which made it worse. ”If we act against you...”

Her thumb jerked over her shoulder toward Scar, then made a slow cutting motion back over her own throat, slicing it slowly.

”Just destroy her.”

The words landed like a stone dropped into still water.

”Hey?!”

Scarʼs voice cracked through the silence, sharp and raw. The ice-blue eyes behind her mask went wide, and for the first time since the Lilies had stepped through the gate, the assassin looked genuinely rattled.

”What?!” Lilithʼs shout overlapped Scarʼs by half a second, raw disbelief punching through her restraint.

Void did not turn around for either of them. ”But if things work out between us… Isnʼt it worth a try?”

Her stare stayed on Quinlan, and the smile stayed exactly where it was.

Their best friendʼs existence was the most honest form of collateral that existed, and Void had put it on the table with the same energy she used to complain about walking.

Quinlan looked at her.

The visor gave away nothing. The silence stretched for three seconds, then five, then seven, and the courtyard held its breath while the Primordial Villain and the Void Mage measured each other across a distance measured in inches and a history measured in blood.

Then his hand came up and closed around hers.

”Deal.”

”Master?!”

Scarʼs voice hit a register that nobody in the courtyard had ever heard from her. The cute and adorable ghost girlʼs mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

No words came out.

Several of Quinlanʼs women covered their mouths at the sight, because watching Scar malfunction was so far outside the established order of reality that it circled all the way back around to precious.

Quinlan released Voidʼs hand and turned his attention toward Lilith. The leader of the Scarlet Lilies was still standing where her diplomatic speech had died, her composure in pieces, her mouth slightly open, and the expression she wore suggested she was going to have a very long conversation with her mage at the earliest opportunity.

”Come with us then, ladies. We have a nation to overthrow.”

He turned and walked, and his women fell in around him without needing to be told, the movement so practiced and immediate that it looked less like obedience and more like gravity, a man pulling his people forward and every one of them already in stride by the time he took his second step.

As the rest turned to follow, Feng stopped in front of Morgana.

”Mouth shut. Stay close. Donʼt look like youʼre plotting our painful deaths every passing second.”

She didnʼt wait for an answer, just turned and walked, the smirk still in place.

Morganaʼs hands curled at her sides. The look she sent after the girlʼs back could have curdled milk, but she followed, obedient.

Scar scoffed as she passed by Void.

”Weʼll discuss this later.”

Void stood in the space between the two groups and watched the receding backs of the Primordial Villainʼs company, her violet eyes half-closed again lazily.

Then she turned to face her allies.

Lilithʼs mouth was still open. Bronnyaʼs gauntleted hand was frozen in the air where she had reached for Void and missed. Jallenʼs grip on her spear had gone white. She was recalculating everything she thought she knew about the quietest member of her party.

Void lifted both hands.

Two thumbs up. The grin beneath them was so smug it bordered on criminal. ”Youʼre welcome.”

”Void...” Lilith managed, her voice thin.

”Not interested~”

But before the rest of the captainʼs words came, the mage was already gone.

She blinked across the dozen meters between herself and Scarʼs retreating back and landed on the assassin like a cat dropping from a high shelf, her arms looping around Scarʼs neck and her legs hooking around the smaller womanʼs waist.

”!!” Scar staggered. The assassin was the smallest of the Scarlet Lilies by a comfortable margin, and the sudden addition of an adult woman to her back drove her forward two lurching steps before her balance caught up with the insult.

”Get off me!”

”Carry.”

”Go to Bronnya, damn it!”

”Donʼt want Bronnya. She smells like sweat, mead, and metal.” Voidʼs chin settled onto Scarʼs shoulder, and her lids drifted shut as she inhaled deeply against her blue skin. Sheʼd found her preferred mode of transport, and she had no intention of negotiating. ”Want you.”

”Why?!”

Instead of responding, Voidʼs tongue dragged a slow, flat line up the side of Scarʼs neck, from collar to jaw, with the unhurried thoroughness of a woman sampling something at a market stall.

Scarʼs entire body locked.

”Mm. You taste just like you smell... Lavender and night frost...” Void murmured against the wet trail sheʼd left, eyes still shut, dreamy and satisfied. ”Youʼre even the perfect temperature to lie on, like a warmer popsicle...”

Scarʼs next step landed wrong. Her boot caught a root or a stone or the sheer weight of her indignation, and the lurch that followed sent both of them pitching forward at an angle that should have ended face-first in the dirt. The assassin caught herself at the last possible instant with a recovery so graceless it would have gotten her killed in any stealth operation, her arms pinwheeling once before locking back around the legs clamped to her waist.

Ahead of them, several of Quinlanʼs women looked back at the sound and the grins that spread across their faces were instantaneous.

Void didnʼt open her eyes. She just inhaled against Scarʼs collar again and hummed, content.

Behind them, the remaining three Scarlet Lilies stood in the dirt and stared at the retreating image of their member riding their former comrade like a pack mule into enemy territory, having just negotiated terms of alliance that their actual leader had been halfway through botching.

Bronnyaʼs hand finally lowered from the empty air. ”Guess Iʼve been replaced, huh... Shortie will have it tough.”

”Sheʼll never let Void on her back ever again, that much is certain.”

Jallen sighed and planted her spear in the ground and leaned on it.

”...Letʼs move,” Lilith murmured, and started walking.

The Scarlet Lilies followed the Primordial Villainʼs company into the march, intent to see just how he and his allies operated with their own two eyes.

…