Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1805: Dropping In

Alexios stood in the thawing basement, watching the primordial who had just confiscated his own miracle pill, and waited for the words ’let me try something else’ to grow an explanation.

They didn’t.

”Try what?” the king demanded. ”Try what, exactly?”

”Why don’t you trust me for once, old friend?”

Alexios couldn’t help but blink. Did this creature truly utter those words just now?

Whatever he was about to say, Quinlan was no longer listening. His gaze had already gone somewhere past the mansion, past the night itself, and a faint crimson sheen rolled across his eyes while he hummed to himself.

Through [Overlord’s Eyes], a cozy little scene arrived from far away: a warm common room, a teacup in a familiar, delicate hand, and two women laughing at whatever story his alchemist was telling.

”Perfect. They’re still at it.”

Quinlan flicked two fingers, and a [Warp Gate] unfolded.

”Iris. Would you accompany me for a short trip? Been a while since we spent time together.”

”...I’m guarding the corpse.” Iris grunted, arms crossed.

Quinlan tilted his head toward the gate. ”Come. You’ll enjoy this.”

”I won’t.”

”Please?”

”...” She shoved off the pillar, muttering something about clingy bastards and their field trips.

The gate soon swallowed them all.

...

The common room of the inn was down to its last lamp and its best company. Aurora had both hands in the air, sculpting the climax of some story, and Lucille was laughing into her knuckles beside her.

A young woman with brown hair nursed a lukewarm teacup, pretending, poorly, not to smile.

Behind the counter, a broad man with a tired, honest face dried the day’s last mugs while a round-cheeked woman stacked them beside him.

The air behind the two laughing women warped.

Neither the Essenceweaver nor the Bloodmonger sensed a thing. One heartbeat the space at their backs held nothing but lamplight, and the next it held a primordial, and two arms landed on two shoulders at once.

”Evening, ladies.”

Aurora’s yelp nearly took her out of her chair. Lucille’s came out as half a shriek and half his name, and then both women were on their feet and rounding on him.

”Quin! You sneak~!” Lucille giggled.

”Why did you not give us a heads up...? Use your abilities...” Aurora huffed.

Whatever else they had for him died in transit. He gathered them in by the waist, one to each arm, pulled them flush against him, and kissed Lucille first, long enough that her fists gave up on his chest, then Aurora, long enough that she forgot she’d been mid-lecture.

When he finally let them breathe, neither made any move to leave his arms, and Aurora’s glare had all the fury of a lit candle.

”Baby, you never visit, and now, tonight, of all the...” Lucille accused, glowing.

”Got some business with Aurora,” Quinlan smirked.

”Oh, so it was all just a coincidence again...” It was the caramel-haired beauty’s turn to pout with deadly efficiency.

The rest of the common room, meanwhile, was losing its mind.

A mug hit the floorboards.

Cela had backed into the shelves with both hands pressed over her mouth, working her way up to a proper scream that never arrived, because her eyes finished before her lungs could start.

She knew that face. Half the continent knew it, but she had seen it with her own two eyes, once, a lifetime and one relocation ago.

Robert made no sound at all.

The innkeeper stood exactly where recognition had found him, white as morning bread, towel dangling forgotten from one hand. The wolf was back, and this time it hadn’t even used the door.

”Breathe, Cela,” Mavena was already up and moving, planting herself in front of the round-cheeked woman and catching both her hands. ”It’s fine. That’s...” A pause worth a whole biography. ”...He’s not an enemy.”

”I know who he is,” Cela whispered, without blinking once.

Behind them, the warped air delivered its afterthoughts: a black-haired swordswoman who stepped out with her arms already crossed, and an old soldier in a travel hood who emerged with all the dignity a man can salvage while climbing out of a hole in the world into a village taproom.

Cela made a very small sound and sat down on a crate, just as Quinlan loosened his hold on his two women, and his attention traveled to the counter.

”Robert.” His voice was warm. ”It’s been a long time. How have you been?”

Then his eyes traveled to the woman he didn’t know by sight, and grinned. ”I see fortune hasn’t been terrible to you...”

For a long moment the innkeeper didn’t answer, because somewhere in his head a vow was dying.

He’d sworn it to himself in a shabby lounge what felt like a lifetime ago but was less than a year ago: whatever woman fate granted him next would never, ever stand in the same room as this man.

He’d built the vow a new town, a new inn, a new life. And the man had stepped out of the air itself, ten feet from her, without using a door for the vow to guard.

Robert set down the towel, came around the counter on legs that had opinions about it, and placed himself between the primordial and his wife’s crate. Terrified, bloodless, and standing there anyway, he surrendered to etiquette.

”...Cela. My wife.” A pause, then, through gravel: ”Cela, this is...”

”Lord Quinlan,” she breathed.

Robert’s introduction died in his mouth.

His wife had come off her crate, smoothing her apron with both hands, cheeks glowing, and the words left her in one unstoppable ribbon. ”I was there. At the Square, at the old stronghold, the day you took it from the Wraithclaws. My boy was on my shoulders, he saw you walking on the sky before I did, I didn’t believe him until I looked up myself, and you had the... the head, on your saber, and...”

She caught herself mid-babble, curtsied to the lord, wobbled, and finished faintly: ”I’m grateful for everything.”

The taproom took a respectful moment to honor that sentence.

”Ah, the Wraithclaws. That brings back memories...” Quinlan inclined his head to Cela with perfect courtesy, as though she had delivered a proper court address. ”Best audience a conqueror ever could ask for. I hope you’ll find the life you hoped for in Miri Town.”

Cela’s smile turned brilliant. ”I have. Life... it’s never been better, my lord.”

Beside her, Robert produced a sound that wanted very badly to be a growl and arrived as something closer to a hiccup. Of all the women in all the towns on the continent, he had married the one who told the story of the Square speech at every third dinner.

Then, mid-glow, reality caught up with her.

Cela’s eyes traveled back up to the lord, and widened. Then they traveled to the woman tucked under his arm, the overly pretty, sweet-smiling visitor who had sat in this taproom a hundred evenings with tea and gossip and pastry crumbs, and they widened a great deal further.

”W-w-w-wait.” Her finger rose, trembling, and aimed past Quinlan. ”Who... who are you?”

Lucille’s smile turned apologetic. She stayed exactly where she was, on the arm of the most dangerous being alive, and gave a tiny, guilty shrug.

”Lucille,” she said gently. ”It was always Lucille. Quinlan Elysiar’s lover.”

Cela sat back down on her crate without checking whether it was still there.

Mavena’s mother. The quiet beauty from ’somewhere far, a wanderer’ who complimented the stew and helped fold napkins when the evenings ran long. She had folded NAPKINS.

Cela never pried, despite some things not adding up. But...

Her head turned, very slowly, toward her husband. Robert studied the ceiling.

The alias had been Lucille’s idea from the very first visit.

If Miri Town ever learned that its innkeeper’s family stood one old marriage away from the Primordial Villain, the mundane life Robert and Mavena wanted would be over by sunrise: the inn a pilgrimage site, Mavena a celebrity, every regular replaced by gawkers.

So the Bloodmonger came as nobody, in a plain dress and a plainer name, and let her family stay ordinary. It was also why, tonight, Quinlan had stepped out of thin air inside the inn rather than let a single soul watch him walk its streets to their door.

Cela’s gaze dragged, with visible dread, to the platinum-haired guest. ”...You?”