Chapter 110 – The Inconvenient Weaver.

The tip of the black steel dagger halted less than ten centimeters from Zarek's throat.

Diana stood with her weight planted firmly on the courtyard gravel, her two obsidian horns crackling with a cold spark of mana and the golden rings of her vertical pupils narrowed in sheer indignation.

“Explain this idiocy right now,” Diana hissed through clenched teeth. “Before I test an ice spike right through the center of your forehead.”

Zarek did not draw his swords, nor did he retreat a single step.

The arachnid demon merely tilted his head to the side, regarding the black blade so close to his neck with an easygoing smile, crossing his two main arms over his chest while his four secondary chitinous arms calmly cracked their knuckles.

“You're even prettier when you're angry, you know that?” Zarek said in a velvety tone.

“I didn't ask about my face, you piece of a spider!” Diana took a step forward, nearly pressing the metal against his gray skin. “You are a Level 60 Candidate for Wrath. Why the hell are you in my courtyard talking about being a 'consort' to a Second Circle faction?!”

Zarek let out a brief sigh, leaning his shoulder against the manor's granite wall with complete nonchalance:

“The Succession War of Wrath in the Seventh Circle is an absolute bore, Diana,” Zarek began explaining, gesturing with two of his secondary hands. “It's a bunch of ogres and brute demons who only know how to roar, sever heads, and drown in their own blood without using a single brain cell to plan a route. I grew tired of fighting stone-brained morons, so I decided to climb up to the middle Circles.”

He fixed all six eyes on Diana, the amber and crimson glow charged with unabashed interest:

“Then I see a human girl who evolved into an Archdemon, climbed down a collapsed rift all on her own, studies anatomical weak points before striking, and bores through the shell of a Level 46 armadillo using her own horns as a thermal focus...”

Zarek spread his arms with a broad grin of sharp, white teeth:

“You have the mind of a general, devastating firepower, and an ambition that can be felt from a hundred meters away. I don't want a pointless blood duel with you. I want to stand beside the woman who is going to set all Seven Circles ablaze.”

***

Diana stared at the six-armed man in silence for ten long seconds.

Her 195 Intelligence mind processed the explanation, understood the warrior's logic, and arrived at an instantaneous, undeniable conclusion.

“The answer is no,” Diana stated, her voice as cold as granite.

Zarek blinked his primary eyes. “No?”

“No, spelled out in every letter of the infernal tongue.” Diana withdrew her dagger and sheathed it at her waist with a dry snap. “I am the leader of the Arcane Greed Faction. I am not looking for a husband, a boyfriend, or a consort. I have an estate in the Second Circle, four companions waiting for me, and a Throne of Sin to conquer. I don't have time for absurd romances with a meddling swordsman.”

She pointed her black-clawed index finger toward the courtyard's iron gate:

“Hop back over that wall and vanish from my property.”

—HAHAHAHAHA!

The System's voice exploded in Diana's mind in black gold, laughing with pure mockery:

—Turned down a proposal from a Level 60 Blade Master in three seconds! Diana, your track record of shattering romantic expectations is legendary across two different worlds!

Shut up, System, Diana snarled internally, turning her back on Zarek and walking toward the kitchen door.

***

Diana entered the ground-floor kitchen, slammed the wooden door shut, and bolted the deadbolt.

She grabbed a wooden cutting board, a kitchen knife, and a cut of cured meat she had bought at the market to prepare dinner over the stone hearth.

Click.

The side window of the kitchen swung open gently from the outside.

Diana turned her head, knife still in hand.

Zarek was sitting on the windowsill with his legs swung inside, holding one of his curved moon steel swords in his primary right hand and a red turnip in his secondary left hand.

With a flick of motion so fast her eyes could barely track it, Zarek's lunar blade flashed through the air four times.

Swish-swish-swish.

The turnip and the cured meat on the counter were diced into flawless half-centimeter cubes in less than a second, tumbling neatly into the iron pot atop the burner.

Diana stared at the vegetables chopped with surgical precision, then looked at Zarek's brazen expression in the window.

“DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THE WORD 'NO'?!” Diana shouted, the vein on her forehead bulging near her horn.

Zarek wiped the sword's tip with the pad of his finger and sheathed the blade across his back with a calm smile:

“Initial rejection is just part of courtship, gorgeous. I'm Level 60, I have endless patience, and I'm very stubborn. I won't force you into anything, but as long as you're in the Third Circle, I'm covering your back.”

He slipped down from the windowsill with the silent tread of a spider, picked up the wooden spoon from the counter with one of his secondary hands, and began stirring the broth in the pot as naturally as if he had lived there for ten years:

“You have no physical vanguard down here, Commander. If a heavy patrol of Beelzebub's inquisitors shows up with four Level 60 soldiers, you're going to need someone to trade steel while you channel your ice lances.”

***

Diana crossed her arms over her chest, watching the six-armed man stir the soup on her stove.

Her analytical mind weighed the situation:

Zarek was absurdly inconvenient, shameless, and harbored romantic notions that made Diana's stomach churn with sheer embarrassment. 

But he was a Level 60 Candidate for Wrath. Having a fighter of that caliber nearby, even unofficially, created a safety net against any heavy scrutiny from the local nobility before she reached Level 50.

Diana pulled out a wooden chair, sat at the table, and took up a clay bowl.

“If you touch a single silver coin in my vault...” Diana said, her voice razor-sharp, “...I will figure out how to set your webs on fire and break all six of your arms one by one.”

Zarek chuckled warmly, ladling the stew into Diana's bowl with two hands and passing her a clean spoon with a third:

“Deal, future Partner.”

Diana took her first spoonful of hot soup, grumbling softly into the buttery broth.

The food was excellent, the money in the vault remained untouched, but the Commander of Greed now had a Level 60 swordsman perched in her kitchen.

Routine in the Third Circle had just become infinitely more complicated.