Chapter 483: Family Drama II

The recording ended and the screen flickered back to a live view of the three of them resting silently on the grass.

Adrian sat there in the dark hut, staring at the floating screen.

His chest felt incredibly heavy.

He leaned his head back against the bamboo planks and let out a long, shaky breath.

They didn’t care.

They didn’t care that he was from Earth. They didn’t care that he stole a body. They just cared that he was an idiot who locked them in a safe room while he went to do something stupid on his own.

A strange mix of overwhelming relief and intense guilt washed over him. Claire was right. He was playing the lone savior. He was treating them like delicate objects that needed to be put on a shelf while he handled the mess in this continent. He was indeed keeping them safe, but in return, completely ignoring their actual feelings.

He rubbed his tired face.

’Fuck,’ he thought. ’I really am an idiot.’

Adrian let out a heavy sigh.

The weight of the situation was settling onto his shoulders and it was honestly suffocating. He sat in the dark corner of the bamboo hut for another long minute before he finally stood up and turned to look at Vance and Octavia.

"Make sure no one comes inside," Adrian said. "I have something I must take care of."

Octavia immediately bowed her head.

"As you wish, my lord," she said.

The very next instant, Adrian vanished from where he was standing and appeared right in front of the three girls on the lush green grass. A calm breeze brushed past his face as all three of them looked up at him at the exact same time.

The first one to react was Aria. It had barely been a fraction of a second since he materialized, but she was gone from where she was. She teleported and crashed into his legs and wrapped her small arms around him, burying her face into his shirt.

Meanwhile, the other two were still sitting on the ground. They were completely frozen as they processed his sudden appearance.

Adrian just looked down and wrapped his arms around Aria. He hugged her back tightly.

"You don’t have to apologize," Adrian said before she could even say anything. "You are fine. Well, I won’t say you didn’t do anything wrong, but it is what it is."

He opened his mouth and was just about to say something else when Claire moved.

She crossed the distance between them in a blur. Her fist flew through the air and slammed straight into his face.

The sound of the impact echoed across the empty fields.

But Adrian did not say anything. He did not raise his hand to block and nor did he use his telekinesis to slow her down. He just stood there and took the full force of a B-Rank Knight’s punch straight to the nose.

His head snapped back from the force.

Aria gasped and immediately released the hug. She took a step back and turned to look at Claire in shock.

Serena had finally stood up from the grass and she had the exact same horrified reaction as Aria. She covered her mouth with both hands.

Adrian slowly brought his hand up to his face. He pinched his nostrils together with two fingers. A sharp, stinging pain was radiating through his skull. He brought his hand back down and looked at his fingers to see thick red blood smudged on his fingers.

He looked up at Claire.

Claire was breathing heavily while glaring at him with pure rage, but he could clearly see the fresh tears pooling in her eyes.

Adrian took a deep, shaky breath.

"I apologize," he said.

"Apologize for what?" Claire snapped. Her voice was shaking violently.

"Well," Adrian muttered. "For not telling you about everything myself."

"I don’t care about that!" Claire screamed at him.

Adrian let out a soft sigh. He really hated dealing with intense emotional confrontations since he was always terrible at navigating them from the start. Even back on earth, he wasn’t great at it but he knew he couldn’t just walk away from this one.

"What do you want?" Adrian asked plainly.

"Take us out of this place," Claire demanded. "And what even are your plans? What the hell are you doing outside on your own?"

Hearing these rapid-fire questions made Adrian’s headache worse. He took a deep breath through his mouth since his nose was currently blocked by swelling. He could taste and smell his own blood dripping down his throat.

He exhaled really sharp and loud. A few droplets of blood flew from his nostrils and fell onto the grass below.

"Fuck," Adrian muttered and wiped his mouth and nose with the back of his sleeve. "That punch was kinda... it hurt."

He shook his head and refocused on Claire.

"Right," Adrian said. "I am sorry, but I am not taking you out of here. Not no matter what you say or do. You can punch me again if you want, but you are staying inside."

Claire gritted her teeth.

"And secondly," Adrian continued. "Nothing is going to change even if I tell you anything right now, is it? All it is going to do is make you worry even more. There is no point."

"You said you loved me!" Claire yelled. She stepped forward and shoved him in the chest. "Is this how you treat the person you love? Leave them in the dark while you do whatever you want? For all I can say, you might be cheating on me right now!"

Serena immediately frowned and stepped closer.

"Claire," Serena said softly. "You know he is not going to do that."

Claire just turned and gave Serena a vicious death stare.

"Well, you never know," Claire spat.

Adrian just stared at her. He saw right through her flimsy plan. She was just throwing out wild accusations to get him to defend himself and spill his actual plans.