Chapter 92 Home Warmth and Sapphire Ash

In front of the massive, oak doors of the Crossgard manor, Dave found himself completely stuck for a good five seconds.

He stood with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his sweatpants, feeling the familiar, clean stone of the porch beneath his boots, while his mind suffered a total social lag. After a year of brutal training deep in the wilderness, where his only companion was an old Sensei throwing logs at him and his own Vessel cracking under the sheer tonnage of KAI, returning to civilization felt strangely surreal.

Fuck knows what you even say after a year apart... he thought with quiet amusement. "Hey, I'm alive, didn't turn myself into fertilizer"?

Before he could come up with anything reasonable, he raised his hand and pushed the door wing open.

The brass lock gave way with a soft click, and a wave of domestic warmth hit him square in the face from inside the manor. The scent of roasted meat with rosemary, warm wood from the fireplace, and delicate herbal tea rushed into his nostrils, instantly wiping away his entire combat paralysis.

The girls sitting in the dining room froze mid-motion.

Shnee was the first to react. The goblet of water she was holding collided with the table with a dull thud. For a fraction of a second, pure shock flashed in her sapphire eyes, which immediately gave way to an overwhelming, uncontrollable relief. Before any of the others could even spring from their chairs, Shnee covered the distance of the hallway like a blue blur.

There was not a single trace of a commander's dignity in her. She threw herself around his neck with an impact that would have knocked an outsider to the ground, but Dave stood his ground without flinching, automatically wrapping an arm around her waist. Shnee buried her face in the crook of his neck, clutching the fabric of his shirt so tightly as if checking whether he wasn't just a returning phantom illusion.

"I missed you... you idiot," she whispered directly into his ear, her voice trembling in a way that no one in this world besides him had any right to hear.

"I know, kiddo. Missed you too," Dave muttered, stroking her back with a soft smile.

At that moment, the rest of the crew rushed into the hallway. Mina and Ria tackled him from the sides with joyful squeals, hugging his arms. Dave had to spread his arms to embrace the whole lively duo. Elena and Luthia stopped a step away. As the most mature pillar of the group, they waited patiently for the younger ones to vent their first wave of emotions before stepping up with warm, deep hugs.

"Welcome home, Dave," Elena said, looking into his eyes with a relief that reached all the way to her soul.

"Good to see you in one piece," Luthia added, a calm, rare smile blooming on her lips.

Karys stood modestly in the back, right by the carved sideboard. As a former slave, despite her regained freedom and the immense respect Dave showed her, she still didn't push herself to the front line. She held her hands clasped over her simple, clean dress, watching him with calm relief and respect. Dave noticed her over the girls' shoulders, flashed her a wink and a smile. Karys instantly blushed crimson, lowered her head slightly, and responded with the softest, most respectful smile she could muster.

And above it all, leaning on the staircase railing on the upper floor, sat Kaede. She was crunching a juicy, red apple, watching the entire welcome committee with her signature Earthly amusement.

"Oh, the boss returned in one piece!" she called down, swallowing a bite. "And I was already placing copper bets with Elena that Sensei turned you into oak fertilizer. Good to see you, Dave."

Simultaneously, through the familiar's pact connecting her to Shnee, she sent a quiet, warm mental signal into Dave's head: Glad you're back in full, boss.

After the emotional greeting, the entire crew moved to the dining room. The table was practically groaning under the weight of dishes prepared by Mina—roasted meats, steaming potatoes with herbs, and fresh bread filled the room with scents Dave had genuinely craved in the wild.

Dave sat at the head of the table. Instead of wine or strong liquor, a steaming mug of pure herbal tea landed in front of his hands. Dave wasn't a total teetotaler, but he simply didn't care much for alcohol, and the hot brew warmed his throat perfectly.

For the next hour, the dining room filled with the chatter of voices and the clatter of cutlery. Dave told them about the ordeal under Sensei—about tempering his Vessel, the silent Quick style, Gōtai cellular armoring, and the action with the bandits and Lucek, whom he crushed without a single wasted movement. The girls listened with open mouths, and Shnee repeatedly checked his hands with her eyes, as if looking for cracks.

At one point, Elena, looking at him over her mug of steaming brew, narrowed her eyes slightly and examined his face intently.

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"Wait... Dave," she began hesitantly, pointing a slender finger at him. "What's up with your eyes? Your signature sapphire eyes... they look like ordinary, plain blue now? What happened?"

Shnee and the rest of the girls instantly shifted their gaze to him, examining his irises.

"Ah, that," Dave smiled with ease, resting his elbows on the table. "Just a simple, frugal illusion spell. I masked the natural sapphire glow from my Soul and put on plain, ordinary blue. Did it for peace of mind. In Crossgard, with all those Guild and city guard informants around, glowing sapphire from a mile away would be a stupid provocation and asking for free trouble. This way, nobody asks dumb questions, and I get total peace of mind."

"Pragmatic as always," Shnee muttered, though a faint smile of approval for his tactical mindset tugged at the corners of her lips.

In return, the girls delivered their report on manor life and the situation in Crossgard. The dungeons beneath the city turned out to be a total nightmare. The team pushed all the way to the 79th floor, but on those deep levels—without Dave's raw tonnage and precise eye—closing danger zones bordered on a miracle. Shnee had to shoulder the burden of command, while Kaede served as a stationary radar through the pact.

When dinner came to an end, a pile of dirty platters, plates, and food scraps remained on the table. Mina instinctively rose from her chair to start gathering dishes, but Dave stopped her with a gentle wave of his hand, without letting go of his tea mug.

"Sit down, Mina. I'm doing the dishes tonight," he said with a smile.

"You? But you don't even have water or..." Elena started, but the words caught in her throat.

Without rising from his chair, Dave activated his new subconscious micro-telekinesis background loop.

A quiet, absolute silence descended upon the dining room. Bones, crumbs, and roast scraps slowly detached from the ceramic plates. They rose silently into the air, converging to a single point exactly one meter above the center of the oak table, forming a perfectly symmetrical, floating sphere of matter.

And then came a true sakuga animation spectacle.

From the tip of Dave's right index finger shot a microscopic, impossibly bright, sapphire-electric strand of weave magic. It zipped through the air like a liquid beam, then—held by a precise loop of telekinesis—detached from his finger. The sapphire spark wrapped around the sphere began to dance in space, forming a glowing, incredibly dense cocoon on the surface of the floating scraps.

The cocoon did not explode. It dug into the center of the sphere of matter. From inside the scraps, slow plasma discharges began to strike, igniting them from within. The sphere lit up with a pulsing, sapphire-gold light, slowly burning away and shrinking in a mesmerizing spectacle. After eight seconds, the entire matter underwent total annihilation, turning into a microscopic, golden-sapphire dust that simply vanished into the air without smoke or foul odor.

When the sphere vanished, the bare, perfectly clean plates, cutlery, and clay mugs rose into the air. In a silent, geometric cascade, they floated right beneath the ceiling straight into the kitchen sink, stacking into neat piles.

Dave followed the fading sapphire sparks with his eyes, took a calm sip of tea, and remarked with a smile:

"Damn... didn't think it'd turn out that pretty, but pretty dope, hehe."

The girls (and Kaede on the stairs!) literally dropped their jaws.

Late at night, the manor finally went quiet.

Dave lay in the huge bed in his bedroom, sinking into clean, fragrant sheets. After a year of sleeping on hard rocks and damp ground in Sensei's forest, this mattress felt like the pinnacle of luxury.

A quiet creak of the door announced Shnee's arrival. Dressed in a simple nightgown, she walked silently to the bed and slid under the blanket. She didn't lie beside him—she merged directly into his side, resting her head on his chest.

Dave wrapped an arm around her, letting the scent of her hair completely wash away the remaining combat tension.

Shnee slowly ran her hand over his chest and arms. Her delicate fingers encountered a dense network of small scars and cuts on his body—souvenirs from the exhausting armoring drills and forest fights.

"Ah, those..." Dave muttered with mild, charming surprise, realizing that in the rush of things, he had completely forgotten to regenerate them. "Relax, it's nothing."

Shnee didn't answer with words. She moved her hand higher, resting her soft palm on his cheek and stroking it with her thumb. In her eyes reflected the moonlight and a deep, hitherto hidden fear.

Dave focused for a second. From the surface of his skin from the neck down, an elastic, sapphire substance began to ooze—a regenerative slime that coated his entire body beneath his shirt. Underneath the sapphire coating, a gentle, healing flame lit up. After exactly eight seconds, the slime was completely absorbed by his tissues, and Dave's skin became perfectly clean, smooth, and free of any marks.

Shnee sighed softly, feeling the smooth body beneath her fingers, and snuggled tighter into his side.

"During this year... the worst part wasn't fighting in the dungeon," she whispered in the dark, her hand tightening on his shirt. "The worst part was the silence in the manor. When I looked at your empty chair and wondered if you'd ever come back."

"I came back, Shnee. And I'm not going anywhere," Dave answered, no trace of a joke in his voice. Just a hard, unbreakable promise. "I had to gain this strength. So that no noble, no one from the guild, and no monster in this world could ever dictate terms to us again."

Shnee raised her head slightly, looking up at him. Dave leaned down and kissed her gently on the forehead.

Shnee made a slightly unsatisfied face that the kiss landed on her forehead instead of her lips.

Dave noticed immediately and smiled with warm, deep amusement.

"It's still a bit too early to push our romantic relationship, kiddo," he said quietly, then hugged her tighter, encircling her entire body with his arms.

The hug was so gentle, safe, and full of pure warmth that Shnee instantly softened. A happy, soft smile bloomed on her lips, and her breathing began to slow down, drawing her into a well-deserved sleep.

When Shnee completely relaxed, her body limp, she shifted position. Her soft breast rested directly against Dave's side.

At that moment, pure human biology did its thing. Dave's young, healthy body reacted instantly—a sudden, uncontrolled "erection" occurred in his pants.

Dave froze for a second, staring at the bedroom ceiling, then shaking his head, muttered with amusement under his breath:

"Eh... a bit too early. In the future, sure, but for now... at ease, soldier."

Lying on his chest, Shnee, who hadn't fallen fast asleep yet, let out a tiny, giggle.

Dave grinned broadly, closed his eyes, and slowly drifted off to sleep alongside the rested "soldier."