Chapter 92: The Fairy Entered My Bath Time [Part 3]

Chapter 92. The Fairy Entered My Bath Time [Part 3]

Her eyes flashed. "You never lost your value, Rey."

I stared at her.

She meant it. Not because I was useful. She simply meant me.

Something in my chest twisted again.

"For them," I said quietly, "I already did."

"Because of your curse?"

"No."

I watched another flower drift across the water. "Because the Dark Lord is dead."

Lily fell silent.

It was the ugly little truth beneath everything.

"This world needed Rey Valen because of the Dark Lord," I continued. "A commoner becoming Royal Magus didn’t matter when humanity needed every weapon available. My personality didn’t matter. My background didn’t matter. Darius could hate me all he wanted, but he still needed my magic."

My fingers moved lazily through the water.

"I was useful."

Lily’s expression tightened.

"The Five Heroes needed someone who could build formations none of them understood. Kingdoms needed the man capable of analyzing the Dark Lord’s magic. Armies needed my spells. The Temple tolerated whatever they disliked because there was something worse standing in front of us."

I laughed softly.

"Then we won."

The laugh died almost immediately.

"The Dark Lord died, and suddenly everyone had time to notice that one of their heroes was a cursed commoner carrying traces of the enemy’s power."

Lily looked furious now.

Not at me.

For me.

That was somehow more painful.

"Once the Dark Lord disappeared, Rey Valen stopped being necessary," I said. "I became dangerous without being indispensable."

"That’s not fair."

I smiled faintly. "Nothing is fair."

"That’s a terrible answer."

"It’s still true."

Lily frowned.

I reached up and placed my wet hand over hers. "Fairness is something people demand when reality doesn’t cooperate. Reality usually doesn’t care."

"That sounds like something an old, bitter man would say."

"I made an old-man noise when I entered the bath earlier. Apparently I’ve entered that stage of life."

That finally pulled a tiny laugh from her.

I preferred that sound.

My thumb brushed across her fingers. "That’s why I didn’t bring any of you today."

Her smile faded.

"I wasn’t trying to prove I could handle everything alone. I wasn’t underestimating you. If anything, I know exactly how strong all of you are."

"Then trust us."

"I do."

"Rey..."

"I trust you enough that I refuse to let you stand beside something that could corrupt your mana core just because you want to protect me."

She stopped.

I held her gaze.

"If an ordinary monster hurts me, fine. I’ll heal. If someone attacks me, I’ll kill them. If the dungeon collapses, I’ll teleport. Those are risks I can calculate." My voice lowered. "That artifact wasn’t."

Her eyes widened slightly.

"It was that dangerous?"

"Yes."

The Maledict Sovereign Crystal sat safely sealed inside my Dimensional Ring, but merely thinking about its effects made my expression harden.

"It had been corrupting Hollowgrave for years. Monsters evolved because of it. Their intelligence increased. Their mana changed. Another SSS-rank Sacred Artifact sitting beside it became corrupted simply from prolonged exposure."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I squeezed her hand.

"But there’s something else you should know."

She looked at me.

I hesitated.

This was harder to say than anything about the Light Temple.

"So for me..." I began quietly, "having all of you stay beside me when I was at my worst means more than you probably understand."

Lily’s expression softened.

"When I was cursed, I wasn’t charming. I wasn’t stable. I wasn’t particularly pleasant to live with." I smiled bitterly. "Half the time, I could barely distinguish pain from anger. Everyone else was gradually stepping away, but you five stayed."

Her eyes glistened.

"You stayed when there wasn’t anything to gain from it."

"Rey..."

"You fed me. Ariel managed the house. Seris protected it. Nia kept finding ways to keep everything functioning. Liora protected what remained of my finances. None of you knew whether I would recover."

My throat tightened unexpectedly.

"You stayed anyway."

Lily’s fingers curled around mine.

"That matters to me more than defeating the Dark Lord. More than being Royal Magus. More than whatever reputation this world decides to give me."

I lifted her hand and pressed it against my chest.

My heartbeat thudded beneath her palm.

"I’ll repay every single one of you."

Lily stared at me.

Then her expression changed. Not touched or pleased. Annoyed. "No."

I blinked. "What?"

"You won’t."

"That wasn’t the response I expected."

"You won’t repay us."

She leaned closer. Her forehead gently touched mine.

"We aren’t creditors, idiot."

I froze.

Her voice softened. "We stayed because we loved you." The words landed harder than anything Hollowgrave had thrown at me. "You don’t owe us for that."

Her nose brushed mine as she smiled through damp eyes.

"If you really want to give us something, then come home."

I couldn’t speak.

"Come home late. Come home dirty. Come home grumpy. Come home covered in monster blood if you absolutely must." Her fingers pressed gently against my chest. "But come home."

My eyes burned.

Annoying steam.

Definitely steam.

Yet something inside me cracked quietly.

For two lives, I’d learned to measure myself by usefulness. Strength. Intelligence. Research. Magic. If I couldn’t offer something valuable, people eventually stopped looking my way.

But Lily wasn’t asking me to return victorious.

She just wanted me to come home.

Alive.

"We don’t want to lose you," Lily whispered.

My chest tightened so painfully that, for once, I had no sarcastic thought to hide behind.

I pulled Lily closer and kissed her forehead. "You will never lose me."

Her fingers curled against my chest.

I smiled against her forehead.

For the first time, that didn’t feel like a promise made because someone needed me.

It felt like a promise made because someone loved me.

"Then I’ll just spend the rest of my life being ridiculously good to all of you for completely unrelated reasons."

Lily laughed softly. "I’ll allow that."

And somehow, sitting in the same bath where Rey Valen had once soaked alone in freezing Holy Water, desperately fighting not to lose himself, I finally understood something the original Rey might never have allowed himself to believe.

He hadn’t lost all his value when the Dark Lord died.

Maybe value had never been the right word in the first place.

Because outside this room were five women who weren’t waiting for a hero, a Royal Magus, or a weapon useful enough to save humanity.

They were waiting for their husband.

And that... was enough.