Chapter 71: Manual Labor Yields No Romance

The jagged, wet lines slashed across the thick paper weren’t a chaotic mess; they were a desperate gamble disguised as a sudden outburst of temper.

Florianthum kept her gaze fixed on the parchment as the ink began to dry, turning from a glossy sheen to a dull, stark black. She had written only a single, brief line, utilizing the rigid, cold brevity of a military directive to mask the terror beneath it.

"The shadow from our beginning follows; his gaze never truly leaves."

To anyone else, it read like a poetic, melancholy phrase about a persistent enemy. But to Cassius, the message was painfully clear. By invoking the beginning, she was pointing directly to the origin of her nightmare, the suffocating, psychopathic obsession Lord Vilucious had trapped her in under the guise of love.

It was a silent admission that his possessiveness was closing in again, threatening to drag her back into that old, familiar cage.

A thick, suffocating quiet reclaimed the cellar.

From the edge of the gloom, Fukuro could barely contain himself. The tension was eating him alive, but curiosity was winning.

His lopsided glasses slid down the bridge of his nose as he craned his neck, his eyes wide and burning to see what the Lordess had written with his prized pink quill. He took one tentative, silent step forward, his boots pressing softly against the grit, his fake smile flattening into an eager, desperate squint. He was practically vibrating with the need to know the secret.

Cassius didn’t even turn his head.

Instead, the he simply extended his left arm toward the dark exit corridor. His massive, soot-stained hand flattened out, the heavy fingers pointing directly toward the exit. It was an agonizingly casual, nonchalant gesture; the kind one might use to wave away a persistent horsefly.

He didn’t blink. He just held his arm straight, an unyielding roadblock of muscle, silently telling Fukuro to get out.

Fukuro froze mid-stride, one foot hovering an inch above the stone floor. The sheer, dismissive casualness of the gesture cut deeper than a blow. His face flushed a dark, furious crimson, his fingers twitching violently against his sides.

Cassius didn’t move his arm until Fukuro’s retreating footsteps completely faded into the dark corridor past the exit. Only then did the clever vampire drop his hand, his broad shoulders relaxing a fraction.

He stepped closer to the high table, his towering frame casting a long, protective shadow over Florianthum.

He reached out, his massive, calloused fingers approaching her hand with astonishing gentleness. His fingertips lightly brushed against her skin; a soft, lingering warmth that quietly prompted her to let go.

Florianthum’s fingers loosened, and Cassius took the quill.

Moving with deliberate care, he dipped the sharp nib back into the ink jar. He didn’t pull a fresh sheet of paper toward himself. Instead, he leaned over the very same page she had just marked, aligning the quill right beneath her elegant, tragic sentence.

The rhythmic scratch of the feather returned, heavy yet perfectly controlled. He wrote in a surprisingly clean, solid script, utilizing the paper exactly like a shared, living chat screen.

"Go ahead. You are safe. I give you the promise of my soul."

He left the feather standing upright in the glass once more and stepped back, his dark grey eyes locking onto hers, waiting.

Florianthum stared at his steady, solid script. A tremor went through her chest, but she didn’t look up at him. She snatched the pink feather back from the jar, the wet ink nearly dripping onto her knuckles as she leaned over the page.

Her wrist moved in quick, desperate jerks.

"He was my lover. I was about to break up with him. Then the world ended... everything changed at once, and it was too late."

She pulled the quill away, leaving a small, dark smudge at the end of the sentence. Her boots swung slightly against the heavy oak table, the rhythmic, hollow sound cutting through the dead silence of the basement as she waited for the giant’s response.

Cassius didn’t write back immediately. He stood entirely still, his heavy, dark grey gaze fixed on her face, searching the tense lines of her features.

The silence stretched between them, thick with the weight of the human world she had left behind.

Florianthum swallowed hard, the cold air burning her throat. She reached out toward the ink jar, intending to pull the pink feather back to the page. But as her fingers neared the garish spine, her hand began to shake violently.

The admission, the raw, ugly truth of her past... had shattered her aristocratic composure. Her fingers hovered over the glass, trembling too much to grasp the quill.

Before she could pull away in shame, a sudden, heavy warmth enveloped her hand.

Cassius placed his massive palm over her trembling fingers, his touch firm and anchoring. He didn’t say a word, but the steady pressure instantly stilled her shaking. With his other hand, he smoothly bypassed her fingers, plucked the quill from the jar, and leaned over the paper once more.

His heavy script carved into the parchment directly beneath her confession:

"I want a favor. For that, I want to know all your abilities at once. Can you trust me?"

A pair of lopsided glasses suddenly caught a stray beam of greasy cellar light, flashing with a dramatic, blinding white glare as they poked out from the dark corridor.

Fukuro was crouched behind the doorframe in a full, agonizing squat, his eyes bulging behind the lens flare. He strained his neck so hard a tendon practically snapped, desperate to see what the two were doing.

When he caught sight of Cassius slowly placing his massive, protective palm right over Florianthum’s trembling fingers, Fukuro’s brain completely short-circuited.

Are you absolutely kidding me right now?! he screamed in the dead silence of his own mind, his face twisting into a hideous, hyper-exaggerated grimace of pure shock. An emotional hand-holding session?! In a rotting, mouldy basement?!

He flattens his hand and boots me out like an unwanted stray just so he can switch to main-character mode and play the brooding protector!

He watched in comical, agonizing jealousy as the giant smoothly took the quill.

Florianthum stared at the words carved into the paper. Can you trust me?

The question hung heavy in the damp chill. She reached out once more, her fingertips stretching toward the pink flamingo feather, desperate to slice a defiant response across the parchment and reclaim her poise.

But her body completely betrayed her. Her fingers shook so violently she couldn’t even grasp the quill. The raw ghost of her past life; where closeness had been weaponised into a psychopathic cage... paralysed her.

For someone who had completely lost the capacity to trust, handing over her secrets felt like stepping off a cliff in the dark.

Slowly, her hand dropped back onto the polished oak. She lifted her chin, her hazel eyes meeting Cassius’s intense, unreadable gaze. Her aristocratic mask completely fractured, she gave a small, definitive shake of her head.

No.

Cassius didn’t pull away. Moving with heavy, deliberate grace, he stepped even closer into her space and raised his massive, calloused hand.

His rough fingers gently slid into the strands of her hair, cradling the back of her head with a profound, quiet tenderness. The unexpected warmth of the gesture broke something deep inside her. A single, silent tear spilled over her lashes and traced a wet path down her cheek.

The moment Cassius saw the tear catch the light, his posture shifted. He immediately withdrew his hand from her hair. Instead, he reached down and locked his fingers tightly through hers, anchoring her with a fierce, unyielding grip.

With his free hand, he scooped up the pink quill, dipped it, and carved a raw, heavy line into the paper.With his free hand, he scooped up the pink quill, dipped it, and carved a raw, heavy line into the paper.

"The one whom I loved, she turned into a monster."

Fukuro’s left eye twitched with violent, rapid-fire speed as he adjusted his spectacles, his teeth grinding so hard the enamel clicked.

If Lord Vilucious finds out they are using my majestic, beautifully discovered flamingo feather...

His anger increases rapidly.

And I am the one who did all the manual labor! I scrubbed that table until my knuckles bled! Where is my emotional hand-holding?!

Cassius set the pink quill down with a dull click. Without a word, he stepped forward and closed the remaining distance, his massive frame folding over her as he drew Florianthum into a heavy, protective embrace.

He didn’t squeeze tightly; he simply held her against his broad chest, his massive arms forming a solid, unyielding wall that shut out the cold, decaying cellar and the ghosts of her past life. For the first time in ages, the rigid tension in Florianthum’s shoulders began to melt, her face pressing into his shoulder as she let herself feel safe.

Meanwhile, at the edge of the corridor, Fukuro was still practically vibrating with jealousy, his lopsided glasses fogging up as he squinted at the intimate silhouette in the dark.

Look at this!

Fukuro fumed in the absolute silence of his mind, his hands curling into pathetic little fists.

A literal tactical hug! In the middle of an enemy sector! He completely sidelined me just to get-

A heavy, deliberate tap landed squarely on Fukuro’s left shoulder.