Chapter 249: offer closes soon

Sandwiched between two sobbing, breathtaking women who were squeezing what little oxygen remained out of his battered carcass, Eren could only stare up at the sky.

’Right. So this is what the aftermath of an unsanctioned suicide mission feels like.’

A profound, aching warmth blossomed behind his ribs. He raised his hands, lightly resting one palm against Aria’s trembling back and draping his other arm over Norelia’s shaking shoulders. For once, he stayed quiet, letting them feel the steady, stubborn thump of his pulse.

A few steps away, the final member of the cavalry watched the spectacle.

Princess Seraphina stood with her arms tightly folded beneath her chest. Snow-white hair fell in pristine, crystalline sheets around a face carved from aristocratic marble. Her blood-red eyes swept across the carnage and the thousands of criminals staring at them in paralyzed dread.

"Honestly," Seraphina murmured, her voice dry, cold. "Leave that idiot unattended for a week, and he manages to invite an entire sovereign underworld to his execution."

Eren lifted his head from Aria’s hair, catching the princess’s icy red gaze with a faint, crooked grin. "Hey, your Highness. Thanks for coming to rescue me."

"Don’t get high on yourself, idiot," Seraphina deadpanned, though the faint tension coiled in her jaw subtly unwound.

Around them, the initial shockwave of the rescue began to curdle.

The cutthroats, gang lieutenants, and surviving mercenaries of Rujgard shook the dust from their cloaks. The shame of being pushed back by four girls burned through their hesitation. Swords were raised once more; crossbow mechanisms clicked into lethal tension as the ranks tightened into an impenetrable, snarling wall.

***

Up on the platform, Alice slumped on her knees.

Her breath caught in jagged, shallow gasps. Her sternum felt like a bed of smoldering coals, stinging throb through her freshly stitched skin. The shadow cub curled tightly against her side, issuing a tiny, exhausted whine as it nudged her limp fingers.

Her amber eyes flicked toward the scaffold stairs as the sound of frantic, pounding boots echoed over the din below.

Sprinting up the stone steps came a tall figure draped in a pristine, white cloak, and a silly black mask.

Her heart gave a leap. Theo.

She opened her mouth, ready to whisper his name, but before a single word could come out, theo charged right past.

Theo didn’t spare her a glance. He crossed the platform in three desperate strides, lunged straight at Baron Kiliyan, and hoisted the chained nobleman up by his rumpled velvet collar.

"Where is she?!" Theo roared, his voice cracking with frantic, desperate terror behind the mask. "Where is the girl, Kiliyan?!"

Baron Kiliyan blinked. "W-What? Which girl? What are you shouting about, you lunatic?!"

"The girl who caught the teleportation spell with you in the capital!" Theo snarled, shaking the noble until his teeth clattered. "Where did they take her?!"

Alice stared at the back of his white cloak in deadpan disbelief.

’Right,’ she remembered with an inward, exhausted groan. The earring. She was wearing a new perspective item instead of her regular gold mask.

She let out a heavy, exasperated breath.

"Hey, you absolute idiot," Alice rasped, raising her voice just enough to carry over his panicked interrogation. "I’m down here."

Theo froze.

Slowly, as if turning an ancient, rusty cog, he released the Baron and turned his head. As Alice deliberately dropped her mental intent, the perspective magic parted for him like mist.

The illusion melted away to reveal the familiar curve of her jaw, the messy strands of golden hair catching the morning sun, and those fierce, exhausted amber eyes that had haunted his dreams every night for a week.

"Alice...?" Theo’s breath shattered.

He didn’t care about the mask, the ruined chopping block, or the three thousand armed butchers howling down in the plaza below. He dropped to his knees as he closed the distance between them.

Before he could form another coherent sentence, Alice reached out, wrapped her hands around his neck, and yanked him down into her shoulder.

"You complete moron," she whispered into the crook of his neck, her voice catching on a sharp, possessive sob as her arms clamped tight around him. "Where the hell have you been, Theo? Do you have any idea what kind of nightmare this place was?"

Theo’s trembling hands hovered over her for half a second before gently settling against her back, his fingers tracing the bandaged wound across her sternum and shoulder. His breath hitched in horror at the scent of medicinal salves and dried blood.

"You’re hurt," Theo choked out, tears pooling behind the edge of his mask and spilling onto the linen over her shoulder. "Alice, your chest—what happened to you? Are you alright? Please tell me you’re alright—"

"I’m fine," she murmured, burying her face into his chest, the terrifying, hollow exhaustion finally yielding to the warmth of his embrace. "Just... completely spent. But I’m alive."

"I was so terrified," Theo wept openly, resting his forehead against her uninjured collarbone, shaking with a week’s worth of suffocating helplessness. "The moment you vanished in the capital... I have been searching for you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I was too late—"

Before the tearful reunion could progress any further, Alice’s earring buzzed.

"Hey, Saintess," Eren’s voice crackled through the resonance earring. "If you two are done with the reunion and the hand-holding... do me a favor. Tell the prince to grab that megaphone and hurl it down here."

Alice blinked, pulling back slightly from Theo’s embrace with a startled, bewildered frown.

She glanced sideways to find the megaphone Eren had used earlier was lying near them.

***

Seraphina’s eyes darted from Eren’s face straight toward the elevated platform, looking at the black-masked guy who had accompanied them for this rescue mission for his team member.

"Wait. What?" Seraphina demanded, her regal voice pitching upward in icy bewilderment. "Alice? Prince? Did you just refer to that assassin as the crown prince, Eren Volsver?!"

Up on the terrace, Theo threw megaphhone across the plaza.

Eren caught the rim out of the air with a clean, metallic clack.

He shot Seraphina an infuriating, unrepentant wink. "Let’s discuss it Right now, I have business to conclude."

Around them, the perimeter was already turning into a meat grinder. The Rujgard cutthroats, realizing they were being cornered by four girls, charged with renewed, desperate bloodlust.

CLANG!

Emma’s greatsword cleaved through three pikes at once, her storm-grey eyes blazing as she kicked a heavy mace-wielder ten feet into an overturned wagon.

Beside her, Aria fought with lethal, fluid grace. "Darling, if you get yourself killed while holding a musical instrument, I will resurrect you just to murder you myself!"

Norelia didn’t even look back; her small hands traced glowing purple geometric sigils in the air, dropping dense gravity wells that pinned an entire squad of shock troopers face-first into the cobblestones.

Eren ignored the flying limbs, the screaming steel, and the barrage of affectionate death threats from his girlfriends.

"Attention, citizens and degenerates of Rujgard!" Eren’s voice boomed across the square. "Pardon the brief interruption to our mutual butchery, but let’s talk business! How about we make a little deal? Offer closes soon!"