Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2617: Confused Anna

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Southern Capital, Guild Association Mall, Warehouse No. 234

"No, I didn’t kill him. But are you sure you want to do this?" I asked Anna. Massacring a clan of demon worshippers was one thing, but killing her own father was not something one could ever truly come back from.

"And what exactly am I hearing now? If you’re looking for a damsel to protect, go find the other two. I can handle my own affairs," Anna replied, a smug grin playing on her lips as she signaled for me to hand Gainover over to her.

When she saw the genuine concern in my eyes, her expression shifted. She shook her head and said calmly, "I never had a father. And Gainover is no less guilty than the Davis family. He should have died that night with the rest of them. The only reason he didn’t was because he got a tip-off and escaped to the North."

I simply nodded and expanded my limitless celestial domain within the confines of the warehouse, engulfing both Anna and me. As we entered, we saw the space stretched boundlessly in all directions, and at its center stood a lavish three-story manor, silent and still. I had already ejected the demigod guards back to the Northern Capital. At this moment, aside from Gainover, the domain was completely empty.

Gainover possessed an impressive mastery over compressed space-rule. Unfortunately for him, his pursuit of the space-rule had diverged entirely from mine, though it bore some resemblance to Anna’s Amphitheatre, the Field Marshal’s Mystic Dimension, and similar constructs. From what I had gathered, the unparalleled bloodline was known for using dimensions to trap their enemies and overwhelm them through sheer bloodline dominance. It seemed his time in the Southern Royal Palace had not been without its benefits.

However, unlike the descendants of the unparalleled bloodline, his dimensional technique was tailored for defense rather than to trap the enemy. He could only cower within it, like a turtle retreating into its shell. Alone and trapped within my celestial rule domain, he had no choice but to wait for his inevitable demise in his shell.

As we stepped into the manor, Anna spoke firmly, "Wyatt, no matter what happens, stay out of this. This is my score to settle."

"I will respect that," I lied. I fully intended to step in, even if Anna ended up hating me for it. Gainover was a capable card demigod. If not for my unconventional methods, even approaching him would have been difficult, let alone capturing him before the Northern Capital guards arrived. Although Anna was powerful for a newborn card demigod due to her extreme divinity, she was still inexperienced.

"Well, would you look at that," Anna mocked. "You’ve gotten better at lying. Or is it just that I can finally see the real you now that my eyes are no longer blinded by your charm?" Her tone made her dissatisfaction unmistakably clear, especially regarding my relationship with Jill, after I had explicitly promised to take her on a date once she emerged from the Field Marshal’s Mystic Dimension.

I followed her in silence, choosing not to argue. The tension was already thick enough as it was. Besides, strictly speaking, I was in the wrong for having double-booked.

When we reached the manor’s main hall, we found a translucent, glass-like surface suspended in midair at its center. It was the entrance to Gainover’s dimension, clearly sealed. Judging by how he had positioned the entry point, I could tell he was not simply waiting for death. He had thrown a welcome party for it.

Pointing at the suspended glass, I said with certainty, "He’s in there."

Anna nodded and began preparing to force her way into the dimension. Before she could act, Gainover suddenly appeared at the very spot where the glass-like entrance hung. The moment Anna laid eyes on him, she lunged forward. I grabbed her wrist and yanked her back, warning, "It’s just his reflection. A sloppy trap."

I focused on analyzing both the dimensional entry and the reflection bound to it, which meant I did not see Anna’s expression. But I could hear it in her voice, sharp with fury, as she shouted aloud, "Wyatt!"

When I turned to her, she was seething. She demanded, "What did I just tell you?"

"I was—" Before I could even explain myself, Anna cut me off, shouting, "What did I just tell you? No matter what, stay out of it. Was that really so damn hard to follow? What was I even thinking, asking that of you? It’s you. You’ll do whatever you want, and the rest of us are supposed to either accept it or just fuck off."

I immediately understood that this had nothing to do with Gainover at all. Anna was not fine with me dating Jill after I had promised to take her on a date. I didn’t mind her anger. She had every right to it. What troubled me was where that anger was coming from.

I knew for a fact that her resentment toward me did not stem from love. It came from the belief that she had to marry me for the sake of the Southern Region and its citizens, made worse by the fact that I now had openly declared my relationship with Jill.

She was angry because things between us were not developing the way she had expected when she chose to respect the Southern Royal Court’s decision and accept me as her prince consort.

She was angry because, somewhere along the way, she had begun to see me as no different from Gainover in certain respects. Now that she was facing Gainover up close, those thoughts had grown louder, more insistent, until she could no longer suppress them and lashed out.

There were countless reasons for Anna to be angry with me at that moment. My problem was that her love for me was not one of them. I had no intention of ever giving up on her, but the longer this dragged on, the more it hurt. And then there were the other two. If I chose to focus on Anna alone, I would be unfair to them. They might forgive me, but was that really the kind of person I wanted to be? Someone who hurt people who loved him?

At this point, even I was beginning to think that in some ways, I truly was no different from Gainover, let alone Anna who had been wounded by both of us.