Chapter 86: Her Answer
With a harrumph, NukEncore returned to the kitchen and sat down at the counter. She did not sit easily. Her spine stayed straight, her chin remained high, and her fingers curled around the edge of the counter for a brief second before she forced them to loosen. She looked ready to leave again at the slightest wrong word.
Martin let out a slow breath. "He came at me out of nowhere. I knew he wanted a fight, but not like that. Once he said he wanted my spot, I couldn’t back down."
NukEncore’s eyes stayed on him. "So that was enough? That alone made it worth dragging me into it?"
His jaw tightened. "I wasn’t dragging you into anything. I was making sure no one thought I could be pushed out by him or by anybody else."
Her fingers curled in her lap. "You still let people talk like your place beside me was something you could put on the table."
"No," Martin said, more firmly this time. "They’re talking like idiots. That’s not what I did."
NukEncore’s fingers tightened in her lap. Her shoulders, rigid until then, lost a trace of their strength. Even so, the past still had a stronger hold on her. It left her wary, shaken, and quietly afraid, with that sense of betrayal clawing its way back to the surface. More than anything, she wanted to get away from Martin, forget all of this, and return to the life where everything stayed neatly under control.
She said nothing. A heavy silence settled over the kitchen.
Martin said nothing after that either. The pan still gave off a soft hiss behind him, but he no longer seemed to hear it. He set the utensil in his hand down with too much care, as though any sudden motion might make things worse. In the silence, his duel, the sword, and all of it suddenly felt small compared to whatever pain he had just touched by accident.
"Mr. Samu, could we borrow your kitchen for a short talk? It won’t take long. I promise we’ll keep it brief," Crimson Halo said suddenly.
Samu nodded. "Of course. Take your time."
He tactfully removed himself from the tension, and the other NPCs and players followed him out.
Crimson Halo lifted her teacup and watched them over the rim. Martin looked like a man who had walked into a trap without understanding where the floor had opened beneath him. NukEncore, for all her fury, looked far too wounded to be dismissed as merely dramatic. The space between them had tightened into something almost visible.
"Thank you," Crimson Halo said with a single nod. Then she turned to the silent pair. "I was the one who urged Martin not to step back from the duel. None of us had reason to think it would touch something old and painful."
NukEncore bit her lower lip.
Martin widened his eyes at the vulnerable side of her she was showing.
Crimson Halo continued in the same calm tone. "Think about the duel clearly. Martin had nothing to lose. If he had actually lost to Thorn’Shield, you and the others would have invited Thorn’Shield into the party and then kicked him right back out. That alone would have fulfilled that side of the deal. Everything would have ended there. It even would have been a useful lesson for Martin. Unfortunately, there were things we did not know."
Or rather, I only thought about Alex and Martin. Alex would have kicked that man aside without a second thought, and Martin looked so pitiful after everything he had shown me that I acted on impulse.
Even now, he is completely lost. He has no idea what to do. A man from our world would already have used Elisebeth’s vulnerability against her.
Crimson Halo gave Martin a long look.
Could it be that... you really are just a white-collar office worker? That the former delinquent story is true? And a man like that has Elisebeth on the verge of tears?
If Crimson Halo had possessed evil magic, she would have sprouted two devil horns on the spot.
For a moment, Crimson Halo did nothing but stare at Martin.
Alex had not exaggerated. Neither had Martin. He really was ordinary in the strangest possible way: ordinary enough to miss what women like them carried inside, yet steady enough to draw them in anyway.
Alexandra, Elisebeth, Cassandra... women like that did not keep circling a man without a reason.
And somehow, the reason was him.
She had seen enough staged scandals, rehearsed romances, and polished lies to know how false most celebrity drama looked up close.
This was nothing like that.
There was no script here, no camera, and no manager shaping the angle. There was only raw emotion in a cramped kitchen.
My, my... this is getting me hot.
She knew exactly how the celebrity world worked. Connections were built, spent, and broken.
Hearts, loyalties, businesses, companies, all of them turned into tools sooner or later when staying relevant mattered enough.
But never in her life had she tried to shape an ordinary man into someone capable of handling women from the celebrity world.
This is especially difficult because he cannot learn our identities, or Alex will murder me. But who am I? Since when do I shy away from a challenge? This turns me on.
She composed herself. In an instant, she once again looked like the calmest and most mature person in the room.
Then she turned to NukEncore. "The closer people grow, the more likely they are to touch the parts of each other that ache, whether they intend to or not. What matters is whether they choose to continue after that. Do you really think this is worth throwing away all those good moments you had before? Do you really think Martin is the kind of man who would use your pain against you?"
NukEncore raised her eyes and looked at Martin.
The pain on his face cut straight through her heart. Her fingers loosened in her lap. She drew in a slow breath, but it came out less steady than she wanted. She still felt hurt, and she still felt angry, but leaving no longer felt as simple as it had a few minutes ago.
And her answer came to her naturally.