Alex leaned forward slightly.
"And…?"
"And what?" asked the Duke with feigned innocence.
"And what's my reward?" asked Alex, losing his patience.
It was Aria who answered, rising with the grace of a future queen.
"It's obvious! Your reward is me. Why would you need mundane gold when, as my husband, you would have access to all the wealth and comforts of this duchy?"
The proposal fell into the room like a tranquilizer bomb. Alex blinked. The image formed in his mind: Peace. No missions, no demons, no being dragged through portals. Reading books in a sunlit library, eating well, sleeping in a bed that didn't smell of cave dust… It was temptation personified.
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Emi's shout was like a whip of light. She stood up, her golden aura flickering. "Alex can't marry you! Someday we'll return to our world, and you won't be able to follow!"
Aria's smile didn't fade. She turned to her father, her determination as firm as steel.
"Father. Would you give me your blessing to go with Alex if he returns to his world?"
Duke Alaric brought a dramatic hand to his heart. A solitary tear traced his cheek.
"Ah, my little girl has grown! Of course, my daughter! Follow your love, even through the veils of reality!"
Emi and Alex were dumbfounded. The ease with which the Duke was parting with his only daughter and heir was… alarming.
"This is an absolute disaster!" declared Emi, sinking back onto the sofa.
Alex ran a hand over his face.
"This is getting out of control… at an alarmingly fast rate."
Aria approached him, radiant.
"Don't worry, Alex! I'll be the best wife. You'll be happy."
"That," murmured Alex, taking a step back, "sounds more like a commuted sentence than a promise."
Emi jumped up again, pointing at Aria.
"You can't decide his life like that!"
"Why not? At least I'm honest about my intentions," Aria retorted, her smile now a sharp edge. "I don't hide behind the title of 'companion' to be by his side."
The air between them crackled. Emi's golden light and Aria's violet glow began to rise, intertwining in a dance of power and rivalry.
"Hey, stop it!" Alex tried, but his voice was lost in the emotional force field they were generating.
Salvation arrived in the form of a pale servant who entered with a tray of tea, visibly trembling under the magical pressure.
"S-sorry… something to… ease the tension…" he stammered.
The spell broke. Both girls sat down with a synchronized "Hmph!", accepting the cups with suddenly impeccable manners.
Alex gulped down his tea in one go, savoring the moment of precarious peace. The Duke, observing the scene, approached and gave him a slap on the back that nearly knocked him over.
"Ah, youth! How lucky you are, lad, to have two beauties fighting over you! You'll get used to it."
Alex looked at the Duke, then at Emi (who was biting into a pastry as if it were Aria's neck), then at Aria (who smiled with the confidence of one who has already won the war).
"Get used to it," he repeated, with a strained smile. "Right. Like getting used to living on top of a volcano."
---
Far away, in a kingdom where the sky was always the color of dried blood, Hiroshi lowered his hand. Around him, space itself stitched back together, closing the grotesque distortions his magic had created. A dozen corrupt beasts lay inert, "resolved" not with violence, but with an ontological nullification as precise as it was terrifying.
There was no triumph in his cold eyes. Only the familiar weight of calculation. Collateral damage: minimal at 15%. Local ecosystem recovery time: estimated at three years. Terror inflicted on witnesses: considerable. Always the same equation.
A soft flutter. A miniature griffin, its plumage gleaming like gold under the red sun, alighted on his shoulder. It emitted a series of complex trills.
Hiroshi listened, his expression unchanging.
"Emi and Alex. Intervened in a ducal conflict. Rescued a noblewoman," he summarized. The griffin nodded its beak and projected an ethereal image of the events: the cave, the battle, the tension in the ducal hall, Aria's gaze toward Alex.
Upon seeing the final scene—the palpable rivalry, the marriage proposal—Hiroshi closed his eyes for a moment. An almost inaudible sigh escaped his lips.
"Poor Alex. All he wants is a shadow to hide in, and yet, he finds the brightest light… and now another that wants to eclipse it."
He opened his eyes. In their depth, something harder than ice had formed.
"Maintain surveillance," he ordered the griffin, his voice icy and clear. "If that princess becomes a threat to his equilibrium, or if this situation attracts unwanted attention… I'll need to know."
The griffin chirped in affirmation and vanished in a flash of light.
Hiroshi looked toward the horizon, in the general direction of Duke Alaric's lands.
"Be careful, Alex. Power attracts power. And affection… attracts problems even my magic can't undo."
He turned and walked away, his serene silhouette burdened with the heavy certainty that the real storm for his friends didn't come from demons, but from the human (and elven) hearts beginning to entangle around them.