I Thought I Was Collecting Systems, Not Overpowered Wives

Chapter 70: Saga 70: The Long Road Home

Leaving Songrel proved considerably harder than arriving had been, if only because arriving hadn’t required actual goodbyes.

"You could just stay," Ari said, arms crossed, standing at the edge of the cathedral’s eastern gate where the teleportation circle Claire had helped design specifically for this trip now hummed faintly with prepared mana. "The Church has plenty of guest quarters. I could arrange a permanent diplomatic posting."

"Baldric would have my head," Kael said, though he was smiling. "Azure Blake’s needed back in Renodin. Especially with everything we’ve learned here."

"I know." Ari’s arms tightened around herself, some of her usual playful energy dimmed by the weight of an actual farewell. "I just don’t love the idea of you being nine hundred miles away while whatever this Hollow Choir business turns out to be keeps unraveling."

"We’ll stay in contact," Sylvia said gently, standing beside Kael with her own pack shouldered and ready. "Regular correspondence, and if anything urgent develops, the system’s teleportation range covers considerably more ground than you’d expect."

"Small comfort," Ari muttered, though she managed a small smile despite herself.

The Cardinal approached from behind, expression carrying its usual composed severity, though something warmer flickered beneath it as she addressed them both. "Azure Blake has done more for this Church in a single week than most allied nations manage in a decade of formal diplomacy. Songrel won’t forget that debt."

"We didn’t do it for debts," Kael said.

"I know. Which is precisely why it matters more." The Cardinal inclined her head respectfully. "Safe travels, hunters. I suspect we’ll have need of your particular talents again before this is over."

Kael turned to Ari one final time, searching for the right words and finding, as usual around her, that plain honesty worked best. "Take care of yourself. Actually take care, not just perform the appearance of it for the Church’s sake."

"I’ll try." Ari hesitated, then closed the remaining distance between them and hugged him properly, arms tight around his shoulders in a gesture that had nothing performative about it at all. "Thank you. For everything. For seeing me, not just the symbol."

"Always," Kael said quietly, returning the embrace.

When she finally stepped back, her eyes were suspiciously bright, though she blinked the moment away with practiced composure, the Saintess mask sliding back into place just enough to face the gathered attendants watching the farewell with poorly concealed curiosity.

"Go on, then," she said, voice steadier now. "Before I talk myself into finding some diplomatic emergency requiring your continued presence."

Sylvia stepped forward for her own farewell, considerably more restrained but no less genuine. "It was good getting to know the real you, Ari. Not many people would have trusted us with that so quickly."

"Not many people have earned that trust so quickly," Ari countered. "Take care of him, would you? Whatever complicated thing exists between the three of us now, I trust you to look out for him properly."

"Always have," Sylvia said, something knowing passing between the two women that Kael couldn’t quite parse.

The teleportation circle flared to life beneath their feet, Claire’s remote-guided calculations finally activating with a hum that promised, this time, considerably more precision than the system’s earlier improvised jump. Kael caught one last glimpse of Ari standing at the gate, hand raised in farewell, cathedral spires gleaming gold behind her, before the world dissolved into blinding light.

They landed, moments later, in the familiar courtyard of Renodin’s guild hall, precisely where Claire’s calculations had intended, a considerably smoother arrival than their accidental departure had been.

"Welcome back," Claire said, already waiting with Harriden, Yuki, and Adian gathered nearby, having clearly tracked the teleportation circle’s activation. "How was accidentally ending up in a foreign holy capital and apparently making friends with their Saintess?"

"Complicated," Kael said. "Considerably more complicated than the trade documents we were originally supposed to deliver."

"You never even made it to Luscenidron, did you," Yuki said, delighted. "The actual mission just never happened."

"The actual mission is currently sitting in my pack, undelivered," Kael admitted. "We’ll need to actually go to Luscenidron at some point still."

"Later," Sylvia said firmly. "Right now, we have considerably more pressing things to debrief Baldric on."

[Threat assessment ongoing,] the system offered helpfully. [Also, for what it’s worth, I approve of Ari. She asks better questions about my nature than most hosts manage in years of partnership.]

’Don’t encourage her.’

[Too late. I already like her.]

As they made their way toward Baldric’s office, Kael found himself already looking forward to whatever letter Ari would inevitably send within the week, half expecting it to be filled with increasingly detailed questions about monster anatomy disguised as diplomatic correspondence.

Baldric’s office looked much as they’d left it, though the guild master himself seemed to have aged another year in the weeks since their departure, exhaustion carved deep into the lines of his face from months of overseeing the capital’s continued reconstruction.

"Azure Blake," he said, rising to greet them properly despite his evident fatigue. "I received your correspondence about the detour, though I confess the details left considerably more questions than answers. An assassination attempt on a foreign Saintess, a fifteen-year-old ritual gone wrong, and some manner of ancient influence potentially connected to our own troubles here. Tell me everything."

They spent the better part of two hours walking him through the full account, from the accidental teleportation to the confrontation with Vane in his mountain sanctuary, Baldric’s expression growing increasingly grave with every new revelation.

"The Hollow Choir," he said finally, once they’d finished. "That name means nothing to our own archives, though given how thoroughly the Concordance buried information about the Sleeping Ruin, I wouldn’t take that as evidence of unrelated threats."

"We think they might be connected," Sylvia said. "Possibly the same influence, operating through different vessels across different kingdoms."

"A troubling possibility, if true." Baldric rubbed his temples, clearly cataloguing the implications. "I’ll have our own archivists cross-reference everything against what remains of the Concordance’s records. In the meantime, rest. All of you. You’ve earned it, and I suspect we’ll need you at full strength again soon enough."

Claire, waiting just outside the office once the debrief concluded, practically tackled Kael the moment he emerged. "Tell me everything about the Saintess. Every single detail, especially the parts about her secretly being a huge weirdo underneath all that ceremonial nonsense."

"Claire."

"I need to know if she’s got a research notebook collection to rival mine. This is important scholarly curiosity, Kael, not gossip."

"It’s absolutely gossip," Harriden said, though he looked equally curious despite his usual composure.

Kael laughed, the exhaustion of the past weeks easing slightly in the familiar chaos of his own team’s company, and found himself, despite everything still unresolved regarding the Hollow Choir and Umbra Black, genuinely glad to finally be home.

—

End of Chapter—