Chapter 374: Heartache
Vangar carefully put the shirt back on.
The embroidered cedar branch rested perfectly against his wrist, the silver-gray stitching catching the light whenever he moved.
His gaze lingered on it.
The emotion in his eyes was so profound it seemed ready to spill over.
"Rory..." His voice was unusually soft. "You’re incredible."
The intensity of his gaze made Rory feel slightly embarrassed.
If one looked closely enough, they would notice something hidden beneath his admiration.
Heartache.
A quiet, carefully concealed ache.
Vangar could not imagine what kind of life his Female Master had endured.
A childhood so difficult that she had needed to mend her own clothes stitch by stitch because she couldn’t afford new ones.
Rory looked away awkwardly.
"It’s only a small embroidery pattern."
She smiled. "It’s nothing special."
"No." Vangar stepped closer.
Gently, he took the hand she had just used to mend his shirt. His fingers closed around hers with extraordinary care.
"To me..." His voice lowered. "It means everything."
Lifting her hand, he pressed a reverent kiss to the back of it. The gesture carried a sincerity that made her heart tremble.
"Rory." His eyes never left hers. "This is the finest gift I’ve ever received."
No luxurious clothing, no priceless treasure, no rare artifact in the Empire could compare.
Rory’s fingers twitched slightly.
The place where his lips had touched her skin felt strangely warm. The sensation spread through her body like a current of electricity.
Vangar looked at her for a long moment. Then he lowered his head.
His lips brushed softly against hers. The kiss was impossibly gentle, as though he were afraid of breaking something precious.
"Rory..." His voice was deep and rough, carrying countless emotions he could barely contain. "Your past..."
A shadow crossed his eyes. "I arrived too late to be part of it."
His hand tightened slightly around hers. "But your future..."
The determination in his gaze became unwavering. "I’ll protect it with everything I have."
He would never allow her to suffer again.
Never.
From this day forward, he wanted to place every beautiful thing in the universe before her feet.
Everything she had ever lacked. Everything she deserved.
Outside the room, Xarion lounged across a sofa in the lounge.
His long legs were stretched out comfortably.
One arm rested behind his head while his other hand tapped across the floating communicator screen hovering before him.
A message appeared in the group chat.
Xarion: @Everyone, did you all know the Female Master knows how to mend clothes?
The previously quiet group immediately exploded with activity.
Yuel: Rory mends clothes? Did something happen to her clothes?
Vincent: Is there a particular outfit she likes that much? If it’s just everyday clothing, couldn’t she simply throw it away and buy a new one?
Xarion frowned at the responses. Clearly, they had misunderstood.
Xarion: That’s not what I meant.
Xarion: The Female Master knows how to sew and repair clothing herself. Did any of you know that?
After a brief pause, he added another explanation.
Xarion: Vangar damaged his sleeve earlier. The Female Master repaired it for him.
Back in Rory’s room, Nix immediately sat upright when he saw the messages.
He had still been wrapped in Rory’s blanket.
Nix: Isn’t repairing torn clothes something only the poorest beastkin do?
Nix: How does Rory know how to do that?
The question left the entire group silent.
Because Nix wasn’t wrong.
How could their Female Master know such a skill?
At that moment, Yuel suddenly emerged from Vincent’s room.
Without even acknowledging Xarion, he crossed the lounge at a brisk pace and headed directly toward Jasper’s quarters.
Among all of them, Jasper had been the first to meet Rory.
He was also the one who had helped establish her identity.
Much of Rory’s past had effectively been erased or concealed by him.
When Vincent and Yuel first entered Rory’s life, all they knew was that she had been living in Veridan City.
She occupied one of the small villas provided by the Interstellar Government.
Her circumstances had seemed ordinary.
She was not wealthy, but certainly not poor enough to struggle for necessities.
At the very least, nothing about her life had suggested a girl who grew up unable to afford new clothes.
Which meant there was a great deal about Rory’s past that none of them knew.
And suddenly, all of them wanted answers.
They had always assumed Rory’s life had been like that from the very beginning.
Later, after learning that she was a human female, they had considered investigating her past.
But during their search, they discovered that Rory’s records had been altered.
The person responsible was Jasper.
Once they realized he had modified the information to conceal Rory’s true identity, they stopped digging any further.
Instead, they quietly helped him cover his tracks.
Any remaining traces that might have revealed Rory’s origins were erased even more thoroughly, making her real background virtually impossible to uncover.
The moment Xarion saw Yuel heading toward Jasper’s room, he immediately followed.
Not long afterward, Vincent arrived as well.
Inside the room, Jasper looked at the three men and pressed his lips together.
He had already seen the messages in the group chat.
Before any of them could speak, he sighed softly and answered the question they had come to ask.
"What I know about Rory isn’t much more than what you know."
The three of them frowned simultaneously.
Yuel stepped forward.
"When you helped Rory hide her identity, you must have investigated her background first."
His voice was calm, but there was unmistakable urgency beneath it.
"What did you find?"
Vincent and Xarion fixed their eyes on Jasper as well.
After a brief silence, Jasper finally spoke.
"What I discovered was the same thing that happened with the other human females who have appeared in the Empire."
"They all seemed to appear out of nowhere."
"Rory was no exception."
He paused before continuing.
"The place where she first appeared wasn’t Veridan City."
"It was a remote planet near the outer frontier."
His expression darkened.
"When she appeared, she had no awakened ability."
"She materialized alone in a forest and nearly became prey for a mutant beast."
"It was a hunting team that happened to be passing through who saved her and brought her back to civilization."
The room grew quieter with every word.
"After that, she registered her identity."
"Because she hadn’t awakened an ability yet, she was assigned the lowest-level government housing and survived on the Empire’s minimum welfare subsidy."
Jasper lowered his gaze.
"Later, she finally awakened her ability. Her situation improved slightly, but not by much. She had no family. No powerful clan. No one to support her. No one willing to provide beast cores so she could advance her abilities. If she wanted to become stronger, she had only one option."
His voice tightened. "She had to hunt mutant beasts herself."
Silence.
A newly awakened female. Alone. Hunting mutant beasts.
Jasper didn’t need to explain further. Everyone in the room understood exactly how dangerous that was.
Even many experienced male hunters died attempting such things. Yet Rory had done it alone.
"Eventually, after years of effort, her ability grew stronger. Only then was she able to relocate to Veridan City. That’s also where she met Lian."
A faint sigh escaped him.
"At the time, she was seriously injured during a hunt. Lian was the one who saved her."
That was one of the reasons Jasper had never truly opposed Lian’s presence.
Because Lian had once saved Rory’s life.
As he spoke, the pain in Jasper’s voice became impossible to hide.
"Before she was matched with any of us... Rory lived a very difficult life."
His eyes darkened.
"I wasn’t the first match assigned to her. The first was Dax. He once told me that Rory was poor. Very poor. She drove an outdated third-hand hovercar model that had been obsolete for centuries."
When Jasper finished speaking, the room fell completely silent.
The air itself seemed to solidify. It was suddenly difficult to breathe.
Yuel lowered his eyes. His expression was filled with guilt and heartache.
"I should have investigated properly."
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"How could I have been foolish enough to assume she was doing fine all by herself?"
Nearby, Xarion stood frozen.
Images surfaced uncontrollably in his mind.
A small, delicate figure. Alone on a barren world. No family. No protection. Facing savage mutant beasts that could attack at any moment. Venturing into dangerous forests by herself simply to survive. Simply to gain enough strength to keep living.
The picture made his chest ache.
Then he remembered this morning.
Remembered pouting because he hadn’t been the first person to receive a gift.
Remembered demanding that Rory give him the next gift before anyone else.
Compared to everything she had endured...
How childish.
How ridiculous.
His Female Master had faced loneliness, danger, hunger, and uncertainty entirely on her own.
And he had been sulking over something so trivial.
For the first time that day, Xarion felt profoundly ashamed.
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