Investing in My Yandare Villainess Fiancée:Each Reward Fuels My Growth

Chapter 67: Investment 67: An Evening at Home

Dinner at the Reingard estate had always been a loud, unruly affair, and tonight was no exception.

"So then Deria just—just picks her up," Elliot gestured with his fork, mid-story, "and slams her straight into a tree. And Futaba’s already airborne, right, mid-punch, and she just—"

"You’re leaving out the part where you almost died," Seria interjected coolly, cutting a piece of roast with far more precision than necessary.

The table went quiet.

"Almost—what?" Lyra set down her glass with a soft, deliberate clink. "Elliot."

"It was a very small almost," Elliot said quickly. "Barely qualifies as an almost, really."

"He was impaled through the chest," Seria said, not looking up from her plate. "His heart was, and I quote the healer who examined him afterward, ’reduced to something resembling minced meat.’"

"Seria."

"What? You wanted me to help you tell the story truthfully."

"I wanted you to help me tell a version of the story that didn’t give my mother a heart attack at the dinner table."

Cassian, to his credit, had gone very still, his fork paused halfway to his mouth. Mira’s eyes had gone comically wide.

"You died?" she whispered, scandalized.

"Briefly," Elliot admitted. "Very briefly. I had potions."

"Two vitality potions," Seria clarified. "Which he crushed with his teeth. While his chest was already open."

"That’s disgusting," Mira said, though her tone suggested she found it more thrilling than disgusting.

"It gets worse," Seria continued, apparently committed now to the full account. "After he came back, I had already frozen half the cave solid in a fit of—" she paused, searching for a word that wouldn’t sound quite so alarming, "—concern."

"Grief-induced elemental catastrophe," Elliot supplied helpfully.

"That’s not a kinder way of putting it."

"No, but it’s accurate."

Lyra set her napkin down slowly, and for a long moment, she simply looked at her son—really looked at him, the way mothers do when they’re recalibrating exactly how much danger their child has actually been living through behind the polished, reassuring letters he’d been sending home.

"I think," she said finally, voice carefully even, "we’re going to need the entire, unabridged version of this story. Tonight. All of it."

"Lyra—" Cassian started.

"All of it, Cassian." Her tone left no room for argument. "I refuse to spend one more evening believing my son is simply ’attending classes and making friends’ when apparently he’s being disemboweled by insect royalty."

"To be fair," Elliot said, "she wasn’t royalty. More of a... middle-management demon."

"Elliot."

"Right. Sorry. Full story. Got it."

And so, over the next hour, between mouthfuls of roast and increasingly horrified interjections from his parents, Elliot and Seria recounted the dungeon expedition in full—the desert, the sea dragon, Geny’s ambush, the slaughtered students, Liam’s betrayal, the Four Bug Lords, Jin’s staggering reveal, and finally, the long walk home into an unexpected two-week recess.

By the time they finished, Mira had long since abandoned her dinner entirely, chin propped on both hands, utterly enraptured. Cassian had gone quiet in a different way than before—thoughtful, calculating, the particular stillness Elliot recognized from childhood as his father’s "processing something important" face.

"An Imperial," Cassian said slowly, once the story had wound to its conclusion. "Hiding as a first-year student. On the headmaster’s direct orders."

"That’s what he told us, yes," Elliot said.

"That’s... concerning," Cassian murmured, more to himself than to the table.

"Why concerning?" Seria asked, brow furrowing. "It seemed like good news to us. He saved everyone’s lives."

"It’s good news that he was there," Cassian said carefully. "It’s considerably less reassuring that the headmaster of Adonite Academy felt it necessary to embed an Imperial among first-years in the first place. Men like Dermiurge don’t take that kind of measure without good reason to expect exactly the sort of trouble you all encountered."

The table fell silent at that, the weight of the observation settling over all of them.

"You think he knew something was going to happen," Elliot said slowly.

"I think," Cassian said, "that the headmaster of Adonite Academy has survived multiple regime changes, three wars, and at least one attempted coup by staying several steps ahead of exactly this sort of danger. If he moved an Imperial into position before your expedition even began, then whatever’s happening isn’t isolated to a single rogue Dark Emissary disciple."

He set his glass down, expression grim in a way that made Elliot’s stomach tighten uncomfortably.

"There’s a wider pattern here. And I don’t like not knowing what it is."

"Cassian," Lyra said quietly, glancing meaningfully toward Mira, who had gone very still, absorbing far more of the adult conversation than either parent probably intended.

"Right." Cassian cleared his throat, forcing a lighter tone back into his voice. "Well. That’s a conversation for another evening, perhaps. Tonight, you’re both home, safe, and in one piece—mostly—and that’s what matters most."

"Mostly," Seria echoed dryly, glancing at Elliot.

"I’m entirely in one piece now," Elliot said. "New heart and everything. Practically an upgrade."

"That’s not funny," Lyra said, though the corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.

After dinner, as the household began winding down for the evening, Lyra found a quiet moment to pull Seria aside near the manor’s east wing, away from the others.

"Thank you," she said softly, "for looking after him out there. From what I’ve heard tonight, I don’t think he would have made it home without you."

Seria’s composure flickered, genuine surprise breaking through her usual guarded expression. "I—he’s the one who saved me, actually. More than once."

"I don’t doubt that either." Lyra’s smile turned warm, knowing. "But I’ve watched my son grow up for seventeen years, Seria. I know what it looks like when he’s found someone worth fighting that hard for. And judging by the way you spent the better part of an hour trying, and failing, not to look terrified every time he described nearly dying—" she reached out, gently squeezing Seria’s hand, "—I think you’ve found the same in him."

Seria’s throat tightened unexpectedly, an emotion she wasn’t entirely prepared to examine too closely rising in her chest.

"I don’t intend to lose him," she said finally, quietly, more vulnerable than she usually allowed herself to sound. "Not to a dungeon, not to whatever’s coming next. Not to anything."

"Good." Lyra’s grip tightened briefly before releasing. "Then we’re already in agreement on the only thing that matters."

Outside, beyond the manor’s warmly lit windows, the same shadow that had watched from the tree line earlier that afternoon shifted once more among the orchard’s deepening shadows—patient, silent, and utterly unnoticed.

For now.