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

Chapter 72: Investment 72: The Farmer’s Bargain

The golden light didn’t fade so much as fold inward, and when it settled, Elliot found himself standing once more in the familiar, impossible farmland—rows of fruit trees stretching toward a pale blue horizon, the same surreal, cloud-strewn sky he remembered from the last time death had nearly claimed him.

"Back so soon," the old man said, not looking up from the row of tomato vines he was tending, weathered hands moving with the unhurried patience of someone who had all the time in every world to spare. "And without even the courtesy of dying first this time. I’m almost disappointed."

"Where’s Seria," Elliot said immediately, glancing around the empty field. "My father. The guards. Are they—"

"Still standing exactly where you left them, worrying themselves half to death over your suddenly vacant expression, I’d imagine." The old man finally looked up, white beard catching the strange light of this pocket dimension. "Time moves differently here, child. You’ll return to them having barely blinked, from their perspective."

Elliot exhaled slowly, some of the tension draining from his shoulders. "You’re the one in the fragment."

"I’m a fragment of the one in the fragment," the old man corrected, straightening with a small, contented groan. "Splitting hairs, perhaps, but accuracy matters in conversations like this one."

"Are you Skion?"

The old man’s expression flickered—something complicated passing behind his eyes, gone before Elliot could fully read it.

"I was his gardener, once," he said finally. "His confidant. His conscience, on the days he remembered to listen to it. What remains of me now is simply the part he left behind, tasked with waiting for someone worthy enough to carry what he couldn’t finish."

"Finish what?"

"The work of holding back the dark currents seeping into Hale, of course." The old man gestured broadly at the fruit-laden trees around them, at the impossible, peaceful sky. "Though I imagine that answer raises considerably more questions than it settles."

"You could say that." Elliot crossed his arms, forcing himself to focus despite the dreamlike unreality of the space around him. "My family’s being hunted because of whatever’s sealed beneath our cellar. People are dying. I need to know what I’m actually dealing with, not riddles."

The old man studied him for a long, quiet moment, something warm and approving settling into his weathered features.

"Fair enough," he said finally. "Direct. I appreciate that, actually. Skion was never quite direct enough, in the end. Cost him more than he ever admitted."

He gestured, and a wooden bench materialized beside the tomato vines, inviting Elliot to sit. He did, cautiously.

"Long before this world knew wars, before nations rose or noble houses claimed titles, there existed a handful of primordial beings tasked with shaping and safeguarding the balance of creation itself," the old man began. "Skion was one such being. So was Helix."

Elliot’s breath caught. "The one you mentioned before. The one supposedly responsible for destroying the other worlds."

"Supposedly," the old man echoed, something knowing in his tone. "Skion and Helix were closer than most of their kind ever managed—brothers, in every sense but blood. When Helix began to unravel, consumed by grief over a love he lost to forces even he couldn’t control, Skion tried to save him. Failed. And in failing, made a choice that has echoed through every generation since."

"What choice?"

"He sealed away a portion of his own essence—his primordial authority, his memories, the full weight of what he was—inside a single fragment, and scattered pieces of that fragment across the mortal realm, hidden among bloodlines he judged worthy of eventually bearing its weight again. Your family’s line is one such bloodline. There are others."

"Why hide it at all? Why not simply use his full power to stop Helix?"

The old man’s expression turned grave. "Because full, unbound primordial power, wielded in grief and desperation, is precisely what unraveled Helix in the first place. Skion feared becoming exactly what he was trying to stop. So he chose restraint instead. Diminishment. A slower, more painful path, but one he believed left room for hope."

Elliot sat with that for a long moment, the weight of it settling uncomfortably in his chest. "And now the darkness Helix left behind is what’s hunting my family."

"Among other things," the old man confirmed. "Entoma and her Dark Emissary kin serve something older than themselves, something that has been patiently gathering scattered fragments like the one beneath your family’s cellar for longer than your bloodline has held its title. You’ve already cost them one such fragment, tonight, simply by finding it before they could."

"So what happens now?"

The old man’s weathered face split into a small, knowing smile.

"Now, child, you decide whether you’re ready to carry a piece of what remains of Skion’s burden. Not all of it—not yet, perhaps not ever, if you’re wise about it. But enough to protect what matters to you."

He extended a hand, palm open, a small pulse of golden light gathering at its center.

"The choice, as always, remains entirely yours."

Elliot stared at the offered light for a long moment, questions crowding faster than he could voice them. "If I take this, does it change me? Make me something less human?"

"It makes you more of whatever you already are," the old man said. "If you are patient, it will make you more patient. If you are angry, more dangerous. Power of this kind rarely changes a person’s nature, child—it simply removes the limits that once kept that nature in check. That’s precisely why Skion feared giving it to just anyone."

"And you think I’m the right person."

"I think," the old man said carefully, "that you crushed two potions with your own teeth rather than leave a girl you’d known for less than a year to fight alone. I think you gave your remaining strength to five friends without hesitation rather than save it for yourself. Whether that makes you the right person, only time will tell. But it makes you a reasonable one to wager on."

"That’s not exactly reassuring."

"Reassurance was never my job," the old man said, not unkindly. "Only honesty."

Elliot thought of Seria’s hand tightening on his arm moments before he’d been pulled into this strange, timeless field. Of Mira’s small, trembling shoulders. Of his father’s grim resolve as he’d turned that ancient key.

"What happens if I refuse?"

"Then the fragment remains sealed, your family remains hunted, and Entoma’s masters eventually find another bloodline, another fragment, another unwilling heir to pressure into the same choice you’re facing now. The darkness doesn’t wait for anyone to be ready, child. It simply waits for an opening."

Elliot exhaled slowly, and reached out.

His fingers closed around the light.