My Harem of Dangerous and Crazy Women as a Reincarnated Necromancer

Chapter 257: Bringing a Small Secret to Light

When the druid finally descended onto one of the elven palace’s wide observation platforms, they were already waiting for them.

The moment the enormous beast touched down and Mark climbed off its back, the three women rushed to greet them.

It was Aria, Alice, and Rose, who, from the way they kept glancing at the sky, had clearly been waiting for their arrival for quite a while.

"Master! You’re finally back!" Aria said, being the first to reach him and practically throwing herself into his arms. "About time! Do you know how boring it’s been around here without you?"

"Welcome home, my lord!" Alice seconded, barely a step behind her, with an energy she rarely allowed herself to show in public. "We missed you so much... Well, some more than others, but we all missed you."

"I’d say you were the one counting the days the most," Aria commented, glancing at her sideways with clear intent to embarrass her.

"That’s not true!"

"You had a calendar, Alice. I saw you crossing off days."

"That was... that was for administrative reasons!"

Mark let out a laugh at the scene.

"I’m very happy to see you both too," he said cheerfully. "And relax, I’m still in one piece."

"How did it go?" Aria asked, not letting go of his arm. "Did everything go well? Did you get into too much trouble? Because knowing you..."

"Pretty well, actually," Mark replied, gently pulling away. "We resolved the succession issue without any major setbacks and everything’s in order. A pretty calm and productive trip, for once."

Rose, who had approached with much more composure than the other two, gave a soft smile.

"I’m glad you came back safe and sound," she said with that characteristic serenity of hers, though the relief in her voice was genuine.

Mark returned the smile. He was about to say something, but Rose was quicker, and her expression shifted slightly as she noticed something.

"Wait a moment..." she said, looking around. "Where’s Yuki? I don’t see her with you."

The question made Aria and Alice notice the assassin’s absence too.

"It’s true," Aria said, frowning. "Wasn’t she supposed to have gone with you?"

"Yuki’s fine... she just stayed behind in the beastman kingdom."

"Huh? Why’s that?" Alice asked, confused.

"She has to take care of tying up a few loose ends before coming back," Mark replied, raising a hand to calm them. "She’ll be there for about a month, and then I’ll send someone for her."

"A whole month?" Aria asked, unable to hide her surprise.

"Yeah," Mark confirmed. "It’s a long story. Let me explain."

"In that case, we should head inside," Rose cut in. "We’ll be far more comfortable talking in there than out here. Besides, I’m sure you have a lot to tell us, Master."

"Sounds perfect to me," Mark said. "Honestly, a comfortable seat and something to drink sound amazing after so many days of travel."

Everyone agreed, and the group started moving toward the interior of the palace, chatting animatedly as they went.

And without realizing it, they left Ely behind.

The knight remained standing on the observation platform, alone, with the druid unconscious on the ground beside her and a twitching eyebrow as she watched everyone walk away without her.

"...Unbelievable, simply unbelievable," Ely muttered to herself, crossing her arms. "I just discovered I can turn invisible."

Ely looked down at the unconscious elf at her feet, as if expecting him to back her up.

"You saw that, right?"

"..."

"Those ungrateful women completely ignored me..." she complained, clearly throwing a tantrum. "I came back too, you know? At least a ’Hi, Ely’... but noooo."

"..."

"The moment we set foot back home, what’s the first thing they do? ’Where’s Yuki? What happened to Yuki? Oh no, poor Yuki, she’s missing.’"

"..."

Ely let out a resigned huff.

"And what about me? Am I invisible or something?" she kept talking to the unconscious elf. "Not one of them is going to ask how Ely’s doing? If Ely made it back in one piece?"

The druid, of course, didn’t respond. He remained deeply unconscious, snoring lightly against the ground.

"It’s not that it bothers me that they worry about Yuki, mind you," Ely clarified quickly, waving a hand as if the assassin could hear her. "I like Yuki a lot. Just to be clear."

"..."

Ely let out a long sigh and ran a hand over her face.

"Damn... I’m sure I look ridiculous getting annoyed over this," Ely muttered. "I definitely need to go inside before I lose my mind completely."

And with one last indignant huff, Ely turned and hurried to catch up with the rest into the palace, leaving the poor druid to his fate on the platform.

"Wait! Don’t you dare start talking about important stuff without me!"

A while later, comfortably settled in one of the palace’s private rooms, with drinks in hand and finally away from the cold of the observation deck, Mark told them everything that had happened in the beastman kingdom.

He told them about Luna and the summit, about the journey, the ambush at the mansion, Jack and his attempt to usurp the throne, the siblings’ betrayal, the dying king, and the new coalition government.

And, of course, about the part Yuki was handling in the shadows.

When he finished recounting everything, Rose let out a sigh of relief.

"I’m really glad everything went well," she said, leaning back a little in her seat. "Because honestly, I was worried the entire time you were gone..."

"Worried about what specifically?" Mark asked.

"About a lot of things..." Rose admitted, looking him in the eyes. "But mostly, I was afraid you might run into one of the Demon Lord’s subordinates, like what happened to us when we arrived here."

"Now that you mention it, you’re right..." Ely said.

"If something like that had happened while you were far from home, without reinforcements..."

"Bah, even if we had run into one of those, nothing would have happened," Ely cut in, waving it off dismissively. "Between Yuki and me we’d have kicked its ass without breaking a sweat."

Mark took a moment to organize his thoughts. Then, he broke the silence with words nobody expected to hear.

"Well, about that... the truth is I did run into the Demon Lord."

His words made all four of them startle instantly.

Aria nearly choked on her drink, Alice sat bolt upright, Rose’s eyes went wide, and Ely was the one who reacted most violently, springing to her feet.

"WHAT?!" Ely exclaimed, clearly affected. "What do you mean you ran into the Demon Lord?! When?! Where?! I was with you the entire damn trip and I didn’t see a single thing! Why didn’t you tell me anything at the time?!"

"Ely, breathe—"

"Don’t tell me to breathe!" she continued, clearly agitated. "It’s supposed to be my job to protect you! How am I supposed to do that if the Demon Lord herself appears in front of you and I don’t even find out?! What if she had done something to you?!"

"Ely!" Mark raised both hands, trying to calm her. "I’m fine, okay?... Nothing bad happened."

Ely looked at him, still shaken, but reluctantly sat back down.

"...Why didn’t you tell me?" she asked again, but this time in a tone more hurt than furious.

"Because I knew you’d react exactly like this," Mark replied gently. "I didn’t want to worry you for the rest of the trip over something that had already happened and wasn’t an immediate danger."

"..."

"Besides, I didn’t meet her in person... well, not exactly."

Rose frowned, confused.

"What do you mean not in person?" she asked, brow furrowed. "Then how? I don’t understand... did you meet her or not?"

Mark took a moment before answering.

"In my dreams," he said finally.

All four stared at him, unable to understand what he meant. The silence that followed only made the confusion grow.

"...In your dreams?" Aria repeated slowly.

"Yeah..."

"Master, a dream is just a dream," Alice said. "I don’t see why—"

"That’s what I thought too," Mark interrupted. "You see, for a while now, I’d been having strange dreams... Dreams where she appeared, the Demon Lord."

Nobody said a word.

"At first I didn’t think much of it," Mark confessed, somewhat embarrassed. "I figured it was my mind playing tricks on me, that I was stressed, or that I’d just been thinking about her too much."

He paused.

"But it turned out it really was her," Mark continued, somewhat nervous. "This whole time she’d been infiltrating my dreams, for real, so she could talk to me without anyone else finding out."

The weight of those words fell over the room like a slab of stone.

All four of them fell silent, absorbing what Mark had just revealed.

The idea that this woman, the Demon Lord, the most feared entity in the world, had had free access to their Master’s mind for who knows how long, without any of them knowing about it, was simply terrifying.

The silence stretched on until Rose finally broke it.

With an unusual seriousness for her and an expression hard to read, she fixed her gaze on Mark before asking the question all of them had been holding back.

"Master..." she said, staring at him. "What did she tell you?"

Mark looked down at his drink and let out a long sigh before answering.

"Well..."