Chapter 3064: Card Rush!
Date: Unspecified
Time: Unspecified
Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Five Regions, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City, TSR Tower, Guild Meeting Hall
“With that said, I think there’s little point in continuing this assembly,” I said as I rose from my seat. The entire hall immediately stood with me and bowed in unison. I took a few steps toward the exit before pausing. Without turning around, I added with a faint smile, “All the best.”
The moment I stepped outside, the department heads and organizational leaders hurried after me, no longer caring about decorum or proper etiquette. This wasn’t about protocol anymore. It was about opportunity. Each of them wanted a private audience before I departed for the Dark Realm.
Not everyone joined the rush. The smarter ones, like Diana and Cindy, remained behind. They understood their strengths. But then, they already had a dinner invitation from me to fall back on, so there was no need to pete with the crowd. Even if that meant they would have to accept being lower on the priority list.
Knowing exactly what everyone was after, I made my way to the TSR Guild headquarters and headed for the penthouse Sarah and Fred had prepared for me. There, I planned to meet them one by one.
The first to barge into the penthouse were, unsurprisingly, Susan, Jill, and Anna. For once, the three of them had put aside their pride and reached a temporary truce. They had e with a single purpose, to torture me.
“So this is how I learn news about my own fiancé?” Anna was the first to speak. “In the middle of a freaking assembly? If I’d missed such coldness, I wouldn’t have left the Royal Palace.”
She crossed her arms and glared at me, before totally losing it, “Wyatt, I didn’t rebel against my own family, and turned half my citizens against me, only to be treated like this?”
Anna was furious. Not simply because I was leaving for the Dark Realm indefinitely. What truly angered her was that I hadn’t told her beforehand. Worse, I hadn’t even asked if she wanted to acpany me regardless of my reasons for the visit.
The only reason she managed to keep her posure was because I had treated my other two fiancées exactly the same way. Had I informed either of them in advance, Anna would’ve exploded the moment she walked through the door. Well, she kind of did.
There was another reason as well. She refused to let Susan and Jill see even the slightest crack in her relationship with me. She didn’t want them thinking they were any closer to their fiancé than she was.
The moment the words left her mouth, however, Anna regretted speaking first. She had unknowingly surrendered the initiative to the other two women, who looked more than ready to pile on while she was still in the middle of venting.
Ignoring Anna’s plaint, I glanced at the other two and asked, “I take it you two are here for more or less the same reason?”
Susan gave a silent nod, her stern gaze answering for her.
Jill, however, shook her head with an innocent smile. She walked straight over, wrapped both arms around my right arm, and hugged it against her chest. “No, Wyatt. I’m here to talk about my department and my employees…”
“Jill, this isn’t what we agreed on,” Susan immediately snapped in a tone so cold that even I rarely heard her use it.
Anna didn’t even bother directing her frustration at Jill. Instead, she shot Susan an exasperated look. “I told you we couldn’t trust her.”
It became obvious what had happened. Susan had been the one to broker a temporary truce between the three of them. Anna had reluctantly gone along with it, while Jill had shamelessly exploited the agreement for her own advantage.
I had no intention of getting caught in the middle of their quarrel. Gently freeing my arm from Jill’s embrace, I smiled helplessly and said, “Looks like the three of you have quite a bit to discuss and sort out among yourselves. How about I attend to the others first? We don’t have much time.”
“I’ll deal with you later,” Anna warned Jill, letting her off the hook for the moment. Then she turned back to me. “All three of us are here for the same reason. Since you’re leaving on such short notice without any return date, panic has spread through every department and organization. Everyone wants to cash in the merits they’ve been saving and have their cards crafted by you before you leave. Requests are piling up across every branch. I’ve already instructed them to take measures to stop the panic…”
She pointed toward the large translucent glass doors. Beyond them stood a long line of department heads and organizational leaders waiting patiently for their turn.
“None of those measures are working,” she continued. “Especially after your controversial statements in the assembly. Though I can’t exactly blame them. Everyone’s preparing to shoulder more responsibility in your absence.”
“That’s only natural,” I replied with a shrug. “Besides, isn’t this good news? Why the long faces?”
Then I looked at Susan, pointing out, “I don’t blame them. But you, of all people, should know what I’m capable of when it es to card crafting.”
A faint smile appeared on Susan’s face, as she revealed, “Which is exactly why I’ve already instructed every department head and organization leader to prepare a detailed list of their requests and submit it to Hive Spirit…”
“You too?!” Anna blurted out, staring at Susan in disbelief.
For some reason, Susan’s betrayal stung far more than Jill’s. It felt… personal. Even so, Anna had no choice but to swallow her frustration for the time being.
“Forget it,” she muttered, waving it off.
I turned my attention back to the matter at hand.
“Has everyone already accumulated enough merits to exchange for the cards they actually want?” I asked. “Or are they simply rushing to place orders out of false sense of urgency?”
If it was the latter, this could quickly bee counterproductive.
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