My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode : 69

Chapter : 137

Lloyd blinked, processing this new, absurd twist. So, his reckless, System-reward-driven flower-snatching had, in a bizarre, entirely unintentional, roundabout way, potentially saved their lives by triggering the guardian serpent before they could blunder into its path and become instant snake-food? The universe, he decided, didn't just work in mysterious ways; it worked in ways that were actively, hilariously, terrifyingly stupid. "Well," he managed, running a hand through his own dirt-streaked, sweat-matted hair, "glad my apparent innate talent for attracting oversized, homicidal flora and fauna, and inadvertently starting inter-species monster brawls, could be of some minor service." He paused, then a slow, almost mischievous grin spread across his face, the eighty-year-old survivor enjoying a moment of perfectly timed dramatic reveal. It was a grin that held a hint of perfectly timed showmanship even in the depths of a cursed forest. "And as for the flower, Lady Faria," he said, his voice regaining some of its earlier light, almost teasing quality, "don't you worry your pretty, crimson-violet head about it."

Faria looked at him, confusion warring instantly with a fresh surge of hope. Her hand instinctively went to her disheveled hair, a rare flicker of self-consciousness. "What… what do you mean, 'don't worry'?" she demanded, her voice tight with suspense. "It's back there! In the middle of that… that mythological mosh pit! Guarded by a serpent that could probably swallow this entire forest for breakfast and still have room for a light snack of, say, us!"

Lloyd simply held up his right hand, palm conspicuously, dramatically empty. He waggled his fingers. "Patience, Your Ladyship. Observe the master illusionist at work. Or, you know, just a guy with a really weird bloodline power and a penchant for overly complicated solutions to simple problems." He then flexed his fingers, a subtle, almost imperceptible movement, like a puppeteer twitching an invisible string.

For the first time, Faria and her entourage, their attention now laser-focused on his hand, noticed it – a glint, impossibly fine, almost invisible in the dim, filtered light of the ancient forest, leading from his fingertips, taut and unerring, back into the oppressive gloom from whence they had so recently, and so rapidly, fled. A thread, finer than spider silk, almost intangible, yet humming with a faint, contained energy that resonated with the very air around them. It was there, yet barely there, a line of impossible steel defying the chaos.

"What…?" Faria breathed, her amethyst eyes widening as she finally registered the almost invisible filament, tracing its path back into the shadows. Her mind struggled to comprehend. "That… that wire… it can't be…"

With a sharp, decisive tug, a motion as practiced and confident as a master fisherman setting a hook, Lloyd pulled.

The steel wire, a testament to his hidden Ferrum power, his innate ability to manipulate refined metal with pinpoint precision and incredible, almost magical, tensile strength, sang almost inaudibly as it sliced back through the intervening undergrowth, unseen, unheard by anyone not specifically attuned to its presence or currently staring at it with wide-eyed disbelief. It was less a retrieval, more a summons.

There was a faint rustling from the direction of the now-distant, but still audible, chaotic battle, a brief flicker of movement in the deeper shadows, a dark shape detaching itself from the edge of the glade where the titanic struggle raged, and then, with startling, almost impossible speed, something dark and velvety shot out of the gloom, arcing through the air like a thrown spear, drawn by the rapidly retracting, near-invisible wire.

With a final, smooth, almost theatrical motion, like a stage magician producing a rabbit from a hat, Lloyd caught it neatly in his outstretched hand.

The Dark Vein flower. Pulsating faintly with its cold, dark luminescence, its midnight velvet petals unblemished, its strange, cold, cloying floral scent filling the small clearing by the stream with an almost palpable aura of ancient power. He had never truly let go of the guiding wire. He’d simply allowed the flower to fall, seemingly abandoned amidst the chaos, while maintaining his silent, unbreakable connection. Like a master angler, he’d skillfully played his line, letting the currents of battle rage around his lure, waiting for the precise, opportune moment to reel in his precious, quest-fulfilling prize.

Chapter : 138

Faria Kruts and her entire team stared, utterly, completely, comprehensively speechless. Their mouths, which had been previously engaged in panicked gasping or horrified exclamations, now hung open in slack-jawed disbelief. Their eyes, moments before wide with terror, were now practically bulging saucers of incredulous astonishment. They had seen him seemingly discard the flower, seen the colossal guardian serpent emerge as if summoned from the very earth, witnessed the beginning of a battle that would likely reshape the local geography. And now… here it was. The flower. In his hand. As if conjured by sheer, impossible magic. As if plucked from the heart of a maelstrom by an invisible hand.

"You… you had it all along?" Faria finally choked out, her voice a ragged whisper, a bizarre cocktail of awe, bewilderment, and something that suspiciously resembled grudging, almost infuriated, admiration. "That… that wire…? How…?"

"Ferrum family specialty," Lloyd said with a nonchalant shrug that did absolutely nothing to diminish the sheer impossibility of what they had just witnessed. His heart was still pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs from the sheer audacity and risk of the maneuver, but his external expression was one of cool, almost smug, competence. "Basic iron manipulation, you know. Good for… retrieving things from inconvenient locations. Like, say, the middle of a giant monster death-match. Handy for fishing, too, though the bait tends to complain more." He held out the Dark Vein flower towards Faria, its cold, dark beauty a stark, almost profane contrast to the grime and sweat staining his hand. "You said you needed it? For your mother? Some kind of persistent ailment, the alchemist reckons this is the key?" He saw the desperate, almost painful hope flare anew in her amethyst eyes, momentarily eclipsing the shock. He remembered her previous plea for a flower, her mother's alchemist. This had to be it.

"Consider it… a professional courtesy," he continued, a wry smile playing on his lips. "Payment for services rendered in the field of 'leading giant horrors away from unsuspecting ecological surveyors.' Or maybe just a thank you for inadvertently pointing me towards a quest item I didn't even know I needed to complete for… personal reasons." He couldn’t very well explain the System. "One good turn deserves another, right? Besides," his grin widened, a flicker of something unreadable – perhaps the satisfaction of a task well and truly, if bizarrely, completed – in his eyes, "my business with that particular bloom is concluded. Its purpose, for me, has been served." And the forty coins are safely logged in my mental account, he thought with a silent, deeply satisfying smirk that only he understood. Mission accomplished, even if it did involve nearly being eaten by two different mythological nightmares.

He placed the pulsating, terrifyingly beautiful, legendarily rare Dark Vein flower into Faria Kruts’s trembling, outstretched hands. The look of stunned, overwhelming gratitude on her face, for that brief, unguarded moment, the sheer, raw relief that washed away the terror and the haughtiness, was… noteworthy. Very noteworthy indeed. It certainly beat getting paid in near-useless swamp samples or the dubious honor of having personally cataloged a new species of abyss-spawned horror for the Guild’s already overstuffed bestiary.

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The Dark Vein flower, a pulsating bloom of midnight velvet and captured starlight, felt cold and strangely heavy in Faria Kruts’s trembling hands. The brief, almost manic exchange with Lloyd Ferrum – his impossible retrieval of the flower, his nonchalant gifting of it, his bizarrely confident pronouncements amidst the echoes of monstrous battle – had left her reeling, a whirlwind of disbelief, gratitude, and sheer, unadulterated bewilderment. For a fleeting, insane instant, there in the dim, moss-carpeted clearing by the rushing stream, surrounded by her exhausted but relieved guards, a fragile tendril of hope had dared to unfurl. They had the flower. They had survived.

Lloyd, propped against a mossy boulder, was attempting to regulate his breathing, which still sounded suspiciously like a broken bellows. Fang, a magnificent but thoroughly drained wolf-spirit, was a heap of storm-grey fur at his feet, emitting soft, whimpering pants. The eighty-year-old pragmatist in Lloyd was busy calculating the net gain of the Galla Forest excursion: one dangerously cursed flower successfully procured and gifted (zero monetary value, but high in potential future political IOUs, perhaps?), forty System Coins secured for a quest item he no longer possessed (excellent ROI, all things considered), and the acquisition of several new rips in his favorite practical tunic, plus a collection of scratches that would likely scar. Oh, and the lingering trauma of being hunted by two different mythological nightmares that had apparently decided to use Galla Forest as their personal Thunderdome. All in all, a mixed bag.