The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort-Chapter 466: The Queen’s Surprise and Date (3)
"I promise," he answered, serious now, thumb tracing her knuckle. "And when I dive too deep into impossible science, you'll remind me why we build it."
"To protect," she echoed, soft.
A comfortable silence spread—thick, safe, sweet smelling of chocolate and mosslight. Monkey paced in a slow circle on the carpet, lens swiveling like an owl to capture new vantage points.
Elowen's gaze had not left the projection, but she leaned her head onto Mikhailis's shoulder. "I could watch them all night."
"You might," he said, smirking. "The ant soap opera never ends."
She elbowed him lightly—but didn't deny it.
Mikhailis's mind churned behind his steady smile. She absorbs everything, he thought, heart thudding in pleased wonder. Every gleam, every mechanism, every potential improvement. She'll rule not just on instinct but on knowledge. Pride swelled so large it almost hurt. And she trusts me to show her the raw guts of it.
Monkey tapped a rune; the feed flitted deeper, but before the image settled, Elowen turned to him with sudden mischief.
"If this is the best date ever," she said, "the next one will need fireworks to compete."
He arched a brow. "Bioluminescent beetle swarm grand finale?"
She grinned. "Now you're speaking my language."
Their laughter intertwined—quiet but rich—and Monkey responded with a delighted double chirp, proud to have orchestrated so much joy.
The view shifted again.
Rodion and his small escort emerged onto a moss-drenched clearing, sunlight slanting through mist-fogged boughs. Shafts of gold danced with drifting motes, making every dewdrop sparkle like a tiny lens flare on Monkey's projection. The mana in the air shimmered faintly—imperceptible to anyone but the three of them, who had long since trained their eyes to the subtle haze.
Mikhailis let out a low whistle that curled around the rim of his cocoa. "Finally. Though…" He rotated the mug, watching steam coil off the surface. "…this next part? Not my idea."
Elowen tilted her head, amusement bright in her eyes. "Oh?" The single word invited mischief.
"Rodion insisted," he said, tapping the side of the mug. More precisely, he ambushed me with a thirty-seven-point risk assessment and a fourteen-page mission plan. He kept the thought to himself; Elowen was already grinning too wide.
The holographic lens swiveled. The projector panned, sliding across a fallen cedar trunk riddled with luminescent beetle holes, then stopped at the crumbled maw of a forgotten ruin half-devoured by roots. Massive trunks arched over it like wary sentinels, their bark scarred by old warding runes.
Monkey zoomed in. A faint tremor shook the image, the lens automatically stabilizing.
TWILIGHT ROOT CAVERNS scrolled across the bottom in ghost-white letters.
Elowen inhaled, pupils dilating at the flicker of age-worn sigils. "Those symbols… Kyrelian era. They've been dormant for centuries."
"Dormant-ish," Mikhailis corrected, shifting to swirl the cocoa. "Still sparking." Sparks popped along the stone archway in the projection, sputtering like dying fireflies.
Ancient wards flickered feebly—alive enough to warn away fools, too weak to repel fate.
"D-Rank dungeon," he muttered, tone not quite joking. "Old ones mutate weird. Fluctuating mana fields, corrupted wildlife, occasional freak gravity shifts that flip your breakfast."
"Delightful," Elowen purred, feral grin flashing. She hugged the velvet throw closer, feet curling with anticipation. "I've always wanted to tour a gravity anomaly from the safety of my couch."
Rodion paused before the entrance, escorting Scarabs fanning out in silent arcs. His optics stutter-flashed, scanning cascading leyline data that scrolled on a side-pane for the viewers: LOCAL MANA DENSITY +73 %, POLARIZATION CHAOTIC, GEOMAGNETIC PULL 0.97G ± 0.12.
Elowen's brows rose. "That variance could throw crossbow bolts off course."
Mikhailis shrugged. "Good thing Rodion is basically a walking gyroscope."
Rodion's gauntlet touched a vein of mana fog curled around the root. A ripple of pale violet raced along the bark and vanished into a knot hole the size of a child's fist. The fog slithered after it like smoke pulled by a bellows.
Inside, roots thick as ship masts twisted through halls long ago carved in stone. In places, the wood had petrified, veins of quartz threading through grain like captured lightning. Bioluminescent moss clung to every surface, painting the gloom in sickly blues and eerie sea-greens.
Elowen whispered, "Looks like the bowels of a storm-killed forest."
Rodion advanced, his steps silent on the mossy floor. Scarabs scuttled ahead, six spines tapping the path—testing load-bearing capacity, sampling spores. Glyph beacons winked to life above their carapaces, marking safe lanes.
The first threat came almost instantly.
"Movement top left," Mikhailis warned, leaning forward even though Rodion certainly knew. He couldn't help it; the instinct to call plays in real time was ingrained.
From the ceiling dropped Mana Leeches—opaque, spectral things that dangled like translucent seaweed until they sensed warmth. They fell in lazy spirals, gelatinous mucous trailing strands of mana static.
Elowen shuddered, clutching her cocoa. "I do not envy him that clean-up."
Rodion sidestepped the first drip with dancer precision. His arm flicked up—fingers snapping to form a V. Fragmentary mana pulses burst forth: narrow beams of compressed aether, crackling white-violet. Each beam lanced a leech mid-plunge. They shriveled like salt-struck slugs, popped into motes that scattered in harmless luminescence across the floor.
"Pinpoint accuracy still optimal," Mikhailis muttered, pride warming his voice.
Rodion didn't answer with words; instead he pivoted, sliding right as three more leeches fell in clumps. In the same motion his right hand twisted, palm facing backward. A triangular vent near his wrist hissed—CHIK—and a fan of stuttering beams shredded the cluster before they touched armor.
Second wave. Thorny vines lashed from the floor, animate and hungry. They sprang for ankle joints, coiling with whip-fast strikes.
Rodion launched upward—servos whining in compressed power burst—and twisted mid-air like a ribbon dancer. Flare Displacement triggered in a pop of ember-orange. Micro-thrusters along his backplate spit twin tongues of flame, igniting the vine tips. They recoiled hissing back into root crevices, charred and smoking.
The camera angle caught a Scarab rolling under Rodion's shadow, mandibles snapping through a smaller vine that tried to double-back. Green sap splattered the lens; Monkey wiped it virtually, clearing the shot with a digital squeegee swipe.
Elowen bounced once on the couch. "See that feint? Brilliant. He baited them into overextending, then cooked them."
Mikhailis nodded, finger tapping the ceramic mug. "Little too much lateral drift, though. If he'd counterweighted left foot first, he could've saved two milliseconds."
"Perfectionist," she teased.
He winked. "Occupational hazard."
Onscreen, Rodion forged ahead. Split-screen windows popped up: one showed a collapsed side tunnel—heat bloom from unstable mana stones still glowing; another displayed a sudden spike on a seismic graph. Every disturbance, Rodion adjusted for with a shift of stance, a hand signal to the escort, a quick dispatch of a Scout Scarab to sample air.
Elowen murmured, "His risk tree must be branching a mile a second."
Rodion reached a final hall—a ribbed corridor where petrified roots arched overhead like cathedral beams. At its end loomed a set of doors, once bronze, now blackened and fused with intertwined root bark. They pulsed slowly, as though a monstrous heart beat behind them.
A sound crawled down the passage—tap-tap-tap. Not the rhythmic drip of water, but something harder, claws scoring stone in uneven patterns. Wrong cadence. Wrong timbre. It set the tiny hairs on Mikhailis's arms upright.
"I hate that noise," he muttered.
Elowen leaned so far toward the projection she had to grip the couch edge to stay seated. "What's behind that seal?"
Mikhailis tightened his cocoa grip. Please be something small enough for a D-Rank. "I guess we're about to find out."
Monkey sensed rising tension and obediently dimmed ambient brightness. The living room shadows deepened; only the projection glowed, painting their faces in flickering silver-green.
Rodion lifted his left hand, palm flat against the root wall. Sensors traced energy currents; sigils danced across his gauntlet like minnows across a pond. He located the weakest seam—two aged glyphs no longer symmetrical.
Elowen clutched Mikhailis's sleeve unconsciously. He covered her fingers with his free hand, giving a reassuring squeeze though his own pulse ticked briskly.
Rodion flexed steel fingers, found purchase, and pressed. Thin blue lines—circuitry veins—lit along his arm, channeling stabilizer energy to override the ward. The knot of roots quivered, faint lumens bleeding from between cracks. That clawing sound intensified, as if whatever waited sensed fresh opportunity.
Mikhailis swallowed. The cocoa suddenly tasted too sweet.
Monkey's lens zoomed, framing Rodion's gloved fingertips sliding into the first seam. A flake of blackened bark snapped free and drifted earthward in slow motion.
The world held its breath.
