''My wife will like this new taste.'' A black-haired, slender young man was sipping from a tablespoon, fully absorbed in the cooking, until at some point he snapped out of it and fixed his warm gaze on the pot of soup simmering on the stove.
Deeply in love, he resumed stirring the soup, which was filled with all kinds of roots and vegetables.
For some reason, he suddenly flinched and blinked his scarlet eyes rapidly a couple of times.
''Ah… I should ask my wife whether she prefers beef or pork. She's really picky about meat, after all.''
Yeah, his wife occasionally complained about the quality of her meals. She even banned him from hugging or sleeping next to her for a week over it… It was absolute hell for him. Of course, he didn't want that to happen again.
He smiled faintly and put a makeshift tool on his crippled leg to balance himself, then staggered from the kitchen to the living room.
''Honey, do you want a beef or… pork in—''
However, his words froze as he saw two men kneeling on the floor before his wife. They wore a black armor shimmered with an aura of occult darkness as their eyes stayed lowered, not daring a single glance upward, as if his wife were someone they had served for a long time.
Stunned, his eyes widened in disbelief.
And his wife… she remained as emotionless and cold as ever. Combined with her platinum-white hair, she looked like a true goddess from an ancient painting. Despite being just a commoner from the outskirts, dressed as plainly as her husband, she still gazed down at the knights with authority.
''H-Honey?.. W-What's go—'' He stammered.
Again, he couldn't finish his sentence as a surge of mana from one of the knights pressed down on him. At the same time, the knight slowly gave him a cold glance, as if saying, "How dare you call my goddess such crude words? I'll kill you."
Indeed, he thought he was dead—but half a second later, he barely felt anything. Letting out a heavy breath, he cursed in fear.
''D-Damn! Did he just… threaten me?''
He glanced at his trembling hands, then looked up, astonished. One of the knights who had threatened him had vanished... No, more precisely, if he looked closely, he could see the traces of blood and shards of armor scattered across the floor. Even the remaining knight seemed to shiver slightly in fear of what had happened.
His wife let out a deep breath and moved her warm eyes toward him, slowly parting her red lips.
''I'm sorry... I'll make sure next time my fucking dogs learn their manners when meeting you.''
He wiped out the sweats and scratched his head in confusion, thinking about the only thing he could say at this point.
''Huh… Um… You look tired. Having some trouble? Do you need a break?''
For a moment, his wife was surprised, then a faint blush appeared on her face. She looked at him tenderly—the first time ....she'd shown real emotion.
Meanwhile, he was wide-eyed, frozen, his feet rooted to the spot like a fool. He was no less surprised due to the fact that that was the first time he had seen that shy look on her face ever since their marriage three years ago.
In the blink of an eye, he felt soft, moist lips against his own, and a gentle stir of her tongue. He froze, letting her take the lead, and took in her warm embrace. Maybe it would've been better if he had sensed all her gift with his six senses and heart, instead of thinking about anything at this moment.
"Damn… I'm addicted." His mind went almost blank, and his heart felt like it was about to jump out of his chest. He tried to fight his instinct, forcing himself to stop, even though his tense hand itched to squeeze her round buttocks instead of just resting on her hips.
About five minutes later, she finally pulled away, quickly leaning her head against her husband's chest in embarrassment, managing to hiden her expression. Her soft, ample bosom pressed against him and moved lightly as she gasped for breath.
Damn! He really wanted to see her face right now.
A few seconds passed before she finally spoke, her voice weak and trembling.
"Y-You're such a devilish one…"
A couple of minutes later, she slowly lifted her golden-amber eyes, then lightly curved her lips into a faint smile as she caught sight of her husband's idiotic, spaced-out face.
''It's all I can do for my husband.''
[Ding! System Installed!]
[Ding! System Notification!]
[Mission Completed: Lock Your Wife's Tongue]
[Reward Unlocked: Soul-Devouring Flame — Rank: EX]
[All the damage and aftereffects on the host have been restored]
***
Half a month later, the day finally came. He had prepared a lot for this. Although it was rather hard for him, since he hadn't used a sword in a few years after his mana core was shattered.
However, it wasn't a big deal — he was a genius. Half a month was more than enough for him to get back to his peak form.
Carl scrutinized around the narrow, dark passage for a while before he then slipped forward, blending into the crowd ahead from the shadowy thicket, trying to hide his face deeper and deeper under his hood.
Through a small gap in his lips, he summoned the system to double-check his current status.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Main Quest]:
– Destroy Arcadia Academy.
– Rewards: A short date with me and a tongue kiss from your wife if you complete the quest flawlessly.
[Side Quest]:
– Clear your first dungeon.
– Reward: Dimensional Slash Skill
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System Notice]
• Don't get too close to any girl. My husband~
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Carl's heartbeat nearly stopped the moment his eyes locked onto the [system notice] and the reward of the main quest, ignoring every other word on the screen.
He rubbed his chest lightly and let out a long breath, recalling the look in his wife's eyes. It had been so long since the last time he hugged her.
Overall, his wife was a mysterious girl… He didn't know much about her, not even her real name, ever since he happened to save her while passing the border between the stoker and strike realms.
She never said anything, and he never asked. He would wait — out of the highest respect for her.
Still… damn. Even though they were married after one year since incident, she told him nothing.
But he was sure she held one of the highest statuses in the realm of strike class, judging by everything she had done. His wife wanted him to go to her realm and take the highest role there… However, if that was true, there would be tons of resentment and hatred toward him from the subject of the realm of strike class— just because he was weak, just a stoker.
Even if his wife used her absolute authority to lift him up, it would change everything — and not in a good way.
Carl had already made his bold declaration. They wanted him to prove himself? Fine. He would. He would destroy Arcadia Academy — the place known for raising and training the Stoker Realm's geniuses.
On top of that, he didn't want to live off his wife's reputation and authority… That would be humiliating for a man like him.
Anyway, he had to go to the Academy because he was no longer the Ryan Family's heir, which meant he couldn't choose high-rank dungeons inside the family's territory to rank up. The Academy, even if he was just a low citizen now, would give him that chance.
And that was why his main quest was to destroy Arcadia Academy in his system — because that was the promise he made to his wife on purpose.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Name]: Carl Ryan
[Age]: 18
[Class]: Stoker
[Rank]: F [0/5000] (Requires Monster Card)
[Soul Rank]: ★ Dragon (Progress: 00.00%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
System Restriction: Absolute
Talking to or touching any girl other than your wife is strictly forbidden. Penalty: Tortured by Thorned Shadow Vines for 24 hours.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Attributes] (★)
Strength : 2×1
Agility : 4×1
Vitality : 3×1
Intelligence : 3×1
Wisdom : 5×1
Available stat points: 0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skills]
Soul-Devouring Flame — Rank: EX
Flame Breath — Rank: F
Draconic Physique — Rank: F
Basic Swordsmanship — Rank: A
Dragon Senses[Passive] — Rank: F
The Will of the Primordial Dragon God[Passive] — Rank: Unique (∞)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Inventory]
Slot 1: Mana Stone (Common) ×1
Slot 2: Water Flask ×1
Slot 3: Gold Coin ×1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Perfect… I can do it again!" Carl muttered as he stared at his rank on the system screen, visible only to him.
A faint warmth of pride—thinking of his wife—flickered across his face, only to vanish when he suddenly felt a shove and a loud scolding from behind.
"Hey! Watch where you're looking! Don't block the way!"
Shoved by some random guy, Carl stumbled forward and fell face-first into the dusty lamp-lit walkway. The narrow passage to the dungeon became clogged as the crowd behind him stopped short, hemmed in by potion trees on either side.
"You piece of shit!"
Angry voices erupted all around. Dozens of hostile eyes turned toward Carl. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself up, his own temper flaring—only to realize with horror that his hood had been knocked back during the fall.
A guy, nearby, quickly recognized Carl, his lips trembling as if he was about to spit out some nonsense.
Carl's face twisted. The worst was happening—completely unexpected. He managed to grit out:
"...You damn… Don't—"
"It's him! The crippled heir of the Ryan Family—Carl Ryan!"
Carl sighed in boredom.
"Don't say my name…"