Angie lit up the moment Luke said he would take her to Maine. The joy was so clear, so bright, that it bled through the servant bond without resistance, washing over him like a steady warmth. Their reasons, however, couldn’t have been more different. He wanted to protect her, or rather, protect the fragment of Angelica still living inside her, so Angie could have a new life, one far removed from everything she had been. Angie, meanwhile… only wanted to stay at his side.

  “Thank you so much, my lord. I promise I will prove my worth to you.”

  Before he could react, she dropped to her knees and bowed until her forehead touched the floor in a full, almost ceremonial display of devotion.

  “Angie,” Luke blurted, squatting down beside her. The urgency in his voice betrayed his discomfort. “Let’s change this kind of formality first, okay? We’re friends. So call me Luke, and there’s no need to kneel every time.”

  “I could never do that, my lord,” she replied without hesitation, as if the idea itself were impossible, even offensive.

  He exhaled a long, resigned breath.

  This is going to be difficult…

  A small cough slipped out, the kind that comes from secondhand embarrassment.

  “I need to go deal with the people organizing our return to my continent. We can’t stay here for long,” he said. Angie rose immediately, attentive, waiting for whatever came next.

  Luke looked away for a moment.

  “I promise I’ll find clothes for you.”

  He could have tried transferring the novice adventurer outfit into her inventory, but the feature was locked until she chose a class. And he wanted that choice to be hers, not his. He already knew she would never make that decision on her own. Maybe, once she was with him in Maine, she would gain the confidence to choose for herself. Maybe he was being guided too much by Angelica’s memories, by the lingering presence of someone who still occupied a quiet corner of his heart.

  He knew that, and that was exactly why he refused to interfere with Angie’s class. He wanted the part of Angelica within her to be free, truly free, and eventually discover the modern world, experience humanity again. He believed, deeply, that the less he shaped her future, the better it would be for her.

  “The next step is getting you out of this medieval society,” he continued. “Angelica spent eight years trapped in the tutorial, and you spent millennia as that angelic woman. I’m going to get you out of here. Soon this place will be packed with important people from every country in the world. The sooner we leave, the better.”

  Angie nodded softly. Her wings shifted in a small, almost unconscious motion, a flicker of joy she clearly couldn't hide even if quisesse.

  A dramatic cough cut through the quiet, coming from the pendant hanging at Luke’s neck, the home of the endlessly talkative soul who insisted on inserting herself into every moment.

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  "Now that… you two have worked things out," Artemis drawled, dragging every syllable with smug satisfaction, "I’m very happy to welcome you officially to the party, Miss Super-Sexy Angel."

  "I am also happy to join my lord’s group," Angie replied, entirely earnest.

  "You know, this look is perfect as is," Artemis continued breezily. "You don’t need to give her clothes at all."

  "Artemis…" Luke muttered, gripping the pendant like he was trying to strangle the spirit inside it.

  "What? I’m being honest, man. Brutally honest. In a team, we shouldn’t hide anything from each other."

  Luke inhaled deeply through his nose.

  "I’m going to… place you inside my soul," he told Angie, deliberately ignoring Artemis’s existence.

  "No problem, my lord," Angie said, stepping toward him with careful, measured grace.

  He kept his eyes firmly locked on hers. It took real effort. If he let his focus slip for even a heartbeat, he knew exactly where his gaze would wander, and that would only fuel Artemis’s insanity.

  "I need to tell you something as well, my lord," Angie added, her voice gentle as ever. "When I’m inside your soul, I can still hear what happens outside. I might even be able to communicate with you."

  "Seriously? That’s new," Luke said, eyebrows lifting.

  "It may be because I was originally within your soul as an item, or because your rank increased," she explained. "When Charlie fully regenerates, you must ask her if she’s capable of it now as well. Your new rank strengthened your soul and your connection with your Inner Self. That may have improved our link."

  "Wow, like a super soul-sex upgrade," Artemis chimed in, annoyingly thrilled.

  "No, it’s not soul sex," Luke shot back instantly, nearly tripping over his own words. It was one thing to endure Artemis’s random perversity; it was another to subject someone like Angie to it.

  "It’s a deep soul connection," Angie corrected calmly. "Not sex. I can assure you that as Angelica and as an angel, I am entirely virginal. Unless, of course, my lord…"

  "Okay, Angie," Luke cut in quickly. "You’re an incredibly advanced being, and some things are still new to you. Don’t worry. I’ll help you learn the social… filters you’re missing."

  Angie gave him a shy, genuine smile, and in the next instant, Luke dismissed her, letting her slip back into his soul. The moment she vanished, a realization hit him hard: she was fragile. Level 0. She probably didn’t even have a hundred HP.

  Somewhere in that village, Jonathan was still out there. And Luke didn’t want Angie exposed to even a sliver of danger. He also needed to understand whether the rules of his resurrection ability, the same one that brought Charlie back, applied to Angie the same way. It was a question that weighed far more than he liked to admit.

  Angie’s voice echoed inside his mind, soft but unmistakable: ‘My lord, I am speaking within your soul now.’

  Artemis didn’t even wait two seconds before chiming in:

  ‘So now we have a premium voice chat inside Luke’s head? This just gets better and better.’

  Luke focused inward, drawing his attention to the core of his soul. The inner landscape was clearer than it had ever been. It was exactly like Erza had explained once before: when a rank increases, so does the clarity of one’s own soul. Now he could see two distinct lights pulsing at the center, Charlie and Angie, glowing like tiny living sparks.

  Angie’s voice returned, calm and explanatory:

  ‘My lord, about your concern regarding whether I can return to life if I die… the soul core that the Archangel used shattered during the process. It broke when I absorbed his power at the same moment I became your servant.’

  She paused, letting the implication settle.

  ‘I am a living being connected to you, to your soul. So you are my anchor, my source of return, should I die. As long as I am near you in the moment of death, my soul can be reabsorbed.’

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