Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3076: Wedding Night Present – II

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Five Regions, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City, TSR Tower, Penthouse Office

“No, I didn’t think that.” Her voice softened, the anger draining from it. “If anything, I thought of you as my strongest rival.”

She paused before adding, almost reluctantly, “As for Jill, I accepted that from her. She’s an outsider. I never trusted her to begin with—”

“Hey! I’m right here!” Jill protested, cutting in but Anna completely ignored her focusing on Susan.

“I thought we could turn our rivalry into a strong friendship.” She looked directly at Susan. “Maybe even the baby sister I never had.”

Susan stared into Anna’s eyes, searching for even the slightest hint of deception.

“You really mean that?” she asked cautiously. “Or are you pulling a Jill on me?”

Anna gave her a firm nod. That was all Susan needed. Her expression immediately softened, and she rushed forward, throwing her arms around Anna.

“I always admired you, Your Highness,” Susan confessed, her voice suddenly overflowing with the affection she had apparently been holding back for far too long. “I didn’t approve of your party-girl lifestyle, but you were an idol to thousands of young women in the Southern Region including me.”

She tightened her embrace. “You were proof that a woman could stand at the very top and still choose to rebel against the expectations placed on her. You gave so many of us the courage to dream bigger than the lives we’d been assigned.”

While Susan and Anna seemed to be bonding at Jill’s expense, Jill was practically fuming. The irritation rolling off her was so intense that one could almost imagine smoke curling from her ears.

“Now you two are using my name as an adjective!” Jill snapped. “That’s literally bullying.”

She immediately turned toward me, seeking what she clearly believed should be an impartial judge.

“Wyatt, you saw that, right?” she complained, pointing accusingly at the other two. “Those two are ganging up on me.”

Anna and Susan exchanged a glance. Then, almost simultaneously, they smiled, saying in unison, “That’s what you get for acting smart and breaking the pact first.”

“Wyatt, say something,” Jill demanded, reaching for her unresponsive fiancé and shaking him by the arm.

Instead of responding, his body began to disperse. The surrounding sunshine and greenery followed, dissolving into wisps of smoke that curled through the air before fading away. Within moments, the meadow vanished completely, and the three women found themselves back inside the familiar penthouse office.

The trio froze. They immediately looked around for their fiancé. He was nowhere to be found. Even the department heads and organizational leaders who had been lined up outside the office were gone.

For a few seconds, none of them said a word. Then the realization hit them. Their fiancé had slipped away while they were busy arguing. Before any of them could react, their Grimoires began lighting up with notifications and incoming messages. One after another, alerts flooded in.

They had been unable to receive any of them while inside the sub-reality, completely cut off from the outside world. Now that they had returned, the accumulated notifications came rushing in all at once.

Jill stared at the messages, her expression slowly darkening.

“That bastard…” Anna and Susan exchanged a look. Their fiancé had actually escaped while the three of them were busy fighting among themselves.

As they went through the notifications, their expressions gradually changed. Their fiancé had already announced the Merit Loan Program in their names.

And now, the New Empire’s Grimoire Network was overflowing with praise for the three of them. People were already discussing their proposal, praising their leadership, and debating which of the three had contributed the most to the new system.

But that wasn’t even the most shocking part. Their fiancé had also announced that department heads and organizational leaders who performed exceptionally well during his absence would receive an Unranked Grimoire as a reward.

The announcement immediately sent ripples through the Five Regions. If anyone else had made such a claim, most people would have dismissed it as empty propaganda.

But this was the Southern Hope. The man who had discovered Silver Milk Powder. The creator of the VR-Slime Card. The creator of the VR-Universe. If anyone in the Card World possessed the means to recreate something thought to have been lost or from the myths, people believed it was him. Within hours, speculation exploded across the Grimoire Network.

“Did His Highness really recover the lost recipe for the Unranked Grimoire?”

“He must have!”

“Who else could possibly make such a promise?”

The rumor spread faster than anyone could contain it. The New Empire, which had begun slipping slightly down the trending rankings, suddenly surged back to the top.

One announcement had put them back on spotlight. And the three women hadn’t even been there to make it. They didn’t know if they should be mad at him for stealing that opportunity or happy that he gave them all the credit. Well, they couldn’t be mad at him.

“So… you two were kidding about having our wedding night together, right?” Susan asked, looking between the other two. The thought had clearly been haunting her ever since their earlier conversation.

She had always imagined her wedding night as something private and deeply personal, a special moment shared between herself and the man she loved. Never in her wildest imagination had she pictured Anna and Jill being there too, turning the occasion into something the three of them experienced together. Just imagining it was enough to make her face burn bright red.

Anna and Jill exchanged a look. Jill was the first to move. She headed toward the door, pausing only long enough to glance back at the other two, “I don’t know about you guys, but I plan to spend the night of my wedding with my husband one way or another.”

As she walked out, Susan stared after her, still processing the declaration. Anna sighed as she looked at Susan apologetically, adding, “I hate to agree with her, but I will too.”

Susan’s face reddened even further. Anna gave her a sympathetic smile. “Sorry. I know how much you’ve been looking forward to that day. But, hey. Now that you know, you might as well get it over with.”