"I get it, but you’ve gotta put your life first. No matter how sweet the opportunity looks, you need to be careful."
Seeing Carlos look like he’d tattoo those words on his brain, Iris felt a little better.
Then she turned her attention to the group behind him, and her eyes lit up.
Carlos had actually brought back four women who looked pretty damn impressive!
This made Iris over the moon.
The two holding their heads up were a rare set of twins, though they looked way too skinny.
But they’d already awakened Psionic powers, so their age and potential weren’t half bad.
The two with their heads down looked much better, especially the one on the right—just from her body language alone, Iris was nodding with serious approval.
Carlos had always been kind of cold toward other people before, with only that childhood crush able to get close to him, which had Iris worried sick.
In her book, this was way too risky—it might not lead to kids to keep the family line going.
Because this world was dangerous as hell with way too many ways to die.
Thank God her brother was finally starting to really "grow up"...
While the siblings were chatting, the twins were practically bouncing off the walls—they’d found another shiny "treasure."
But the mysterious symbols deep in their black-and-white mismatched eyes flickered slightly, like they were scared of something.
Meanwhile, the two grown women who’d been keeping their heads down since walking into the Valois estate
were subtly shifting around, trying to get the Purple Thornblade Skeleton Guards to block them from view.
At the same time, they were having a whole conversation with just their eyes:
Yolanda: "Sara, we’re screwed! It’s the Captain!"
Sara: "Shit, didn’t we already know
The Captain is Young Master Carlos’s sister—we were bound to run into the Captain on this trip!"
Yolanda: "Think the Captain’s gonna be pissed about us just vanishing ten years ago?"
Sara: "What do you think?! Any normal person who remembers would be furious as hell!"
Yolanda: "It’s been ten years—maybe the Captain won’t recognize us anymore..."
Sara: "...Huh? Actually, that might work!
Little Carlos didn’t recognize us until I basically spelled it out for him!"
The two women felt a tiny bit of relief and let out quiet sighs.
Their heads couldn’t get any lower as they tried not to catch their former captain Iris’s attention.
Murphy’s Law struck hard.
Iris, who’d been talking away, suddenly switched gears:
"Carlos, let’s head inside. You can properly introduce your friends to me."
"Sis, I was just about to bring that up."
Carlos casually made the Purple Thornblade Skeleton Guards disappear.
After all, back home, the Purple Thornblade Skeleton Guards weren’t much use anyway.
The two women playing hide-and-seek lost their skeleton bodyguard cover,
Breaking out in cold sweats and thinking in perfect sync: We’re toast!!!
The group walked into the main hall.
Iris sat down first, trying to look super welcoming, saying sweetly:
"Ladies, don’t just stand there—have a seat.
Make yourselves at home and get comfortable."
Carlos found this kind of weird—it was his first time seeing his sister this "nice" to strangers.
"Okay! Thanks, big sister!" x2
The twins’ eyes sparkled as they quickly grabbed seats closest to Carlos and Iris,
Then squeezed together on the same chair.
Luckily they were pretty small, so one seat could barely fit both of them.
The two grown women with their heads still down went as far away from Iris as humanly possible.
This left Iris scratching her head, wondering: Is this some weird local custom or something?
Carlos watched with a sinking heart—even after hanging out together, they always pulled stuff that caught him completely off guard.
But hey, he could dump this whole mess on someone else pretty soon!!!
"Iris, this is a Psionic team I ran into by accident in the Withered Lands."
Carlos started the introductions with the twins:
"On the left is big sister Riley, on the right is little sister Anna."
The twins played along with dazzling smiles, their black and white eyes twinkling with that dreamy look.
"Those two over there are Riley and Anna’s mom and adoptive mom.
Yolanda and Sara’s flat, scratchy voices came from their bowed heads.
"We greet Duke Iris." x2
Iris’s eyes flashed with confusion—why did these two names ring such a loud bell?
Exactly the same as two teammates who’d disappeared ages ago, though their voices hadn’t sounded this rough back then.
"Welcome to the Valois family."
Carlos was puzzled—why had the two women’s voices gotten so freaking weird?
Combined with their ostrich act since walking into the estate, they obviously didn’t want Iris to figure out who they were.
"Heads up, Yolanda and Sara!
You’re already here—you think you can keep playing hide-and-seek forever?"
His tone basically said: if you don’t spill it, I’ll spill it for you.
Yolanda and Sara’s hearts sank: What a pain-in-the-ass kid!
They looked at each other helplessly and took deep breaths.
The two women dropped to one knee, saying in their real voices:
"Yolanda (Sara) greets Captain Iris!"
They slowly lifted their heads with downcast eyes, not daring to make eye contact.
With a loud crash, the right armrest of the chair got crushed to pieces, showing just how rattled the person sitting in it really was.
"Yolanda, Sara, get up and let me get a good look at you."
Her voice had that no-nonsense authority.
Just like ten years ago, the two women’s bodies automatically snapped to attention in perfect half-elf guard formation.
Now Iris had cooled off, her face showing absolutely nothing.
"Talk. What the hell happened ten years ago that made you disappear for so damn long?"
"This is... complicated..."
Yolanda and Sara gave awkward smiles, glancing at the twins with looks that screamed it wasn’t cool to talk about this stuff in front of them.
Carlos picked up on the fact that this had something to do with the Shadow Twins, so he waved over a maid.
"Riley, Anna, we’ve got some grown-up stuff to hash out with Yolanda and Sara. Why don’t you go play in the garden for a bit?"
The word "garden" hooked them instantly as they bounced along behind the servant out of the hall.
After the twins were gone,
Yolanda and Sara looked at each other, knowing they had to come clean.
"Ten years ago, we accidentally stumbled into this mysterious ancient ruin.
That place was dead as a doornail—not even the sound of wind...
There were creepy shadow crystal statues everywhere...
To get out, we searched every inch of that place but came up empty...
...Just when we were about to lose our minds, the whole ruin started shaking like crazy.
We could hear some nightmare monster screaming in agony, like it was fighting for its life and losing...