The Lustful Villain: Every Milfs and Gilfs are Mine!-Chapter 173. Apollo Warned Me About the Danger I’m Planning to Create

Chapter 173: 173. Apollo Warned Me About the Danger I’m Planning to Create

The afternoon session after Elizabeth’s announcement was productive in the same way that sessions are productive when everyone in the room has a clear goal they care about instead of just learning material because they have to.

Rex, Talyra, and Aisella had spent the last two hours of class comparing Elizabeth’s gear suggestions to the resource profiles she had given out for the outer Sable Islands. These profiles were full of information if you knew how to read them.

Talyra had spread the resource document out on her desk and was writing notes on it with the excitement of someone whose natural habitat was operational planning disguised as outdoor adventure.

"Deepwater flora on the eastern shelf means that there are living things along the shoreline that are worth cataloging."

"The fungi clusters in the cave network are marked as rare, so if the dungeon system connects to any underground water source, it could be significant."

Aisella said, "It will," from the other side of Rex.

She didn’t look up from the supply list she was working on. "The island’s geological profile shows that it was formed by volcanoes, which means that cave systems almost always meet the water table at lower levels."

"We should get ready for high humidity and the monsters that come with it."

Rex was reading the notes from the dungeon survey conducted during the one expedition that had reached the island’s interior four years ago before turning back. They had only made it to the first cavern chamber.

The notes were thin, but they were clear where they were. In the first chamber, they talked about a monster population that didn’t match anything in the standard regional catalogs.

He said, "Whatever’s in there hasn’t been properly identified."

Talyra turned around and looked at the page. "That’s actually more exciting than scary."

"It’s both," Aisella said. "Which is the accurate response."

Rex put the page down and looked at the two of them. He saw their intense focus, the kind that people who were good at their jobs and cared about doing them well had.

Forty-four and fifty-two. He looked at the numbers the same way he looked at most system data: as background information that put the foreground in context.

If you did things the right way, you could do a lot in three days.

"We enter with a clear survey plan, prioritizing resource collection, and we will adopt a dungeon approach only after establishing a base camp," Talyra said, demonstrating good tactical thinking delivered with her characteristic forward energy. "We don’t go deep on the first day."

"Agreed," Aisella said. "And we establish a central camp that gives us line-of-sight to the coast."

"If we need to signal for extraction, we want to be able to do it."

"Optimistic," Rex said.

Talyra grinned. "We’re going to be fine."

"I know," Rex said, and he did, because "fine" was a huge understatement for what three days on an uncharted island with his unique set of skills would be like.

But for now, fine was the right word. "I’m just not as interested in fine as I am in exceptional."

"Then we should plan for exceptional," Talyra said with the easy confidence of someone who had already decided to meet him there.

Rex found this very helpful, as people who matched your ambition instead of fighting it were always helpful, especially when it came to achieving goals that required collaboration and support.

...

By the time the lunch bell rang, they had a plan for the first eighteen hours on the island, figured out what supplies they would need, and come up with a rough strategy for getting into the dungeon that Aisella had insisted on having more backup options for than the first draft had.

The three of them walked out to the main cafeteria together, where they were close to people who had worked well together for two hours and were still in the mood for it.

Talyra was talking about the island’s reported water sources and whether they were safe to drink without treatment. This was a practical question about how much they could carry and get on the island.

Aisella answered it with the accuracy of someone who had read about treating field water in a situation that was much more serious than a school test.

Rex mostly listened, which was his favorite way to talk when two other people were giving him useful information. He observed both of them closely and contemplated the upcoming three days, using the part of his mind that was constantly operating in the background of his other activities.

But then...

Someone grabbed his arm just above the elbow and pulled while he was thinking about the island’s cave system.

The pull was strong—not angry or aggressive, but the firm grip of someone who had decided where Rex was going without consulting him first and who possessed the strength to enforce that decision.

Rex let himself be moved because he had felt who it was before he turned, and he was curious enough about what Apollo Brightsoul needed to say in private that moving without resistance was the right thing to do.

He told Talyra and Aisella, who had both turned at the same time and were reading the situation, "I’ll meet you both inside."

Talyra, with open curiosity; Aisella, with the careful assessment she applied to everything that involved unexpected human behavior.

Apollo didn’t slow down until they were in the narrow hallway between the canteen building and the eastern wall.

This was the most consistently empty passage on this side of the Academy at lunch because it only led to the supply storage that the kitchen staff used in the morning and was locked by midday.

He let go of Rex’s arm and turned to face him. The look on his face was not the calm, controlled one that Rex had been watching since they were in the dungeon.

Something had shifted in Apollo Brightsoul’s expression, something more immediate and less restrained than the grief he had been grappling with for the past two days.

It was fear.

A fear that didn’t center on him.

Apollo said, "You’re going to the outer islands."

"Tomorrow morning," Rex said.

"With Aisella and Talyra."

Rex said, "With Talyra and Aisella."

Apollo was quiet for a moment, like someone who was working through something and wasn’t ready to say it all at once. Rex waited because it wasn’t right to rush Apollo out of this kind of moment.

"What happened to Kaelira," Apollo said, and the way he said her name had the weight of everything that had been happening in him since the dungeon, compressed into two syllables and released with the controlled precision of someone who was being careful with it even now, "was not random."

Rex said, "No."

"Miss Elizabeth believes it was a demon operation that was aimed at her," Apollo said. "That means whoever planned it knew who she was and what she meant to me and chose her based on that."

He held Rex’s gaze. "That means they know who everyone is around me."

Rex let the implication settle on his face like it was supposed to for someone who was hearing it for the first time.

Rex said, "You think Talyra and Aisella are targets as well?"

Apollo said, "I think anyone who is connected to me through the Apostle network could be a target."

"And the outer island assessment is exactly the kind of isolated, announced-in-advance operation that gave them the window they needed for Kaelira." He stopped for a moment. "I can’t go to Miss Elizabeth and tell her to cancel the assessment."

"She already made the call, and she’d have to change the whole schedule."

"I don’t have any specific information that would justify—"

"So, you’re asking me," Rex said.