They Called Me Trash? Now I'll Hack Their World-Chapter 157: Engagement Gift [2]

"I—" I started again, my brain finally catching up to my mouth.

"This is a misunderstanding. I didn’t mean... when I said those things about Tessa, I meant as a person, not as a—"

"As a what?" Zen asked innocently, leaning forward with exaggerated interest. "Please, continue. You meant what exactly?"

My face was heating up. I could feel it.

Get it together. You’re a grown man. Well, mentally. Sort of.

"A potential—" I caught myself.

Don’t say ’wife candidate.’ That makes it worse.

"I meant I was impressed by her skills. Her competence. In a professional capacity."

"Oh, professional," one of the elderly women said, nodding sagely. "Yes, a wife should be professionally competent. Excellent criteria."

"That’s not what I—"

"And you said she was talented," the grey-bearded man added helpfully. "Multiple times, in fact."

"Because she IS talented! At alchemy! Not at—"

Zen was grinning.

"Not at what?" he asked sweetly.

My mouth opened. Closed. Nothing came out that wouldn’t make this worse.

I stared at ring, Zen seemingly caught my gaze and spoke, "She put in your finger herself. You can’t deny it now."

This can’t be happening.

From across the table, Tessa finally lifted her face from her hands.

Her cheeks were red, but her expression was shifting, from mortified embarrassment to something sharper.

"Grandfather," she said, her voice taking on an edge, "What exactly did you think you were doing?"

Zen blinked innocently. "Honoring a hero and securing our village’s future?"

"By ambushing him with an engagement ring disguised as a thank-you gift?!"

"I didn’t disguise anything. I told him exactly what it was... a family heirloom, passed down through generations." His grin widened. "Not my fault if he didn’t connect all the dots."

"You deliberately—" Tessa stopped, took a breath, and looked at me. "Young Master, I genuinely didn’t know. He told me to wear my nice dress because we were having an important dinner. He said nothing about..."

She gestured at the ring on my finger, "This."

Her embarrassment was being rapidly overtaken by irritation directed at her grandfather.

"Of course I didn’t tell you," Zen said reasonably. "This way was much smoother."

"Smoother?!" Tessa’s voice rose. "You just spring an engagement on someone in the middle of dinner and call it smooth?!"

"It worked, didn’t it?"

I was still processing, my thoughts a chaotic jumble.

Engagement... Political alliance. This is manipulation. But the ring—

I looked down at it, at the way it sat perfectly on my finger like it had always belonged there.

The benefits were undeniable.

This was the kind of equipment that could change everything about how I approached problems.

But the cost—

A marriage.

My heart was hammering in my chest in a way that had nothing to do with combat or danger and everything to do with being seventeen years old and having marriage suddenly thrust at me.

I’d been in a relationship in my previous life.

But that had been in a body that was thirty-two.

This body was seventeen. And apparently had opinions about attractive women and marriage prospects that my adult brain wasn’t fully prepared to deal with.

Stay calm.

I pulled up my debug vision and focused on Zen, trying to get information, anything that would help me understand what I was actually dealing with.

[ENTITY_SCAN: INITIATING...]

[ERROR: TARGET_LEVEL_EXCEEDS_SCAN_CAPABILITY]

I stared at that error message.

He said he was crippled.

But he...

Couldn’t be tracked.

And accepting this will make us family. And I don’t have to live at Raith estate or at inns, I can have my safe heaven here, eat free food. And... stop!

I closed the debug vision and looked at Zen with new wariness.

He was still smiling.

"Chief Zen," I said, "This is... this requires time. I can’t just agree to marriage because you handed me a ring at dinner."

"Of course not," Zen agreed easily. "That would be absurd."

I relaxed slightly.

"Which is why we’ll give you time to come to terms with it."

And tensed right back up.

"Come to terms—"

"A week should be sufficient," one of the elderly women said thoughtfully. "Maybe two."

"Two weeks is very reasonable," another elder agreed.

"I meant more like months," I said. "Or years."

"Oh, we don’t have years," Zen said cheerfully. "Spring planting starts in four months. Can’t have the wedding during planting season, everyone’s too busy. So it would have to be before then, or we wait until after harvest."

"I vote before," the grey-bearded elder said. "Give the young people time to settle in before the busy season."

"Before assumes there’s going to BE a wedding—"

"Autumn weddings are lovely too," one of the elderly women mused, completely ignoring me. "The colors. The cooler weather. Very romantic."

Tessa voice cut through the crosstalk with surprising authority.

"Okay. Everyone stop."

She looked at her grandfather directly.

"And you’re enjoying it way too much."

Zen spread his hands. "I’m securing our village’s future."

Rowan, who’d been sitting rigid throughout this entire exchange, suddenly pushed back from the table.

"Excuse me," he said. "Have a good night."

Then he stood and walked toward the door.

"Rowan—" Tessa called after him, concern breaking through her irritation.

But he was already gone, the door closing behind him.

The table went quiet.

I sat there, my mind still racing, trying to process everything.

Well... Tessa is actually competent and pretty and—

Stop. Focus.

"I need time," I said finally, looking at Zen. "Real time. Not a week. Not two weeks. To actually think about this, to figure out with my family obligations."

Zen studied me for a long moment.

His expression was still amused, but something more serious lurked behind it.

"Good. That means you understand what’s actually happening here."

"A marriage alliance," I said flatly. "You’re tying House Raith—however tenuously—to Oakmere. Giving the village a connection that might matter if trouble comes again."

"Smart boy." Zen nodded approvingly. "And what does House Raith get?"

I looked at the ring.

"A base in a border territory. Local connections and loyalty." I paused. "And potentially a lot of complications if my father finds out I got engaged without permission to a village chief’s granddaughter."

"Will he be angry?"