Vella knelt beside a wounded knight, her palm glowing with light as she pressed it against his torn side. The flesh knitted together under her touch, the knight’s pained groans fading into quiet, steady breathing, but her face did not match the work she was doing.

Her expression was sour, her lips pressed into a thin line and her eyes carrying a look of barely concealed annoyance every time she moved to the next soldier.

Hajin had told her to help and she was not happy about it.

A few feet away, Helen had set up a small cooking station near the center of the camp, a pot suspended over a controlled flame while she tossed in dried herbs and strips of meat.

Juna sat beside her, slicing vegetables with practiced precision, her ears twitching occasionally at the sounds of the camp. Loccy was on Helen’s other side, stirring the pot with both hands, her tongue poking out slightly in concentration.

Hajin stood at the edge of the camp, his back to the fire and his eyes scanning the darkening dunes. The Captain stood a few feet to his right, his claymore planted in the sand beside him, his arms crossed and his gaze fixed on nothing in particular.

The silence stretched between them for a long moment before Hajin spoke.

"Do you have a mental block issue?"

The Captain’s head snapped toward him, his eyes narrowing, "what did you just say?"

"I asked if you have a mental block issue," he repeated, his voice calm, not rising to the tone, "because I have seen that kind of reaction before, freezing up during a fight, letting the enemy get into your head, losing focus at the worst moment."

The Captain’s jaw tightened, his hands curling into fists, "you think you can just—"

"It is not an insult," he cut in, still calm, "it is an observation. I have seen it before, usually when someone is holding on to a tragic past. Something that happened to them, something they could not prevent, and it follows them into every fight after that."

The Captain went still, his fists loosening slightly.

"I do not know what happened to you," he continued, his gaze drifting back to the dunes, "but whatever it was, it is going to get you killed if you do not deal with it. And next time, it might take other people with you, more than today."

The Captain said nothing for a long moment, his eyes fixed on the sand between his feet, and Hajin thought the conversation was over.

He turned his gaze back to the dunes, ready to let the silence settle, but then the Captain spoke.

"I was twenty-three when I became Captain."

His voice was low, rough, like the words were being pulled out of him one at a time.

"The youngest Knight Captain in the kingdom’s history. They wrote about it in the papers, announced it at the palace, my family threw a celebration that lasted three days. Everyone said I was a prodigy, that I had talent that came once in a generation, that I would go on to lead the royal knights into a new era of strength."

He let out a short, hollow laugh.

"I believed every word of it. I walked around like I was untouchable, like nothing in this world could stop me. I had the rank, the skill, the respect of my peers, and I had her."

His voice caught on the last word, barely noticeable, but it was there.

"There was a woman on my squad. Her name was Lansa. She was a healer, best I had ever seen, could close a wound with a touch and still be standing beside you in the front line when the fighting got thick. She had this way of smiling that made you feel like everything was going to be fine, no matter how bad things looked."

He paused, his throat working.

"I loved her. I never told her, but I loved her, and I think she knew. We had this rhythm in battle, this unspoken understanding where she would cover my blind spots and I would clear a path for her. It felt natural, right, like we had been fighting together our whole lives."

Another pause, longer this time.

"Then we got assigned to clear a Gate. Nothing special on paper, a standard four-shard anomaly, the kind we had handled a dozen times before. I was confident, maybe too confident, because I walked in like I owned the place and did not bother to check the readings twice."

His hands clenched at his sides.

"The Gate was unstable. The mages had misjudged the core density, and by the time we realized it, we were already surrounded. Monsters kept coming, wave after wave, more than we had prepared for, more than we could handle. I tried to hold the line, tried to keep everyone together, but I was not fast enough. I was not strong enough."

He stopped, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"She took a hit meant for me. A spike through the chest, same kind of wound you took today. She pushed me out of the way and it hit her instead. I stood there frozen, watching her fall, unable to do a single thing about it."

Hajin said nothing.

"I carried her body out of that Gate myself. Refused to let anyone else touch her.

Walked through the capital with her in my arms while people stared, while her blood soaked through my uniform, and I kept thinking that if I had just been paying attention, if I had checked the readings myself, if I had not been so arrogant, she would still be alive."

The Captain’s voice hardened slightly.

"After that, every time I step into a Gate, every time the pressure spikes or things start going wrong, I go back to that moment. I see her falling again, and I freeze, because a part of me is still standing in that clearing, watching the woman I loved die because I was not good enough."

He turned his head, just slightly, enough to look at Hajin from the corner of his eye.

"That is why I froze today. That is why I let that worm talk to me like I was a child, because it reminded me of everything I had been trying to forget for the last ten years."

The fire crackled between them, filling the silence that followed.

"So yes," the Captain said, his voice flat, "I have a mental block. And you were right, it almost got people killed today."

Hajin was quiet for a moment, then he nodded once.

"I see."