The council chamber smelled like expensive incense and it was currently a lot louder than it usually was.

Normally the meetings here were quiet and boring, but today the nobles sitting around the long mahogany table wouldn’t stop shouting at each other with faces that were turning an ugly shade of red.

"The report is absolute nonsense!" one of the elders from the Silver-Wing family shouted, hitting the table with his palm. "Five-Shard knights don’t just get overwhelmed by a standard gate breach. Either the leadership was incompetent or the intel was wrong."

"Watch your mouth, Duke Vahn," a man in the black and silver armor of the Flint family snapped, his eyes narrowing. "Our house has already paid the price for this mission. Kenny is lucky to even be alive after what he faced inside that gate."

Everyone in the room looked toward the far end of the chamber, where a man sat slumped in a high-backed chair.

Kenny looked like he had been put through a meat grinder and then barely stitched back together. His head was wrapped in thick white bandages that were already starting to show spots of red, and his left arm was held in a heavy leather sling.

The smug look he usually wore was completely gone, and he was just staring at the floor while his hands shook.

’He’s lying through his teeth,’ the Knight Captain thought, standing still near the King’s throne. He watched Kenny from across the room and kept his hand on the hilt of his sword.

He had seen enough battlefields to know the difference between a man who was shell-shocked by monsters and a man who was terrified by something he couldn’t explain. Kenny didn’t look like he had fought a losing battle against a Gate Boss. He looked like someone who had seen a ghost, but the story about a single mana blast vaporizing an entire squad was too absurd to be real.

"The testimony says he was found alone at the gate entrance," another council member said, her voice sharp. "The rest of his squad is still missing, yet he claims they were all vaporized by a single mana blast? That doesn’t happen with the anomalies in that sector."

"Are you calling a hero of the Flint family a liar?" the Flint representative growled, reaching for the hilt of his dagger.

"I am calling for an investigation," she replied. "The Crown spent a fortune on that mission and we have nothing to show for it but a half-dead knight and a missing squad. We need answers."

The shouting started up again immediately, with voices overlapping as more nobles joined the argument. Some were defending the Flints to keep their political favors, while others were taking the chance to kick a Great Family while they were down.

It was a messy display of greed and fear that looked like it could last for hours.

Through all of it, the man sitting on the throne didn’t move.

The King sat with his chin resting on his hand, his eyes half-closed like he was bored by the entire thing. He didn’t look angry or frustrated, he just looked tired, while the mana radiating off him made the air in the center of the room feel cold.

’Just look at them,’ he thought, his gaze drifting over the council members. ’Arguing over gold and reputation while the world is starting to crack.’

He looked at Kenny and his eyes sharpened for a second. He could see the messy mana still clinging to the knight’s bandages. It wasn’t monster mana and it wasn’t the clean mana of the Flint family. It was something else, something that felt like it belonged to a memory he had buried a long time ago.

He let out a quiet sigh, "Enough."

He didn’t shout, but the single word immediately stopped all the noise in the room. Several people even stumbled over their next sentences before going silent.

The council members immediately straightened their backs and bowed their heads.

"The gate mission is a failure," the King said, his voice flat. "Whether it was incompetence or bad luck is a conversation for another time."

"But Your Majesty," the Flint representative started, "the honor of our house—"

The King looked at him and the man’s jaw clicked shut.

"Honor does not bring back dead knights," the King said. "And right now, I have more important things to worry about than who is telling the truth about a pile of rubble in a forest."

He gestured toward the windows, where the afternoon sun was starting to dip lower.

"The banquet is tonight," he continued. "Every major house and guild leader in the capital will be in this palace in less than four hours. If the council looks like a group of bickering children when they arrive, it will be bad for the kingdom."

He stood up and the Knight Captain immediately stepped forward.

"This meeting is adjourned," he said, walking toward the private exit. "Prepare yourselves for the evening. I expect everyone to be in their proper places and on their best behavior."

He walked out without looking back, leaving the council members standing in a silent room.

The doors closed behind him, but the silence didn’t last for long. As soon as the sound of his footsteps faded, the nobles began to huddle together in small groups, their voices dropped to a low, cautious murmur.

"A banquet for an adventurer," Duke Vahn muttered, leaning back against the table. "And not even a high-ranking one from a Great Family. His Majesty is truly becoming soft in his old age."

"Watch your mouth," the woman who had called for the investigation warned, though she didn’t look particularly happy herself. "He saved the Princess. If the King wants to throw a party for a commoner to show his gratitude, that’s his business. Besides, criticizing the Crown while the Knight Captain is still within earshot is a fast way to lose a head."

Duke Vahn snorted, looking toward the Flint representative who was still standing near the trembling Kenny.

"Praising a commoner while the Great Families are suffering losses like this... it sends the wrong message," Vahn continued. "It makes the Royal Knight Order look like they can’t protect their own blood without outside help."

"I heard the kid doesn’t even have a proper background," another noble whispered, joining the circle. "Just a wanderer who happened to be in the right forest at the right time. Does anyone even know the name of this so-called savior?"

The room went quiet for a second as they looked at each other, waiting for someone to provide the answer. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

One of the younger ministers, who had been checking a parchment of royal invitations, looked up and cleared his throat.

"His name is Hajin," he said, the word cutting through the low murmurs. "The guild files list him as a newly registered ranker."

The effect was instantaneous.

The Flint representative, who had been standing next to Kenny with an expression of cold indifference, suddenly froze. His head snapped toward the minister, his eyes wide with a mix of disbelief and absolute horror.

Beside him, Kenny let out a choked, strangled sound, his remaining hand gripping the armrest of his chair so tightly the wood began to groan. He looked like he was seeing his own executioner.

The rest of the nobles continued to whisper about commoners and lucky breaks, but the Flint representative didn’t hear any of it. His face had gone a sickly shade of gray, his breathing turning shallow while the name echoed in his mind like a death knell.

’Hajin?...’ he thought, his pulse thundering in his ears. ’That failure... that talentless piece of trash? How is he alive? And how the hell is he a ranker?’

His fingers dug into the back of Kenny’s chair, the leather creaking under the pressure while a wave of pure, unfiltered panic surged through his chest.

If the ghost they had tried to bury was not only alive but standing at the King’s side, then everything the Flint family had built in the capital was about to go up in flames.