The cart was pulled along the lengthy corridor with Ravian still hanging beneath it, and now, at last, he was beginning to feel that his arms needed some rest.

Not urgently, but the strain was starting to set in. After all, they had been walking down that corridor for what amounted to an hour and a half now, far longer than Ravian had expected.

Throughout that stretch, Ravian overheard plenty of chatter, whether about the developments in the conflict between the Viera Empire and the Twilight Empire, or idle talk about hopes of rising to at least the Ninth Rank even with a Common-Grade Soul.

But among all that chatter, there were things Ravian actually benefited from, such as hearing about the empire’s hierarchy.

The nobility of this empire was divided, from top to bottom, as follows: the Emperor, followed directly by the princes, and these held the highest authority in the empire and were shown deference wherever they went, whether inside the empire or beyond it.

After them came the aristocratic nobles, foremost among them the Grand Duchies, of which there were three in total. Among them was the Grand Duchy of Lysandra’s family, the Veyla Grand Duchy, which had a direct extension from the imperial family itself. These powers were founding forces of the empire, pillars it could not part with at any price, for beneath them lay vast influence in the Imperial Capital, and they held fortunes that could overturn the empire’s markets and treasury with a single command.

But that was not what most distinguished those families.

What most distinguished them was their military might, for each of those families had its Grand Duke, a person standing at the Third Rank, a rank Ravian was hearing of for the first time: the rank of Calamity.

That was literally the title that came out of Michael Horen’s mouth when he mentioned that Grand Duke: the Grand Duke of the Veyla family, Third Rank, Calamity, Alexander Veyla.

’To think someone of that sheer might stands behind Lysandra... and to think I once considered confronting her—killing her, even—if she had had a hand in my previous death!!’ Ravian recalled what he had once been planning, his body shuddering as he imagined the troubles that would have hounded him afterward...

He was certain they would not have left him any room to flee and be hunted down later. They would have simply wiped him out on the spot. And that was to say nothing of his certainty that fighting Lysandra, even in his current state, would be incomparably harder than fighting an orc of the same rank.

’Strange as it sounds, from my point of view, Lysandra is the strongest one on that team. The only one who might give her trouble is Malrik, because of the fundamental gap in their power levels, but...’

’But Malrik wouldn’t stand a chance against her if she reached the Eighth Rank like him. I’m sure of that,’ Ravian thought, remembering the overwhelming power Lysandra had displayed, whether during the intruders’ surprise raid or on the battlefield when she leapt in without the slightest hesitation and came back with an orc of her own rank in hand, without a single scratch on her body.

Even though Ravian had never witnessed her true strength with his own eyes, her returning unharmed from those battles while the others came back riddled with wounds, minor and moderate alike, proved the qualitative gap in power between her and the rest.

Then the cart’s sudden stop severed Ravian’s train of thought.

’Have we arrived?’ Ravian wondered, looking around, but the corridor seemed darker here. He could barely make out the cart and the group’s feet, and beyond that, he could see nothing at all.

"Here we are."

"That over there is the door to the storehouse in this section of the fort, and the other is the emergency door leading into the city, should any of you want to buy anything before heading back, though of course, you’d have to leave your insignia with me. And the last door, as you know, is the one reserved for—" the guard accompanying them said, before falling suddenly silent, pressing a hand to his right ear as though listening to something.

"A telepathic message?" Michael Horen said, looking at the guard, who nodded in reply.

"It’s a telepathic message from one of the telepathy mages in the operations room. They’re asking you to come with me quickly and return to the camp. It seems there’s an important announcement from the faction leaders, and they’re requiring everyone’s presence," the guard said.

"What about the supplies?" Michael Horen asked, gesturing at the cart.

"One person alone can move the goods inside. We’re in no hurry over that, but we are in a hurry to get you back to the camp right now," the guard said, pointing at one of the Tenth Rank Awakened in the group.

The very person Michael Horen had indirectly described before as being obscenely stupid.

"Him?" Michael asked with a startled expression.

The guard nodded in answer.

"Are you certain, sir guard? He’s a little... unsuited to solo tasks," Michael said, unsure how to phrase it without outright saying that this soldier was stupid enough to give everyone around him indigestion.

"I’m certain. Now let’s go. We’ve delayed long enough," the guard said, hurrying them along.

Gulp.

Michael swallowed hard as he turned his gaze back to that Tenth Rank soldier.

"Just put the things inside and come back quietly. Can you manage that, Bimbo?" Michael said, gripping Bimbo’s shoulders as though clinging to his own lifeline.

"Don’t worry, Captain. Leave it to me," Bimbo said, snapping into a military salute.

’What the fu—’ Ravian nearly burst out laughing when he heard the name, clamping both hands hard over his mouth to keep any sound from escaping while holding onto the cart with his legs alone, putting on what could only be called an exhibition of thigh and back muscle strength.

Fortunately, he managed to stifle every last sound until the rest of the group left with the guard, heading back the way they had come, or toward some other hidden door. Ravian could not tell exactly.

Bimbo successfully opened the storehouse door and brought the cart inside, and after roughly a minute had passed and he had moved a single crate, he tried to nudge the cart a little closer to the unloading area, but strangely, the cart was...

"Way too light?" Bimbo said, frowning in confusion.

"Was that crate really weighing the cart down this much? Wow," Bimbo said, his mouth falling open in an exaggerated gape like a stage clown’s.

"I think there’s something even lighter than that crate," a voice suddenly came from the darkness behind Bimbo.

"Huh? Is there?" Bimbo said automatically, answering the voice without thinking.

"What?" Then it registered.

"It’s your brain, Bimbo," Ravian said with an unmistakably playful grin, before—

Boom!

Impact.

He clapped both hands over Bimbo’s ears, knocking him out cold and throwing him off balance in an instant, sending him crashing to the floor.

’That’ll give him some rest. Maybe he’ll come back at his natural IQ,’ Ravian thought as he draped a piece of cloth from the supplies over Bimbo so he would not get cold while unconscious. After all, he had only knocked him out, not killed him.

’I’m only being nice because you made me laugh a little. Don’t mention it,’ Ravian said to himself with a smile, dusting imaginary dust off his hands before leaving the storeroom to exit through the emergency door the guard had mentioned earlier.

But the moment he stepped out, he ran into another problem.

’Shit,’ Ravian said, staring at the three doors before him, one of them being the storehouse door he had just come out of.

’What did that guard say earlier?’ Ravian rested his hand on his chin, trying to recall.

’One door for the storehouse, another for the emergency exit, and the third...’ Ravian racked his brain, but every time, the answer came out the same.

The guard had never said where the third door led.

’Oh, screw my life,’ Ravian said to himself, looking at the three doors.

The door on the far right was a wooden one, almost entirely wooden, with only its handle made of polished stone.

The door in the middle was the storehouse door he had just exited, entirely wooden as well. Even the handle was wooden this time.

And the door on the far left was made of gleaming, carefully polished wood adorned with three beautiful stars, and what distinguished it most of all was its handle.

For it had a golden handle, unlike the other two doors.

’Hmm, is that the one? The emergency exit door,’ Ravian said, approaching the door on instinct and placing his hand on the handle.

Meanwhile, in an exceedingly luxurious room, the desk still lay strewn with the same maps, everything just as it was, but this time, no one sat in the desk chair.

Thorvin had risen from his seat and approached the beautiful wooden door after sensing the tremor of an Awakened’s soul energy from the adjacent room, stepping out to investigate.

Then he placed his hand on the golden handle, and—

Click.

The door opened.