Sacred hymns rolled through the air in melodious waves as Orum stood tall and straight atop an open parade float, drifting forward with the procession while crowds of eager onlookers pressed together along the roadside.
Young girls competed to shower him with cascades of colorful flower petals, while countless others gazed up with expressions ranging from reverent awe to barely concealed envy.
For a fleeting moment, Orum had the strange sensation of being inside the epic cutscene of some big-budget video game, cast as the celebrated hero making his triumphant homecoming.
Beside him on the float, Ronald wore an expression of pure bliss, completely swept up in the magnificent, honor-drenched atmosphere. He reached over and clapped Orum warmly on the shoulder, barely able to contain himself:
"Orum, you're in for a treat! We'll all be heading over to the Jade Dragon Heart Tavern for a grand celebratory feast! The finest dining in all of Blackwater Town!"
"Every time we win a major battle, we throw a big feast to reward the fighters who put their lives on the line. It's a tradition our captain started."
"A feast?" The moment Ronald painted that picture, something stirred in the otherwise still pond of Orum's composure, sending the faintest ripple across its surface.
The fierce battle at dusk had burned through every last reserve of energy in Orum's body. So much so that merely hearing Ronald's spirited description of the banquet was enough to set his stomach growling beyond his control, saliva pooling unbidden in his mouth.
It was likely that absorbing magical beast organs had not only spiked his daily energy consumption but had also dramatically amplified his appetite, making him increasingly particular about good food.
After eating the signature set meal at the Oak Inn day after day, Orum had to admit he was getting tired of it. Maybe it was time to suggest to Lila and Sofia that they add some new specialty dishes, something to satisfy his increasingly particular palate.
"Hey, how old are you?" It was at that moment that Nia, standing to Orum's left, suddenly spoke up.
"My name isn't 'Hey,'" Orum replied coolly.
"What? I was just asking casually!" Nia stared at him for a moment before her brows knitted together and her tone turned unfriendly.
"Then don't." Orum dropped the words and left it at that.
Orum had no patience for the way Nia spoke to people without the slightest basic courtesy. That kind of attitude made his skin crawl.
Because of her sweet, adorable looks, plenty of people excused her spoiled and overbearing personality, even finding it charmingly endearing. Orum was not one of them, and had never had the slightest inclination to play along.
"You..." Nia's cheeks puffed up with fury. She glared at Orum, on the verge of exploding, when suddenly a thick, overpowering smell of blood hit her, the kind that couldn't be washed away no matter how hard you tried, slamming into her nostrils.
Only then did Nia notice it: a killing intent radiating off of Orum, undisguised and effortless, so dense it felt almost physical. The color drained instantly from her face.
She had been about to unleash a torrent of angry words, but now it felt as though an ice-cold blade had been pressed against her throat. She couldn't squeeze out a single syllable. Every flicker of rage that had surged up inside her got shoved right back down.
After more than a minute of drawn-out silence, Nia finally spoke, her voice carrying a noticeable tremor:
"Orum... could I ask how old you are?"
Her tone had gone soft and uncertain. The tip of her pretty nose had turned faintly pink, and her eyes looked slightly watery at the corners, as though she might burst into tears at any moment. She was barely recognizable from the imperious girl of moments before.
Orum answered briefly. "Eighteen."
"May I ask what month and day your birthday falls on?" Nia continued, treading with exaggerated care.
"January nineteenth."
"And where were you born?"
"Scaritz. A remote village about three hundred kilometers north of Blackwater Town."
"How many people have you dated?"
"...Why are you asking me all this personal stuff? Are you trying to marry me?" Orum's eyes narrowed as he turned the question back on her.
"Absolutely not!" Nia bit down hard, enunciating every word with deliberate force.
"I just want to figure out where that pitch-black Fate Veil on you is coming from!"
After turning it over in her head, Nia had grown increasingly certain that something was wrong with Orum.
Clearly, the crystal ball she used for divination was working perfectly fine. The problem had to be somewhere else entirely.
And every instinct she had as a diviner was screaming at her that Orum was definitely hiding something significant.
"Uh... it's probably nothing. Guys always have a few days each month where their hormonal cycle kicks in and their luck goes completely sideways." Orum kept his expression perfectly straight, brushing her off with the excuse while his heartbeat quietly picked up.
He had no intention of letting his identity as the Cursed Chosen get out. If it did, the trouble that would come crashing down on him would be enormous.
Setting aside the fact that followers of the light and goodness factions would view him as an enemy, even most of Blackwater Town's neutral residents and adventurers would develop deep suspicions toward a so-called Chosen of Evil.
At his core, though, Orum was still a decent person, and genuinely so.
That was precisely why Scholar Hal had urged him so seriously to keep himself hidden, to make sure no third person ever learned of the Bensaba Brand's existence.
So Orum intended to keep up the act for as long as possible. Stay under the radar, grow quietly, draw no attention.
Hearing Orum's utterly convincing explanation, Nia went blank for a few seconds before the meaning registered. Her face flushed crimson and she cried out, "Guys don't have hormonal cycles!"
"No, Nia, you're wrong. Every male, after hitting puberty, goes through what's called the Egg Replacement Period, once every three months," Orum said, his expression grave and his tone brooking no argument. "It's just a secret of the male body that women don't know about."
"Egg... Replacement... Period?" Nia stared at Orum's earnest face in disbelief, her mismatched eyes wide as saucers. Her gaze drifted involuntarily downward for a moment, then snapped sideways to the Lathander priest Ronald standing nearby.
Ronald, at that moment, was completely absorbed in the joy of the parade and had caught none of this absurd exchange. He happened to notice, not far behind Nia, a fellow Lathander believer reciting a devout prayer toward the float, face solemn and reverent. Ronald turned and flashed a warm, affirming smile in that direction.
The whole thing was witnessed perfectly by Nia, who instantly interpreted it as Ronald's wholehearted endorsement of the Egg Replacement Period theory.
"Could it actually be real?! Men as a species are just... terrifying!" Nia's mismatched eyes trembled with the shock of it all, her expression dissolving into total chaos. She clutched her head in both hands and let out an incredulous murmur, as though her entire worldview had come crashing down in that very moment.
Watching Nia completely unravel in the wind, her worldview shattered by forbidden knowledge, Orum quietly exhaled in relief. At least she wouldn't be pressing him about his fate with any more loaded questions for the time being.
---
Under the burning gazes of adventurers lining the route, the parade of floats passed through the towering city gates and officially rolled into the bustling streets of Blackwater Town, heading straight for the Adventurers' Hall at the town's center.
All along the way, children from countless Blackwater Town households came bounding out their front doors, elbowing their way to the front of the crowd. They craned their necks up at the imposing figures atop the floats, eyes blazing with admiration, and started clamoring at their parents:
"Wow! Are those the real adventurers?! They're incredible!"
"When I grow up, I want to be an adventurer just like them and take down giant monsters!"
"Dad, can you buy me a wooden sword? I want to be an adventurer, slay monsters, and become a hero!"
The glorious homecoming of the Ice Hawks Company planted something deep in the hearts of those children, destined to cast a long shadow over their lives and shape the paths they would one day take.
Perhaps some of them, years down the road, having clawed their way into the adventuring life, would eventually discover that the brilliant spectacle they had witnessed that day bore almost no resemblance to the reality of scraping along at the bottom, keeping constant company with danger and brushing shoulders with death. The gap would be as harsh as the difference between an advertisement and the product it sold.
As the night deepened, an unmarked black noble carriage, understated in its appearance, rolled quietly into view and pulled up at an inconspicuous spot along the roadside.
One of the carriage windows was nudged open a narrow crack, and candlelight swayed within the dim interior, its glow catching a pair of eyes like translucent emerald gemstones as they observed the noisy scene outside with perfect calm.
Inside the carriage sat a noblewoman in magnificent dress, a waterfall of golden hair falling softly to her waist.
She wore a long gown of deep forest-green silk, embroidered with meticulous care in gold thread bearing the sacred sword-and-shield crest of her house. The gown's silhouette was generous and flowing, the fabric wrapping around a figure of striking curves beneath.
To all outward appearances she looked no older than thirty, yet she carried herself with an imperious, untouchable air, and the gaze she leveled at the commoners below held nothing but the deep-seated coldness of someone observing a collection of noisy beetles.
"Quite unexpected, Linda." A voice, cool and faintly sardonic, rose from within the carriage. She tilted her head slightly toward the attendant standing deferentially at her side and spoke:
"I came today intending to give that disappointing nephew of mine a stern piece of my mind. And yet here he is making a triumphant return, basking in glory. It rather makes me look like the unreasonable one, the harsh elder with too sharp a tongue and too little grace."
The attendant bent into a respectful bow immediately, her voice saturated with reverence.
"My Lady, you must not be so hard on yourself. No matter the time or place, young Master Felix requires firm guidance from his elders.
Without it, he will never truly grasp the weight of responsibility and duty that comes with this family. That kind of guidance is worth more than any amount of gold."
But those deftly flattering words did nothing to warm the noblewoman's glacially cold face. If anything, the temperature inside the carriage seemed to drop, as though invisible fingers of frost were quietly reaching in to squeeze out every last trace of warmth.
Cold sweat beaded on the attendant's forehead. The woman she served was, by nature, utterly ruthless, someone who never let emotion show, one who had been the direct or indirect cause of dozens of deaths.
She was a Blood-Soaked Rose who had carved her way through the shadowed political battles of the royal capital.
Seraphina Greymayne. In the generational hierarchy of House Greymayne, she was Felix's youngest maternal aunt, separated from him by only a single year.
Yet she had awakened her class at a remarkably young age and had spent years wading through the cutthroat politics of the royal capital, navigating that dark forest of blades with practiced ease.
Among the younger generation of House Greymayne, Seraphina was the only one with any standing to declare Felix not yet worth much.
Her gaze drifted away from Felix's face and came to rest on the enormous severed minotaur head on the first float, its features grotesque, blood not yet fully dried. Something sharp and unreadable flickered through the depths of her eyes.
"Felix faced a minotaur ranked a full tier above him, a leader-class creature. How did he manage to kill it?"
The attendant hastened to bow and answer. "My Lady, Master Felix likely used the alchemical bomb traps of a Mechanist to detonate the minotaur directly. The massive explosion heard from outside Blackwater Town this afternoon was in all probability the blast from the hunt."
Not a flicker of surprise passed through Seraphina's gaze. Clearly, the moment she had posed the question, she had already arrived at the same conclusion herself.
After a moment's silence, Seraphina slowly withdrew her gaze and sighed quietly. "That nephew of mine knows perfectly well how to adapt and improvise on the battlefield. And yet when it comes to family matters, he's as immovable as the walls of the royal capital."
She raised her eyes again, and her sharp gaze moved from one teammate to the next, sweeping across the figures on Felix's floats.
Beetle. Beetle. Beetle. Beetle. Then her gaze landed on the third float and found Orum, who was in the middle of a half-hearted back-and-forth with one of those beetles. Seraphina's pupils contracted sharply.
"He looks absolutely... delectable. Exactly the type I like. I can't resist."
The fire that ignited in Seraphina's eyes was immediate and unmistakable.
In this era, nobles generally still kept up the outward appearance of restraint and decorum among themselves.
Yet when a noble with real power set their sights on an attractive commoner, a single command was all it took. By that same evening, the beautiful boy or girl in question could be delivered to their bed.
And in the royal capital, Seraphina operated without restraint whatsoever. There was virtually no one who dared get in her way.
"Linda, find out which inn that black-haired young man from Felix's party is staying at." Seraphina gave the order.
"And push back our departure from Blackwater Town by one night."
Seraphina pressed her legs lightly together, her posture tilting subtly forward, her gaze fixed on Orum with the unblinking intensity of a starving wolf that had locked onto a white rabbit with no idea what was bearing down on it.
"Yes, My Lady." The attendant received her orders. Watching the scorching, possessive hunger burning in Seraphina's eyes, she felt a genuine, involuntary pang of pity for that young, handsome adventurer.
---
The central streets of Blackwater Town.
Even under the cover of night, the fortress-like white stone exterior of the Adventurers' Hall radiated a steady glow, shimmering with light that made it instantly recognizable from a distance.
Several adventurer teams had already wrapped up their mission settlements inside. Having collected their rewards, they emerged through the front doors one after another, faces carrying looks of satisfied contentment.
Some teams clutched bulging coin purses, their members grinning broadly, arms draped over each other's shoulders as they set off at a brisk stride toward the town's taverns, bathhouses, and gambling dens, ready to throw themselves headlong into a week of well-earned excess.
Other teams looked considerably more beaten up, covered in grime, holding purses that were nearly empty, their expressions downcast and hollow. A few walked out of the Adventurers' Hall in heavy silence, the mood around them so oppressive it felt ready to drip.
One such man, hunched under the weight of a massive shattered shield, exhaustion carved into every line of his face, was among those dejected figures.
It was Torred, captain of the Mountain's Shield squad.
Compared to the last time they had crossed paths, when he had carried himself with easy confidence, Torred now looked visibly worn down: puffy bags under bloodshot eyes, chainmail caked in dried grime and monster blood, and most striking of all, the great shield he had once worn as a badge of pride now missing more than half of itself, reduced to a battered ruin. The sight of it was genuinely painful to look at.
Torred's weary gaze fell heavily first on the limp coin purse in his hand, then lifted with great effort to take in the faces of his teammates walking beside him.
The original Mountain's Shield lineup was four people: one shield guardian (the captain), one swordswoman (Karin), one priest (Anna), and one archer (Aes).
Now, the red-haired swordswoman Karin and the priest Anna were still present, but the powerfully built archer Aes was nowhere to be seen.
During their most recent expedition, the squad's camp had been hit by a sudden ambush of Rust Corruptors.
In the chaos of the fighting, the creatures' mouthparts had torn away one of Aes's arms. He had survived, but with a permanent disability. The physician said he would never draw a bow again.
Torred's shield, too, had been reduced to its pitiful half-wreck state when a Rust Corruptor's acid spray caught it.
"Torred, do we really have to cover all of Aes's medical bills ourselves? That's way too much for us to handle!"
Walking beside Torred, the red-haired swordswoman Karin had one look at the limp purse in his hand and grew visibly agitated.
"It's not like it was entirely our fault that Aes got hurt!"
"Our mission got aborted, and we came back with almost nothing! It's not even enough to replace our damaged gear!" Karin's emotions were climbing fast.
She had every reason to be panicking. The longsword she depended on had been corroded and destroyed by acid during the fight with the Rust Corruptors. She was completely unarmed now, her combat ability reduced to nothing.
"That's enough. Stop." Torred, his nerves already worn to their limit, cut off Karin's complaints. His brow furrowed deeply as he tucked the coin purse into his pocket.
Torred couldn't make sense of it. Even with two forward positions holding the line, how had those Rust Corruptors managed to slip through their defenses and reach the rear, launching their attack directly on the archer?
As a shield guardian, Torred was nearly crushed under the weight of having failed to protect his teammate. The guilt sat on his chest like a boulder.
"How dare you raise your voice at me!"
"When a mission falls apart this badly and the losses are this bad, isn't that on you as captain, Torred?!"
Karin's face had gone deep red, and she was on the verge of completely blowing up at him.
Then, from the far end of the road, a sudden commotion broke through.
A magnificent procession of three lavishly decorated, brilliantly lit parade floats came rolling toward them, surrounded on all sides by the swell of sacred hymns.
With stunned eyes, Torred, Karin, and Anna clearly made out, on the first float, the enormous blood-streaked severed head of a minotaur. And on the second float, standing with cool composure, his golden hair catching the light: Felix, captain of the Ice Hawks Company, receiving the crowd's thunderous cheers.
"Good heavens, he really is something. Ice Hawks Captain Felix..." Karin and Anna were immediately pulled in by the spectacle, their eyes turning starry as they stared, unblinking, at Felix's face, which looked almost too perfect to be real.
"Exactly what you'd expect from the captain of one of Blackwater Town's top-ten adventuring companies!"
But when their gazes finally reached the third float and landed on Orum, the very same young man who had turned down their team with such dismissive indifference, now standing beside Ronald in a blaze of glory, Torred, Karin, and Anna all went wide-eyed. Their jaws had nearly hit the ground.
"How is this possible?! That guy actually... he really did join the Ice Hawks Company?!" Karin cried out under her breath, shock and jealousy warring openly in her voice.
Although the Mountain's Shield members had vaguely heard whispers of Orum joining the Ice Hawks, Captain Felix had always kept things characteristically low-key and had never held any kind of formal induction ceremony. They had eventually shrugged the rumor off and let it fade from their minds.
It was only occasionally, when thoughts of that insufferable Orum drifted back to her, that Karin would curse him quietly in her head, convinced he was an arrogant fool who would inevitably wash out of whatever assessment the Ice Hawks put him through, slink away in disgrace, and become a running joke among Blackwater Town's adventurers.
And yet here was the Orum who was supposed to be at rock bottom, standing right there on a glory-laden float, unhurried and composed, meeting the envious and reverent gazes of everyone around him. The sight of it drove into the hearts of all three Mountain's Shield members like a spike, sending a violent jolt of pain through each of them.
After turning Mountain's Shield down, that Orum hadn't just scraped by. He had risen to heights none of them could have imagined, participating in the hunt and kill of a genuinely terrifying monster.
Set against the miserable, broken state their team now found itself in, the way they looked up at the dazzling Orum atop that float was like a pack of sewer rats craning their necks to gawk at a resplendent noble.
Bone-deep shame and bitter resentment coiled around them instantly, gnawing at their insides like something with teeth.
Karin suddenly grabbed Torred by the shoulder with both hands, gripping hard enough to hurt. She locked eyes with him, her gaze fierce and blazing:
"We can't keep going like this! If we do, we'll be nowhere for the rest of our lives!"
"I saw something on the mission board today: a high-reward commission with a low difficulty rating!"
"We need to grab it right now before another team takes it!"
Torred was pulled along by Karin, his steps a little stiff as he moved back toward the Adventurers' Hall.
His voice carried a note of unease as he asked, "Karin, what does this commission actually involve? Are you sure the difficulty is really that low?"
"It's to clear out a goblin nest near a village! With what we've got, handling a bunch of green-skinned runts would be a walk in the park!"
Karin answered, her excitement building as she exchanged a meaningful glance with the priest Anna at her side.
Anna gripped her wooden staff and, the moment she met Karin's eyes, gave an eager nod. "That's right. If we don't pull off a mission soon, there won't be a team left to hold together."
"Fine!"
Swayed by his two teammates, Torred finally buried the last of his hesitation. He clenched his fist hard, cast one final hateful glare at Orum's annoyingly brilliant figure up on the float, and then turned without looking back and walked straight into the Adventurers' Hall.