“Why’s he so gaunt?” That was Fulin’s first impression of the king of the Doran Kingdom, a whisper tucked away like a blade under silk.

She couldn’t say it aloud. The thought was a swallow that beat at her ribs, then settled.

The Lance she played moved by the drilled rites, a steady river entering the king’s hall for audience.

“You’re Lance Morrison?” Robert XVII spoke. His voice was thin yet rang like bronze in a winter courtyard.

“I am.” Lance stayed on one knee, bearing judge’s eyes like a lone pine under snow. He raised his head. “Second child of Sir Morrison, commander of the Lionheart Legion. A Charge Tier knight, named ‘Flame of Chaos’ by the Iron Duke, Mr. Murphy—Lance Morrison. It’s an honor, Your Majesty.”

The man on the plain throne didn’t answer first. A minister at his side spoke like a bell chime. “Your Majesty, it’s him—Lance Morrison.”

The hall burst, a pond of startled fish flashing in ripples.

The noise died fast. Silence thickened until the air felt like cooling wax. Robert XVII finally hummed. “Mm.”

Just that, a perfunctory pebble dropped in a deep well.

The hush covered the main hall again, minutes ticking like cold drops.

“Rise.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Lance followed every step of the rites, a reed bending to the wind. He’d expected some twist, some factional trap. There wasn’t. Only protocol—and a dryness like dust on the tongue.

More minutes passed after he stood, and just when he thought this bureaucratic fog would never lift—

“Welcome, Blazing Fire Knight.”

“May I ask who you are?” Lance blinked, a bird startled mid-branch.

This wasn’t in the script. Even a royal child shouldn’t speak without leave, a rule like iron bars in the palace.

“Father’s third child, Jessica Robert. You may call me Princess Jessica. I’ll also allow the street name—”

“Call me the ‘Crystal Princess.’”

Lance looked. She was crystal under dawn light, elegant scent circling her like quiet petals.

He drifted for a heartbeat, yet a strange chill slid in like mist.

“Why don’t I feel the urge?” Inside Lance, Fulin spoke first with a frown, emotion moving before thought.

That “urge” was Blood Clan instinct, a tide that seized her whenever she saw the young and beautiful, a beast named appetite tugging at the soul.

It had been a curse she suffered, a hook she couldn’t quite spit out.

Yet not this time.

Playing Lance, Fulin felt no leap of hunger at the Crystal Princess, a still lake where there should’ve been storm. That was the strangeness.

“Maybe I’ve seen too many beauties and built an immunity?” Fulin tried to explain, tossing reasons like stones into water.

“This is still audience time. Don’t stare so long, mm-hehe~~” The Crystal Princess smiled, light skating over ice.

“Forgive me.” Lance sensed the misstep and slid his gaze away like a shutter closing.

He meant to ask why she broke protocol, to redirect the awkward air, but Robert XVII spoke.

“Blazing Fire Knight, why did you enter the Knight Festival?” The man had seemed frail, but on the throne his presence rose like a mountain shadow.

“So this is a king’s aura?” Fulin muttered inside, dry humor like a flicked fan.

The question didn’t smell like rhetoric. Fulin, wearing Lance’s face, chose the bare truth.

“For money,” the young knight said, clean as a blade.

The main hall erupted again, voices buzzing like a hive struck with a stick.

Robert XVII raised his hand from the throne’s armrest, palm up like a lantern. Quiet fell, soft as snow.

He asked again. “Money matters, yes. But Blazing Fire Knight, do you know a knight’s honor?”

“Of course.” Lance spoke calmly, words paced like steps on stone. “But compared with honor, I value a peaceful life more.”

“How so? How’s that tied to money?”

“Very much so. Your Majesty knows the times. War can sweep in like brushfire from any side. To survive chaos, beyond strength, coin matters most. Compared to that, honor is just an epitaph after we’re gone.”

The Doran Kingdom’s knightly tradition ran deep as roots. In a king’s hall, Lance’s words were cold wind against ancestral banners.

“What kind of attitude is that?!” A knight barked, anger snapping like a flagpole.

He drew his sword. “Your Majesty, permit me to cut him down!”

He meant it.

His blade came up, and his Earth Tier Battle Aura spilled out like a storm breaking over cliffs.

A gale tore through the hall, tapestries shivering like grass on a wide plain.

“Stand down.” Robert XVII waved, a gesture like a lid closing over flame. “To behead a promising youth like the Blazing Fire Knight for discourtesy alone would stain Our soul.”

The ministers didn’t like that. They were straight-backed people, and their grumbling rolled like distant thunder.

The furious knight shut his eyes and pulled his aura back, a tide retreating through wet sand. “My apologies. I acted on impulse.”

“It’s fine. His Majesty asked me to answer.” Lance’s tone was even, a stone in running water.

Robert XVII looked into Lance’s eyes for a long breath, then sighed, a wind through dry leaves. “We thought Gio was merely stubborn. He’s more farsighted than his father guessed.”

He paused, then declared with a bell-clear voice, “Enough. We grant it—Lance Morrison, you’ve won the second-round Selection Rite. You’ll stand with the winners of the other three rounds—two days from now, at the palace ritual grounds—competing together in the Knight Festival!”

Lance stepped briskly from the main hall, heels tapping like seeds on tile.

On the long colonnade back toward Maple City’s Knight Plaza, someone waited for him in the shadowed history of stone pillars.

The Crystal Princess slipped out, her grace a slow river under moonlight.

Her look wasn’t the same as before.

It was crystal sinking into midnight, a star drowned in ink.

“I saw it. They’re all cursing you.”

Lance knew who “they” were. The Blazing Fire Knight’s victory wasn’t a tide the crowd desired.

Mubay City’s people, and many enemies by stance, were stones in that river.

Had she come to warn him, or to watch him from a cliff?

“Though they curse you, I bless you, mm~~”

No joy, no grief—just a sly note, a cat’s paw in velvet. It didn’t smell like any blessing.

With the earlier strangeness still whispering, Lance felt only discomfort, a thorn under skin.

Her words slid on. “Though they belittle you, I see promise. I hope my blessing stays with you, even if endless night falls, mm-hehe~~”

Lance said nothing. He turned, a sail catching a clean wind.

Before he left—

“I don’t need blessings. I only need victory.” Lance’s resolve struck like flint.