Lance almost retched, like surf slapping a seawall, and begged, “Enough, Mentor—let’s not feast on old glory.”

The prince laughed, a bright bell in a windy hall. “Ha-ha—only you, Lance, can turn grime into grit.”

Their laughter rose like a warm fire, sparks leaping from face to face.

As plans swirled like smoke, Jeremy frowned, a lost hound in fog. “Boss, if you and Yuna throw yourselves into danger, what about us?”

The Mountain Wind Knight spoke up, voice like a ridge-line. “Yeah, Blazing Fire Knight, don’t forget we’re your order on paper.”

Under their hopeful gazes that pressed like spring rain, Lance, the Blazing Fire Knight, fell quiet like a lake.

“Because of many things,” he said, words like gravel in his mouth, “my hometown, Mubay City, is a wrecked stall.”

He added the charge like a sealed letter. “In my name—Klein, Jeremy—help Alice handle what should’ve been mine.”

Foes’ leftovers crawled like snakes in grass, and the Divine Inquisitors still strutted like hawks in a chicken yard.

With that, Lance asked the rest to hold Doran like a fortress at dusk.

Jeremy surged to his feet like a drumbeat and thumped his chest. “Leave it to me! In Mubay, if anyone doubts the boss, I’ll settle him first.”

Klein lifted his head like a blade catching moonlight, hand on his hilt, and looked into the night. “I don’t want to cut anyone now. You taught me mercy and forgiveness like cool shade. But if you ask, I’ll lay that shade aside. I’ll let them taste the mountain wind’s cold teeth.”

“Mm. I’m counting on you,” Lance said, like a lantern cupped against wind.

With everything set, Lance moved at once, like an arrow loosed at dawn.

Next morning broke like pale ink, and mist peeled off the road like silk.

Lance stepped toward the carriage, farewells long folded like paper cranes, when Gio called him back like a bell at the gate.

“Sorry, brother,” Gio Robel said, guilt like frost on his breath. “I shouldn’t have doubted you then. I shouldn’t have made that mistake.”

“It’s fine,” Lance replied, eyes widening like tossed pebbles, then grinning easy as sunlight. “I’m off.”

“Take care,” Gio said, the words settling like leaves on water.

The scene sat heavy in Yuna’s chest, like a stone tucked in cloth. Once the carriage rolled, she asked, “Master, do you care about him?”

“Of course,” Lance said, legs crossed like a lazy king, hands behind his head like a makeshift pillow, watching scenery stream like a river. “If someone helps me live quietly, I care about them, whoever they are.”

That answer pinched Yuna like a thorn, and she tried again, voice reaching like a bridge. “Master, I meant you and him—”

Before she finished, a man’s cry cracked the air like a dropped plate.

The passenger car sat before the cargo car like a swallow before its tail. A conductor-like man was counting crates like stacked loaves. He found an iron-barred box, lifted the curtain by instinct like lifting fog, and froze.

“Oh! By the Light Deity—” he yelped, voice ringing like a struck bowl. “Who locks a girl in a beast cage?!”

Just as he cried, a filthy, rag-wrapped figure huddled like a wet bird. Her skin was delicate as porcelain, her hair a blur between silver and pale ash, her face tight with pain, her eyes pleading like rain on glass.

He flinched, heart twisting like rope. He dropped the curtain like a guillotine and shouted, “We don’t haul slaves here!”

Nosy passengers flocked like sparrows to a crumb.

They each lifted the curtain like a veil, gasped at her beauty like a sudden moon, then winced at her misery like a thorn under nail, and lowered it slow.

“Who did this?!” Conscience pricked them like nettles, and voices rose with the conductor’s like a tide.

More came, faces bobbing like gourds in a stream, gaze to gaze, head to head, all shaking like willows.

Then a young lord stepped out, apology simmering like tea. “She’s mine.”

What followed was no surprise, rolling in like thunder.

A righteous, polished noble seized the boy’s collar like a hawk snatching a chick. “Kid, you’re in deep trouble!”

“Doran forbids slave trading!” he shouted, voice like iron on iron. “Whatever your reason, you’ll face court, then exile!”

“Is that so?” the boy said, tone flat as a calm pond.

The calm didn’t stoke the noble’s fire; it chilled him like a draft through bone.

Years in salons had sharpened his nose like a fox’s. He feared he’d grabbed the wrong tiger by the whiskers. “Name your father!”

“No need to name my father.”

The answer pleased him like a gambler seeing a weak hand. He drew back a fist big as a sandbag. “Then don’t blame me!”

Before the punch fell, an unnatural cold slid over him like black ice. The noble trembled and let go, fingers falling like dead leaves.

“Because I’m the Blazing Fire Knight,” the boy said, voice low as a forge.

“What? He is?!” Gasps scattered like startled fish. Doubt rose, thin as smoke.

They saw no crimson cloak like a fire banner, and no foreign long blade that he always carried like a crescent moon.

So some scoffed, mouths sharp as reeds. “Quit bluffing!”

But this noble was different; he’d stood at the Knight Festival like a pilgrim at a holy peak. He’d felt the surge like a sea wind, and watched the boy’s rescues on the altar like lightning.

He stepped back, bowed deep like a bending pine. “My apologies. I meant no offense.”

As the carriage's hush returned like settling snow, he offered counsel, gentle as a fan. “Still, caging a girl like this is not right.”

“Even if she joined a plot to sway the royal house?” The words fell like a hammer.

“This…” The noble’s tongue stalled like a cart in mud.

Lance didn’t expose Shelika. He painted a clever tale like ink over a stain: a tragic noble girl, hungry for rank like a moth for flame, who colluded with the Silkworm Clan to near the crown.

After the tale, eyes reddened like dusk, yet no pity took root, dry as a winter field.

“Well done, Master,” Yuna said later, admiration blooming like a lotus.

“Hmph, of course,” Lance sniffed, cool as rain, though Fulin had almost died of fright like a candle in a gust.

Then the boy lashed out, a boot thudding into Shelika like a thrown stone. “You wanted them to see you, didn’t you?!”

Her excuse fluttered like torn paper. “No, I—I only…”

Her voice thinned like smoke. She lowered her head, pitiful as a drooping flower. “I was just hungry.”

“Oh! I almost forgot you’re a noble Dark Blood Clan princess who drinks ten liters of blood a day,” he drawled, words biting like frost.

“Your stupid hunting gave me away like a flare. Now we have to get off in a dump like this!”

He kicked again, anger snapping like a whip, then turned and opened his arms to the horizon—a flat, endless loess desert, empty as a dried sea—powerless, and helpless as wind without leaves.