Chapter 16: Responsibility

"Our fearless leader, the grand Astral Vanguard, just got publicly disassembled by an invalid in an undertaker’s coat."

Cassian did not turn around.

Walking out from between the marble pillars came a young man with messy, sandy-brown hair, sharp, fox-like hazel eyes, and a uniform that was worn with scandalous, deliberate sloppiness, the collar unbuttoned to mid-chest, displaying a silver chain, and his leather scouting boots scuffed with fresh dirt.

This was Silas Nightingale, the A-Rank scout of the Astra Party.

Silas strolled across the plaza with the loose, lazy gait of a predator that had just discovered a particularly fascinating carcass, an enormous, wicked grin plastered across his face.

"I have to say, Cassian," Silas chuckled, resting both hands behind his head as he circled the frozen leader. "I’ve watched you fight dragons, parry high-tier glacial spells, but I have never seen someone strike you so hard without even drawing a weapon. That was spectacular. It felt less like an apology and more like a scene from a second-rate romantic stage play where the dashing prince gets utterly rejected by the tragic, delicate maiden after a tearful confession."

Silas dramatically placed the back of his hand against his forehead, adopting a breathy, falsetto voice: "Oh, Lord Valemont! Keep your steel! I need neither your sword nor your pity! Now excuse me while I flutter away in my velvet carriage to weep into my warm bath!"

Silas dropped the pose and snickered, his sharp eyes gleaming with bizarre, chaotic interest. "Though, I must say... young Lucien Everhart has grown shockingly handsome since last semester, hasn’t he? That pale complexion, that jet-black hair, those sharp, obsidian eyes... honestly, if you’re not going to pursue him, Cassian, let me know. I wouldn’t mind slipping into his dormitory window one evening to test whether his nervous shock extends to his lower extremities. I’ve always had a terrible weakness for tragic, fragile boys with bad attitudes."

"Silas," a calm, sweet, melodic voice chimed from behind them. "If you attempt to climb through the window of a Ducal heir’s dormitory, Lady Elara will freeze your reproductive organs and use them as paperweights."

Approaching from the shaded walkway was a girl of breathtaking, serene beauty.

She wore the white-and-gold mantle of the academy’s high support division, her honey-brown hair pinned up neatly, her hazel eyes radiating warmth, kindness, and gentle maternal grace.

This was Seraphina Vale, the party’s B-Rank tactical support.

Seraphina smiled sweetly at Silas, her hands folded neatly over her administrative satchel. "And frankly, I would provide her with the necessary mana to ensure the freezing was entirely permanent. You are a biological hazard, Silas."

"You wound me, Seraphina! I am an explorer of human beauty! I do not discriminate based on gender, class, or mana affinity!" Silas laughed, entirely unbothered. "I am a man of the people!"

"You are a degenerate who should be kept forty feet away from all domestic animals and vulnerable nobles," muttered a massive, wall-like figure who trudged up behind Seraphina.

This was Garrick Stone, the party’s C-Rank frontline tank.

He was nearly seven feet tall, with a neck thicker than an old oak trunk, a jaw like an anvil, and hands that looked capable of crushing coconuts into flour.

He was currently holding a half-eaten smoked turkey leg in one fist, chewing vigorously while squinting at the road where the carriage had vanished.

"The Everhart boy sure spoke well," Garrick grunted around a mouthful of poultry. "Most nobles would have demanded gold, blood, or a duel of honot. He just wanted his soup. I respect that. A man who values dinner over a political grudge has solid fundamentals."

"Oh, fundamentals, my giant, empty-headed friend?" a sharp, delightfully chaotic voice drawled from atop an ornamental lamppost ten feet above them.

The party didn’t even look up.

They were entirely used to it.

Perched precariously atop the brass spire of the lamppost, squatting like a demented gargoyle with her knees pulled up to her chest, was Lyra Veyne.

The A-Rank battlefield mage had unruly, wild violet hair that looked as though it had survived three separate electrical detonations this morning.

Her uniform was covered in strange, glowing green stains; her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows; and she was currently holding a miniature, potted carnivorous plant that was aggressively snapping its thorny jaws at a passing butterfly.

Lyra leaned forward, her luminous purple eyes wide with manic scientific glee.

"He didn’t just ’speak well,’ Garrick, you meathead!" Lyra cackled, her voice climbing into that shrill, terrifying register that usually signaled she had just created a new strain of explosive fungus. "Did you see his spiritual pathways?! I had my botanical sensory threads woven into the sunstone pavers beneath his boots! When he looked at Cassian, his soul didn’t just fluctuate, it hissed! It gave off the most deliciously bizarre, inverted mana resonance I have ever tasted! It wasn’t earth magic. It wasn’t raw mana. It was... cold! Deep! Rotting and blooming all at once! Like a dead flower growing through the ribcage of an ancient king!"

Lyra hopped down from the ten-foot lamppost, landing on the sunstone pavers with a light, feline thud, not spilling a single grain of dirt from her potted plant.

She shoved her face directly into Cassian’s shoulder, sniffing aggressively at his uniform.

"Cassian! Did you smell him?! Did you smell the death-frost on his coat?! He’s hiding something! I need to dissect him! Just a little bit! Just three vials of spinal fluid and a tiny clipping of his fingernails! I’ll trade you seven explosive spore-bombs if you order him into our research lab!"

Cassian did not respond to Silas’s lewd jokes, Garrick’s culinary philosophy, or Lyra’s enthusiastic medical malpractice proposals.

The protagonist stood entirely still, his fists slowly clenching at his sides.

’Responsibility,’ Cassian thought, his chest aching with a strange, foreign warmth that felt far heavier than any wound he had ever suffered in combat.

He is the only one who understood.