"He has new companions," the demon girl said, her fingers tracing the edge of the wall while her tail twitched in annoyance.

She sat on the high ledge, keeping her eyes on the line of armored horses marching out of the capital’s eastern gate. The morning wind blew her long black hair across her face, carrying the faint sound of creaking leather up to the ruins.

The boy stepped out from the shadows of the archway, looking down at the road.

"And their mana is identical to his," he muttered, crossing his arms. "The same circulation pattern, the same resonance."

The girl’s brow furrowed, her eyes following Hajin, Juna, Loccy, and Vella. "He isn’t just traveling with them," she said. "They are bound directly to his core."

"His bloodline," the boy said, his eyes narrowing. "That would explain the link, but where did he find entities with that kind of compatibility?"

The boy watched the column pass the outer farms, his expression turning grim as he calculated their trajectory.

"They are heading to the valley," he said, his voice dropping into a tense whisper.

She frowned, not understanding his reaction, "So what? It’s just a normal clearing mission."

"No," he said, turning to look at her. "They are heading toward that gate."

The girl went completely still, her tail dropping as her eyes widened in alarm.

"The experimental one?" she asked, her voice cracking slightly. "The seven-Shard gate we set up to test that monster?"

"Yes," he said, nodding slowly. "The mages miscalculated the signature, and they assigned a rookie to clear it."

"This is bad," she said, pacing back and forth along the wall. "We made that gate way too unstable for a test, the distortion is already peaking."

"If he goes in there, he will die."

The boy gritted his teeth, his hand slamming against the wall. "If he dies, the Goddess fragment inside him will shatter before we can extract it."

"The Underworld King will eat us alive if we lose that piece," she said, her face turning pale. "He told us to monitor the boy, not let him get vaporized in our own experiment."

She stopped pacing, looking at the distant column of soldiers with rising panic. "Crap, what should we do?" she asked, her voice trembling.

The boy stared at the dust rising from the road, his mind running through the options.

"We can’t attack the knights directly," he said. "The Knight Captain is a veteran, and drawing that much attention will expose our presence to the royal mages."

"Then we have to stop him before he enters," she said, her claws growing from her fingers.

She looked ready to jump, but the boy grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back.

"No," he said, keeping his grip firm. "If we show ourselves now, he will just fight us. We need to find another way to handle this."

"If we don’t fight them, we’re just letting him walk to his death," the girl muttered, pacing again as her tail lashed the air in frustration. "The gate will swallow him whole, and then we will be the ones paying the price to the King."

"We aren’t letting him die," the boy said, his eyes fixed on the dust cloud. "We are going to join them."

She stopped in her tracks, her brow furrowing as she looked back at him. "What does that mean? The knights aren’t going to let two demons walk into their formation, especially with the Captain watching."

Instead of answering, the boy closed his eyes, his dark energy retracting into his body with a soft hiss.

The black scales along his cheek faded into smooth skin, his pointed ears rounding out while his horns shrank back into his head. Within seconds, he stood before her as a completely ordinary human teenager, his dark clothes shifting into simple adventurer robes.

A slow smile spread across the girl’s face, her panic vanishing as she watched his transformation.

"You look completely harmless," she said, realizing that if they did that, they could protect Hajin and keep him alive without revealing themselves to the military.

"You are a genius," she added, her own demonic features starting to recede as she prepared to mimic his form.

"I’m not smart," the boy said, his face completely flat. "You’re just dumb."

"Fuck you," she snapped, her tail vanishing as her own features shifted into a human form.

Meanwhile, Hajin walked along the road to the border valley, keeping his eyes on the path ahead. Juna and Vella walked on either side of him, still quiet after their earlier argument about who would watch over him during the upcoming raid.

A bright blue message box suddenly popped up in the corner of his vision, signaling a private chat from his moderator, Ashley.

[ Ashley (Private):] is what the Juna said true?

[ Ashley (Private):] and what vella said as well? did she actually share your bed?

He stared at the flashing text, keeping his expression neutral so the marching knights wouldn’t notice. ’why does it matter?’ he typed back.

[ Ashley (Private):] just answer the question!

He closed the notification, feeling a headache coming on as they neared the valley. He was completely confused why his sleeping arrangements bothered her so much.

A knight suddenly broke away from the main formation and fell into step beside him. He was a middle-aged man with a weathered face and a scar running across his jaw, his armor bearing the marks of years of hard use.

"Hey," the knight said, keeping his voice casual. "Mind if I ask you something?"

Hajin glanced at him, then looked forward again. "Depends on the question."

The knight let out a short laugh, "fair enough. I heard you killed that anomaly in the two-shard gate. The one that had been eating parties for months. Is that true?"

The moment the words left the knight’s mouth, the surrounding conversation among the marching soldiers dropped.

Heads turned, ears perked up, and within seconds, almost every knight in the formation was looking their way, waiting for his answer. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

He felt the weight of all those eyes on him and his mind started racing.

’If I say yes, they are going to keep pressing me for details and treat me like some kind of spectacle,’ he thought, feeling the collective gaze of the entire formation bearing down on him. ’If I say no, they will think I am lying or just lucky. Either way, this is annoying.’

He looked at the expectant faces around him, then at Juna walking stiffly beside him, and an idea popped into his head.

He reached out and wrapped his arm around Juna’s shoulder, pulling her close with a wide, easy smile spreading across his face.

"That’s not what happened at all," he said, his voice loud enough for the nearby knights to hear. "I didn’t kill anything. It was all my sweet partner here."

Juna went completely rigid the moment his arm made contact, her ears shooting straight up while her face turned a deep shade of red. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out, just a small, strangled squeak.

She stared straight ahead, her entire body frozen solid while his arm rested across her shoulders. He gave her a little squeeze for effect, and she made another sound that was somewhere between a cough and a whimper.

Vella, walking on his other side, stopped mid-step and turned her head so slowly it looked mechanical. Her eye twitched as she watched the scene unfold, her lips pressing into a thin line.

"The beastkin did it?" the knight asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked at Juna, who looked like she was about to pass out from sheer embarrassment.

"Yep," he said, nodding confidently. "She handled the whole thing. I was just there to watch."

A few of the nearby knights exchanged glances, some looking impressed, others looking skeptical.

"Really?" another knight called out from the formation. "She took down a whole anomaly by herself?"

Hajin nodded again, keeping his smile in place while Juna made a sound like a teakettle about to boil. "She is stronger than she looks."

The scarred knight studied Juna for a moment, taking in her stiff posture and her flaming red face, then let out a short laugh. "Well, I guess the rumors were exaggerated then. Good to know."

He clapped Hajin on the shoulder and fell back into formation, the other knights slowly turning back to their own conversations as the attention faded.

Hajin waited until the last pair of eyes had left them before he let out a quiet breath and loosened his grip on Juna’s shoulder.

"Sorry about that," he said, his voice dropping back to normal. "You can relax now."

Juna didn’t relax though, still standing there completely frozen with her face bright red while her ears twitched sporadically.

Vella let out a long, flat exhale from his left, her voice carrying an edge he had not noticed before. "That was quite the performance, Master. Very smooth. Very convincing."

He glanced at her, noticing the way her fingers were drumming against her own arm. "What? It worked, did it not?"

Vella just kept walking with a tight smile that did not quite reach her eyes.