The parchment in Sir Caelric Valdorn's hand felt heavier than a broadsword.
He stood by the arched stone window of his office, staring down at the sprawling training courtyard of the royal castle. The midday sun beat down on the cobblestones, illuminating the dust kicked up by dozens of boots.
Valdorn's jaw was locked tight, his battle-hardened face set in a grim, unreadable mask.
The document he held was a formal requisition form, filled out in the surprisingly neat handwriting of Itsuki Haruma.
It was a request—no, a demand, politely phrased—for Class 3-G to be deployed to the Gore-Tooth Ravine, an A-Grade Dungeon located on the treacherous borders of Ignivar.
An A-Grade.
A month ago, Valdorn wouldn't have hesitated.
A month ago, these children were nothing but raw materials to him—strange, chaotic anomalies summoned from a magic-less world to serve as living weapons against the Demon Lord Kaelthar.
His philosophy had always been forged in blood:
throw the recruits into the fire, let the weak burn, and forge the survivors into steel.
The mortality rate of recruits in Altherion was a harsh reality he had long accepted.
But now?
Now, looking at the ink on the page, a cold knot of hesitation twisted in his gut.
He looked down at the courtyard.
The castle, usually a grim, silent fortress preparing for the end of the world, had completely changed over the last thirty days.
It was… loud.
It was chaotic.
It was infuriatingly, unapologetically alive.
A loud crash echoed from the far side of the armory, followed by a plume of thick black smoke.
Valdorn didn't even flinch.
He just pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
"Moriyama! Makabe!" a drill sergeant roared from below.
Through the smoke, Toru Makabe and Hinata Moriyama sprinted across the yard, laughing like absolute maniacs.
The class clowns had struck again.
Toru, wielding his Pyromancer class like a toy, and Hinata, using his Assassin agility to evade the guards, were a nightmare.
Just last week, they had accidentally set the King's prized ceremonial banners on fire trying to "optimize" a fire-spell cast time.
Valdorn had dragged them by their collars and forced them to scrub the barracks for three days.
They had complained the entire time, but the sheer, ridiculous mischief of it had broken the suffocating gloom that usually hung over the guards.
Valdorn shifted his gaze to the barracks patio.
A crowd of seasoned Altherion soldiers—men covered in scars and missing teeth—were cheering wildly.
In the center of the ring, sitting at a sturdy oak table, was Daigo Shun.
The Vanguard's massive, broad frame was hunched over, his arm locked with a veteran heavy-infantryman.
Reiji Narukami, the Paladin, stood right behind him, clapping a hand on Daigo's shoulder and calling out encouragement with that effortlessly likeable, steady smile of his.
"Come on, old man! I've seen goblins with better grip strength!" Daigo bellowed, his face red with exertion before he slammed the soldier's arm down against the wood.
The men erupted into groans and laughter, handing over copper coins to Reiji, who was dutifully managing the bets.
The soldiers didn't treat them like holy saviors anymore.
They treated them like brothers-in-arms.
Valdorn's stern expression softened by a fraction of a millimeter.
Dumbass kids, he thought.
Even he hadn't been immune to their relentless intrusion into his life.
Two days ago, he had been reviewing border patrol routes when his office door swung open without so much as a knock.
Rika Aizawa had sauntered in, looking entirely unbothered by the fact that she was interrupting the Commander of the Royal Guard, chewing on something unidentifiable.
Right behind her was Ayaka Fujino, moving with her usual quiet grace, holding a grease-stained paper bag.
"Captain," Rika had said, leaning against his desk and ignoring his glare."You look like you're about to murder someone. We went down to the lower ring market. You need to eat this."
"I do not eat street refuse, Rogue," Valdorn had growled.
"It's spiced meat on a stick, Sir Valdorn," Ayaka had said gently, offering him a skewer with a warm, subtle smile that was impossible to refuse."Rika insisted you needed a break. Please?"
He had eaten the damn skewer.
And, to his eternal frustration, it had been the best thing he'd tasted in a decade.
It had become a bizarre trend.
Every few days, the girls would return from the city with some new, greasy peasant food, utterly ignoring his terrifying aura, and force him to eat it while Rika complained about her Rogue agility stats making her too sweaty.
They were so full of life.
So completely unbroken by the despair of Altherion.
But it was Ren Takashi that weighed heaviest on Valdorn's mind.
Valdorn thought back to last night.
It had been past midnight, the moon of Lua casting its fragmented, dead light across the training grounds.
Valdorn couldn't sleep—a common side effect of breathing in too much of the dense, ambient mana radiation.
He had walked down to the yard and found Ren.
The boy was alone, hacking away at a wooden training dummy with a blunted longsword.
His breathing was ragged.
His hands were blistered and bleeding.
Ren didn't have Daigo's monstrous strength, nor Itsuki's brilliant magical comprehension.
But he had the [Hero] title.
And with it came the suffocating pressure of an entire dying world.
Valdorn had stepped out of the shadows.
"Your footing is too wide, Takashi. You're telegraphing your swing."
Ren had startled, but then immediately adjusted his stance, looking at Valdorn with those exhausted, desperate eyes.
"Show me. Please. I need to get faster."
For two hours, Valdorn had sparred with him.
He hadn't gone easy.
He knocked the boy into the dirt over and over again.
And every single time, Ren swallowed his quiet frustration, picked up his sword, and stood back up.
No complaining.
No arrogance.
Just a kid trying to build shoulders broad enough to carry the universe.
...
Ren stood in the sudden silence of the Commander's office, staring at the closed oak door.
Daigo let out a massive breath, his shoulders slumping.
"Holy shit. I thought he was going to execute us on the spot. Did you see his eyes?"
"His vital signs indicated elevated stress, but not hostility," Itsuki noted, adjusting his glasses."The phrase 'I will consider it' from a commanding officer of his strict disposition is statistically equivalent to a tentative approval."
"He's going to let us go," Riku whispered, a manic grin spreading across his face.
"Oh man, I need to go pack the workshop. I need to calibrate the mana-barriers for high-radiation zones. If it's an A-Grade, I can finally test the kinetic dampeners!"
"Let's not celebrate until we have the official stamp, Riku," Reiji said, clapping the Artificer on the back and gently steering him toward the exit.
"Come on. Let's get back to the others and tell them to start preparing their gear, just in case."
The boys filed out of the office, their hushed, excited voices echoing down the stone corridor.
Ren lingered for a moment longer.
He looked at the heavy door to Valdorn's inner office.
He knew how much the Captain cared about them, even if the man would rather swallow glass than admit it.
He knew that if Valdorn signed that paper, it would be the hardest command decision the knight had ever made.
Please, Ren thought, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.
Trust us.
Let us prove we can handle this.
Ren turned and walked out into the corridor, his mind already shifting to the dark, unknown dangers of the Gore-Tooth Ravine—and the desperate hope that when they returned, they would finally be strong enough to forge their own path.