Anna's father sat at the far right, directly opposite Ryuji's father. A visceral tension simmered between them—an ancient enmity barely restrained.
Anna's father wore attire reminiscent of French nobility: a grand coat with gold embroidery and a high bow circling his neck.
Ryuji's father, by contrast, attended the formal meeting armored—a choice that immediately drew murmurs of criticism from the other heads.
His armor was a pragmatic masterpiece: robust, battle-worn, yet engineered for fluid movement. The chest piece bore the Takashiro family crest: a stylized dragon coiled around a blade.
"Why wear armor?" Anna's father asked, his tone clipped.
"It is the Takashiro way, Henri," came the curt reply.
A figure in silver-gleaming knightly armor stepped forward. Though his helm rested on the table, his soft-spoken tone softened the air.
"You all know of the quest," he announced, hoping to spark conversation among the other seventeen heads.
Most listened with thinly veiled irritation, save one—a man with flowing dark hair and piercing red eyes, draped in an enormous fur-lined chaperon and a velvet-red cape.
His family crest was a snake coiling around a tree, the ground beneath it bloodstained.
"Don't you think we already know?" he taunted, a sardonic smile playing across his lips.
"I'd suggest we share any knowledge we have with one another. It is the 500-year quest, after all," the knight muttered.
Silence followed. No one spoke.
The quest before them was no ordinary task issued by a sage—it was issued by Sage Rolhim.
Leonardo could feel the weight of something. His body begged him to collapse into the ground.