Whitepeak's familiar walls felt smaller. The noise of the guild hall, once a chaotic symphony of belonging, now sounded like the tinny buzz of insects compared to the silent, cosmic-scale war that now filled Kaito's mind. He stood just inside the heavy doors, Iris a vibrant, watchful presence at his side. His two silver stars felt like a child's toys pinned to a soldier's uniform.
He scanned the room. There, by the central hearth, holding court. Roland. His armor was polished, his spear leaned against the wall, his booming laugh cutting through the din as he regaled a group of wide-eyed C-ranks with the tale of the "Canyon Drake." The story was already growing in the telling—the mutated drake was now the size of a barn, its breath melting stone, and his spear-thrust had saved not just three travelers, but an entire hidden village.
Borin, his ever-present shadow, sat beside him, methodically polishing his tower shield, his expression as stoic as ever, but a faint hint of a long-suffering smile touched his lips as Roland embellished.
"Target acquired," Iris chirped, her voice barely audible. "Let's go crash his party."
They weaved through the crowd. Kaito felt the familiar stares, the whispers that trailed him like a wake. "B-rank... the one who fixed the Murkwood... was with the Hero..." But they felt distant, unimportant. He had a new mission, and it required a spear.
Roland saw them approaching. His story faltered for a second, his confident grin widening into something more genuine. "Well, look who's back from the wilds! And you brought a friend!" His gaze flicked to Iris, taking in her unusual eyes and confident posture with an appreciative but wary glint. "Who's the lovely lady?"
"Irianna Sol'Keth," Iris said, offering a perfect, slightly imperious curtsey that was at odds with her playful energy. "Royal Messenger. At your service, sir spearman."
The C-ranks around Roland stiffened, eyes going wide. A royal messenger, here, talking to Roland? His own grin became a bit fixed. Royalty, even in messenger form, complicated things.
"You've got the look of someone with more than a message," Roland said, his tone carefully neutral. He gestured to the empty chairs at his table. "Have a seat. Borin, get our... guests... some ale. The good stuff."
As Borin lumbered off, Roland leaned forward, his voice dropping. "Alright, kid. You've got your B-rank, you've got the Hero's attention, and now you've got a royal shadow. This isn't a social call. What's burning?"
Kaito met his gaze. No prelude. No easing into it. "The corruption. It's not natural. It's not from the Monster King. It's from something else. Something outside."
Roland's easygoing expression didn't change, but his blue eyes sharpened. "Outside of what? The Barony? The Kingdom?"
"The world."
There was a beat of silence. One of the C-ranks choked on his drink. Roland didn't move. He just stared at Kaito, then slowly looked at Iris for confirmation.
Iris gave a small, solemn nod. "He went to the Blightscar. He met its keeper. It was not of this earth, or any earth we know."
Roland leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking. He rubbed his chin. "The Blightscar. A place of old, bad magic. A century of death. And you're telling me it's got a... a landlord?"
"A foreman," Kaito corrected. "For an operation called Prometheus. They're from a dying dimension. They're using the scar, and... my energy... to make weapons. To test them. And they're building a bridge in the Frost Continent to bring in the real machines."
Roland stared. Then he let out a long, slow breath. "Kid," he said, his voice dangerously soft. "That's not a quest. That's a madman's prophecy. Frost Continent's a frozen hellscape. Titans are the nice things that live there. You're talking about an invasion from another world?" He shook his head. "Even if I believed you—and that's a big if—what do you want from me? A referral to the Royal Astrologer?"
"We need to go there," Kaito said, undeterred. "We need to find their bridge and break it before they finish. You've been to the Frost Continent. You know the terrain. You fought a Titan there. We need your knowledge."
Roland barked a laugh, but it was hollow. "You need my knowledge? To walk into a frozen wasteland and pick a fight with world-eating aliens? You're out of your damned mind." He looked at Iris. "And you, Messenger. The King sent you on this suicide run?"
Iris's smile was thin. "The King sent me to fetch him and assess. I have assessed. And I'm going with him. The run might be suicidal, but the enemy is real. We have proof."
"Proof?" Roland scoffed.
Kaito placed the Leviathan Staff on the table. The obsidian length seemed to drink the firelight. "This is made from a Leviathan's rib. From the tomb under the Blightscar. The Architect—their foreman—was searching for it for a century. It's the key to their bridge. I took it from him."
Roland's eyes locked on the staff. His bravado vanished, replaced by the cold, assessing look of a veteran who recognizes a weapon of power when he sees one. He'd felt the wrongness of it in the canyon. "You stole the key from the landlord," he murmured.
"And then his whole operation collapsed," Iris added cheerfully. "So they'll be very eager to get it back."
Borin returned with two tankards, setting them down. He took in the tense silence, Roland's grim face, the staff on the table. He didn't sit. He stood behind Roland, a silent mountain of impending refusal.
Roland picked up his own tankard, took a long swallow, and set it down with a thud. "No."
"Roland—" Kaito began.
"No," Roland repeated, his voice firm. "Listen to me, kid. I like you. You've got guts and power I don't understand. But this? This is a tale for the Royal Archives, not a marching order. My duty is here. To Whitepeak. To the Barony. To the real war against a Monster King we can actually fight." He gestured around the guild. "These people need defenders they can see, monsters they can understand. Not phantoms from beyond the stars."
He leaned forward, his expression earnest. "You want to chase ghosts? Fine. You're a B-rank. You can take whatever fool quest you want. But you're not dragging me and Borin into a frozen grave on a madman's errand. My spear defends walls of stone, not theories of the void."
The refusal was solid, immovable as Borin's shield. It was the logic of a man grounded in the tangible world, who measured threats in claws and siege engines, not in dimensional apertures.
Kaito looked at Iris. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shrug. Your move.
He didn't plead. He didn't argue about the greater good. He simply reached out and picked up the Leviathan Staff. As his fingers closed around it, he let the faintest, most controlled whisper of his true nature bleed out. Not the crushing aura of the forest, but a subtle, profound stillness. A hint of the void at his core. The air around their table grew heavy, the sounds of the guild hall muffling as if submerged in thick oil.
Roland's hand twitched toward his spear. Borin took a half-step forward, his shield arm tensing.
"You're right," Kaito said, his voice quiet but clear in the sudden pocket of silence. "It is a madman's errand. But the madman is in the Frost Continent, building a door. And he has an army of prototypes that look like mutated wolves, and corrupted elementals, and plague-hearts that spawn endless monsters." He looked Roland dead in the eye. "How long before one of those 'tests' slips past whatever I've been cleaning up here? How long before a 'field trial' happens inside Whitepeak's walls? Your walls of stone won't mean much against a sickness that melts reality."
He pulled the stillness back in. The noise of the guild rushed back.
Roland didn't speak for a long moment. He looked from Kaito's impassive face to the black staff, to Iris's knowing gaze. He saw not a fanatic, but a relentless force of nature stating a simple, terrible fact: the battlefield was about to change, whether he believed in it or not.
He drained his tankard. "Damn it," he muttered, not to them, but to the universe. He looked at Borin. The shield-bearer met his gaze, then gave a single, slow nod. It wasn't enthusiasm. It was resignation to a commander's call.
Roland turned his weary, frustrated, but ultimately unwavering blue eyes back to Kaito. "Alright, you apocalyptic brat. You've got your guide. But we do this smart. We don't just march into the glacier. We need gear. Cold-weather, the real stuff. We need supplies for a month in dead lands. And we need a ship. No one walks to the Frost Continent."
He stood up, his chair scraping loudly. "You've got three days. I'll get us a ship and a crew that won't ask questions. You two get everything else. And for the love of all that's holy, try not to start a war with the sky before we even get there."
He stomped away, Borin falling into step behind him, leaving Kaito and Iris at the table with two full tankards of untouched ale.
Iris picked hers up and took a delicate sip. "See?" she said, smiling. "All it takes is a little logical persuasion."
Kaito looked at the retreating back of the spearman, who had just agreed to guide them to what he thought was certain death for the sake of a wall he might not be able to defend.
He hadn't won a recruit. He'd conscripted a good soldier into an impossible war. The weight of it was heavier than any he'd felt before.
The journey to break heaven's gate had its first, deeply unwilling, mortal crew member.