To the North of the empire, bordering the territory that no noble house claims, stands THE WALL!
A two-hundred-kilometer-long stretch of stone, granite, and towers, stretching across the land like a scar. It separated the northernmost settlements of the empire from the Great Green Forest- A land so vast and so old that no one knew how long it stretched or what secrets it held.
But the empire had understood the dangers of that place, not now but generations ago, and built a wall to protect itself - to guard against the inhabitants of that terrible place.
It was cold for most of the year, and when the sun did show its face, it never dared to stay for long.
No noble house held power in its territory.
And the Wall answered to none.
It was an appendage of the empire with no lord, no crest, and no influence.
The men who served there were no soldiers in any sense that the capital would recognise. They were discarded nobles stripped of their names, criminals offered the choice between the wall and the executioner, and mercenaries - the greedy ones who wanted to make it big.
It was, in every sense that mattered to the nobility, a place you went to disappear.
Which precisely was why Duke Gannon did not immediately understand what he had just heard.
For a moment, he wondered if the boy had lost his mind.
His son, the one who had spent the better part of his youth drinking through the family's wine cellar, brawling with household knights, harassing the maids - HE, the fool, the disgrace of the Household - HE was asking to be sent to the wall?
He found it very hard to believe.
"The wall?"
The duke's voice was calm, but the air in the room seemed to grow colder.
"What is this new act of yours?"
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'I must be out of my mind.'
Jin knew what kind of a place the wall was. He, who had read the novel multiple times, was aware of why the wall was built and that going there was a terrible idea.
But between disappearing to the wall and losing the Gannon name entirely, he would take the cold.
'Duke's anger won't last forever. I just need to endure until the things quiet down.'
That was what he told himself, whether he believed it was a separate question.
What he hadn't expected was the Duke's response.
He had prepared for anger, for dismissal, for a flat command to leave his sight. He had been ready to prostrate himself on the stone floor if it came to that - ready to hold the man's legs if that was what it took.
But he didn't expect the question.
Not an immediate refusal that - You cannot go to the wall. Not - that is not your decision to make. But a question of the duke being suspicious and cold.
'The doors haven't closed yet.'
Jin kept his eyes level and voice steady.
"It is not an act, Father."
He said it simply.
"I am aware of what I have done."
He let those words sit. It was, after all, the question the Duke had asked twice and never received an answer to.
"I am aware of the damage I have done to this house. I am aware of what it costs you to stand behind my name. I am aware that keeping me here is a liability that has stopped being worth carrying." He held his father's gaze. "I am not asking you to forgive me. I am asking you to consider which solution actually serves you."
Something in Duke's expression shifted not enough for Jin to notice, but it did.
Jin pressed on.
"The moment my name is formally stripped, it becomes a story. It will spread from the duchy to the capital within a fortnight - these things always do. People will ask what I did to deserve disownment, and whatever answer spreads, Lady Esther's name will be part of it."
He paused. "Count Sinclair is a proud man. I don't believe he wants his daughter's name carried through the capital as the reason a duke disowned his son. Even if the fault is entirely mine."
The silence that followed was a different kind of silence than before.
The duke had not moved. He was watching his son with an expression that was hard to read.
"Send me to the Wall, and I will simply vanish. Like you and my siblings always wanted. Count Sinclair would be happy, too. You keep the Gannon name clean. And I-" he held the man's eyes steadily- "receive the punishment I've earned."
He hadn't planned what came next. It arrived on its own, and he let it.
"And if I die up there, the matter resolves itself entirely."
The room was very quiet after that.
The Duke sat with it for a long time. Whatever moved in his head wasn't readable.
"Encrid." The duke looked at his son for a moment that stretched long enough to become uncomfortable.
Then he stood.
He was taller than Jin had registered from the floor - broad-shouldered, straight-backed, with the kind of bearing that demanded respect. He walked to the window and stood with his hands clasped behind him, looking out at something Jin couldn't see.
A long silence stretched between them.
"The Wall," he said finally, quietly, almost to himself. "You understand what it is."
"Yes."
"You understand that if you go, I cannot protect you." He didn't turn. "The Gannon name means nothing there. Your blood means nothing. Whatever happens to you up there-" He paused. When he turned, his gaze was direct and had a strange softness that Jin hadn't expected. "It happens to you."
Jin took in everything and let it settle into the weight of what it meant.
"I understand."
Another silence. The last one.
"Leave."
Jin blinked.
"Take what is in your possession." The Duke had already turned back to his desk, already reaching for the quill, returning to work as if a decision had simply been made and filed and was no longer requiring his attention. "Be gone by morning."
The words didn't process immediately.
Then they did.
And only when Jin rose from the cold stone floor, knees aching, head still pounding, did the text appear.
[ ✦ Emergency Quest Complete ✦ ]
[ Quest "Survive the Duke's Judgment" has been completed. ]
[ Result: Disownment avoided. The 'Gannon' name is retained. ]
[ The canonical event has been successfully evaded. ]
[ Distributing Quest Rewards ]
[ Narrative Relevance Updated: 0.04% → 0.11% ]
[ Your existence grows marginally stronger ]
[ New Feature Unlocked: Narrative Quests ]
Jin stared at the messages a moment longer than necessary, then bowed respectfully to the duke.
"Thank you, Father."
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