Chapter 33: Favorite Mushroom!

And the air around him was beginning to warp with that terrifying, suffocating killing intent.

He had sensed them the moment the carriage stopped.

He was waiting to see if they were stupid enough to draw their bows.

Seraphina looked back at the woods.

She gave a small, mocking wave to the shadows, popped the last candied violet into her mouth, and happily skipped back toward the center of the camp, her blue dress twirling in the sun.

She wasn’t afraid.

Why should she be?

The woods were full of monsters, yes.

The road ahead was paved with poison, politics, and death.

But she was Seraphina von Nacht.

She was the prized morale officer of the Vanguard, the favorite "mushroom" of the Reaper.

She was walking in the shadow of the biggest, baddest monster on the board, and as long as she had her origami ducks and her pocket full of sweets, the rest of the world could absolutely burn.

"Papa Duke!" she yelled, running up and grabbing the fabric of his heavy coat. "The woods are boring. Can we go back to the carriage? I want to make a paper dragon that breathes actual fire!"

Kaelus looked down at her, the lethal tension in his shoulders melting away as she tugged on his coat.

He glanced one last time at the tree line.

The dark auras in the woods were rapidly retreating, the spies terrified by the Archduke’s glare and utterly baffled by the fearless child.

"We do not have fire-resistant parchment," Kaelus replied smoothly, scooping her up into his arms. "But we can attempt a griffin. Call the men to formation, Sir Lucas. The break is over."

"Yes, Your Grace!" Lucas roared, the camp instantly snapping back into military precision.

As the mythril carriage rolled back onto the Imperial Highway, leaving the terrified spies and the weeping ghosts far behind, Seraphina settled onto the velvet cushions, pulled a fresh Imperial tax document from the Duke’s desk, and began to fold, entirely at peace in the eye of the storm.

The Imperial Highway stretched endlessly beneath the heavy, iron-shod hooves of the Black Bastion’s warhorses.

The journey, now operating at a pace that could only be described as a heavily armored, mythril-plated royal procession, had settled into a comfortable, albeit uncharacteristic, rhythm for the Northern Vanguard.

Normally, an encampment of the Duke’s men was a silent, grim affair.

Weapons were sharpened, perimeters were meticulously guarded, and the men slept with one eye open, dreaming of blood and snow.

But ever since the "Tiny Anomaly", who was also known as Seraphina von Nacht, had been introduced into their ranks, the camp had transformed into something resembling a fiercely guarded playground.

On the fourth afternoon of their journey, the convoy halted in a wide, sun-dappled meadow bordered by a crystal-clear river.

While Duke Kaelus remained in the carriage, meticulously reviewing the encrypted ledgers stolen from Count Rodhe’s wine cellar, his elite knights were gathered around a small, crackling campfire a respectful distance away.

They were not discussing patrol routes.

They were not discussing the looming threat of the Eastern Empire’s border skirmishes.

They were fiercely, passionately arguing over the future career prospects of a six-year-old girl.

"I am telling you, it is the only logical path," Sir Gallahan insisted, pacing back and forth in front of the fire.

His pristine white cloak swished behind him, his handsome face flushed with strong conviction. "Did you see her at the Count’s estate? She was completely unaffected by the miasma! She stared down the darkness and smiled. She has the heart of a savior. A Saintess! She must possess a monumental affinity for Holy Power. I can already see her in the silver-threaded robes of a Divine Paladin, leading the Church’s vanguard!"

"You have been hit in the head with too many maces, Gallahan," Sir Lucas scoffed from his seat on a fallen log.

The scarred veteran was carefully using a whetstone on his broadsword, though his attention was entirely on the debate. "A Saintess? The Church is full of boring, chanting old men who don’t know the front end of a sword from the pommel. The Lady Seraphina is fearless. She stared down a camp full of assassins, ordered the Archduke to redistribute wealth, and fed a demonic warhorse a strawberry without blinking. That is the temperament of a frontline combatant! She is destined for the Magic Tower. A Magic Swordsman! Imagine her wielding a blade of pure, concentrated lightning!"

"Both of you are idiots," Sir Boris rumbled.

The giant of a man was currently using a highly enchanted and dangerous dagger to peel a tiny apple for Seraphina’s afternoon snack. "Did you forget about the Gloomberries? She understood the chemical and magical neutralization of a class-three toxic botanical without any formal education! She is an intellectual prodigy. An Alchemist of the highest order! She will revolutionize potion-making and turn lead into gold before she hits puberty!"

The debate raged on, drawing in more and more knights who threw their gauntlets into the ring.

Some argued she would be a Spirit Summoner; others insisted she had the makings of a Master Refiner.

In this world, the manifestation of special abilities, magic, and holy power was the ultimate determining factor of one’s destiny.

The continent was saturated with ambient mana and divine energy, and those who could harness it were the true rulers of the era.

The system, however, was incredibly flexible.

If an individual awakened to Holy Power, they were not strictly forced to become a priest.

They could become an independent healer, a wandering cleric, or, if they possessed martial prowess, a Divine Paladin.

Similarly, those who awakened to Arcane Magic could join the prestigious Magic Towers, become highly paid mercenaries, study the intricate arts of alchemy, or refine magical artifacts for the nobles.

There was only one absolute, unbreakable law in the Empire regarding the awakened: Registration.

The moment a child awakened their core, they were legally mandated to register their mana signature with either the Church of the Holy Light or the Spire of Arcana.