The ornate, velvet-lined carriage rocked unsteadily over the packed dirt of the merchant road.
Alden sat in the front driver's seat, the heavy leather reins resting loosely in his gloved hands. Beside him, Elian—the scholarly, slightly bruised twin—was actually driving, his knuckles white as he nervously steered the pair of draft horses toward the colossal iron gates of the Dwarven Border.
Behind them, safely sequestered inside the luxurious cabin, Lyra was likely complaining about the bumps.
Alden kept his head down, the deep green hood of his ranger's cloak pulled low over his black eyepatch. The tension in his chest was a tight, coiled spring. They were less than a half-mile from the border checkpoint.
As they drew nearer, the sheer scale of the dwarven security force became terrifyingly apparent. The massive stone pillars flanking the gate were lined with runic cannons, manned by dwarves in heavy, glowing plate armor. Dozens of highly trained A-Rank captains walked among the lines of waiting merchant caravans, their sharp eyes scanning every face, checking every piece of cargo, and verifying every stamped visa.
'This is suicide,' Alden thought, his single red eye darting across the heavily armed battalion.
'If they ask me to pull down my hood, I'll have to blow a hole through the checkpoint just to survive the next thirty seconds.'
He subconsciously tapped his chest, feeling the chaotic, abyssal vortex spinning restlessly near his dantian. He was a walking D+ Rank bomb. If a fight broke out, he would have to use raw, physical A-Rank strength to break the line, because pulling his Chaos mana in front of A-Rank sensors would be like lighting a flare in a pitch-black room.
"Elian," Alden murmured, his voice low and incredibly calm.
"Are you absolutely certain about this? If they check my identity..."
"Don't worry," Elian replied, though his voice wavered slightly as he gripped the reins tighter.
"Just keep your head down. The Blackwood crest on the side of the carriage is... well, it's usually enough."
Alden frowned beneath his hood. He didn't know dwarven politics. He didn't know the noble houses of the Ironpeak sector. He had asked Lyra about their family name when they were hitching the horses, but the incredibly bossy girl had simply smirked, rolled her eyes, and said, "We're well-known. Just drive the carriage, vagabond."
CLANG!
The heavy iron gates of the checkpoint groaned open as the merchant caravan ahead of them was finally cleared. Elian clicked his tongue, guiding their carriage forward until they stopped directly under the massive stone archway.
Four heavily armored dwarven guards immediately approached. Their armor clanked loudly. One of them, an A-Rank captain holding a glowing runic clipboard, stepped up to the driver's side.
Alden's muscles tightened to absolute iron. He prepared to spring. He calculated the distance to the captain's throat, mapping out the exact amount of physical force needed to snap the dwarf's neck before he could shout an alarm.
"Halt. State your business and present your—"
The captain's gruff voice abruptly cut off.
The dwarf had looked up, his eyes landing not on Alden or Elian, but on the side of the carriage door. He stared at the intricate, dark-iron crest emblazoned on the wood—a crest depicting a massive hammer striking a bleeding anvil.
The A-Rank captain's face instantly paled beneath his heavy beard.
Without another word, the captain snapped to attention, violently slamming his fist against his breastplate in a perfect, rigid salute.
"Clear the path!"
the captain roared, his voice echoing through the archway, completely shocking the other guards.
"The Blackwood carriage passes unhindered! Open the inner gates!"
The guards scrambled. They didn't ask for a Licence. They didn't ask for Elian's identification. They didn't even look at the highly suspicious, dirt-covered, hooded man sitting in the driver's seat. They simply rushed to winch open the secondary iron gates, clearing a wide, empty path straight into the Dwarf Empire.
Alden blinked, his coiled muscles slowly relaxing in absolute bewilderment.
'What kind of family are they?' Alden thought, his eye darting between the saluting captain and the sweating Elian beside him.
'Even human royal carriages get casually inspected. To completely bypass an A-Rank security checkpoint just by showing a wooden crest...'
"Thank you, Captain," Elian squeaked nervously, snapping the reins and guiding the horses through the massive archway.
They crossed the threshold.
The tense, heavy air of the border faded, immediately replaced by the sharp, metallic tang of the Dwarven continent. They were driving along a massive, perfectly paved stone highway that cut directly through the center of the mountain range. Great forges burned in the distance, casting the sky in a permanent, hazy orange glow.
After they had traveled about two miles down the highway, safely away from the border guards, Alden let out a long, quiet exhale.
"Alright," Alden said, shifting slightly in the driver's seat.
"You can pull over here. I'll hop off."
Elian jumped, turning to look at him with wide eyes.
"Here? But... but we're in the middle of the highway! You don't have a map, or a pass, or any money!"
"I'll figure it out," Alden lied smoothly. He couldn't stay with them. He was an S-Rank existential threat. The longer he stayed near these kids, the higher the chance he dragged their family into the Empire's crosshairs.
"No, absolutely not," Elian insisted, actually pulling back on the reins to slow the horses.
"You saved our lives. If you hadn't been there, those bandits would have... they would have taken Lyra. You have to come back to the estate with us. Let us pay you properly. Please."
Alden sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Listen, kid. I appreciate the offer, but I'm... complicated. It's better if I just disappear."
Before Elian could argue, the small wooden window separating the driver's seat from the cabin slid open with a sharp clack.
"Stop being dramatic, vagabond," Lyra's bossy voice drifted out from the velvet interior.
"If you jump out now, you'll probably get arrested for vagrancy within an hour. Come to the house. I refuse to owe a life debt to a guy who looks like a homeless pirate. It's bad for my image."
Alden actually paused at that.
'She has a point,' Alden thought begrudgingly.
He had successfully crossed the border, but he was completely broke. His storage ring was a useless, cracked paperweight in his pocket. He needed a dwarven grandmaster to fix the spatial matrix, and grandmasters didn't work for free. They worked for exorbitant amounts of gold.
If this 'Blackwood' family was as ridiculously influential as the border guards' reaction implied, they could probably afford to compensate him heavily for saving their heirs.
"Fine," Alden finally grunted, pulling his hood lower.
"But I'm just staying long enough to collect a reward. Then I'm gone."
"Deal," Lyra snapped, slamming the little window shut.
They drove for another thirty minutes, navigating through the sprawling, industrialized outskirts of the Ironpeak sector. The architecture here was brutalist and magnificent—towering spires of black iron and stone, massive aqueducts pumping glowing blue mana-water, and the constant, rhythmic pounding of thousands of subterranean forges.
Eventually, the carriage turned off the main highway and began ascending a steep, private road that wound its way up the side of a massive, isolated mountain peak.
As they crested the hill, the trees parted.
Alden's single red eye widened beneath his hood.
He had expected a large manor. He had expected a wealthy noble estate.
He had not expected a literal fortress disguised as a palace.
The Blackwood estate was utterly massive. The outer walls were forged from seamless white steel, easily forty feet high, lined with glowing defensive runes that made the Academy's wards look like children's toys. The front gates were made of solid Mythril.
But the real shock was the garden. Beyond the gates, a sprawling, impeccably manicured landscape stretched out for acres. It was as large as the main training field back at the Academy. Exotic, glowing flora from across the continent decorated the stone pathways, and massive, intricate fountains pumped liquid mana into the air like water.
'Even human royalty doesn't live like this,' Alden thought, a deep sense of unease settling into his gut.
'Just who the hell did I save?'
The heavy Mythril gates opened automatically as the carriage approached. The guards standing at attention—all of whom felt like solid A-Rank combatants—bowed deeply as Elian drove the carriage through the pristine gardens, finally bringing the horses to a halt in front of a sprawling, multi-tiered mansion constructed entirely from dark, polished marble and gold.
Alden jumped down from the driver's seat, his boots hitting the flawless cobblestone. He kept his head down, feeling incredibly out of place in his dirt-caked ranger cloak.
The heavy front doors of the mansion opened before Elian or Lyra could even step out.
An older man walked out onto the marble steps.
He was dressed in a pristine, immaculate black butler's suit. His silver hair was combed back perfectly, and his posture was rigidly straight. He didn't look particularly muscular, nor did he carry a weapon.
But the moment the man stepped out, Alden's combat instincts violently flared. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up. The Chaos core inside his chest practically vibrated in warning.
Alden recognized that suffocating, dense pressure.
'An S-Ranker,' Alden thought, his eye narrowing dangerously beneath his hood.
'Their butler is an S-Ranker.'
The butler walked down the steps, his face entirely unreadable, and bowed flawlessly to Elian and Lyra as they descended from the carriage.
"Welcome home, Young Master Elian. Young Mistress Lyra," the butler said, his voice smooth and cultured, but laced with an icy, terrifying undercurrent.
"We are... back, Sebastian," Elian squeaked, looking thoroughly terrified of the older man.
"Indeed," Sebastian replied, straightening up. His sharp, grey eyes flicked over the twins, immediately cataloging Elian's bruised cheek and Lyra's wrinkled dress.
"May I inquire as to why you deliberately snuck out of the estate, bypassed your assigned security detail, and took a civilian carriage through the unpatrolled forest routes?"
The S-Rank pressure in the air spiked ever so slightly. Elian physically flinched.
"We... we wanted to go to the human market," Lyra admitted, looking away, her usual bossy demeanor entirely vanishing under the butler's gaze. "We got ambushed. Our driver was killed."
Sebastian's eyes darkened, a flash of genuine killing intent bleeding into his aura before he swiftly contained it.
"I see," the butler said softly. He then turned his head, his sharp grey eyes landing directly on Alden.
Alden didn't flinch. He didn't cower. He met the S-Ranker's gaze evenly through the shadows of his hood, keeping his own D+ aura tightly compressed, allowing his A-Rank physical stillness to project absolute calm.
"And who might this be?" Sebastian asked.
"He saved us, Sebastian," Elian hurried to explain.
"He took down the entire bandit squad by himself. We brought him back to compensate him."
Sebastian studied Alden for a long, silent moment. He didn't sneer at the dirt on Alden's cloak. He didn't look down on him like a beggar. He simply assessed him with the cold, calculating precision of a professional killer.
Slowly, the butler placed a white-gloved hand over his chest and bowed deeply to Alden.
"The Blackwood family owes you an immeasurable debt, traveler," Sebastian said smoothly.
"Please, come inside. We will arrange proper compensation immediately."
Alden nodded silently, following the twins and the terrifying butler up the marble steps and into the grand foyer of the mansion. The interior was even more ridiculously opulent than the outside. Massive crystal chandeliers hung from vaulted ceilings, and the floors were polished to a mirror shine.
As they walked toward a sitting room, Alden slowed his pace, falling in step beside Elian.
"Hey," Alden whispered, his voice incredibly low.
"You never actually told me who you people are. I know you're the Blackwoods. But who runs this place?"
Elian looked up at him, blinking in genuine confusion.
"You really don't know? I thought everyone knew the crest."
"I don't get out much," Alden replied dryly.
"Who is your father?"
Elian smiled, a look of immense, terrifying pride crossing his young face.
"Our father is Herman Blackwood," Elian said simply, as if stating a fundamental law of the universe. "The Grand Forgemaster. The SS-Rank Demi-God of the Dwarf Empire."
Alden stopped walking entirely.
His boots froze against the polished marble floor.
His single red eye widened in absolute, paralyzing horror.
An SS-Rank Demi-God.
He was currently the most wanted fugitive on the continent, actively trying to avoid the gaze of the human SS-Rankers who wanted him dead. And he had just willingly walked into the personal fortress, and saved the children, of the single most powerful SS-Rank entity on the Dwarven continent.
'I am going to kill myself,' Alden thought, mentally cursing his own stupid, reckless curiosity.
'I am actually going to strangle myself with my own cloak.'
He had jumped directly out of the frying pan, and enthusiastically swan-dived straight into the heart of the volcano.