Surviving an S-Rank dungeon is a matter of brute force, tempered steel, and a high threshold for agony. Surviving a Royal Banquet, however, demands a mastery of fine motor skills—the one currency in which the Cerberus Syndicate is utterly bankrupt.
"Cease the scratching," I hissed, the words barely vibrating my lips.
"Itchy," Leon grunted. His massive, gauntleted hand twitched toward the suffocating silk of his custom-tailored tuxedo collar.
"Viciously itchy," Leonel whimpered, his frame writhing beneath the heavy embroidery of his formal robes.
Because we shared a single, overtaxed nervous system, the friction of three starched collars didn't just itch—it multiplied. It felt as though a colony of spectral ants was performing a synchronized war dance across my shared trachea.
We stood in the grand foyer of the Sameroth Palace, a cathedral of excess where crystal chandeliers wept light onto nobles draped in velvet and deceit. At the terminus of the hall sat King Aldous, a man whose very silence possessed the weight of a falling mountain. Beside him stood Prime Minister Vale, a man who radiated a distinct, oily aura of bad-guy energy.
Clara, fluttering about us like a moth drawn to a triple-headed flame, tightened my bowtie with a terrifying fervor. "You look so... imperial! The King has granted you the seat of honor! A masterstroke of diplomatic positioning!"
A masterstroke of potential regicide via gravy boat, I thought, my soul sighing in three-part harmony.
"Protocol: Turn-Based Eating," I muttered to my extensions. "Focus the bandwidth. One: Leo takes a bite. Two: Leon takes a bite. Three: Leonel takes a bite. Mechanical. Rhythmic. Non-negotiable."
The brassy bray of a herald's trumpet shattered the murmurs. "ANNOUNCING THE SSS-RANK CERBERUS SYNDICATE!"
We stepped forward in a march so unnaturally synchronized it bordered on the eldritch. Left. Right. Left. Our spines were iron rods, our gazes fixed in a thousand-yard stare of pure, unadulterated panic. To the onlookers, it was the "Gait of the Unstoppable." To me, it was a desperate attempt not to trip over the carpet.
"Such discipline," a Duke whispered, his voice thick with awe. "They move as a singular, terrifying consciousness."
Dinner commenced with a bowl of Truffle-Mushroom Soup—a liquid that tasted of damp earth and excessive wealth.
Turn-based maneuver: Engage.
I (Leo) lifted the spoon. Dip. Lift. Swallow.
I transferred the mental spark to Leon. Dip. Lift. Swallow.
I shifted to Leonel. His hand reached for the silver—
"So, Lord Leo," King Aldous boomed, his voice echoing like thunder in a canyon.
My internal rhythm shattered. My main body snapped toward the monarch, but the manual command to "lift the spoon" remained locked in the Mage's arm. Leonel froze, a silver spoonful of soup hovering exactly two inches from his nose, vibrating with the intensity of a suppressed earthquake.
"Your... Your Majesty," I (Leo) managed.
"I hear you are men of few words, yet unparalleled action," the King said, his gaze searching mine. "Vale tells me you neutralized a goblin raid without even breaking your stride."
Vale, whose goatee was trimmed with a precision that suggested a lack of a soul, offered a thin, serpentine smile. "Indeed. Though I noticed your Archmage... he appears to be in a state of high-frequency vibration?"
"He is," I said, a bead of sweat tracing my starched collar, "communing with the soup's latent mana. A ritual of... digestive foresight."
Clara's quill scratched frantically against her notebook. Soup-scrying. High-level arcane gastronomy.
"Fascinating," the King murmured. "Then let us toast to your foresight!"
Vale rose, producing a silver flask with the flourish of a stage magician. "A rare Elven vintage, Your Majesty. A token of my absolute loyalty."
As Vale leaned across the table to pour, the universe decided to conspire against me. His sleeve—heavily scented with a cloying, cheap cologne—brushed against the Knight's nose, which was still radiating the sharp, resinous scent of pine-based armor oil. The collision of scents in my shared olfactory network triggered a primal, catastrophic system override.
A sneeze. Not a mere human sneeze, but a triple-bodied, SSS-Rank sonic event.
ABORT! I screamed at my own sinuses. SYSTEM RECOVERY!
It was futile.
"Ah..." my main body started.
"Ah..." Leon echoed.
"Ah..." Leonel gasped, the spoon finally clattering to the silk cloth.
"CHOO!"
The kinetic force was staggering. Leon's sneeze rocked the table like a localized earthquake. My main body's arms flailed in a desperate attempt to cover my mouth. And Leonel—whose hands were still brimming with the "mana" I'd used to explain his shaking—accidentally discharged a Tier-4 Gust Spell.
A hurricane erupted at the high table.
The gale caught Vale mid-pour, launching the silver flask into a spinning trajectory. Simultaneously, my main body's flailing hand connected with the King's golden goblet, sending it crashing to the floor.
The dark vintage sizzled as it struck the stone. The marble didn't just wet; it began to bubble and hiss, a jagged hole melting through the carpet with a violent, acidic stench.
Silence flooded the hall. My soul began its final ascent. I have dissolved the King's floor. I have sneezed away the royal dignity. Execution is a mercy.
"POISON!" a Royal Guard shrieked, his blade singing as it left the sheath. "THE WINE WAS LACED WITH BASILISK VENOM!"
I blinked. What?
Vale's composure disintegrated. Seeing his plot dissolved by a sneeze, he drew a jagged, blackened dagger and lunged for the King's throat. "DEATH TO THE TYRANT!"
The guards were a heartbeat too late. The King was exposed. I threw every ounce of processing power I possessed into Leon the Vanguard.
Stop him! Intercept!
I attempted a heroic lunge. But because my main body's foot was anchored in the heavy tablecloth and Leonel's chair was pushed too far back, the physics of the [Trinity Soul] revolted. Instead of a majestic leap, Leon's three-hundred-pound armored frame simply pitched forward like a felled oak.
WHAM.
The Knight face-planted directly into the center of the roasted pheasant, snapping the table's mahogany spine and pinning Prime Minister Vale beneath a quarter-ton of impenetrable steel breastplate. Vale let out a pathetic, muffled squeak as the oxygen was forced from his lungs.
King Aldous stood, his cape billowing in the wake of the Mage's hurricane. He looked at the smoking hole in the floor, then at the gravy-covered traitor pinned beneath my Knight, and finally at me. I was currently dabbing my mouth with a napkin, trying to prevent my heart from leaping out of my throat.
"Incredible..." the King whispered, his voice thick with reverence. "Did you see? They smelled the poison before it even touched the glass!"
I smelled his cologne, I thought, staring into the middle distance.
"The Mage used the wind to disarm the toxin! The Vanguard used his own body as a living anvil to neutralize the assassin! And Lord Leo... he sat back and orchestrated the entire collapse without so much as standing!" The King's roar was triumphant. "Such terrifying, calculated precision!"
The hall erupted. The nobility wept. Clara's pencil was literally smoking.
Rule #12: The Vanguard is a tactical weight. Always sniff the bureaucracy. The soup is a lie.
"Lord Leo," the King said, approaching me with eyes brimming with gratitude. "You have saved the crown. I shall name you a Grand Duke! You shall have lands, titles, a permanent seat at my side!"
"No!" I blurted, the word escaping before I could filter it. If I became a Duke, I would be trapped in this etiquette-laden hellscape forever. "Your Majesty... we are but wandering shadows. Titles are chains. We ask only for our freedom... and perhaps some turnip seeds for Farmer Jenkins."
The King covered his mouth, moved by my "ascetic soul." "A true hero. Very well. Sameroth shall never forget its debt to the Syndicate."
An hour later, we were walking home in the cooling night air. Leon smelled of roasted poultry. Leonel was still scratching at his neck.
"A victory," I sighed. "No execution. No dukedom. Just us and the quiet."
But as we reached our door, we found a massive, pulsating wooden chest waiting for us, sealed with the royal wax. A note was pinned to the lid.
Dear Lord Leo,
Since you refused a title, accept the guardianship of the Egg of the Calamity Griffin. A beast of your stature deserves a companion of equal legend.
P.S. It hatches tomorrow. Good luck.
I stared at the glowing, fiery egg within the chest. A deep, synchronized groan echoed through the streets of Sameroth as three grown men simultaneously dropped to their knees and wept.