Throughout Azura, its Capital Planet, and all its affiliated worlds, there was only one person who could be called the Marshal. Without a doubt, it was him.
Sophie Wexler shivered at the thought of the original owner's fate.
Seeing Sophie Wexler's strange reaction, the man's gaze sharpened. "You know the Marshal?" he asked.
The Marshal had never appeared before the public or in the media. Few people on the Capital Planet even recognized him, let alone here on this low-level planet.
Unless...
"I don't!" Sophie Wexler denied at once. "How could I possibly know the Imperial Marshal? I've only heard stories about his accomplishments."
'And I never want to meet him in this lifetime!'
The man saw that Sophie Wexler's expression didn't seem feigned, so he didn't press the matter. After all, there wasn't a soul in the Galaxy who hadn't heard of the Marshal.
Seeing Sophie talking with the man, one of the Wexlers shot her a glare before turning to him. "Our apologies, sir. She doesn't know any better. And thank you for letting us know about Rosalind."
"It's nothing," Ethan Cross said. "She helped calm my spiritual rampage. It was only right."
When he arrived on this affiliated, low-level planet, his spiritual power had gone rampant, and he'd happened to run into Rosalind Rhodes, who helped calm it for him.
"She should be fine. She'll wake up once her Spiritual Sea calms down."
The Wexlers breathed a sigh of relief knowing Rosalind was fine, then Mrs. Wexler turned to Sophie, her expression vicious. "Sophie Wexler, this is my final warning. Know your place! Rosalind's spiritual power is A-level, and it might even be growing stronger. She's not someone an F-level like you can ever compare to! You'd better get rid of those pathetic little schemes of yours!"
The meaning was crystal clear: stop clinging to Howard Sharp like a leech.
Sophie Wexler glanced at Howard Sharp and gave a lazy, "Oh." 'I can't be bothered to mess with the main characters,' she thought.
"Is there anything else?" Sophie Wexler asked. "If not, I'm leaving."
'I have to get back to my livestream. This is a complete waste of time. If I weren't worried that something might actually happen to the original heroine—which would probably get *me* killed—I never would have come all this way.'
"Stop right there! What kind of attitude is that!"
Seeing Sophie's indifferent expression, Mrs. Wexler's anger flared. The news she had seen on StarNet came to mind, fanning the flames of her fury. 'When has the Wexler family ever been so disgraced!'
"Tell me, where did you get the money? Did you steal the family's Crystal Stone, sell it, and use the money to keep a man!"
Sophie reflexively started to argue, "I told you, I didn't take—"
She couldn't even finish the word. A memory flashed through her mind, and the rest of her sentence died on her lips.
Sophie Wexler's eyes widened.
'No way. Don't tell me the thing the original owner sold was the Crystal Stone they're talking about!'
Seeing her silence, the woman's rage boiled over. "So it was you! That was an A-level Crystal Stone, and you sold it to keep some man! You wretched girl!"
On a low-level planet, even C-class Crystal Stones were a rare sight, let alone A-level ones. They were the kind of treasure you could only hope to stumble upon, never seek out.
Sophie found herself shouldering yet another mess left by the original owner. She rubbed the tip of her nose, her expression awkward. "Well, I didn't spend *all* of it on keeping a man."
'The original owner had been kicked out with no money. She'd found the Crystal Stone, figured it would sell for a good price, and simply pocketed it on her way out.'
'The money from the sale was what she had lived on after leaving the Wexlers. She'd only incidentally used some of it to save Cillian Forrest.'
'That hardly counts as "keeping a man," does it?'
The woman pointed a trembling finger at her. "Who is he? That man with a shady past the headlines are talking about, the one you're keeping!"
Before Sophie Wexler could speak, a voice cut in, "A man with a shady past?"
Ethan Cross had no interest in the family drama and was about to leave. But he caught a snippet of their conversation and paused, looking up at Mrs. Wexler.
"Just some broke pretty boy. Can't do anything for himself, completely relies on a woman to support him," Mrs. Wexler said with a huff, thinking of the comments she'd read online.
"Oh. Then it's probably not him." Ethan Cross looked away, his interest gone.
'How could the Marshal possibly be connected to the term "kept man"?'
Sophie Wexler listened to their back-and-forth, completely baffled. "?"
'Gossiping about him right in front of me, seriously? Thank god Cillian isn't here. If he ever found out he was being called a "kept man," he would lose it.'
Just as the woman was about to say more, Sophie Wexler quickly raised a hand to cut her off. "Alright, alright! It's just a Crystal Stone, right? I'll pay you back for it."
'If I let this drag on any longer, it'll never end.'
'I have no desire to waste my time here with these people.'
***
Sophie Wexler's heart ached as she walked out. Who the hell knew that Crystal Stone was so expensive!
She thought she had a little money saved up, but it turned out to be not even enough to make a dent in what she owed.
In the end, she could only write an IOU.
Great. Now she was not only broke, but also in debt. It was like pouring salt on the wound of her already meager existence.
All Sophie Wexler could think about now was making money; she was dying to get back and start her livestream. But just as she was about to board her flyer, someone called out to her.
"Sophie... Wexler," a voice called from behind her.
Sophie turned. It was Ethan Cross. She looked at him, confused. "Is there something else?"
Ethan Cross silently sized her up, making Sophie uncomfortable. She frowned. "What is it exactly?"
"My apologies. I wanted to ask, is your spiritual power really F-level?"
'He didn't know why, but he had a strange feeling about Sophie Wexler. Her spiritual power had just leaked out by accident, and it felt... off. As if there was something else mixed in with it.'
Sophie looked at him. "Yes," she replied. "That was my test result." Then she asked, "Is there a problem?"
"No, no problem at all," Ethan Cross said.
'Test results were generally accurate. Besides, it was virtually impossible for F-level spiritual power to undergo secondary growth, unlike someone like Rosalind Rhodes. He must have just imagined that feeling from her spiritual power.'
"My apologies for bothering you."
Sophie watched him leave, her face a mask of confusion. "?"
***
「Meanwhile, on the Capital Planet.」
The atmosphere in the military conference room was tense. Every face around the table was grim.
"Any word on the Marshal from Major General Cross?" someone finally asked, breaking the oppressive silence.
The man beside him shook his head and sighed. "Nothing."
"Ethan Cross has already begun searching the lower-level affiliated planets, but there's still no word."
"Those treacherous sons of bitches! Daring to ambush the Marshal in deep space during an engagement with the Swarm!" a man from the First Corps snarled, slamming his fist on the table.
The situation for the Imperial Royal Family was dire. His Majesty's health was failing, his body ravaged by a toxin from a Swarm attack. The various factions below were growing restless, held in check only by the Marshal's authority.
To think they would launch a sneak attack during an engagement with the Swarm—and right when the Marshal was in his spiritual power Disorder Period.
"There's still no word. We don't know if he's alive or dead. What if..." an adjutant trailed off, his voice laced with worry.
The Marshal's Level is so high that the spiritual power rampages during his normal Disorder Periods are already incredibly difficult to suppress. Add to that the years of fighting the Swarm... the Starbug toxins have seeped deep into his Spiritual Sea. His condition was already precarious... and now, after an ambush... what if... The man couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.
"There is no 'what if'!" the man from the First Corps shot a fierce glare at the speaker.
"The Marshal will be fine! Send reinforcements to Ethan Cross. Widen the search grid. We *will* find the Marshal!"