The mansion was quiet—eerily so.
For once, no fireballs were being flung across rooms, no training dummies were being exploded, and no walls were being repaired from Bob-shaped impacts.
Bam sat at the table, examining a curious flask handed to him by Anna. It shimmered a pale green, with faint sparks dancing inside the glass.
"Suspicious," Bam muttered. "Very suspicious."
"It will boost your mana flow by 37%," Anna said calmly, sipping tea.
Bam grinned. "Cheers."
He downed it in one gulp.
A second later, his body jolted upright like he'd just been struck by lightning.
"OH. OKAY. THIS IS HAPPENING," he shouted as flame spun around his fingers with ridiculous intensity.
Bam, riding the high from Anna's suspicious potion, stood outside doing controlled flame patterns in the air.
Bob sat at the dining table sulking, poking a sad bowl of salad like it had personally offended him.
"This is discrimination," he muttered. "I carry a Sin and get leaves. Bam chugs radioactive magic and gets fireworks."
Anna sipped tea without looking at him. "You're unstable. He's controllable. And you eat like a collapsed kingdom."
Just as Bob opened his mouth to reply, a messenger arrived at the gate.
He handed a letter to Derek, sealed with deep red wax stamped with a crest: two swords crossed behind the head of a roaring lion.
Derek's face shifted—subtly, but the group saw it.
He read the letter in silence, then folded it, placed it in his coat pocket, and walked toward the training hall without saying a word.
His back looked heavier somehow.
Bob stared after him for a moment, then let out a slow breath.
"Emberflake City, huh?"
The others blinked.
"That crest is..." Marcus asked.
Bob nodded solemnly. "Yeah. That was the Drago family's crest. Derek's family."
"Wait," Bam frowned, "Drago? Like… the Drago family?"
"Hold on," Marcus sat up straighter. "That's Derek's last name?"
Bob scratched the back of his head. "Yeah. Didn't he tell you?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"Nope."
"Not once."
Bob sighed. "Welp. Surprise, I guess."
He folded his arms. "Derek Drago. Eldest son of Duke Aemon Drago—one of the most prominent knight families in the kingdom. Old-school. Loyal to the throne. Dead serious about duty, pride, honor. The whole polished-knight package."
The room went quiet.
Even Dusty stirred in his sleep, stretched, then passed back out.
"That's… a pretty big thing to leave out," Kain muttered.
Bob shrugged. "He didn't want the title. Hated it, actually. His family's insanely strict. Saw him more as a legacy than a person. So one day, he just… left."
"And you?" Bam asked.
"My family were the tax managers under the Dragos. Paper pushers, number crunchers. I met Derek at one of those awful noble banquets. We bonded over how much we hated it."
Bob smirked. "He ran from his house. I ran from mine. We came to Border Town and started from nothing. Just two idiots with weapons and bad ideas."
Marcus leaned back. "So… what do you think was in the letter?"
Bob's smile faded.
"What else?" he muttered. "Must be a summons. A call for the young lord to return and take his place… probably as the next head of House Drago."
The weight of that truth settled over the room.
And out in the training hall, the sharp sound of metal echoed again and again—Derek, silently striking through the weight of his past.