The quest parchment had been laughably simple: "Collect 20 Healthshrooms (5 copper each). Location: Oakshade Hollow." A child's errand. But I wasn't here for copper.
I crouched in the grove, fingers brushing damp moss. The mushrooms glowed faintly blue under their caps—easy pickings. Yet my hands stayed still.
Focus.
Breath in. Hold.
The forest erupted into hyper-clarity.
A honeybee's wings thrummed three meters away.
Ants marched in perfect sync across decaying bark.
The stench of rotting lognerve mushrooms punched my nostrils from twenty paces.
My vision sharpened. No more Earth's stubborn nearsightedness. Every leaf vein stood defined, every shadow parsed. I flexed my arms—no ache, no weight. Just coiled power, like a spring compressed too tight.
"Woah. What the fuck?" I muttered, plucking a Healthshroom absently. Its stem snapped with a sound like breaking bone. "Am I Superman now? Or just fucking cursed?"
Training Montage (Subtle Power Testing)
Speed
Dashes between trees (blurs past a startled squirrel)
Strength
Crushes a rock to powder ("Huh. No calluses.")
Pain Threshold
Deliberately slices palm with a thorn (wound seals in 10 seconds)
By sunset, my sack bulged with mushrooms. Enough for a meal, maybe a bed. But the real prize?
I'm not human anymore.
And Ironhold's shadows just got a lot more interesting.
I dumped the Healthshrooms onto the counter, their blue glow barely registering under the Guild's sickly lantern light. The receptionist counted them with practiced disinterest, sliding six tarnished coppers across the wood—shortchanged me by four, the greedy bastard.
"Enough for stew and a stiff drink. Maybe two if I skip the stew."
Scene: Quest Board Revelation
The quest board's usual drivel—rat exterminations, herb collections—had a new addition. No rank. No reward listed. Just thick parchment stamped with the Duke's crest.
"Huh. No rank. This isn't a quest—it's a job posting."
The receptionist's perfume clogged my nostrils before she spoke. "Oh~"—she drawled, leaning over the counter—"The Duke seeks a personal chauffeur for Lady Seraphine."
"Chauffeur?" I blinked. "They have cars here?"
Her laugh tinkled like broken glass. "Hahaha~ Of course! Though you'll never see one unless you're noble-born." She twirled a lock of hair. "Interested? The pay's… substantial."
I stared at the notice. Driving some spoiled noblewoman around beat scavenging for mushrooms until my knees gave out. Luxury? Wealth? Empty pursuits for small minds. But Elizabeth's voice whispered in my ear:
"Just survive, you stubborn old man."
"Fine," I grunted, snatching the parchment. "Where's the damn interview?"
Scene: The Guild's Whispered Warning
The receptionist's manicured finger tapped the Duke's crest on the job posting, her voice dropping to a velvet murmur.
"Fourth chauffeur posting this month." She glanced at the guards by the door before continuing, "The first three? No bodies recovered. Just... empty carriages found at dawn near the Bleeding Tower."
A draft slithered through the hall as she leaned closer, her perfume now undercut with the sharp tang of fear-sweat.
"There's a rumor among the maids—" Her breath hitched—"The Duke's family doesn't just execute people. They... replace them. Their new footman? Used to be a rebel captain. The head chef? A missing guild alchemist." Her pupils dilated. "They say the black sap from that tower lets them steal a man's strength."
I stared at the parchment. The ink shimmered faintly crimson where the Duke's seal pressed into the paper.
Perfect.
Scene: The Duke's Estate – Driver's Test
The Duke's district was a slap of opulence against Ironhold's grime. Manicured hedges, marble fountains that didn't reek of sewage, and houses so pristine they looked like dollhouses. A far cry from the Market Zone's sagging roofs and piss-stained alleys.
At the wrought-iron gates, a butler in a stiff-collared coat eyed me like I'd tracked in mud.
"Hello. I'm here about the chauffeur position for the Duke," I said, waving the parchment.
"And whom do I have the pleasure of addressing, old man?" His nose wrinkled at my secondhand clothes.
"Name's Günther."
"Günther." He repeated it like a disease. "This way. Let's see if you can handle a real vehicle."
The car was a hulking beast of brass and polished oak—a steam-powered monstrosity straight out of the 1880s, if the 1880s had access to whatever the hell this world's version of advanced engineering was. But the basics were the same: gas, brake, gearstick.
I slid into the driver's seat. The butler barely had time to buckle in before I tore down the cobblestone path, the engine belching smoke as I took a sharp turn without slowing. The tires screeched. The butler's knuckles turned white on the dashboard.
By the time we skidded to a stop, the man looked like he'd aged a decade.
"I— That's—" He wheezed. "No one… no one has ever driven like that on their first attempt."
I shrugged. "Guess I'm a natural."
"The previous drivers needed months of training," he muttered, straightening his cravat. "You're… hired. Against my better judgment."
Scene: The Servant's Quarters – Terms & Magic
The butler led me to a room barely larger than a prison cell—cot, washbasin, a single window barred with iron filigree. Home sweet home.
"Your hours are flexible," the butler said, adjusting his cravat. "You remain on standby at all times. When Lady Seraphine requires transport, you go. Immediately. Compensation is 10 gold per week."
"Per week?" I whistled. That was noble money. "But it's odd—being hired directly by the Lady herself."
"Correct." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Though fret not about navigation. The carriage employs magical guidance."
"Magic? Navigation?" I feigned ignorance. "Sounds complicated."
The butler sighed, as if explaining to a child. "The vehicle's runestones function as... batteries, if you will. They store mana to power specific spells—in this case, a self-guiding enchantment." He tapped his cane. "Simply input the destination via the control orb, and the carriage will follow the optimal route. Even a peasant could manage it."
"Fascinating," I lied.
So this world had magic. And the nobility hoarded it like everything else.
The clocktower's chime echoed through the estate—midnight. Reginald Hostick of House Hostick set down a porcelain teacup in front of me, the steam curling into the dim light of my quarters. He took the rickety chair opposite mine, his posture still stiff even at this hour.
"You don't strike me as the usual hire," he said, blowing gently on his tea. "Most men beg for this position. You didn't even flinch at the contract."
I took a slow sip. Bitter. Oversteeped. "Not much left to flinch at, Regi."
His eyebrow twitched at the nickname, but he didn't correct me. "Then why take the job?"
The lie came easy. "No other roads to walk." I swirled the dregs in my cup. "Spent years in the mountains. Just me, my wife, and the silence. No magic. No nobles. Just… survival."
"Mountains?" Reginald's cup paused mid-air. "You mean the Blackpeaks? No one lives there. Not unless they're hiding."
"We were." I met his gaze. "Elizabeth hated crowds."
A long silence. Then, with surprising softness—"She's gone, then."
I didn't answer. The fire in the hearth cracked, casting shadows that made the bars on my window look like grasping fingers.
Reginald exhaled. "Well. For what it's worth… Lady Seraphine prefers men with nothing to lose." He stood, straightening his coat. "Pray that remains an advantage."
The door clicked shut behind him, leaving me with the ghosts of my own story—and the unspoken truth that Reginald hadn't believed a word of it.
Scene: The Chauffeur's Debut
The tuxedo's collar chafed against my neck—too stiff, too clean. I adjusted the cuffs, catching my reflection in the carriage's obsidian-black finish. The man staring back barely resembled the grizzled survivor who'd crawled out of that cursed forest. The white buzzcut, the squared shoulders, the sharp press of the suit—it all screamed noble retinue. Only the scars on my knuckles betrayed the truth.
The rear door opened before I could reach it.
A gust of winter air rushed in, carrying the scent of frost-blooms and oiled steel. Lady Seraphine stood frozen mid-step, her silver-grey hair cascading like mercury over the shoulder of her academy robes. Her eyes—pale as moonlit ice—raked over me with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel.
Not the usual desperate fool.
I saw the calculation in her pause. The slight tilt of her head as she reassessed. Then, without so much as a scoff, she slid into the cabin, her katana's scabbard clicking against the doorframe.
"To the Magic Academy." Her voice could've flash-frozen the moat. "You'll wait in the courtyard until my lectures conclude. Do not wander. Do not speak to the staff. If you're approached by anyone in crimson robes, say you belong to House Ironhold and nothing more."
"Understood, my Lady." I shut the door before she could object to the lack of groveling.
The Drive: A Study in Silence
The navigation rune flared to life as I gripped the wheel—or what looked like a wheel. The moment my fingers made contact, ghostly blue arrows materialized on the windshield, plotting our route through the city's labyrinthine streets.
Oddities Noted:
The "Gas" Pedal pulsed faintly underfoot—not with engine vibration, but with something closer to a heartbeat.
The Rearview Mirror reflected more than it should. Seraphine's gloved fingers traced slow, deliberate patterns over her katana's hilt—spellwork, not nerves.
The Katana Itself emitted a subsonic hum that made my molars ache. Every turn, every bump, its pitch shifted as if reacting to our surroundings.
We passed through the Academy's wrought-iron gates. Students in sapphire robes scattered like startled birds. One first-year—a boy with a bandaged hand—actually tripped over his own feet to clear our path.
"Park there." Seraphine pointed to a secluded alcove beneath a towering obsidian spire. "And Gunther?" She paused, her glove hovering over the door handle. "Don't touch the controls while I'm gone. This carriage has... preferences."
Then she was gone, her robes billowing behind her like stormclouds.
INTEGRATED MAGIC ACADEMY DESCRIPTION
The carriage wheels crunched over gravel as we passed through the Academy's wrought-iron gates. The air itself seemed to thicken—charged with the ozone-tang of active spellwork and something darker beneath, like wet copper left to rust.
From somewhere beyond the black spires, a scream tore through the morning calm, abruptly cut short. The students in sapphire robes didn't even flinch; one merely adjusted his spectacles and continued transcribing runes in the dirt with a trembling finger.
A duel raged in the nearest courtyard. Two mages circled each other, their spell-blades leaving afterimages of violet fire in the misty air. When their weapons clashed, the resulting shockwave sent a nearby statue toppling—the stone head shattered against cobblestones, revealing hollow eye sockets that wept black sap.
"Third failure this week," Seraphine remarked, watching impassively as a crimson-robed instructor dragged the unconscious loser away by their ankle. "The Whitefall Academy would have at least harvested their mana veins first."
The tallest spire loomed ahead, its obsidian surface swallowing the daylight. As we passed beneath its shadow, my skin prickled—the navigation runes in the carriage flickered erratically, as if resisting some unseen current.
"Wait here." Seraphine's glove creaked as she tightened her grip on the katana. "And don't breathe too deeply. The air in this quadrant is... temperamental."
Before I could ask, she was gone, her silver hair the last thing to disappear into the gloom. From deep within the spire came a low, rhythmic thumping—like a giant heart beating behind stone.
Günther's POV: The Waiting Game
The engine's hum faded into silence as I sat in the driver's seat, fingers tracing the dashboard's strange glyphs. The carriage was too quiet—no ticking of cooling metal, no creak of settling parts. Just that eerie, living pulse beneath the steel.
I pried open a small panel beneath the wheel. Wires? No. Veins. Thin, glass tubes pumped with glowing blue liquid—mana, presumably—threaded through the machinery like a circulatory system. At the center of it all, a rune-carved core throbbed in time with my own heartbeat.
"The hell kind of tech is this?"
A shadow moved across the windshield. I glanced up to see a sapphire-robed student pressed against a third-floor window, their face contorted in silent agony as crimson tendrils of magic coiled around their throat. Then—yank—they were dragged out of view.
I leaned back, exhaling slowly. Not my problem.
Lady Seraphine's POV: The Testing Hall
The assessment chamber reeked of sweat and ozone. Professor Dain clutched a smoking score tablet, his spectacles cracked from the latest explosion.
"How are the numbers?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Dismal, Lady Seraphine." He wiped soot from the tablet, revealing the pathetic digits: 902. "The minimum qualifying score for the Academy Combat is sixteen hundred seventy. At this rate—"
"I'll be fighting alone. Again." My nails bit into my palms. "This is your responsibility, Professor. To mold these maggots into something resembling competence."
He flinched but stood his ground. "Magic talent cannot be forced, my Lady. We can only nurture what exists."
I stared at the trembling students—some still vomiting from mana exhaustion, others nursing burns. Pathetic. But the Professor wasn't wrong.
"Fine. Then find me the least useless among them. Even a single ally is better than withdrawing and enduring that humiliation."
The Classroom: Two Faces of Seraphine
The moment I entered my homeroom, the atmosphere shifted.
"Seraphine!" Lissa, my only tolerable classmate, waved with genuine warmth. The boys stiffened, their forced smiles not quite hiding their fear. One overeager fool even pulled out my chair—as if I couldn't snap his spine with a glance.
I took my seat, ignoring their antics. Outside the window, the carriage waited. And inside it, that infuriatingly calm chauffeur with his prying eyes and unnatural silence.
Günther's Observation
The academy's spires cast long, knife-like shadows across the courtyard. Strange—this world's heat licked at the skin without the oppressive weight of Earth's humidity. No sweat dripped down my neck, no stickiness clung to my palms. Just dry, crisp air that carried the metallic tang of magic and forge-smoke.
I kept my gaze lazy, half-lidded, as if bored. But my ears tracked everything:
The scuff of boots on roof tiles three blocks east.
The rustle of fabric from the maple tree's upper branches.
The click of a crossbow being armed two stories above the blacksmith's shop.
Amateurs.
The Ride to the Blacksmith
The carriage door swung open. Seraphine slid inside, her silver hair catching the sunlight like unsheathed steel.
"What's your name?" Her voice was a scalpel—precise, cold.
"Günther, Lady Seraphine."
"Good. Take me to my family's blacksmith."
The navigation runes flared, painting a path through the city's veins. But my attention stayed on our tails:
Roof Hopper: Light, agile, favoring the left side.
Tree Lurker: Breathing too loud—likely armored.
Crossbow Sniper: Positioned for a clean shot through the rear window.
Seraphine's fingers drummed her katana's hilt. She knew. And she was letting them follow.
The Blacksmith's Workshop
The forge's heat hit us first—a dragon's breath of molten metal and coal. Seraphine strode ahead, her boots clicking against the soot-stained stones.
"Follow me, Günther."
I obeyed, playing the clueless chauffeur. My shoulders slumped, my steps deliberately heavy. But my periphery tracked:
A shadow slinking along the rafters.
The glint of a dagger being palmed near the anvil.
Seraphine paused by a rack of freshly tempered blades. Her reflection in the polished steel showed the barest smirk.
She's baiting them.
And I? I was the expendable lure.
The Ambush
The assassins struck like starving rats—blades flashing from the forge's shadows. Seraphine's katana answered first, carving through throats with surgical precision. Blood sprayed the anvils, hissing as it hit hot metal.
I played my part perfectly: a gasp, a stumble, eyes wide with feigned terror.
"L-Lady Seraphine! Who are they? Why are they attacking you?!"
"Calm yourself, Günther." She flicked blackened blood from her blade. "Just third-rate assassins who've overestimated their worth. Back to the carriage."
"Yes, my Lady."
But I wasn't done.
The Hunt
The last assassin was a coward—I smelled his piss before I saw him. He clung to the alley shadows like a roach, boots barely whispering against the cobblestones as he fled.
Pathetic.
I let him think he'd escaped. Let him gasp in relief as he rounded the corner. Then—
THUD.
My elbow cracked into his spine, sending him face-first into the brick wall. Blood bloomed from his shattered nose as I dragged him up by his hair, slamming him again. And again. Until his teeth littered the ground like broken pearls.
"Look at me."
He whimpered, one eye swollen shut. The other rolled wildly, searching for mercy he wouldn't find.
The Art of Breaking
I pinned his wrist under my boot. "Who. Sent. You?"
"N-no one! We just—"
CRUNCH.
His index finger bent backward, joint rupturing through the skin. His scream was a wet, gurgling thing.
"Wrong answer." I seized his middle finger next. "Try again."
"J-Jenuva League! They—AGHH!"
I twisted the finger until the bone snapped, then peeled it sideways like stripping a chicken wing. His shriek echoed off the alley walls.
"Why her?" My boot found his kneecap. POP."Why today?"
"B-bounty! 50,000 gold for—for her head! Agh! PLEASE!"
I crouched, gripping his jaw. "Who posted it?"
"D-don't know! Codes only! The letter—it was sealed with—"
SNAP.
His mandible fractured under my thumbs. "No more stalling."
Tears混着血drenched his face as he choked out: "B-black… peak…"
The Final Message
I yanked him upright, my lips grazing his ear. "Tell your boss this:"
CRACK.
His collarbone shattered under my fist.
CRACK.
His ribs caved in.
"Ironhold isn't afraid of vermin." I dropped him, watching him writhe. "But I am."
One final stomp crushed his weapon hand to pulp. "Run."
Seraphine's Witness
The alley air clung thick with iron and piss. The assassin's whimpers had faded to ragged sobs, his body a broken puppet at my feet.
Then—
A shift in the wind. A whisper of silk.
Her.
Lady Seraphine stood at the mouth of the alley, her silver hair glowing like a specter in the gloom. Blood dripped from her katana, painting the cobblestones in slow, deliberate strokes. But her eyes—those frozen lakes—burned.
Not with fury. Not with disgust.
With something far more dangerous.
I straightened, wiping gore from my knuckles. She saw everything.
Her lips parted—just slightly—as if to speak. But no words came. Instead, her gloved hand rose, pressing against her own sternum, where a heartbeat should have been wild. But her breathing was steady. Controlled.
Too controlled.
The corner of her mouth twitched. Not a smile. Not a sneer. A silent acknowledgment of the beast we both carried inside.
Then, with deliberate slowness, she turned her wrist—exposing her palm. An invitation. Or a challenge.
I stepped over the ruined assassin, closing the distance between us. The scent of frost-lilies and fresh blood clung to her. For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to the space where our shadows touched.
"You drive like a noble," she murmured, her voice softer than steel deserved, "and carve men like a butcher."
Her katana slid home into its sheath with a click that echoed between us.
"Curious."
Günther's Realization
I'd underestimated her.
Not just her instincts—of course she'd known I was lying about my skills. But the way she watched me. The way her breath hitched when I snapped that bastard's femur.
This wasn't disgust.
It was recognition.
And that terrified me more than any assassin.