Sebastian stared at the trembling boy on the ground, then at Page, then back at the boy again, who looked two seconds away from either crying, exploding, or possibly doing both in some catastrophic emotional implosion.

His fingers twitched helplessly against the dirt, and his breath came in thin, uneven gasps that made him look like a cornered animal.

The firelight flickered against his face, carving shadows under his eyes, making the fear there look deeper and more frantic.

Drage didn't answer.

Didn't blink.

Didn't even breathe in a rhythm that resembled anything natural. His chest rose too slowly, then too suddenly, like his body couldn't decide if it wanted to keep functioning.

The silence that followed was long enough to make the crackling fire sound uncomfortably loud, filling the clearing with a restless heat that pressed against everyone's nerves.

So Sebastian finally let out a calm, controlled exhale and asked, "Page… who is he?"

Page didn't answer immediately, because of course she didn't. She simply stared at Drage for a long, drawn-out moment, her crimson eyes wide and unblinking.

They didn't soften, didn't narrow, didn't flicker with thought; they were perfectly, eerily still.

Her face was blank in a way that suggested not apathy but alarming focus, so much so that even Nora shifted a small step back, as if instinct told her to respect the danger in stillness that complete.

Then Page finally spoke, her voice clear and perfectly calm.

"He was spying on us."

Sebastian blinked at her, processing the words. "…Okay. That's… great. Elaborate?"

Page nodded once, mechanically, as if that brief command had unlocked a floodgate. Her posture straightened in a very subtle way, not stiff, but aligned, precise, like a machine engaging its internal gears.

When she began speaking again, it was with the confidence of someone reciting truth engraved in stone, and the enthusiasm of someone who considered this kind of information absolutely essential to survival… or entertainment. Yeah, it looked like she was having the time of her life(even though she seemed exactly the same).

"Name: Drage Openheimer. Height: one hundred seventy-nine centimeters. Weight: seventy-one kilograms. Son of Baron Openheimer, a low-ranking noble who has been involved in multiple instances of smuggling illegal monster cores through underground transport channels, often paying independent mercenaries to bypass the Empire's inspection points."

Sebastian's eyebrows began the slow ascent of disbelief.

Kent, beside him, breathed a soft "Damn," under his breath, as if witnessing a divine revelation.

Sebastian turned to look at Nora, who seemed to be slightly mad. Figures, people were smuggling illegal goods in her empire, and as the princess, she didn't know.

Page continued, marching through the report with no sign of hesitation.

"Academy ranking: low. Combat stage: unimpressive. Psychological profile: cowardly, delusional, and extremely suggestible. He also maintains recurring fantasies involving the creation of a large, diverse personal harem composed of elves, vampires, beastkin, and an unrealistic number of human women that exceeds reasonable logistical capacity for any living person."

Drage made a wet, strangled choking noise somewhere between a mortified whimper and the early stages of cardiac arrest. His face flushed a painful shade of red.

Sebastian groaned and rubbed his forehead, pinching the bridge of his nose in a way that suggested he was reconsidering several life choices. "Page…"

But Page continued, unstoppable, her tone still chillingly flat.

"In addition," she said, lowering her voice only slightly, "he has recurring daydreams about becoming a 'mysterious rogue emperor,' despite possessing no actual skills, training, or characteristics typically associated with espionage, assassination, seduction, or leadership. His attempts to cultivate any such skills have failed with consistent inefficiency."

Nora burst into full-body laughter, bending forward with her hands braced on her knees, wheezing.

Kent gave Drage a pitying little thumbs-up, the kind reserved for lost causes.

Annalise shook her head slowly and muttered, "A tragic case."

Sebastian released a long, weary breath.

This was… a lot to take in.

A lot to process.

A lot to not immediately mock.

But Page's relentless dismantling of Drage's dignity marched onward, calm and merciless.

"He also once attempted to court the daughter of a Count by presenting her with a poem plagiarized word-for-word from a romance novel written seventy years ago. The poem in question was extremely well-known and commonly featured in beginner literature classes."

Drage whimpered, curling in on himself like a dying leaf.

Sebastian turned to Page, staring. "Is this… normal for you?"

Page blinked, a tiny mechanical movement. "Of course," she said plainly. "If someone breathes within a hundred meters of us, I know everything about them."

Sebastian stared at her harder.

Nora yelped and stumbled backward, shouting, "You WHAT—?!"

Kent wrapped his arms around his chest, as if protecting an invisible diary, like she might recite its contents next.

Sebastian cleared his throat, trying to salvage the moment with some scrap of dignity or mercy, anything. He meant to say something comforting to Drage, something like "don't worry about it" or "this happens sometimes."

But Page's efficiency had scorched any opportunity for kindness so thoroughly it left nothing but emotional ash.

So instead he said, "Well. Welcome to the group, I guess."

The words settled into the tense air, heavy and oddly final.

Then Sebastian tilted his head slightly, letting his expression shift into something colder, something polite but with an edge sharp enough to cut. He offered Drage a smile that was absolutely not a smile at all and asked, almost gently:

"Did you really think I'd just let you in here like this?"

Drage's breath hitched, sharp and stuttering.

Good.

Fear stripped lies away faster than truth-serums ever could.

Sebastian raised his hand.

A surge of blue mist erupted from the ground in a soft, liquid ripple, light bending and twisting as the air warped into an unnatural haze. It spread across the dirt in delicate tendrils, curling upward like smoke reaching for the sky.

Sacha stepped out of it with a slow, sleepy yawn. She stretched her striped, furry form with the lazy ease of a predator waking from a nap in the sun. Her tail flicked once, twice, sweeping the air in a sluggish arc before she lowered herself beside Sebastian, her blue eyes locking onto Drage with unsettling interest.

"Papa," she rumbled, her voice deep enough to resonate through the ground, "do you want me to eat him?"

"Not yet," Sebastian murmured without looking away from Drage.

A soft crystalline whisper filled the air as Sacha turned into her glass blade form, sharp and translucent, catching the firelight and refracting it into faint shimmering patterns. The weapon seemed delicate, almost fragile, but its edge was so fine it practically hummed.

Sebastian pressed the blade against Drage's throat.

Not deeply.

Just enough to draw a thin, warm line of blood that trickled down his skin and beaded at the edge.

Drage froze entirely, muscles locking as if his body were trying to become a statue. The rest of the group fell silent as well, the air thickening with tension so palpable it felt like the world itself was holding its breath.

"Where are your teammates?" Sebastian asked softly, voice nearly a whisper.

He leaned in closer, lowering his tone even further, letting the fire crackle behind him to fill the space where sound should have been.

"You have three seconds. If you don't answer, I'm taking your head."

One.

Drage remained completely still, eyes wide and unfocused.

Two.

His breath trembled, a tiny quiver of panic.

Three...

Drage finally lifted his head.

And smiled.

Not a nervous smile.

Not a terrified one.

A deep, stretched, unnatural smile, too wide, too calm, and utterly wrong. It didn't touch his eyes. It didn't belong to his face. It didn't even look like something a person should be physiologically capable of wearing.

Sebastian felt the hairs along his arms stand up as instinct screamed.

"Careful," Drage whispered, his voice layered, as though something else spoke through him, overlapping faintly like an echo from a cavern.

"If you press a little harder, something dangerous might happen."

Sebastian's grip tightened on the blade instinctively.

The blade in his hand hummed threateningly.

Annalise stepped forward, magic sparking faintly around her fingertips.

Nora's hand hovered over her rapier, her stance shifting into readiness without conscious thought.

And somewhere far away...

In a quiet instructor room lined with softly humming crystals pulsating with mana.

Belle froze mid-sip of her tea.

The porcelain cup slipped through her fingers and shattered on the floor, spilling hot liquid across the glowing crystal tiles.

Her eyes widened, pupils constricting in sudden terror. Her breath caught sharply, and she shot to her feet with such force that her chair skidded back, tipped, and clattered loudly onto its side behind her.

"No," she whispered, her voice cracking as dread coiled up her spine like a living creature made of ice and memory.

"That presence… not again."

Before anyone could respond, the crystals embedded in the walls flared bright red, one after another, filling the room with a pulsing alarm light. Instructors jolted upright from their desks, several shouting questions or curses as the whole chamber seemed to shift into emergency mode.

Belle didn't hear any of them.

She was already running.

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