I descended the sweeping marble staircase into the grand lower hall of the Bureau, my heavy canvas cloak swishing softly against my legs as I made my way toward the high-ceilinged testing wing. The air down here was thick with the scent of ozone, raw magic, and the nervous sweat of a crowd. The testing and measurement hall was packed to the brim; a long, agonizingly slow line snaked out into the corridor, filled with low-ranked rookie adventurers looking to update their ranks and newly enlisted squires eagerly waiting to be sorted into their respective knightly divisions.
I cut through the crowd like a dark phantom, the low-tier recruits instinctively parting ways as they felt the suffocating, silent aura radiating from my cloaked form and the cold steel of the Death Chant Shotgun strapped to my back. Stepping into the chamber, my single jade-green eye immediately locked onto Evelyn. She was standing patiently near the front of the line, her small, 5'3" frame draped in the tattered worker's cloak I had given her, looking entirely unassuming among the armored recruits.
Yet, as I watched her, there was no hesitation or confusion in her posture. She knew exactly how this entire bureaucratic process worked. She didn't need a guide to tell her where to stand or how to present herself; the comprehensive, daily routine memories of the elite Capital Knights she had systematically devoured over the last six years were perfectly mapped inside her brain. She knew the layout of this room, the names of the proctors, and the mechanical functions of the scanning apparatus before she had even set foot inside the building.
When the proctor finally gestured for her to step forward, Evelyn walked gracefully toward the center of the room, where the massive Pillar of Mana stood. The pillar was a towering, ancient monolith of pure, dense crystal, wired directly into the Bureau's primary magical processing grid.
It was designed to measure five fundamental components of a combatant's core identity: Magic Capacity, Magic Mastery, Swordsmanship, Marksmanship, and Battle IQ.
The device didn't just measure current energy levels; it violently searched the subject's neural pathways, scanning their muscle memory, active combat experience, and tactical memories to calculate their definitive global ranking.
Evelyn raised her pale hand and gently pressed her palm flat against the cool, glowing surface of the crystal.
Instantly, the Pillar of Mana hyper-oscillated. A blinding, violent emerald and azure light erupted from the core of the monolith, shooting straight up to the vaulted ceiling. The immense pressure caused the porcelain tiles beneath our feet to vibrate, and the ambient temperature in the room plummeted as the machine began to frantically tear through her mind, processing the immense, chaotic web of data hidden within her… or more accurately, the massive horde of stolen memories she carried from her victims.
For a few terrifying seconds, the crystal flashed erratic, warning colors as it struggled to categorize the sheer volume of military data packed into a six-year-old child's brain. Then, with a loud, mechanical hum, a localized spatial tear opened in thin air directly in front of her. A crisp, metallic Status Card coalesced out of the fading light particles.
Evelyn calmly reached out and caught the floating card between her fingers.
Behind the control console, the high-ranking Bureau sorceress who managed the machine gasped, her jaw dropping as she stared at the digital readout reflecting the pillar's final evaluation. The surrounding crowd of recruits went dead silent, sensing that something utterly unprecedented had just occurred.
I slipped past the stunned guards, stepping up quietly behind Evelyn to peep over her shoulder and look directly at the engraved text shimmering on the metallic surface of her brand-new card:
Name: Evelyn Rynd
Rank: N/A (Not an Adventurer)
Magic: S-Rank
Magic Mastery: S-Rank
Swordsmanship: A-Rank
Marksmanship: A-Rank
Battle IQ: S-Rank
Job: Luminous Knight (S rank)
Affiliation: Capital Knights Bureau Association (CKBA)
I stared at the numbers, my single eye narrowing as the tactical reality of her status card sank in. I could see it with absolute clarity. Her baseline Magic and Magic Mastery were undeniably S-Rank, a direct, terrifying consequence of her biological chest core and the high-tier Explosion and Kinetic magic she had mastered while growing up as the apex predator of the ravine.
But it was the next two lines that truly revealed the monstrous nature of her past. Her Swordsmanship and Marksmanship were rated at a flawless, expert A-Rank. Evelyn had never held a real steel broadsword or a standard-issue Bureau rifle in her entire life. This physical expertise had been entirely plundered. Because she had exclusively targeted and devoured the elite Capital Knights and high-ranking extraction squads sent down into the mines, her physical form had permanently absorbed their collective decades of rigorous muscle memory, weapon handling, and stance perfection. Since the highest-ranking human she had eaten was an A-rank Vice-Captain, her stolen martial skills were capped perfectly at the peak of A-rank.
Most astonishing of all, however, was her Battle IQ, which the pillar had assessed as a definitive, legendary S-Rank. It made perfect sense. Evelyn's brain wasn't just processing her own experiences; she had a literal hive-mind database of hundreds of veteran soldiers, commanders, and tacticians hardwired into her consciousness. She possessed the collective strategic awareness, combat reflexes, and battlefield intuition of an entire army squadron, all perfectly synthesized within her super-intelligent, six-year-old mind.
The machine, completely deceived by the stolen data, had automatically assigned her the job title of a Luminous Knight under the CKBA, treating her as a high-tier prodigy returning from an elite outer deployment. Evelyn turned her head slightly to look at me, a subtle, knowing glint in her jade-green eyes. She was officially a registered citizen now… a licensed weapon of the kingdom, hiding her monstrous origin right beneath the Bureau's nose.
The sudden, blinding display of light from the Pillar of Mana had completely disrupted the disciplined atmosphere of the registration hall. A low, frantic buzz of whispering broke out among the long line of low-ranking squires, newly enlisted recruits, and veteran adventurers who had been waiting for their routine evaluations. In a military institution built entirely on rigid hierarchies and measurable power dynamics, the sudden appearance of a child possessing triple S-Rank parameters was like a lightning strike.
"Did you see those readings? S-Rank Magic and Battle IQ... from a kid?" one young squire whispered, his voice trembling as he gripped his training sword.
"Look at her name on the terminal display… Evelyn Rynd, a Rynd? As in that Rynd family? The ones who produced Elias, the elite squad commander, and Elicia? And look who she's with... that's Eirene. The mute S-Rank bounty hunter who handles the jobs too bloody for the regular army. It's a literal bloodline of monsters." a seasoned adventurer muttered back, his eyes darting from the glowing crystal to my shadowed figure.
The Bureau sorceress at the primary console ignored the growing commotion, though her own fingers trembled slightly as she finalized the data encryption on the terminal. She looked up from the glowing interface, her eyes wide with a mixture of professional awe and deep-seated apprehension as she looked directly at me. I stood there like an immovable statue, my heavy canvas cloak completely obscuring my tanned, mutated skin and the massive blood wings folded tightly beneath the fabric.
"Eirene, the machine doesn't lie, but the registry requires verbal or written confirmation for high-tier lineage integration. Is Evelyn truly your biological sister?" the sorceress said, her voice echoing softly in the tense, quiet perimeter of the testing circle.
I didn't hesitate. I gave her a single, firm, definitive nod, my lone jade-green eye locking onto hers with an unyielding intensity that silenced any lingering doubts.
The sorceress swallowed hard, a visible wave of relief washing over her face as she officially stamped the digital file.
"Incredible... The Rynd legacy continues to defy the limits of the kingdom's metrics. Luckily for your family, given the sheer magnitude of her scores, your sister isn't just being entered into the standard infantry ledger. She has been automatically enlisted as a Luminous Knight. That puts her operating authority directly under the high command, standing higher than the standard Capital Knights. She answers only to the central Bureau administration and the crown."
Beside me, Evelyn stood perfectly still, her 5'3" frame radiating a calm, uncanny composure that completely belied her appearance as a six-year-old child. Because the memories of the high-ranking officers she had killed and consumed in that pitch-black ravine were perfectly synthesized within her mind, she understood the exact weight of her new title. She didn't need an orientation or a handbook. She knew the precise tactical doctrine of the Luminous Knights, their specialized deployment protocols, their funding structures, and the immense, crushing political pressure that came with the uniform. She knew that she was being handed a position of absolute authority, a role that most soldiers spent their entire lives bleeding for without ever achieving.
Yet, there was no arrogance in her expression. Instead, through our shared, intuitive bond, I could feel the profound, aching weight of the emotions churning behind her jade-green eyes.
Evelyn didn't want power for the sake of dominion. The primary, driving force that had compelled her to leave the gold mines and seek out the surface world was a deep, agonizing desire for redemption. Even though she had been a victim of the Slime King's horrific genetic splicing and hive-mind manipulation, her human soul still carried the devastating guilt of the past six years. Every single night she had spent in that dark ravine, she had been forced to hunt, kill, and devour the extraction squads sent by the kingdom. Worst of all, the ghost of our mother… whose flesh and soul had been absorbed into the very network that sustained Evelyn… haunted her conscious mind every single second. She blamed herself entirely for the bloodshed. She viewed her own hands as stained, her powers as cursed, and her existence as something that owed a massive, insurmountable debt to humanity.
She refused to remain the monster of the Caria Mines. She didn't want to be feared as an apex predator or hunted as a remnant of a parasitic plague. She wanted to use the terrifying strength she had plundered to protect the living, to prevent other families from being torn apart, and to reconstruct her shattered humanity by becoming a true hero for the kingdom.
Seeing the absolute purity of her intent, and knowing that keeping her locked away from the world would only cause her spirit to wither under the weight of her trauma, I made my decision. I would not hold her back. I would let her step into the light she had been denied for so long, acting as her vanguard from the shadows while she built a life of honor.
I pulled out my notepad, my charcoal pencil scratching aggressively across the paper with a sharp, decisive snap. I tore the page out and handed it directly to the Bureau sorceress.
The note was short, commanding, and absolute:
Draft her immediately. Assign her to the high-tier vanguard. I vouch for her training.
The sorceress took the paper, her eyes scanning the messy, authoritative handwriting.
"Understood, Lady Eirene. The paperwork will be processed by sunset. Evelyn Rynd is officially an asset of the Luminous branch."
Evelyn turned her face up to look at me, her lower lip trembling slightly as she processed what I had just done. The sheer, unconditional validation from her older sister… the fact that I didn't see her as a monster, but as someone worthy of being a protector… shattered the last remnants of her emotional restraint. Large, crystalline tears welled up in her jade-green eyes, capturing the ambient light of the magic circle as they spilled down her pale, soft cheeks.
They weren't tears of horror or grief this time. They were tears of profound, overwhelming gratitude. For the first time since her birth in the dark, she wasn't running, she wasn't hiding, and she wasn't killing. She was being given a purpose, a family, and a path toward the light, standing right beside the sister who had dragged her out of hell.
Evelyn threw her arms tightly around my waist, burying her face into the front of my heavy canvas cloak. As she pressed herself against me, the sheer physical reality of her mutation was undeniable, though her mind was that of a traumatized six-year-old child, her accelerated genetic development had given her the fully developed, striking body of an eighteen-year-old woman, her chest pressing firmly against my clad form.
To the surrounding crowd of recruits and squires, the sight of us holding each other looked like two grown women sharing a deeply emotional, private family reunion. They had no idea that the tall, beautifully formed girl weeping into my shoulder had spent her entire existence trapped in a subterranean cradle of slime.
"Thank you for giving me this life, big sister, I promise... I will do anything to protect our people. I'm done being a monster. I'm done being a slime. I just want to be a human."
As she spoke her solemn vow, vibrant, bioluminescent tears poured freely down her pale cheeks, the glowing fluid soaking into the dark fabric of my cloak. The intense spike in her emotions caused the end tips of her brown hair to pulse with a brilliant, neon-like turquoise light, illuminating the immediate space around us.
I looked over her head, my single jade-green eye scanning the crowd of onlookers and the Bureau sorceress. Surprisingly, not a single person flinched or pointed a finger in accusation. The truth was, the vast majority of the Bureau's lower ranks didn't even know what a bio-slime actually was, to them, a slime was just a brainless puddle of sludge found in low-level dungeons. And even the high-ranking scholars who did understand the elite properties of the Slime King's hive-mind had absolutely no frame of reference for what a stable, human-slime hybrid looked like. They simply assumed the glowing light in her hair was a rare, hereditary manifestation of the Rynd family's high-tier magic capacity.
It was a massive, incredibly lucky break. Her true nature remained perfectly hidden in plain sight, ensuring that her enlistment as a high-ranking Luminous Knight would proceed without a single political or legal hurdle.
I wrapped my right arm securely around her shoulders, letting her weep out the last of her grief against my chest. Her journey toward humanity was just beginning, but as a knight of the kingdom, she was finally going to get the chance to heal.
The Bureau sorceress stepped away from her blinking crystal terminal and approached us, a warm, respectful smile softening her professional demeanor as she looked at Evelyn's newly registered status.
"Evelyn, your official orientation and training interval will be starting tomorrow morning. Make sure you get some rest tonight; the Luminous branch expects peak performance from its prodigies."
Hearing the confirmation that her new life was officially beginning, Evelyn slowly pulled back from my chest, her chest still heaving slightly from the heavy emotional release.
I reached up with my right hand, gently using my thumb to wipe away the remaining glowing, bioluminescent tears from her pale cheeks. My jagged Glasgow smile softened into an expression of pure, unvoiced maternal care. I gave her a firm, reassuring nod, letting her know that the hardest part of her life was definitively behind her.
Taking her hand back into mine, I pulled my heavy canvas hood low over my face to shield myself from any stray beams of daylight. Together, we turned our backs on the whispering crowd of recruits and walked out of the measurement hall, our boots clicking in unison against the polished porcelain tiles. We passed the grand obsidian arches of the 8th District headquarters and stepped back into the bustling streets of Caria City. Tomorrow, my baby sister would put on the armor of a hero… but tonight, we were finally going home to our family.