We pushed through the grand obsidian entryways, our boots transitioning from the bright porcelain plaza outside to the thick, sound-dampening velvet carpets of the Capital Knights Bureau Association's central hallway. The interior was a massive maze of polished mahogany walls, high-tier magical archives, and bustling administrative clerks who quickly scurried out of our way, thoroughly intimidated by the sheer aura radiating from our trio.
"Let's go straight to Chief Roman's office," Evelyn said, her childish mischief completely fading into the serious, focused demeanor of an S-rank vanguard as she adjusted her heavy white-and-scarlet pauldrons.
We walked all the way up to the highest administrative level of the building, where the quiet became heavy and suffocating. Finally, we stood before a massive, gold-trimmed oak door bearing the official seal of the High Command. I stepped forward, my petite 5'5" frame casting a sharp shadow as I raised my hand and delivered three firm, rhythmic knocks against the heavy wood.
From inside, the smooth, thoroughly professional voice of the CKBA's elite secretary, White Flower, echoed through the barrier:
"Come in."
I grasped the heavy brass handle, pushing the door open to reveal the sprawling, high-tier office. The room was heavily fortified with localized mana-shield matrices, and seated inside were three of the most powerful and politically dangerous figures in the entire capital.
Behind the primary obsidian desk sat the Chief of the CKBA himself, Roman Calico, his sharp eyes evaluating us with calculating precision. Standing to his right was the Captain of the Luminous Knights, Captain Friedrich, his immaculate silver plate armor gleaming under the localized ether lamps. And standing near the archival shelves was White Flower, her posture perfectly rigid as she closed her administrative ledger.
Because I was walking in without my ominous canvas hood, my dark trench coat, or my face mask… completely healed and protected by Elicia's continuous-nullification loop… the three figures briefly locked their eyes onto my unblemished face and mismatched jade-green and crimson eyes, a subtle ripple of surprise crossing their features before their professional masks locked back into place.
Chief Roman Calico leaned forward, gesturing calmly toward the three high-back leather chairs arranged neatly in front of his desk.
"Sisters, Take a seat."
The three of us stepped forward into the heavily fortified office, the soft click of our boots muffled by the thick carpet. Following Chief Roman's gesture, we took our places in the high-backed leather chairs.
True to her usual routine, Evelyn instantly settled into her seat, pulling her jar back out and contentedly scooping another dollop of strawberry jam with her silver spoon, entirely unfazed by the high-ranking military presence. Elicia moved with a regal grace, lifting her heavy, high-tier healing staff and placing it horizontally across the polished mahogany table with a resonant thud. Standing in the center, I reached up and smoothly pulled my canvas hood all the way down, letting it rest against the shoulders of my dress to give the room an entirely unobstructed view of my unblemished face and my contrasting jade-green and crimson eyes.
The very first reaction came from White Flower. The elite secretary's professional, rigid composure cracked for a split second, a genuine wave of warmth and relief washing over her face as she looked at my smooth skin.
"Eirene... you're fully healed, It's truly good to have you back." White Flower said, her voice dropping into a tone of deep, sincere respect.
"Thanks, White," I replied smoothly, my fully restored voice carrying a calm, deadpan weight.
Despite White Flower being a former high-tier guild leader with an immense administrative track record of her own, she had always maintained a profound level of professional respect for me, looking past the "frail archivist" trope that the rest of the Bureau pinned on my identity.
To her right, Captain Friedrich shifted his weight, his immaculate silver plate armor clinking softly under the ether lamps as he crossed his gauntleted arms and looked at our trio.
"Well, the Rynd siblings, It's a genuine shame that your older brother, the Shadow Walker, couldn't join us today. He's been incredibly busy lately heading up the classified investigation sectors. But regardless, to the three sisters sitting here… thank you for joining this emergency meeting." Captain Friedrich began, his authoritative voice echoing off the fortified walls.
Elicia didn't waste a single second on diplomatic pleasantries. She leaned forward slightly, her piercing crimson eyes locking directly onto Chief Roman Calico behind his massive obsidian desk, her posture radiating the sharp, unyielding focus of a northern border commander.
"Let's bypass the standard administrative protocol, Chief Roman, I heard the preliminary intelligence reports. The southern borders of the Triangulum continent were completely wiped out by a high-tier vampire strain. I read the initial casualties list in the daily newspapers just yesterday morning. Tell us exactly what the Bureau is hiding behind those redacted files."
Chief Roman Calico adjusted the heavy, gold-trimmed cuffs of his uniform, his face hardening as he leaned forward, pressing his hands flat against the mahogany surface.
"The tactical data retrieved from the Southern Border outpost is a disaster, Branch 2 was entirely liquidated. Thirty-two high-ranking Luminous Knights were found as hollow, bone-dry husks. Every single drop of their vital fluid was forcibly extracted. The Bureau's administrative consensus is absolute: this is the undeniable work of the Blood-Sucking Winged Demon. Her savagery is escalating, and she is openly mocking our defensive perimeter."
Behind my calm, unblemished face, a cold, cynical irony settled deep in my throat. I sat perfectly still in my leather chair, my mismatched jade-green and crimson eyes tracking the subtle movements of the three officials. The sheer absurdity of the scenario was staggering. The entire High Command of the CKBA was sitting right across from the infamous S-rank Crimson Phantom, aggressively blaming me for a southern massacre I hadn't committed, completely oblivious to the fact that the "monster" they were hunting was sitting in a civilian dress right under their noses. They couldn't differentiate between my surgical hybrid restraint and the ravenous, unhinged slaughter of a purebred apex predator.
Roman shifted his gaze away from the redacted casualty files, his sharp, calculating eyes locking onto Elicia.
"Setting the southern disaster aside for a moment... let us address the frozen wastes, Offspring Goddess, we require a direct verbal account of the Northern Border deployment. According to our tracking matrices, Branch 1 faced total annihilation in the thick snow. Yet, by some miracle, you and your little sister survived the holocaust. Tell me, what exactly happened to the Fallen Angel? Where did the entity flee?"
A brief, sharp spark of tension rippled through my mind. The truth of that blizzard was a classified nightmare… if Roman discovered I had unleashed my demonic wings, painted the permafrost with celestial blood, and stolen the Demon Valkyrie Longsword, our peaceful walk out of this building would instantly dissolve into a close-quarters bloodbath.
But Elicia wasn't a snitch. She didn't even blink. Resting her hand elegantly on her high-tier healing staff, she looked Chief Roman dead in the eye, her voice carrying the flawless, unyielding authority of a high priestess.
"The Fallen Angel didn't flee, Chief Roman, Eirene killed the Fallen Angel. With the synchronized deployment of my divine regeneration loops keeping her baseline vitals perfectly stabilized, she systematically dismantled the entity's defenses and put it down permanently."
Captain Friedrich let out a loud, thoroughly dismissive scoff, his polished silver armor clinking loudly as he threw his head back.
"Killed the Fallen Angel? Eirene?! What an absolute, monumental joke. The Fallen Angel was documented as one of the strongest celestial demon strains in the entire Triangulum continent! Its phased mist blade could slice through solid matter and neutralize high-tier recovery matrices. You expect us to believe a frail, baseline archivist simply walked into a blizzard and executed a localized calamity?"
I didn't answer him with words. Moving with a fluid, deadpan motion, I reached into the folds of my simple dress and pulled out my leather purse.
The Fallen Angel's massive, pristine celestial skull had been entirely too large to fit through the microscopic spatial rifts of my low-tier inventory rings during the chaotic extraction from the northern blizzard. So, I had done the next best logistical thing: I had used my blades to surgically sever its anatomical proof before abandoning the carcass to the wolves.
THUD. THUD.
With a cold, deliberate flick of my wrist, I dumped two heavy, gray-skinned, pointed ears directly onto the polished mahogany desk. They slid across the glossy wood, stopping right in front of Chief Roman's inkwell. The severed tissue still thrummed with a faint, residual trace of high-tier, anti-heal Lifeline mana, the distinct, shimmering celestial pigment unmistakable under the office's ether lamps.
"If your administrative minds are too fragile to believe the verbal report, here is your physical documentation, I harvested them myself. Do you require an appraisal scan, or is this sufficient to close the ledger?"
The entire office fell into a suffocating, dead silence.
White Flower gasped, her hands trembling as she nearly dropped her administrative notepad against the floorboards. Captain Friedrich's mocking grin instantly vanished, his face turning an incredibly pale, ashen color as he stared down at the severed trophies in absolute, unadulterated shock. Chief Roman Calico froze entirely, his fingers hovering inches away from the gray, mana-infused flesh as his brain frantically tried to re-calculate the power dynamics sitting directly across his desk.
Beside me, Evelyn took a slow, deliberate scoop of her strawberry jam, the clink of her silver spoon against the glass the only sound remaining in the stunned room.
Captain Friedrich stepped forward, the heavy steel plates of his armor rattling as he leaned over the mahogany desk. He stared at the two shimmering, gray-skinned ears with unlinked, wide-eyed bewilderment. When he looked back up at me, his face was completely devoid of its previous mocking arrogance.
"Eirene... the bounty hunter, You truly killed that inhumane being? That Fallen Angel was classified as the absolute strongest among the demon races in the northern sector. Its phased mist blade has butchered entire legions of our frontline vanguard... and you just put it down in one single go?" Friedrich breathed, his voice dropping into a tense, profoundly unnerved whisper.
The absolute shock in the room was palpable, and one by one, the officials broke their stunned silence to voice their disbelief.
White Flower frantically adjusted her magnifying specs, her fingers trembling as she hovered her administrative quill over her ledger.
"The localized mana density radiating from this tissue... it matches the high-tier celestial signature perfectly, Chief Roman, the tracking matrix wasn't glitched during the northern deployment. Eirene didn't survive by hiding behind Lady Elicia... she was the one dictating the pace of the slaughter. To suppress an anti-heal artifact and harvest an apex threat... her baseline combat potential has completely broken our classification scales."
Chief Roman Calico didn't say a word right away. He slowly reached out, using the tip of a silver letter opener to turn one of the severed celestial ears over, analyzing the clean, precise surgical cut I had made in the freezing blizzard. A heavy, dark cloud seemed to settle over his expression as he leaned back into his high-backed leather chair, his calculating gaze locking entirely onto my mismatched jade-green and crimson eyes.
"This changes the entire administrative ledger of the Rynd bloodline, For years, the Bureau archives listed you as a fragile, mute tool only fit for reading syntax and bleeding over ancient scrolls. But to single-handedly execute a localized calamity... you've been running an entirely separate operation right under our noses, haven't you? If the High Command discovers that a rogue hunter of this caliber has been operating within the central sectors without a tracking seal, it will cause a total political panic." Roman murmured, his voice low, steady, and deeply ominous.
Behind me, Evelyn let out a soft, satisfied click of her tongue, scraping the very last bit of strawberry jam from the bottom of her glass jar. Her bioluminescent hair tips flashed a bright, intensely smug shade of yellow as she grinned at the stunned officials.
"See? I told you my big sister is super badass! You capital guys think you know everything just because you write it down on your little papers. Eirene doesn't need a giant army to clean up your messes!" Evelyn cheered, totally ruining the heavy, suffocating military tension of the office with her childish glee.
Elicia smoothly lifted her hand from her high-tier healing staff, a calm, deeply regal smirk playing across her lips as she backed up our narrative.
"The physical evidence is on the table, Chief Roman. The northern border threat has been permanently archived. Now, I suggest we return the dialogue to the southern sector. My sister didn't walk into this office to be cross-examined about her trophies… we want to know what kind of monster is currently draining your Luminous Knights dry."