Chapter 28 – The Guest Upstairs

BOOM!

The entire Ivory Haven trembled.

Mark’s strike had not only split the wooden table in half; it had pierced through the structure and struck the foundation at that point. The impact generated a shockwave of pure mana that spread like a violent earthquake.

Down below, in the main hall, priceless bottles of wine exploded on the shelves and crystal chandeliers swayed frantically.

Guests screamed, some falling from their chairs as the stone floor vibrated at a frequency that made their teeth ache.

Higher-Rank adventurers froze instantly, their hands flying to the hilts of their swords, their faces pale.

They hadn’t just felt a tremor; they felt a killing intent so vast and heavy that the air seemed to vanish from everyone’s lungs inside the building.

It was as if a god had just stomped down on the inn’s roof.

***

Back in the room.

Mark remained silent for a second, but in his mind, a storm of thoughts collided like waves.

He was not a killer.

At least, he didn’t want to be.

In his previous life, death was a statistic on a screen or an abstract concept; here, every body Hermos mentioned so casually was a real human life that he had erased through negligence by delegating the task to his servants.

If the Solis Empire was looking for a reason to advance into the desert, he had just handed them one on a silver platter.

“Consequences of injuries” was just an excuse for the fact that his orders had failed.

He had been clear.

He had been specific.

Mark thought, and the realization that his authority had been interpreted loosely hit him like an insult.

He knew he shouldn’t have reacted that way. But the combination of moral guilt and the implicit insubordination of his servants acted like a fuse.

If he allowed “directly” to become a loophole for collateral massacres, what was the value of his authority?

One side of him, the one that still remembered being an ordinary human, was horrified by the weight of real blood. But the other side — the Sovereign — felt something more visceral.

The fury of someone whose absolute will had been neglected.

If they couldn’t follow his orders to contain humans without causing a massacre, then he didn’t have servants—Mark had unlocked nuclear weapons.

And weapons without a safety could destroy their own master.

[ “I-I… M-My Lord…!” ]

Hermos’s voice, coming from Pippin, was a hiss of pure terror. The small servant was flattened against the floor, his eyes rolled back, nearly losing consciousness from the mere proximity of Mark’s aura.

Hermos’s fear was palpable; he felt that, if Mark wished, he could extinguish his soul through that connection with a single thought.

“Inevitable, Hermos?” Mark’s voice came out low, but laden with a weight that seemed to bend the air. “I gave a direct order. It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t a request to ‘try your best’. It was an order of containment.”

Mark took a step forward, the floor beneath his boot cracking.

If he allowed them to decide who lived and who died “by accident,” Mark would lose control over what remained of his humanity.

And if the Solis Empire came in full force because of those deaths, their blood would be on Mark’s hands because he failed to control his own servants.

[ “S-Sovereign… please…” ] Hermos tried to form a defense, his voice breaking into short sobs through Pippin.

[ “T-their power… humans are too fragile… the Sanguine Knight only tried to deflect the blows, but the pressure… the Dragonfly only dropped them, she didn’t think the fall would…”]

Mark let out a long sigh, the air leaving his lungs as if it carried part of the atmospheric pressure he himself had created.

He brought a hand to his face, covering his eyes, and felt around for what remained of his chair to sit down again.

Who was he trying to fool?

“It’s my fault too.” He admitted, his voice low, almost a whisper that made Hermos shudder on the other side.

[ “Sovereign…” ] Hermos murmured, stunned.

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the creaking of wood still settling and the distant sounds of shouts and hurried footsteps from below.

Internally, Mark felt the weight of his mistake.

‘I was an idiot.’

He knew that the original plan of repelling the troop would already bring consequences. He was prepared for survivors to return and report powerful monsters in the desert.

But there was an abyssal difference between “soldiers repelled by a superior force” and “soldiers massacred.”

Now he had prisoners of war and fugitives.

The vice-commander was out there, running back into the heart of the Empire with terror etched into his soul. Mark knew that no matter what he did now with those who remained, the story already had a narrator.

‘If I release them now, they’ll join the fleeing vice-commander and the Empire will mobilize more soldiers within weeks.’

Reports of deaths by “friendly fire” or “falls” wouldn’t matter at that point.

They would only see the corpses of their men and monsters.

If he released the prisoners immediately, they would only confirm the horror.

If he killed them, he would confirm the threat.

Mark weighed the options. Keeping the prisoners was a risk, but releasing them at the height of the problem would hand total control of the narrative to the enemy.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

‘I need time for the shock to pass. If I keep them detained, I can try to use the captured General to understand what the Empire really wants with the desert before deciding how to return them safely.’

If he bought a few days, he could observe how the Empire reacted to the disappearance of the forces and the report from the fleeing vice-commander.

Would they send an immediate rescue force or pull back to reassess?

Moreover, if he released them now, wounded and disoriented in the middle of the Ashen Desert, they would likely die to the local fauna before reaching the border, and the blame would once again fall on him.

Keeping them, ironically, was the only way to ensure they stayed alive and fed until he decided how to return them without it looking like a declaration of war.

The decision formed.

“Keep them detained,” Mark ordered, his voice regaining firmness, though devoid of his earlier fury.

“Do not release them. Treat the wounded and ensure the General remains alive and lucid.”

He looked at Pippin, whose eyes were beginning to refocus, though the servant was still trembling.

“Hermos, listen carefully. Since containment failed, your new priority is intelligence. Use the Cindralisks to secretly watch the perimeter; if the vice-commander escaped, the Empire will come after what’s left of the troop or send scouts to confirm the deaths. And as for those who died…”

Mark paused, his jaw tight. “Give them a proper burial.”

[ “Y-yes, Sovereign! Understood! Your orders will be followed to the letter!” ] Hermos replied, his voice filled with servile relief and desperation to redeem himself.

Despite not knowing what a proper burial would be, he could always ask the other commanders how to proceed.

Asking the Sovereign now might not be a good idea.

Not after his outburst…

“Dismissed.” Mark ended the connection with a wave of his hand. He leaned back on what remained of the chair and looked at the disaster around him.

He had no idea Ivory Haven was in chaos and that he was the epicenter.

‘I wanted to avoid trouble, and now this happened…’