Chapter 48: Kidnapped?

"...has granted the Astra Party special jurisdiction to investigate the anomalous spiritual readings detected along the Grave-Rift of the Weeping Valley!"

Lucien’s brain stalled out completely.

The Grave-Rift of the Weeping Valley?!

The name triggered an immediate, screaming emergency siren in the deepest archives of his memory!

In The Astral Sovereign’s Dawn, the Grave-Rift wasn’t an academy training ground!

It was a Class-4 Hazard Zone, a jagged, three-mile-deep fissure located forty leagues south of the capital, infested with mutated bone-crawlers, toxic miasma, and ancient, unsealed catacomb vaults from the First Necromancer War!

It was an arc that took place in Chapter 65, where half of the supporting expedition was slaughtered by a hidden Abyssal Brood-Knight!

"We depart immediately," Cassian announced, his voice ringing with pure excitement. "A five-day reconnaissance sweep! The sky-gondola is already waiting at the southern docks!"

****

For three seconds, the universe stood completely still.

Lucien sat in his leather armchair.

He looked at Cassian’s handsome, beaming, utterly psychotic face.

He looked at the travel packs.

He looked at his little satchel containing two books on crop irrigation and a tin of mint drops.

And then, the delicate, carefully maintained dam of Lucien Alaric Everhart’s aristocratic restraint, a dam constructed from twenty-eight years of civil corporate endurance, four years of enterprise software diplomacy, and seven days of desperate, panicked webnovel survival calculations, finally shattered.

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODSDAMNED MIND?!"

The roar that erupted from Lucien’s throat was so loud and enraged that it echoed off the sky-silver granite walls like an artillery shell detonating in an enclosed cellar.

Silas dropped his dagger.

Lyra’s jaw dropped.

Garrick paused with a ham bone two inches from his open mouth.

Cassian blinked, genuinely stunned. "Lucien...?"

"FIVE DAYS?!" Lucien shrieked, slamming both palms down onto the dusk-oak table with enough force to send Seraphina’s porcelain teacups hopping six inches into the air.

"A FIVE-DAY RECONNAISSANCE SWEEP IN THE WEEPING VALLEY?! I HAVE A COLD! I AM WEARING A GOOSE-DOWN COAT BECAUSE MY SINUSES HURT! I WAS CLINICALLY DEAD SEVEN DAYS AGO! MY SOUL PATHWAYS ARE HELD TOGETHER BY EXPENSIVE TEA AND SPITE!"

Lucien stood up, kicking the leather armchair backward until it slammed into the wall with a deafening thud.

His face was crimson, his black bangs were disheveled, and his obsidian eyes were burning with a homicidal fire that made his previous backhand strike look like an affectionate pat on the cheek.

"I explicitly specified Condition Three!" Lucien snarled, marching up to Cassian’s chest, jabbing a trembling, furious finger into the center of the protagonist’s midnight-indigo crest. "AN ERGONOMICALLY PADDED FOLDING CHAIR! HOT SPICED CIDER! REAR-GUARD OBSERVATION IN CONTROLLED ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENTS! THE WEEPING VALLEY IS A CLASS-FOUR HAZARD ZONE CHOKED WITH TOXIC MIASMA AND CORPSES THAT BITE! DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO AN UNTRAINED VESSEL IN THE WEEPING VALLEY?! THEY DIE, CASSIAN! THEY ROT! THEIR RIBS BECOME HOUSES FOR CARNIVOROUS CRICKETS!"

Cassian looked down at the pale, furious young noble screaming into his breastplate.

The protagonist’s mouth opened. He looked at Lucien’s trembling finger and the wild, unhinged fury in Lucien’s eyes.

And then, right before Lucien’s horrified gaze, Cassian’s expression did not darken with anger.

It softened into an expression of such pity that Lucien felt an immediate, violent urge to bite the man’s nose off.

"Lucien..." Cassian murmured, his voice thick with profound, tragic understanding. "I see it now."

Lucien froze. "...You see what?"

"You are afraid," Cassian said gently, placing both of his hands onto Lucien’s shoulders with the delicate care of an artisan handling spun glass. "You survived the catacombs, crossed the threshold of death. The trauma... the memory of the cold stone, the darkness, the claw... it still lingers in your flesh. You shout not out of anger, but out of the natural terror of a brave soul who forced himself back from the grave."

Lucien’s left eye twitched with enough velocity to generate its own magnetic field.

"No," Lucien hissed through gritted teeth. "I am not having a trauma response, you celestial-blooded brick wall! I am having an intellectual response to suicidal stupidity! I am not going! I am resigning! Take your contract back, roll it into a tight cylinder, and insert it directly into your—"

SWOOSH!

A soft, velvety shadow detached itself from the ceiling directly behind Lucien.

Before Lucien could finish his anatomical recommendation, a thick, silk-lined velvet traveling cloak was thrown violently over his head, plunging him into darkness.

"HRRRGH—!"

"Silas! The compression straps!" Seraphina’s sweet, melodic voice chimed from somewhere outside the fabric. "Quickly, before his vocal cords suffer further strain! Hyperventilation is terribly unhygienic for a recovering pulmonary patient!"

"I’ve got the ankles!" Silas laughed, his hands moving with the practiced efficiency of an A-Rank scout tying up a captured enemy spy.

In the span of four seconds, Lucien was expertly rolled, swaddled, and bound like an oversized, high-born Egyptian mummy.

Thick leather utility straps pinned his arms to his ribs, while an enchanted warming rune was slapped directly over his lumbar region, radiating a soothing, thirty-degree heat that felt like a hot-water bottle.

"MPHHH! FFFCK! LET GO, YOU DEGENERATE ROGUE! I WILL HAVE MY BROTHER VAPORIZE YOUR ENTIRE BLOODLINE! CASSIAAAAAN!"

A soft, padded gag, smelling suspiciously of dried lavender and almond pastry glaze, was expertly slipped between Lucien’s teeth, reducing his furious, multi-generational curse to a series of muffled, wet, undignified snorts.

"Mmmph! Ggggh-mmph!"

"There now," Seraphina cooed, her soft, gloved hand gently patting the top of Lucien’s shrouded head through the velvet cloak. "Deep breaths, Lord Ethan. The high mountain air will do wonders for your bronchial congestion. I’ve packed six jars of your favorite strawberry glaze in Garrick’s side pannier."

"Garrick," Cassian’s voice commanded, rich, steady, and filled with heroic resolve. "Carry out the strategy as intended. Secure him across the sky-gondola’s luggage rack. Ensure his head is elevated at a thirty-degree angle to promote sinus drainage."

"Aye, Commander," Garrick rumbled in a deep voice.

A pair of hands the size of iron shovels seized Lucien by the waist.

With a single, effortless grunt of monstrous strength, Garrick hoisted the swaddled, struggling, furiously thrashing body of Lucien Alaric Everhart horizontally across his broad shoulder like a rolled-up Persian rug being hauled off to a carpet-cleaning facility.

"MMPHHH! NNNGH-MM-PHHH!" Lucien screamed into the lavender gag, kicking his bound feet with all the fury his three points of Strength could muster, achieving nothing more than lightly buffing the steel plates of Garrick’s rear pauldron.

"Look at him," Cassian whispered as the party began marching out of the war-room toward the southern docks, his voice trembling with brotherhood. "Even when physically restrained for his own safety, his fighting spirit refuses to surrender. A magnificent heart. Truly, the heavens have blessed our party with an irreplaceable soul."

"I have the leeches ready for when we reach the gondola!" Lyra cheered, skipping merrily behind Garrick’s heavy boots.

"And I have his satchel!" Silas chuckled, tossing the small velvet bag into the air. "Fascinating reading material. Principles of Crop Rotation in Arid Soils. A true romantic at heart."

Suspended upside down over Garrick’s iron-plated shoulder, staring into the dark, suffocating interior of the velvet cloak, was none other than Lucien Alaric Everhart, who felt his consciousness begin to separate from his physical form out of cognitive outrage.

He was being kidnapped.

He was an imperial noble.

The second son of Duke Darius Everhart. A master strategist who had lived two lives.

And he was currently being carried like a sack of Yukon Gold potatoes onto an airborne military assault vessel by five certified institutional lunatics.

And then, because the universe had determined that his humiliation required an official digital receipt, the crystalline chime rang out directly between his ears.

DING!

The sound did not come with its usual majestic fanfare.

It came accompanied by a tiny, high-pitched, digitized sound effect that sounded suspiciously like a cartoon character slipping on a banana peel.

[ EMERGENCY DEPLOYMENT ]

Quest Triggered: [The Salted Fish’s Involuntary Air-Mobility]

Objective: Survive the 40-League Transit to the Weeping Valley.

Host Status: [SWADDLED / GAGGED / KIDNAPPED BY PROTAGONIST]

[PARTY SYNCHRONIZATION INDEX]

• Cassian Valemont: Emotional Attachment at 88% (Protective Delusion)

• Silas Nightingale: Amusement Value at Maximum

• Lyra Veyne: Vivisection Anticipation [EXTREME]

• Garrick Stone: Cargo Stability [100%]

• Seraphina Vale: Maternal Tyranny [ACTIVE]

System Assessment: PFFFFT. HAHAHAHAHA...!

System Note: Look on the bright side, Host! The Weeping Valley is famous for its dense concentrations of ancient, unharvested corpses!]