Chapter : 34

  "A Rank B mission?!" Zinia, the earth magic user, gasped out loud. "For our very first task? That has to be a mistake!"

  "That is impossible," Laxmi added, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Usually, teams start with C-rank missions! Or even D-rank! You start small to test the teamwork and get used to the rules. B-rank missions are for experienced military squads!"

  A B-rank mission was incredibly hard. In the Belmontia Empire, missions were ranked from E to A, with S-rank being the deadliest. A C-rank mission usually involved capturing normal bandits or fighting low-level monsters. But a B-rank mission meant facing highly organized, deadly criminals, or monsters that could destroy entire city blocks. It was not a warm-up. It was a fight for survival.

  Naomi slammed her hands flat on the wooden table. She looked extremely worried, and for once, she wasn't yelling at Ken. She looked directly at Princess Iris.

  "Princess, if we fail this, we lose 20 points immediately," Naomi said, her voice tight with panic. "The rules state that we all start at zero points today. If we take a minus twenty penalty on day one, we will drop into the negative numbers. We would be in dead last place out of all twenty-one Royals. We might never recover from a hole that deep!"

  Princess Iris kept her hands neatly folded on her lap. She looked at the screen, then at her worried team. "I know, Naomi," Iris said softly. "But we cannot reject the mission. The Emperor’s rules are clear. If we refuse the first mission assigned to us, we are instantly disqualified from the Succession War."

  "This is completely unfair," Ira, the water magic user, complained quietly. "Why would the Upper Council give the 13th Unit such a hard task right out of the gate? Do they want us to fail?"

  Ken slouched low in his chair, quietly taking another bite of his toast. He watched his teammates panic. Internally, his sharp mind was completely unfazed.

  "Well, this is classic tournament logic," Ken thought to himself, feeling slightly bored. "The game makers always throw a huge curveball right at the beginning to weed out the weak players. They want to see who cracks under pressure. A penalty of negative twenty points is a pretty scary threat for normal people. It is a good thing I am not normal."

  Outwardly, however, Ken decided to play his usual role. He threw his hands up in the air and let his jaw drop, making a wildly exaggerated, fake expression of pure terror.

  "Oh no!" Ken yelled out loud, his voice cracking like a frightened child. "Negative twenty points?! That sounds like bad math! If we go into the negatives, are they going to take away our snack budget? Because if I don't get my potato chips, I am going to quit right now! I cannot fight bad guys on an empty stomach!"

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  Naomi turned her head and glared at him, her face turning red. "Shut up, Ken! This is serious! We could actually die, and you are worried about potato chips?!"

  "I have very clear priorities!" Ken argued back, giving her wide, innocent puppy eyes.

  "Enough," Finlay barked, stopping the argument before it could go any further. The giant knight turned back to the glowing screen. "We do not have the luxury of complaining. The Emperor has given us a B-rank task, and we will complete it. We must look at the mission details and prepare our strategy immediately. Sayma, read the rest of the file."

  Sayma stood up. She pushed her thick glasses up the bridge of her nose and looked closely at the blue screen. The details of the mission began to load. They were about to find out exactly why this task was rated so dangerously high, and Ken was about to learn who he had to deal with today.

  ----

  The magical screen flickered again. The text disappeared, and a picture of a man’s face appeared. He looked older, with messy gray hair, deep scars on his cheeks, and a crazy, wide-eyed stare. Underneath his picture was a long list of crimes.

  Sayma read the text carefully, her voice steady but very serious. "The target is a notorious criminal named Vane," she explained to the room. "He has recently started a dangerous underground group known as the 'Curse Organization.' According to the Imperial Police, Vane and his followers have been kidnapping innocent people from the lower districts."

  "Kidnapping?" Princess Iris asked, her violet eyes showing deep concern. "For what purpose?"

  Sayma adjusted her glasses again, looking grim. "To use them for dark magic rituals. Vane is a master of Curse magic. He is using the kidnapped victims as living batteries to fuel his spells."

  The room went silent again. The elite girls of the 13th Unit looked at each other uneasily. Even Naomi lost her angry expression and looked slightly pale.

  Ken stopped chewing his toast. He knew about Curse magic from the lore of this world, and it was exactly the kind of annoying power he hated dealing with.

  "Curse magic," Sayma continued, turning to look at the team to make sure they understood the danger. "It is incredibly nasty. It is not like normal elemental magic. If someone shoots a fireball at you, you can block it with a wall of rock or a shield of water. But curses do not travel in straight lines. They are invisible. They attack your shadow, your mind, or your luck. A curse can make your heart stop just by the user looking at you, or it can slowly poison your mana over time. It is extremely hard to block, even with my best barrier spells."

  "So, if we get hit, we are basically done for," Zinia summarized, her voice low.

  "Exactly," Finlay said, crossing his massive armored arms. "That is why this is a B-rank mission. The danger level is extremely high. One wrong move against a curse user, and you will not walk away. You will suffer."

  "This is incredibly dangerous," Sayma said, looking back at the screen. She frowned thoughtfully. "But it makes sense. I checked the public Royal network this morning before the meeting. The other Princes and Princesses got B-rank missions today too. The 5th Prince was sent to hunt a wild Wyvern. The 2nd Princess was sent to clear a haunted ruin."

  Sayma looked directly at Princess Iris. "The Emperor is not making this easy for anyone. He is forcing all twenty-one Royals to face deadly threats on day one. He wants to see who is truly fit to rule."

  Princess Iris nodded slowly. "My father does not believe in soft starts. He wants to test our limits. We must prove to him, and to the Empire, that the 13th Unit is strong enough to survive."

  Grandmaster Finlay tapped the screen. A detailed map of the city appeared. A specific area was highlighted in bright red.

  "This is the location," Finlay announced. "Vane and his Curse Organization are hiding out here."