All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 223: Instruction

Seliza came back from the southern staging camp before noon with six riders and three engineers. The gray man walked beside her carriage as if the road had been built for his feet.

Marrick saw the silver serpent banner from the registry steps and made a sound that belonged in Vella’s clinic.

"She left the town yesterday," he whispered, clutching the new contract folder to his chest, "rich people are supposed to stay gone after they finish frightening the poor."

"Her wagons left," Hajin said, shifting Ash higher on his hip as the boy tried to bite the contract folder, "she only went as far as the road camp."

Juna stood beside the gate with her arms folded, ears angled toward the riders while Loccy leaned on her hammer near the mine path. Vella had dragged Hans onto the steps in a chair, partly because he wanted to see the caravan return, mostly because she did not trust him near stairs.

Seliza stepped down before the carriage stopped rocking, red skirts brushing mud from the square. Her eyes moved over the registry, the wall repairs, the miners waiting for wage orders, then Ash’s hands, checking what had changed overnight rather than pretending the place was new.

"Lord Hajin," she greeted, taking in the child gnawing on a dead core, "your region remains terribly rude about becoming profitable."

"We are practicing," he said, handing Ash to Juna before the boy could grab Seliza’s sleeve, "give us a week and Marrick might start insulting people with invoices."

Marrick looked horrified by the idea, which meant he had already considered it.

The gray man stopped three steps behind Seliza, hands clasped before him, plain coat clean despite the road. He had the sort of face that vanished from memory the moment Hajin looked away, but Aria drifted up from his shoulder and focused on him with narrowed eyes.

[ Scan incomplete. ]

[ Mana signature: absent. ]

[ Body heat: present. ]

[ Muscular tension: abnormal distribution. ]

"Still reads wrong?" He asked under his breath.

"More wrong," Aria replied, voice quiet near his ear, "he is hiding output inside stillness, which is irritating because stillness should not have layers."

The gray man looked at her then, not surprised or offended, only aware.

Seliza’s mouth curved as if she had heard something expensive click into place, "Taren has a request."

The name landed strangely, too plain for the pressure standing behind her. Hajin glanced at the man again, trying to make the face stay in his head now that it had a handle.

"Taren," he repeated, "does he talk, or is that extra?"

The gray man inclined his head by half an inch, "when needed, my lord."

[ CringeSlayer91: ] oh no the background clerk has dialogue

[ LoreSeeker99: ] Taren. write that down before his face deletes itself again.

[ Loccy_Defense_Squad: ] if he tries the baby i want Loccy to use the hammer first and ask manners later

Seliza removed one silver ring from her left hand, turning it between two fingers, "my champion would like instruction from the man who negotiated with a mountain and made a House sign away thirty percent."

"Instruction," Hajin said, watching Taren’s hands.

"A courtesy match," Taren corrected, his mild voice carrying across the square without rising, "if the lord permits it."

Marrick’s face went through five stages of financial panic before settling on the expression of a man calculating funeral cloth.

"Leave death out of this," Vella said at once, standing from Hans’s chair arm, "and do not break anything I have to heal twice."

"No touching Ash," Juna added, her claws sliding out as Ash grabbed both sides of her collar and tried to climb her head.

Loccy lifted her hammer off the ground, "no touching Juna either."

"That is not part of the match," Juna said, ears flicking back.

"It is part of my match."

Hajin rolled his shoulders once, then stepped into the open patch of square where wagon wheels had beaten the mud flat. The miners backed away, Seliza’s riders formed a loose ring around the open ground. Townsfolk crowded the windows quickly, their faces pale with hard-earned experience and fresh curiosity.

After removing his coat, Taren handed it to Seliza’s nearest rider, revealing a plain gray shirt with bare forearms and empty hands.

"You came unarmed?" Hajin asked.

"No," Taren said.

Hajin decided that was probably the whole warning and shifted his weight.

He let one Ring form around his right forearm, the gold-blue halo rotating once as the square pressure changed. The riders stiffened while Seliza watched without blinking, her silver ring still turning between her fingers.

Taren moved while everyone looked at the Ring, crossing ten feet without a rush. His left hand stayed low, his right hand empty, one foot landing inside Hajin’s reach before the mud had time to splash. Hajin caught the wrist by instinct, but Taren’s elbow folded wrong, turning the grip into a hook against Hajin’s thumb.

Pain snapped up his hand, forcing his grip loose before pride could argue.

’Annoying,’ he thought, letting the Ring pull strength into his shoulder as he twisted with the pressure instead of fighting it.

Taren’s knee came for his ribs, and Hajin shifted back half a step before driving a palm toward his chest. The strike hit air because Taren had already dropped under the line, one finger tapping Hajin’s belt where a knife would have opened him.

[ ShadowMage44: ] he just killed him politely

[ RationalSkeptic7: ] the scary part is that nothing announced the attack. He was just there before Hajin could punish it.

"Again," Hajin said.

Taren’s eyes warmed by a fraction, making his face harder to remember.

The second exchange lasted longer, with Hajin watching the space Taren wanted instead of chasing every feint. He let the Ring’s pull sit low in his legs while Taren angled toward Juna’s side of the square. Taren did not want her; he wanted the twitch in Hajin’s attention whenever Ash made a sound there.

"He is reading your attachments," Aria said, floating above Hajin’s left shoulder, "do not reward him."

"I noticed," he muttered.

Taren’s wrist snapped, a strip of metal sliding from his sleeve and appearing at Hajin’s throat while his other hand pinned the Ring arm two inches from moving.

Hajin summoned the Chain into his free hand, the links hitting the mud before curling against the back of Taren’s knee.

No one inside the ring moved while Seliza’s riders forgot to breathe. Marrick made a wounded noise as Hans leaned forward in the chair, one eye narrowed with the first honest interest he had shown all morning.

"Your throat," Taren said.

"Your knee," Hajin answered, pressing the chain a little tighter.

Taren’s mouth shifted by a hair before the almost-smile vanished again, just as Ash vanished from Juna’s arms.

Hajin’s head turned before the blink-step finished, but Juna was faster from pure babysitting rage, catching the back of Ash’s shirt as the boy appeared three feet from Taren with a half-eaten core raised over his head like a rock.

The boy kicked both legs while glaring at the gray man, but Juna hauled him backward, "no, you do not duel mysterious old men at such an age."

A growl came from Juna’s grip, and Loccy pointed at him with grave approval, "seems our little Ash has good battle spirit but terrible timing."

The square exhaled in ragged pieces, laughter breaking through the windows before everyone remembered Seliza was watching.

Taren looked at Ash for one beat too long, and the third exchange began without either man agreeing to it. Hajin moved first this time, his chain low, not attacking Taren’s body but the exits his feet kept choosing.

Taren retreated once, twice, then flowed inside the chain’s curve with that same dead economy, metal strip aiming for Hajin’s wrist joint.

Hajin released the chain, and Taren’s eyes shifted as the links dropped into the mud as if abandoned. Hajin stepped on one link and kicked the rest sideways, making it snap up from below against the angle Taren had already committed to.

Taren answered with mana at last, though shards never appeared and pressure never spilled from his body. His outline simply tightened, and the chain missed his ankle by a finger.

Aria went very still, her projected hands closing once before the warning arrived.

[ Error: output detected without visible Shard manifestation. ]

[ Classification conflict. ]

"Interesting," Hajin said.

"Mutual," Taren answered.

Seliza lifted her bare left hand, and eight silver shards unfolded around her forearm, too neat to be everything she had. Each one was thin and curved like a serpent scale, bending the square under pressure that felt precise as a blade laid across every throat at once.

A silver line cut between Hajin and Taren, carving the mud without touching either man.

"That will do," she said.

The ring around Hajin’s arm slowed as Taren’s metal strip vanished back into his sleeve before most of the watchers realized it had moved.

Marrick stared at Seliza’s shards and swallowed whatever prayer had climbed into his mouth.

"She is only showing eight," Aria whispered, displeased, "the rest is being masked."

"I saw," Hajin said.

Seliza slid the ring back onto her finger, and the shards disappeared as if the square had imagined them.

"My House is not made of ledgers alone," she said pleasantly.

"I figured," he replied, dismissing the ring while Juna wrestled Ash back onto her hip.

Taren put his coat back on with the same forgettable care he did everything else, then bowed to Hajin with more respect than he had shown yesterday.

"Instruction received," he said.

"What did you learn?" Seliza asked.

Taren looked at Ash, then Juna’s claws, then the muddy line where Hajin’s chain had almost taken his leg.

"He does not guard his territory like property," Taren said, mild voice turning the square quiet again, "he guards it like family."

Seliza’s smile thinned, but Hajin watched her eyes instead of her mouth. For one breath, the Serpent Queen looked less amused by what she had bought, and more worried about what she had just helped feed.