The room went quiet for a beat.
Selene's words cut off midstream.
She froze, like her brain needed a second to process what she'd just heard.
Damien stayed seated. He'd already reached out and taken the rolled parchment. He broke the wax seal, unhurried, and skimmed the clauses with quick, practiced eyes.
"Thank you for handling all of this for me," he said evenly. "And thank you for buying me time."
He paused, then added, "Next time we're in public, I'll watch what I say and do."
Selene's fingers unconsciously curled around a strand of hair, twisting it.
She clearly hadn't expected it—this brother of hers who'd always been arrogant, self-absorbed, and never bowed his head to anyone, calmly thanking her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"…I didn't do it for you," she said, turning her face away. Her tone softened a fraction, but it was still hard. "I did it so the family doesn't get dragged through the mud."
"And I can only stall for you."
She looked back at him. "As for the duke—you need to go apologize in person."
At that, she hesitated, like she was deciding whether to say the next part.
"And," she added, "it wasn't just me helping you."
Damien lifted his gaze. "What do you mean?"
"You'd better think about how you're going to face Lady Gwenna."
Damien's eyebrow ticked up.
"Gwenna Stormveil?"
"That's right." Selene's voice cooled again. "With only my recommendation, the Academy wouldn't have signed off."
"It was Lady Gwenna who stepped in. That's the only reason this appointment went through."
Her stare was sharp enough to pierce skin.
"You have a fiancée, and you still chose to publicly 'confess' to another girl at a banquet."
"Really living up to your reputation, Damien."
Damien chose to ignore the sarcasm.
"Whatever you think happened," he said, "I'll thank her personally."
The name took shape instantly in his mind.
Gwenna Stormveil.
Second daughter of the Northland's guardian house.
One of the youngest knight-commanders in the Kingdom of Valemont.
In the game, she was Damien's fiancée.
A purely political engagement—no feelings, just aligned interests.
And at the very end of the main storyline,
it was her who personally cut Damien Thornevale down.
He could still see it.
Cold light flashing off the blade. A clean, merciless swing.
'…Great. One more person I can't afford to piss off,' Damien sighed inwardly.
Gwenna wasn't some throwaway NPC.
Even late-game, when gods and demons were tearing the world apart, she could hold her own.
Her combat power was the kind that made players reload saves.
And right now, he didn't even have the most basic "player advantage" yet.
Selene seemed to catch his silence. A faint, almost amused curve tugged at her mouth.
"I've got matters to handle in the territory," she said with a snort. "I'm not staying here to waste time with you."
She picked up her handbag and turned for the door.
Right before she stepped out, she stopped.
"Oh, right."
She glanced back at him, her disgust completely unfiltered.
"You seriously keep a crow?"
"And it's missing an eye?"
"Your taste is—as always—atrocious."
Bang!
The door slammed shut.
From outside came a maid's voice: "Lady Selene, shall I have a carriage prepared for you?"
Damien didn't answer.
His attention had already snagged on a patch of shadow in the corner of the desk that shouldn't have been there.
A crow stood there, perfectly still.
It was larger than a normal crow, its feathers so black they looked like they swallowed the light.
And the most striking thing was its single eye.
That eye didn't blink as it stared at him.
Not watching.
Fixing on him.
Damien's spine tightened a fraction.
The next second, the crow's beak parted slightly.
It smiled.
Not a bird's reflex.
A human smile, forced onto something that was never meant to wear it.
"Hello,"
a low, rasping voice spoke inside the room,
"I'm the Evil God—Vibricar."
…
"Vibricar?" Damien paused, just slightly.
The name wasn't unfamiliar.
From the deepest part of his memory, scattered bits of game lore flipped open like a dust-sealed book, pages riffling fast.
In that MMORPG's setting, Vibricar was never something you could challenge, talk to, or "clear."
No questline.
No dungeon entrance.
Not even a single, clearly marked story beat.
His name only existed in background text.
Buried in the footnotes of incomplete ancient tomes, in weathered fragments of broken steles, and in the slurred, half-mad songs of wandering bards.
And every time that name appeared, what followed was never good news.
Plague.
War.
The earth splitting open.
Kingdoms collapsing.
Rumor said that after one so-called "Descent," the human population dropped by nearly half.
Vibricar—
an incarnation of calamity.
A whisper of chaos.
A presence even the gods deliberately avoided naming.
And now the owner of that name was standing on the edge of Damien's desk… in the form of a one-eyed crow.
The room seemed a few degrees colder than it had been.
The air thickened, congealing—like even the light didn't want to get too close to that patch of shadow.
"Of course."
The crow dipped its head. Black wings folded neatly across its chest as it performed something close to a proper noble's bow.
"You may also call me Vaelric. That is the name I'm using at present."
Damien didn't answer right away.
His gaze fixed on the single eye.
It didn't look like an animal's eye.
It looked more like a window—something on the other side staring straight through him.
A thread of instinctive cold crawled slowly up his spine.
He couldn't tell whether this bird was insane, or whether he was in the middle of some violently irrational hallucination.
But one thing was certain—
in the game, anyone who made direct contact with a "god" almost never ended well.
Especially a kind of Evil God who only existed in lore text.
"Interesting," Vaelric chuckled under its breath. "So you really have heard of me."
"Haven't," Damien replied flatly.
His tone stayed even—controlled to the point of feeling deliberate.
In a situation like this, letting your emotions crack first was the fastest way to die.
The crow cocked its head.
That glossy, unnatural eye locked onto him tighter.
"You are not Damien," the voice rasped, low and hollow, like it came from the bottom of a deep pit. "Your soul… isn't dirty enough."