To avoid a scene in the cramped streets, Yulia kept her voice level.

"Emissaries of Princess Yulia," she said, her smile practiced and thin. "We're here to check the pot. Also... does anyone here know how to make cream?"

Alik's wife beamed, her eyes softening instantly. "Emissaries... so beautiful. The forge is just inside. I can teach you the cream—everyone in the district knows that much."

"Much appreciated," Yulia replied.

The woman didn't suspect a thing. She couldn't imagine that the high god of the Temple of Abyss would walk into her shack in such a low-profile disguise.

"Why the change of heart?" Yulia whispered to Caerus as the woman left. "You said no earlier."

Caerus walked ahead, his expression a wall of cold stone. He didn't have a reason. His will was the only law of the world.

"I felt like it," he said, his voice a low, flat drone. "Nothing more."

Yulia sighed. The dragon's logic was a maze. "Does this magic really hide us? We look exactly the same to me."

Caerus glanced back, his golden slit eyes showing a flash of pure disdain. He waved a hand, a quick cleaning spell scrubbing the wooden chair before he sat.

"Shapeshifting is for amateurs," he muttered. "A clumsy, low-level trick."

Yulia searched her memories of the Great East Academy. In her world, shapeshifting was a legendary High Magic with a near-zero success rate.

"Then what is this?"

"Memory Overwriting," Caerus replied, his voice heavy with boredom. "They see our faces. But the moment they try to remember them, the details blur into static."

"I've never read about that in the Academy books," Yulia said, leaning in.

"Of course not," Caerus said, leaning his head on his hand. "I just thought of it this morning."

Yulia went silent. In the Farislan Empire, no one created spells—not even the masters. This dragon was a walking cheat code.

Caerus turned his gaze to the corner. The boy, Bacon, was slowly chewing his last bite of the sandwich, staring at them with wide, hollow eyes.

"What?" Caerus barked.

"Sir... are you an archangel?" Bacon asked, his voice trembling. "You look like the statues in the cathedral. And the lady... she's more beautiful than the Divine Statue."

"I didn't give you permission to speak, boy," Caerus said, his tone icy. "You're working for the Dragon. Where is your pay? Why are you still a starving rat?"

Bacon swallowed hard. "Mom says the gold doesn't belong to us. Lord Felix said the city needs it. He gave us ten silver."

Yulia's jaw tightened. "Ten silver? For the iron and the labor?"

Bacon nodded.

Yulia did the math. One hundred silver made a gold. The raw iron for a pot alone cost nine silver. Lord Felix was bleeding them dry.

Bacon didn't know the math. He just knew the Lord was a wolf. He looked at Yulia with a desperate, tiny hope.

"Can I know your name, emissary?"

"Lillia," Yulia lied, a small, sad smile touching her lips.

"Lady Lillia," Bacon said, his voice suddenly firm. "Wait ten years for me. I'll go to the Academy. I'll become a mage and find you."

Yulia's smile faltered. Beside her, Caerus's head tilted, a dangerous glint in his golden eyes.

Alik rushed in from the forge, soot covering his arms. "Emissaries! Forgive the delay!"

Yulia turned to him, her voice dropping an octave. "Alik. Where is the gold?"

Alik exchanged a frantic, terrified look with his wife. "That... we..."

"Bacon told us," Yulia said, her voice cutting through his stammer. "The Dragon is just. If you've been cheated, we'll fix it."

Caerus looked at the boy's head, his fingers twitching as if weighing whether to crush it.

Alik's wife clasped her hands, her head bowed. "I shouldn't speak ill of a Lord... it's a sin. But..."

Yulia stepped between Caerus and the child, her hand resting on the boy's shoulder. "The God will forgive you," she said, her smile not reaching her eyes.

Caerus stared at her hand. I will?

Alik's voice shook as he explained. Lord Felix had been exiled to the Old Pigeon district by the Dark Pope. He was a leech, hoarding every coin to buy his way back to the southern luxury.

Yulia looked at Caerus. His face was as cold as mountain frost. He didn't care about their story.

But Yulia saw the boy's eyes. She saw the gray, crumbling neighborhood and the people living on the edge. She didn't understand the "Divine Order," but she knew the look of a starving child.

"Teach me the cream," Yulia whispered. It was all she could do.

In the southern Inquisition, Lord Felix stood before the Dark Pope, his voice a frantic crawl.

"Just a pot?" Gordon Stewart asked, his voice echoing in the marble hall.

"A strange shape. Ten thousand strikes. For... food?" Felix's brow was slick with sweat.

The Pope sat forward, his fingers digging into the gold of his throne. He didn't believe it. The Black Dragon wouldn't mobilize every smith for a kitchen tool.

"It's a trick," the Pope whispered.

"You think... it's a shield?" Felix asked, his eyes widening. "A new armor piece?"

The Pope nodded slowly. The High Priests around him moved in closer.

"Ten thousand strikes on low-tier smiths to hide the signatures," the Pope hissed. "Evil. Pure evil."

"They're plotting! They're going to snatch the power right out of the Pope's hands!"

Pope Gordon Stewart lunges out of his gilded chair, his face twisting with a sudden, jagged panic.

"No! Fortify the Black Crow district walls! Tell Knight Norman to double the drills, now!"

A heavy silence drops over the hall. "Even with Norman... even with every mage in the city... we can't touch that thing," a voice whispers from the back.

Gordon Stewart stalks to the window, his gaze fixed on the jagged line of the Wind-Kissed Forest.

"Then it's time," he rasps, his knuckles turning white as he grips the sill. "Time we wake our friend."