Extra's Survival: Raising SSS-Rank Characters Is My Only Option

The words didn’t process immediately, then they did.

And only when Jin rose from the cold stone floor, knees aching, head still pounding, did the text appear.

[ ✦ Emergency Quest Complete ✦ ]

[ Quest ”Survive the Duke’s Judgment” has been completed. ]

[ Result: Disownment avoided. The Gannon name is retained. ]

[ The canonical event has been successfully evaded. ]

[ Distributing Quest Rewards ]

[ Narrative Relevance Updated: 0.04% → 0.11% ]

[ Your existence grows marginally stronger. ]

[ New Feature Unlocked: Narrative Quests ]

Jin stared at the messages for a moment longer than necessary, then bowed respectfully to the duke.

”Thank you, Father.”

✧ ✧ ✧

The door closed behind him with a soft click.

Jin stood in the corridor with his back against it and did not move.

On either side of the study entrance, household knights stood rigidly in full armor, the crest of the White Griffin engraved across their breastplates.

They were trying hard not to stare at him, but they failed terribly.

Jin could feel their eyes on the side of his face. The looks weren’t openly hostile, but they were far from friendly. It was obvious they didn’t like him - or more precisely, they didn’t like the original owner of the body he now inhabited.

He ignored them.

’Now what?’

He had been thrown into a crisis before he had even realized there was one. Somehow, he had navigated it using little more than instinct and the fragments he remembered from the novel.

And he had survived it.

But now that the door had closed, the immediate danger had passed, and he was left standing in a quiet corridor.

Only now did the full weight of the situation settle on him.

He had been transmigrated!

And he was inside the novel ’The Last Age of Radiance’.

Inside the real world of his favorite fantasy novel.

’I used to imagine being inside the novel,’ Jin thought. ’But I never imagined I would end up as Encrid Gannon.’

”Young master...”

A small voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

Jin turned.

A boy stood a few feet away. He looked about fifteen at most - thin and slightly hunched, with sharp, alert eyes, like someone used to carefully watching the moods of a dangerous person.

He was looking at Jin with an expression that was difficult to read because he was trying so hard to be neutral. But beneath that effort, Jin could see it clearly.

Fear.

Jin had no idea who he was.

The knights behind him were still watching, and it made him uncomfortable.

He needed time to think.

A quiet place where he could process what had just happened and what he was supposed to do next.

Unfortunately, this corridor was not that place.

There was just one problem.

Jin had absolutely no idea where Encrid’s room was.

He knew the name of the duchy, he knew the important members of the household, and he knew the political significance of the Gannon family within the empire.

But he had no idea which hallway led where.

Jin had inherited none of Encrid’s memories.

’Shouldn’t people normally inherit memories in situations like this?’

He had read plenty of transmigration novels. The protagonist usually inherited the host’s memories and quickly adapted to the new world.

But none of that had happened.

He was simply himself inside a stranger’s body, in a house he had never walked through, which left him with only one option.

Jin looked at the boy.

”Lead me to my room,” he said.

✧ ✧ ✧

The Gannon estate lived up to the reputation of one of the four ducal houses of the empire.

’This is ridiculous,’ Jin thought as he followed the boy in silence.

The hallway had vaulted ceilings, and the stone corridors were wide enough for six men to walk side by side.

Tapestries depicting scenes he didn’t recognize hung between tall arched windows that let in pale, gray morning light.

Servants moved through the halls with practiced efficiency.

Several glanced at Jin as he passed, and he noticed the nature of those glances.

Fear. Hatred. Disgust.

A whole spectrum of unpleasant emotions was being directed at him.

’I can imagine how this bastard used to behave,’ Jin thought. ’Definitely not someone people liked.’

The boy stopped before a door at the end of a side corridor. He stepped aside and lowered his eyes, hands folded neatly in front of him, waiting for instructions.

”I need some time alone,” Jin said.

Then he added, ”Do not disturb me.”

The relief on the boy’s face was as genuine as it could get.

”Yes, young master.”

He opened the door.

The room was not what Jin had expected.

It wasn’t dirty or rundown - nothing in the Gannon household could really be. But the room carried the faint atmosphere of a place that hadn’t been cared for in a long time. As if the servants maintained it out of obligation rather than attention.

The furniture was good and expensive by the look of it - made of heavy dark wood, clearly crafted by skilled hands.

But a thin layer of dust had settled across the surfaces.

Jin took it in slowly.

A desk sat buried beneath scattered papers and unopened letters. A wardrobe hung half-open, clothes spilling carelessly from inside.

Three empty bottles lay sprawled across the floor.

And on the far wall, there was a painting.

Of a woman.

She was beautiful in a way he couldn’t quite put into words. She had dark hair, soft brown eyes, and a bright, warm smile that made it easy to overlook the thinness of her frame.

And unlike the rest of the room, the portrait was perfectly maintained.

No dust touched its frame.

It was hung at a height where it could easily be seen from the bed.

Jin stared at it for a moment, then looked away.

He walked to the bed and sat down.

The mattress sank beneath him with an unexpected softness, and for a brief moment, he simply sat there, registering the sensation.

Then his gaze lifted, turning to a mirror that stood against the opposite wall.

✦ ✦ ✦