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

The courtyard fell silent.

Then, from among the fishermen gathered near the recovered cargo, a weathered voice finally broke through the silence.

”The Aldern caravan.”

An old man stepped forward.

His clothes were patched and faded from years of work beneath the open sky, and his hands trembled slightly at his sides as he stared at Rodric from beneath a deeply furrowed brow.

”My brother drove for the Aldern caravan.”

He swallowed before continuing, and when he spoke again his voice was quieter, but somehow carried even farther.

”Where is my brother, my lord?”

Rodric stared at him.

For a moment, he seemed unable to understand the question.

Then he did.

The old man’s brother was one of the missing men.

One of the names buried among the dates and figures in the ledger.

The silence that followed was deeper than before, because nobody needed to repeat the question, and nobody needed to explain what the old man was asking.

Where is my brother?

It hung in the cold air like a verdict that had not yet been formally spoken.

The old fisherman did not shout or curse, he simply stood waiting for an answer. Rodric’s mouth opened slightly but no words came. His eyes moved away from the old man.

There were others watching now.

A merchant whose caravan had vanished three months ago, a village headman whose two sons had disappeared while transporting grain, a woman standing near the rear of the crowd, clutching the sleeve of a boy who looked old enough to understand what was being discussed but young enough to still believe adults could fix everything.

All of them were looking at Rodric and all of them were waiting for answers.

Rodric sat rigidly upon his horse, surrounded by twenty soldiers and two household knights, with the crimson banner of House Maren still flying proudly above him.

Yet for all the men behind him, for all the authority the banner represented, he had never felt more alone.

Every advantage he had believed he possessed had become meaningless the moment he entered the courtyard.

He could threaten a clerk.

He could intimidate a fisherman.

Perhaps he could even silence a handful of merchants.

But he could not cut down this entire crowd without turning an accusation into a confession, and he certainly could not slaughter a son of House Cavel and Encrid Gannon while standing beneath the White Griffin’s protection and expect the North to forget what had happened.

And the worst part was that Encrid Gannon had barely done anything at all.

He had not drawn his sword.

He had not shouted.

He had not even accused Rodric directly.

He had simply gathered the people who had suffered, placed the evidence in front of them, and allowed Rodric to walk into the middle of it himself.

Jin watched the realization slowly spread across the young lord’s face as Rodric’s eyes moved from one witness to another, desperately searching for some opening through which he might still escape.

There wasn’t one.

’You could have stayed home,’ Jin thought, almost kindly.

’You could have denied everything from behind your own walls, burned your copies, bribed a few clerks, and spent the next few months pretending none of this had happened.’

His gaze settled upon the crimson banner fluttering above Rodric.

’Instead, you rode up the mountain with twenty men and demanded the evidence back in front of fifty witnesses.’

Jin’s lips almost curved into a smile.

’Thank you.’

’I could never have arranged this better myself.’

Rodric’s fingers tightened around the reins until his knuckles turned pale.

The leather creaked beneath his grip.

For several seconds, he remained frozen, caught between the instinct to lash out and the dawning realization that there was no target he could safely strike.

His soldiers were watching him, the knights were watching him. The merchants were watching him.

Even the fishermen were watching him.

If he ordered his men to seize the documents now, they would have to fight their way through the courtyard.

If he ordered them to arrest someone, he would have to explain the charge.

If he attacked Encrid, the matter would no longer be an accusation.

It would become a declaration of war against the Duke Gannon for attacking a family member, which was something he could not afford to do.

And if he simply left-

That would look like defeat.

Rodric’s jaw tightened.

For perhaps the first time in his life, he understood that there were situations where doing nothing was not weakness.

It was survival.

At last, he wrenched his horse around.

The crimson banner swung sharply with the movement, and the twenty riders behind him followed almost immediately, their horses turning one after another as they descended the narrow switchback they had climbed with such confidence only moments before.

The old fisherman watched them leave. He did not move.

Neither did anyone else.

Rodric did not threaten anyone.

He did not offer another explanation, he didn’t even look back.

The courtyard remained silent until the last flash of red disappeared between the trees.

Only then did the tension begin to loosen.

A breath escaped somewhere in the crowd.

Then another.

Someone muttered something beneath their breath.

A merchant laughed once, nervously, as though he could not quite believe what he had just witnessed.

The murmurs spread from one group to another, growing louder as people slowly realized that the young lord had ridden into the fortress expecting to command the room and had instead been forced to retreat without recovering so much as a single page.

The old fisherman finally lowered his head.

His shoulders sagged.

Not with relief, not entirely at least.

There was still no answer for where his brother was.

But at least now, someone was asking the question now.

And perhaps that was enough to begin with.

Jin allowed the crowd a few moments to talk before finally rising from his chair.

The movement drew several nearby conversations to a halt.

He looked over the gathered merchants, village heads, craftsmen, clerks, and boatmen, then glanced at the mountains of recovered goods waiting to be claimed.

There were crates of cloth,, bundles of dried herbs, tools, weapons. Barrels, coins and personal belongings that had clearly been taken from travellers.

The sheer amount of recovered property was enough to make the courtyard look like a market had been overturned and left in the middle of the fortress.

Jin rubbed his hands together once.

There was still a mountain of work left.

”Honoured guests,” he said, his voice carrying easily across the courtyard.

The murmuring gradually died down.

”The claims table will reopen in one hour.”

A few merchants exchanged glances.

Someone at the rear groaned quietly.

Jin ignored it.

He paused, looking at the long line that was already beginning to form.

”So please, form an orderly line.”

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