Chapter 102: Rolo
Flea Street stagnated within the absolute southwestern corner of the Pedri District. It comprised less of a legitimate municipal thoroughfare and more of a chaotic, forgotten wasteland of broken stone masonry and shattered roof tiles. The surrounding tenements were populated almost exclusively by destitute laborers, broken outcasts, and the nameless homeless of the lower ring; even the stagnant air within the alleys carried a faint, persistent stench of environmental decay.
Not long after the carriage wheels crunched onto the broken stones, the old drayman pulled hard on the reins, forcing the horses to slow their pace before dropping anchor on a patch of open ground lining the curb. He forced a strained, deeply anxious smile across his features, calling out over his shoulder into the cabin. "Good knights... my horses have reached the absolute boundary of Flea Street."
Kristoff climbed out from the low frame, his eyes scanning the bleak perspective before nodding toward the narrow pass ahead. "Keep the wheels turning. My hand will guide your route from this coordinate."
"Young master," the old coachman swallowed hard, his throat tightening as he spoke in a cautious, pleading whisper. "The copper runes your fingers hand-delivered to my palm are strictly sufficient to clear the distance to this marker. Even if your house offered to double the weight of the silver, my heart lacks the courage to drive these beasts a single inch further into the dark."
He glanced nervously toward the deepening winter twilight settling over the roofs, his voice dropping into a hushed warning. "Furthermore, if my tongue may offer a piece of counsel, the three of you should abandon the path before the sun fully dies. Though your iron armor suggests you command an exceptional proficiency in martial arts, those twisting alleys ahead are frequently patrolled by vicious, predatory alien races the exact watch the lanterns fade!"
"A few suns past, an old companion from the livery yard swore his eyes tracked a cluster of the Omen-Born lurking through these very corners. He claimed their rags were thoroughly saturated in fresh blood—there is a high probability they had just butchered a handful of poor laborers returning late from the docks."
"Enough, enough," Kristoff interrupted, waving his hand to dismiss the man's frantic anxieties. "Turn your horses back to the stables."
The three incognito demigods leaped down onto the cobbles, watching the old coachman—who looked exactly like a condemned criminal who had just harvested a royal pardon—frantically crack his whip to drive his carriage away at maximum velocity.
Radahn watched the dust settle, a look of genuine curiosity mapping his face as he un-latched his visor. "They represent nothing more than a handful of Omen souls blessed by the fire of the primordial forge. Their biological lineage bears zero structural variation from the veteran Crucible Knights enforcing the palace gates. By what logic do the common citizens of Leyndell harbor such a frantic terror toward their names?"
"The world commands zero simple remedies for that disease, big brother. It is simply the way the realm is aligned," Lucia sighed softly, his boots adjusting to the broken stone. "The deep-seated prejudices woven into the marrow of the populace cannot be dissolved across a single watch of the clock."
He turned his focus to observe the rare vagrants and exhausted weavers who occasionally drifted through the shadows of the surrounding doorways. These impoverished citizens who clung to the slums out of absolute economic necessity comprised only a microscopic fraction of the golden capital's grand census. Yet, these specific outcasts who routinely crossed paths with the Omen, the Misbegotten, and the demi-human tribes across their nightly routines displayed absolute zero trace of panic or disgust.
Perhaps only those souls trapped at the absolute baseline of society could realize through the raw grit of daily existence that these feared foreigners and defiled children were fundamentally human in their suffering. But what their un-schooled minds failed to decode was that the true horror did not emerge from the horns of an Omen; it emerged from the narrow-minded malice and cold prejudice tightly codified into the imperial laws, and the ignorance, fanatical cruelty, and mindless violence that naturally sprouted from those decrees.
"Let us move," Lucia commanded quietly. "Our destination is the clinic managed by Tolisha."
Roughly half an hour down the clock, after navigating a labyrinth of narrow, choked alleyways completely impassable to standard horse-drawn transport, the trio finally cleared the final turn to stand before the modest stone clinic nestled deep within the heart of Flea Street.
The exact watch their boots approached the threshold, a chaotic flurry of panic violently erupted from within the building. A short, battered demi-human youth with thick linen bandages wrapped around his mangled calf came bursting through the door in a state of absolute frenzy, screaming toward the rear rooms at the top of his lungs. "Mistress—! Lady Tolisha, abandon the surgery! Run! A squad of iron-clad mercenaries commanding malicious intent has broken our outer perimeter!"
Instantly, a wave of pure terror swept across the entire clinic ward. Omitting those critical patients whose trauma rendered them physically unable to shift their weight from the cots, every single demi-human and Misbegotten who still possessed the capacity to scramble threw their arms around one another, dragging their broken frames toward the exit of the back courtyard in a desperate bid to escape.
Tolisha, who had been quietly preparing an infusion of dried aromatic herbs inside the apothecary room, immediately abandoned her pestle to sprint into the main hall to intercept the threat. It was strictly when her panicked eyes locked onto the familiar silhouettes of Kristoff and Lucia standing beneath the archway that her rigid, defensive posture instantly dissolved. A long breath of relief cleared her lips, and she turned her voice to gently recall the weeping patients back into the safety of the wards.
Lucia and his companions immediately stepped through the door to assist in restoring order. Following ten minutes of gentle handling and quiet reassurances, the intense chaos triggered by the simple misunderstanding finally subsided back into a quiet calm.
"What is the source code behind this panic?" Kristoff murmured, peeping through the curtain at the shivering group of non-human wounded, his expression thoroughly puzzled. "My boots have cleared these doors a dozen times past, yet my shield has never logged an reaction of this density. Why did they scatter like livestock today?"
"The parameters have shifted, sir," the young Perfumer explained with a helpless, self-deprecating smile as she busied her hands pouring hot herbal tea for the three travelers. "On previous watches, your mantle always cleared the alley alone, encased within the unmistakable armor of the Ancient Dragon Temple. The absolute majority of these outcasts have harvested the rumors stating that the Sky Temple extends its healing hand to protect non-human slaves—consequently, even if their eyes lacked a personal registry for your face, their hearts harbored zero fear."
She hand-delivered the warm clay cups to her guests one by single one, her dark eyes shifting. "But on this night, there manifest three massive figures entering the lane simultaneously, every single one of you dressed in the scarred, un-crested iron of mercenary blades. Evaluated at a surface glance, your vanguard looks exactly like a squad of private house-thugs or brutal border-hunters deployed by some minor baron to harvest runaway laborers. They were dragged to Leyndell inside iron cages by men wearing that exact iron; it is entirely natural for their marrow to freeze."
"Ah... turning our focus to the dataset," the girl paused, her eyes lingering on Radahn's immense, red-bearded profile with a touch of curiosity as she extended her palm. "May my library archive the title of your companion?"
"Ah! My person represents merely a common fellow traveler and classmate to these two scoundrels. You may record my name simply as Radahn," the red-haired prince laughed heartily, his massive, calloused hand reaching out to execute a warm, un-courtly handshake with the young physician.
Tolisha registered the syllables Radahn across her ears, her mind freezing for a momentary watch before her eyes dilated in absolute, un-mitigated shock. She let out a soft gasp. "You... your boots belong to the Carian Royalty? You are His Royal Highness, Prince Radahn?!"
"Well... according to the current administrative registries, there shouldn't exist a secondary madman sharing my exact title within the capital ring for the time being," Radahn joked easily, his deep baritone filling the small room. "Consequently, it is an honor, Doctor. This small clinic scores as the absolute least annoying coordinate my eyes have tracked since my carriage cleared the outer walls."
"Her primary vocation is that of a certified Perfumer, a direct line-disciple trained under the old Court Masters; executing the duties of a standard physician comprises merely a side endeavor to manage her charity," Lucia corrected from the flank, a faint smile touching his lips. "But your evaluation preserves an absolute truth, big brother: this coordinate functions indeed as one of the solitary clean and comfortable sanctuaries remaining across the capital."
Hearing two legendary demigods of the realm drop such an immense volume of praise onto her humble house, the young Perfumer's cheeks flushed a deep, vibrant crimson. She turned her torso to deliver a playful, embarrassed punch straight against Kristoff's iron breastplate, muttering a flustered complaint through her teeth. "This entire gridlock is permanently the fault of your knightly shield! You continuously guide these monumental entities into my parlor... how is my small kitchen supposed to properly entertain two sovereign princes of the dynasty?"
Kristoff rubbed the iron covering his ribs, his features mapping a thoroughly aggrieved, comical expression. The last watch he had cleared these gates, Princess Lucia had aggressively commanded his boots to act as her vanguard on her own signature; on this night, the decision to track a path into the slums had emerged entirely from the Dragon Prince's own calculations. By what logic was his name written down as the solitary culprit behind the friction?
"Banish the worry, Miss Tolisha; the balance is stable," Lucia spoke, waving his hand to clear the air as his expression settled into a serious demeanor. "Our vanguard has just cleared the counting rooms of the Serante Amphitheater, and our interest requires your tongue to verify two critical points of data."
"Your servant is listening, Your Highness. Disclose the queries," Tolisha replied instantly, her posture straightening with professional respect.
Lucia offered a slow nod. "During the years your youth was spent absorbing the medical texts under the direction of Master Clavell, did your ears ever harvest the historical record of a master Perfumer cataloged under the name of Rolo? His chronological cycle should place his age roughly parallel to your own teacher's generation, perhaps slightly senior across the registers."
"Of course my archives command that name—Master Rolo functioned as the single most celebrated, preternaturally gifted Court Perfumer administering the capital guild a handful of winters past," Tolisha explained, her fingers resting against her smooth chin as she retrieved the historical files from her memory. "My private teacher explicitly stated across the laboratory benches that Master Rolo's mastery over alchemical fragrance distillation far out-scoped the limits achieved by any peer of his generation. Concurrently... his raw proficiency in the close-quarters martial disciplines was recorded to have surpassed the capabilities clutched by many celebrated heroes of the legion lines. The pages claim that when His Majesty the Warlord Radagon initially mobilized the golden hosts to launch the southern campaign into Limgrave, he dispatched a royal courier to hand-deliver an recruitment scroll to his laboratory—yet, for some un-mapped reason buried within the archives, Master Rolo ultimately desisted from accepting the commission."
"A master of fragrance whose martial arts out-registered the heroes of the line?" Radahn's red brow lifted behind his cup, his combat instincts instantly sharpening at the description. "My memory notes that the elite operators of the Perfumer Guild all command a specialized knowledge of Aromatic Combat Arts—a discipline that deploys highly volatile chemical medicines to forcefully stimulate the vital attributes of the flesh during a melee, correct? Operating under those parameters... if Rolo wove those volatile mixtures into his personal combat loops, his active lethality would score at an unimaginable height."
"The calculation is text-perfect," Tolisha nodded gravely, her expression turning somber. "My teacher hand-delivered the foundational mechanics of the combat aromatics to my own training, asserting that the art of self-preservation comprises an permanent asset class that every field perfumer is conformed to master. If the subject under evaluation is Master Rolo... his operational deployment of those lethal fragrances would mathematically score multiple tiers above the limits clutched by my own lineage."
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