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

What happened next took less than four seconds, and Jin, watching it, understood for the first time the distance between a soldier and a knight.

Harun crossed the room in two steps.

Dagg saw him coming and threw a punch with his whole drunken weight behind it - and Harun moved his head four inches, took the man’s wrist out of the air, and folded him over a knee to the gut so hard that the sound made half the room flinch.

Dagg hit the floorboards face-first. He tried to rise once. Harun put a boot between his shoulders and pressed, gently, the way you’d hold down the lid of an overfull basket.

”Stay,” Harun said pleasantly.

Jin rose, wiped his mouth, and walked over, as slowly as he could.

He crouched beside the soldier’s purpling face.

”Look at me.”

He said and waited for the soldier to get a good look at his face.

”Good. Do you know who I am?”

”You’re - dead men - Young master Maren will -”

A slap resounded in the Inn as Jin’s hand fell hard on his face.

”Wrong answer.”

He grabbed his chin and turned it to face him.

”Let’s try it with more information.” Jin pulled the collar of his coat aside, so the signet on its chain caught the firelight - the White Griffin, crowned in gold.

He watched the soldier’s eyes find it, focus, and then watched the drink drain out of them all at once, replaced by something much more sober.

”My name is Encrid Gannon. Fourth son of Duke Aegis Von Gannon - the man your baron kneels to. You may have heard of me. They call me the Scoundrel of the North, and the stories are all true, which should worry you, because I’m the one member of my family with nothing left to lose.”

The room was absolutely silent.

”Now listen carefully, because I’ll say this only once, and I want you to carry it home in the correct order.” Jin’s voice stayed conversational, which by all reports made it worse.

”This inn, this woman, and this girl are now under my protection. If anything happens to them - if the rates go up, if a lamp falls over, if a cart rolls through the fence, if the girl so much as trips on a wet stair - I will come back.”

He paused and let his words sink in.

”And when I come back, I will take a finger for every coin you’ve squeezed from this house. Then, so you never find your way here again, I’ll have your eyes. And then-” Jin leaned in, and finished the sentence quietly, precisely, into the man’s ear.

The soldier made a small sound.

Nobody else in the room heard the last item on the list. They only saw the man’s face go the color of old tallow.

”Nod if you understood all three.”

Dagg nodded against the floorboards, rapidly.

”Good man.” Jin straightened as he chuckled.

”Harun, let him up. He has a report to deliver.”

Harun lifted his boot. The soldier scrambled upright and went through the door without collecting his helmet, and the cold night swallowed the sound of his running.

For a moment the common room stayed frozen. Then a boatman in the corner began to laugh, low and disbelieving, and the whole room breathed again at once.

’And now I’ve done exactly the thing I said I wouldn’t do,’ Jin thought, looking at the door, already tallying the consequences. ’Halfway. I’ve done it halfway. He’ll run to whoever holds his leash, and it won’t be over.’

He turned. Marla was holding her daughter against her shoulder, and looking at Jin over the girl’s head with an expression too complicated to read.

”Supper,” Jin said into the silence, ”was excellent, by the way. We’ll take four rooms.”

✧ ✧ ✧

Marla refused, later, to let them pay for the rooms. Jin argued and lost - it turned out that broad-shouldered northern widows could not be outstubborned by mere dukes’ sons - and settled for hiding a gold Solari under the bread plate where she wouldn’t find it until morning.

He was climbing the stairs when Sir Gareth spoke behind him, quietly.

”Young master. That soldier will report to House Maren tonight.”

”I know.”

”The Maren heir is not his father. The old baron is bedridden - the household runs through the son, and the stories that travel with the son’s name are ugly ones.” He paused.

”You gave your name deliberately, so the matter would land on you rather than on this house. I understood that much. But it means whatever comes next will also come at you.”

Jin stopped at the top of the stairs.

”Sir Gareth, can I ask you something?”

The old knight paused and looked straight into the young master’s eyes. He didn’t know exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the travels he had started to enjoy conversing with him.

Maybe it was because of how much Encrid had changed. Sir Gareth found him very interesting to talk to, and the young master would always have something intriguing to tell.

It was as strange as it was interesting - no one back in the Dukehold would ever believe him if he told them that the young master, who used to be intoxicated all the time and harass the servants and knights, had changed so much.

He kept that amusement to himself and gave his ears to the young master.

”If tomorrow this inn is surrounded...”

He glanced toward the shuttered window overlooking the empty road.

”...and House Maren decides to settle tonight’s humiliation with steel instead of words...”

His eyes returned to Gareth.

”Can the four of you handle it?”

For a heartbeat, the old knight said nothing.

Then something shifted in his weathered face-something that had lain buried beneath thirty years of quiet service.

It looked, disturbingly, like a smile.

”The question, young master...”

Sir Gareth’s voice was almost amused.

”...is not whether we can.” He rested one scarred hand on the worn banister.

”It is whether they’ll still wish to be here after they try.”

Jin blinked.

The smile on Sir Gareth’s face had disappeared as quickly as it had come.

”Get some sleep, young master.”

Without another word, the old knight turned and continued down the stairs.

Jin watched him go.

’...Interesting.’

For the first time since meeting the four knights, he found himself wondering not who they had become...but how strong they were.

✦ ✦ ✦