Chương 48: Chapter : 48

Princess Iris gave him a soft, apologetic smile. She shook her head gently.

"No, Ken. I am the Royal Candidate. I am the 'Master' of the unit. Under the rules of the Succession War, the Masters are allowed to be present on the battlefield to give orders, but we are not officially counted as Servants. The Servants are the ones who must execute the combat." Ken's mouth formed a perfect 'O' shape. He stood completely still for three seconds. Then, he threw his arms up in the air and let out a massive, dramatic groan that echoed across the entire courtyard.

"Seven?!" Ken yelled, looking around at the girls as if they had all gone crazy.

"We only have seven people?! I read the pamphlet they handed out at the registration! The rules say every Royal Candidate must assemble a team of exactly nine Servants! Nine! We are missing two whole people!" Laxmi crossed her arms and glared at him.

"We know how to count, Ken. You don't need to yell."

"I absolutely need to yell!" Ken protested, putting his hands on his hips and acting deeply offended.

"This is a severe labor violation! We are severely understaffed! I signed up to be the ninth servant, which implies there are eight other people to do the hard work before you get to me! If there are only seven of us, that means I have to do extra work! I demand overtime pay right now!"

"You haven't done any work yet!" Naomi shouted back, her patience completely gone.

"You hid in the garbage this morning! What extra work are you talking about?!"

"Emotional labor!" Ken shot back instantly.

"Being around you guys is very stressful for my heart!" Sayma stepped directly between Ken and Naomi before Naomi could pull out her dagger. The Vice-Captain pushed her glasses up and looked at Ken with a calm, level expression.

"Ken, please calm down," Sayma said politely, but firmly.

"Our roster is actually completely full. The 13th Unit has exactly nine official Servants registered with the Upper Council. You are not required to do the work of three people." Ken blinked lazily. He looked to his left. He looked to his right. There was nobody else standing in the courtyard.

"Okay, so where are they? Are they invisible? Did Vane already curse them? Because if we have invisible teammates, that is actually super cool and I want to meet them."

"They are not invisible," Sayma sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"They are simply unavailable for this specific mission."

"Unavailable?" Ken repeated, crossing his arms and slouching heavily.

"How can you be unavailable on the very first day of the war? Did they oversleep? Because if sleeping in is an option, I would like to use my sick days right now." Zinia let out a rough laugh, stretching her arms above her head.

"You wish, Ken. Trust me, you don't want to switch places with either of them." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Sayma pulled out her small notebook again, keeping her voice completely professional.

"The final two members of our unit are absent for very good reasons. One of them is currently abroad on a separate, highly classified assignment for the Princess. She is traveling back from the border provinces and will not arrive at the capital for a few more days."

"A separate assignment?" Ken asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Is she strong?" Laxmi grinned, a spark of fire dancing on her fingertips.

"She is terrifying. She is super strict. When she gets back, she is going to make you run a hundred laps around this courtyard just for having your shirt untucked. She hates lazy people." Ken instantly frowned.

"Great. Another boss lady who wants to yell at me. I can't wait. What about the other missing person? Are they also going to make me do jumping jacks?" The playful mood in the courtyard suddenly vanished. A heavy, uncomfortable silence settled over the girls. Naomi looked away, staring at the ground. Zinia stopped stretching. Even Sayma looked a little uneasy.

"The other teammate..." Sayma started, choosing her words very carefully.

"She has a highly special and dangerous circumstance." Ken tilted his head.

"Dangerous? Like, she is sick?"

"No," Princess Iris stepped forward, her violet eyes filled with a deep, sorrowful shadow.

"It is not a sickness. It is a condition. Her magic... it is very unstable. It is so powerful and so difficult to control that it poses a massive risk to everyone around her. She is strictly forbidden from joining normal missions because if she loses control, she could destroy the entire area." Ken dropped his goofy act for a split second. His dark, sleepy eyes analyzed the Princess's face. He could see that Iris was not exaggerating. Whoever this missing servant was, she was an actual hazard to her own team.

"So she is basically a walking bomb," Ken concluded bluntly.

"Do not speak about her like that," Naomi snapped, her voice surprisingly defensive.

"She is our sister in arms. She didn't ask for her condition. When she is clear-headed, she is one of the bravest fighters we have." Ken quickly threw his hands up in surrender.

"Okay, okay! My bad. I didn't mean to insult the walking bomb. I am just trying to understand the situation here." Ken turned around and walked a few steps away from the group. He slouched his shoulders as far as they could go, letting out a long, dramatic sigh. He stared up at the clear blue sky, looking like a man who had just been handed a massive pile of homework on a Friday afternoon. Internally, Ken was cursing his luck.

"This is an absolute disaster for my slacker lifestyle," Ken complained to himself in his mind.

"I thought I was just joining a full squad of elite warriors. I thought I could just hide in the back, cheer them on, and eat my snacks. But if we are missing two heavy hitters, the overall combat power of the 13th Unit is way too low for a B-rank mission." He knew Vane was a serious threat. A Curse magic user surrounded by an army of thugs was not a joke. Naomi, Sayma, and the rest of the girls were strong, but they were about to walk into an ambush completely understaffed.

"If they get overwhelmed," Ken realized silently, "I am going to have to step in. I am going to have to do actual work to make sure they don't get hurt. But I can't let them see me use my real power. I have to cover for two missing teammates while pretending to be an absolute, useless clown who trips over his own shoelaces. This is going to require an exhausting amount of acting." Ken turned back around to face the team. He put on his best, most annoying smile.

"Well," Ken clapped his hands together loudly.

"Since we are severely understaffed, I guess I will just have to be extra useless to balance things out. Please do not rely on me for anything. If a bad guy looks at me, I am going to faint immediately." Naomi groaned, completely fed up.

"I swear, if you actually faint, I am going to leave you in the train yard."