Shrapnel and Secrets
The once-noisy hall fell silent in an instant.
It was impossible to tell whether it was because Mateus had joined late with his handsome smile, or because Jin was waving at someone behind him, but one thing was certain: far more eyes were fixed on Jin.
That was only natural.
Hadn’t his appearance looked like he could drop dead at any moment?
A few sensitive individuals sensed the crushed state of Jin’s mana circuits and clicked their tongues.
So much for being partners—he protected his own and left, huh.
His condition had been so dire that people had already offered prayers for the dead.
Only five days had passed since they turned their heads, fully expecting to hear an obituary soon.
How could anyone not be shocked to see Jin, looking suspiciously intact, limping straight toward Katrina?
“Eek. If you’ll excuse me.”
While Mateus, spared the glares thanks to that, chuckled and returned to his seat, Jin gave a light nod to those around him and moved forward.
He answered the stares he received, but the whole scene felt like a grandson finally visiting the main house for the holidays after years away—polite, slightly awkward, and carrying just a hint of pretense.
The attention was burdensome, yet he smiled anyway.
Jin, of course, kept it simple in his head.
Since he had protected the family head’s wife and Katrina, maybe even those stiff, frozen elders would look at him a little more kindly now.
Indeed, the Solbein elders were twice as warm as the others, smiling benevolently at him.
So what could he do?
Even if it felt awkward, he had no choice but to acknowledge every gaze.
Katrina, for her part, had been watching the approaching Jin in silence.
She seemed to realize only then that she was smiling.
Perhaps that was why she forced the corners of her mouth back down, let out a small pained sound, and whispered to Jin as he sat beside her.
“Why are you walking like that? More importantly, when did you wake up? Are you all right? Should you even be moving around?”
“I woke up just now. The walking… there’s a reason.”
He bit his lower lip as pain and an unpleasant foreign sensation climbed up from his rear.
He had tried to sit carefully, but some things simply couldn’t be helped.
Whatever else happened, that thing lodged in his lower back had to come out. It was driving him insane.
Katrina, of course, had no idea. She couldn’t openly show concern, so she only fidgeted with her fingers beneath the table.
“Enough.”
A cool voice cut through the restless atmosphere.
The female elder seated at the head of the table wore a visibly displeased expression.
That strangely dissatisfied look was familiar.
She was the same woman who had tried to lecture Bingbaek last time—the elder of Belgrant.
Jin was still sifting through memories more than a month old when the elder spoke again.
“Mateus? Why are you so late?”
Mateus, straightening his clothes, answered calmly.
“I heard the meeting had been called while I was still in the sky. I rushed as much as I could, but I ended up late. My apologies.”
“You’re still leaving the territory yourself?”
“I am. Is there a problem?”
“There shouldn’t be. I know it’s your conviction. Still, as an elder of Nibraks, perhaps it’s time you recognized your position and left unfulfilled wishes to the next generation. I can’t help thinking that.”
At once, every gaze from the Nibraks faction turned toward the female elder.
For a brief moment, silence settled over the room.
Some raised their eyes.
Others lightly tapped their fingers.
Just like that, wordless displeasure began to spread through the frozen air.
“A valuable suggestion. I’ll keep it in mind, Resina.”
Mateus’s timely reply made the elder called Resina raise an eyebrow.
She slowly shifted her entangled gaze aside.
Naturally, the people standing behind the two elders who had been glaring at the opposing faction also withdrew their hostility.
Yet Jin, watching the exchange, only tilted his head.
What? Is she looking at me now?
The gaze was clear even from a distance.
Resina was staring straight at him.
“I heard you accomplished something great.”
“……”
“Marjie blood should never flow recklessly on Marjie land. Not even a single drop.”
Her low voice continued.
“Thanks to you, we avoided that. You worked hard.”
Jin’s expression grew complicated.
It was clearly praise, yet it felt… cold. As unpleasant as the metal shard still buried inside him.
Then a thought struck him.
Marjie blood shouldn’t flow recklessly? Not even one person?
Wasn’t that a subtle slight against the family head’s wife?
He tilted his head without realizing it.
Indeed it was.
Though invisible, he could feel Katrina clenching her fist beneath the table.
So he glanced sideways at her profile.
Surprisingly, despite her pale, trembling fist, her face looked perfectly calm—as if she were listening to someone else’s story.
Even the other Solbein elders were choosing their words carefully.
Jin understood at once.
Solbein must have something Belgrant could use against them. Otherwise, they would never endure being openly needled like this.
It reeked of politics.
Whatever. Not my problem.
“I spilled plenty of blood myself, though.”
“…?”
“Felt like I poured buckets of it across Marjie land. Is that still all right?”
“……”
“Ah, because I’m an outsider, it doesn’t count?”
A short silence fell.
Resina’s brow twitched ever so slightly.
Jin pretended not to notice and added with a grin.
“I’m family now too, so hearing that stings a little.”
At the same time, a crack formed across Resina’s smooth forehead.
It looked as though a permanent wrinkle had just been carved in.
Jin confirmed the sight, then lightly poked Katrina’s hand under the table.
See that? I got her good.
I can play politics too when I want. Years of ranked games taught me a thing or two.
Katrina, however, seemed to interpret the gesture differently.
Well, it didn’t matter.
What mattered was that Jin’s words had clearly gotten under the Belgrant elder’s skin.
She had planned to offer formal praise and then dismiss the outsider who wasn’t yet officially engaged.
That plan had been shattered by a single careless remark.
Now she couldn’t bring up her prepared lines or call out the rudeness without looking petty.
Especially after she herself had just praised Jin’s merits.
So she pressed her lips together and stayed silent.
A self-inflicted trap, really.
Jin hadn’t even thought that far ahead.
“…Then let’s return to the original topic.”
The meeting resumed naturally.
The agenda, of course, was finding the forces that had targeted the family head’s wife and Katrina.
“It doesn’t matter who they are. Find them and make them regret surviving.”
“We need caution. Whether they’re a real corporation or merely disguised as one, the intent to cause chaos is clear. Their goal might even be a second war.”
“If they want war, we’ll give it to them. We are Marjie.”
“Did you even hear the word ‘caution’?”
While various strategies were debated under the clear premise, Jin simply remained seated.
He was an outsider to the core.
Whatever opinions the four divided factions voiced, what did it have to do with him?
He only intended to sit beside Katrina like a silent totem while she endured the mental strain.
And that was exactly what he did—quiet at the center of hours-long discussion, occasionally dozing off without meaning to.
***
The frozen castle.
Once called by that name, and still known as such to some—the old ruins of Marjie.
Beyond the towering walls stretched a vast territory where four skyscrapers rose endlessly toward the sky in every cardinal direction.
They were the physical embodiments of the factions that had split from a single Marjie seven hundred years ago.
If one tore their gaze away from those attention-grabbing towers, lower buildings came into view.
Among them, inside a modest four-story structure under Solbein’s management, a pained scream rang out at that very moment.
“Aaaagh! G-gently, gent-ly!”
“Stay still. You keep squirming, so I can’t—ugh, there! Got it. Clench your teeth. Here it comes!”
A spirited shout.
Then, with a wet sound, something metallic slid free from beneath the skin.
“Aok!”
The sharp pain lasted only a moment.
Blood welled from the fresh wound.
At the same time—
“Ointment.”
“Gauze.”
Quick instructions.
A slender hand accepted the supplies in turn.
Click—the ointment opened.
Pat—the gauze was pressed down.
Wrap—the bandage was secured.
Cold fingers, almost unnaturally so, brushed over the wound and finished wrapping it in seconds.
“Done.”
Katrina withdrew her hands with a satisfied expression and lightly high-fived the dwarf assistant beside her.
Broph examined the bloodied shard caught in his tweezers and clicked his tongue.
“You really kept something like this buried in your body?”
He shook his head at the jagged metal and released his grip.
Clink. The fragment joined the growing pile.
“How many are left, exactly?”
While Broph muttered, Jin examined his bare torso.
“So… did you get them all?”
“Only the ones we could see. Anything deeper than the muscle layer is impossible with these.”
Broph tapped the tweezers together.
“Normally this would be hopeless, but your body doesn’t follow common sense. Time might push the rest out on its own. Then we can pull them again—or you can get proper surgery if you prefer.”
“…I’ll wait, then.”
Jin muttered and reached behind his back.
The lingering throb told him fragments still remained.
He regretted not finishing everything at once, but it was still far better than feeling skewered from head to toe.
His expression had relaxed considerably when Katrina spoke.
“Jin?”
He waved a hand while pulling his shirt on inside out, then poked his head through the collar.
“Why?”
“Want to take a short walk?”
A simple suggestion, no explanation given.
“Sure.”
Jin accepted easily.
After dressing properly and checking his condition with a few twists, he followed Katrina out.
The walk began.
Cool air settled over the path as their footsteps fell into a steady rhythm.
How much time passed before Katrina spoke first?
“I don’t think I ever said thank you.”
“Huh?”
“Thanks to you, Mother and I are both safe. So… thank you.”
“Mm.”
Jin raised an eyebrow.
He wondered why she needed to say this outside in the cold, but the fact that someone as proud as her was making the effort amused him.
“You’re just going to say it with words?”
“Is there… something else you want?”
She turned her head cautiously.
Jin rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.
“Credits?”
“……So you really are a solo.”
She clicked her tongue and looked away, breath rising in the cold air.
“And one more thing I’m grateful for.”
“What, suddenly? Are we doing gratitude time three times a day now?”
“Shut up. Earlier, when you talked back to the elder—that too, thank you.”
“Ah. That?”
Jin chuckled, picturing the elder’s wrinkled brow.
“Why is that auntie so sensitive? She picks fights with everyone. She’s not some all-purpose complaint doll.”
“That’s just how Belgrant is. Being the closest to pure blood, they believe they’re superior to the other three factions. Elder Resina is no exception. However…”
“However?”
“The reason she targets Mother is different.”
“What reason?”
“She was once scheduled for a political marriage with Father. He ruined it on his own. No one expected the genius chosen as the next head to proudly take the hand of an ordinary pregnant woman and walk in like that.”
Katrina gave a bitter smile, as if she had felt that legendary moment from inside the womb.
“Ironically, it seems Elder Resina was quite fond of Father back then. I heard she cried and screamed for days. It’s hard to imagine now, but that’s what they say.”
“Whoa.”
Jin let out a low whistle.
What kind of morning-drama backstory was this?
Just as he was marveling at the ancient romantic entanglement, Katrina poked his side with her elbow.
“It’s not over yet.”
“That Elder Resina married a year later than Father and gave birth to a son. That son is Akers—the one whose wrist you broke before.”
“……Your ex-fiancé?”
“Yes.”
Jin smacked his palm with his fist.
No wonder the elder’s gaze had been so sharp.
She was angry because he had shattered her son’s wrist.
While he was still processing that, Katrina continued.
“So in a way, you and Father are a pair. Second generation to humiliate Belgrant. Of course she wouldn’t look at you kindly. She has more than enough personal and political reasons to nitpick.”
“Hmm.”
“Don’t look at me like that. I told you before—I want to live by my own choices. I know it sounds childish and privileged, but I still hate it. I’m not as strong as you or Father, and Solbein doesn’t have the political weight Belgrant does, so…”
“Who said anything?”
Jin was about to laugh when Katrina added, barely audible, while cooling her reddened ears.
“Well… it doesn’t matter now anyway.”
She glanced at him, but Jin was already looking up at the Solbein building they had reached.
“How’s Bingbaek?”
“…Same as ever. She only stays in the training room. Even when I visit, she won’t open the door. Mother’s the same.”
A shadow crossed Katrina’s face as she spoke.
Jin reached out and patted her back twice, then ruffled her hair.
“I’m heading off.”
He waved while walking backward, then turned and disappeared down the path.
Katrina stood in place, watching until he was completely gone.
***
A few days later.
The weather had grown so bitterly cold that thick layers were necessary just to step outside.
Jin pushed open the workshop door.
“Ugh, it’s freezing. Hey.”
He shivered and turned his head—then froze.
“What… what’s wrong?”
Broph’s eye bags hung down to his chin, and Bagmar’s jaw hung half-open, creaking as both stared blankly at him.
They’ve finally lost it.
Jin’s hand instinctively reached for the doorknob again.
Rustle!
Blueprints and papers covered in numbers exploded into the air.
Two voices roared at once.
“Aaaaaah!!!”
“Kuaaaah! Kuaaa!!!”
The moment Jin tried to escape, the two technicians lunged forward and grabbed each other in a crushing embrace.
Good grief. Does living in a workshop for over a month create love that transcends species?
While Jin stood stunned, the two voices overlapped once more.
““We got it!””
End