How to survive in the Romance Fantasy Game Chapter 678: Clara’s price?

In a realm where wealth streamed endlessly, trust couldn't be bought with mere coins.

It remained an extravagance—scarce, delicate, and typically costlier than the finest treasures.

Clara grasped this harsh reality well before she could comprehend the essence of innocence in youth.

Since her first recollections formed, her existence brimmed with refined grins and precisely calculated speeches.

Discussions weren't mere chats; they hid bargaining beneath layers of civility.

Principles served as mere decorations, flaunted when advantageous and tossed aside once they ceased to serve. All revolved around a single aim—gain.

"Keep this in mind, Clara."

Her father's tone resounded in her thoughts each time she faced a bargaining desk or examined the family's accounts.

"In our world, skill by itself won't secure a life of ease."

Those words had etched themselves deeply into her memory.

Born to the Luminaria lineage—whose fortunes matched the riches of a whole empire—Clara matured amid surroundings where figures wielded greater might than blades.

Their trading dominion stretched across borders far wider than one realm, touching almost every land on the continent via wagons, agreements, and unseen webs of control.

Magic coursed in their veins, indeed—but it paled against their true strength.

Fortune was that power.

Clara Luminaria claimed that power as her birthright.

She held a keen sense for assessing worth, a gut feel for dangers, and a remarkable talent for detecting motives concealed in courteous facades.

Raised in this ruthless domain, where disloyalty counted as just another tactic in trade, she mastered balancing on the edge between victim and hunter.

Vulnerability counted as a grave error.

Negligence meant certain doom.

Thus, she placed faith in nobody.

Not entirely.

She depended solely on her own strengths, employing others only as needed, forging pacts solely when they advanced her and her kin's interests.

Each transaction carried a cost. Each kindness required compensation.

Emotions found no entry in balance sheets, and favors without yield amounted to naive handouts.

Nothing in existence came free; everything demanded an exchange.

And no soul—however benevolent or just—offered aid without anticipating recompense.

After all, only an idiot would hazard their resources sans assured returns.

Such was the order of things.

Or so... Clara had always assumed the world operated.

"Are you okay, Clara?"

"Huh?"

The sound jolted her from her reverie.

Her gaze sharpened as the present surged forward.

Just seconds earlier, she had been steadily trading cautious remarks with Zelova's royal heir—phrases picked with precision, courteous grins, the standard ritual of shared advantage.

Yet now, that very prince sprawled limp on the polished stone, motionless.

No—more than still. His form contorted at an impossible bend, one side of his features caved in like hammered by a massive rock instead of a mortal blow.

Dead...?

No—clinging to life, maybe.

Her breathing hitched as she lifted her sight.

Towering above him stood Kagami.

His hulking build eclipsed the overhead crystal glow, his wide frame heaving with scarcely contained fury.

Fissures radiated from under his boots across the tiles, and subtle sparks of stellar essence still adhered to his balled hands, distorting the atmosphere with their intense weight.

"Why did you do that?"

The words slipped out before she could rein them in.

Clara felt truly baffled.

She'd long recognized Kagami's rash nature, the sort who settled issues with blows prior to words, yet she also perceived deeper: under that intimidating shell lurked a surprisingly straightforward soul.

He never struck without cause.

"There was no cause for this..." she whispered, mostly to her own ears.

"That’s because this scum attempted to use—"

Kagami's tone grated, thick with bottled rage, yet before he could complete his thought—

"You there! Stay where you are!"

The commanding shout pierced the chamber.

Clara startled as sentries poured in from all sides, heels pounding the stone.

Staves, blades, and rods lifted together, creating a solid half-ring encircling Kagami.

Protective formations shimmered underfoot, symbols igniting as bindings geared to engage.

"Raise your hands and surrender at once!"

The leader's command rang solid, laced with clear unease.

Everyone grasped the reason.

Kagami hardly inspired comfort in everyday moments—and now, with traces of celestial force still seeping from his grip, he appeared utterly fearsome.

The residual force twisted the very breeze, force emanating in unseen pulses that prompted even seasoned watchers to tense up.

This wasn't the essence of a wild thug.

It signaled immense potency—compact, polished, and hardly contained.

"Alright... easy now. I won't fight back."

Kagami's rumble stayed deep and gravelly as he gradually lifted his arms.

The fierce aura in the space softened as his surging essence calmed, the brilliant celestial sheen dimming from his hands like fading coals.

The sentries wavered briefly, evidently uncertain, then swiftly closed ranks.

Enchanted bindings triggered.

Beams of radiance coiled about his limbs and chest, blocking his essence channels.

Kagami offered no opposition—he scarcely twitched.

His stare remained fixed on the downed royal, smoldering with subdued wrath.

"Healer! Urgent menders—hurry! He's fading fast!"

A sentry yelled while dashing ahead.

Even absent the order, restorers were already advancing.

Pure radiance burst forth, restorative rings assembled, and a cluster of cloaked attendants crouched by Alain’s mangled form, striving to steady him.

Crimson-smeared stone mirrored the light of restorative arts, rendering the surface ethereal and bizarre.

Hushed talks began rippling across the room.

"Hey... isn’t that Kagami Kento...?"

"I heard he was a brute, but pulling this off here?"

"So the fellow he struck... wasn’t he nobility?"

"Wasn’t he a prince?"

Gossips mounted swiftly, dread, astonishment, and condemnation blending in the atmosphere.

Kagami tuned it all out.

Showed no response.

Offered no justification.

Made no plea.

He simply remained, bound, gazing at the senseless royal.

"K-Kagami Kento," a sentry uttered cautiously, "you must accompany us for interrogation on this event."

"Sure."

The reply arrived instantly.

"Wait— I can speak for his—!"

Clara advanced, alarm surging within as the gravity dawned on her.

Yet prior to her concluding—

"It’s alright, Clara."

Kagami interrupted her steadily, tilting his head to meet her eyes.

"They’ll merely question me briefly."

"But—"

"It’s actually better this way," he murmured softly.

Then, following a brief lull, his mouth twisted into a subtle, sour grin.

"Besides... I’m kinda glad that bastard didn’t die from my punch."

Clara stiffened.

"It’s a good thing I held back."

Observing the prince’s near-lifeless condition, Kagami realized at once that basic restorers wouldn’t suffice.

They’d likely transport him to the Church.

Or, should the wounds prove too grave, call upon a senior holy figure to mend him via sacred force.

And the instant holy essence contacted the prince’s battered visage, all would reveal itself.

Regardless of how Kagami’s name got tarnished.

Regardless of whatever harsh penalty they sought to impose.

The facts would emerge anyway.

Kagami exhaled gradually from his nostrils.

If I’d been even a step late...

His eyes darted to Clara for an instant.

She might have suffered grave injury—no, far graver.

Having battled fiends beside Lucas merely a year prior, Kagami had sharpened his awareness to the slightest hints of infernal essence.

It adhered to the surroundings unlike any standard spell—heavy, oily, perverse.

Once detected, it defied confusion with anything else.

He had felt assured their group had purged every fiend and dark adherent hiding in the school premises.

But the prince hailed from beyond.

Which implied some vile infiltrator had evaded capture.

Yet what stunned Kagami most was the mark.

He hadn’t foreseen Clara as the chosen victim.

The malediction force the prince had sought to unleash was ridiculously thick—so thick that even a commoner lacking arcane skill would sense the anomaly upon its stir.

The purpose shone clear.

That fact alone ignited his fury.

"Do you even grasp your position now?"

Clara’s tone sliced through, taut with concern.

"You might rank as a prized S-class pupil at the academy, but even the academy faces boundaries in shielding you. And I—"

she gulped, visibly rattled,

"—I also face boundaries in how much I can shield you. You injured a figure of royal blood..."

Kagami eyed her, then rubbed the nape of his neck with an uneasy lift of shoulders.

"I told you," he stated evenly, like discussing a passing shower, "it’s fine."

His focus returned to the collapsed prince.

"If divine power touches him," he appended in a hush, "this entire chaos will clarify itself."

"What are you even talking about? And no—it’s not fine."

Clara’s words echoed harsher than planned.

Clunk.

Click.

Extra bands of enchanted links clamped onto Kagami’s arms and chest, luminous marks constricting as they bolstered the bonds.

The strain mounted right away. Kagami shot a instinctive scowl at the sentry who invoked them, his lethal aura seeping just sufficiently to make the fellow tense and hastily look elsewhere.

Disregarding the uneasy buzzes and the futile alarm diffusing through the chamber, Kagami faced Clara again, who regarded him with blended ire and incredulity.

"This whole thing’ll be over pretty soon,"

he remarked offhandedly.

"So don’t worry too much. Just come visit me wherever they decide to toss me—dungeon, holding cell, prison. Wherever."

"This is not the time for jokes," Clara retorted.

She pressed her forehead and released an exasperated breath.

Viewing Kagami’s lax responses, it stung how little gravity he assigned to the crisis.

He appeared unconcerned by his standing, the school’s constraints, or the diplomatic fallout from striking a noble visitor.

Even if—even if—the prince had indeed attempted harm upon her...

She still lacked full comprehension of it.

And without Kagami clarifying, she held no means to plead his defense, no ground to halt the sentries from hauling him off.

"Let’s move. Now."

With the sentry leader’s directive, Kagami offered a slight dip of head and shifted ahead.

Clara’s frustration erupted.

She extended her hand and seized his collar, digits clenching firmly into the cloth.

"Wait."

Kagami halted and peered down. "What?"

"I understand that the prince tried to do something to me,"

she articulated deliberately, selecting terms thoughtfully.

"But regardless of that..."

Her hold intensified.

"Why did you do that?"

"Huh?"

"Even if the prince really did try something," Clara pressed on, her tone quivering with curbed feelings, "why would you risk yourself for me?"

Her stare probed his features, keen and analytical amid the turmoil.

"There’s no benefit," she declared. "No deal. No profit. No return."

Her pitch dropped.

"So why?"

Clara felt profoundly perplexed.

Yes—she could somewhat concede the notion that the prince had plotted against her.

The disquiet she’d sensed, the persistent itch on her flesh... it no longer seemed dismissible.

But even granting that—

Why would Kagami hazard this?

Assaulting a noble visitor openly. Before aristocrats, traders, sentries, and overseas delegates.

Plunging into a tempest of intrigue that might readily overwhelm him despite the school’s favor.

For her?

She had swayed folks in the past.

Steered talks, prodded desires, rendered herself indispensable, prized—worth retaining.

But this?

No evident upsides. No strategic yield. No prospective hold.

Her intellect—acute, reasoned, honed to balance costs and gains—struck a barrier.

What is his goal?

Is he stupid?

Her pragmatic, exacting, ruthlessly logical outlook failed to compute it.

When Kagami caught her distressed, torn look, he erupted in laughter.

"What are you even talking about?"

he said, rubbing his jaw.

"Benefits? Hahaha. I knew you were kinda weird, but I didn’t think you were this funny too."

"Huh...?"

"Why would I need a benefit to protect you?"

he went on, truly bemused.

"We’re friends, aren’t we?"

"F... friends?"

"Or was that just me?" he appended with a lopsided smile. "Ouch. That hurts, you know."

Then his look gentled—not theatrically, not gravely—just... sincerely.

"But either way,"

he said,

"I don’t need gold, money, favors, or any of that crap. That bastard was about to do something messed up. I saw it. That’s all."

"That’s... all?" Clara queried softly.

"Yeah. That’s all."

He shrugged.

"I don’t know how distrustful you are of people, but trust me—I didn’t have any other intention. I just wanted to protect you. In that moment."

Her mind ground to a halt.

A strange warmth swelled in her core—unfamiliar, unsettling, and beyond measure.

No contracts.

No bargains.

No returns.

Just... action.

Clara gazed at Kagami, still wholly baffled, as he grinned easily and nudged her arm with a soft jab.

"If you feel bad," he said, "just come visit me, yeah?"

With that, apparently content, he pivoted and trailed the sentry leader without protest.

"Kagami!"

He stopped and looked over. "Yeah?"

But before Clara could utter further—

"Hey! Clara, what happened?"

Janica and Lucas had at last reached the turmoil, both displaying puzzled faces as they scanned the sentries, the damaged space, Kagami now guided and shifted away from view, and the barely breathing prince being borne off.

"Why are they taking Kagami?"

"Isn’t that guy the prince just a while ago?"

"Hy Clara tell us what exactly—"

Yet despite their calls, despite the disorder encircling her—

Clara’s thoughts lay utterly vacant.

For the first time in her life, she couldn’t assign value to the emotion stirring within.