SSS-Ranked Trash Hero: I Was Scammed Into Being Summoned-Chapter 100: The Weight of a Title

The herald did not stick around to chat. As soon as he finished speaking, he turned and walked out of the session hall.

The effect on the room was immediate. Usually, when the gathering was finished, the princes and their advisors would linger. they would trade insults, make small talk, or try to squeeze more information out of the court officials. Not today. Today, the room cleared out in record time.

Lena followed Caelum. She stayed exactly two steps behind him, just like she was supposed to. She kept her face blank, but her mind was working at full speed. She was doing three things at once.

First, she was looking at everyone they passed. She watched the way the guards shifted their weight. She watched the way the other princes’ servants whispered to each other. She was looking for threats, but she was also looking for information. People show you how they feel by how they stand when you walk by.

Second, she was thinking about that word: Reaper. It sounded bad. In the stories she’d heard growing up, a Reaper was a fairy tale monster used to scare children into behaving. But in the context of the Imperial court, it clearly meant something specific and legal. It was a job title, and judging by the look on everyone’s faces, it was a job no one wanted.

Third, she was watching Caelum’s back. She looked for a tremor in his hands. She looked for any tension in his shoulders. She looked for a change in his stride.

She found nothing. His back was like a stone wall. He didn’t look scared, and he didn’t look angry. He just looked like he was going somewhere. Caelum had always been good at hiding what he felt, but this was different. He wasn’t just hiding it; it was like there was nothing there to see.

They turned a corner into a long corridor with high ceilings. Prince Mireth was there. He was talking to a man in a gray suit, one of his head clerks. Mireth was usually loud and liked to make fun of Caelum’s lack of social standing. But when he saw Caelum coming, he stopped talking.

Mireth didn’t smile. He didn’t sneer. He looked at Caelum with a pale, tight expression. It wasn’t the way you looked at a brother you hated. It was the way you looked at a bomb that was about to go off. He didn’t say a word. He just stepped back and let them pass. The look in his eyes wasn’t respect.

Further down, near the east gallery, they saw Prince Syrel. Syrel was the smart one, the one who usually had a plan for everything. He was standing by himself, looking out a window. As they walked by, he turned his head.

They reached their own wing of the palace. The guards at the entrance stayed silent. Once they were inside their private quarters, Caelum closed the heavy door. Lena heard the lock click.

She didn’t wait for him to speak. She walked over to a side table and set down the silver tray she had been carrying. She had used it as a prop so that people would just see a maid and not a bodyguard. She turned around to face him.

Caelum was standing in the middle of the room. He wasn’t looking out the window this time. He was just staring at a spot on the wall.

"I assume you understand what that title means," Caelum said. His voice was very quiet.

"Not entirely," Lena said. "I know it’s bad. I know it makes people look at you like you’re already dead. But I don’t know the history."

Caelum sat down in a wooden chair. He didn’t lean back. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "The Reaper designation is an old tradition. It hasn’t been used in fifty years. It’s not a promotion, Lena. It’s a death sentence wrapped in a fancy name."

He looked at her, his eyes flat. "When the Emperor names a Reaper, he is saying two things. First, he is saying that the mission is so dangerous that he expects the leader to die. Second, he is giving that person total power. If I’m a Reaper, I can execute anyone who gets in my way. I can take resources from any province. I answer to no one but the Emperor himself."

"That sounds like a lot of power," Lena said.

"It is," Caelum said. "But it comes with a hook. There are only two ways a Reaper comes home. One is in a box. The other is as a monster. If you win, you usually have to do things that are so terrible that the people will never accept you as a leader again. You become the person everyone fears and no one loves. You’re the man who burns the village to save the province. You’re the man who executes his own soldiers to keep order. Once you are a Reaper, you are dead to the succession. You can never be Emperor. No one would have you."

He spoke about his own future as if he were reading a grocery list. There was no self-pity in his voice. He was just stating the facts.

"The last Reaper was my uncle," Caelum continued. "He went into the northern wastes to stop a rebellion. He stopped it. He killed every single person involved, and then he killed their families just to be sure. When he came home, the Emperor gave him a medal and then had him poisoned a week later because the public couldn’t stand the sight of him. That’s what a Reaper is. A tool you use for a dirty job, and then you throw it away so you don’t get blood on your own hands."

There was a long silence in the room. Lena didn’t try to comfort him. She knew he wouldn’t want it. Instead, she asked the question she’d been holding onto.

"Did you know this was coming?"

Caelum shook his head. "No. Not this specifically." He paused, looking at his hands. "I knew he wanted me gone. I thought he would just send me to the border as a regular commander. I didn’t think he would pull this title out of the history books. It’s a very public way to ruin me."

"Why you?" Lena asked.

Caelum looked up. "What?"

"If this mission is as bad as you say—if it’s basically impossible—why did he pick you?" Lena stepped closer, trying to make sense of the math. "Mireth has more men. Syrel has more money and better connections. If the Emperor actually wants this threat stopped, why send you the weakest."

Caelum didn’t answer right away. He looked at her, and for a moment, the room felt very small. Lena didn’t know the full extent of his training. She didn’t know about the hours he spent in the dead of night practicing forms that weren’t taught in the palace. She hadn’t seen what he did to the assassins who tried to take his head when he was twelve. To her, he was just a quiet, capable prince who was good at staying out of trouble.

But Caelum knew. He knew that for all his father’s coldness, the old man was observant. The Emperor didn’t just watch the court; he watched the shadows. He had seen the way Caelum moved when he thought no one was looking. He had seen the reports of how Caelum handled the border skirmishes, not with standard tactics, but with a brutal, terrifying efficiency that left no survivors to tell the tale.

"He chose me because he knows," Caelum said. His voice was like a low vibration in the floor.

"Knows what?" Lena asked.

"He is the only person in this empire who knows exactly what I am," Caelum said. "He knows I won’t just go there and die. He knows I’ll do whatever it takes to win. He’s sending me because I’m the only weapon he has that is sharp enough to cut through this problem, and he knows that by the time I’m done cutting, I’ll be too bloodstained for anyone to ever want me as a King."

The logic was cold and perfect. The Emperor wasn’t just getting rid of a son; he was using a tool he had been saving for a rainy day. He got his victory, and he got a permanent excuse to keep Caelum away from the throne. It was a win-win for him.

"We leave tomorrow morning at first light," Caelum said, his tone shifting back to business. "We aren’t taking a large escort. Just a small team. Speed is more important than numbers."

Lena nodded. "I’ll start packing."

She went to the door that led to her small sleeping quarters and the storage area. She had work to do. She needed to check the weapons, pack the travel rations, and make sure their gear was in good shape. But she stopped at the door. She turned back to look at him.

"Can I ask you one more thing?" she said.

Caelum didn’t look up. "Go ahead."

"Is there any part of you that’s glad?" she asked. "About getting a chance."

It was a small question, but it felt heavy. It was the kind of thing you didn’t ask a prince.

Caelum was quiet for a long time. The room was getting darker as the sun went down. Finally, he looked at her.

"The politics here is a slow poison, Lena," he said. "Every day I spend in this palace, I feel like I’m rotting. At least out there, in the dirt, I know who the enemy is. I’d rather die as a Reaper in the mud than spend another ten years pretending to care about Mireth’s dinner parties."

It was the most honest thing he had ever said to her. There was no mask, no prince, no "stone back." It was just a man who was tired of a game he never wanted to play.

Lena nodded once and went into the other room. She didn’t have anything else to say.

She started working. She checked the buckles on his leather armor. She sharpened the small daggers he kept hidden in his boots. She folded the thick wool cloaks they would need for the cold nights. She did it all with a methodical, quiet focus.

In the main room, Caelum didn’t move. He stayed in that wooden chair. He didn’t light a candle. He just sat there in the dark.

He was a piece on a board. He knew that. He had been a piece since the day he was born. His father had been playing this game for decades, moving his sons around like wooden soldiers, testing them, breaking them, or using them up.

The Reaper mission was just another move. It was a mission Caelum couldn’t refuse, because to refuse was treason. It was a title he didn’t ask for, but one he would have to wear until it killed him or turned him into someone he didn’t recognize.

As the palace settled into its nighttime rhythm, the distant sound of guards changing shifts, the faint music from the lower halls where the lesser nobles were still partying, Caelum sat alone. He wasn’t thinking about the glory or the power. He was thinking about the mud, the blood, and the long road ahead.

The Emperor had finally played his best card. And Caelum, the third prince, the unwanted son, the Reaper, was going to play the only hand he had left. He was going to go out there and do exactly what he was told. He was going to do it so well that it would terrify everyone who sent him.