「Solarian Empire, Capital – Emperor's Office」
Crown Prince Valerius stood before his father's desk, watching the Emperor of the Golden Empire—the Sun Descendant, the unshakable pillar of the realm—pout like a child denied dessert.
Seriously? He's sulking because his favorite niece left? Prince Valerius thought, barely keeping his diplomatic mask in place.
"I wonder if my little Lia will be alright," the Emperor murmured for the third time in ten minutes, staring mournfully out the window as if he could see the carriage vanishing into the northern mists.
"Father, Eliana will be fine. She is to be the Duchess of Javier once she settles—"
"Settles?!" The Emperor spun, his distress shifting to outrage. "Settle in that cursed, frozen wasteland? I never intended for her to stay! It was a… a lesson! A temporary exile!"
"However, this is a great opportunity for her to finally act like a Duchess," Prince Valerius said. "She is a Duchess of Wykenight, but look at her—she has no authority in that dukedom at all. She was even neglected by that despicable Duke Wykenight."
"You are right… that Alistair bastard! How dare he!" the Emperor agreed.
"It was the Javiers' fate, was it not?" The Second Prince, Silas, interjected from his seat by the fireplace. His tone was light, but his words landed like a thrown gauntlet. "To guard the North until it consumes them."
The Emperor's face darkened. "Hold your tongue. The Javiers are royal blood. Forsaken royals who gave up their birthright to protect this empire from monsters your tutors only describe in books. Do not speak of their duty as a 'fate' to be shrugged on like a coat."
"Forgive my brother, Father," Prince Valerius cut in smoothly, shooting Silas a warning glare. "He speaks without understanding the weight of history."
"Eliana is the same age as him!" the Emperor retorted, throwing a hand toward his younger son. "Yet she is the one being shipped off to that—those three idiots! What were they thinking, sending their sister to her dea—"
The office door burst open, cutting off the Emperor's rising tirade.
The sight that greeted them was so profoundly bizarre that all three royals froze.
Kaelen and Rhys Javier were locked in a graceless, stumbling struggle just inside the doorway. Not a duel, not a spar. A schoolyard brawl. Kaelen, the terrifyingly composed Captain of the First Knight Platoon, had Rhys, the genius Minister of Finance, in a headlock. Rhys, in turn, was yanking a fistful of Kaelen's impeccably styled hair.
"What on earth is going on?" Prince Valerius managed, his princely composure cracking.
Rhys's face was turning an impressive shade of crimson. "Gack—He's—!"
"Kaelen! You'll strangle your brother!" the Emperor cried, half-standing.
Kaelen ignored them, his eyes wild. He jerked his chin toward Prince Valerius. "Hey, cousin!"
'Hey, cousin'? Prince Valerius blinked. The Javier brothers hadn't used casual familial terms with them since they were children.
"Grab the paper in my jacket pocket!" Kaelen grunted, straining against Rhys's grip. "The left one! Give it to His Majesty!"
Utterly baffled, Prince Valerius stepped forward and gingerly extracted a folded parchment from Kaelen's uniform. He handed it to his father.
The Emperor opened it. His eyes scanned the elegant, precise script—a stark contrast to the bearer's current state. His jaw went slack.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?! A RESIGNATION LETTER?!"
With a final heave, Kaelen released Rhys, who stumbled back, gasping and massaging his throat. "Yes, Your Majesty," Kaelen said, his voice regaining some of its usual steel, though his hair was a disaster. "Forgive the abruptness, but I cannot fathom leaving my sister alone in that wretched land."
"I am here for the same reason, Your Majesty." Rhys coughed, straightening his tunic and producing his own, equally formal letter from an inner pocket. "Please accept this."
The Emperor stared between them, the resignation parchments trembling in his hands. "But… it doesn't have to be you two who go. We can send reinforcements, advisors—"
"No." Kaelen's voice was final. "It has to be us. That is where we belong."
"I concur with my two foolish brothers, Your Majesty."
A new voice, calm and dry, came from the doorway. Marcus Javier stood there, adjusting his spectacles. The late morning light glinted off the lenses, obscuring his eyes and giving him an even more inscrutable, dignified air. Several secretaries hovered anxiously behind him, having clearly failed to stop his entrance.
"Don't tell me," Prince Silas said with a derisive snort, "you're here to resign as well?"
"Yes."
The single syllable dropped into the room like a stone. Marcus, the unshakable Head of the Imperial Strategy Bureau, the architect of the vote that sent Eliana north, was resigning.
The Emperor slowly lowered the papers. "What, by the Great Sun's light, is happening? Explain yourselves. Now."
Marcus stepped fully into the room, and the door swung shut behind him, leaving the three Javier men facing the three royals. The air grew thick.
"I acknowledge it is irresponsible to abandon our posts, especially as department heads," Marcus began, his tone that of a strategist presenting a campaign. "However, our sister is more important. The North needs us. That is, ultimately, where we belong."
"We are eternally grateful you rescued us as children, Your Majesty," Rhys added, his voice softer but no less resolved. "But it is time to return and face the consequences of having run away."
"It would be the height of cowardice to let Eliana shoulder that burden alone," Kaelen finished, crossing his arms. His gaze was fixed on the northern-facing window. "In fact, Eliana should never have been the one to go at all."
A heavy silence followed. The Emperor studied them, his earlier distress hardening into something more solemn, more imperial. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, his lip quivered.
"WAAAAAAAAAH!"
The three brothers visibly stiffened as the Emperor buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with dramatic sobs.
"My nephews! All grown up! Taking responsibility! WAAAAAAAAH!"
Prince Valerius pinched the bridge of his nose. Silas rolled his eyes.
"But," Prince Valerius interjected, seizing on practicality, "if you resign now, who will fill your positions? None of you have trained successors."
Marcus's head turned slowly toward the Crown Prince. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. "Have you not enjoyed an easy life, cousins, precisely because we took care of your duties?" he asked, his voice chillingly polite. "The tedious work of administration, defense logistics, and treasury management that you two found so… burdensome?"
A dangerous tension snapped into place.
"How dare you speak to the Imperial Princes with such disrespect!" Prince Silas snapped, rising to his feet.
"I know you've spent years whining in private that we 'stole your glory'," Marcus continued, as if Prince Silas hadn't spoken. His spectacles flashed. "In truth, the work was dumped on us because you two were, and remain, a lost cause."
"ENOUGH!" the Emperor roared, slamming a fist on the desk, his tears vanishing as suddenly as they came. "Marcus, they are the offspring of the descendants of the Great Sun! And you two," he glared at his sons, "what he said is not entirely without merit. Your negligence created the vacuum they filled."
Marcus dipped his head. "My apologies, Your Majesty. However, we will not change our minds."
The Emperor sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of decades. He looked at the three men—the brilliant, haunted orphans he had raised. He saw a resolve in their eyes that had been absent before, a grim unity that transcended their usual bickering.
"Very well," he said, his voice regaining its authority. "If you believe it is time to stand as men and reclaim your birthright, then do so. The House of Javier has always had my support." He leaned forward slightly, murmuring almost to himself, "Though the reason I married Lia to that stern Alistair boy was so his house could manage the North and you all could have comfortable lives here…"
At the mention of Duke Alistair of Wykenight, the air in the room changed again. The brothers' unified front didn't break, but something shifted beneath the surface. Kaelen's jaw tightened. Rhys's fingers twitched. Marcus's expression, already cool, turned to ice. It was a swift, synchronized reaction of profound distaste.
"Thank you for understanding, Your Majesty," Marcus said, his voice carefully neutral once more, pulling the Emperor's attention back. "The transition will be swift. We recommend promoting our seconds-in-command; their competence has been long overshadowed."
The Emperor nodded, waving a dismissive hand. "See to it. Now get out. Your dramatics have given me a headache."
The three brothers bowed in unison and turned to leave. As they reached the door, the Emperor's voice stopped them, softer now.
"Take care of your sister."
They paused. Marcus glanced back, and for a fleeting second, the icy strategist was gone, replaced by the ghost of the grieving orphan the Emperor had once comforted.
"We will," Marcus said. It was a vow.
The door closed behind them, leaving the Emperor and his sons in silence.
Prince Silas was the first to speak, a smirk playing on his lips. "Well. It seems the perfect Javier brothers have finally lost their minds. Running off to die in the snow. How… noble."
Prince Valerius said nothing, staring at the closed door. He hadn't missed the lethal chill in Marcus's eyes at the mention of Duke Alistair, nor the strange, frantic energy that had propelled Kaelen and Rhys into his office. This wasn't just duty or guilt. This was something else. Something personal.
—OUTSIDE THE EMPEROR'S OFFICE—
The moment the ornate doors shut, the three brothers stood frozen in the lavish corridor. The shared, silent communication of the Party Link was absent. They were alone with their thoughts and the echo of what they'd just done.
Kaelen was the first to move, running a hand through his ruined hair with a grimace. "Well. That's that."
"We have approximately 72 hours before our resignations become public and the vultures start circling our departments," Marcus stated, already mentally reorganizing schedules. "We need to secure our personal assets, access the family vaults here in the capital, and acquire non-traceable supplies. Rhys, you handle procurement. Kaelen, secure transport—discreetly. We are not taking an imperial procession."
"We do this clean, we do this fast. We've wasted enough time."
He didn't need to say what they were all thinking. Every minute here was a minute Lia was alone in the North. A minute closer to the horde. A minute of their second—no, third—chance ticking away.
Kaelen met his gaze, and for once, there was no manic glee, no battle-hungry grin. Just cold determination. "We'll be on the road in two days. Tops."
"Good," Marcus said. He adjusted his spectacles, the familiar gesture settling him back into his role. "Now move. We have a dukedom to save."
As they parted ways down the marble corridor, three distinct paths converging on a single, frozen point on the map, none of them looked back. The glittering capital, the seats of power they were abandoning, the life of imperial favor—it was already fading into memory.
The only direction that mattered now was North.
「NORTH FORTRESS CITY」
The teleportation sickness was a familiar, nauseating twist in her gut. But this time, it was underscored by a deeper vertigo—the dizzying collision of past and present, memory and cold, hard now.
The Northern Temple Branch wasn't a temple anymore. It was more like a house with a teleportation circle in front of the yard.
Right. There was only one priest and two servants in this run-down temple.
There was no one to greet her.
As the carriage moved, everywhere, the past screamed at her.
The Central Town that should be bustling with market stalls was nothing but squatted houses where all the population of the North lived.
The rows of leaning, half-frozen hovels, smoke struggling from a few chimneys. The hopelessness was a physical stench here, mingling with the ever-present scent of frost, unwashed bodies, and the faint, sweet-rot tang of Void Rot on the wind.
The people who braved the cold to watch her carriage pass didn't jeer. They didn't bow. They just… stared. With hollow eyes that held no expectation, only a grim recognition of another noble who came to watch them die.
You left us, those eyes seemed to say. And now you're back to see the end.
Lia's hands clenched in her lap, the silk suddenly feeling like a shroud. I'm sorry, she thought, the words a useless, silent scream in her head. I was an idiot. I'm here now. I'll fix it. But the weight of three years of failure pressed down, threatening to crush her newfound resolve.
Then, it came.
BONG… BONG… BONG…
Three deep, shuddering tolls of the great iron bell from the Fortress Wall. The sound cut through the muffled city like a knife.
Right! When I first got here, it was the time the fortress was attacked by monsters too!
[SYSTEM: MONSTER INCURSION DETECTED AT THE EASTERN WALL.
SCALE: MEDIUM.
MORALE OF DEFENDERS: CRITICAL. HOSTILE LIFEFORMS OVERPOWERING DEFENSIVE POSITIONS.]
I remember this, she thought, a memory flashing—soldiers falling back, a section of the wall crumbling, the tide of claws and scales pouring through.
[ADMIN A: LIA. YOU ARE UNARMED. YOUR CURRENT PHYSICAL PARAMETERS ARE USELESS. ACCESS THE SYSTEM SHOP. NOW.]
The menu snapped into view. This time, the weapons were different:
"WINTER'S HOWL" MANA GATLING SYSTEM (LV.1)
COST: 300,000 EXP
DAMAGE: 20% (Scales with INT & MP)
AMMO: CONSUMES 5 MP/SEC OF SUSTAINED FIRE
TRAITS: MANA-SIPHON (Kills refund 1% MP), FROSTFIRE ROUNDS (Applies stacking slow/burn)
DESCRIPTION: A sleek, crystalline frame with glowing blue runes along the barrel. Doesn't fire bullets—it coalesces ambient mana or the user's MP into devastating projectiles.
"STINGER" PRECISION MANA RIFLE (LV.1)
COST: 250,000 EXP
DAMAGE: 15% (High single-target, armor piercing)
AMMO: 15 MP/SHOT
TRAITS: PINPOINT (Increased weak spot damage), ECHO LOCATION (Highlights targets through walls for 3 sec after hit)
DESCRIPTION: A long, elegant rifle that looks like carved ice and obsidian. The "magazine" is a glowing mana core receptacle.
"Purchase. Both."
[EXP DEDUCTED: 550,000]
[REMAINING EXP: 450,000]
[ITEMS ADDED TO INVENTORY.]
[CURRENT MP: 150/150]
The carriage rattled through the massive, scarred gates of the inner fortress, the castle's grim spires rising ahead. Before it had even fully stopped, Lia was moving. She kicked the carriage door open, ignoring the coachman's shocked cry, and hit the frozen cobblestones running.
Her silk gown was an absurd banner of blue in the grim courtyard. Soldiers stared, slack-jawed, as the supposed "spoiled imperial princess" sprinted past them, heading straight for the stone ramp leading up to the battlements.
A grizzled man in battered commander's armor stepped into her path, his face a mask of exhaustion and fury. "You! Halt! Civilians are not permitted—"
"Out of my way!" Her voice wasn't a noble's shriek. It was a field command, sharp, flat, and brooking no argument.
"Your eastern flank is about to collapse. They're using Frost Weavers to slow your men and Stoneclaw Grunts to overwhelm the shields. Your defensive formation is too rigid. You're being herded into a kill zone."
The acting commander, a man named Gareth, blinked. The tactical assessment was brutally, instantly accurate. "W-what are you talking about?!"
"Move if you keep standing there like an idiot." She shoved past him, taking the steps two at a time. The cold air burned her lungs, the delicate slippers slipped on icy stone, but the body was weak, not the will.
She reached the top of the wall. Chaos.
The scene was exactly as she remembered, yet fresh in its horror. A dozen soldiers were locked in a desperate, losing melee. Stoneclaw Grunts, hulking humanoids with rock-like hide and claws that could shred steel, pressed forward. Behind them, smaller, skittering Frost Weavers spat globs of paralyzing ice-magic, encasing shields and feet in instant frost. Two soldiers were already frozen statues, their faces locked in grimaces of agony. The defensive line was buckling.
The soldiers saw her. A girl in a ballgown on the battlements. Their faces showed not hope, but a final, crushing despair. Who is this lunatic woman?
Lia ignored them. Her eyes calculated ranges, trajectories, enemy clustering. She found a defended crenellation with a good field of fire over the advancing horde.
"Admin! Release inventory item number one!"
[ADMIN A: AFFIRMATIVE.]
The air in front of her shimmered. Blue holographic cubes materialized, stacking, locking, forming with a sound like crystalline chimes. In less than three seconds, a crystalline weapon that seemed both alien and ancient solidified before her.
It had no visible ammunition belt—just a series of glowing runes along a barrel made of blue-tinted glass and silver. A soft, hungry hum emanated from it.
Soldiers gasped at the strange, alien object that just popped out of nowhere from the air. "What magic is this?!"
Lia grabbed the Winter's Howl. It was lighter than steel, warm to the touch where her hands gripped. She slammed the bipod onto the stone rail.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING STANDING THERE LIKE IDIOTS?! COVER YOUR EARS AND HOLD THE LINE!" she bellowed.
She took a breath, focused, and pulled the trigger.
There was no BRRRRRTT of gunpowder.
Instead, there was a high-pitched whine like tearing reality, followed by a viscous, thunderous roar of compressed magic.
Bright blue projectiles—not bullets, but condensed bolts of mana—streaked from the barrel. They left shimmering trails in the air. When they struck the first Stoneclaw Grunt, they didn't just penetrate—they EXPLODED in a cascade of frost and fire. The creature's rocky hide shattered like glass, then its innards flash-froze before shattering into pieces of stone.
FWOOM-FWOOM-FWOOM-FWOOM!
[MP: 145/150... 140/150... 135/150…]
Lia's face was a mask of ecstatic focus. She wasn't just firing a weapon—she was channeling destruction. The kickback was minimal, but she could feel the weapon drinking from her mana pool, a thrilling, draining sensation. Her focus was unhinged. Her eyes didn't belong to Eliana Javier. They belonged to a soldier who sees targets she has to eradicate.
"Fucking stones should just stay put. Don't you think?" she murmured over the magical din, her voice raw with battle lust.
Soldiers kept trying to shoot their arrows too. The Commander kept stealing glances at this crazy lunatic woman who appeared out of nowhere in her ball gown.
A Stoneclaw managed to raise a shield. Lia adjusted her aim slightly. The next mana bolt hit the shield, didn't pierce it—but splashed over it in a wave of frostfire that crawled over the creature and froze it solid before setting it ablaze from the inside out.
[MP: 120/150]
[MANA-SIPHON ACTIVATED: +2 MP]
[MANA-SIPHON ACTIVATED: +3 MP]
The kills were feeding her, slowing the drain. Efficient.
In fifteen seconds, the assault was broken. The surviving monsters—those not reduced to frozen, burning statues—were retreating in terrified confusion.
Lia released the trigger. The high-pitched whine died down to a low, content hum. Smoke—no, mana vapor—drifted from the barrel.
Silence fell, broken only by the crackle of dying frostfire and the stunned breathing of the soldiers.
Slowly, she stood. The crystalline gatling gun glowed softly beside her. She willed her second purchase.
"Admin. Release item number two."
The blue cubes formed again, assembling into the sleek, deadly form of the "Stinger" Precision Mana Rifle. She caught it, and it immediately linked to her senses. Through its scope, she could see the mana signatures of the retreating monsters through the stone battlements.
She spotted a Frost Weaver trying to hide behind a distant parapet. She raised the rifle, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.
A single CRACK-THOOOOOM of concentrated energy. A beam of pure blue light lanced across the battlefield, through two feet of stone, and vaporized the creature's core.
[MP: 110/150]
[SYSTEM: 3 HIDDEN TARGETS HIGHLIGHTED]
"Three more trying to flank the lower gate," she said calmly, pointing with the rifle's barrel. "Archers. Now."
The soldiers, shaking themselves from their stupor, followed her command. Arrows flew. The hiding monsters fell.
Lia slung the elegant, deadly rifle over her shoulder. She looked at the Commander, her eyes glowing faintly with residual mana.
She patted the still-warm "Winter's Howl" with genuine affection.
One soldier finally whispered, "By the Great Sun… she might be a battlemage!"
Lia's psychotic grin returned. "Worse. I'm your Duchess. And we have so much work to do."
[QUEST UPDATED: HOLD THE WALL - COMPLETED]
[REWARD: 50,000 EXP, 5,000 SYSTEM POINTS]
[NEW REPUTATION: FORTRESS DEFENDERS - RESPECT (NEUTRAL → AWED)]
[ADMIN A: NOT BAD FOR YOUR FIRST FIVE MINUTES.]
— To Be Continued… —