The dawn of Avalon City split through the thin morning mist, flooding the whale-bone Royal Square with clear, penetrating light.
Following Sophia's orders, Marlena had moved with swift and decisive efficiency over the past two days, mustering every armed force in Avalon City and Cape Town.
Now Marlena stood in the neat City Lord's uniform that had been aesthetically reformed — her sun-bronzed skin still radiating a wild energy in the sunlight, but the imperious arrogance that had once defined her was long gone, replaced entirely by reverence for the young woman seated above her.
Sophia did not require her to dress this way on ordinary days. Avalon's climate made wearing formal attire every day impractical — occasions like this would be enough.
"Your Majesty — the full garrison of Avalon City and Cape Town... has assembled."
Sophia sat upright on the sea-stone chair that had been moved out for the occasion, her pale golden pupils sweeping across the square.
There, standing in two crooked rows, were the soldiers.
They wore simple shell armor and clutched rust-polished spears worn shiny from use. A few had freshly woven fishing nets sitting at their feet.
"A total of... sixty people?"
Irene couldn't help but stare, those sapphire-blue eyes going wide, half-convinced her ears had deceived her.
"Marlena — are you sure you're not joking?
"Sixty soldiers! Forty men, twenty women!"
Daphne covered her mouth as well, her eyes full of disbelief.
The census conducted over the past two days had put a number on the table that left everyone from the mainland thoroughly stunned.
The entire population of Avalon — including the scattered households tucked away in the rock beaches — totaled just two thousand one hundred people.
And these sixty soldiers were less an army than they were industrious fishermen who happened to be carrying weapons. Several of them, it had been observed, broke off mid-patrol to go home and help their families salt fish — and more than one had a shuttle for mending nets dangling from their belt.
There were no ruffians here. No scheming noble factions. Even outright crime was vanishingly rare.
This excessive tranquility was like an island of calm in the middle of a turbulent age.
Sophia had initially planned to bring this labor force back to Mason for the mines — but looking at them now, it was clear that forcibly taking these sixty able-bodied people away would cause Avalon's entire ecological balance to collapse overnight.
Sophia withdrew her gaze. Her fingers traced the faintly cool strand of pearls at her neck.
"Never mind."
Sophia's cool, clear voice carried across the square.
"These sixty — stay in Avalon. Continue performing your patrol duties as before.
"Avalon needs to maintain this peace. This Queen has no desire to look upon an empty, hollowed-out city."
Marlena blinked, then lifted her head with a look of genuine gratitude.
She had expected Sophia to behave as the old King of Orr had — conscripting labor at will and sending people into the deep mountains to build roads. It had never occurred to her that this seemingly cold Queen possessed such a clear-eyed, rational mind.
"However," Sophia continued, her tone shifting, the weight of sovereign authority settling back over everything.
"On the day This Queen's Black Rose flagship store opens in Avalon's central district, Mason will dispatch professional staff and supervisory soldiers to take up residence.
"They will be merchants — and they will also be the enforcers of Avalon's legal code.
"Marlena. Understand this: Avalon's peace is This Queen's gift. But the rules... will be Mason's rules."
In the time that followed, Sophia made no rush to leave. Instead, she had Willow and Daphne take turns lecturing the assembled soldiers — all of them born fishermen — and the gathered townsfolk on the fundamentals of Mason's legal code.
This was not merely law. It was the reshaping of an entire worldview.
The concept of private property: the fish you caught was no longer simply "food to survive on" — it was an asset that could be exchanged for soap and grain.
The principles of trade: short-changing a customer was no longer merely a matter of moral failing — it was a serious crime that Mason's soldiers would record and prosecute.
Sophia understood perfectly well that Avalon's people, confined by fear and isolation, did not yet dare to leave. But the moment they discovered that threefold profit — that fragrance that washed away the salt and brine, that sweetness the outside world had to offer that they had never once tasted — this ocean would eventually boil over.
What she needed to do was brand their souls with Mason's mark before the idea of "sailing out to see the world" even had a chance to take hold.
Hailey lay stretched out in the shadow of the square's flagpole, her small face drawn tight with focus, her pen tip flying.
Spring. Avalon City Square.
Her Majesty has completed a great act of 'compassionate calculation.'
The sixty soldiers offered up by City Lord Marlena are not, in Her Majesty's eyes, a military force. They are seeds.
I understand now! The reason Her Majesty did not take them away is because she recognized the value of Avalon City's stability.
She has designated this place as a vast ocean laboratory.
Watching Daphne-jiejie over there teaching the fishermen how to use soap — watching those soldiers recite the legal code while feeling the coconuts in their pockets — I know: the people of Avalon have fallen completely.
When the day comes that they truly walk out of this place, they will announce with pride: we are citizens of Mason's Avalon City.
Her Majesty is truly extraordinary — she didn't just conquer the briny tang of the ocean. She conquered the future of these people as well.
When Sophia finished her inspection and turned to head back to Sea's Edge House, Delilah stepped forward with complete naturalness — moving with that particular quality she only showed around Sophia, a faint, secret possessiveness woven into every gesture — and gently shielded Sophia's cheek from the sea wind.
The perfectly straight high ponytail caught the sunlight with a resolute gleam.
"Your Majesty, these Avalonians have decent foundations — but understanding Mason's Order will likely take some time," Delilah murmured, her gaze drifting, just barely perceptibly, toward Marlena, who was hovering and looking for any opening to interject.
"For the next two days, give them basic instruction first. Among the personnel sent here with the Black Rose flagship store, I will assign a small squad — and a Captain to lead them.
"Once they are in place to manage things, these soldiers will gradually learn to follow the rules."
"Yes, Your Majesty — Your Majesty's consideration is truly beyond compare."
Marlena found her opening and inserted herself gracefully, her gaze resting on Sophia with a warmth full of smiles.
As Marlena's faintly ingratiating words settled in the air, Sophia simply swept her with a single indifferent glance and did not reply.
That gaze — glacial, without the slightest ripple of feeling — hit Marlena like a blow to the chest, followed immediately by a tremor compounded equally of awe and an inexplicable, fluttering agitation she could not name.
"Irene — the matter of selecting the site. I'm leaving it to you."
Sophia turned her head toward the pink-haired girl, who was currently bored out of her mind and toying with the pearls in her pocket.
The moment Irene heard it was real business, those sapphire-blue eyes lit up instantly, and both pink twin-tails gave a cheerful bounce.
She didn't bother wandering between the low stone houses. Like an agile little fox, she made straight for the most centrally powerful location in Avalon City — the small stone fort sitting diagonally across from the City Lord's mansion.
The fort was built from dark gray sea-stones. Years of sea-wind erosion had left its surface mottled and worn — but by Avalon City's standards, its scale was second to none.
"Your Majesty! I've looked it all over — this is the one!"
Irene planted herself on the open ground in front of the fort, hands on her hips, and called out at full volume.
"This was originally the marketplace where Marlena sold things to her subjects, wasn't it? High ground, good airflow — and it's right under the City Lord's mansion's nose. If anyone tries to steal something, you could split them in two with a greatsword from up there!"
Marlena's mouth twitched faintly at that. It was, indeed, the place where she had traditionally demonstrated her generosity to her people. But she was hardly in any position to say a single word of objection — she could only nod repeatedly.
"If Your Majesty has chosen it, this fort will be cleared out immediately. It was always meant to be a place for my people to trade with one another — handing it to you to manage is more than fitting."
With the site decided, Sophia had no intention of dragging things out.
Under the direction of eighteen Mason Musketeers, the slightly cluttered stone fort underwent a thorough and comprehensive cleaning.
The townsfolk who had been drying fish and mending nets in front of their own doorways forgot their work entirely.
In a small town with only a handful of people, the slightest disturbance traveled to every corner in an instant — let alone a dramatic reshaping of the city's own landscape.
"Look! What are those people in the black clothes doing?"
"They're washing the walls? Gods — what did they put in that water? The color of the stone actually got brighter!"
"Is that... are they putting up scaffolding? That kind of timber — you can't grow it in our Avalon."
"Why do those people have black tubes hanging from their belts? Doesn't it get in the way?"
"Right? People from the mainland are so strange — isn't it a bother to carry black tubes around everywhere?"
The townsfolk gathered in clusters of three and five outside the fort. Some had even climbed up onto the nearby fish drying racks, eyes wide, watching.
None of them had ever seen labor this efficient, this organized.
Willow directed a few Avalonians in scrubbing the salt crust that had accumulated over more than a decade from the walls, using Mason's specialized cleaning solution. Meanwhile, under Delilah's supervision, the Musketeers drove the treated red cedar beams they had unloaded from the carriages — preserved against rot — into the walls one by one.
Curiosity is the first engine of commercial civilization.
Let them watch. That was precisely the point — to let them understand, with their own eyes, how Mason's sense of beauty and efficiency could reshape even the most stubborn of stones.
This marketplace, once used purely for barter, had been crippled by its lack of unified pricing and any currency system — its efficiency was staggeringly low.
Once the Black Rose signboard went up, this would become the beating heart of Avalon. And when these people grew accustomed to trading here, Avalon's economic sovereignty would be locked permanently within Sophia's palm.
In barely half a day, the little stone fort that had once been dull and gray was transformed.
The interior held nothing more than the simplest wooden shelving — but the level floor and the sea-stone walls, scrubbed clean, radiated in the sunlight a quality of cool, high-end restraint that no one could quite put a name to.
"Raise the sign!"
Sophia stood at the foot of the steps and issued the order in an even tone.
Two powerfully built Mason soldiers lifted together an enormous, exquisitely carved plaque of black ironwood.
At its center bloomed a Black Rose in full, lifelike relief. Surrounding it, in bold, vigorous gilded characters:
[Mason · Black Rose Flagship Store — Avalon City Branch]
The moment the plaque was secured firmly above the fort's main gate, a wave of involuntary, low gasps broke from the watching crowd of townsfolk.
They had never heard of this kind of shop — but that aura radiating from the Black Rose, majestic and mysterious and suffused with the sense of abundance, struck straight through to their souls.
Hailey sat on a large conch-shell decoration across from the fort, her pen making soft, scratching sounds in the last light of dusk.
Spring. Avalon City.
Her Majesty has driven in the first nail.
That small fortress called a flagship store is now the brightest spot in all of Avalon.
The townsfolk don't even dare to approach — they can only whisper from ten paces away.
Her Majesty has no need of towering walls. This signboard is the most impregnable fortress of all.
Every dried fish, every pearl, every coin of gold — in the future, they will all flow through this gate and into Mason's treasury.
And the townsfolk will not resist. They will fish themselves to exhaustion, desperate to trade for the miracles of the land waiting inside.
Inside the fort, Willow was directing several capable Musketeers through a final verification of the census records compiled over the past two days.
Thick sheaves of sheepskin parchment recorded the name, age, family relations, and favored fishing waters of every single Avalonian.
To these fishermen, accustomed to living freely among the waves, this was nothing more than a simple roll call. But to Sophia, it was the first step in bringing this wild place fully within Mason's domain.
"Your Majesty — the records of all two thousand one hundred and three citizens have been fully verified."
Willow presented the organized scrolls to Sophia, her tone carrying the composed relief of someone who had completed an exacting task.
"Once we return to Mason, the Alchemy Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will work through the night.
"When they are ready, all of them will be sent to Daphne at the top of the West Tower.
"Every citizen of Avalon City will receive a one-of-a-kind identity card bearing a magic-enhanced anti-forgery mark."
Sophia's fingertip traced the rough surface of the paper, her expression cool and unhurried, perfectly rational.
In a world without surveillance or communication networks, uniqueness of identity was the highest possible efficiency of rule.
So long as these cards were tied to their rations, their tax exemptions, and their right to purchase the miracles of the land — no matter how desperately the people of Avalon craved their freedom, they would never dare to discard this small token of Mason citizenship.
This was not a card. It was an invisible thread — thin as silk, yet anchored immovably to the throne in the City of Hill.
Once these specially crafted magic identity cards were placed in their hands, Avalon would truly never be able to turn back.
With the tedious administrative matters at last concluded, Sophia pressed her fingertips to her slightly tired temples and rubbed.
For some reason she could not quite identify, ever since she had set foot on Avalon's land — and especially over these past two days, during which her contact with Daphne had grown increasingly frequent — she had the persistent sense that something subtle had shifted within her body.
This change was not an explosion of raw power. It was something more like a radical sharpening of every sense.
Now, sitting perfectly still, Sophia could perceive with startling clarity a faint, elusive fluctuation in the air around her.
The fluctuation was like the drone of cicadas on a summer afternoon, or the ripples stirred across a lake by a passing breeze — carrying with it a warm, sacred, life-saturated rhythm.
She had never felt anything like this before.
Almost on instinct, she raised her head. Her gaze found Daphne, who was standing at the edge of the terrace in prayer.
That frequency... there could be no mistake.
In this entire world, Daphne was the only person who possessed what was called magic — and the only one who radiated this particular energy field.
But why — why could she perceive every faint ripple of Daphne's emotions with such clarity?
When Daphne's heartbeat quickened, she could feel the scorching anxiety in the air.
When Daphne felt at peace, the Holy Light's fluctuations wrapped around her senses like warm spring water.
Could it be... without my even noticing, my own senses have been evolving toward some inhuman threshold?
Or is it that Daphne's near-obsessive loyalty to me has granted my soul some kind of one-way reception access to her?
Daphne felt Sophia's gaze and stopped her prayer.
She turned her head. Those eyes, pure and utterly unclouded, shimmered with a soft radiance in the moonlight.
As though sensing something, she gathered her white Saint's robe and trotted over, dropping to one knee at Sophia's side, her expression taut with nerves — and brimming with anticipation.
"Your Majesty... the look in your eyes just now felt as though it passed straight through my soul.
"That sensation — it was as if the Holy Light inside me was rejoicing. As if it recognized you.
"Could it be... that you felt it too?"
Daphne reached out her hand, wanting to touch Sophia's fingertips — and then stopped herself, hovering in mid-air, suddenly nervous.
Sophia did not pull away. Instead she extended her own hand, fingertip resting lightly against Daphne's palm.
Hum——
In the instant of contact, Sophia's mind seemed to be struck by a soft, gentle clap of thunder.
But just as quickly, the sensation dissolved like fireworks fading from the sky, leaving nothing behind.
Daphne's expression shifted to bewilderment. She didn't understand what had happened — but she seemed to have felt it too: a fleeting resonance with Her Majesty's body, there for a single heartbeat and then gone.
Behind a stone pillar, Hailey was hiding, her small face flushed deep red from the warmth and sacred quality of this atmosphere.
Sophia slowly withdrew her hand. The faint residual warmth on her fingertips made her cool, rational heart skip an uncharacteristic beat or two.
She looked at Daphne, her tone carrying a complex, probing quality.
"Your Majesty — I don't understand it either," Daphne said, gazing at her own palm with equal complexity.
"As a general rule, it is extremely difficult for an ordinary person to awaken to magic — unless there is a special medium to catalyze it. But there shouldn't be any such medium in this world..."
Just as Sophia and Daphne were on the verge of probing deeper into that fleeting resonance, a set of footsteps — quick but perfectly measured — broke the terrace's silence.
Old Pierre arrived, escorted by two black musket soldiers.
He had changed into a clean, sharp long robe. He still looked entirely the part of a seasoned, crafty merchant — but the gaze he directed at Sophia held none of his early testing and wariness. What remained was something far simpler and purer: awe, in the face of power and wealth.
He glanced first at the little stone fort, transformed in the moonlight into something clean and gleaming — its mottled sea-stone walls scrubbed until they shone with a cool luster, the black ironwood sign standing unmoved in the sea wind.
"Extraordinary... the efficiency of the gods themselves."
Pierre murmured to himself — then hastily gathered his composure and performed a deep, respectful bow toward Sophia.
"Your Majesty the Queen, this old servant begs pardon for the intrusion."
Pierre straightened, rubbed his hands together, and fixed Sophia with the sharp, glinting eyes of a man born to commerce.
"I have heard that Your Majesty intends to depart for Mason in two days' time. This old servant has long had a request he has not dared to make.
"This time... I would be so bold as to ask permission to bring my merchant caravan along with Your Majesty on the return journey."
He paused, his tone shifting toward something more sincere.
"Beyond the usual taxes, I have warehouses here in Avalon stacked with the finest salt and dried fish. I would like to go see Mason for myself.
"And along the way... to see whether I might purchase some grain — the kind that keeps people alive — for the people of Avalon.
"As Your Majesty and Miss Inventor said — Avalon's people are lacking in far too many things."
Sophia withdrew the hand that still held a faint residual warmth of Holy Light, and her fingertips began tapping a light, crisp rhythm against the armrest.
"Monsieur Pierre — Mason's land is vast. But This Queen must warn you."
Sophia's voice was cool, carrying the rational precision of someone who would not soften an inconvenient truth.
"Last year's Mason barely managed to feed itself.
"If you arrive expecting to cart away mountains of gold and silver — or to haul back limitless quantities of grain on the spot — you may find yourself disappointed."
She paused, those pale golden pupils fixing Pierre with a level, direct gaze.
"Only after this autumn's harvest will Mason's granaries be genuinely full enough to support free trade."
Old Pierre froze. He had assumed that a Mason capable of destroying the Kingdom of Orr must surely be a Divine Kingdom overflowing with wealth — wheat piled in the streets, gold lying about in heaps.
Just as Pierre was absorbing this shock, Irene — who had been idly fiddling with some Blue Gold components nearby — couldn't hold back a laugh.
She tossed her two pink twin-tails back with a flourish, those sapphire-blue eyes dancing with sly, gleeful triumph.
"Hey, old man — haven't you gotten something a little mixed up?
"Our Queen only took over that mess of a kingdom last year. You know what I mean?"
Old Pierre's expression solidified on his face. Then his pupils contracted with a violent, convulsive shock.
Last... last year she became Queen?!
Good gods — what does that mean?
It meant that in barely the span of a single year, this young woman had not only quelled internal unrest — she had taken a nation teetering on the edge of famine and fed it. And then, as a casual aside, she had crushed the massive, deeply entrenched power that was the Kingdom of Orr as though it were nothing.
I assumed she had simply inherited a mighty empire. But now I see...
She didn't inherit an empire. She created an Order with her own hands.
What human being could possibly do something like that?
This is plainly a god of sovereignty walking in the mortal world.
Fine, cold sweat beaded across Old Pierre's forehead. He bent at the waist again — lower, more abject, more fervent than before.
"So... so that is how it is.
"Her Majesty's divine radiance truly leaves this old servant ashamed of himself."
"No matter. Even with grain in short supply, I must make this journey," Pierre said.
He recovered his composure with remarkable speed — the merchant's instinct seizing on the second opportunity that had presented itself.
"Avalon's salt and seafood will surely find a market in Mason.
"I can use these goods to trade for a small quantity of grain — even just a little would give Avalon's people a reason to hope."
Sophia gave a small nod. This was precisely what she had wanted — to get the flow of goods between the two places moving.
"Agreed.
"You may not only travel with us — in the future, you may bring Avalon's merchant caravans back and forth alongside the Black Rose flagship store's garrison force that I dispatch here."
Sophia rose from her seat. The black cloak swept an elegant arc through the night wind.
"Avalon's specialties are something Mason needs — and Mason's Order is something Avalon must learn.
"Pierre. Do well as a trailblazer."
With Sophia's permission secured, Pierre's heart settled.
He was not a well-traveled man — even his most venturesome journeys had taken him no more than a few dozen kilometers beyond Avalon, to the midpoint between Avalon and Orr's territory, where he conducted his modest exchanges. Beyond that, genuine experience of other countries was something he had none of whatsoever.
And so this departure from Avalon — this journey all the way to Mason's Royal City — was, for Old Pierre, a genuinely novel experience.
Pierre made thorough preparations. He brought his young granddaughter and several of his most capable workers, spent the night organizing everything in his warehouses, and then set about buying up surplus seafood and dried goods from Avalon City and Cape Town at low prices, ready for the road ahead.
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