The morning after the fall of the hybrid beast dawned with a pale clarity, the snow reflecting the weak light of the winter sun struggling to pierce the clouds. Border Town breathed a sigh of relief, lulled by the false sense of security that the monumental, frozen carcass beyond the wall provided.
Inside the castle, in the study room attached to the main office, the atmosphere was one of dense, calculating silence.
Barov, the Assistant Minister, sat behind a desk cluttered with accounting parchments. His eyes, however, were not on the numbers. They furtively darted to the figure sitting comfortably in a velvet armchair in the corner of the room. It was Arthur. The dark-suited strategist sipped a steaming tea with unwavering elegance while leafing through a thick, leather-bound tome on the geography and politics of the Kingdom of Wolfheart.
Looking at Arthur made Barov's stomach turn in a very peculiar way, a mixture of professional envy and an instinctive fear. The old bureaucrat's mind wandered, pulled inexorably to a memory from several days ago, a silent confrontation that had changed the dynamic between them.
It occurred in that very room, late on a gloomy afternoon. Barov, feeling his administrative territory constantly invaded by the revolutionary ideas of that outsider, had decided to corner him.
.
— "Count Arthur," — Barov had begun, his voice heavy with the arrogance of one who had served twenty years in the Ministry of Finance in the capital. — "I have spoken extensively with merchants, diplomats, and nobles from all corners of this continent. And there is something that intrigues me. You and Lord William claim to be from the Kingdom of Dawn. However... your accents. The cadence of the words, the way you pronounce certain consonants. It is not the accent of Dawn. It is something completely different." —
Arthur had not shown surprise. He simply closed the book he was reading and smiled, a cold smile that didn't reach his eyes.
— "Your ear is sharp, Minister Barov. Worthy of a man who survived Wimbledon's court," — Arthur replied smoothly. — "However, the explanation is mundane. William and I were born in Dawn, but we spent most of our formative and adult lives traveling and operating businesses in the Fjord Islands. That archipelago is a melting pot of cultures. When you trade with sailors from ten different nations every day, your original accent dilutes and blends, creating its own isolated dialect." —
The explanation was logically flawless. The Kingdom of Dawn was known for its trade ties with the Fjords. Still, Barov was not satisfied. Suspicion gnawed at his mind. Since those two had arrived, the Minister felt he was losing ground. Prince Roland seemed bewitched, following practically all of Arthur's tactical and logistical advice without hesitation. More than that, Roland was... different. The ignorant and frivolous Prince that Barov knew was no longer the same, as if replaced by someone wise and competent. Could these men be servants of the Devil? Barov had thought, cold sweat running down the back of his neck. Witches in disguise who corrupted His Highness's mind? This Arthur wants my position to...
— "I know exactly what you are thinking, Barov." —
Arthur's voice cut through the bureaucrat's thoughts like a razor, bringing him back to reality with a start.
Arthur stood up and walked slowly to Barov's desk, resting both hands on the wood. Arthur's serious gaze was piercing.
— "You are wondering if William and I are servants of the Devil. You are thinking that we used witchcraft to drive the Prince mad, and you see me as a direct rival, an obstacle, since you grudgingly recognize that I hold an administrative competence that threatens your monopoly." — Arthur tilted his head. — "But ease your superstitious mind. Witchcraft would be impossible. After all, you carry a God's Stone of Retaliation around your neck under those noble clothes at all times. Don't you?" —
Barov was dumbfounded. The blood drained from his face, his hands trembling over the parchments. How did he know? The Minister really had thought exactly those things, word for word. Terror took hold of him.
— "H-How...?" — Barov stammered, shrinking back in his chair. — "How do you know what I thought?" —
— "Do not be alarmed, it is not black magic, or anything of the sort. Because I don't need magic to read an ordinary man," — Arthur replied with a tone of contained disdain. — "Your micro-expressions, the rhythm of your breathing, the way you look at my notes... you are an open book to anyone who knows how to read human nature, Minister. I am an analyst." —
Arthur straightened his posture, his tone of voice shifting from threatening to negotiating.
— "Listen closely. I have not the slightest interest in 'stealing' your place. I don't care about the grain accounting or tax collection of this rotten, old Town. That is a bureaucrat's job, and the position is yours. But, in exchange for my not influencing His Highness to replace you with someone more... flexible... I will want a small favor." —
— "W-What do you want?" — Barov asked, his voice failing, subjugated by the strategist's overwhelming presence.
— "I want a God's Stone of Retaliation," — Arthur said coldly. — "It doesn't have to be yours. I know the Ministry manages to acquire various donations from the Church. I just want you to get one and hand it over to me. And we will never speak of accents again." —
.
Barov blinked, returning to the present. He watched Arthur turn the page of the book on Wolfheart. The man was a manipulative demon, with or without magic, and Barov knew that the Stone of Retaliation he had provided days ago would not be enough to protect him from that strategist's mind.
Across the room, Arthur's thoughts were very far from Barov's paranoid fears. His mind was actively working on the translucent blue window that had opened before his eyes that very morning.
Today, right upon waking up, the Dimensional System had surprised him in a colossal way. Since he and William had been dragged into that world, the System had been incredibly silent. They had only received a single official mission with guidelines: ensure that Anna wasn't hanged on the first day. Arthur theorized that they would be slaves to dozens of arbitrary quests like in most fantasy novels, but reality proved to be the complete opposite. The System seemed to let them act on their own free will, rewarding them only when they altered the original canon of the story.
But today, the interface flashed with a red urgency:
[QUEST TRIGGERED: THE TURNING POINT TWO]
Objective: Ensure that the killings of the witches from the Witches Cooperative Association are stopped.
Reward: Unlock the Magical Evolution.
Initially, Arthur had frowned. He had not the slightest desire to abandon the comfort and safety of the fortified castle to venture into the deadly miasma of the mountain. He and William argued heatedly about it in the hallway. William, with his reckless hero spirit, wanted to charge at the demons without a second thought. Arthur preferred a safer approach.
However, the perspective had changed. Arthur closed the Wolfheart book, looking at his own gloved hand. His Telekinesis Magic Power was now at level ten. When he had lifted Anna on the wall with such invisible effort, he understood the true magnitude of his power. He was no longer the fragile strategist from Earth. Now his Telekinesis didn't just serve to move objects; it was a pure, crushing vector force. He could snap the necks of giant beasts from a distance, conjure invisible shields that rivaled steel, and crush skulls with atmospheric pressure.
His previously analytical self-confidence had become absolute. He firmly believed that, with his mind, he could defeat not just two measly Demons, but even ten Demons alone, with extreme ease, without even dirtying his suit. This time, he had no logical reasons to refuse the rescue. He would save the witches of great tactical utility, guarantee magical manpower for Border Town, and still profit by evolving his Magic. It was an offer he couldn't refuse.
The soft sound of the doorknob turning broke the stillness. The heavy oak door opened, and Anna peeked inside. Her eyes quickly searched the room and fixed on Arthur. She completely ignored Barov.
Anna walked silently over to Arthur's armchair and, leaning in slightly, asked in an almost inaudible voice, an intimate whisper: — "Arthur... could you speak with me now?" —
— "Of course," — Arthur replied, closing the book with a soft click and placing it on a coffee table. He stood up and escorted the young witch out of the room, leaving Barov alone with his own demons.
They walked side-by-side down the cold stone corridor, away from the ears of the guards.
— "I did as you asked," — Anna began, looking straight ahead. — "I did not reveal to His Highness Roland, nor to Miss Nightingale, that it was you who held me in the air. I didn't tell them that you possess magic, nor the details of our conversation in the corridor. I kept the secret." —
Arthur stopped walking. He turned to her and, in a gesture of calculated approval, raised his hand and lightly patted the top of Anna's head. The touch was chaste, but conveyed a fatherly and welcoming authority.
— "Thank you, Anna. You did very well," — he praised, his tone soft and convincing. — "You have proven to be incredibly reliable. I know I can count on you." —
Anna felt her face heat up slightly at the praise, but her curiosity, newly instigated by Roland the night before, spoke louder.
— "Taking advantage of the fact that we are being honest..." — she hesitated, biting her lower lip before facing him. — "His Highness told me yesterday that Nightingale cannot get close to you. He said you carry a God's Stone of Retaliation in your pocket. Is it true? And if so... why? But if you don't want to talk about it, I understand, it's alright." —
Arthur took his hand off her head and placed it in the pocket of his overcoat, exactly where the stone rested.
— "I trust you, Anna. There's no reason to hide this," — he began, adopting a professorial posture. — "The reason I carry a Stone of Retaliation is strictly simple: self-preservation." —
Anna frowned, confused. — "But you are absurdly powerful. You can lift beasts into the air." —
— "With my Telekinesis, I can, indeed, protect myself from the swords of ordinary men, from treacherously fired arrows, and from the advance of any demonic beast," — Arthur explained patiently. — "But my mind has blind spots against the ethereal. Only the Stone of Retaliation can completely and immediately defend me from the power of other witches. Remember what I once told His Highness: 'Witches are, first and foremost, like ordinary people'. And that means a brutal truth: there are immaculately good witches as well as selfish and terribly cruel witches. An invisible magical power, like poison in a glass of water, could kill me before I could use my mind to defend myself." —
He paused, letting the logic sink into the girl's head.
— "And there is another, more practical reason," — Arthur narrowed his eyes. — "I value my privacy. I hate having my mind and my words scrutinized. I feel that my free will is constantly invaded by Nightingale's passive power to try and figure out if someone is lying." —
Anna widened her blue eyes, surprised by the revelation. — "Miss Nightingale has the power to see lies?" —
— "Yes. And she doesn't know how to turn it off," — Arthur confirmed coldly. Then, he reached into his pocket, simulating the intention to pull out the stone. — "But, if the presence of the stone offends you as a witch, I can simply throw it out the window right now. Your trust is worth more to me." —
— "No!" — Anna said quickly, shaking her head. Her pragmatic side perfectly understood the outsider's need for security. — "It's not necessary. I understand your motives. You are right to protect yourself." —
They resumed walking until they reached an intersection in the east corridor.
— "I am going to my quarters to organize the maps for a journey I will have to take soon," — Arthur said, his voice taking on a cautionary tone. He looked intently at Anna. — "But first, I need to warn you about an impending event. Your Day of Awakening is very close. I don't know exactly when, but following the sudden appearance of the Hybrid Beast at the wall, the Demon's Bite will attack you with full force. However, you will not die," — Arthur assured her, the confidence in his words sounding prophetic. — "To survive peacefully and pass through without suffering any pain, you must expend as much of your Magic Power reserves as possible every day from now until the fateful day. Empty the water from the bucket, Anna. If you do everything as I say, upon waking up, your power will not only have saved you, but will have evolved in an absurd way. If all goes well, your flames will acquire an emerald green hue, and you may even be able to perfectly control your temperature." —
Anna was no longer surprised by the man's precise prophecies. He always seemed to know the future, the invisible details of the world. She just nodded firmly, placing all her trust in his words. They said their goodbyes with a formal nod, and each went their own way.
When Arthur finally closed the heavy door of his own room, locking it with a turn of the key, he relaxed his shoulders. He walked to the window and looked out at the gray landscape, a restrained smile, yet laden with a deep feeling of disgust and disappointment, taking shape on his lips.
It was pathetic. Exactly as he imagined, Anna behaved like any generic, predictable heroine of a mediocre novel.
Arthur's mind dove into a merciless analysis of the original work that dictated the reality of that world. He vividly recalled how the fandom of readers on Earth used to fiercely debate, alternating their preference between Nightingale, Anna, and some even Wendy.
But to Arthur's cynical and critical mind, those three main heroines were painfully simple-minded and narratively "forced."
Starting with the girl he had just spoken to. Anna. A bland heroine, soft-hearted and without a strong personality to anchor her own power. It was the exact archetype of the character who falls madly and submissively in love right after being saved from death by Prince Charming. Arthur proved that today: he only had to reveal a bit of his power and declare that he would save her if Roland didn't, for her to already change her tone of voice, start looking at him with eyes full of dependence, and actively lie to other people, seeing him as an older brother. She was a blank canvas waiting for a man to paint her.
Then came Nightingale. She wasn't much different from Anna in her essence of emotional dependency, masked by knives and sarcasm. All it took was for Prince Roland, in the original story, to give her a roof, a room, and four hot meals, after the poor thing was excluded, wounded, and attacked by the Witch Association itself, for that to be enough for her to hand over her blind loyalty and fall madly in love with the monarch. It was the old cliché of the wounded animal licking the hand that feeds it. She was too predictable and easy to win over.
And finally, Wendy. When thinking of her, Arthur didn't feel the same disgust, but rather a critical irritation at a grotesque flaw in psychological construction. Wendy was unrealistic in the extreme. She was a sweet, kind, and caring character to the point of nausea. She acted and spoke as if she were a true Saint or a puritan nun.
To Arthur, that made no sense whatsoever. And one only needed to look at her history to reach this obvious conclusion. Wendy had been raised without parents, secluded within the walls of a strict convent. She was clearly aware that she had been abandoned in childhood like garbage. And the cruelty of her past didn't stop there: the same "holy people" of the Church who supposedly gave her shelter were the same ones who also actively conspired to throw her into the disgusting arms of corrupt nobles to be abused. All of this, added to the hunger, the cold, and all the excruciating hardships she must have faced fleeing the Holy City of Hermes to the border of Graycastle.
How could someone who went through a hell of abandonment, betrayal, exploitation, and hunger magically maintain such an immaculately good and smiling soul?
It made no sense. To Arthur, real human psychology dictated that Wendy, taking into account her past and her survival instinct, should obligatorily have the unbearable, acidic, and defensive personality of young Lily; or, at the very least, she should hate the world, people, be a fanatic, embittered, and obsessed with salvation on the Holy Mountain, exactly like Cara. Wendy's unbreakable kindness was laziness on the author's part.
To Arthur, the tastes of the fandom from his past life were stupid, but obvious. The readers who loved Anna liked her simply because she was the first heroine introduced, the perfect Mary Sue in person, a genius of science and magic, the docile girl who solved all the plot's industrial problems and perfectly understood the Prince. Those who loved Nightingale liked her because she was the eternal romantic sufferer; she loved Roland very much and was always passed over. Human beings have a pathetic tendency to pity the emotionally weaker ones or the characters who are always losing in the romantic race. And as for Wendy, it was as clear as day: those who liked her most didn't care about her past, caring almost exclusively about her slender appearance and her, narratively emphasized, huge busts.
But Arthur, standing at his bedroom window watching the snowflakes twirl, thought in a diametrically opposed way. In all that castle of damsels in distress and enamored warriors, he only had genuine interest in one single witch.
Leaf.
To the strategist's mind, Leaf was the perfect fantasy character. She was deeply rooted in reality and pragmatism. She was absurdly cautious and suspicious. In the original work, even when some witches wanted to go to the promised safety and hot food of Border Town, Leaf changed her mind and put the brakes on her own "fantasy." She refused to blindly believe the fairy tale told by Nightingale about the existence of a "good and liberating Prince." Leaf knew perfectly well, from her own experience, how dirty, treacherous, and disgusting human nobility could be, and refused to lead her sisters into a possible trap, except when she had no choice and was still willing to be the bait. She thought rationally, she didn't act on emotion.
Furthermore, Leaf was undeniably determined and lethal. When the Association was attacked by demons in the Impassable Mountain Range, she didn't scream for help or run away, unlike many other witches. On the contrary, she ordered the retreat of her sisters, planted her feet in the cursed earth, used her vines, and held the monstrosity alone so her weak sisters could escape with their lives, even managing to defeat and kill one of the demons in an impressive solo duel.
And finally, she was mysterious. Unlike the other prominent witches — like Lily, Echo, or Lightning — whose pasts and traumas were exposed to the four winds to generate pity, Leaf's past was never revealed in the work. She carried her history in silence. And above all, she wasn't emotional like Anna and Nightingale, who fell in love easily for crumbs of male kindness.
Amidst that irritating jumble of witches with simplistic psychologies and clichéd attitudes, Leaf was the only woman who carried a realistic trait of cold survival and wild wisdom. Unfortunately, in the original story, she had been criminally sidelined by the author, demoted to the role of a farmer and overshadowed by simple-minded characters.
— "But that doesn't matter anymore," — Arthur whispered to the fogged glass, his reflection returning a restrained smile.
That was another reality. It was the reality where he was present, armed with the power of Telekinesis. The strategist turned his back to the window, looking at his heavy overcoat, which he would use to brave the mountain snow. He was going to the Impassable Mountain Range. And he would change the forest witch's destiny, ensuring that in this new narrative, she wouldn't be overshadowed by anyone.