But to be addressed that way by the true Queen herself — the only feeling it produced was a helpless, blissfully spoiled delight.
Willow, watching from her seat nearby, felt a remarkably soft, almost auntie-like smile bloom across her normally composed face.
Your Majesty... you really do spoil these children terribly.
On this entire continent, not even the most down-on-their-luck monarch would permit a retainer to carry on like this — let alone personally play along with such a ridiculous game, or call an inventor 'Your Majesty' with her own lips.
If word of this reached another country, the nobility would drop their jaws clean off.
But this is Her Majesty.
She keeps the hardest armor for the enemies outside, and reserves this softest, most soul-melting warmth for the small circle of people gathered around this campfire.
Look at Irene's expression. That girl is going to be completely and utterly devoted for the rest of her life.
It took Irene quite a while to fully recover from the impact of being called 'Your Majesty.'
She drew a deep breath, raised her stick once more, and though her eyes were still slightly evasive, that mischievous little flame had reignited itself.
"All right... all right! Since Your Majesty put it that way — I won't hold back!"
Irene looked at the numbered sticks in her hand and grinned with gleeful menace.
"Then, will the people holding numbers one and two please stand up, look each other in the eyes, and give each other a heartfelt compliment — one sincere enough that the rest of us agree it passes. You cannot sit down until we're satisfied!"
The air froze the instant Irene issued her royal decree.
Everyone instinctively glanced down at the stick in their hand — and then two gazes met across the dancing firelight.
Sophia raised an eyebrow and, with unhurried grace, flipped over her stick. The carving on its underside showed clearly: number one.
Across from her, Willow's violet eyes trembled slightly. She looked at the number two scratched into her own stick with a touch of helpless amusement, then let out a quiet laugh.
"WHA——!"
Irene let out a single, extremely short shriek and slapped both hands over her mouth, her blue eyes going round as saucers.
"I... I landed on Her Majesty?! And Sister Willow?!"
I'm done for, I'm completely done for!
This genius wanted to cause trouble, but I didn't mean to call out the ultimate final boss like this!
Making Her Majesty give Willow-jiejie a heartfelt compliment — or making Willow-jiejie confess her feelings to Her Majesty?
Wait... actually, this is going to be incredibly worth watching.
Oh my god. I really am a genius. My luck must have been kissed by the God of Fortune itself.
Delilah, who had been polishing her sword, jerked to a stop. A barely-perceptible flash of jealousy crossed those crimson eyes, and the lopsided ponytail seemed to tilt even further to the right.
Daphne, meanwhile, simply put down the half-eaten rabbit leg she'd been gnawing on, her eyes lighting up like lanterns. She forgot to breathe entirely.
"Then... in accordance with the King's decree."
Sophia rose slowly to her feet. Despite wearing nothing but a simple fine-wool dress, the innate pressure she radiated made the air around her thicken.
She looked at Willow, the ghost of an arc playing at the corner of her mouth.
Willow stood as well. She drew a deep breath to steady the heartbeat that threatened to leap right out of her chest.
She stepped around the fire and came to stand less than half a meter in front of Sophia. Their shadows fell together on the ground, overlapping and intertwining.
Willow tilted her head slightly upward. The firelight painted warm gold across the clean lines of her face.
She looked into Sophia's pale golden eyes — and the polished, ceremonial words she had prepared dissolved on her tongue, replaced by the most genuine tremor of sincerity she possessed.
"Your Majesty, in my eyes, you are not only the sovereign of Mason."
Willow's voice was extremely soft, like a long breath of wind finding its way across a frozen plain.
"On that afternoon when the rain was pouring and the entire city was rotting in despair, it was you who reached out your hand.
Your eyes held none of that cheap pity. Only an arrogance and a conviction capable of splitting fate open.
You are the gentlest Tyrant I have ever seen — and I do not say that to imply you are not a wise ruler. I say it because you wield the most thunderous authority I have ever witnessed, alongside the most rational governance imaginable.
You have shouldered every hardship outside the Black Rose's borders, yet left the most peaceful spring plowing for the subjects who have never even seen your face.
To be allowed to be your shadow... is the only salvation of Willow's entire life."
Irene and Daphne, who had been prepared to enjoy the show, had gone completely still. Hailey pressed her pen tip so hard against the paper it sparked — words of this caliber were the kind that would send Grandpa Victor ascending straight to heaven on the spot.
Sophia looked at the faint redness gathering at the corners of Willow's eyes, and felt a small, quiet ripple stir somewhere inside her.
Those words really ought to be illegal.
As though, from the moment Sophia had brought Willow to serve at her side, Sophia had become a lighthouse burning in the middle of a storm.
Sophia extended her hand and rested it, entirely naturally, on Willow's shoulder. Her fingertips traced a light circle against the fabric — not high-quality material, but worn with quiet dignity.
"Willow."
Sophia lowered her voice. That cool, clear tone carried a faint, entrancing warmth that was almost nowhere to be found in her usual register.
"You are Mason's backbone, and the only shoulder This Queen can lean on in this fog with her eyes closed.
Without your art-like precision managing everything, I would have been lost long ago beneath those mountains of tedious documents.
You are not merely the finest Chief Steward I could have asked for. You are... the first miracle This Queen encountered upon arriving in this world."
"That's enough! That's enough! Wuu..."
Irene was the first to crumble. She wiped her eyes with one hand while waving the other frantically.
"This isn't a compliment exchange — this is a full Holy Light baptism! I can't take it anymore, this level of sincerity has completely broken the gauge! I already regret winning the King's draw — I want Her Majesty to say nice things about me too!
If the rest of us weren't here, the two of you would definitely be pressed together right now, wouldn't you?!"
Daphne nodded vigorously, folding her hands with an expression of transcendent serenity.
"I feel as though I am watching Your Majesty and Willow kissing each other's souls."
Delilah stared rigidly at the ground. The longsword in her hand gave a faint, low hum. Right now she wanted nothing more than to charge into the Black Pine Forest and cut down several bandits — anything to relieve this stifling, hideously sour feeling pressing on her chest.
Hailey's small hand moved in a frenzy, scratching sparks across the page as she wrote:
Spring. The riverside valley, at night.
The King's Game erupts.
Her Majesty and Sister Willow speak their hearts to one another.
In that moment, it seemed even the firelight went still.
Her Majesty called Willow-jiejie a miracle. Willow-jiejie called Her Majesty her salvation.
I understand now. Mason's strength does not lie in how many black muskets it has. It lies in this pure bond — one that can resonate two souls even when stripped of fine clothing, cast into the wilderness.
This is the most vast territory imaginable, and no map can ever mark it.
Note: King Irene is currently crying like a three-year-old chubby rabbit, though Irene-jiejie is actually quite slim.
Sophia calmly withdrew her hand and settled back onto her cushion. She took an unhurried sip of water, as though the deeply tender person of a moment ago had never been her at all.
"All right, King Irene."
Sophia cast a sideways glance at the still-sniffling girl.
"Does that round count as passed?"
"P... passed!"
Irene sniffled, then gripped her stick back with renewed purpose.
"Next round! Next round I'm absolutely going to pull off something spectacular!"
Irene hadn't fully recovered from the 'sincerity barrage' of the previous round, but the second draw was already getting underway at a brisk pace.
The firelight swayed. The sticks passed through each set of fingers in turn.
This time, when Delilah looked at the stick in her hand — the one bearing the clumsily carved crown — she appeared noticeably unsettled.
Delilah gripped that stick as though it were a thousand-jin broadsword.
That cold, striking face of hers still hadn't fully shed the flush from earlier, illuminated in the dancing firelight. When it came to this kind of 'prank game,' she clearly lacked Irene's instinct for casual mischief — and instead radiated an almost grave solemnity.
"I... am the King."
Delilah drew a deep breath. Those crimson eyes glanced instinctively in Sophia's direction.
As a top-tier warrior, her instincts were frighteningly sharp. Without seeing anyone else's numbers, some strange, inexplicable sense told her with certainty that Her Majesty was among the low-numbered draws.
"Since this is a game..."
Delilah pressed her lips together. Her voice was slightly taut, but there was a tenderness running through it that she couldn't quite conceal.
"Will the people holding numbers one, two, and three please stand up.
No punishments, no tasks... I want to hear your dreams. Your real ones. The kind you haven't decorated with anything."
As Delilah's words settled, three figures stood up, one by one.
Sophia had drawn number one again. She pressed her fingers tiredly to her forehead, privately convinced that her luck tonight was bordering on suspicious.
Irene had drawn number two — her pink twin-tails, which had been wet with crying not long ago, were now being sheepishly rubbed against her eyes.
Daphne had drawn number three. She held her staff, her golden hair lifted by the night breeze, her expression unusually solemn.
"My dream, huh..."
Irene stuck her tongue out with a slightly embarrassed laugh, but those blue eyes of hers shimmered with a light that could only be called fanaticism.
"I hope that one day, Mason's gears will be what turns this entire continent!
I want to build iron birds that fly through the sky, and carriages that run without anyone pulling them.
I want knowledge to stop being the exclusive birthright of the nobility — and become a tool anyone can pick up whenever they want.
And of course... the most important thing is that Her Majesty always allocates me enough research funding, and never gets angry even if I blow up half the Palace!"
Laughter erupted around the campfire the moment she finished.
The first part had been genuinely moving — it was a kind of ambition very few people in this world would even think to hold. Most ordinary people, most inventors, dreamed of bettering their own lives: wealth, reputation, recognition. But Irene was different.
"The Holy Light's true purpose is warmth."
Daphne tightened her grip on her staff and spoke in a quiet voice.
"My dream is simple.
I hope there will be no more people in this world burned to death for being different — those people who, in other worlds, are clearly miraculous and clearly heroes. Why should they come here only to be burned as Witches?
I hope the Holy Light I release can achieve its greatest possible effect, and can assist Your Majesty in changing this world.
Wherever Your Majesty is, I hope that place becomes the home where the Holy Light never goes out."
Every gaze finally settled on Sophia.
Delilah held her breath. This was what she had used her 'royal authority' for.
She wanted to know: this girl who could reshape the course of civilization with a casual gesture — what did she truly long for, deep in her heart?
Sophia looked toward the horizon, where the faint line of the sea shimmered in and out of view, her tone unhurried, carrying the easy clarity of someone who had long since seen through the world's pretenses.
A dream?
If I said my dream was to sleep in every day until my body decided to wake up, with no documents left to approve, without this group of people who spend every waking moment imagining my grand ambitions — just unlimited high-end seafood and Pudding...
They'd probably start crying on the spot.
After a brief internal deliberation, Sophia decided to beautify her ideal slightly.
"This Queen's dream?"
Sophia lightly traced her fingertips together.
"I hope that one day, I will no longer need this cumbersome armor, and Delilah will no longer need to stand guard outside my door every single day.
I hope that every person on this land, when they hear the name Mason, thinks not of war and cold — but of full granaries and dignity.
No one fears the sudden appearance of bandits or marauders. Everyone can eat whatever they want, and has the courage to do whatever they wish.
When that day comes... This Queen wants to build a small wooden cabin by the sea. Watch the sunrise and sunset, watch the four seasons change, eat delicious food, and live the most ordinary of days."
Hailey sat on her rock, her heart swaying with every word, her pen trembling so badly she could barely hold it:
Her Majesty has spoken the dream that makes every retainer tremble.
'Ordinary.'
I understand now! Her Majesty's so-called ordinary is an absolute peace built upon absolute invincibility!
She wants to go to the sea — not to live in seclusion, but to declare: only when the entire ocean has been brought to Order can she sit in that seaside cabin and enjoy the quiet that befits a god.
For the sake of our granaries and our dignity, Her Majesty is willingly burying her private longing for an ordinary life.
What immeasurable self-sacrifice! For the sake of Her Majesty's seaside cabin, Mason's iron cavalry... must never stop!
Willow listened with a deeply moved expression, and quietly helped Hailey write out a few characters the girl didn't know yet.
Delilah stared at Sophia in a daze, that lopsided ponytail still tilted fifteen degrees to the right — but her eyes had filled, quietly and completely, with the unshakeable resolve of someone who has decided they will never retreat.
She felt as though she had stepped one pace closer to Her Majesty's heart. Even if that 'ordinary' seemed, to the rest of them, as distant and grand as a divine kingdom beyond the clouds.
The fire popped softly. Sparks spiraled upward into the night sky, as if reaching to join the ancient stars.
Having heard Sophia's dream of 'ordinary,' the ever-boisterous Irene went quiet.
She lowered her head. Fine pink bangs fell across those deep blue eyes, hiding them from view. But in the dancing firelight, everyone present could plainly see the gleam trembling at the corners of those eyes.
"Your Majesty..."
Irene lifted her head. Her voice carried a hoarseness and a catch that had never been there before — genuine sincerity, stripped of every layer of her usual clowning.
"That day will come. I promise."
Irene extended that hand of hers — small, marked with fine little scars from years of handling machinery — and gripped the hem of her skirt tightly.
"Because... in the place where I came from, there are still bad people, there is still unfairness — but the overwhelming majority of people have enough to eat and enough to wear.
Children can run toward school in the sunlight, instead of picking through rubbish heaps for moldy bread.
Adults can work for the sake of something they love, instead of selling their souls just to survive."
Beside her, Daphne had gone silent.
As a fellow 'outsider' who had crossed dimensions herself, she felt in that moment a resonance deep in her soul — a trembling that came from somewhere far beneath the surface.
She tightened her grip on her staff. The Holy Light flowed soundlessly around its tip, as if silently bearing witness to everything Irene had said.
It was the distant shore from their memories — the one that had been sealed away inside them — the shore called 'civilization.'
Sophia looked at Irene's flushed, red-nosed little face, and something deep inside her — the softest, most carefully hidden part — was struck hard.
She knew.
She knew better than anyone what that world looked like.
It had skyscrapers. It had networks connecting the entire globe. It had agricultural technology that meant no one had to fear famine.
Watching Irene work so desperately hard to prove to her that 'utopia exists' — for just one fleeting instant, Sophia wanted to tell her: I've seen it too.
But Sophia's identity now was Mason's Queen. The only pillar this backward age possessed.
And that was her only trump card — the one she intended to carry to her grave, if she could.
Sophia said nothing. She did not expose the understanding they shared across the void of dimensions.
She tilted her head back slightly, letting the starlight spill across that head of silver hair, and let the corner of her mouth lift into an arc — small, but carrying an absolute, unshakeable certainty.
It was the kind of smile that made retainers like Willow and Delilah — born of this world — feel something close to reverence. A smile that carried the weight of something divine.
"Since you are so certain of it..."
Sophia withdrew her gaze and looked around at each of these girls gathered at the campfire, her voice cool and clear, every word landing with solid weight.
"Then let us go and build that future together."
Willow looked at the arc of Sophia's profile. In those violet eyes, alongside the worship that had always been there, a new light kindled — one that could only be described as willing to die gladly.
She finally understood why Her Majesty could always produce those world-shaking ideas. Because Her Majesty's eyes had always already held a perfect future inside them.
Delilah snapped her spine straight and tightened her grip on the longsword at her hip.
Since Her Majesty had said she would build that future, then she — Delilah — would be the blade that cut through every last thorn standing in its way.
"For Her Majesty's dream..."
Delilah's voice was low and steady.
"For that future... where everyone has enough to eat, and enough to wear."
Daphne echoed softly.
The campfire crackled with tiny, scattered pops in the wind. That heavy, melancholy feeling — the kind that crosses time and space — was forcibly pressed back down by Irene vigorously rubbing her eyes and blowing her nose.
"Okay okay! Don't be so serious, everyone!"
Irene gave her nose a decisive wipe and grabbed her stick back with fresh energy.
"Dreams are meant to be chased with a smile! Since we're all going to build that future, let's have a proper good time first!
Come on, come on — new round, start!"
This time, the draw moved much faster.
Everyone seemed to want to use laughter to cover over the truth of what they had just admitted to each other.
When the final stick was flipped over, Hailey's enormous eyes lit up instantly, as if two stars had fallen directly into them.
She stared in disbelief at the small crown mark carved into the bottom of her stick — her face flushing scarlet, her voice quavering with excitement.
"I'm the King... Hailey is the King too!"
"OH! Our little historian has ascended!"
Irene was the first to cheer, pink twin-tails bouncing in perfect rhythm.
"Come on then, King Hailey — issue your first royal decree!
Don't hold back — you can even make Daphne-jiejie do a cartwheel right here on the spot!
Or have Willow-jiejie dance for you?"
Hailey pursed her lips, and unlike Irene, did not immediately launch into something absurd. Instead she fell into a brief, genuine moment of thought.
Those dark-grape eyes of hers reflected the firelight with a seriousness that seemed far beyond her years.
"I've thought of it."
Hailey spoke quietly, her voice carrying the pure simplicity that only a six-year-old can manage.
"I want the sisters holding numbers two and four to... nuzzle each other."
"Nuzzle?"
Everyone paused for a moment.
"It means..."
Hailey pinched the corner of her notebook with a slightly shy expression and explained in a small voice.
"When Hailey used to dig through rubbish in the alleyways, I would often see mothers and daughters wearing clean clothes, pressed close together — cheeks touching, or foreheads resting against foreheads.
I always thought that was something only people with the very best relationship in the world would do.
I want the sisters to nuzzle too — so that Mason will always be like a family."
Those artless words, carrying the faint scars of a childhood lived in hardship, made every single person around the fire feel their heart clench at the same moment.
Even Sophia, who was almost always cold and composed, couldn't stop her fingertips from giving the faintest involuntary tremor.
Sophia let out a quiet breath and flipped over her own stick.
Number two.
And across from her, Delilah sat completely frozen in place. The stick bearing number four fell from her hand with a small clatter onto the scattered stones.
Sophia let out a long, quiet sigh.As I suspected — has Lady Luck simply fallen asleep tonight? Why am I in every single round?
Though... compared to the mutual heartfelt compliment segment — which was deeply, acutely embarrassing — a child's request to nuzzle is at least innocent.
Hold on. Delilah. That expression on your face — the one that says you're about to go into cardiac arrest — what exactly is going on? This is just an innocent press of foreheads. It is not asking you to blow up a lighthouse.
Sophia looked over at Delilah and found that this female war god, who charged through battlefields without flinching, was currently staring fixedly at her own feet. Her face had gone so red it looked ready to bleed, and that ponytail, still fifteen degrees to the right, trembled as though sending out an emergency distress signal.
"Come here."
Sophia spoke first, her voice softening a few degrees in the darkness of the night.
Delilah shuffled over mechanically, both arms and both legs moving together on the same side.
As she drew close to Sophia, that signature cool, clean fragrance swept over her again.
Sophia reached out and gently wrapped her arms around Delilah's shoulders — shoulders encased in hard rhinoceros-hide armor.
Feeling every muscle in Delilah's body locked up as tight as wrought iron, Sophia smiled in quiet resignation, tilted her head slightly upward, and pressed her forehead lightly against Delilah's chest.
She realized a moment later that the positioning was slightly off — but by then, Delilah's arms had already come up and settled around Sophia's shoulders.
This was, as Hailey had described it, the highest form of affection reserved for the closest relationship in the world.
Her Majesty's body... is so small.
At this distance, I could count every single one of her eyelashes.
My heart is about to explode — that sound must be loud enough for the entire camp to hear.
To Hailey, this is the warmth of family. But to me... this is the brand that has marked my soul, completely and permanently.
Your Majesty, please do not be gentle with me at a moment like this. I will get the maddening, delusional idea that even if I slaughtered every star in the sky for you, it would be worth it just to preserve this one moment of warmth.
Hailey watched from nearby, heart completely satisfied. She flew her pen across the notebook:
Little King Hailey exercises her royal authority.
Her Majesty and the General-jiejie nuzzle.
In that moment, the firelight seemed to illuminate their foreheads as though a god were exchanging vows with her own god of war.
I understand now! This is Her Majesty's great unifying will.
She rules not only through law over land, but through this intimate connection — stitching her retainers' souls together.
Looking at the two of them pressed close like that, I know: no matter how long the road ahead, Mason will never break apart.
Note: General-jiejie appears to be on the verge of fainting. Her face is redder than the coals roasting the rabbit.
The lingering, dreamlike atmosphere of the 'nuzzle' was shredded in an instant by an unnatural gleam stabbing out from the depths of the Black Pine Forest.
It was no magical flame. It was the cold biological light produced when the blazing warmth of their campfire struck the tapetum lucidum at the back of a wild beast's eye.
In the shadow of the dark-green undergrowth, two jewel-like, cold points of light pulsed steadily with each heavy, rhythmic breath.
A low, guttural, deeply territorial growl rumbled out, and the sound of churned earth spread across the ground.
It was a true apex predator of the jungle — a wild boar weighing five hundred jin, its entire body covered in coarse black bristles as thick and hard as steel needles.
It had no magical power. But its natural armor — built up over years of grinding against old trees, lacquered in pine resin and earth — and those outward-curving tusks, yellowed with age and glinting with cold, bone-white light, made it a primordial killing machine in its own right: the most ancient, most terrifying kind nature had ever produced.
"Protect Her Majesty!"
Delilah completed the switch from 'lovestruck girl' to 'killing machine' in what was literally a thousandth of a second.
That face, which had been flushed hot with embarrassment, turned ice-cold in an instant. Her right arm shot out with explosive force, sweeping Sophia directly behind her.
The motion was so forceful that the ponytail tilted fifteen degrees to the right snapped through the air with a sharp, clean crack.
"Beast! Who gave you the nerve to disturb this moment?!"
Delilah's voice barely contained a volcanic fury.
She did not immediately draw her sword. Instead she pressed one hand to the ground, her entire body coiling like a fully drawn black bow.
Sophia was yanked off-balance for a moment but felt no irritation. She braced herself naturally against the carriage wheel, those pale golden pupils extraordinarily calm in the darkness.
She raised the black musket in her hand with unhurried ease, feeling the cold metal against her fingertips, her tone as detached as someone commenting on a play that lacked any originality.
"It seems it has no knowledge of Mason's etiquette.
Delilah — the hide and fat on an old wild boar like this are too thick for a clean shot. Just open it up and let it bleed.
In conditions like these, this kind of beast really is an ordinary person's nightmare.
But faced with the eighteen black muskets behind me and one massacre-seasoned Grand General... this boar won't even last as long as that rabbit did.
That said — the size is genuinely impressive. Smoked and dried, it'll feed everyone here for days."
The wild boar's enormous body charged like a runaway heavy tank, bringing with it a thick, rank, muddy stench as it bore down on the camp.
Bang——!
Not a gunshot — it was the explosive crack of Delilah's feet driving off the ground.
That streak of crimson threw itself directly into the boar's charge.
Delilah did not blindly collide with it head-on.
She knew the force behind a beast like this at full sprint was enough to flip a carriage. Her body moved like lightning — in the split second before that massive creature would have slammed into her, she twisted into a sharp lateral sidestep.
The ponytail, still crooked fifteen degrees to the right, carved a fierce arc through the night air.
She still didn't draw her sword. Instead she used the momentum and, with the heavy linen-wrapped scabbard, drove a brutal deflecting blow into the thick flesh of the boar's hindquarters.
"GRRAAUGH——!"
The boar screamed in pain, its momentum too great to turn immediately — it plunged headlong into the shallow river shallows nearby, sending a cascade of spray flying in every direction.
Delilah followed like a shadow.
Every time the boar attempted to wheel around and hook those lethal tusks across her body, Delilah appeared with perfect precision inside its blind spot.
She moved like someone walking the edge of a blade, toes skimming the scattered rocks, using the scabbard to rap repeatedly at the boar's joints and the base of its ears.
This 'battle of attrition' made the watching soldiers hold their breath.
The General wasn't toying with it. She was draining the beast's stamina — searching patiently for the single, inevitable, fatal opening.
The eighteen black musketeer guards had already fanned into a wide arc, dark gun barrels trembling faintly with tension.
"Don't fire! The General is too close!"
The squad Captain gritted his teeth, fine cold sweat breaking out across his forehead.
In an era without telescopic sights, with two black shadows tangled together in high-speed combat, firing recklessly could very easily mean hitting the General herself — who was grappling barehanded, without even having drawn her sword yet.
All they could do was throw torches in an attempt to disrupt the beast's vision through firelight — and find, helplessly, that they couldn't insert themselves at all.
This was no longer an ordinary fight. It was a duel to the death between a human body pushed to its absolute peak — named Delilah — and the apex predator of this forest.
At some point Sophia had climbed to stand on the carriage's running board. The black musket rested steady in her hands. Those pale golden pupils, in the darkness, carried not a single ripple — still as a dead pool, reflecting the beast's fury with absolute cold.
She did not wait for Delilah's signal.
The moment the boar thrashed its head in a frenzy again — lunging to hook those tusks across Delilah's side — Sophia pulled the trigger.
Bang——!
A crisp crack split the air, and gunpowder smoke bloomed in the firelight.
The bullet did not kill the boar outright. It shattered the kneecap of its left hind leg with surgical precision.
The massive creature, mid-sprint and suddenly unbalanced, let out a world-shaking shriek. That enormous body pitched violently forward and crashed into the mud with a tremendous impact, churning up a cloud of filthy spray.
"My thanks, Your Majesty."
Delilah's eyes flashed. This was the exact moment of vulnerability she had been waiting for.
She finally reached for the linen-wrapped sword hilt.
A clean, ringing whisper of steel — and the longsword came free of its scabbard. The blade caught the campfire's glow and returned it as a cold, merciless light.
Delilah launched herself upward. The lopsided ponytail seemed to hang frozen in the air for one perfect instant.
Her entire body became a streak of blood-red. Using the force of her downward drop, both hands locking the hilt, the longsword slid through the thick joint gap at the boar's shoulder blade like a hot knife through butter — precise, brutal, without the slightest resistance — and drove straight through to the heart.
The boar convulsed twice. A last heavy breath burst from its mouth and nostrils — and it collapsed completely into the cold river shallows.
Five hundred jin of apex predator, and it was finished. It lay sprawled across the cold, rocky riverbed like a toppled black mountain.
The entire camp exploded.
The two experienced merchant women had their legs give out entirely. They clutched the carriage wheel, crying out in disbelief.
"Good heavens... in all my years, I have never seen a wild boar that size, and it was brought down in less than a quarter of an hour..."
"Her Majesty's shot was nothing short of divine intervention!"
The soldiers wiped the sweat from their faces and stared at the cool, composed figure standing on the carriage running board with reverent awe.
"At that range, at that timing — off by a single inch and the General would have been hit. And yet Her Majesty simply shot the beast's leg out from under it!"
Irene was already jumping up and down beside the carcass, little wrench raised in the air.
"That has to be hundreds of jin of pork belly! When did Her Majesty's marksmanship get that good?! I need to step up my training too! And Delilah — that sidestep of yours just now was phenomenally cool!"
Hailey was huddled at the edge of the carriage, face pale as paper from fright — but the pen in her hand was steadier than anyone's.
She was furious at herself for not knowing enough words, because even if she used everything Sister Willow and Grandpa Victor had ever taught her combined, she was not sure she could capture what she had just witnessed.
Five hundred jin for the wild boar, and Irene-jiejie had once mentioned that Irene-jiejie herself weighed about eighty-five jin, which meant the boar was...
How many Irene-jiejies was that again?
Hailey hadn't learned multiplication yet, and the calculation immediately started smoking.
"Your Majesty! Delilah! Are either of you hurt?!"
Daphne was calling out loudly from her side, sick with worry — and yet she had held herself back from interfering. She'd been terrified that if she lobbed a healing spell into the middle of that, she might accidentally close up the boar's wounds and undo all of Delilah's work. That would be worse than useless.
So she'd stood there with her hands clenched, helplessly watching.
She really did need to train. Otherwise in a real battle, she'd never be able to act for fear of accidentally buffing the enemy.
Willow had been watching from the carriage with deep concern. She had moved there early, terrified that Her Majesty, in her desire to help the General, might stumble off the running board in the process.
Thank goodness. Her Majesty's aim had been precise enough, and General Delilah's strength had been more than equal to the task.
But — just as Miss Irene had said — Her Majesty's marksmanship truly was extraordinary.
Her Majesty managed government affairs, worried about her subjects' stomachs, watched over the newly planted wheat, took care of every palace attendant and guard — and on top of all that, kept up with her physical training and her shooting practice.
And still, in conditions like these, her marksmanship was this fast, this precise, this clean.
She needed to keep up as well. She was Her Majesty's closest attendant — she absolutely could not be in a position where she needed Her Majesty to protect her.
"Your Majesty, please don't fall," Willow said quietly. "Would Your Majesty like this minister to help you down?"
In the midst of the astonished cacophony rising around the camp, Delilah slowly straightened up from the murky water.
She pulled her longsword free from the boar — a thrust that had gone through almost the entire length of the animal.
She shook the blood from the blade with a casual flick, her crooked ponytail disheveled in the firelight, yet carrying a wild, unrestrained tension that made it somehow even more striking.
She paid no attention to the praise erupting around her. Instead she turned her head sharply, cutting through the dissipating smoke and the noise of the camp with one single gaze — and found Sophia, standing above everyone on the carriage running board.
Sophia was calmly holstering the black musket, fingertips brushing lightly over the still-warm barrel.
Feeling that burning gaze, she let her eyes drop slightly — and met Delilah's head-on. Those eyes: red as fire, and brimming with something dangerously tender.
Their gazes locked.
The corner of Sophia's mouth curved into an arc — extremely faint, extremely light. The kind that no one else could have read.
It said: well done, my General.
And Delilah, looking up at Sophia's absolute, unshakeable composure — that look of someone who had already known how this would end — felt the blade-sharp coldness in her own eyes melt instantly into something warm as spring water. She met Sophia's gaze, and let a smile cross her face in return: a smile that carried a touch of earnest, artless honesty, and an absolute, wordless understanding.
Even in the middle of a howling, blood-soaked wilderness, it was the kind of certainty that locked two souls together — instantly, completely, and without any need for words at all.
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