"Feudal old relics — now you know what Mason is capable of!"
Bardess watched the Yurilland soldiers scattered and routed by the fire bottles, and felt a deep, savage satisfaction bloom in her chest.
Granted, trash-talk at the start of a battle was perfectly normal — but Bardess hadn't actually fought in many battles before. All her real experience had come after she joined Her Majesty Sophia. So it was only now, in the aftermath, that she was finally venting the anger that had built up from being cursed out at the very beginning.
That crooked, lopsided armor they were wearing had been an eyesore from the moment she laid eyes on it. Well — problem solved. One good fire and the whole lot of it was burned clean off.
The rhythm of the dancing flames neatly divided the wasteland into two zones: charred black and vivid red. What a perfect dividing line.
As expected, Her Majesty understood best. Using fire bottles to sweep away this kind of rubbish obstacle — maximum efficiency, maximum tidiness.
Now that they'd laid down their weapons, the accounting work ahead would be far more convenient. Every single person, every single weapon — all of it could be converted into real, tangible work points!
Charge! Round up every last one of these Yurilland prisoners and get them registered!
Through the lifted curtain of the carriage, Sophia's pale-gold pupils rested on the bedraggled figure of Cassel not far away.
Her voice remained cool and still, without a single ripple of emotion.
"Bardess — have the soldiers move in. Anyone who lays down their weapon and strips off their armor is to be classified as labor force awaiting reform. Anyone who resists is to be killed on the spot."
"Understood! Full advance — all forces!"
Mason's soldiers raised their banners high. Against the backdrop of the firelight, they looked like a procession of immovable black divine idols, marching in perfect lockstep toward the utterly broken Yurilland forces.
Up on the towering walls of the Yurilland Royal City, the ministers who had been watching the spectacle with detached amusement were now fleeing in blind panic toward the depths of the palace, as though they had seen a ghost.
The flames across the wasteland surged like a crimson tide, burning the last shreds of Yurilland's vanity to ash.
"Those are the devil's flames! Water can't extinguish them — even dirt can't smother them!"
An elderly minister let out a voice-cracking shriek. His meticulously kept wig had been snagged by a brick during the scramble and now hung at a ridiculous angle off one ear. He didn't even stop to pick up his gold-inlaid cane where it had fallen; he simply crawled and tumbled down the stone steps in a desperate bid to flee.
The walls dissolved into chaos. The nobles who had always fancied themselves a cut above the common rabble now, beneath the silent and implacable cadence of Mason's marching boots, conducted themselves with no more dignity than the lowborn they liked to sneer at.
Marquis Hess, the Finance Minister, was among the first to bolt. Not a single thought of defending his homeland crossed his mind.
Legal authority? Bloodline? In the face of that unholy fire that could burn straight through armor, every last bit of it was worthless paper.
"Quickly! Back to the manor! Load every gold brick from the cellar onto the carriages!"
When Marquis Hess of Yurilland came crashing through his own front door, he knocked the steward clean off his feet in the process. He screamed himself hoarse, ordering his servants to haul the heavy chests onto the carriages.
"My wife? What would I want her along for? Dead weight! Tell her I'll find her a suitable arrangement in Olan — and that she should go find somewhere to hide on her own, right now!"
He stuffed rare gemstones into his jacket with one hand, his palm sweating from sheer panic. In his own logic, as long as he had money, he could go on being a legitimate nobleman anywhere in the world.
Elsewhere, a handful of the more traditionally-minded Earls reacted in an entirely different fashion. They rushed, white-faced, toward the palace's Jade Hall.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! General Cassel has been defeated! The Lion of Yurilland... has become a plucked vulture!"
They came bursting into the throne room just as the Yurilland King sat clutching a half-finished secret letter — a letter he had been composing to claim credit with Olan.
The old ministers collapsed to their knees at the King's feet, weeping and wailing:
"Those Mason people have sorcery! Your Majesty, please make a decision — do we call for Olan's forces, or... or do we sue for peace with that Sophia? At least that way we might preserve our lands, our ministers, and our people's lives!"
There were a few cleverer souls as well — Viscount Mori, the man in charge of foreign trade, for instance. He knew perfectly well that the Olanians were utterly unreliable. The moment the first gout of flame rose into the sky, he had already changed into the coarse hemp clothing of a down-and-out merchant.
He took no family with him. Alone, carrying only a small pouch of the most valuable magic crystals he owned, he attempted to slip out through Whitestone City's western postern gate while Mason's main force had yet to fully encircle it.
Legitimacy, loyalty — all of it was nonsense spun to deceive fools.
The things that little monster Sophia had brought into this world operated on a logic that this era simply had no answer for.
If Yurilland's gates couldn't hold, then let the old diehards go keep the King company in his grave. As long as I can get out of here, with this gold, I can live well in any principality on the continent.
What a pity about those spices back in Whitestone City — no time to transport them. But compared to my life, they're nothing.
Inside the carriage, Victoria peered through a narrow gap in the curtain at the panicked, scattering ministers up on the city walls. The corner of her mouth curved upward in a smile filled with divine contempt.
So this was what Sophia called "clearing the rubbish."
She hadn't even dispatched a single envoy. A few bottles of alchemical fire, and the spine of this entire nation had been snapped clean in two.
Those ministers were fleeing, shrieking, betraying.
Because in the face of Sophia's absolute Order, the survival logic they had built on exploitation and lies was as helpless as a thin layer of snow under a noon sun.
Some wanted to save their offices, some wanted to save their gold — but not one of them wanted to save this country.
Because they all knew, deep down, that Yurilland was rotten at the root. And Sophia had simply delivered the final axe blow to that dying tree.
This spectacle of a nation destroyed in a single day was turning out to be a hundred times more magnificent than I had imagined.
A chill ran up Victoria's spine.
Sophia — is there anything in this world you cannot do?
Sophia sat inside the carriage, her pale-gold pupils reflecting the endless stream of figures fleeing across the Yurilland city walls. Her mind, however, was already racing ahead to the matter of post-conquest administration.
Best not to let these old wretches slip out. If they do, Olan — or other nations — might learn of this far too quickly. A coalition sanction against Mason at this stage would be troublesome. Mason's military strength is still not what it could be.
Sophia listened to the faint shouts drifting in from the city, her tone cool and measured:
"Bardess — tell the soldiers that apart from the palace itself, there is no need to storm any of the other official residences. Station soldiers at every exit of the palace. Not a single piece of Yurilland rubbish is to be allowed to escape."
"Understood! I'll have those little bastards seal every road shut — anyone who resists gets arrested!"
Bardess called back from horseback, loudly. She glanced at the chaotic tangle of carriages in the distance, and her obsessive streak made her desperately want to get those fleeing convoys sorted into neat, orderly rows.
At this moment, the gates of the Yurilland Royal City had already begun to groan and crack under that bone-chilling, perfectly unified battle roar of "Kill! Kill! Kill!"
"For work points! For Her Majesty! For a better future!"
Mason's soldiers, like a black tide that had been held back far too long, poured through the ruins of the city gate in flawless, lockstep formation.
They did not do what the Yurilland people had dreaded — there was no indiscriminate burning, no storming of civilian homes. Instead, like precision-engineered harvesting machines, they moved with absolute clarity of purpose, heading straight for the city's defensive strongpoints and the outer perimeter of the palace.
On the main avenue leading to the palace, a company of Yurilland's elite Royal Guards was attempting a last stand. They raised their heavy tower shields, their spears bristling like a forest, their armor catching the sunlight in blinding flashes.
"Hold the line! They're nothing without their witch-fire! In close quarters, Mason troops are no match for us! We still have the numbers — don't fall back!"
A Royal Guard Commander swung his broadsword and screamed himself raw trying to rally the troops.
What met him was Mason's soldiers advancing with a calm that bordered on the inhuman.
When the two sides were no more than thirty paces apart, the Mason soldiers at the front did not reach for the straight blades at their hips. Instead, they swiftly unshouldered long black wooden tubes from their backs — tubes that gleamed with a faint, acrid smell of gunpowder.
"Aim."
A Mason squad captain gave the order in a low, steady voice. There was no bloodlust in his eyes — only the focused, calculating calm of a man tallying up moving work points.
Mason people had never fought for the sake of killing. They fought for themselves. For their own families.
"Fire!"
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The rolling thunder of the volley swallowed the wind across the wasteland whole.
Along with a cloud of acrid black smoke, the foremost Yurilland Royal Guards were slammed backward as if by an invisible giant's fist. Those solid iron tower shields — shields that could stop arrows — had fist-sized holes punched clean through them.
The Royal Guard Commander stared blankly at the smoking hole in his own chest, then stared at the Mason soldiers who hadn't even drawn their swords yet. His broadsword slipped from his grip and clanged against the stone paving.
"Is this... is this thunder? You Mason people... have you mastered the power of Divine Punishment?"
He crumpled to the ground, his eyes unfocused, staring up at the Mason soldier now walking toward him.
The Mason soldier deftly reloaded his black musket, looked down at this enemy commander whose face practically screamed "never seen the world," and couldn't help letting out a short, contemptuous snort through his nose:
"Thunder? That's something out of legend — only gods play with that. This thing is called a black musket. Her Majesty Sophia and Miss Irene the Inventor cooked it up specifically to clean out relics like you. Look at that expression on your face — never seen one before? Backwater bumpkin.
"Back in Mason, even the miners who dig coal can explain how it works. Someone like you — getting erased by a civilization this many generations ahead of your own — that's about the only thing you were ever fit for."
Having said his piece, the soldier saw that the man had lost all will to resist, so he didn't kill him. He pulled out a rope with practiced ease and trussed him up tight, muttering to himself:
"A Royal Guard Commander — that's at least ten base work points. This trip was absolutely worth it. Now stay still and don't you dare move — if you squirm, I'll have to put a shot in you."
Inside the carriage, Victoria listened to the crisp gunfire outside, and her fingertips trembled ever so slightly.
She finally understood why Sophia had never, from first to last, taken Yurilland's army of tens of thousands seriously.
That was the sound that would bring the Age of Heroes to its end.
In the face of those black tubes, swordsmanship honed over a decade, the heavy heirloom armor of noble families, even the so-called honor of knighthood — all of it became as laughable as children's toys.
Sophia — you didn't just bring back the legal truth. You brought back the absolute physical truth as well.
This power — the power to let an ordinary commoner drop a seasoned knight in an instant — this is the foundation of your nerve to declare war on the entire world.
The Yurilland commanders were still exclaiming about sorcery in their final moments. Pathetic — they didn't even know what era's wheel had ground them to dust.
Following Sophia, what I see is not a war. It is a giant named Progress, using this rotten old world as a rubbish heap to be swept clean.
Victoria had never personally handled one of those black muskets, though she often watched Bardess polish hers with the utmost reverence. Gazing out through the window at the scene outside, she found herself wondering — would she have a chance to try out that devastatingly powerful weapon someday?
Bardess, seated on horseback, watched the Yurilland soldiers on both sides of the street dropping to their knees and surrendering their weapons one by one, cowed by the black muskets' sheer presence. Her obsessive tendencies received profound relief.
Now this is efficiency!
Just look at it — the moment the black muskets fired, the enemy formation collapsed with beautiful uniformity. No bloody, gore-soaked close-quarters brawling, no turning the clean streets into a slaughterhouse — just a single order, and every obstacle gets logically, neatly flattened.
Her Majesty and Miss Irene's partnership is truly something else. One provides the logic, one provides the tools, and what would otherwise be a chaotic, messy battlefield gets managed more tidily than even my own bedroll.
This feeling — of making the enemy's dignity collapse entirely without breaking a sweat — this is glorious.
Bardess thought to herself: if she had been born in Mason, wouldn't she have been living this good life long ago?
Not that she'd dare say that aloud — because someone would immediately point out to her that Mason, before Her Majesty Sophia came to power, had been even harder to live in than Qubi.
The smoke over the city drifted apart on a gentle breeze. The sound of Mason's military boots echoed through the now-hushed streets of the Royal City.
Sophia sat inside the carriage, her pale-gold pupils as calm and still as deep water.
The gates of the Yurilland Palace had ultimately been unable to withstand a forceful battering. As the last resistance of the palace's Royal Guards dissolved in the black powder smoke, this once-lavish palace — built stone by stone on the people's blood and sweat — opened its cracked and broken embrace to Mason's forces.
At an obscure side gate of the palace, the Yurilland King — who should by rights have been seated upon his throne with imperious dignity — was instead sprawled face-down in the mud in a supremely undignified posture. His magnificent purple silk robes had been snagged to tatters, exposing layer upon layer of fleshy rolls beneath.
In his desperation to escape, he had crammed his coat, his sleeves, and even his stockings full of heavy gold coins and rare gemstones — making his already-ungainly body even more sluggish, like a leather sack stuffed to bursting with gravel.
"Don't... don't kill me! I have money! I have the treasures of an entire city!"
The King scrambled backward in terror, and the violent motion caused the bag inside his coat to burst. In an instant, fat rubies, pearls, and gold coins cascaded down his trembling belly and scattered across the filthy mud, glinting with a deeply ironic light.
A few Mason soldiers closed in around him with cold, impassive faces. One of them prodded the heap of scattered jewelry with his musket butt, then looked back at the quivering mound of flesh in front of him, and said flatly to his comrades:
"This must be the Yurilland King himself. How much labor did it take to feed that body to this size? Tch. Take him in. Looking at all this — the quality on him — our squad's milestone capture work points are secured for this run."
The soldiers gathered up every piece of jewelry from the ground, not the slightest thought of pocketing any of it crossing their minds.
Every last bit of it goes into the public ledger.
Kept privately? The idea never even occurred to them.
This is public property — it belongs to Her Majesty. Her Majesty will use these treasures to build a better Mason, and when that day comes, there'll be more than enough good days ahead for all of them.
Meanwhile, all four exits of the Royal City had already been sealed tight by the elite companies of one hundred that Bardess had dispatched.
The ministers who had changed into civilian clothes and tried to slip out with their valuables found, at the barrel end of cold, silent black muskets, an equality they had never previously experienced.
Marquis Hess's resplendent carriage, piled high with gold bricks, sat motionless at the western gate. He stared at the rows of Mason soldiers standing in perfect formation, their eyes colder than frost, and slumped back onto his gold chest inside the carriage, utterly deflated.
"It's over... it's all over."
Marquis Hess stared at the black tubes in those soldiers' hands — still smelling faintly of gunpowder — and slowly closed his eyes.
In his worldview, defeat meant a sacked city — meant every last member of his family hauled to the chopping block.
He had even begun mentally composing the posture he would assume when hanged. The terror of that unknown death made every muscle in his body spasm involuntarily.
"Resign yourself to fate, Mori."
Marquis Hess turned to the Viscount who had been yanked from a nearby carriage alongside him, and gave a hollow, wretched smile.
"This Queen has come to put the lot of us old relics in the ground."
What greeted them, however, was not a falling executioner's blade, but the obsessively methodical bark of Mason's soldiers:
"Everyone listen up! Property to the left! People to the right! Hand over your family crests for registration! Nobody close their eyes — it's not time to die yet. As long as you've still got the strength to work, Mason's Order has a bowl of rice with your name on it!"
---
In the dungeon of the Yurilland Royal City.
The stench of damp rot seeped freely through the cracks between the marble slabs, forming a mockery of brutal contrast with the opulence of the palace above.
Bardess was out there running herself ragged with the soldiers, her obsessive-compulsive bellowing occasionally still penetrating the heavy stone slabs and filtering down inside.
"Sort that armor by quality! Refined iron on the left, common iron on the right! One inch off and I'm sending you to clean latrines!"
Willow sat with elegant composure before a mountain of documents, her fine quill pen flying as she audited Yurilland's accumulated wealth of a hundred years, as though working through the most unremarkable invoice imaginable.
Sophia walked with steady, unhurried steps down the dim corridor, her silver hair catching cold, sharp light from the torches. Delilah followed close behind — her footing still slightly unsteady, but those hawk-sharp eyes sweeping the shadows of every cell without cease, hand resting always on her sword hilt, ensuring that nothing unexpected could get near her Queen.
Victoria brought up the rear, her black combat attire tracing a silhouette both graceful and powerfully built. She gazed at Sophia's upright, utterly impassive back ahead of her, her pale-gold pupils filled with deep thought.
At the deepest end of the cells, the once-insufferable Yurilland King was slumped on a straw mat, his fleshy face smeared with dried mud. His Queen, his two Princes, and the daughter who had been notorious for her spoiled temperament were huddled in a corner, emitting low, broken sobs.
"Sophia... you treacherous wretch!"
The King's eyes snapped to that silver-haired figure, and he snarled in a hoarse, cracked voice.
"How dare you so humiliate a bloodline acknowledged by the Sacred Spirit! Olan's cavalry will trample your Mason into the ground — soon!"
Sophia stopped in front of an iron-barred cell. Her pale-gold pupils held no anger — only the bone-deep weariness of someone who has seen straight through to the core of things.
Her mind was calculating rapidly.
These so-called members of the royal family had had their heads stuffed so full of decrepit bloodline theory that they could no longer construct even the most basic survival logic. Even after two hours of interrogation, they were still clinging to that hollow fiction of divine mandate, refusing to provide any intelligence on Olan's secret defensive deployments.
This kind of futile stubbornness was a colossal waste of good red tea and time.
If they will only listen to sweet-sounding words... then —
Victoria stepped forward. She had caught that brief, almost imperceptible pause from Sophia.
They're already prisoners, and they're still fantasizing about Olan sending relief troops. They have no idea that the Covenant of Nations Her Majesty holds in her hand could strip every ancestor they take pride in of their name and legitimacy, right there in their graves.
"Let me conduct this interrogation."
Victoria said with a smile. "I've met this old codger before. I might be able to get something out of him. Her Majesty need only find a quiet corner of the dungeon to rest in while I work."
Sophia gave a slight nod, accepting the proposal.
Delilah immediately understood. Despite her still-pallid complexion, her movements were precise and efficient. She retrieved a reasonably clean wooden chair from an adjacent interrogation room and positioned it firmly in the blind spot corner behind a massive stone pillar, deep in shadow.
The light barely reached this corner, and the great stone column blocked the sightline completely — the Yurilland King in his cell would have absolutely no way of seeing this position, yet Sophia would be able to hear every whisper and every excuse within with perfect clarity.
Sophia settled into the chair, rested one hand against her jaw, and allowed herself to sink into a stillness as deep and undisturbed as the bottom of a lake.
Victoria saw that, and the corner of her mouth curved into the smile of someone who already holds all the cards. She unfurled the ivory fan in her hand with a light snap — the sound of it opening and closing rang out with peculiar crispness in the silent dungeon.
She walked toward the cell with languid, elegant steps. Even in this grim and gloomy prison, she radiated an aura of imperious magnificence that made it difficult to meet her eyes.
"Well, well — if it isn't His Majesty the King of Yurilland."
Victoria paused before the iron bars and, through those cold metal rods, spoke in that tone uniquely characteristic of the Mason royal bloodline — grace laced thick with dripping sarcasm.
"It's been so few days — how did you manage to get yourself into such a sorry state? Just look at the mud on that robe. If the tailors back at the Olan court laid eyes on it, I daresay their needles would be shaking right out of their fingers."
The Yurilland King sprawled on his straw mat jerked his head up sharply. Those clouded eyes locked onto Victoria — first in shock, then curdling rapidly into burning, pure hatred.
"Victoria... it's you!"
The King ground out through clenched teeth, snarling.
"You traitorous wretch! Didn't you defect to Olan's side after the upheaval? Why are you here now, crawling back to Mason like a tame dog?"
Victoria was not in the least bit offended by this. She let out a soft, honeyed laugh instead, raising the ivory fan to her lips for a moment before lowering it to reveal a pair of pale-gold eyes full of serene pity.
"Defect? Your Majesty, that's a rather unkind way to put it. One must read the winds and currents of the times — and I happen to be the most talented reader of winds and currents on this entire continent."
Victoria continued languidly, casting an idle glance at the Black Rose emblem on her own clothing.
"You've seen it for yourself — Mason's strength at this point... do you think you can understand the logic behind it? That fire that burns through everything, that thunder that shatters iron armor in an instant... If I hadn't made the right choice, I'd probably be sitting in this damp cellar counting rats alongside you right now. Or queuing up to reincarnate in whatever comes after.
"Rather than standing here having a civilized conversation with you."
The rolls of fat on the Yurilland King's face shook violently. Victoria's words were like a blunt blade sawing back and forth against the nerve he feared most.
He thought back to that terrifying blast, back to the sight of his proud, formidable Royal Guards mowing down before Mason's soldiers like wheat at harvest time.
"You... what are you trying to say?"
The King's voice dropped involuntarily, and a tremor crept into it that he himself hadn't noticed.
"I am saying that being alive is the only legitimacy that matters."
Victoria took another step forward, lowering her voice to a near-whisper, as though genuinely scheming on his behalf.
"You're waiting for Olan's relief force? Don't be naive. Even if Olan's cavalry actually came — the first things to be crushed would be the people sitting in this cell. Once the Olanians swept the battlefield, they would simply announce to the world that the Yurilland Royal Family had died heroically in battle, and then proceed to absorb every inch of land and every gold coin here as a matter of course.
"By then — who would even remember you?"
The King's heart contracted sharply.
She was right. He knew better than anyone what the ruler of Olan was capable of.
"But — if Olan finds out that I... that I surrendered..."
The King's eyes flickered, the look in them the raw terror of a man imagining future retribution.
"They'll massacre my subjects. My family will be nailed to a pillar of shame for eternity! I'll only die in a far worse manner!"
"Your subjects? A pillar of shame?"
Victoria looked at him the way one looks at someone who has just made a joke they don't realize is funny.
"At least survive first, Your Majesty. Stop worrying about which manner of death would be worse — once your body is strung up on the city wall to dry in the wind, you won't feel a thing either way.
"Look behind you. Your Queen is still trembling. Your children are crying from hunger. All you need to do right now is nod — tell me what you know of Olan's defensive arrangements over there — and Her Majesty may yet show mercy and give your family a chance to start over.
"Look at those soldiers. Every one of them looks healthy and well-fed. That tells you that under Sophia's rule, there is no oppression. Your family could still live with their heads held high — and might even live to see the day when the Olanians who once looked down on you howl beneath Mason's iron heel."
In the shadow of the blind corner, Sophia listened to Victoria's near-perfect psychological gambit, and not a single flicker crossed her pale-gold pupils.
Beside her, however, Delilah was watching with her palms soaked in cold sweat.
The Third Princess had a gift for this kind of wickedness that seemed tailor-made for exactly this sort of situation.
She was deliberately using this "I can read the room" posture to lower the King's psychological guard — making him feel that surrender and the will to live was not only not shameful, but was actually the intelligent play.
Her Majesty's move was truly inspired.
Sending Victoria to conduct the interrogation wasn't only because they were social equals — it was because Her Majesty had long since seen through to the essence of a man like the Yurilland King.
A man like him didn't truly fear dying on the battlefield. What he feared most was dying without value, dying utterly alone.
What Victoria was offering wasn't interrogation — it was a ladder with poison worked into every rung. The moment the King started climbing down that ladder, the Yurilland Royal Family's last shred of backbone would shatter as completely as one of Irene's fire bottles.
Your Majesty... you have even calculated these kinds of complex human weaknesses with such precision?
Delilah's gaze drifted to the pale, clean line of Sophia's neck, and an unbidden thought crossed her mind: the Third Princess isn't going to be a corrupting influence on Her Majesty, is she?
She quickly and quietly shook her head. No, that was wrong. Her Majesty was not someone who could be so easily led astray.
Inside the cell, the King stared into Victoria's enticing pale-gold eyes, then turned to look at the huddled, shivering forms of his family in the corner.
The spine he had been holding rigid by sheer will alone finally, slowly, and completely buckled in that moment.
"If — if I talk — can you really guarantee our lives with Mason's Queen?"
Victoria snapped her fan shut with a click, and showed him a smile that was both elegant and entirely without warmth.
"Of course. So long as you provide what you know — all of it."
Light and shadow danced in the dungeon as the torches swayed. The stale air held nothing now but the Yurilland King's rapid, ragged breathing.
Within the span of an hour, guided by Victoria's elegant and lethal coaxing — honeyed words wielded like a serpent's tongue — this King, who had still been clinging to the fiction of divine mandate, spilled every secret he knew like beans shaken from a jar.
"Olan... Olan didn't come to us alone."
The King leaned against the cold stone wall, his eyes unfocused, his voice carrying the unhinged lilt of a man who has stopped caring.
"That ruler's ambitions have long since stretched far beyond the Northern border. Their shadow assassins have already infiltrated the Imperial Capital in large numbers — they've even bought off several of the peripheral governors.
"While you in Mason hadn't yet caught on, five countries in the surrounding region had already signed a secret covenant in the dark."
The King lifted his trembling head, trying to find even a trace of sympathy in Victoria's flawlessly composed, smiling face.
"And those smaller nations that refused to cooperate... Lunde — barely three villages in total — and Saen, which was a bit larger... they vanished from the map last month. The official story was that they fell to internal traitors. The truth is — the truth is that Olan's experimental forces used them as stepping stones!"
He talked, and talked, and as he did, he unconsciously flinched in on himself, his voice soaked in the self-justifying dishonesty of a guilty man.
"I had no choice! If I refused, Yurilland would have been the next Lunde! Everything I did — it was all to preserve this land, to protect my children... you understand, don't you?"
Victoria fanned herself with elegant, unhurried strokes. Those pale-gold pupils of hers were full of smiling depth, like still water — but without a single degree of warmth.
She listened quietly as the King tried to paint himself as blameless, without objecting, without letting a shred of contempt show — and instead gently followed his lead, softly echoing:
"Of course, Your Majesty. The torment of having no real choice — even the Sacred Spirit would be moved to tears by it. Bowing one's head for the sake of one's bloodline's survival is itself a form of great sacrifice, is it not?"
Inwardly, watching this man still trying to dress up cowardice in the costumes of fatherly love and duty, Victoria felt nothing but a profound and entirely class-transcendent absurdity.
Just look at him.
He was still playing that old-era game of moral self-preservation — without knowing that in Sophia's Order, this kind of self-justification that creates no value isn't worth a single work point.
Still, what he had coughed up was weightier than expected.
Olan had already infiltrated the Imperial Capital? It seems Olan's ruler understood perfectly well that, even as a great power, up against the vast Empire, they were still only a challenger desperate to build more muscle.
Six nations banded together, whittling away at minor nations and tiny hamlets. They were treating this entire continent as Olan's private hunting ground.
Sophia had me here to hear all of this — precisely so that I would see clearly: without an asymmetric force like Mason, every peace in this world is nothing but the daydream of a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.
Sophia — the reason you're in such a hurry to clear the board is because you've already worked through the calculation: if the old-era tyrants of Olan ever got their hands on new-era firepower, this land would truly become hell on earth, wouldn't it?
In the shadows, Delilah's hand tightened almost imperceptibly on her sword hilt. She had long suspected Olan's corruption — but hearing of so many small nations erased without a sound still sent a chill through her.
If we don't move first, Olan's shadow will spread like a plague across every last inch of ground.
Five nations in a secret covenant, plus covert agents embedded in the Imperial Capital — this is no ordinary war. This is a conspiracy to swallow civilization whole.
No wonder Her Majesty has not an ounce of pity for any of these so-called royal families — because they are complicit in that plague.
Third Princess Victoria's gentle leading had stripped away the last fig leaf the King had left.
Her Majesty sat in the blind corner without uttering a single word — yet she commanded the direction of every syllable spoken in this room.
Following Her Majesty, we are not merely fighting for Mason. We are lighting the last rational flame before Olan's winter frost seals the world shut forever.
The weight of this logic — saving the world itself — is something only a soul as supremely composed as Her Majesty's could ever carry.
Sophia, seated in the blind corner, remained perfectly, absolutely still.
The next list of target nations: six.
Sophia revised her strategic blueprint at lightning speed in her mind.
The Imperial Capital had surely already noticed Olan's movements by now, whatever the case — but whether they had noticed Mason yet was something Sophia had no way of knowing. She had no informants inside the Imperial Capital.
Sophia rose slowly to her feet. The faint tap of her boot sole against the stone slab was, to Victoria's ears, the signal that the session was over — and to the King's ears, it sounded like the low whisper of the God of Death.
Victoria closed the ivory fan and offered the King in his cell the most impeccably correct — and most coldly dispassionate — of royal salutes:
"My thanks for your candor, Your Majesty. The secrets you have provided have purchased preliminary work points toward the continued survival of yourself and your family.
"Furthermore, as the Olan defensive positions you mentioned will be of considerable use to our forthcoming march, Her Majesty may see fit to reward you with a few extra servings of oat porridge."
With that, she turned and walked back toward the shadows.
Sophia stepped out from the blind corner. Her silver hair was a conspicuously sharp presence in the dim dungeon light. She didn't spare the King in his cell so much as a single glance — she simply issued Delilah a brief, clipped set of orders:
"We're done here. Have Bardess work through this list and root out Olan's covert agents in the Royal City. Not a single name on that list is to be missed.
"As for our former guests here — once Bardess has had them branded, put them to work. That is the position most suited to them at present."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Delilah straightened to her full height, her eyes filled with the cold, killing clarity of one about to settle a long-overdue reckoning.
The dungeon door swung slowly shut, muffling the King's trembling "Thank you for the Queen's mercy" on the other side.
And Sophia's gaze had already passed beyond this rotting palace, fixed on the vast, cold shadow of the Olan Empire sitting heavy on the horizon.
____
________________________________________
🌸 Help Love Bloom!
Our girls need a little push... and you can help!
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 250 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 20 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉