The moment I stepped into the palace, my eyes went wide.
This place was extraordinary.
Gold in every corner. Massive paintings stretched along the walls, each one taller than two grown men standing on top of each other. Statues lined every corridor like silent guardians who had been on duty for centuries. And the real guards, they were everywhere. Standing rigid, armed to the teeth, staring straight ahead without a flicker of expression.
I had visited the homes of important people several times before. Nobles, officials, even governors of major cities. But this place was on a completely different level. This was not the kind of luxury built to impress. This was luxury that had become the air itself, flowing naturally with every breath the palace drew.
But something was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
And it was precisely that wrongness that made me realize something.
I had changed things.
In my memory, the palace was grand. But not this grand. In the game, it was large and beautiful, sure, but nothing like this. There were no paintings with pigments so expensive they would have been impossible to obtain twenty years ago. No statues with details this refined. No marble floors polished until they reflected candlelight like the surface of a still lake.
Which meant only one thing.
The Crescentia Group had already become that influential over the kingdom's economy.
Money flowing from our trade networks, taxes from every bank branch, every shopping district, every book printed and sold, all of it poured into the royal coffers. And the kingdom, like every kingdom that has ever existed, spent a portion of that wealth making the king's house look prettier.
I stared at a large painting of wheat fields with mountains in the background. Beautiful. Expensive. And in practical terms, utterly useless. The money spent on this single painting could probably feed an entire village for a month.
But still, seeing all of this made me quietly pleased. Not because of the paintings or statues. But because it proved that I could change this world. That the actions of a farmer's son from a tiny village could reshape the face of the greatest palace on the continent.
Which meant I could change far more than this.
Of course, my face stayed completely blank. The calm, unreadable expression that had become Raymond's trademark. Burning inside, a statue on the outside.
While I was taking everything in, a voice rang out from the end of the corridor.
"Oh, welcome, Lady Serena."
Something inside my chest shifted the instant I heard that voice.
Not because I heard it often. Quite the opposite. I had almost never heard this voice in person. But it was etched into my memory because of one night.
Graduation night.
The night this voice spoke words that destroyed someone's life without a shred of hesitation.
I turned. Serena had already dipped her head slightly, greeting the prince with practiced courtesy. "Your Highness, it is a pleasure to see you."
Standing before us was Leonhart von Asteria. First prince of the kingdom. Blond hair, blue eyes, a smile that could make half the women in the realm fall head over heels in a heartbeat. Exactly like the game described him. Handsome, commanding, and painfully aware of both.
"What brings you back here?" he asked in a friendly tone.
"I wish to discuss an important matter with His Majesty," Serena replied.
"Oh." His face lit up instantly, like a child hearing the word present. "You must be cooking up something amazing again. I honestly cannot wait."
But then his eyes drifted. Past Serena. And landed behind her.
On me.
The shift in his expression was so fast that only someone watching carefully would have caught it. The friendly smile did not vanish entirely, but something changed behind it. A thin crease between his brows. The corner of his mouth pulling down half a millimeter. Eyes that had been warm turning cold, like someone who had just spotted an insect on their dinner plate.
"Is this not the man who saved the bully."
Not a question. A statement. And the way he said it, flat, dismissive, as though discussing something that was not even worth remembering.
Something coiled tight inside my chest.
Not because he insulted Veralyn. That was bad enough, but it was not what nearly made me lose control.
What made me angry was the fact that he refused to say her name.
Veralyn Silvercrown. The woman who had once been his fiancee. The woman who spent years at the academy carrying the weight of a royal engagement on her shoulders. The woman he threw away in front of the entire academy without thinking twice.
And now he could not even be bothered to say her name. As if it was too low a thing to leave a prince's mouth.
I held it in.
My breathing stayed even. My face stayed blank. I offered a gesture of respect, a small bow. Very small. Barely deserving to be called a bow at all.
Normally, a commoner or lower noble would bow deeply when meeting a prince. Back nearly parallel to the floor. Some would lower their heads until they almost touched their own knees. That was the expected show of respect, drilled since childhood, a reflex for anyone standing before royal blood.
But I only dipped my body slightly.
Because I refused to give this person anything more than that.
And as I straightened up, I noticed something else.
Beside me, Serena was smiling. A perfect smile. Friendly, professional, without a single crack. But her hand hidden beneath her cloak was clenched so hard her knuckles had gone white.
She wanted to slap him too.
I caught a subtle shift on the prince's face. Something twitched along his jaw. His eyes narrowed, barely, but enough to show that he noticed. That a commoner had just given him a bow that was almost deliberately insulting.
"So what is your business here?"
His tone changed. No longer friendly or even condescending. Just cold. Like someone addressing a fly that happened to land on his table.
"I am simply here as Serena's assistant," I replied flatly.
"Lady Serena's assistant?" One eyebrow rose. Not impressed. Amused. "That makes some sense, I suppose. For a man with a decent amount of coin but foolish enough to throw it all away."
An insult that did not even try to hide itself. He delivered it casually, as though commenting on the weather.
Then his gaze swung back to Serena. "My father is in the meeting room. But this is a very important meeting. A commoner, naturally, cannot enter."
I did not react. Not on the outside.
Serena, on the other hand, responded without missing a beat.
"Do not worry, Your Highness." Her smile widened. Too wide. The smile of someone who had prepared a hundred ways to destroy the person in front of her and chose the most polite one. "Even though this man looks unreliable, ugly, flat as a board like he has never had a proper meal in his life, a stalker, and just plain strange. He is someone I trust deeply, so I can guarantee he is worthy of entering."
I saw the prince let out a small laugh.
He laughed because he thought Serena was mocking me. He did not realize that every single word out of her mouth had been a shield wrapped in a joke.
But
Hey, Serena. Were those words not a little too honest? Could you have at least picked something slightly nicer? Out of every possible way to defend a person, you went with the one that made me sound like a miserable side character in a comedy.
"If Lady Serena vouches for him, then he may enter," the prince said.
Then he stepped closer.
Toward me.
His body leaned in. And his lips moved, slowly, just loud enough for only my ears.
"She is beautiful, sure, but that is all she has going for her. Though it seems you have quite the unusual taste, buying a woman like that."
The world stopped.
My fingers curled into fists beneath my cloak. The muscles in my jaw locked tight. Every fiber of my being screamed one thing, hit him. Right now. Right here. In his own father's palace. Hit him until that disgusting smile was gone from his face.
I held back. Barely, but I held back.
Buying. That word circled through my head like poison.
Somehow, a story had spread that I bought Veralyn. As if what I did that night was a transaction. As if I tossed a bag of gold on the ground and received a woman in return.
No. That was dead wrong. I did not buy her. I redeemed her sentence. I paid the price the kingdom had set so that the death penalty would be lifted and replaced with exile. That was not a purchase. That was a rescue.
But this world did not care about nuance. In the eyes of the public, a rich man handed over money for a condemned woman. The conclusion had already been written before the facts ever had a chance to speak.
And that disgusted me. Not only because it reduced Veralyn to a commodity. But because lurking behind that narrative was a far darker way of thinking.
A few years ago, slavery still existed across nearly every continent. Humans sold other humans like livestock at morning markets. It took Serena and me years to stamp it out. Years of negotiations, economic pressure, threats to sever trade routes, public campaigns through books and leaflets. All of it just to make people stop viewing their fellow human beings as goods to be bought and sold.
And here, standing right in front of me, a prince of the greatest kingdom on this continent was still thinking in exactly that way.
Furious. Absolutely, utterly furious.
But I did not move.
I watched him turn around and walk into a room. Serena followed behind, her cloak fluttering gently as she rounded the corner of the corridor.
And I followed. From behind. In silence. Without a sound.
Because I was not the kind of person who lost control in front of others.
But I had my limits. And if that prince pushed me even once more, I would hit him. No matter where we were. No matter who was watching. No matter what came after.