Inside the main hall.
The emerald glow of magic pulsed under Daphne's control, casting the three Olan officials' faces in the sickly pallor of broken marionettes.
"The Kingdom of Sul has already received its iron quota.
The Iron Ridge territory has obtained the map to the mithril mines…
And the frost cavalry of Vozla — their warhorses have already been shod with the nails meant for the march south.
As for Delilah, I truly don't know where she is. That traitor…"
The lead official's voice was cracking apart. Word by word, sentence by sentence, he disgorged the pocket encirclement plan — a scheme capable of making the entire north tremble.
Each revelation fell like a boulder, crashing down onto the already-frigid stone floor of the hall.
Standing nearby, Victoria Mason's silver-white hair swayed faintly in the firelight.
She bore none of the shock visible on the faces of the guards around her.
On the contrary, she was perfectly composed — and behind that standard, politely calibrated smile of hers, there flickered something almost like of course it comes to this clarity.
She had once moved freely between the great principalities, had even personally helped the Olan Earl revise portions of the coalition treaty. She understood, better than almost anyone, exactly how lethal this plan was.
She had originally believed this intelligence was the last — and heaviest — card in her hand.
She had run the calculation a thousand times in her head: the moment Sophia realized she was encircled by enemies of the whole world, she would inevitably need an elder sister who knew multilateral diplomacy and knew how to survive in the cracks.
But Victoria's smile froze solid after three seconds of watching Sophia.
Sophia was still sitting quietly on that deerskin chaise, one hand propped against her chin.
When the names of Sul and the Iron Ridge territory were spoken aloud, those pale gold irises of hers didn't so much as flicker in their focus. The fingertips drumming against the armrest kept their metronome-precise rhythm without missing a single beat.
A miscalculation.
No — a complete and total fracture in logical tier.
Victoria had believed herself a participant in this grand game of chess, holding the truths Sophia needed most.
But looking at Sophia now, these so-called alliances probably didn't even register as surprises to her.
What she projected wasn't forced calm. It was the detachment of someone who had already calculated every possible outcome, and now found the process simply tedious.
If this intelligence had already lost its premium value in Sophia's eyes, then the worth of Victoria herself — the person who knew these truths — would collapse through the floor in an instant.
Victoria now reconsidered that moment when Sophia had asked what she wanted done with herself. It had been a final chance — an invitation to find some deeper, non-logical variable that even Sophia hadn't yet factored in.
Victoria decided she needed to fundamentally reassess her own ceiling.
If she kept trying to manage Sophia with this old-world currency of intelligence trading, she'd likely end up with a sword at her throat again.
"Are you finished?"
Sophia spoke slowly, her tone carrying a steadiness that was frankly unnerving.
"Sul's grain deficit. The Iron Ridge territory's internal power struggle.
Victoria, you spent a whole year wandering between principalities, and you wasted far too much time on data this obvious."
She turned her head. Her gaze was like the surface of a frozen lake — direct, and leveled straight at Victoria's matching pale gold eyes:
"Since the Olan Earl enjoys arranging all these nations on the table like that, he's actually saved me the time I'd have spent approaching each of them individually.
After all, for Mason's industrialization, the mineral resources and populations of these nations were already on my resource acquisition list."
Willow watched Her Majesty's flawless silhouette, then glanced at Victoria — who had sunk into deep thought, fine beads of sweat forming at her hairline — and felt something subtle stir in her chest.
Princess Victoria was genuinely brilliant. She had even managed to play that balancing act right under Olan's nose.
But unfortunately, she relied too heavily on human nature.
She believed war was an exchange of interests. She believed intelligence was a talisman against death.
But in Her Majesty's eyes, war was the erasure of inefficiency by efficiency — the correction of chaos by logic.
While Victoria was still congratulating herself on having seen through the conspiracy, Her Majesty had probably already been calculating how to turn those few nations into Mason branch factories using the minimum possible amount of Black Powder.
This gap in cognitive dimension was the truest measure of Her Majesty's tolerance for this elder sister — because at Her Majesty's level, that kind of cleverness posed absolutely no threat whatsoever.
It was like Avalon's tactics — they were accustomed to waiting to be called before going through the motions of war.
But their Majesty was not like that. Their Majesty always had any number of ways to catch people completely off guard.
When the official finally choked out the last name on his list of contacts, his mind shattered entirely within that sickly green light.
"Please… let me die…"
"Daphne."
Sophia rose to her feet, her cloak sweeping across the bloodstains on the floor.
"Withdraw the magic."
The emerald light snuffed out in an instant. The three officials didn't even manage a final moan before, in the lingering residue of poison and agony, they slipped away into permanent darkness.
A chill seized Victoria's heart. She knew — it was her turn to be judged now.
Yet Sophia didn't spare her so much as a glance, and walked straight out.
The smile Victoria had ready on her lips stalled in place.
What on earth is this little stone-face trying to do? she thought inwardly. Keeps me around, won't interrogate me, won't punish me — but this isn't how you'd treat a royal elder sister either.
"Princess Victoria, this way, please."
Willow gestured. Victoria had no choice but to smile and follow.
The night was deepening, but the Avalon Palace had not quieted in the wake of battle's end.
Torchlight struggled against the viscous grey miasma, breaking apart into scattered patches of fractured amber shadow.
The border city had fallen. Olan's secret agreements had been stripped bare. Yet inside this ancient labyrinthine complex, a pressure named dead silence only grew heavier with each passing hour.
The search for Delilah had been ongoing for several hours now.
Soldiers wove through every darkened passage between walls, every derelict side hall, every waterlogged cellar.
Each grinding groan of a heavy iron door being wrenched open sent a jolt through the taut nerves of those waiting at the rear — yet every report that came back to the command post was the same: nothing. Hopeless, maddening nothing.
Sophia sat in the walnut chair in the side hall of the throne room, a quill suspended over a sheet of parchment for a very long time. Ink bloomed across the surface in a dark, spreading blot.
Those pale gold irises of hers had taken on an unusual depth. Her fingertips had drifted, without her seeming to notice, to press against the place over her heart.
Anxiety.
Willow stood three paces behind Sophia, watching her with quiet worry.
Her Majesty had been sitting there in a daze for a full hour. Utterly still.
She still sat perfectly upright. Her face was still expressionless. But the quill — motionless so long that ink had begun to drip from its tip — had already betrayed the turmoil beneath.
In Her Majesty's world, this kind of uncertainty was probably a more terrifying enemy than the entire Olan coalition.
Is this powerful emotional upheaval what they call the bond between Her Majesty and General Delilah — something that transcends contracts and reason?
It seems General Delilah has indeed left a very deep mark on Her Majesty's heart.
Though Willow felt a small, private twinge of something, she didn't truly begrudge it.
Her Majesty cares this deeply about Delilah — that only shows how good a person Her Majesty is.
Even if it were anyone else in that position today, Her Majesty would still worry just the same.
Victoria stood at the window, watching the flickering silhouettes of torchlight outside. Behind her elegant, practiced smile, a faint trace of sympathy had appeared.
She turned her head toward Sophia, her voice cool and measured.
"Sophia. Don't hold out too much hope.
In the Olan Earl's eyes, Delilah is not some ordinary prisoner of war. She is an out-and-out traitor.
For those old-blood nobles, breaking free of their control is a capital offense — and defecting to you, someone they consider a heretic, is a blatant humiliation to Olan's bloodline."
Victoria stepped closer, dropping her voice low.
She paused. A shadow passed through those pale gold eyes:
"Avalon's nights have more than just miasma. There are also the venomous insects and wild beasts.
A gravely wounded soldier reeking of blood, alone in a mist-shrouded forest teeming with predators — the odds of survival… are no better than finding a blooming rose on a frozen tundra."
Sophia shot to her feet. The quill clattered to the floor.
"Prepare torches."
Her voice was ice-cold, carrying a penetrating certainty that brooked no argument.
"Send word to Bardess — contract the defensive perimeter inside the palace. I am personally leading a team into the dense forest."
"But Your Majesty, the miasma outside peaks at midnight!"
Daphne spoke up with a worried frown.
"Even with masks, prolonged exposure in that kind of hot, humid environment will…"
"It doesn't matter."
Sophia was already moving, the silver cloak cutting a sharp arc through the air.
"Delilah set foot on this filthy ground because of me.
In Mason's logic, no blade should ever break while its master stands by with folded arms."
Victoria glanced up to find every other person in the room glaring at her.
She understood. Sophia's little favorites were angry.
Angry that she had chosen this moment to say something so alarming — something that was now driving their Majesty to put herself at risk.
But Victoria believed she understood Sophia, at least marginally.
If she didn't goad Sophia into going to find Delilah right now, then when the news of Delilah's death truly arrived, Sophia would spend the rest of her life tormenting herself over why she hadn't gone to look personally — why she hadn't found her just a little sooner.
Better to let her go feed the mosquitoes tonight than to carry that guilt forever.
Even if that little General truly did die, at least Sophia wouldn't spend years blaming herself.
The moment Sophia crossed the threshold of the hall, the Mason soldiers — who had been sinking into exhaustion and low spirits — had their eyes ignite in an instant.
Most of them had once trained on that grey-stone drill ground, enduring the red-haired female general's near-masochistic instruction.
Delilah's lessons had always come packaged with pain and tongue-lashings — but every Mason soldier knew why: it was so that even when a black musket misfired, they'd still have the skills to walk away alive.
"Look! Her Majesty's put on her battle boots!
If even Her Majesty — worth ten thousand gold — isn't afraid of those poisonous bugs, then what've we rough-skinned mud-boots got to fear?
General Delilah suffered at the hands of those Olan dogs — we're settling that debt against all of Avalon!
Even if I have to chop down every last tree and crush every last insect, I'm bringing the General home!
Her Majesty said it right — the General is Mason's sword, and we're the scabbard.
As long as we're still standing, nobody gets to leave the General freezing out in the wild!"
Hailey stayed close behind Willow — outside was too dark and too dangerous, so a small child like Hailey could only remain inside the hall.
The little girl sat scribbling and sketching in her notebook from time to time. Victoria noticed, and drifted closer to see what was written there.
After a few glances, Victoria went still.
This child… worships Sophia this much?
She had heard vague things about Sophia's tyrannical conduct, but could the results of fighting fire with fire really be this effective? Enough to earn this kind of devotion from a child?
Inside the hall, the flickering lamps stretched long shadows across the empty space.
Victoria gracefully smoothed her silver hair, which the cold wind had disheveled slightly, and let that millimeter-perfect, well-rehearsed smile settle back onto her lips.
She strolled unhurriedly over to Hailey's side, with all the warmth of a caring elder sister checking in on a younger neighbor's child.
Damn it. That little stone-face walked out without even leaving me a warming brazier. Did she calculate that I'd lose IQ points in the cold?
And that one called Irene — wandering around in the dead of night with a crate of black powder that could go off at any second. Do all the people in Mason have saltpeter where their brains should be?
Absolutely barbaric.
She bent her gaze down to the slightly crumpled little notebook in Hailey's hands.
The handwriting was childish, but the pages were packed to the margins.
Every page, every line, was stuffed with phrases that made Victoria's teeth ache: "Long live Her Majesty," "The radiant wisdom of Her Majesty," "Follow Her Majesty and there's meat to eat."
There were even a few stick-figure drawings of Sophia in silver armor, one foot planted on an Olan pig, the sun blazing above her head in absurd glory.
This is practically a personal cult scripture.
Victoria bent down, her voice as soft as a stroll through clouds:
"Little Hailey, you've written so diligently.
But Sister is curious — why do you… admire Sophia so much?"
Hailey set down her pen and slowly lifted her head.
Those clear, wide eyes now held an expression that gave Victoria a pang — the look reserved for idiots, or for country bumpkins fresh down from the mountains.
"Because Her Majesty is just amazing!"
Hailey stated it as a matter of natural law, with the absolute confidence of someone declaring that one plus one equals two.
"Victoria-jiejie is Her Majesty's real elder sister, right?
If you two share the same blood, why do you seem like you don't understand Her Majesty's greatness at all?"
The perfect smile on Victoria's face froze into something bizarre.
I don't understand her greatness?! You must be joking!
If I didn't understand her greatness, would I have rolled up my bedroll and fled in the middle of the night?
If I didn't understand her greatness, would I have spent months wandering between principalities, playing along with high officials and two-faced spies, all just to avoid ending up back under her rule in Mason?
That little stone-face, when she disposed of our Royal Father and elder brother — she even arranged her own alibi. As if she'd really only come back under duress. That kind of greatness — what sane person would want to experience it a second time?
This child has been so thoroughly brainwashed by Sophia that she's lost even her basic survival instincts.
Her inner voice was already screaming loudly enough to blow the hall's ceiling off. But Victoria was Victoria.
She drew a slow breath, swiftly rearranged her facial muscles, and her smile became once again impeccable — even acquiring a hint of coaxing, conspiratorial curiosity.
"Sister of course knows Sophia is remarkable — it's just… Sister has been away from home too long, and probably missed many of her shining moments."
Victoria settled gently beside Hailey, her skirts blooming open like a red rose.
"Hailey, can you tell Sister — what great moments has Her Majesty had that you felt you absolutely had to write down?"
Hailey tilted her head, apparently deciding where to begin the introduction.
"Victoria-jiejie, do you know what dignity is?"
Hailey asked, perfectly earnest.
Victoria paused.
Dignity?
She knew it well enough, naturally.
An expensive silk scarf nobles wore to dress up their public image. A bargaining chip at banquet negotiations. A gemstone that won royal favor.
These were the things that gave people dignity.
"Before Her Majesty found me, I was almost sold by a rotten merchant for a sack of moldy wheat."
Hailey stroked the stick-figure drawing of Sophia in her notebook, eyes gleaming.
"But Her Majesty said that in Mason, even an ordinary child's life has a fixed value — no one is allowed to buy, sell, beat, or abuse them at will.
She gave us clean bread, bone broth thick enough to fill your belly, and that magical thing called work-points.
Before, we lived just to not starve to death. Now, we live to help Her Majesty build a prosperous age."
At that point, Hailey swept Victoria with that pitying look again:
"Victoria-jiejie is so beautiful, and she's Her Majesty's own family — but she can only see Her Majesty's coldness. That's really sad.
You probably haven't had the salted meat broth from the Royal City canteen — the kind made with proper refined salt and plenty of fat, have you?
If you had, you'd understand: Her Majesty's expressionless face is actually the most reassuring Order in the world."
Victoria: "..."
How long had she been on the run, exactly?
A year. Or rather, not even a full year — barely more than half of one.
Half a year, and Mason had undergone changes this earth-shattering?
If she were to believe it, well — Victoria certainly didn't want to believe it.
She knew how decrepit and impoverished Mason was. Everything the Mason Royal House had was scraped from its subjects — and even then, it had barely maintained a surface gloss of splendor.
In truth, the Mason Royal House hadn't even been eating well themselves.
Victoria pressed her fingertips to her aching temple, staring at Hailey's reverently earnest expression — that look of you simply can't comprehend Her Majesty's beauty — and felt, for the first time, a deep and genuine sense of defeat.
The helplessness of a clever person confronting pure, unadulterated faith.
"It seems Sophia has indeed performed quite a remarkable alchemy on Mason."
Victoria smiled her elegant smile again — though this time, a barely perceptible weariness had seeped into the edges of it.
"So then… do you think Her Majesty will bring General Delilah back tonight?"
Hailey nodded firmly, her pen touching paper again with a decisive stroke:
"Of course she will.
Because Her Majesty said that Delilah-jiejie is an indispensable link in her logical chain.
Whatever Her Majesty has wanted, she has never once failed to get it."
Just as Victoria was about to say something else, Hailey fixed her with those wide, limpid eyes and smiled:
"See — isn't that exactly how Her Majesty brought Victoria-jiejie back too?"
Victoria looked out at the pitch-black miasma beyond the hall's entrance. The inner critic in her heart had completely collapsed.
Fine, so her diplomatic playbook didn't work on that little stone-face. But how is it not working on this little devotee either?
The atmosphere inside the hall had taken on a somewhat peculiar quality.
Irene was sitting nearby, idly turning over a miniature bomb component she hadn't finished assembling yet.
She'd been busy just now, but her ears had been fully perked.
Watching this Princess Victoria — who came across as infinitely socially adept and frighteningly high-caliber — getting thoroughly trounced in front of Hailey, Mason's number-one fangirl, and even losing her grip on that trademark business-license smile of hers, Irene finally couldn't hold back a quiet laugh.
"Princess Victoria, save yourself the trouble — come sit down and have some tea."
Irene lifted her head. Those sapphire eyes of hers glinted with the sly clarity of someone who has seen right through to the truth.
"Maybe if you try acting a little more genuine, our Majesty might actually be willing to say more than two words to you.
That whole 'I've never been stopped by any diplomatic situation' look of yours — in Mason's logic, that classifies as an invalid communication variable."
Victoria lifted the white porcelain teacup, fingertip tracing the rim. The curve of her lips remained perfectly flawless, her voice as smooth and warm as ever:
"Miss Irene jokes. I have always been this kind of person.
In a place like the Imperial court, being genuine is often a ticket to losing your head.
The fact that I'm still alive today is proof enough that this state I'm presenting right now — is the most genuine Victoria there is."
Irene shook her head, let out a soft sigh, then bowed her head back over her components and said nothing more.
Talking with someone like Victoria was genuinely exhausting.
The feeling was like standing alone before a brightly-colored venomous snake — you never knew what lay behind those slit pupils, only felt an inexplicable pressure closing in, making it hard to breathe.
She looked nearly identical to Her Majesty. She was even half a head taller, and when she smiled, she was a thousand times warmer than Her Majesty. So why did this suffocating feeling come from her?
Facing Her Majesty, Irene felt pressure too — but that was the awe of standing before absolute truth, like gazing up at the sun on the northern ice plains: cold, yes, but grounding. Safe.
Facing this Victoria, though, it was like tumbling into a pile of slippery silk — every thread of it woven from honeyed words and hidden snares.
Tch. Her Majesty really is better, in the end. Expressionless, sure — but the logic is always there, never any of this hollow pageantry.
And besides, Irene had already completely mastered the art of reading Her Majesty's microexpressions to figure out exactly what was going on in Her Majesty's mind.
Victoria paid no attention to the inventor — who looked timid but had a mysteriously sharp edge to her.
She took a quiet sip of the warm tea. Avalon's tea leaves carried a damp, herbal coldness — nothing like the rich depth of what she'd had in Olan.
She set the cup down and sat in silence in the ornate but frigid high-backed chair, while inside her head, a storm swept through at full speed, playing back every single word Hailey had just said.
Bread. Work-points. Refined salt. Bone broth.
Victoria gave a cold, private snort.
She was an extremely pragmatic and clever woman. She had never believed in so-called Divine Miracles — only in the iron law of resource distribution.
That sort of thing for coaxing children would only fool desperate little refugees on the brink of starvation.
Refined salt?
In the north, refined salt was a luxury priced by the gram. And Sophia was using it to make vats of communal broth?
Either she had lost her mind — or she had genuinely mastered some purification process with near-zero cost.
But then…
Victoria's gaze drifted to the Mason soldiers outside the hall, clearing the battlefield in calm, methodical order.
Five thousand soldiers — fully armed, having marched for days through miasma and insects, and still radiating vitality, their eyes burning with fervor.
That wasn't something you could fake.
In the old logic of war, feeding and maintaining a force of elite soldiers like this would require emptying the national treasuries of three countries the size of Avalon.
And Sophia had done it in barely half a year — taken that wreck of a Mason territory and turned it into a monster capable of producing this kind of fearsome fighting force?
That little stone-face… she's genuinely playing some high-level game I can't even read.
Victoria's fingers tightened slightly.
If what Hailey said was true — if Mason's people truly believed they had been given dignity and Order — then the Olan Earl's supposed encirclement net was, in Sophia's eyes, probably nothing more than a few garbage bundles waiting to be dismantled.
If that was the case, then she needed to fundamentally reexamine the significance of all the maneuvering she'd done across the principalities these past six months.
Had the powerbrokers I spent all that effort tracking down just been a handful of small workshops that Sophia could fold into her branch factories at any time she pleased?
The disquiet born of that cognitive dissonance made Victoria feel, for the first time, that the tea in her hand had turned faintly bitter.
But if I hadn't run around all that time, I'd have been dealt with by her long ago, wouldn't I?
Just as the hall was sinking into total silence, a sharp, brief crack rang out from the dense forest in the distance. A sound uniquely belonging to Mason.
"Bang—!"
A dazzlingly brilliant firework — carrying the distinctive metallic sheen of Alchemy powder — erupted in an emerald blaze above the heavy miasma.
Even through the thick palace windowpanes, that flash of green — the color of life, the color of success — flooded the dim hall in a wash of vivid light.
"It's green!"
Irene, who had been idly fiddling with her components just moments before, shot off her chair like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, sapphire eyes blazing with sudden, radiant intensity:
"That's the highest-level positive response signal!
That's my personally formulated fluorescence formula!
Willow — does this mean they found Delilah?
It has to be — Her Majesty found her!"
Even the ever-composed Willow couldn't hide her emotion now. A bright, released clarity rose at last into those always-tender eyes of hers.
She quickly fastened the clasp on her sword belt, her voice quick but carrying a kind of unshakeable certainty:
"That blinking frequency — it has to be Her Majesty's close guard unit sending it.
Right now, in Her Majesty's heart, nothing but Delilah could send a signal flare up into the midnight forest.
Move — we go to meet Her Majesty!"
And with that, Willow didn't spare Victoria so much as a backward glance — she simply turned to the two Musketeers standing guard at the entrance, made a full-speed-ahead gesture, and set off leading Hailey toward the front.
Irene was even more direct. She grabbed the heavy black wooden crate off the table, and charged out of the hall after Willow in a whirlwind.
Her pink ponytail swished in the wind as she passed Victoria, the gust she trailed even ruffling the silver strands at Victoria's ear.
That near-total disregard left Victoria standing completely rooted to the spot.
They just… left?
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