"Captain! This way!"
Kenar's voice sliced through the narrow back alley like a thrown dagger, sharp and urgent. Without hesitation, Kaelen pivoted. His boots struck stone in heavy rhythm as he and the three knights sprinted toward the dark throat of the alleyway.
step-step
The sound echoed too loudly for such a cramped space, as if the walls themselves were whispering back their approach. The alley smelled faintly of damp brick and something else—something metallic and sour.
They reached the end.
"There's nothing."
"Are we at the wrong place?"
Kaelen did not answer immediately.
He scanned the alley slowly, ocean-blue eyes sweeping across cracked stone, moss-covered mortar, rusted drainpipes. Nothing moved. No flicker of magic. No distortion of air.
Nothing to be found. Is it above? Or—
His fingers tightened around the hilt of his unscathed sword.
No.
His instincts—those sharpened by years of surviving without blessings—were not wrong.
"It has to be down."
His voice was quiet, but there was weight in it. Finality.
He flipped the blade in his grip—edge downward, hilt up, the steel reflecting a thin sliver of light from above. For a brief moment, he looked like a knight about to execute the earth itself.
Then he struck.
He drove the sword down with every ounce of strength he possessed.
The ground shattered like glass under a divine verdict.
Stone split. Earth cracked. The alley screamed.
And the four knights fell.
"W-what the hell?!"
"Captain—!"
They hadn't even seen him move.
Gravity swallowed them whole.
…
They landed hard.
Dust erupted around them, swirling like ghostly curtains as light poured down through the jagged hole above. When the haze settled, what revealed itself beneath the city made even hardened knights hesitate.
An underground laboratory.
The air was thick.
Heavy.
Rotten.
The faint light from above illuminated iron cages—rows and rows of them. Inside were people.
Not criminals. Not soldiers.
People.
Their eyes reflected agony so raw it felt as if the air itself had begun to decay.
"What is this…?"
"…This is—"
The words died.
The stench struck them next. Sweet, foul, unbearable.
The knights covered their noses, but it did nothing to shield the truth.
"…Help… me…"
"Ple…ase…"
"Khuk…"
Voices scraped like broken violins.
They were like animals inside cages asking for freedom. Hair matted. Skin torn. Lips cracked. Eyes unfocused, some drifting in different directions as if their minds had already abandoned their bodies.
Male, female. Adult, child.
It didn't matter.
Torture erases categories.
Kaelen's jaw tightened as if he were biting down on a blade. The kingdom's crest engraved on his armor felt heavier than iron. A knight's honor recoiled within him like a wounded beast.
This was not war.
This was rot.
"How did you find this place?"
A voice emerged from the shadows.
A man stepped forward into the fractured light.
Light green hair. Frail body. Eyes darker than the void beneath them. A ruined mace hung loosely in his grip, as though it had once been used enthusiastically.
"Hey."
The light from above caught in Kaelen's eyes, and it did not soften them.
"Are you the one who did this?"
The man smiled.
It was not a smile of madness.
It was worse.
It was curiosity.
"Who knows? You don't have to know. You will die anyway."
He stretched his hands to his sides, fingers twitching like a conductor preparing an orchestra.
"Activate [Transfiguration]."
The word rang like a funeral bell.
Kaelen's head snapped toward the cages.
The humans inside began to tremble.
Then they began to merge. Bones shifted with wet cracks, skin fused, flesh braided into flesh.
Kaelen's breath caught—but he forced himself to focus back on the green-haired man.
He was gone.
"…Dammit."
Krrrk.
Chinn.
The cages broke open.
Metal twisted outward as if the bars themselves were trying to escape.
The human-like monsters stepped out one by one, grotesque silhouettes trembling in the half-light. Their limbs were uneven. Their eyes mismatched. Their breathing wet and uneven.
Kaelen raised his sword.
Not because he believed he could win.
But because someone had to stand first.
***
"After I defeated one of them, I fainted. The other ones were killed by that man over there."
Kaelen's voice was steady, but something inside it had dimmed.
He stood upright, yet the invisible weight of failure pressed on his shoulders like a mountain.
He had let the man escape.
He had a place to reach. And to reach that place, he had to protect every possible civilian in his kingdom.
Like how that knight did that day.
The memory flashed—steel, blood, sacrifice.
While Kaelen was reflecting on his loss of power, the man who saved him—Noa—was staring at Vionette like a child waiting for praise after breaking something expensive but heroic.
"What is it?" Vionette looked at him with visible annoyance.
Noa blinked, then rolled his shoulders dramatically and extended his hand toward her like a starving beggar seeking coin.
"Any compliments?"
His eyes widened in exaggerated innocence.
The nearby knights coughed to suppress laughter.
Vionette stared at him.
She understood immediately because she was the same. She did not follow compliments but she liked them. Especially from people she loved.
She knew that Noa was the same.
I mean, he did save them. It'll make him happy too.
She closed her eyes briefly.
"You've done a great job. Thank you."
She smiled warmly and rested her jaw atop her crossed fingers. This was not the smile of a queen. It was the smile of a girl who allowed herself softness.
Everyone noticed the difference.
Even Kaelen.
Noa froze.
His soul left his body for half a second.
Then—
He turned away dramatically, covering his face.
"Ah. I see."
His ears were red.
I'll ask for the reward later.
Romantic tension crackled like hidden lightning.
Vionette cleared her throat and turned back to Kaelen, expression returning to steel.
"There was a secret experiment going on?"
"I'm afraid so."
His answer was blunt.
Vionette tilted her head toward the sky as if consulting fate itself.
When there is a problem, there is always a problem solver.
Some call them heroes. Some call them monsters. Some call them,
…protagonists.
One stood before her.
And—
Noa has taken a liking to him too. So it's a great opportunity.
"Kaelen Veythorne."
When she spoke his name, it did not merely travel across the garden—it settled upon it, as though the air itself had been waiting to carry it. Vionette rose from her seat with unhurried grace, the silk of her dress whispering against the stone path.
Witnessing her approach, Kaelen lowered himself without hesitation. One knee struck the ground—not clumsily, but with the firm sound of steel meeting stone. His head bowed, his gauntleted hand resting over his heart.
"Yes, Your Majesty?"
Vionette stopped several steps before him. For a heartbeat, she simply looked at him. Not as a ruler surveying a knight—but as a sovereign weighing a blade before claiming it.
"From now on," she began, her voice calm yet threaded with something deeper, "you will directly serve the throne. You know what that means, right?"
The words struck him harder than any weapon ever had.
His eyes, fixed upon the stone beneath him, widened imperceptibly.
To serve directly beneath the throne—to become a Royal Knight.
The dream forged from his mother's sacrifice. The legacy passed to him by the nameless knight who once stood between him and death. It was not merely a title. It was a summit he had clawed toward with bleeding hands.
He had been cursed—barred from earning skills, denied the invisible blessings that reshaped destinies and overturned empires.
In a world where power could bloom overnight like a divine miracle, he had been left barren soil. Yet within that soil, a single seed endured.
A seed named 'Will'.
That will had turned skill-wielders into mountains he scaled rather than obstacles that stopped him. That will had been his blade when no blessing came.
He had screamed at the heavens until his throat tore raw, demanding an answer. The heavens had remained silent.
He had begged for a blessing and received only a curse.
And now—
Now, a new heaven stood before him.
Not vast and distant. Not faceless and cold.
A heaven shaped like a woman bathed in sunlight.
Behind Vionette, the sun aligned as though sworn to her cause. Light radiated from her back, gilding her silhouette in gold. In that moment she did not seem like a princess of Crimvane—she seemed like destiny choosing form.
Kaelen lowered his head further, until his forehead nearly brushed the stone.
"Your will is my oath. My sword is yours. My mercy is yours to deny. This honor is greater than my life, Your Majesty. I will not fail you."
The declaration did not belong solely to the armored knight kneeling there. It belonged to the boy who once fled his burning city. The child who ran with ash in his lungs and fear clawing at his spine.
It was that boy who answered now.
His ocean-like eyes, once clouded by helplessness, glowed with a depth that resembled a storm held at bay.
"Rise, Sir Kaelen Veythorne."
Her command was gentle—but absolute.
He rose.
As he stood, something shifted within him. The ache of broken bones, the exhaustion carved into muscle and marrow, seemed to recede like a tide pulled back by unseen hands. The pain did not vanish entirely—it simply bowed, subdued beneath the weight of purpose.
Vionette lifted her hand and swept a strand of silver-white hair from her face.
The movement was small, almost idle, yet her lips curved upward with slow amusement. Her crimson eyes gleamed.
"Heheheh~"
The laughter rose from her without restraint, bright and unguarded. It echoed lightly through the garden. There was something beneath it—something sharp. The eyes gazing at Kaelen did not see the knight before her.
They reflected collapsing walls.
Burning banners.
Kingdoms that had betrayed Crimvane crumbling one after another like chess pieces swept from a board.
Clap.
The sound cut cleanly through the air.
Noa stepped forward, his hands lowering after the single, deliberate applause.
"That's enough of your enjoyment," he said evenly. "You're going to scare these guys."
The words were light—but precise. Like a blade tapping against glass.
Vionette blinked, the vision dissolving like mist under morning sun. Reality returned in layers. The garden. The nobles. The silence.
She turned her head slightly.
Faces met her—confusion stiff in their brows, unease tightening their lips. For the briefest moment, the immaculate mask of the Crimvane princess had slipped, and the echo of her laughter had not gone unnoticed.
He's right. It's just a dream for now. Let's not push too hard.
The future could wait.
Power ripened best when not harvested too soon.
Her smile softened into something more controlled, more regal. The air settled again.
"Alright, Kaelen," she said, her voice steady once more. "You will be in charge of protecting the kingdom from now on. Use the knights however you want and solve the problems here."
She paused, and this time when she looked into his eyes, there was no laughter—only command.
"However," she continued, her crimson gaze locking onto his like a seal pressed into wax, "I will not tolerate any death. Make sure everyone inside the kingdom is safe."
The order was simple in wording.
Impossible in weight.
Kaelen felt it descend upon his shoulders—not as a burden, but as armor. To protect all. To allow no death. In a fractured land still trembling from unrest, it was a demand bordering on divine.
He bowed deeply once more, the movement crisp and unwavering.
"By your will!"
You seriously have to stop using that line.
"We're done here then, right?" Noa used [Blink] and appeared beside her.
Half the nobles flinched.
Noa grinned.
He had originally come to relax.
However—
A dragon now occupied his thoughts. His blood boiled at the idea.
Vionette smiled at him.
"Yes. Let's go."
***
Inside the capital city,
The sky above the city glowed like a crown forged of gold and crimson.
Lucien remembered his father's voice.
"Son, don't be fooled by pride again. Serve her Majesty and earn your pride."
Don't worry, Father. This is a new beginning.
Kaelen remembered his teammates.
"It's okay, Captain. We'll come under you again someday—this time, as Royal Knights."
A Royal Knight… Mother, I've reached my dream.
He looked at the distant castle.
It no longer felt unreachable.
"Okay you two," Vionette said, "go anywhere you want and enjoy for today. We've got big plans tomorrow. Rose will accompany you."
"Me too?" Rose pointed at herself.
"Yes. You take a break too."
"Yes."
She was externally calm.
Internally—
Hell yea! I was just thinking I didn't get paid enough.
Meanwhile—
"We came from outside because you want to avoid Seliora, right?" Noa narrowed his eyes.
"Uhh… what do you mean?" Vionette looked away dramatically.
They walked opposite the castle.
"Say," Noa continued, hands behind his head, "me being interested in Lucien is one thing. But why did you recruit him?"
"The same reason as you," she smiled. "And… his political skills."
Noa snorted.
"He's lucky. I forgot to kill him once. Then he met you and survived from me again. That's absurd luck for a third-rate villain."
Snap.
"Exactly," she said. "And with Lucien's loyalty, the Blackmoor dukedom is secured now."
Dull stones can shine and broken pieces can cut the deepest.
As the horizon bled crimson like a wounded god, Noa and Vionette wandered deeper into the city.