This sense of contrast, falling from being omnipotent to powerless, cut through this Magical Girl's self-esteem like a sharp blade.
She felt that she had lost face in front of Sophia, feeling that she had become a burden during Mason's most critical moment.
Sophia stepped past the edge of Delilah's sword and walked in front of the young girl who was currently lowering her head and shedding tears.
She reached out her hand, her fingertips carrying a slightly cool touch, and gently lifted Daphne's chin, forcing those eyes full of sorrow to meet her own pale golden pupils.
Silly girl, that's the aftereffect of using a cheat.
If you could really solve everything with a wave of your hand, then what need would a Transmigrator like me have for infrastructure and industry?
You have already reached the limit of what humans in this era can achieve.
But when she spoke, Sophia's voice was clear, cold, and firm, carrying an unquestionable power:
"Daphne, look at me.
"The so-called Divine Miracles are never defined by a single wave of a hand.
"That soldier is still breathing right now, and his heart is still beating. This is all because of your efforts.
"In this era without light, you are the only one standing before that narrow gate, pulling living beings back from the hands of the God of Death.
"This Queen does not need an omnipotent god. What This Queen needs is you—this Daphne who, even when exhausted and her magic power overdrawn, absolutely refuses to give up on any of Mason's subjects.
"Do you understand?"
Sophia's tone softened for a brief moment:
"Go do what you must. As for the issue of physical strength and magic power, Irene and I will figure out a way.
"As for you, you only need to remember that you are my Mason's only, most irreplaceable miracle."
Everyone inside the room was as quiet as winter cicadas; only the soldiers at the door had tears streaming down their faces.
God! This is Her Majesty's art of ruling!
She isn't just comforting the Saint; she is giving failure a new definition!
Her Majesty saw through Lord Daphne's weakness and personally forged it into an even more resilient weapon.
Look, Her Majesty's action of personally lifting the Saint without fear of infection—how is this the relationship between a monarch and a subject?
This is clearly two gods supporting each other, jointly fighting against the apocalypse!
Under this kind of inspiration, the power Lord Daphne erupts with will be a hundred, a thousand times greater than her previous pure magic power!
Delilah also silently retracted her longsword.
She looked at Sophia's thin yet mountain-like reliable back, the determination in her eyes growing even stronger.
Guarding such a person is the highest glory of a warrior.
Daphne wiped away her tears, her gaze becoming fervent once again. That sense of defeat was completely burned away by Sophia's words, transforming into boundless motivation.
"I understand, Your Majesty.
"As long as I still have a breath left, I will definitely perfect this Potion to the extreme!"
What followed was an even more cruel war of attrition.
Willow and the attendants, under Irene's guidance, frantically ground herbs and purified fruit juice. Some even tied thick bandages around their hands due to numbness and soreness.
The ground ingredients were immediately sent to the corner of the stairs, after which Her Majesty and General Delilah personally carried them to the top floor. As for what they were used for, not a single attendant knew.
Every bottle of the finished product had to be personally injected with magic power by Daphne, which consumed an extreme amount of physical strength.
The entire top floor of the West Tower turned into a precision workshop that ran day and night; medicine was made upstairs, and masks were made downstairs.
In the air of the top floor, the pale golden Holy Light magic power and the rich mugwort medicinal fragrance intertwined, forming an almost viscous texture.
Willow's bangs had long been soaked with sweat, clinging to her pale cheeks. She mechanically swung the stone pestle, every strike emitting a dull and solid sound.
Behind her, several strictly selected close attendants held their breaths in concentration, using trembling fingers to accurately drip the purified fruit juice into test tubes.
In this 'workshop,' there was no distinction between high and low status, only efficiency.
Sophia personally lifted a basket of deep purple herbs that had just been delivered, the cold and piercing pain from her fingertips keeping her awake.
Delilah, on the other hand, silently took over the heavier bucket of filtrate. The sound of clothing rubbing echoed within the hall, like some kind of solemn battle song.
Right amidst this extreme tension and busyness, a herald stumbled and rushed outside the door, his voice turning hoarse and distorted due to extreme emotional fluctuation:
"R-Reporting to Your Majesty! Outside the Palace, the subjects... they have arrived!"
This report was like a heavy bomb dropped into a calm lake.
The stone pestle in Willow's hands abruptly paused, and the golden runes flowing from Daphne's fingertips trembled slightly.
Except for the rows of bottom-level workers who were still mechanically sewing masks, all the core members in the hall lost their focus for a moment.
"What are they here for?"
Delilah furrowed her brows slightly, her right hand subconsciously gripping the hilt of her sword.
"To cause trouble? Or out of panic?"
"N-No, they aren't!"
The herald wiped a handful of frost from his face, his voice carrying a heavy nasal tone.
"They brought mugwort, they brought coarse cloth woven in their own homes. They said that Your Majesty and Lord Saint are risking your lives to save everyone, and they, as a bunch of mud-legs, cannot just hide in their houses and only smell the smoke.
"They said, please give the order, Your Majesty. Even if it's moving bricks or carrying water, as long as they can contribute a bit of strength for Mason, for our country, it will be worth it even if they die!"
At that moment, the hall fell into an eerie silence.
Those attendants who were grinding the herbs suddenly lowered their heads. Bean-sized teardrops smashed into the stone mortars, yet they didn't make a single sound.
They did not stop their movements. Instead, because of this power surging from the populace, their grinding speed became even more frantic and precise.
Sophia did not speak.
She turned around, her black fox fur tracing a cold arc in the air, and walked straight towards the observation deck at the highest point of the West Tower.
Pushing open the high window, the bone-chilling cold wind carrying ice dregs blew against her face, yet it could not blow away the shock in Sophia's pupils.
On the land of the Royal City, which was pitch-black and shrouded in the shadow of the plague, a Divine Miracle worthy of being recorded in Mason's annals of history unexpectedly appeared at this moment:
Outside the Palace's flat Cement square, a dense crowd of people stood tightly packed.
It was thousands of subjects. Every single one of them held a burning mugwort torch high in their hands.
In this pitch-black winter night, those faint, orange-red flames converged together, unexpectedly resembling a flowing river of stars slowly pulsing around the Palace.
An assembly of thousands of people, which even included many children, yet there was surprisingly not a single trace of noise.
They merely stood quietly in the snow, letting the cold wind mess up their hair. The mugwort smoke in their hands rose straight into the sky, as if declaring Mason's resilience to the heavens.
Sophia leaned against the railing and gazed into the distance. Under the reflection of the smoke and fire, her pale golden pupils experienced intense fluctuations for the first time.
Sophia couldn't help but raise her hand and grip the curtain.
She had thought she was playing a high-difficulty city management game. She had thought she was merely dispensing civilization for the sake of her own braised pork and peaceful days.
But now...
These subjects who didn't even have names were actually using this most primitive method to tell her what a country was.
It seemed that the things Sophia had done inadvertently had truly grown a spine in this cold era.
After hearing the commotion in the corridor, Victor quickly ran up. Standing three body-lengths behind Sophia, he looked at the Queen's silver hair being blown by the wind, and then looked at the flames covering the mountains and plains in the distance. The wrinkles on his old face were filled with hot tears brought about by shock.
Is this the prototype of a great unification?
It wasn't relying on harsh laws, nor was it relying on terrifying military force.
Your Majesty merely used a few bars of soap, a few handfuls of mugwort, and a few masks to knead these originally scattered subjects into an indestructible will of steel!
Look at that firelight. How is that mugwort?
That is the subjects' faith in Your Majesty!
Through this plague, Your Majesty has completed one of the greatest experiments in human history.
She made this group of commoners, who had felt inferior for many years, realize that they were also indispensable parts of this Empire.
From this day forward, Mason will no longer be a geographical noun; it is Your Majesty's Royal Guards!
"Delilah."
Sophia retracted her gaze. Her voice recovered its usual clear coldness, yet it carried an additional, imperceptible layer of depth.
"This subject is here!"
Delilah knelt on one knee, her eyes burning like torches.
"Open the Palace gates and receive all the labor force that meets the quarantine requirements.
"Valery, go tally their specialties.
"Those who understand sewing will go downstairs to help Irene. Those with great strength will go to logistics to transport supplies. The remaining people will be divided into groups of ten, led by soldiers, to conduct a grid-based mugwort smoke patrol across the entire city.
"As for those children who look very young, if they insist on helping, give them some simple tasks like processing herbs or sorting items.
"Find some more people to get hot water and brew some hot soup to distribute a bowl to everyone."
Sophia paused, looking at Daphne, who had already radiated with fighting spirit once again and whose magic power was boiling anew:
"Tell the subjects outside that This Queen has heard them.
"Mason's winter will soon pass. No one should even think about taking This Queen's subjects away at this time."
"Complying with the decree!!"
As the sound of the Palace gates opening wide spread into the distance through the night sky, those bundles of mugwort torches erupted with low cheers akin to a landslide and tsunami.
Inside the West Tower, the roar of machinery and the chanting of magic played an ensemble once more.
This night, Mason was sleepless.
As the morning light faintly revealed itself, the dark blue sky was torn open by a golden crack.
After this night of sleepless and frantic operation, the heart of the Kingdom of Mason, the West Tower, finally slowed its heavy and powerful beating.
When the first ray of sunlight shone upon the open space of the Palace, the last batch of masks had already finished being loaded onto the carriages.
As the hoofbeats of the cavalry rang out once again, not just at the borders and villages, but every single subject within the Royal City received a linen mask exuding the clear fragrance of mugwort and mint in their hands.
And those one hundred portions of Potion that Daphne had desperately made became the most precious strategic resource of this winter.
Although the quantity was not large, it was enough to stabilize the vitality of the first batch of critically ill patients.
"Go rest, Daphne. This is an order."
Sophia looked at the Saint before her, who was tottering and whose face was so deathly pale it was almost transparent. Her tone was unquestionable.
This young girl had worked too hard, and her magic power had been overdrawn too much.
If not for Sophia's obstruction, Daphne definitely would have only been willing to stop upon fainting.
Daphne managed to prop up a weak smile and returned to the Bedchamber with Willow's support.
Meanwhile, Sophia walked alone to the stone steps outside the side hall. She rubbed her almost numb wrists, her gaze calmly watching below.
Even though day had broken, those subjects still had not dispersed.
They spontaneously cleared the accumulated snow on the square and orderly transported the newly delivered medicinal herbs.
This sense of order growing out from the ruins made Sophia feel that the stagnant breath in her chest had smoothed out a bit.
"Your Majesty, I'm also at my limit."
A soft voice came from behind.
Irene, her pink twin-tails drooping, swayed like a puppet with cut strings and sat down on the steps beside Sophia.
She slumped there completely devoid of her image, and finally even boldly and gently pressed her small face, flushed red from being smoked by the stove fire, against Sophia's warm and thick black fox fur.
"Say, is it almost time for the New Year in this world too?"
Irene muttered, her azure eyes staring at the busy subjects in the distance.
Sophia tilted her head slightly, looking at this little inventor who was still studying when in the modern world:
"The New Year?
"Are you talking about Mason's Winter Solstice Festival, or the traditional Christmas?"
She naturally knew what the New Year was.
But even though she was currently so intimate with Irene and the others, she still wanted to leave some hidden cards for herself.
Therefore, she continued to pretend not to understand, letting Irene lean against her body.
"Neither of those..."
Irene rubbed against the soft fox fur, only feeling extremely comfortable, so her voice grew softer and softer.
"It's the one from our side.
"At this time, red lanterns would be hung up in all the streets and alleys, firecrackers would be set off crackling and popping, and we would eat so much delicious food!
"Pig trotters, fish, chicken, lots of gourmet food, and then we also have to eat dumplings.
"White and plump dumplings with thin skins and large fillings, dipped in mature vinegar and chili oil, or dipped in soy sauce and mashed garlic—no matter how you eat them, they're good.
"One bite, and it's full of the taste of happiness..."
Irene seemed to have fallen into some kind of hallucinatory greed, smacking her lips:
"Not like here. For the festival, we only eat smoked meat hard enough to bash someone to death and jam that is sickeningly sweet.
"Your Majesty, once this epidemic passes, how about I make dumplings for you to eat too?
"Pork and scallion filling, or maybe fresh shrimp...
"Though for shrimp, it's so rare to get it here.
"Your Majesty, let me help you conquer the coastal countries too! That way, they'll all be ours, and we can eat however much we want."
Sophia listened quietly.
She certainly knew what those were. Even at this moment, the exceedingly bustling, lively, and vibrant festival scenes of her past life emerged in her mind.
Dumplings... they really are better than the hard bread here.
However, Mason must first grow enough wheat and produce enough pork.
She did not interrupt Irene's murmuring.
This kind of chattering imbued with 'homesickness' had actually become the best lullaby at this moment.
Gradually, the voice beside her disappeared, leaving only an even and faint sound of breathing.
Sophia turned her face and discovered that Irene had already fallen completely fast asleep.
That pink head leaned against her shoulder, her small mouth slightly parted, as if she had really eaten that mouthful of piping hot dumplings in her dream.
The corners of Sophia's mouth curled up in an almost imperceptible arc.
In this corner where no outsiders could see, this clear and cold Girl Tyrant rarely revealed a trace of gentleness.
She gently pulled over her thick black fox fur and carefully covered Irene's thin shoulders with it.
"Good night, Irene."
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Author's Note: Apologies for the delay, had some unexpected stuff come up. I'll be dropping bonus chapters later to make up for the wait!
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