"Do you remember what you described to me, shortly after I brought you to the Palace?"
Sophia's gaze softened slightly, her fingers lifting a strand of pink hair from Irene's forehead.
"Your Majesty, you mean... scenes from my world?"
Sophia gave a faint nod.
Nearby, Bardess — who had been attempting to arrange the tea set on the table into a perfectly straight line — and Victoria — still struggling to recover her sanity from the truth about the royal bloodline — both held their breath at the same moment.
"Wait."
Victoria set down her ivory fan, brow furrowed tight, her pale-gold eyes swimming with disbelief.
"A previous world?
Sophia, I've reached the point where nothing surprises me anymore — but what you're saying... are you actively trying to shatter what's left of my grasp on reality?"
Bardess also stopped what she was doing, her somewhat rough eyes filled with a crystalline, unclouded blankness — or perhaps the near-instinctive wariness of someone standing at the edge of territory utterly unknown to her:
"Your Majesty, isn't Irene just some inventor you picked up from some backwater little territory?
What do you mean, 'that world'?
I think my brain's starting to give out on me — could someone explain this in plain language?"
Sophia set down her teacup. A faint, crisp click.
They won't betray her.
Sophia ran the calculations at lightning speed inside her mind.
Victoria is smart enough to know that the cost of betraying me far outweighs the cost of loyalty.
Bardess's will has been bound to Mason's battle flag — after a lifetime of swallowing her grievances, every moment spent at my side feels like a triumph to her.
More importantly, even if this secret did somehow leak out, it would accomplish nothing.
In a world that worships swords and bloodlines, who would believe that a girl born in a peaceful, advanced age had crossed over here — and in under a year had hand-crafted inventions like the black muskets from scratch? Those hidebound nobles would simply assume whoever spread such rumors had lost their mind, or was spinning some clumsy Alchemy fairy tale.
But by the time they truly grasped the terror of that power — every inch of land under heaven would already belong to Mason.
"Don't be alarmed," Sophia said, her tone cool and level, her eyes signaling Irene to continue.
"There are many variables in this world that cannot be explained by current logic.
And Irene is the most singular of them all."
Bardess gripped the hilt of her saber so tightly her knuckles whitened, every inch of her strung taut as a bowstring, her pupils shaking violently with the force of the shock.
What was Her Majesty saying?!
Irene wasn't actually from this world — she was some goddess from a divine realm who'd crossed the dimensional boundary to get here?
I'd always wondered where that little brat got all those bizarre contraptions and her terrifyingly effective gunpowder... turns out she wasn't from this continent at all!
Her Majesty doesn't just command the armies of the mortal world — she actually went and kidnapped — no, summoned — a sage from beyond the stars or the realm of the gods?!
And yet when she speaks of something this otherworldly, her expression doesn't flicker for even a second. She must have calculated all the way to this moment long, long ago — she knew that swords alone could never fully sweep away those rotting royal houses.
So she reached into the vast ocean of humanity and caught this dimensional variable at precisely the right moment.
Her Majesty isn't just ruling Mason. She's using the backbone of an entirely different civilization to replace the rotten skeleton of this festering continent!
Following a master like this — even if she told me tomorrow to charge straight into the divine realm and punch a hole in the heavens, I'd think that was the most logical thing in the world!
Victoria's reaction was far more measured. She looked at Irene, then back at Sophia, and with her sharp emotional intelligence, she felt the full weight of the terror lurking behind this asymmetry of information.
No. Wait.
A living person crossing over from another world — the whole idea was absurd.
Were there truly other worlds beyond this one?
And yet certain things didn't add up. If Irene really had been a girl born and raised on this land, she simply should not have known so many impossible things, should not have been able to invent what she invented.
Someone from another world... that was the bedrock of Sophia's confidence — the reason she could stare the Covenant of Nations directly in the eye and openly scorn every legitimate bloodline.
If the legal foundations of the old world were built on lies, then she would introduce something completely alien — a higher civilization's logic — to grind those lies into dust.
Sophia, you don't even bother to look down on divine mandate... is that because what you hold in your hands is an entirely new civilization — one that doesn't even need the gods to sign off on it?
Using the wisdom of another world to reformat the rules of this one...
It was the most supreme arrogance imaginable.
No wonder she dared to tell them the truth — because in her version of the script, the people in this room would either remain loyal to her forever, carrying this secret to their graves, or they would become dust, ground beneath the wheels of the new era, just like those old royal houses.
Fortunately...
From the very beginning, she had chosen to stay in that great hall. She had chosen to stand on Sophia's side.
Irene drew a long breath and began to speak, in her characteristic vibrant tone, of that world — of asphalt roads and skyscrapers, of high-speed trains and aircraft, and of a country that had never known war.
A place where people didn't have to fear starving to death in winter, or worry that some lord by the roadside might hang a passerby simply because he was in a bad mood.
"Your Majesty, I remember telling you — the logic of that world was that every person had the right to simply live. Without needing to justify their existence to anyone."
The tent fell into a silence as deep as death.
Sophia leaned back against her chair, fingertips tapping lightly on the table surface — the sound cool, measured, and certain.
"That kind of life — Mason will have it soon enough."
Sophia looked out at those assembled, her pale-gold pupils filled with an unshakeable will.
"We now have a lawful blade, and we have a flame that outstrips the age.
In the march ahead, what I wish to see is a Mason iron tide — one truly capable of sweeping the old era away."
Willow quietly replaced Sophia's cup with a fresh pour of hot tea and bowed her head low, understanding in her heart that from this moment forward, every footprint left by the Mason Legion would be carving a new era into the corpse of the old world.
"Your Majesty..."
Every eye in the tent snapped toward the source of the voice.
From behind the folding screen, where a soft couch lay wrapped in layer upon layer of Holy Light, came an extremely faint sound — barely a sound at all — a ragged, pained whimper, struggling as if surfacing from deep water.
The voice was hoarse and urgent, like a drowning person scrabbling for the last floating plank after the flood.
The others had been wholly absorbed in the shock of a civilization from another world — that single call yanked them all back to reality at once.
The fingertips Sophia had been tapping steadily on the table snapped to a stop.
Those pale-gold pupils — always cool as ice, always seeming to see through the logic of all things — flickered, in that single instant, with a rare and violent ripple.
"Delilah!"
Sophia's voice was still cold, but beneath the sudden spike of urgency in her tone was something that brooked no argument — like a slender blade snatched from its scabbard in a gust of winter wind.
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Daphne snapped out of her reverie — she had still been thinking, with a touch of homesickness, about her own world — her body reacting faster than her mind. She swept past the long table in a rush that stirred a current of sanctified air, dropping to her knees beside Delilah's couch in an instant.
Delilah lay with her eyes shut tight, her brow — normally so sharp and proud — knotted into a rigid crease, her forehead beaded with a fine, cold sweat.
Her hands clutched at empty air in unconscious grasping, as though even within her dreams she was still fighting for Mason's flag.
Daphne drew a slow, deep breath and held both hands suspended, palms down, above Delilah's chest.
Warm, gentle, and intensely radiant golden light rose like a tide, wrapping around Delilah entirely.
General Delilah's will is so incredibly strong.
The depths of her soul are carved with loyalty to Her Majesty — even in a state of grievous injury that would break a normal person's mind, the very first variable her consciousness reached for was still Her Majesty's safety.
Her cry was more than a cry — it was the resonance of a covenant.
As Mason's sharpest sword, Delilah had sensed her master's presence.
What I must do is not only heal her body — I must use this Holy Light as a bridge, to tell her soul: Her Majesty has already reclaimed the flame that will end all suffering.
Very soon. Very soon Her Majesty will make those people disappear!
Her Majesty moved with such urgency — she must have calculated long ago that only with General Delilah awakened would the march ahead carry its sharpest edge.
I absolutely cannot let a single link in Her Majesty's logic fall short!
Victoria, seated to one side of the head position, was staring at Sophia with an expression of layered, complex depth.
She had caught that momentary crack in Sophia's composure just now.
Interesting. So very, very interesting.
I had begun to think this little sister had completely remade herself into a cold machine — that she cared for no one except that dimensional girl who could hand-forge gunpowder, and perhaps Willow and Daphne at her side.
But in that one second just now, the anxiety that flashed through her eyes — that couldn't be faked.
Sophia, your regard for Delilah has already gone beyond calculating the pros and cons between sovereign and subject, hasn't it?
Victoria hadn't expected at all that Delilah — a deserter from Olan — could have claimed so central a place in Sophia's trust and affection.
Normally, wouldn't any rational person be suspicious of someone like that?
But a bond forged on a covenant of life and death, it turns out, is more unbreakable than any calculation.
This Mason war chariot... it carries more heart than I had imagined.
Bardess had already quietly retreated to the entrance of the tent on her own initiative, hand resting on her saber hilt, eyes locked in hawk-like focus on the angle of Daphne's Holy Light casting.
Her Majesty had just declared the march on the world — and General Delilah had responded immediately.
As expected. General Delilah's return to the field is the single most critical link in Her Majesty's plan to cleanse the world.
This has to be Her Majesty's arrangement.
She used her own overwhelming authority to shock the General back to consciousness, then used the Saint's gentleness to mend the wounds.
That combination of iron force and tender care — it scratched Bardess's obsessive need for symmetry all the way down to the bone.
Since Her Majesty values the General this much, when I go on patrol through the camp later, those little bastards had better be marching in lines straighter than a ruler!
I absolutely will not let anyone embarrass Her Majesty's perfect overture at this critical moment!
Inside the tent, golden Holy Light and the amber glow of lamplight wove together.
Sophia walked toward the couch, each step landing with the lightest touch — yet with an unusual, settled solidity.
She watched Delilah's breathing gradually even out, and in her pale-gold pupils, the cold rational light seemed to slowly settle down, layer by layer.
"Delilah."
Sophia spoke softly, her tone unchanged — cool as ever — yet carrying a certainty capable of cutting through any fog.
"Come back.
This Queen will take you herself to collect what is owed."
Delilah's long lashes — trembling faintly — finally parted at an almost imperceptible crack.
At first her gaze was clouded, as if looking through a veil of blood that could never be washed away.
In her consciousness, she was still caught in that desperate breakout battle — surrounded by the screaming of Olan cavalry and the dull thud of fallen comrades.
Or perhaps she was still in that prison, as people who had once stood beside her in Olan drove their swords into her shoulder without mercy.
But when that crisp, solitary, achingly familiar silver began to sharpen into focus on her retinas, Delilah's bloodshot eyes contracted sharply.
"Your... Majesty?"
Her voice was so raw it barely held a shape — like two rough sheets of sandpaper grinding together.
She couldn't believe it. After everything — that savage betrayal, that massacre — the first thing she would see upon opening her eyes was truly the woman she considered her only salvation.
Was this a dream?
Or was this one last mercy, given to her at the moment of death?
Delilah struggled, trying to lift her right arm — an arm that had almost no sensation left in it.
She wanted to confirm that the figure before her was real, wanted to touch that silver hair that caught the lamplight and gleamed like cold metal.
But her body, ravaged by her injuries, stripped her of the dignity she'd known as a commander. That scarred arm lifted a single inch — and then, drained of all strength, slid helplessly toward the edge of the couch.
In the instant before it fell, a slender, pale, faintly cool hand caught it — steady and sure.
Sophia stepped forward. The warmth in her palm was not high — but it carried an unshakeable sense of Order, arresting Delilah's fall as if by decree.
In the chair, Victoria had set down her red teacup.
The teasing light that had been dancing in her pale-gold eyes was gone — replaced by the careful scrutiny of someone witnessing a covenant of a higher order.
So that's how it is... This is nothing like ordinary sovereign-subject favor.
I had been wondering — if Sophia truly calls herself the embodiment of reason, why would she allow a defector from Olan to occupy such a core position?
Now I understand. This is an absolute alignment between two souls.
In the very instant she awoke, what Delilah reached for wasn't medicine, wasn't water — it was Sophia.
And that precise, perfectly timed grip of Sophia's hand — it was precisely the one thing Delilah needed most in all the world.
This bond — wordless, forged across the threshold of life and death — was a million times more solid than all the so-called loyalty manufactured in the Olan court from scheming, gold, and arranged marriages.
Sophia, what you command is not only weapons that outstrip the age — you also command a force of personality that can drag people back from the very edge of death.
This Mason war chariot has finally been fitted with its most ferocious, most unstoppable battering ram.
Bardess stood watch at the entrance, watching that scene unfold, as the anxiety her obsessive nature usually brought her found an unprecedented, bone-deep release.
That reunion — it was more perfectly arranged than the most precise technical diagram!
Her Majesty's posture, the General's angle, the hand being held — together they formed a stable triangle that would support the entire future of Mason.
General Delilah is awake — which means the Legion's blade has been sharpened anew.
That one line from Her Majesty — This Queen will take you herself — was simultaneously the most brutal and the most perfect mobilization order ever spoken.
The General wakes for vengeance, and Her Majesty commands that vengeance for the purpose of rebirth.
Everything is in place. Right now I just want to go and straighten every single crooked thing in this camp — because the moment Her Majesty took the General's hand, I knew: there is no one left in this world who can stop us!
Sophia looked down at Delilah.
"Your wounds have all healed, but the weakness in your bones still needs tending.
Daphne will restore your body. And I will give you the ending you want."
The hand Sophia held tightened its grip by the faintest degree. Her cool voice fell in the stillness of the tent, each word deliberate:
"Everything the Royal House of Olan owes you — every lie that rotten empire has stacked up — I will tear all of it open with my own hands.
Delilah, all you need to do is live. Live, and watch with your own eyes as that eagle banner — under Mason's iron march — becomes nothing more than a meaningless scrap of rag."
Delilah felt the faintly cool touch in her palm. Those eyes, dried hollow by despair, faced at last with that absolute promise of justice — and a single burning tear spilled free.
This was more than salvation.
This was Sophia Mason's declaration of war — against the entire old world.
— — —
The first rays of morning light clawed their way through the dense marsh fog, yet brought little warmth to Whitestone City — the border fortress of Yurilland.
On the walls of Whitestone City, Yurilland's soldiers loitered in clusters of two and three, their armor sitting crooked on their frames; some were openly yawning.
For these vassals who had thrown their lot entirely in with the Olan Empire, this punitive campaign against Mason felt more like a leisurely outing than a war.
"Hey — you, look. What is that?"
A guard rubbed sleep from his eyes and pointed toward the far end of the horizon.
Through the mist, an army was slowly materializing — jet black from head to toe, its formations aligned with a precision that inspired a visceral discomfort in the gut.
No billowing dust clouds. No clamorous din. Only the muffled, rhythmic crush of heavy boots grinding dry grass underfoot — like a vast heart beating out on the open wasteland.
The Mason Legion appeared, just like that — openly, without a shred of concealment — directly beneath the noses of the Yurilland soldiers.
"Hah, that little Mason kingdom actually dared to show up?"
The garrison commander of Whitestone City stood up on the watchtower and straightened his ornate robes with a casual hand, a contemptuous smirk curling at his lips.
"No heavy siege engines. No scaling ladders. Not even the most basic concealment tactics — and they just walked into the range of our crossbows?
Does that sixteen-year-old Girl Queen actually think war is a game of make-believe in the palace?"
In his estimation, this advance by Mason was the height of stupidity.
By all conventional wisdom on this continent, charging a fortified city in a suicidal frontal push was no different from signing your own death warrant.
"Probably driven half-mad by what happened to Jasu," his adjutant sneered in agreement.
"Word is she even dragged along some brat she fished out of a pile of corpses.
His Majesty of Olan had it right — saplings that don't know their place need to be pulled up by the roots."
At the front of the Mason formation, however, Bardess sat astride her horse with both eyes locked on the line of the city walls.
Her severe obsessive streak was at this moment in a bizarre state of peak agitation.
Look at those Yurilland idiots.
Their city wall is higher on the left than the right, and even the spacing between the merlons isn't consistent — how does a sloppy mess like that dare to stand in Her Majesty's path?!
Her Majesty ordered this direct frontal advance not for the purpose of a hard assault — she's using this absolute visual suppression to psychologically dismantle them from the inside!
She's telling them: in the face of Mason's iron tide, every one of your defenses is nothing but misaligned building blocks.
In the carriage, Victoria had changed back into the combat suit Irene had made — with cut-and-stab-resistant soft armor underneath.
Even without the binding constriction of a chest piece, her expression was more grim than the day before.
Through the glass window, she watched those Yurilland soldiers still chuckling on the walls, and a flash of pity crossed her eyes.
Pathetic true believers.
They were still laughing at Sophia for not understanding tactics — unaware that the little sister sitting in that carriage held in her hands a Divine Punishment capable of kicking their ancestors out of their royal tombs, eighteen generations back.
Sophia chose to appear in the most brazen fashion possible — it's to draw every eye, so that the Covenant of Nations, the moment it is produced, will deliver its maximum detonating impact.
This kind of open, barefaced arrogance is the most vicious slap the Olan system has ever taken.
She doesn't see this city gate as an obstacle at all. She's treating it as an auditorium — a stage from which to announce to the entire continent that a new era has begun.
These Yurilland people don't even qualify to be Sophia's opponents. They are nothing but the whetstone she's using to sharpen her blade before the real work starts.
Sophia reclined against the cushions of the head seat. Delilah lay on the couch on the opposite side, eyes closed, resting quietly.
"Your Majesty, the garrison of Whitestone City has issued a warning — demanding we disarm immediately or face arrows."
Willow delivered her report quietly from outside the curtain, not a trace of alarm in her voice.
Sophia slowly opened her pale-gold eyes. There was no anger in them — only the cold indifference of someone confronted with a logical error.
Yurilland.
Sophia rapidly retrieved the relevant passages of the Covenant from memory.
The founding ancestor of this nation was nothing more than a lowly household retainer who stole the king's throne — they had even usurped the right to name the land itself.
Since they were so fond of playing the role of loyal hounds to a false master, let them shatter alongside that counterfeit dream of Olan.
"Ignore the warning."
Sophia's voice was cool, like a sentence with no temperature of its own.
"Have Irene make ready.
I have no interest in wasting time at the doorstep of these traitors.
The gate is closed — so let it vanish along with every lie built into this place."
She had no intention of publicizing the Covenant just yet. Not now.
If the Imperial Capital and Yurilland joined forces at this moment, Mason would be finished.
What Sophia needed to do right now was to extract maximum advantage while the Imperial Capital and the Olan alliance were still tangled up with each other.
The army halted a hundred paces from the city wall.
At that point, the Yurilland soldiers on Whitestone City's battlements finally sensed something was wrong.
Within the Mason formation, several young women in strangely narrow-cut clothing were hoisting black, oddly engraved iron tubes — aiming them directly at the city gate — and breaking into wide, excited, slightly unhinged grins.
That was the flame Irene had carried across time and space — about to fire the opening thunderclap of this reckoning of legal order.
On the walls of Whitestone City, the garrison's laughter still rolled through the wind. But at the very front of the Mason formation, the pink-haired girl was fiddling with her new toys with undisguised glee.
They were strange-looking devices — far smaller than standard catapults by several sizes.
Taut twisted cordage wound around wooden frames, the bases reinforced with fine iron — each piece was crafted with such delicate precision it looked like a collection of Alchemy models sitting in a laboratory.
"Heh heh — alright, darlings, time to wake up and get to work!"
Irene rubbed her hands together, the morning light reflected in her sapphire eyes.
Behind her, several female soldiers were carefully drawing sealed glass bottles out of thick leather sacks.
The bottles sloshed with a pale blue-green liquid — Alchemy oil refined deep in the mines of Mason's City of Qubi, exceptionally viscous and highly flammable.
The neck of each bottle was fitted with a specially made ignition device — on the same basic principle as the fire-starters common among Mason's nobility, but modified by Irene into something considerably more volatile.
Irene hopped over to one of the compact catapults and expertly calibrated the tension in the cordage.
These iron-cased ones haven't been turned into proper cannons yet — but these little launchers paired with my fire gift-boxes are an absolute area-clearing tool inside a hundred paces.
She was thinking to herself.
Her Majesty was right — a city gate full of lies like this one doesn't need to be rammed open blow by blow with a heavy battering ram.
The logically fastest method is to simply burn all this obstruction to ash.
"Take aim! Angle thirty-five, stand by—"
At Irene's command, several female soldiers yanked the triggers hard.
The ignition devices inside the glass bottles triggered in an instant from the violent jolt, and thin but fierce tongues of flame licked out from the bottle necks.
Bardess sat on horseback, her obsessive streak compelling her to fix her eyes on the placement of those catapults — and she found that not only were they arranged in a perfectly arced line, even the cadence of their firing maintained some eerie, uncanny regularity.
Is this what Her Majesty calls civilizational cleansing?
I'd assumed Her Majesty only brought these little gadgets to conserve the soldiers' energy. Now I understand — this is Her Majesty's greatest expression of contempt for the Yurilland people.
In Her Majesty's logic, the defenses of Whitestone City aren't even worth deploying Mason's heavy weapons against.
Look at those glass bottles — crystal clear, and yet filled inside with oil fit to serve as an instrument of Divine Punishment.
Her Majesty is using this city as an Alchemy furnace, to smelt all these pretenders-to-legitimacy down to nothing!
This isn't a siege — this is scrubbing the filth from the face of the earth.
Following Her Majesty, even the arcing trajectories of these fireballs carry the righteous satisfaction of sweeping out the garbage!
Inside the carriage, Victoria's fingertips traced across the cold surface of her soft armor.
She watched the streaks of fire arc across the sky beyond the window, and her eyes filled with emotions she could not name.
Look at that — this is the curtain call of the old era.
The Yurilland commander is still calculating arrow ranges with his stale tactical manual, while Sophia has already decided to rewrite the rules with a fire he cannot begin to comprehend.
The sound of those glass bottles shattering — that is the sound of false bloodlines snapping.
Sophia makes herself this visible precisely because she knows: in the face of absolute knowledge and Truth, all walls and fortresses are nothing but illusions built on lies.
The moment the fire catches — Yurilland's pride will shatter like that glass, past any hope of picking up the pieces.
"Release!"
Irene's hand flag swept sharply down.
Fwoosh — whoooosh!
Dozens of glass bottles, glowing with red light, cut through the mist and trailed long tails of smoke — like a flock of crimson birds, flying straight and true into the heavy black-wood gates of Whitestone City.
CRACK!
The first bottle shattered against the gate.
In an instant, the viscous Alchemy oil spread wildly with the scattering sparks, clinging to the wood like a malignant growth that could not be torn loose — and within a single breath, that gate, which no heavy axe could have damaged, transformed into a churning inferno.
"Ah — what is this dark sorcery?!"
"Mason really does have Witches! They really do have Witches!"
"Put it out! Bring water, quickly!"
"Send a report up — Mason has come with Witches to attack the city! Requesting reinforcements!"
On the walls above, Yurilland soldiers who had been laughing moments ago dissolved into instant chaos.
They discovered, in horror, that even when water touched the scattered liquid, it would not go out — instead it followed the steps downward and burned fiercer, turning the entire gateway tunnel into a furnace that consumed everything.
Inside the carriage, Sophia watched all of this in quiet stillness, the distant red light reflected in her pale-gold pupils.
Lies always fear fire.
She raised one hand, unhurried, and issued the final ultimatum.
The Mason Legion's heavy boots struck the ground in unison once more — each step tolling like the death knell of a god.
"Advance."
Flames and black smoke rolled and churned inside the gateway of Whitestone City. The thick black-wood gate — which Yurilland had boasted could never rot for a thousand years — had been reduced by the Alchemy oil's ravaging to brittle char, as scorched and crumbling as a lump of burned coal.
"Hold! Hold the line!
That's witch-fire — once it goes out, they can't get through!"
The Yurilland commander was screaming, directing soldiers to lock shields and lower spears behind the gate into a dense defensive formation.
But what came to him was not the fire dying out. What came was the sound of death knocking at the door.
"Irene — give this tottering gate one last little push to the grave."
Sophia's voice drifted out through the carriage's hanging curtain, as calm as if she were asking Willow to pour another cup of red tea.
"On it!
Soldiers! Final volley — target: that heap of rotten wood!"
Irene waved her hand flag with wild enthusiasm.
A few more sharp whistles split the air, and several specially made heavy stone projectiles flew over the sea of fire, striking with precision at the center of the gate — which had long since lost all structural integrity.
With a thunderous roar, Whitestone City's defensive line collapsed in that single moment.
Countless burning splinters and fragments of iron swept inward into the city, flinging the Yurilland soldiers at the front rank off their feet in an instant.
"Mason Legion — full assault!"
Bardess drew her saber, the razor-polished blade catching in the sunlight and throwing off a flash of chill light that made the heart clench.
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
"For Her Majesty! For a better future!"
"For the work-points! Charge!"
The Mason soldiers surged through the shattered gateway like a black flood pouring in.
Yet what made the spines of the Whitestone City garrison turn cold — what terrified them even more than the fire had — was the expression on the faces of those Mason soldiers: an extreme, almost hungry exhilaration.
The words these soldiers were chanting were, to the Yurilland troops, like some kind of evil incantation.
"Work-points? What are those?
Is that the true name of some dark god?"
A veteran Yurilland soldier's sword hand trembled without stopping.
He watched those Mason soldiers — and the look in their eyes as they cut down enemies was not the look of men facing hated foes. It was the look of men beholding something of immense, tangible... value. A unit of measurement.
Bardess swept her blade and cut down an officer who tried to resist, then scanned the battlefield with her eyes at those vigorous, high-powered soldiers, and felt her obsessive nature rewarded to a degree it had never reached before.
This is Her Majesty's godlike system of governance?!
In the old days, lords drove their armies with the whip, or with the pathetically meager handful of copper coins.
But Her Majesty only used that work-point system Irene brought up — and turned these rascals into men who fight like they have nothing left to lose!
In Her Majesty's logic, every rebel's head taken, every stretch of wall captured — each one converts into real, tangible work-points.
And under Mason's Order, those points can be exchanged for land, for clean water, for good bread, for the miraculous objects Irene hand-crafts!
This technique of aligning effort and reward down to every single point, every single second — it's even more perfect than my straightest knife rack!
No wonder they charge in such flawless formation — because in their eyes, Yurilland's walls aren't an obstacle at all. They're a golden score-multiplier just waiting to be cashed in!
Following Her Majesty, even killing enemies becomes a labor that fills you with drive and purpose!
Inside the carriage, Victoria listened to the earthshaking work-point battle cries from outside, and sank into a deep, unsettling re-examination of herself.
Work-points...
Sophia, just what kind of monster system did you and that girl from another world actually design together?
I had assumed you were conquering through force. But you're actually reshaping the human heart through an entirely new logic of distribution.
You've taken loyalty — something previously intangible and ephemeral — and quantified it. Turned it into a number that even an illiterate stable hand could understand at a glance.
The moment those soldiers realize they aren't just fighting for the Queen but accumulating their own entry tickets into the new era — who in this world could ever stop them?
Those Olan lords still bamboozling their soldiers with bloodlines and glory have already lost, at this very moment — so completely there's nothing left to take.
This technique of using interest-driven logic as a dimensional suppression strike against the old system... Sophia, you are the most terrifying reaper this old Order has ever faced.
The resistance inside the city was crumbling rapidly.
Under this all-consuming frenzy of point-grabbing, the thin scraps of morale the Yurilland soldiers had built on their identity as vassals dissolved like morning frost under a summer sun.
Sophia sat in the carriage, listening to Willow's report on casualties and the pace of the advance, her pale-gold pupils filled with perfect calm.
In that era of peace, a work-point system was only the most basic thing imaginable.
But in a chaotic world where people can barely fill their stomachs, it is the most powerful spiritual explosive in existence.
Since the gate was open, the logic of what followed was simple enough:
Purge what remains of the old power on this land — and then mark every inch of it with the Black Rose of Mason.
"Willow," Sophia said quietly.
"At your service."
"Send word to Bardess — the moment the sweep is complete, establish a simple work-point registration station in the city center.
I want Yurilland's common people to understand one thing before nightfall."
Sophia looked out the window at that stretch of ruins changing ownership before her eyes, her voice cool and even:
"Under Mason's flag, diligence is the only noble bloodline that matters."
Nearby, Delilah — still with a trace of pallor in her face — saw this and moved to offer her help.
This time, Sophia did not refuse. She understood that if she let Delilah sit by and do nothing, she would only feel useless.
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🌸 Help Love Bloom!
Our girls need a little push... and you can help!
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 200 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... 😉