Niklaus whispered, his voice barely audible. No one knew whether he was speaking to himself, to the system, or to this absurd world as a whole.
"Boring..."
The blue window flickered.
It didn't disappear like before. Instead, it halted and rippled, as if it were breathing. Then, from the depths of that blue light, new letters slowly began to form, carving themselves into the air.
[Main Quest]
Title: Head to the forest of Death
Objective: Remove the magic restraint
Condition: Stay alive… and keep your sanity inside the forest
Reward: Unknown
Niklaus stared at the text.
Slowly, he raised his left eyebrow and closed his eyes for a heavy moment.
The blood still flowing from his head was warm, dripping slowly down his cheek and stealing his focus.
A quest...?
What is this now?
This thing... is giving me orders now?
He muttered inwardly, though no sound escaped his lips.
He lifted his slightly trembling hand and tried to touch the blue window, but his fingers passed through it as if it were air woven from light.
And what is this restraint the pathetic system claims I must remove? How ridiculous...
He decided to do nothing.
That had always been his choice.
Nothing was worth the effort.
But before his refusal fully settled within him, another line of text appeared—more urgent this time, almost flashing with silent anger.
[warning]
[failure Penalty: memory Deletion]
Huh?
Memory deletion?
How cliché.
Most of my memories aren't even worth keeping anyway.
Another line appeared, darker this time, almost roaring.
[warning]
[User shows tendency to ignore quests.]
[Punishment Protocol Activated.]
Niklaus ignored the warning.
The blood was flowing faster now, and his entire body was sinking into a whirlpool of dizziness.
Every step he imagined taking toward consciousness drifted further away. Every breath grew heavier than stone.
The world wavered, like it was sinking under water.
The sounds faded.
The guards shouting. The servants' commotion. The pounding of footsteps against marble.
Everything faded into a distant echo.
Very distant.
As if the blood leaving his head was erasing every thread tying him to reality.
Then—for a single second—
He felt something strange.
A sensation swept through him. Foreign. Unfamiliar.
His mind went blank.
Completely empty.
As if his brain had simply stopped working.
No thoughts.
No pain.
No awareness.
Only a deadly void between shock and agony... between existence and nothingness.
Then—
Darkness.
He lost consciousness.
The news did not take long to spread throughout the palace like wildfire.
The prince had jumped from the window.
In the Emperor's Wing
Leonard Valdrin sat in his dark study, surrounded by aged walnut wood that had witnessed decades of decisive rulings.
Before him lay official documents awaiting his signature—piles of decrees waiting for the imperial seal.
The pen rested between his fingers, heavy as always.
When the servant entered and delivered the news with a trembling voice that barely held together—
The emperor's hand paused.
Only for a single moment.
The ink gathered at the tip of the pen fell—a small black drop landing upon the official paper.
The page slowly absorbed it, forming a dark stain.
Like a wound upon the white surface.
He did not raise his head.
No change appeared on his stone-like face.
He simply spoke quietly.
"Send the physician. And secure every window in the second prince's wing."
The servant bowed and hurried out.
But after the servant left, the emperor remained seated in silence for several minutes.
His blue eyes stared at the black stain on the paper.
They slowly widened... then narrowed.
Deep inside him—where no one dared to look—something shattered silently.
Like glass crushed beneath heavy footsteps.
His fingers brushed over the black stain, as though he could feel a pain he could not express.
In the Knights' Hall
Adrian was training with one of the palace knights.
The ringing of steel filled the hall, and his swift steps left faint echoes across the marble floor.
His focus was absolute—movement, breathing, rhythm.
A combat rhythm he had mastered since childhood.
Then he heard whispers.
At first, he couldn't understand the words.
Just hushed voices between servants gathered near the entrance.
But when the phrases became clear—
The second prince... jumped... the window...
Everything stopped.
The sword slipped from his hand and struck the stone floor with a loud metallic crash.
Its echo rang through the hall like an alarm bell.
He didn't wait. Didn't think. He ran.
His steps were faster than they had ever been before.
His heart pounded like a war drum.
The wind whistled in his ears as the long corridors passed him like ghosts.
When he reached the room—
He stopped suddenly.
As if lightning had struck him.
The servants were still gathered.
The physician was busy tending to the wound.
Niklaus lay on the couch, his pale face carrying a distant, empty expression—as though his body remained there, but his soul had wandered somewhere else.
Blood seeped through the white cloth pressed against his forehead.
Adrian stood at the doorway as if his feet had rooted themselves into the ground.
At that moment, he saw something else.
A ghost from the past slipped from the corners of his memory.
His mother.
In her final days.
That white bed.
The same pale face.
The same distant gaze that always came before departure.
The loss that had haunted him for years.
The loss that had made him look at Niklaus not as a brother—but as a painful reminder of that grief.
So he had chosen distance.
Coldness.
Silence.
But in this moment, seeing the blood on his brother's forehead—
Something inside him broke.
A brutal realization struck him.
If he had been one second later...
He would have lost him too.
He stepped into the room slowly.
As though mountains rested upon his shoulders.
Niklaus regained consciousness slowly, like someone rising from the depths of a dark ocean.
Sweat gathered on his bandaged forehead.
The sharp scent of medicinal ointment filled his nose.
His empty gaze drifted toward the window—now tightly sealed with iron bars.
The strange system had vanished from his sight.
Yet its presence remained in his mind like a deep wound.
Meanwhile, Adrian stepped closer.
But Niklaus's mind circled around only one question.
What is all this nonsense?
Waking up in this body.
Then that strange system appearing before his face.
And what was that feeling before he lost consciousness?
That strange sensation that he had forgotten something.
That his mind had stopped working for a second.
As if a piece of him had been erased.
He tightened his grip on the bedsheet.
That damned system.
Playing games with him.
Threatening to erase his memories.
Trying to make him forget his identity just to force him to act as Niklaus in some ridiculous novel.
How irritating.
How utterly infuriating.
Did whoever dragged him into this story really think they could move him like a puppet?
They were wrong.
Very wrong.
Through the pounding headache, he thought about the quest.
The Forest of Death.
The name sounded strange. Almost laughably cliché to him.
Old Alexander had never read about such a place in the novel.
And then—
His crimson eyes met Adrian's.
Adrian was looking at him with genuine fear.
Fear of loss.
And even... regret.
But Niklaus didn't understand those looks.
Nor did he care to.
Those complicated human emotions were nothing more than noise in his mind, which was busy trying to understand the strange system and his new circumstances.
For several long seconds, neither of them moved.
The air between them grew heavy.
Filled with everything that had never been spoken over the years.
Finally, Adrian spoke—his voice was low, but sharp, like a sword leaving its sheath.
"Have you lost your mind?"
Niklaus raised an eyebrow slightly, as if the question itself made little sense to him.
There was something in his indifference that made the anger grow stronger.
"No."
No hesitation.
Only that cold emptiness, more frightening than any scream.
Adrian stepped forward, his heart still racing from the shock.
"Then why did you jump from the window?"
Niklaus didn't answer immediately.
He simply looked at him, as if evaluating him.
Evaluating how serious he was.
Evaluating whether ignoring him would make him leave.
He had no time for this nonsense.
He needed to understand the forest.
And the system.
But Adrian was still there.
Waiting.
Finally, Niklaus said coldly,
"I was just testing something".
That answer only made the anger in Adrian's eyes burn brighter.
"Testing something? Do you realize what you did? Everyone thought you were trying to—"
He stopped.
He didn't want to say the word.
Suicide.
It was ugly.
Unworthy of a prince.
But he didn't need to say it.
Niklaus already understood.
Niklaus slowly raised his left eyebrow again, a gesture suggesting he was listening only out of cold curiosity.
"I know what everyone thinks. But that doesn't matter."
His voice was as cold as midwinter ice.
As though nothing mattered.
Not their fear.
Not their panic.
Not even the moment he had nearly died.
But for Adrian—
Everything was different.
For the first time in years, he faced his brother not as a painful memory, nor as a rival—
But as someone he might lose.
He felt something heavy in his chest.
Something he didn't know how to express.
Fear mixed with anger.
Regret mixed with sorrow.
He stepped closer, his voice dropping into something almost like a whisper.
"Do you have any idea... how I felt when I heard you jumped?"
It wasn't a normal question.
Years of buried anger lived inside it.
Fear he had never admitted.
Questions he had never dared ask.
Niklaus didn't answer immediately.
He simply looked at him with those crimson eyes glowing faintly like embers beneath ash.
Then he said quietly,
"Does it really matter to you?"
Niklaus wasn't interested in this disturbance.
He only asked to see how the story would move.
How this written character would respond.
The question left Adrian momentarily speechless.
Pain flickered in his eyes.
But he didn't need long to know the answer.
"Of course it matters... you idiot."
It was the first honest admission he had made in years.
Unexpected warmth lay inside those words.
Like sunlight breaking through a storm.
But...
Would those words change anything?
Niklaus didn't care.
He simply thought:
Seems the story won't unfold the same way after I stepped in.
Annoying...
I need to separate myself from all this nonsense.
He looked at Adrian with complete indifference.
As if he had heard nothing.
Then he turned away and sat back on the bed, his gaze returning to the sealed window.
The message was obvious.
Leave.
You don't belong here.
Adrian didn't push further.
He realized his brother wouldn't give him what he wanted.
Not an explanation.
Not emotion.
Not even hatred he could confront.
All he found was emptiness.
A cold abyss without a bottom.
Adrian lowered his head, clenching his fist until his knuckles turned white.
Something inside him broke.
But it wasn't sorrow this time.
It was something stronger.
A decision.
He left the room quietly.
Yet his eyes now carried a new light.
The light of resolve.
The light of a promise born from fear.
He finally understood:
He could no longer continue ignoring this brother who might disappear at any moment.
Even if he couldn't understand him...
At the very least—
He could protect him.
As for Niklaus—
He remained seated on the bed.
Staring at the closed window.
Slowly, his gaze shifted from the window to the table beside him.
An old leather-bound book lay there—its cover dark, with faded golden inscriptions.
Niklaus's hand moved toward it almost of its own accord, his fingertips brushing the worn leather as if drawn by some quiet, unspoken necessity.