One week after the Julian incident, a royal decree was issued: Prince Julian von Solstice was declared mentally unfit and removed from the line of succession. To the public, it was a tragedy. To me? It was an alarm bell.
"You're daydreaming again, my Alex," Elara's voice shattered my thoughts.
I was sitting in the private dining room of the Heist family. Before me sat a plate of roasted venison with an expensive red wine sauce. But my appetite vanished the moment I saw Elara cutting her meat with terrifying precision, her eyes never leaving mine.
"I'm just thinking, Elara. The King won't just stay silent while his crown prince is driven mad by a scholarship student," I said, trying to keep my tone sarcastic despite the stifling pressure in the room.
"The King? Julian's father is just an old man afraid of losing his throne," Elara set her knife down. The metallic clink made the servants in the corner tremble. "He sent an envoy this morning. He demanded your 'head' as ransom for Julian's honor."
I raised an eyebrow. "And? Why am I still here eating venison?"
Elara smiled, a smile that showed her fangs as the eldest daughter of the most powerful Ducal house. "Because that envoy no longer has a head to report back with. I sent him home in a lovely silver box."
I choked on my drink. "You... you killed a royal envoy?!"
"Anyone who asks for your life, Alex, is asking for war with the Heist family," Elara stood up, walked around the table, and sat on my lap. She wrapped her arms around my neck; her rose scent was now mingled with the faint smell of iron. "Don't worry about those boring politics. Focus on me. Focus on how to love me deeper tonight."
"Elara, this is too much. You're starting a civil war for the sake of an extra like me?"
"You are not an extra!" Elara gripped my jaw, forcing me to meet her eyes, which were now flashing with pure madness. "You are the center of my world. If this world cannot accept you by my side, then I will destroy this world and build a new one upon its ashes."
Suddenly, the dining room doors burst open. Duke von Heist, Elara's father, marched in with heavy steps. He was a giant of a man in black armor, radiating a mana aura that even made me slightly impressed.
"Elara! Enough of this insanity!" the Duke barked. "You are hiding this man in our estate while the entire royal knightage besieges the gates?"
I prepared to stand and fight, but Elara remained seated on my lap as if her father's presence were merely a minor annoyance.
"Father," Elara's voice suddenly turned bone-chillingly cold, surpassing the temperature of any ice. "If you dare take one more step to touch Alex, I will incinerate every mana circuit in your body. You know I can do it."
The Duke fell silent. He looked at his daughter, then at me. He saw how Elara clung to me. Not like a lover, but like a predator guarding its most precious prey.
"This man... what does he possess that has turned you into a monster like this, Elara?" the Duke asked in a raspy voice.
"He possesses everything other men lack," Elara kissed my neck, right over the red mark she had left yesterday. "He has the power to destroy, yet he chooses silence. And I... I will be his weapon."
Elara turned to me, her yandere smile blooming once more. "Alex, show Father. Show him just a tiny bit of your mana 'glitch.' Let him know why his kingdom means nothing before you."
I sighed. Damn it, I had no choice. If I didn't show my strength, the Duke would keep trying to kick me out. And if I did show it, Elara would only become more obsessed.
I raised my right hand and snapped my fingers toward a crystal flower vase at the far end of the room.
I didn't release mana. I simply collapsed the gravity around that vase into a single microscopic point.
PING.
The vase didn't shatter. It vanished. It became dust particles invisible to the naked eye. No residue, no sound of an explosion. Only emptiness remained.
The Duke's eyes widened. He was a high-level knight; he knew exactly what had just happened. That wasn't elemental magic. That was the manipulation of natural laws.
"Now do you understand, Father?" Elara laughed with satisfaction. "He is a God trapped in a human body. And this God... is mine."
The Duke took a step back, his face pale. "You two... you will destroy this kingdom."
"Good," Elara replied curtly.
After her father left, looking utterly broken, Elara turned her gaze back to me. Her hands began to creep beneath my silk shirt, caressing my mana circuits with intense passion.
"My wonderful Alex..." she whispered, her lips brushing my ear. "Starting tomorrow, we aren't going back to the academy. I've prepared a special tower at the peak of the Heist mountains. There, it will be just me, you, and eternity. No Clarisse, no King, no one."
I was stunned. "A tower? You want to imprison me?!"
"I don't call it imprisonment, darling," Elara bit my earlobe gently, making me shiver. "I call it... absolute protection. Didn't you say you wanted to live a quiet life? There, you will find immense peace. It's just that you will never be able to leave me. Forever."
Crazy. Absolutely insane. I saved her so my life would be peaceful, but now I've become the "Sacred Prisoner" of a yandere empress who is ready to go to war with the world just to have me all to herself.
'Dammit,' I thought as she began to kiss me greedily again. 'I need an escape plan, or at least... I need a way to stop her from burning the world down out of jealousy.'