The atmosphere in the banquet hall was warm and casual, typical of any other morning in the Crown Mansion. But the pleasant ambience did absolutely nothing to soothe Amon. To the rest of the table, he looked like he was eating his breakfast normally, but internally, a storm was raging.
The quest itself wasn't difficult. The consequences, however, were catastrophic. Failing would be worse than facing an assassination attempt or suffering with increased chances of a bad ending. Dealing with an amplified surge in Sophia and Costoria's obsessions was a nightmare in a league of its own.
"Tomorrow is the entrance exam for the R.S. Advanced Academy," Emilia remarked, cutting a piece of boiled egg. "How are your preparations coming along, my child?" She turned a warm gaze toward Amon.
"They're good," Amon replied quietly. He took a slow bite of his vegetable club sandwich, staring blankly at his plate as his mind drifted.
"Mother, I expect him to take first place easily," Sophia interjected confidently. "After all, he's the one who tutored me and helped me pass with flying colours."
"It certainly wouldn't be a shock, Duchess," Costoria added with a faint chuckle, sipping her coffee leisurely. "He coached both the Student Council President and me, after all."
"Sorry, I'm late!"
A familiar voice broke the conversation as Arnold Von Crown hurried into the room, looking slightly dishevelled. He slid into the seat beside Emilia and let out an exasperated sigh.
ForestHuntress:My eyes have been blessed... Daddy Crown is so fine...
PieChunky:Daddy, PLEASE STEP ON ME!!
FairyFire:I think a switch just flipped inside me after looking at Daddy Crown...
Amon caught a glimpse of the stream chat from the corner of his eye. "Women are down bad," he thought, promptly averting his gaze and aggressively munching on his sandwich.
"It's fine, dear," Emilia said smoothly, greeting her husband with an affectionate smile before leaning in to press a soft kiss against his cheek.
"I know my precious husband was drowning in paperwork until two in the morning," Emilia said, her voice dropping into a gentle, soothing lilt as she rubbed his back. "It's hardly surprising that you overslept."
Usually, Amon would have thrown in a few dry remarks by now, but his silence was deafening. It was an immediate red flag, and everyone at the table noticed. Sophia and Costoria exchanged a glance, both turning toward him with concerned expressions.
"Is everything alright, Amon?" Costoria asked, her voice uncharacteristically gentle.
"Yeah," Amon replied, his mind clearly elsewhere.
"You don't look alright," Sophia countered, her brows furrowing. "What's bothering you?"
Amon stopped eating and looked up, his expression blank. "The entrance exam. The first two phases aren't the problem. It's the third."
"You'll be fine," Costoria reassured him, offering an optimistic smile. "Even though the special phase changes every year, I know you'll pass with flying colours."
"And besides," Arnold chimed in, his voice carrying a tired but warm fatherly reassurance. "You've already proven yourself worthy of being a Prosecutor, son. The academy exam should be a piece of cake."
Amon let out a heavy sigh at his father's words. "That is the problem. What are the odds the Aimus faction actually lets me take this exam in peace?"
"Relax, my child," Emilia finally spoke, drawing everyone's attention. "The Headmistress is not someone who tolerates interference. The Aimus will do anything to avoid crossing her—she is far more cunning and cruel than Alexia."
"Yeah, right," Amon scoffed internally. "If the Aimus dared to come after me, knowing how hazardous you are to them, Mother, a Headmistress isn't going to scare them off."
"The Aimus were desperate, my child," Emilia added smoothly, as if reading his mind, a faint, sharp smile playing on her lips. "And desperation can drive even a rat to bite a lion."
Right at that moment, a sharp screech echoed from above. Everyone looked up to see a massive great-horned owl circling the high ceiling of the banquet hall. After a few sweeping loops, it glided down, landing squarely on Emilia's shoulder. Clutched firmly in its beak was a thick, purple envelope.
"An owl with a letter?" Arnold asked, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Isn't this a little too old-fashioned, even for us?"
"Not when you realise it's from Victoria Jackson, dear," Emilia replied smoothly.
She took the envelope, gently scratching the owl's head as it yielded the letter. The table fell silent as she broke the seal, her eyes scanning the parchment.
"What does it say, Mother?" Sophia leaned forward, unable to hide her curiosity.
"Essentially," Emilia sighed, setting the letter down beside her plate while transferring the owl to her lap to stroke its feathers, "the Headmistress has sent a special recommendation for Amon. She states that since he is already an active Prosecutor, he has permission to bypass the entrance exams entirely."
"She's quick with her information," Sophia remarked, her expression tightening into a frown. "The matter of Amon becoming a Prosecutor hasn't even been made public yet. Right, Mother?"
"President, you're forgetting how terrifyingly massive her network is," Costoria interjected, looking thoroughly amused. "For someone like Victoria, cracking confidential information like this is child's play."
"But Amon literally just took part in a high-profile escort mission—" Sophia countered, but Emilia raised a hand, smoothly cutting her daughter off.
"No one on that escort team, apart from myself, Velzoyr, and Khalia, was aware of Amon's actual status," Emilia explained calmly, offering her arm to the great-horned owl and letting it take flight toward the high ceiling. "The rest of the squad was told that Amon was simply a close friend of the Saintess, and that I permitted him to join the escort so he could bid her farewell."
"Huh?" Amon stared at his mother, his brain completely short-circuiting.
"Mother..." He shook off the daze, his voice laced with profound confusion. "How did the Aimus traitor actually buy that?"
"Because of their Intel on me," Emilia replied calmly, taking another precise bite of her boiled egg. "They know I tend to indulge my family, even during high-stakes operations. The spy assumed I was being foolishly sentimental."
Amon's bewilderment only deepened. A tidal wave of questions flooded his mind, all crashing down into a single, overwhelming thought: How?
"So, what you're saying, Mother," Sophia said, a look of quiet amusement crossing her face, "is that you weaponised your own reputation to feed them deliberate misinformation."
"You're quick on the uptake, my child," Emilia said, popping the final piece of egg into her mouth before effortlessly moving on to her next dish.
"So it wasn't a gamble of luck, but a masterclass in leverage, Duchess Crown." Costoria's eyes glinted with newfound wonder and amusement. "You really are a terrifying woman."
"That's my wife for you," Arnold declared, puffing his chest out with pride, which earned a soft giggle from Emilia.
. . .
Amon stood in the dead centre of the plateau. The wind here was fierce, but it carried no scent of living things. He loosely gripped his wand, letting his gaze sweep across the empty expanse. Nothing. With a casual shrug, he began to stroll, his boots clicking rhythmically against the stone.
He didn't have to walk far.
The silence was shattered. A few hundred meters ahead, the terrain had been completely pulverised. The earth was torn into deep trenches, craters smoked with residual energy, and the air itself vibrated with the violent aftershocks of high-tier magic.
Sophia and Costoria were locked in a lethal dance, exchanging spells with a speed that blurred the eyes.
Costoria levelled her wand, her expression dropping into a mask of absolute focus. "12th Hour, Deadlock," she murmured.
The world died. The howling wind instantly vanished, and the drifting smoke froze mid-air. Every atmospheric particle was locked into place, trapping reality in a flawless, unyielding stasis; time had stopped.
Then, a microscopic twitch broke the absolute stillness.
Sophia's fingers moved. A fracture line rippled through the frozen air, and with the sharp sound of breaking glass, the time-stop shattered into nothingness.
"Frozen Desire," Sophia whispered, the counter-spell bleeding from her lips the exact millisecond she broke free.
Costoria didn't falter. "7th Hour, Rush."
Costoria's silhouette blurred, stuttering violently across the field. She wasn't just moving fast; she was glitching through reality, her sheer velocity warping the local time-axis. In a fraction of a heartbeat, she re-materialised directly in Sophia's blind spot.
"11th Hour, Despair."
A beam of suffocating, dark green energy erupted from Costoria's wand, striking Sophia squarely in the right side of her chest. The impact hurled Sophia backwards through the air. She spun, cutting through the momentum to land gracefully on her feet—but the damage was done. The fabric of her uniform and the flesh beneath it were rapidly dissolving, breaking down into pixelated, ash-grey blocks.
Without a hint of panic, Sophia pressed the tip of her wand against her own forehead. "Bloody Ice."
A violent, bluish-red glow flared from her skin. The grey decomposition halted instantly, the pixelated blocks reversing and knitting back together until her skin and clothes were restored to pristine condition.
"You really are strong, President," Costoria purred, her tone a volatile mix of playful amusement and pure malice. She kept her wand raised, tracing the air. "To counter a curse that erases both physical existence and underlying magium... highly impressive."
"There is a reason the Student Council President seat belongs to me, Leone." Sophia's voice was cold, laced with a quiet, lethal intent as she raised her own wand in a perfect mirror of her opponent's stance. "I may not possess the absolute power of my beloved Amon, but do not mistake that for weakness."
"Oh, but it is weakness, isn't it?" Costoria giggled, the sound sharp and mocking. "You rank beneath both Zephyra Valkaress and me within the Academy rankings. You aren't even worthy of standing beside my beautiful, pretty boy."
A vein throbbed on Sophia's forehead. Her eyes gleamed with a ferocious, cold intensity as she thrust her wand skyward. "Frozen Land."
A flash of absolute zero erupted from her position, instantly locking the entire plateau in a jagged, desolate wasteland of ice.
"Fire Shower!" Costoria hissed.
A massive wave of roaring flames surged outward, desperate to breach the frost. It melted the surface for a fraction of a second before the overwhelming cold instantly snapped back, snuffing out the fire entirely. The counter-spell was useless.
Costoria lunged to reposition, but her limbs resisted. Her body refused to move.
The true nature of Sophia's spell manifested: It didn't just freeze matter; it forced an absolute deceleration upon reality itself.
Within this spell, all velocity died. Spells, kinetic attacks, and physical motion were robbed of their momentum, slowing to a dead halt until their energy completely dissolved into nothingness.
"I am impressed," a voice drifted through the deadened air.
Amon stepped into the centre of the frozen domain, casually clapping his hands. "You two have grown significantly stronger. For that, congratulations."
"Wait—how are you moving inside my spell?" Sophia's composure was shattered. Her brother's sudden appearance was shocking enough, but the absolute lack of friction or resistance in his movements defied logic. The deceleration domain should have locked him in place, yet he strolled through it as if it were a summer breeze.
"Gravity Magic, Sophia," Amon replied with a casual shrug, a confident smile playing on his lips.
Sophia exhaled a long, defeated sigh at her brother's response. But the brief moment of respite was shattered when a sudden motion caught her eye. Costoria was moving again. Sophia's gaze snapped toward her, dark and deeply displeased.
"You forgot that my Personal Magic is entirely bound to time, President~" Costoria purred, flashing a sharp, arrogant smile. "My Seventh Hour can be triggered anywhere—even in a complete anti-magic zone~"
Sauntering through the paralysed space, Costoria glided straight to Amon and possessively wrapped her arms around his left arm.
"I am going to end you," Sophia hissed. She levelled her wand straight at Costoria, her face a mask of absolute, freezing fury.
"Drop it, both of you," Amon interrupted. With a smooth, casual motion, he peeled his arm from Costoria's grasp. "Based on your current stats, neither of you has the output to finish the other."
"How can you be so certain, pretty boy?~" Costoria pouted, her voice tinged with disappointment as she rubbed her empty hands together. "If you consider the true nature of our Personal Magic, mine should be vastly superior, shouldn't it?"
"Yes, and no," Amon replied, his gaze shifting between the two girls. "Sophia's Personal Magic is Frost, which fundamentally commands the concept of deceleration. Your Personal Magic is Time, which controls... well, time."
He paused, stepping between them. "On the surface, time naturally trumps deceleration. However, the Crown's lineage of Frost is far more complex. It directly interferes with causality, fate, and the fundamental laws of the world."
Costoria tilted her head, her curiosity piqued. "But isn't every Personal Magic capable of interacting with the laws of the world?"
"It is," Amon confirmed, his smile widening with absolute confidence. "But the Crown's Frost possesses a unique property: it can freeze and destroy both possibilities and impossibilities. It operates within a higher conceptual framework that sits completely beyond conventional logic."
Sophia frowned, looking at her brother in utter confusion. "Your words don't make any sense, Amon."
"They will once you're even stronger, Sophia," Amon replied with a soft, affectionate chuckle. He snapped his fingers, and a sleek, translucent user interface flickered to life before him. "Now, let's log out of the simulation. Mother told me to fetch you both for lunch."
RandomGuy69: "This is some high-tier isekai stream. The power system sounds complex..." |
CatnipIsDelicious: "Well, it's an isekai stream, so of course, the power system is going to be complex. However, this stream's power system sounds much more complicated. Because from the looks of it, even a random magic can alter the fundamental laws of the world..." |
VillainEnjoyer: "Damn... I kinda fw this power system. It sounds very overpowered and complex!" |
CupcakeSugarRush: "I gotta be honest, I am more interested in the men of this stream. If Daddy Crown was so fine, I can't wait to see what a male military officer looks like..." |
ForestHuntress: "I kinda like Velzoyr more, is that crazy to say?" |
FangirlingIsMyPassion: "Why are you girls so focused on the men? We must stay focused, my sisters! We need to focus on the plot!" |
ZaddyLover: "Yeah, yeah, don't act like you're innocent. You did say that you'd fold if the streamer, Amon, talked to you in a flirty manner." |
FangirlingIsMyPassion: "... We must stay focused!" |
Amon tracked the scrolling wall of text from the corner of his peripheral vision, highly amused.
The simulated environment dissolved around them, reforming into the polished, high-ceilinged corridors leading toward the family's grand Banquet Hall.
Sophia and Costoria walked slightly ahead of him, still radiating a lingering, competitive tension, but Amon barely noticed. His attention remained fixed on the invisible holographic stream interface, letting the chaotic banter of his viewers entertain him as they walked.