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Chapter 4 - The Four Crowns

Three weeks had passed since that day.

Since I first spoke again. Since I first called someone "Mother."

And in those three weeks, everything had changed.

I had done it.

I mastered the Thespian.

It took longer than I ever imagined, endless nights of muttering phrases, scribbling translations, listening to the rhythm of voices in the market, comparing words until my throat went dry. But now, the words rolled from my tongue as naturally as breathing.

For the first time, this world felt a little less foreign.

The mornings in Eschatopolis always began the same.

The smell of burning wood, the faint sound of my mother humming as she prepared herbs for the clinic, and the distant clang of iron against stone, the rhythm of a city that lived on the border between civilization and wilderness.

Selene Marina, my mother in this world, was a Vitalis, a healer who spent her days tending wounds and feverish soldiers at the small clinic near the main street. Her gentle hands had saved more lives than any sword in this district.

My father, Marcus Theron, was her opposite in every sense. Broad, scarred, and silent, a captain of a mercenary group known as The Band of the Eagle.

Huh...

Sounds familiar...

Anyway...

His men respected him not for his title, but because he led from the front.

When he returned home at dusk, his armor always smelled of blood and steel. Yet when he embraced Mother, his voice softened. That small gesture was enough to remind me he wasn't just a soldier. He was her soldier.

I, on the other hand, was still just learning how to exist here.

It was early afternoon when I finally opened the heaviest of the four books that had haunted my desk since the day I arrived. The cover was cracked leather, the color of old earth. Its spine creaked like a dying tree as I flipped the first page.

It wasn't just a book, it was a declaration. A document that told me exactly where I was.

"The Empire of the Four Crowns."

Βασιλεία Τετραστέφανον.

Basileia Tetrastephanon.

An empire built from four smaller kingdoms that had once been rivals. The story went that centuries ago, when the land bled from endless wars, the four kings met beneath a blood-red moon. They cast aside their banners and swore unity under a single symbol, a crown forged from four.

The book even described the moment:

"As dawn broke, the crowns melted into one. The smoke rose to heaven, and the first Emperor was crowned beneath the ash of the old."

The Empire ruled over 12 cities, pillars of trade and military strength, and 23 villages that fed its veins with grain and ore. My city, Eschatopolis, lay farthest of all. The City at the Edge.

Ἐσχατόπολις.

Eschatopolis.

The final bastion.

The City at The Edge.

I felt a cold knot form in my stomach. If war ever came, this place would burn first.

Terrifying...

Flipping deeper into the book, I found the Empire's heart, its law.

The Coronae Edicta.

The Crown Edicts.

12 core laws carved into marble at the Imperial Capital. The letters were etched with reverence, each stroke sharp and deliberate.

I traced a line with my finger, reading aloud softly.

"Unity of the Crowns… All four kingdoms shall serve one Emperor."

My voice was a whisper swallowed by the air.

"Supreme Law… All local laws bend to Imperial decree."

"Rights of the People… every citizen has the right to protection, food, and shelter."

"Justice… all are equal before the law."

I stopped there and chuckled bitterly.

"Even nobles? That's… optimistic."

The next page bore a faint drawing illustration, soldiers saluting beneath a banner of four interlocked crowns, while a robed figure raised a scale carved from stone.

I could almost hear the speeches, the idealism.

But ideals and reality rarely matched.

I thought back to what Mother had said last week while sorting herbs.

"Taxes rose again this month,"

she had sighed.

"But at least the markets remain safe."

That was the Empire, I supposed. Order traded for obedience.

I flipped the page. Another line caught my attention.

"Regulation of Magic: all spells shall serve the Empire and its people. Forbidden arts shall be punished by death."

I frowned.

"So much for academic freedom."

If the Empire controlled magic, then mana wasn't just a gift, it was a weapon regulated by fear.

No wonder the streets never spoke openly about magic. Even the whisper of "forbidden arts" might earn a knock at your door.

The rest of the Edicts blurred together, succession laws, military obligations, eternal loyalty. Each decree painted a picture of unity built not from harmony, but from control.

Still… it was impressive.

A society bound by words rather than just blood and sword.

I closed the tome gently and leaned back, exhaling.

"Well,"

I murmured to myself,

"at least they tried to sound noble."

The next book was thinner and lighter, its pages filled with illustrations of creatures and lands. An encyclopedia of life.

But unlike the law book, this one felt alive. The ink pulsed with imagination, as if the writer had seen the things he described.

Orcs,

muscle incarnate, yet bound by runes.

An illustration sprawled across the page: an Orc chieftain, broad as a bear, carving glowing symbols into his chest with a searing blade. Beneath him, knights fled as his fists blazed like molten rock.

The caption read:

"To scar oneself is to awaken the spirit within. To fight without scars is to live without pride."

A shiver ran down my spine.

So that was how Orcs wielded magic. Pain as invocation. Flesh as parchment.

The next pages glowed with a gentler tone.

Elves,

the singers of mana.

It told of an Elven maiden who stood at the heart of a forest, playing her harp as wind and light gathered around her. The melody called flowers to bloom and water to dance.

"Their music does not cast spells, it persuades the world to listen."

I smiled faintly. The philosopher in me wanted to call it metaphoric. The survivor in me knew it was real.

Then came the third one.

Dwarves,

Forged from stone, born with flame in their veins.

A sketch showed a Dwarven smith, hammer raised over an anvil that glowed white-hot. Sparks burst like stars around him.

"They do not pray to gods. They make them."

The line hit me harder than I expected.

To the Dwarves, creation wasn't faith. It was defiance.

They didn't kneel before the divine, they forged the divine.

Their gods weren't born from heavens or prophecy, but from steel, sweat, and intellect.

I flipped the page slowly, running my fingers across the inked lines as though I could feel the heat of their forges through the parchment.

"Faith replaced by forge… prayer replaced by creation,"

I murmured under my breath.

Admirable. Terrifying. And Brilliant.

And yet, I couldn't help but feel a shiver crawl up my spine.

Maybe it was the philosopher in me. the part that spent too long debating what made a god a god.

Maybe it was the human in me, the part that still believed in things beyond the reach of reason.

But I couldn't help asking myself.

'If you can create your own god… what's left to believe in?'

I sighed and leaned back, staring at the flickering candlelight.

The Dwarves might have conquered faith through craft, but maybe they'd lost something too, something invisible, something I couldn't quite name.

I somehow read the Dwarves part more interested and longer than the others.

Sigh...

And now humans…

Plain, unadorned text.

Humans,

curious, frail, and endlessly adaptable.

The paragraph beneath was short, but haunting.

"They have no true strength, yet no true weakness. They break easily… but they always rebuild."

I closed the book halfway, my reflection flickering in the lamp's flame.

"Average, huh?"

I muttered.

"Guess I'm perfectly qualified then."

Then came the monsters. From the third book.

Here, the writer's tone shifted from admiration to fear.

The book described them as Echoes of Creation, beasts warped by the touch of mana itself.

Some once had names, wolves, lions, eagles, but when mana touched them, their bodies twisted into grotesque parodies of what they were.

One illustration showed a creature with the body of a horse, the wings of an eagle, and the horns of a bull. Its eyes burned blue, its veins glowing faintly beneath translucent skin.

"The more they devour, the more they change. Until even the gods would not recognize them."

It wasn't just bestial hunger. It was corruption made manifest.

Father had warned me once,

"Never wander too close to the outer woods after sunset. The night itself grows teeth. It's dangerous."

I hadn't believed him. Until now.

And yet… not everything twisted by mana was monstrous.

Some pages showed plants that shimmered faintly at night, flowers that opened only under moonlight. One was called Lunaflora, a pale-blue blossom that glowed gently when touched by mana.

Another was Solisroot, a herb that stored sunlight within its sap, used by healers to keep fevers at bay.

Even trees weren't spared the wonder. One sketch showed a massive oak whose bark shimmered faintly like glass, its branches humming softly as if singing to the wind.

I smiled unconsciously.

Magic is truly beautiful.

That evening, I stepped outside for fresh air. The streets of Eschatopolis were alive with life.

Children played near the fountain, merchants shouted prices, and soldiers in blue-and-brass armor patrolled the main road.

I overheard a conversation between a baker and a cloth seller.

"The tax collectors passed earlier. At least they didn't take the flour this time."

"Aye,"

said the cloth seller.

"New Edict, they said. Something about 'proportional levies.' Sounds fair until they count your livestock twice."

When I returned home, I found my mother asleep by the hearth, a book half-open in her lap.

The firelight painted her face with warmth.

She had fallen asleep reading the Vitalis Codex, a manual for healers. Notes scribbled in the margins, her handwriting, spoke of the effort she gave for others.

In that moment, I realized something simple yet terrifying.

This world wasn't fiction anymore. It was breathing. It could hurt me, but it could also hold me.

I whispered softly to myself.

"Learn. Adapt. Survive."

Then, almost without thinking, I added—

"And maybe… protect it, too."

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