The morning ambiance within the Lumeris Guild headquarters did not diverge significantly from any other adventurer establishment across the globe. A relentless influx of adventurers navigated the grand hall—securing subjugation contracts, convening with their respective tactical squads, or processing bounty reports from their latest hunts.
The sole anomaly lay within a secluded sector, far removed from the primary lobby of the Lumeris Guild. A private chamber positioned adjacent to the residential quarters of the permanent secretariat.
"What?!"
The atmospheric tension in the room spiked instantly as Aurelia’s scream reverberated against the walls.
"I-I deeply apologize, Your Highness," stammered a young courier clad in pristine leather armor and polished riding boots. "But your father explicitly demands your immediate repatriation to Velsia. Post-haste."
In the far corner of the chamber, Viola stood silently, systematically dissecting the interaction. She observed Aurelia’s complexion rapidly drain of color, completely blanketing her features in a deathly pale shock.
"Why the hell did you withhold this critical variable until now?!"
In response to her volatile outburst, the courier dropped his center of gravity, bowing so profoundly his forehead practically skimmed the floorboards.
"Forgive my insolence, Your Highness, but Lady Hana was fiercely adamant that you should not be entangled in this administrative crisis," the courier articulated with stark transparency. The unwavering focus in his eyes verified he was entirely devoid of deceit.
Meanwhile, Viola, who had been analyzing this heated diplomatic exchange from its inception, remained completely detached, casually sipping a blend of tea synthesized by her subordinates moments prior.
Her absolute neutrality stemmed from a singular fact: the dialogue had officially breached the perimeter of high-stakes geopolitics. Political machinations were a variable Viola had meticulously evaded, even during her historical tenure as an active Archmage.
The Ignivar lineage—or more specifically, Aurelia’s biological family—stood as one of the most prominent aristocratic dynasties governing Aethelgard. Their supreme status was fortified by the sovereign ownership of their own exclusive territorial sectors.
Currently spearheaded by Aurelia’s father, the house operated within the Top 3 most influential political factions across the entire western frontier.
In fact, one of their primary territorial jurisdictions had previously been assigned to Aurelia’s direct governance. Unfortunately, due to unresolved internal catalysts, she had abruptly abdicated her executive position. She had been systematically concealing this flight from her father for approximately three months.
Her childhood companion and primary tactical advisor, Hana, had voluntarily assumed the administrative burden to shield her aristocratic friend from immediate blowback.
Aurelia's true psychological motif for orchestrating this escape remained entirely classified. However, current variables were aggressively forcing her hand, demanding absolute transparency.
Following a prolonged period of internal cognitive processing, she finally resolved to comply with her father’s mandate. Her temporary sabbatical, masquerading as an apprentice Archmage, had officially reached its expiration. She was forced to return to reality—a reality where she must re-enter the cutthroat arena of aristocratic governance.
She lived an affluent existence; her physiological requirements were perpetually oversaturated. Yet, there was a singular existential variable she was systematically denied: absolute autonomy.
"Very well. Transport me to the coordinates." Let her aspirations of manifesting as an elite sorceress crumble to dust. Now, she was required to reclaim the massive weight of systemic leadership upon her small, twenty-year-old shoulders.
"On one condition," she articulated, elevating her index finger to dictate terms. "Sister Viola deploys with me."
The courier’s facial muscles twitched in profound shock upon receiving the directive. As for Viola, the fluid in her mouth nearly sprayed across the room, barely retained by her sheer reflex control.
"Your Highness, with all due respect, I highly doubt your father will be pleased with this specific integration."
"You possess absolutely no executive authority to issue directives to me! Simply execute my orders."
The courier nodded rapidly in submission before swiftly vacating the premises. Ultimately, the chamber was reduced to Aurelia and Viola.
"It seems you possess a remarkable talent for triggering cardiac arrests in people, eh?" Viola remarked, placing her porcelain teacup back onto the saucer with a subtle, involuntary tremor. Dammit, Rel! If my memory serves me correctly, I’ve explicitly stated multiple times that I harbor a visceral hatred for geopolitical nonsense!
Aurelia merely let out a sharp huff in response. Furthermore, her financial and magical debts to Viola remained entirely unliquidated. That unresolved liability was her primary justification for dragging Viola into the epicenter of the storm.
Following the confrontation, both individuals retreated to their respective private quarters to initiate logistics packing. For Viola, this necessitated delivering a formal situational brief to Grand Master Kluivert, ensuring her administrative duties could be seamlessly redistributed among her departmental colleagues.
Upon finalizing preparation, they converged at the main lobby with their tactical luggage.
"Good morning, Your Highness," a house steward intoned, bowing with absolute deference. "We have finalized the transit logistics for your journey to Velsia. Please, step inside the carriage. Ensure none of your personal gear remains unaccounted for."
The architecture of Aurelia’s face contorted into a mask of deep, brooding resentment the moment her boots crossed into the interior. Viola, conversely, sat in silent resignation. It had been an exceptionally long period since she had traveled via such restrictive aristocratic conventions.
In the isolated corner of the carriage, a torrent of historical memories began to aggressively flood Aurelia's cognitive faculties. Her mind drifted to the temporal fragments shared with her late biological mother, intertwined with memories of Hana.
Before long, the rhythmic clattering of the wheels signaled they had breached the dense forest flanking the city limits.
Historically, her grandfather had hammered a singular doctrine into her psyche: The House of Ignivar will perpetually remain robust and trusted. This absolute stability was credited to their genetic lineage, which consistently yielded hyper-talented, hyper-reliable specimens.
During her early developmental years, her grandfather held the mantle of Patriarch. That epoch was universally classified by current family factions as one of the darkest, most sub-optimal eras in their history. Paradoxically, during that exact timeline, they had manifested within the Top 7 most advanced economic entities in Aethelgard.
If her grandfather’s golden age was labeled a failure, then her own actions—fleeing from her designated administrative post—rendered her entirely pathetic by comparison. She could already visualize the historical archives recording her name as the most incompetent leader to ever grace the lineage. Not a single document in family history recorded a member abandoning their post.
Whatever agenda Father intends to discuss... one variable is absolute: I have compromised my solemn vow to him. The mere contemplation of the upcoming confrontation caused her internal emotional state to plummet into deeper obscurity.
"Pathetic." That was the singular, devastating terminology her father continuously deployed whenever she committed a tactical error. Her father was a highly rigid, uncompromising patriarch. He practiced zero tolerance regarding behavioral deviation in his offspring.
And that psychological hostility suffered a severe escalation the moment he secured a secondary marriage with her current stepmother. Once a biological heir was produced from that secondary union, her father's behavioral cruelty transformed into an unmitigated nightmare.
Exacerbated by the continuous psychological manipulation engineered by her stepmother, Aurelia's fingers involuntarily clenched into an exceptionally tight, rigid fist inside the carriage. A visceral memory surged—the timeline where she was forcefully incarcerated within a damp, pitch-black subterranean storehouse. The structure was isolated far from the primary estate, bordering the dark forest perimeter.
During that event, she had been violently dragged across the dirt, her stepmother’s fingers tightly locked into her hair roots. She had wept hysterically, yet the louder her vocalizations grew, the more intense the physical traction on her scalp became.
"...Mother! I-I apologize... I beg of you, forgive me!" a young Aurelia had thrashed desperately against the grip, but her pleas were met with absolute psychological indifference.
"Shut your mouth, you wretched spawn! If it weren't for that cursed arranged marriage contract, Kaelen would have been living in absolute bliss with me from the very beginning!" The ancient wooden door was violently kicked open, and she hurled Aurelia’s fragile body onto the cold floor. "Do not dare to project your pathetic face within my line of sight ever again!"
The heavy deadbolts clicked into place, sealing her fate. The young Aurelia possessed zero magical affinity at that developmental stage; her biology was exceptionally weak. She was entirely incapable of engineering an escape. She could only wail against the wood, begging for absolution, but her voice was entirely swallowed by the vast emptiness of the forest.
One day elapsed. A secondary day passed. Then a third, followed by a fourth. She remained entombed within that derelict gubuk. Advanced starvation and severe dehydration aggressively assaulted her physiological systems. Her previously pristine body rapidly suffered acute muscle wasting, transforming her into an emaciated husk. She managed to sustain her residual vital functions solely by consuming the microscopic water droplets filtrating through the rotting ceiling panels.
By the second day of her interment, her kinetic energy had completely depleted. Her psychological hope had evaporated entirely. The toxic vocalizations of her stepmother echoed like a continuous loop within her cranium: "If it weren't for that cursed arranged marriage..."
If my consciousness ceased to exist... would Father finally experience true joy? But if Father harbored a deeper affection for Lady Vance, why did he choose Mother? Is it possible for Aurelia to retroactively erase her own existence?
Those existential paradoxes continuously patrolled her thoughts. The vibrant orange iris inherited from her biological mother slowly degraded into a hollow, vacant stare—a dead gaze locked onto a wild rat navigating the debris near her feet.
Slowly, her fingers wrapped around a fractured block of wood. She stealthily closed the distance. Regrettably for the small rodent, it failed to register Aurelia's non-existent presence before—Brak!
Concentrated blood spattered violently across the immediate radius. The young Aurelia snatched the lifeless carcass without a shred of hesitation, and then—Krak... The sickening audio of fracturing bone echoed as she forced the raw meat into her oral cavity. She devoured it with ravenous, animalistic intensity. Her cognitive faculties no longer processed the concept of hygiene or disgust; her singular, primal directive was baseline physiological survival.
The phantom sensation of masticating raw, un-cooked flesh and the heavy, metallic stench of fresh blood seemed to physically manifest upon Aurelia's tongue in the present moment. A quiet tear broke from her eyelid, tracking down her temple. It had been an eternity since she suffered that level of deprivation. Even that revolting, pathogenic rodent meat had tasted like supreme sustenance at the time. Initially, the moment the raw tissue contacted her taste receptors, an acute wave of nausea had violently bombarded her central nervous system. Yet, driven by pure survival instinct, she had forcefully overridden her gag reflex, compelling the raw meat down into her gastric cavity.
One week materialized into a standard routine. That became her daily operational protocol. Any living biological organism that breached her cell was instantly classified as caloric intake. Be it cockroaches, amphibians, or vermin—it mattered not, so long as it filled the void of her shrinking stomach.
By the second week, her memory banks became highly fragmented. The solitary detail she retained with absolute certainty was that she had lost all motor function; she could no longer stand or shift her weight, reduced to an inert, dying heap in the corner of the room. Fortunately, her grandfather successfully mapped her coordinates and breached the cell. For the first time in an eternity, solar radiation kissed her compromised skin.
Her grandfather had immediately enveloped her severely malnourished, near-dead frame in a desperate embrace. Initially, her cognitive decay prevented her from identifying the nature of the physical contact, but the exact moment her shoulder was completely saturated by the torrential downpour of her grandfather's tears, her memory banks snapped online. Her emaciated arms slowly wrapped around his torso. At that precise second, the emotional dams she had fortified for weeks completely ruptured, witnessed only by the loyal house retainers who had served since her mother's tenure.
"...Aurelia, oh my sweet child," her grandfather had wept hysterically. "How could they subject you to this abyss? Oh, supreme Aurellyn, I offer my eternal gratitude for permitting my granddaughter's vital signs to endure..."
Her grandfather's weeping remained terrifyingly crisp in her auditory cortex. The phantom taste of raw tissue and metallic blood aggressively stimulated her palate.
Suddenly, her torso violently flinched, her respiration turning shallow and ragged as her consciousness was abruptly dragged back into the luxurious interior of the horse carriage. The scent of premium leather upholstery and the sweet, aromatic notes of rose perfume filling the compartment instantly triggered an acute wave of psychogenic nausea—the sheer luxury was a grotesque, polarizing contrast to the putrid stench of the storehouse that had just hijacked her mind.
She stared down at her palms. They were immaculate. Devoid of rodent blood, stripped of subterranean dust.
"Rel, your face is completely devoid of color."
Viola, who had been analyzing her micro-expressions from her peripheral vision, finally intervened. She lowered her teacup, locking her severe gaze onto Aurelia. The hypersensitive perception of a former Archmage allowed her to effortlessly detect the volatile, unstable fluctuations within Aurelia's Aether core—it was behaving like a localized tempest compressed inside a fragile glass vial.
"It is merely... slight motion sickness from the transit," Aurelia deflected, her voice incredibly hoarse. She swiftly averted her line of sight, staring blankly out the window. "There is no requirement for you to monitor my status, Sister. I am... perfectly stable."
Unbeknownst to Aurelia, the quiet trail of a tear had already breached her eyelid, cascading down her cheek. She was entirely incapable of suppressing the sheer magnitude of her historical trauma. Frankly, if an entity offered her half the sovereign treasury of the Eastern Kingdoms in exchange for retroactively enduring that nightmare a second time, an absolute, unwavering refusal would be the only response to escape her lips.