The morning sun hit the Academy grounds, bright and cheerful. Birds were singing. Students were laughing as they walked to class.

I walked among them like a revenant.

My uniform was wrinkled. My hair was a mess. But the most prominent feature was the pair of dark circles under my eyes that were deep enough to store spare change in.

I dragged my feet down the hallway, ignoring the whispers.

"Is that Lucien?" "He looks like he fought a ghost." "Maybe the fame got to him?"

I reached Class 1-A and kicked the door open.

Kael was already there, chatting with Celestia. He looked radiant. His skin was glowing with health, likely a side effect of the Dragon Elixir he had consumed yesterday. He looked like he had slept on a cloud.

I shuffled past him, looking like I had slept in a dryer.

I collapsed into my seat next to Ariana.

Thump.

I put my head on the desk.

Ariana, who was organizing her alchemy notes, jumped. She looked at the heap of misery beside her.

"Lucien?" she asked, her voice filled with concern. "Are you alright?"

I lifted one hand and gave a weak thumbs-up, not lifting my head.

"...Alive."

She leaned closer, inspecting my face.

"You look terrible," she whispered bluntly. "Your eyes are sunken. You're pale. And you smell like... old paper and dust."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Did you go back to the dungeon? Did you fight something?"

I turned my head sideways on the desk to look at her. It took significant effort to keep my eyelids open.

"I fought..." I croaked, my voice raspy. "...literature."

"Literature?"

"Millions of pages, Ari," I mumbled, closing my eyes again. "Millions of boring, dusty, evil pages. But I won."

Ariana looked at me with a mix of confusion and pity. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small vial containing a bright, neon-yellow liquid that hissed slightly when she uncorked it.

"Here," she sighed, sliding it across the desk toward my hand. "It's a concentrated extract of Thunder-Root and sour lemon. Drink it before Instructor Samantha comes in, or she'll give you detention for sleeping in class."

I looked at the bubbling liquid. It looked radioactive.

"You're an angel," I groaned.

I downed the vial in one go.

ZAP.

It felt like I had licked a lightning bolt. The sourness didn't just wake me up; it slapped my soul back into my body. My eyes shot open, watering profusely.

I sat up, shaking my head as the fog cleared instantly.

"Effective," I wheezed.

"It usually is," she smiled innocently.

The Rune was safely tucked away in my inventory. Tonight, I would install it and become unkillable.

But for now, I just had to survive History Class without snoring.

*****

[Two Hours Later]

The bell rang, signaling the end of the morning lectures.

I packed my bag, feeling the crash from the caffeine potion starting to creep in. All I wanted to do was find a quiet corner in the cafeteria, eat a sandwich, and pass out for twenty minutes.

I walked out into the corridor, yawning.

That was when the whispers started.

Usually, the hallway chatter was about grades, dating, or Kael's latest heroic feat. But today, the tone was different. It was hushed. Fearful.

"Hey, did you hear?"

"Yeah, at the main gate. The Black Carriage with the Royal Crest."

I slowed my steps, my ears perking up.

"Is it Princess Celestia's father? The Emperor?"

"No, you idiot. It was the First Princess."

"What? Why is she here? Is she visiting her sister?"

"I don't know, but some cadets saw her heading straight for the Staff Building. She had the Royal Guards with her."

"Princess Rumina? Here?"

My foot froze mid-step.

The drowsiness that had been weighing on my eyelids evaporated instantly. My heart slammed against my ribs, cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck.

'Rumina?'

Princess Rumina Aurelian. The First Princess. The Heir Apparent.

Hearing that name didn't fill me with the adoration or respect that the masses usually held for royalty.

It filled me with absolute, primal dread.

In Asteria Online, Rumina wasn't a quest giver. She wasn't a damsel. She wasn't even a hidden romance option.

She was a Villain.

She was known as the Mad Princess.

While Celestia was the embodiment of light and talent, Rumina was a creature of chaos and ruthlessness. In the game lore, she was unpredictable. She was a master strategist who viewed human lives—including her own siblings—as disposable pawns.

In three out of the five "Bad Endings," the Demons didn't destroy the world. She did.

She would stage a coup, execute her father, purge the nobility, and establish a tyrannical reign soaked in blood before declaring war on the entire continent. She was a final boss that even max-level players struggled to predict because her AI was programmed to be erratic.

'But why the fuck is she here?'

I leaned against the wall, trying to control my breathing. I frantically searched my memory of the game's timeline.

'Chapter 1: Academy Entrance... Chapter 2: Midterms... Chapter 3: The Forest Expedition...'

I ran through the events.

There was no event where Rumina visited the Academy in the first year. She was supposed to be at the Northern Border, suppressing a rebellion. She shouldn't appear in the main story until the end of Year 2.

'Did the butterfly effect spiral out of control?'

I gripped the strap of my bag.

My interference in CrystalVale. Saving the town. Keeping the Orc General from destroying the supply lines.

'Did the storm caused by the butterfly's wings fluttering become so big that it brought the disaster to my door?'

I swallowed hard, looking toward the distant Staff Building.

'I hope it has nothing to do with me. Please, let her just be here to scold Celestia for losing the duel. Please.'

****

Lucien hoped that the arrival of the Mad Princess had nothing to do with him.

He was wrong.

It had everything to do with him.

In the original timeline of Asteria Online, the attack on CrystalVale was a tragedy. The town was razed. Many were slaughtered. The cultists responsible for opening the rift escaped into the shadows, leaving no trace.

Because there were no survivors, the Empire remained blind to the threat. They didn't know who attacked, or why. The plot would slowly fester in the dark until the Great War began.

But Lucien had changed that.

He had saved the town. He had held the line until reinforcements arrived.

And most importantly, because of his interference, Samantha and her squad arrived in time to capture the fleeing members of the Order of Infernus.

They didn't die. They didn't escape. They were dragged to the Imperial Dungeons.

For weeks, they were tortured by the Empire's best interrogators. And eventually, they broke.

They revealed the locations of their hidden sanctuaries. They revealed the grand plan to summon a Demon Lord.

This intelligence was a massive deviation from the original timeline.

And the person responsible for acting on such grave threats was not the benevolent Emperor. It had to be someone who is good at dirty work.

Princess Rumina Aurelian.

She was here at the Academy not to visit her sister, and not to inspect the grades.

She was for to discuss further actions with the empire's strongest knight, Samantha.

Lucien Ashborne stood in the hallway, shivering from a chill he couldn't explain. It wasn't the draft from the window. It was the metaphysical weight of the plot changing lanes, swerving directly toward him.

The gears of fate were grinding, and they were grinding loud enough to shatter his eardrums.

"Lucien? Hello?"

Ariana tugged on his sleeve, oblivious to his internal meltdown.

"Come on! Others must be waiting for us?"

She dragged him down the corridor. Lucien stumbled after her, his eyes darting nervously toward the Staff Building, feeling like a rabbit being pulled away from the shadow of a hawk.

****

[Head of Discipline's Office]

The blinds were drawn tight. The room was soundproofed with three layers of silence magic.

Samantha sat behind her desk, her posture rigid.

Sitting opposite her, with her boots resting casually on the mahogany coffee table, was Princess Rumina Aurelian.

She didn't look like Celestia. Where Celestia was ethereal and golden like the dawn, Rumina was sharp and dark like the twilight. Her hair was a deep, blood-red auburn, tied back in a severe ponytail. Her eyes were the color of hardened steel.

She flipped through a bloody dossier, her lip curled in disgust.

"So," Rumina said, tossing the file onto the table. "Is this it? Did you get any more locations?"

Samantha shook her head grimly.

"No, Your Highness. We raided the three coordinates you gave us. But by the time we breached the doors… the birds had flown."

"Escaped?" Rumina's eyes narrowed.

"Most of the high-ranking priests had already evacuated," Samantha reported, her hands clenching into fists. "Only the small fries remained. Zealots left behind to destroy evidence."

"And interrogation?"

"Useless," Samantha sighed. "I tried. The moment I applied pressure, the moment they opened their mouths to speak a name or a location… the curse activated."

She tapped her temple.

"Their heads exploded. Messily. It's a High-Tier Soul Bind. Whoever is leading them doesn't trust their subordinates."

Rumina stared at the wall for a second. Then, she let out a harsh, rasping laugh.

"Those sons of bitches."

She stood up, kicking the chair back.

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