"SON OF A BITCH!!" shouted a young Captain, like a mad bull as he stared at the corpses of the Iberian soldiers scattered across the Kubiz camp. His clenched fist trembled, his palm nearly bleeding from how deeply his nails dug into his skin. His face was red, almost smoking with rage.
He stood at the camp's entrance, staring at the lifeless soldiers. Five hours had already passed since the Penumbra's assault.
"Captain!" one of the three soldiers with him shouted. "There's still someone alive!"
"Where!?" the captain asked.
He walked quickly toward the soldier. It was the same soldier who had fought Wan earlier. The man's jaw was broken, making it difficult for him to speak. His chest rose and fell with visible effort.
"C–Ca–p–tain Joa–Jo–quin..." If you closed your eyes, you'd think the baylan was drunk.
"WHAT HAPPENED HERE!?" Joacquin snarled.
"Te - terror—" Each letter that escaped the baylan's mouth carried unbearable pain.
"TERRORISTS!?" Joacquin clarified. The soldier weakly nodded.
"Penumbra?" one of the captain's soldiers cut in.
Joacquin ground his teeth, then grabbed the weakening baylan by the neck and lifted him into the air with both hands wrapped around his throat.
"You MOTHERFUCKERS!!" His voice nearly went hoarse from how hard and how loudly he screamed. "Do you have ANY idea," he hissed, eyes burning as if on fire, "how much shame you've brought to Iberia? TO ME!?"
The soldier struggled, scratching, clawing, desperately trying to pry Joacquin's hands away. But he was powerless against the young Captain's grip, iron-hard, merciless. Joacquin continued his ruthless punishment of the battered baylan.
"First—you let yourselves be defeated by filthy, uneducated Tunduvans! Second—not a single one of you survived!? And THIRD—all the FUCKING slaves in the camp escaped too!!" As he tightened his chokehold, his rage intensified.
Moments later, the air grew heavy, like a storm about to break. The poor baylan's eyes turned white, his mouth slowly falling open as a weak, desperate groan escaped him.
"Because of your stupidity—BECAUSE OF YOU!!" A spark of electricity crawled from Joacquin's arm down to his hands. "My rank could be DEMOTED!"
Like a serpent made of raging lightning, electricity coiled around Joacquin's palms and surged into the baylan. The baylan felt brutal, razor-sharp pain as the current engulfed his already broken body.
In a single instant, Joacquin increased the voltage. A thunderous explosion of sound erupted. The baylan's body jerked violently, convulsing as blinding lightning consumed him. With every surge, his ribs and spine nearly showed through his skin. After only a few seconds, smoke began to rise from his body.
Then his bladder released. A nauseating stench of urine and burning flesh filled the air. Joacquin pulled his hand back, the remaining sparks fading. The charred corpse of the baylan collapsed to the ground.
"CRISTOBAL!"
"Captain!?" one of the soldiers replied quickly, struggling not to vomit from the smell and sight of the body.
"Gather the entire company!"
"Sir—one hundred and fifty soldiers!?" Cristobal asked in shock.
"Are you fucking deaf!? YES!" Joacquin snapped. "Order them to tighten patrols in all surrounding towns under our jurisdiction! Kill anyone who will be seen roaming during curfew!"
The captain's gaze was sharp enough to wound. "I will find the bastards who did this!"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk..." A mocking sound sliced through Joacquin's furious tirade, forcing both him and Cristobal to turn.
Behind them stood Governor-General Yizmael. At his side was a woman with flowing black hair and green eyes. Her lips curved upward as she carefully examined the two soldiers.
"G–Governor-General!" Joacquin stammered, his face going pale. He and Cristobal immediately bowed.
But when Joacquin looked at the woman, his face grew even paler, his eyes widening in horror.
"Captain, are you alright?" Cristobal asked, confused.
"Idiot!" Joacquin hissed under his breath as he yanked Cristobal into a deeper bow. "She is the thirteenth child of the Emperor..."
"Princess Ulalume of Iberia! Your highness!" His voice trembled as he bowed as deeply as possible, his forehead nearly touching the ground.
Amusement was clearly written on the Princess's face. After a moment, Joacquin slowly raised his head. "W–why are you—"
"Ah-ah-ah," Ulalume cut him off, lifting a gloved finger into the air. Her voice flowed like a grim melody. Her smile curved—teasing, terrifying. "Silence..."
Joacquin froze, as if he'd swallowed his own tongue. He lowered his head even further. Ulalume walked forward, carrying an unsettling aura, toward the burned corpse.
"Well done, Captain," she said mockingly as she tilted her head slightly, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. "Oh yes, of course... let's kill the only person who might have answers about what happened here. What are you? A genius in doing stupid things?" The Princess clapped slowly, deliberately.
"You didn't even think to ask who their leader was. Or how a ragged group of terrorists managed to defeat the soldiers in this camp."
She raised both hands as if surrendering. "But why bother with such trivial things, right? When you can just drown in your anger?"
She stepped closer to the captain and leaned down. "You might just be the finest, most intelligent soldier Iberia has ever produced, Captain."
When Masala reported what happened at the camp, Yizmael moved immediately to investigate. Masala, meanwhile, temporarily returned to the capital to give his report. On his way to Kubiz, he passed the Princess's carriage, which had just arrived from the galleon and was heading toward Nilad.
"Bueno," Ulalume said, accompanied by an exaggerated sigh. She approached the corpse and inhaled the smoke rising from it as if it were a pleasant fragrance.
She raised her hands and began to gesture as though conducting an orchestra. With each motion came a chant from the young woman—a hymn of invocation.
"Soul of the forgotten, crawl within the dark,
In the stench of decay, your voice I long to hear.
Scream the pain that still clings to the bone,
And in the light, shatter once more into the silence of burial."
A deep, shimmering purple light devoured the burned corpse. It gave birth to sharp, flickering shadows, shadows that seemed to dance around the body. The soldiers felt the atmosphere grow heavier, as if the air itself had thickened.
Moments later, a horrifying groan and howl engulfed the area. The light wrapped around the baylan's body, which looked more like charred coal than flesh.
In a single instant, the corpse sat upright. It tried to adjust its shattered jaw, but the jaw suddenly fell off, crumbling almost into dust, like charcoal crushed between fingers. An unnatural gasp burst from its ruined throat. Its burned-out eyes ignited with purple flames. After a few seconds, a dry, broken voice escaped despite the absence of a jaw.
"Am... I alive?" it rasped.
"Yes. For five minutes, charcoal," Ulalume replied gently. Her voice flowed like a cold, dreadful melody. "I have a few questions for you."
Ulalume smiled and began her interrogation. "First—tell me. Who is the leader of the terrorists who attacked this camp?"
The corpse paused. Its voice was dry and hoarse, like a rusted door hinge starving for oil.
"A woman... there were about thirty of them," it croaked, speaking as if mimicking the exaggerated tone of a villain in a bad play.
"Her skin is brown... her eyes are sharp, when she looks at you it's like she's saying, 'don't mess with me, bitch.' Her hair is copper-colored, long, like something meant for a festival runway. Her face looks young, but she has that aura of 'I can ruin your entire day with one stare.' That kind of aura..."
The corpse moved stiffly, like a puppet tangled in strings. "Oh—and there's another one... a man..." it added, its voice cracking with every word. "Silver hair... sharp eyes—the kind that scream, 'I'm the main character here!!' He's young too, but he feels dangerous. Smooth face. I honestly started wondering if he even knows what acne is. Like he could save your life, or crush you, depending on how he woke up that day. Oh fuck! He's also the one who shattered my jaw!"
Ulalume turned to Joaquin. "The hell is this guy?!" she asked, clearly caught off guard by the corpse's sass. "Well then, now we have an idea of who we're hunting, moron."
A vein visibly bulged on Joacquin's forehead upon hearing the Princess's mocking tone. But before he could respond, Ulalume spoke again.
"Oh, right. You may stand now." Her taunting smile made it clear she had deliberately prolonged their bowing, savoring their humiliation.
Ulalume's emerald eyes gleamed as she bent closer to the trembling corpse, her voice filled with curiosity.
"Second question: What did the group of Arbikizers do to pursue the rebels?"
"Uh—my apologies, Princess Ulalume..." the corpse rasped, its voice cracking like brittle parchment, trembling between remorse and shameful anxiety.
"I kinda lost consciousness before I—you know—realized the Arbikizers had arrived too. But hey, before I fully blacked out, I heard something from the top of the cliff... They were screaming. Someone probably died on their side. I don't know, I'm not really sure, but yeah..." the corpse explained, shrugging weakly.
"Hmmm... is that so," Ulalume murmured softly, surveying the area with half-lidded eyes, as if drowning in thought. She closed her eyes. Suddenly, the shadows around her deepened. It was as if light itself recoiled from her presence. From the shadows pooled at her feet, a form slowly emerged.
A man with pale skin, wax-like in texture. Because of it, the black stitch marks across his muscular arms stood out starkly. Two golden eyes burned brightly—an eerie contrast to his dull, lifeless face.
When he fully emerged from the shadow, he immediately knelt before Ulalume and spoke. "My lady, what do you command?"
Ulalume took out a dagger and cut the palm of her right hand. Yizmael moved instinctively to bandage her wound, but stopped when she fixed him with a stare. Blood flowed from her palm like strands of red thread. She let it drip directly into the man's two eyes. After that, the young woman began to chant.
"Within the veil of void and ruin, I call,
To my loyal servant—your eyes I shall turn into light.
Darkness shall be opened, and light I shall steal away."
Ulalume lifted her gaze toward the cliffs, her green eyes faintly shimmering. "Argo," she said, her voice soft yet sharp, "climb to the top of those cliffs and investigate."
"As you command, my lady," Argo replied in a cold voice, before ascending the cliff. Every step he took toward the rock face was calculated, you would think this was far from the first time he had done something like this.
Upon reaching the top, Argo immediately spotted traces of dried blood. He walked toward a hut at the center and quietly entered it. Inside, he found eight Iberian corpses, all of their throats slit open. Flies flew around their lifeless bodies.
Below, Ulalume remained completely still, eyes closed, as if absorbing every detail through an invisible link between herself and Argo. When Argo descended, Ulalume's lips curved slightly into a smile.
"Governor-General..." Ulalume began in a calm voice, "I'll make this easy for you to understand. Do—not—underestimate—that—girl."
"What do you mean, Your Highness?" Yizmael asked, intrigued.
Ulalume stared at him, then said, "She understands tactics," her reply cold.
"If she's the one who planned this assault, then that means she thinks fast, she calculates, and she knows where and how to strike."
She paused, savoring the silence around them. "Your men up there?" she continued. "They were killed quickly." She glanced again at the cliffs. "Were the soldiers stationed here recently deployed?"
"Yes, Your Highness," Yizmael answered immediately.
Ulalume smiled again. "Hahahaha. Then I was right."
Yizmael frowned and asked again, "Your Highness, what do you mean?"
Ulalume let out a long sigh filled with irritation as she ran a hand through her hair with exaggerated annoyance.
"Honestly, I don't know how you're still Governor-General," she said flatly. Cristobal and Joacquin struggled to suppress their laughter.
"Think carefully, my dear Governor-General. Based on how you described these terrorists—what was their name again?" she asked Joacquin with a furrowed brow.
"Penumbra, Your Highness," the young officer replied quickly.
"Right. Penumbra. They look like typical terrorists—no real grasp of strategy, poorly equipped. Now the question is: how did they manage to do this against more than fifty Iberian soldiers?"
She paused, gauging Yizmael's reaction.
"There's probably a new leader among them," Yizmael replied, unease evident on his face. "If that's the case..."
"You're correct," Ulalume said. "Based on charcoal here, a young woman led the attack." She studied Yizmael's eyes closely. "You already have an idea who their leader is, don't you?"
Yizmael ground his teeth as he understood what she was implying. "That bastard Aslon," he muttered—quietly, but loud enough for Ulalume to hear.
"HAHAHAHA," Ulalume laughed. "The Princess of Tundun is smart."
"She used the new soldiers' unfamiliarity with the climate. On top of that, she used the camp's topography to gain the upper hand against our more seasoned troops."
She walked back toward the corpse and the footprints outside the camp, as well as the trampled grass on both sides. She pointed these out to Yizmael.
"This is how she did it. She likely took a few of her strongest companions. Then they pretended to retreat. And our soldiers—probably under an illusion—followed them out of the camp."
"Illusion?" Joacquin interjected.
Ulalume rolled her eyes, clearly disappointed with the Tundun officers. "Yes, Captain. Look closely at these footprints. The ones in the center match our soldiers' boots."
Then she pointed to several other tracks surrounding them. "Now look at these. They don't belong to our soldiers, and there are far fewer of them. Tell me, why would our men waste time chasing such a small group of rebels?"
"They had a baylan with them," Joacquin blurted out.
"Correct, Captain," Ulalume replied mockingly. Excitement flickered in the Princess's eyes as her smile widened. "It seems my stay in Tundun is going to be... very enjoyable."