Night pressed softly against Vanhart estate.
The halls were quiet now; servants withdrawn, nobles returned to their rooms, the echoes of dinner conversation faded into stone and shadow. Only the low murmur of distant wind seeped through old walls, like the estate itself exhaled for the first time in years.
Kel stood alone in one of the upper corridors, near a narrow window slit where the moonlight cut in like a blade of pale silver.
Below, he could just make out the dark stretch of frozen fields.
And beyond that, nothing.
Just winter.
He leaned his shoulder lightly against the cold stone, one hand tucked into his coat, the other resting against the window frame. Frost kissed the edges of the glass, forming faint white veins—like the traces of mana he'd spent all week rethreading through Lysenne's ruined body.
His reflection in the pane looked tired.
His eyes did not.
Inside his mind, thoughts moved with the same measured precision as his hands had during surgery.
This way I secure two houses' loyalty…
His lips curved—not into a smile.
Into something thinner.
Drier.
Just one more piece left. One more task… and both the Viscount and the Count will swear themselves to me without my ever needing to ask.
The cold seeped through his clothes, but it grounded him.
He let his eyes fall shut.
Memory opened instead.
The Plan That Began Before They Knew
It hadn't started here.
Not in this estate, not with harlroot or with a girl taking her first trembling steps.
It began the day he chose to walk north.
The day he saw the map of this world with a player's eyes and not a native's.
He could still recall it vividly—
The quiet of his room in Rosenfeld estate.
The heavy knowledge of his Death Curse pulsing like a brand against his bones.
The memory of Destiny's routes.
Seven Great Houses.
Twenty-two major event flags.
Twelve failure routes.
And one particular, easily-missed northern side quest.
Vanhart & Malloren: The Broken Pact.
In the game, it had been a tragic backdrop—a bit of lore to make the Northern Provinces feel alive. Two houses shattered over a crippled girl and a cursed child; their territories weakened, their forces unavailable when the real war began.
The protagonist visited, perhaps.
Sympathized.
Accepted some minor reward.
But he could never fix it.
The timing was wrong.
The cost too high.
The price of saving that line was that something else in the main story would collapse.
Kel remembered that.
And changed the rule.
After the banquet.
After the duel where he, the "Cursed Heir," had broken the expectations of the noble hall—
He asked his father for leave.
Two years.
No escort.
No name.
A ghost.
That, too, had been part of the plan.
If he moved as "Kel von Rosenfeld," every step would be watched. Every kindness interpreted as political maneuvering. Every intervention met with suspicion.
But an anonymous, wandering boy?
A "poet" named Heral?
He could approach people before their guard rose.
He could see them—not as pieces, but as humans.
And then position them as pieces anyway.
He pushed a slow breath past his lips.
The corridor misted faintly with the warmth.
Barbarian territories… Scarder Lake… Sera… Vanhart… Malloren…
Puzzle pieces.
Flags.
He'd known from the start:
If he wanted true power in this world—not the brittle shine of constellations, not the restrictive path of forced destiny—he needed people.
Houses.
Loyalty tied not by decree.
By debt.
By choice.
By relief.
Sera – The Cursed Chief
He remembered the first time he saw Sera on that battlefield of snow and blood.
White hair.
Sharp gaze.
Strength honed by a curse designed to kill her.
In the game, she had been a potential mini-boss—leader of a northern barbarian warband, dangerous enemy, or, if the player spent ridiculous effort, a grudging ally for one short arc.
He knew better.
He knew her full name long before she spoke it.
Sera Vanhart.
Because he'd read it in the game's hidden event logs.
Northern Phantom Frost – The Count's Lost Child.
Find the cursed barbarian chief before the second snow of Act II. Cleanse the curse. Reconcile her with House Vanhart. Reward: Vanhart Knights participate in the War of the Broken Sky.
Most players never triggered it.
Even fewer completed it.
Kel had no intention of leaving that flag unclaimed.
So when she had asked him:
"Why do you care if I die early?"
He had smiled faintly and lied with truth.
"Because I know how it feels to have your lifespan written by someone else."
He had cared.
He also saw the path beyond her.
Sera returning to Vanhart meant more than emotional closure.
It meant a house that would owe him their daughter's life.
It meant a northern front no longer crumbling by the time the Empire's sky burned.
Scarder Lake – The Guardian and the Rewrite
His fingers lightly tapped the stone by the window.
Cold bit his skin.
Scarder Lake…
That was another flag never meant for Kel.
In the game, only the protagonist had any realistic chance to reach it mid-story. Only he could survive the mist, pass the trials, petition the guardian.
Cure curses.
Acquire blessings.
Form contracts.
Except.
Kel had walked into the game with endgame information.
With clear data.
Five times, he'd managed to convince Scarder Lake's guardian, Seiren, to form a contract as a player. He knew her triggers. Her loneliness. Her curiosity.
Her yearning for the world beyond the shore she'd never left.
So as soon as his curse was lifted, as soon as he felt his status window remake itself from "Doomed One" into something closer to "Monster in the Making,"
he had turned back toward that mist-veiled lake and thought:
One more step. One more bargain.
Making a contract with a mythical being wasn't kindness.
It was inevitability.
He had simply chosen to make the inevitability gentle.
"Become my partner. Not my slave. A mutual contract."
Words he'd chosen carefully.
Words she had yearned for.
Now her blessing strengthened every step he took, every drop of mana he poured into Lysenne's legs, every refining strand he wove into harlroot roots.
And no one else knew.
Not Sera.
Not Reina.
Not Landon.
Not even Seiren herself could see the system routes he was rewriting.
In the game, the protagonist gained Seiren's blessing in chapter ninety-six of the second act.
Here, Kel had it long before the Academy arc.
He wasn't just walking ahead of the story.
He was stealing its spine.
Vanhart – Soil, Sins, Redemption
He opened his eyes.
The moonlight cut across his face, catching the faint exhaustion beneath his lashes.
Vanhart territory…
He had known, as soon as Sera whispered her true name, where they would go next.
He knew the timeline:
House Vanhart weakened by internal betrayal and economic collapse.
House Malloren crippled by a broken heir.
Both houses, once promising, removed from the board by the time the Empire truly needed them.
Without them, the original story grew bloodier.
He remembered the numbers.
"Vanhart cavalry capacity reduced by 60%. Northern shield wall broken at the Third Glacier Front. Casualties: ~27,000 Imperial troops. Main character nearly dies."
He had stared at those lines once, sitting in front of his monitor.
Now he stood in front of cold stone and thought instead:
Not this time.
So he'd planted harlroot.
Turned field knowledge into advantage.
Turned a farming mechanic most players skipped into a keystone.
Alchemy for soil.
Mana to wake roots.
Harlroot to become currency and lifeline alike.
From the moment he first pressed his fingers into Vanhart's frozen soil, he knew:
If he revived this land…
The Count wouldn't just be grateful.
He would remember who stood beside him when the Empire didn't come.
He would remember the boy who treated his land and his daughter's consequences with equal seriousness.
He would remember, when the time comes to choose sides.
Malloren – The Debt That Cannot Balance
Kel shifted slightly, feeling his right hand tremble once before he stilled it.
Malloren's face from earlier that day surfaced in his mind—
Eyes wide.
Voice broken.
Watching Lysenne's feet.
Watching his oath shatter under the weight of her first steps.
"No, I'm not going to take your life. In contrast—I owe you a debt for helping my daughter walk again."
That wasn't a debt one could pay off.
Which was exactly why Kel had chosen it.
He could have helped in smaller ways.
Eased the pain.
Partially restored function.
He chose instead to stake his life and harvest every thread that followed.
Heal the girl. Mend the houses. Revive the land. Offer a strategy. Give them a future beyond survival.
In exchange?
He gained something far more valuable than coin, knights, or land.
He gained obligation.
Not forced.
Chosen.
Emotional.
A type of chain no law could break.
He rolled his shoulder, feeling aura channels throb faintly in protest.
Two houses bound.
One by soil reborn.
One by a daughter returned.
Just one more task, and they wouldn't just be friendly.
They would be his.
Not openly.
Not yet.
But when the time came to decide between Rosenfeld and other powers…
He knew which way their weight would fall.
The Last Work
"Just one more work to be done…"
He let the thought fully form.
Rodrik Vanhart.
The snake behind Sera's curse.
The man who had twisted potion and blood for power, willing to ruin two houses to secure his own climbing.
Kel's eyes cooled.
That man was not yet removed.
Evidence had been gathered.
Zephryn had delivered it.
Duke Arcturus now knew.
But Rodrik still lived.
Still held loyalties.
Still had whispered threads in noble circles.
As long as he remained breathing, the wound was not fully cleaned.
The loyalty Kel was weaving would never be complete.
Because fear, shame, and unresolved resentment would still exist beneath the surface.
Once Rodrik is stripped, judged, and severed from Vanhart…
Once the Count stands without that shadow…
Once Malloren sees justice done without needing to stain his own hands…
Then.
Then, when Kel needed them—
for war, for politics, for the time when constellations themselves descended to anchor false destinies—
they would not hesitate.
Because he hadn't just helped them survive.
He had helped them become clean.
He breathed out slowly, fogging the glass.
The Quiet Between Calculation and Guilt
"You're quiet tonight."
Seiren's voice rippled through his mind like water touching stone.
Calm.
Cool.
Ancient.
Just thinking, he replied.
About?
He hesitated.
Then, for once, did not deflect.
About how easily people tie themselves to someone who saves what they love.
She was silent for a time.
Then:
You say it as if it's cruel.
His fingers curled against the window frame.
Isn't it?
You saved their land. Their child. Their dignity.
And in return, he thought, I gain influence. Power. Future reinforcements. I didn't do this as a saint, Seiren.
I never mistook you for one.
He almost laughed.
It came out as a faint exhale instead.
In the game, he murmured inwardly, this route was optional. A side story. The main character could walk away. Let them crumble and still reach the ending—alone, bloodied, but alive.
And you cannot?
He looked out at the night.
Snow drifted.
Harlroot stalks stood upright, dark silhouettes against white ground.
No, he thought. I can't.
He remembered a monitor's glow.
A text line.
"You survived, but everyone else died with honor."
He remembered the bitterness.
Of reaching a "good" ending where the world lay broken.
Of having crowns and titles but no living world worth ruling.
If I'm here, he thought slowly, then I refuse that ending.
I refuse a victory built on ashes and regrets.
I will collect every route, every flag, every 'impossible' rescue the story tried to label as optional… and I will drag them all into one path, even if it warps under the weight.
Seiren's presence settled more fully.
You sound like fate itself, lecturing the threads.
His eyes thinned.
Fate forced me into this body.
It can endure a little backtalk.
She didn't argue.
Kel finally pushed off the wall.
His legs were heavier than they should be.
His aura lines burned today.
His mana system still throbbed faintly from being threaded through another person's veins.
He ignored it.
He always did.
As he walked down the corridor toward his room, the cold followed him like a familiar cloak.
Two houses.
One mythical guardian.
One cured curse.
One reborn land.
One girl relearning to walk.
Flags, all of them.
And he?
He was still what he had been in his old world.
A player.
Except now, if he made a mistake—
reload was not an option.
He reached his door.
Rested his fingers lightly on the handle.
For a heartbeat, the tiredness in his body rose, threatened to crest.
Then the system hummed, faint, in the back of his mind.
[QUEST CHAIN – "Northern Reclamation"]
Progress: 78%
Status: On Track
Projected Outcome: Dual House Alignment Achievable
He huffed a breath that might have been a laugh.
Might have been a curse.
"Good," he whispered into the empty hallway.
"Then let's see how far we can drag this world away from what it thinks is 'canon'."
He opened the door.
Stepped into the dark.
And the estate, the land, and the stories bound to him moved with him—
Quiet threads, tightening beneath winter.