The Eastern Wing of the Imperial Academy was strictly divided. Above ground, it was a paradise of vaulted ceilings, gilded mirrors, and plush carpets designed to cater to the every whim of the Empire's most elite scions. But beneath the polished veneer, hidden behind unmarked, heavy oak doors and narrow, unadorned staircases, lay the servant quarters.
It was a labyrinth of practical stone corridors, smelling of starch, lye, and simple stewed vegetables—a stark, jarring contrast to the overpowering floral perfumes of the upper floors. It was practically unheard of for a high-ranking noble to venture down here.
Damien—now operating fully under the identity of Rudeus Blackfyre—walked briskly down the narrow, dimly lit corridor. His tailored midnight-blue blazer stood out like a sore thumb against the drab grey walls.
He was hunting for a ghost. He needed to find Amanda.
As he turned a corner near the primary laundry sorting room, he spotted a familiar face. It was Maria, the young maid he had nearly collided with earlier that morning. She was currently struggling to balance a massive wicker basket overflowing with pristine white bed linens.
Maria heard the sharp click of his polished riding boots against the stone. She turned her head, and the moment her eyes registered the vibrant green hair and crimson eyes of the Blackfyre Defect, the blood completely drained from her face.
She immediately dropped to her knees, the heavy basket thudding against the floor, spilling a few linens. She bowed her head so low it practically scraped the cobblestones.
Rudeus sighed, a quiet, tired sound. He didn't want this kind of groveling. He simply raised his hand and offered a casual, dismissing wave to set her at ease.
"Stand up. You don't need to do that," Rudeus said, his voice calm and businesslike. "Where is the Head Maid? I need to talk to her about something extremely important."
Maria remained glued to the floor, trembling violently like a leaf caught in a hurricane. Her mind was racing with terrifying possibilities. Why was the notoriously cruel Lord Rudeus in the servant's quarters? Why was he looking for the Head Maid? Had she done something wrong this morning?
"I-I... I-I-I..." Maria stuttered, her teeth literally chattering. "The-the... I..."
Rudeus pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache beginning to form. He wasn't mad at her; he was just impatient.
"Look, just tell me where she is, point me in the right direction, and I will get out of your sight immediately," Rudeus reasoned, trying to soften his tone to sound less threatening.
But to Maria, a noble speaking softly was often a prelude to a vicious backhand.
'I-I'm screwed! I'm going to be fired! Or whipped!' Maria panicked inwardly, tears welling up in her eyes as she failed to form a coherent sentence.
Before Rudeus could try to calm her down again, another voice echoed from the doorway of the laundry room.
"She is currently busy, Young Master Rudeus. She is not on the premises."
Rudeus turned his head. Standing in the doorway, holding a clipboard and looking at him with a mixture of profound suspicion and guarded respect, was Fiona, one of the senior maids who helped manage the East Wing staff.
"She is currently with Her Highness, Princess Veronica," Fiona continued, her tone clipped and professional. "She was summoned to the royal suite quite urgently."
Rudeus raised an eyebrow. He absorbed the information, his tactical mind immediately grinding the gears.
He gave a sharp, appreciative nod. "I see. Thanks for the information, Fiona."
He didn't linger. He spun on his heel and walked swiftly back down the corridor, disappearing into the shadows of the stairwell leading back up to the noble floors.
Fiona stood in the doorway, her own eyebrows raised to her hairline. She stared at the empty space where the notoriously arrogant, foul-tempered Duke's son had just stood.
"Hmm..." Fiona murmured, tapping her pen against her clipboard. "What in the world did he eat for breakfast? Is he actually in a good mood, Maria?"
Maria slowly pushed herself up from the floor, her knees shaking as she began to hastily gather the spilled linens.
"I-I don't know, Fiona," Maria whispered, still looking terrified. "This morning... when he rushed past me in the hall... he actually bumped into me. But instead of yelling, he said 'sorry' and told me to have a good morning. I really, truly don't know what happened to him."
Fiona touched her chin, her eyes narrowing in deep thought as she helped Maria with the basket.
"I see. Though it is incredibly weird for a young man with a reputation like his to completely change his entire personality overnight," Fiona reasoned, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "People like the Blackfyres do not simply learn manners. Something must have happened to him."
Fiona then shrugged, her practical nature reasserting itself.
"Well, it's not our business, anyway. The affairs of the nobility are a quick way to lose your head. Though... I do wonder why he was actively searching for the Head Maid down here. Doesn't he already know that Lady Amanda practically never leaves Princess Veronica's side during the day?"
Maria simply shrugged, having no answers to offer to Fiona's self-questioning. The two maids returned to their duties, leaving the mystery of the reformed Defect behind them.
Meanwhile, Rudeus had successfully navigated his way out of the subterranean servant quarters and was currently strolling through one of the Academy's expansive, beautifully manicured botanical gardens.
The afternoon sun was warm, and the air was filled with the scent of blooming jasmine and magically cultivated roses. But Rudeus wasn't paying any attention to the scenery. He was deeply lost in thought, dissecting the intelligence he had just gathered.
'Weird,' Rudeus analyzed inwardly, his hands stuffed casually into his pockets. 'In this specific timeline, based on the canonical daily schedules of the NPCs in the game, Amanda should absolutely be in the servant quarters right now. During the early afternoon block, when the Princess has her private tutoring sessions in the Royal Spire, Amanda always takes her mandated operational break to coordinate with her intelligence network in the lower levels. So, what happened to disrupt her schedule?'
Rudeus stopped walking, looking up at the sky.
'I know that Amanda operates as Veronica's ultimate shadow guardian, but at this specific time of day? She shouldn't have been summoned so urgently. Unless...'
Rudeus's crimson eyes widened as the realization hit him like a physical blow to the chest.
'Don't tell me!'
He groaned aloud, dragging a hand down his face in pure exasperation.
'Yeah. It must be my fault. Ugh! Goddamnit! I mean, I know I can't entirely blame myself for saying what I said to Veronica in the hallway, but actions have consequences.'
Rudeus suddenly realized exactly why Amanda was not in her quarters. She was missing because of him. She was busy comforting Veronica.
When he had callously called the Princess a "bitch" in front of the entire student body, he hadn't just insulted her pride. He had inadvertently triggered a massive, deep-seated psychological landmine. He bet his entire allowance that Veronica had fled straight to her royal suite and summoned Amanda in a fit of hysterical tears, because that specific word was the ultimate trigger for her trauma.
'Shit!' Rudeus thought, resuming his pacing, kicking a stray pebble off the cobblestone path. 'I mean, I knew Veronica was incredibly sensitive to that specific insult. I read the hidden lore entries. That's the exact word the First Empress—the Crown Prince's tyrannical mother—used to destroy her.'
To understand Veronica Adnelia Van Rosania, one had to understand the incredibly toxic, blood-soaked politics of the Imperial Court.
Veronica was the sole daughter of the Emperor's Second Empress. The Second Empress had been a woman of unparalleled beauty and gentle grace, a political pawn who had genuinely managed to capture the Emperor's heart, much to the absolute fury of his first, politically appointed wife.
However, shortly after giving birth to Veronica, the Second Empress suffered a catastrophic, agonizing illness that completely destroyed her mana core and permanently stripped her of the ability to ever bear another child.
Though it was never officially proven in the courts, every player of The Chronicles of Adelina knew the dark truth: the illness was not natural. The one responsible for the poisoning was none other than the First Empress, desperate to secure the throne for her own son, the Crown Prince, by eliminating any future rivals from the favored second wife.
After the Second Empress lost her utility as a bearer of heirs, the Emperor, driven by the cold calculations of statecraft and the relentless pressure of the First Empress's political faction, tragically, cowardly, ignored his second wife for the rest of her life.
The Second Empress was quietly exiled to a remote, beautiful, but incredibly lonely castle on the outskirts of the capital. There, she spent her days fading away, raising her daughter, Veronica, in total isolation from the glittering, deceitful Imperial Court.
Veronica grew up there, spending every waking moment with her mother. Even though the Second Empress felt profoundly betrayed by her husband and abandoned by the world, it didn't turn her bitter toward her child. She didn't abandon her daughter or ignore her. Rather, she spent her remaining years pouring every ounce of her love, affection, and dwindling energy into taking care of Veronica, trying to shield her from the cruelty of the Empire.
But the cruelty found them anyway.
There was a specific, horrifying memory locked within the game's lore—a flashback that explained the root of the Hidden Heroine's fractured psyche.
When Veronica was eight years old, they were forced to attend a mandatory Imperial Gala at the main palace. During the event, the First Empress sought them out in a secluded antechamber.
The First Empress, dripping with jewels and malice, had looked down at the frail, beautiful Second Empress, and then shifted her cold, venomous gaze to the young, terrified Veronica.
"Haah! Look at her," the First Empress had sneered, her voice dripping with absolute contempt. "You are literally the exact same as your pathetic, weak mother."
The First Empress had leaned in, her eyes flashing with cruel triumph.
"A fucking bitch!" The First Empress had spat the word out like venom, and then actually spat on the floor at the Second Empress's feet. The young Crown Prince, standing beside his mother, had laughed cruelly and mimicked her, spitting toward the young Princess and her mother.
That single, horrifying moment was why Veronica developed such a profound, crippling trauma surrounding the word "bitch." It wasn't just an insult; it was the auditory representation of the moment she realized her mother was completely powerless, and that the world was fundamentally cruel. It was the first reason, and the primary catalyst, for why she developed an absolute, paralyzing fear and hatred toward both the Royal Family and the upper nobility.
A few years after that incident, the lingering poison in the Second Empress's system finally took its toll. She contracted a rare, debilitating magical disease that caused her to become bedridden, unable to walk, and in constant, agonizing pain.
Veronica, still incredibly young, spent her entire adolescence acting as her mother's primary caretaker, watching the only person who ever loved her slowly wither away into a skeletal husk.
When the Second Empress finally died, the Emperor, suddenly struck by a massive, hypocritical wave of grief and guilt, finally visited the remote castle.
When he entered the room, Veronica didn't bow. She didn't cry into his arms. She walked right up to the most powerful man in the world and began punching him repeatedly in the chest with her small, bruising fists. She screamed at him, violently blaming him for his cowardice, for abandoning them, and for her mother's agonizing death.
The Emperor, broken by his own guilt, ignored the treasonous assault. He simply fell to his knees and wept bitterly over his second wife's dead body. Later that night, he made a solemn, desperate vow to the corpse of the woman he had failed. He promised that he would take absolute care of their daughter. He promised he would spoil her, protect her, and give her the world.
To ensure this, he assigned Amanda—a lethal Night Raven assassin who had been secretly loyal to the Second Empress's family—to be Veronica's permanent, shadow guardian.
That tragic, guilt-ridden promise was the exact reason why Veronica grew up to become such an insufferable, entitled, spoiled brat. The Emperor showered her with infinite wealth, unconditional authority, and absolute protection, trying to buy her forgiveness.
But Veronica wasn't stupid. She happily took the wealth and the power, but she still absolutely hated her father with a burning, quiet intensity. She hated the Crown Prince. She hated the nobles who had watched her mother fade.
However, because she was politically astute, she always hid those true, treasonous feelings behind a mask of angelic perfection.
She only ever showed her true, nasty, traumatic colors to one specific person: Rudeus Blackfyre.
Because of her trauma regarding the men of the royal court, she had developed a severe "Man Hater" personality complex. In the game's narrative, she literally possessed that character tag. And because Rudeus was a male noble, forcefully betrothed to her by the very father she despised, he became the perfect, safe target for all of her displaced rage and trauma. She treated Rudeus like absolute garbage because she was projecting her hatred of the Emperor and her fear of the Crown Prince directly onto the pathetic, defenceless boy who couldn't fight back.
Rudeus stopped walking, standing in the middle of a beautiful archway covered in blooming wisteria. He looked up at the pristine, azure sky.
It was already 1:00 PM.
He had deliberately skipped his afternoon practical classes because he literally wanted to track down Amanda and initiate his blackmail scheme. But it seemed fate, or the residual plot armor of the game's universe, didn't want them to meet under his carefully controlled conditions.
Rudeus let out a long, heavy sigh that ruffled his green bangs.
"Guess I'm going to have to pivot to Plan B," Rudeus murmured to himself. "I'll have to slip out of the dorms tonight and try to catch her during her perimeter patrol."
As he turned to head back toward the main campus to find a quiet place to eat, a sound caught his attention.
"Sniff... sniff... sniff."
It was faint, muffled by the rustling leaves of the garden, but unmistakably human.
Rudeus paused. He listened closely. Someone was crying softly, hidden away in one of the secluded, high-hedged alcoves of the botanical garden.
Rudeus shrugged his shoulders. His default, veteran instinct was immediately triggered: Not my squad, not my problem. He had a continent to cross and a Winter Monarch to save. He didn't have time to play therapist for homesick aristocratic teenagers. He took a step forward, fully intending to ignore it.
"You!"
The sharp, angry voice sliced through the tranquil air of the garden.
Rudeus froze. He slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder toward the entrance of the secluded alcove.
Standing there, her silver-blue hair catching the dappled sunlight, was none other than Princess Veronica.
Her angelic facade was completely gone. Her eyes were red and puffy. Mascara was slightly smudged beneath her lower lashes, and a damp, lace handkerchief was clutched tightly in her gloved hand.
"You!" Veronica repeated, her voice shaking with a mixture of profound sorrow and escalating rage. She pointed an accusing, trembling finger directly at his chest. "How absolutely dare you! How dare you call me a bitch!"
Veronica was still shedding tears, but they were now tears of sheer, unadulterated fury. She glared at Rudeus as if she wanted to incinerate him with her oceanic eyes.
Rudeus stared at her for a long moment. He evaluated the situation. He evaluated her emotional state.
And then, with agonizing slowness, he simply shrugged again.
He turned his back on the weeping Princess of the Empire and casually resumed his walk toward the exit of the garden gates. He genuinely needed to buy a new mirror for his room, and the commercial district closed at five.
"HEY!"
Veronica shrieked, completely losing her mind at the casual, devastating dismissal. The sound scattered a flock of nearby doves.
"Don't you dare ignore me! I am speaking to you! Turn around and face me, you coward!"
Rudeus stopped. He let out a slow, dramatic exhale.
He turned around slowly. He raised his hands and deliberately, loudly cracked his knuckles, rolling his neck until it popped. Even though the physical body he currently possessed was pathetic, frail, and lacked any real muscular density, the soul driving it was a tier-one apex predator. He knew that with his sheer technical skill, joint-manipulation knowledge, and combat reflexes, he could easily physically dismantle even a highly trained knight, let alone a pampered, magically-reliant woman like her.
"Fine," Rudeus said, his voice dripping with heavy, caustic sarcasm. He spread his arms wide, offering his chest as a target. "Come on, then. Come punch me. That's what you want, right? You want to get your petty, physical revenge for my harsh words?"
He offered her a mocking, incredibly punchable smirk.
"Go ahead... Princess~."
The mocking, sing-song lilt of her title was the straw that broke the camel's back.
"ARGGGGHHH!"
Veronica let out a highly un-aristocratic scream of pure frustration. She dropped her handkerchief, bunched her delicate, silk-gloved hands into tiny fists, and actually charged at him.
She threw a wildly telegraphed, looping right hook aimed directly at his jaw.
Rudeus didn't even need to blink. He simply tilted his head two inches to the left.
The punch sailed harmlessly past his ear, cutting nothing but air. The momentum of her missed swing carried her forward, making her stumble clumsily.
"Is that really all you got?" Rudeus asked, his tone shifting from sarcastic to genuinely exasperated. He side-stepped her as she caught her balance.
"You know, we could really just let bygones be bygones," Rudeus offered, watching her spin around, her face flushed red with exertion and embarrassment. "We could just forget everything that happened that day. In fact, I am literally, entirely willing to formally annul our marriage contract. I don't want it, you don't want it. It's a win-win."
He widened his arms again, giving her a completely open target, deliberately letting her try to hit him to blow off steam.
Veronica swung again, a frantic left jab.
Rudeus effortlessly leaned backward, letting her fist graze the fabric of his blazer. She missed again.
"Seriously, Princess," Rudeus continued to speak, completely unfazed by her assault, his voice calm and negotiating. "Can we just forget everything? Can we just officially pretend we don't know each other? I mean, I already told you I am willing to go to my father and petition to annul that political engagement of ours. So you can finally shut up, stop acting like I'm a disease, and just forget I exist."
"Shut up! Shut up!" Veronica shrieked, her pride completely shattered by his casual evasion and his willingness to discard her. "Yo-you... youuuuu!!!"
She didn't try to punch him this time. In a blind, animalistic rage, she lowered her head and literally tried to tackle him around the waist, running toward him like a furious, silver-haired bull.
'This spoiled brat!' Rudeus groaned inwardly, his patience finally evaporating.
He didn't dodge. He simply raised his right hand and planted his open palm firmly against the center of her forehead, locking his elbow.
Veronica's forward momentum was stopped instantly. Because her arms were significantly shorter than his, she was trapped just out of striking distance.
She stood there, leaning her weight forward against his hand, wildly swinging her fists through the air in front of his chest, trying desperately to punch him. Swish, swish, swish. She was hitting absolutely nothing but empty space.
It was an incredibly comical, deeply pathetic sight. The elegant, untouchable Princess of Rosania, reduced to a cartoonish windmill of ineffective rage.
Rudeus sighed heavily, looking down at the furious, red-faced girl blindly swinging at the air.
For a thirty-two-year-old hardened combat veteran currently trapped inside a fifteen-year-old's biological body, this was just sad. He really, genuinely hated bullying immature, emotionally stunted young people like her. It felt wrong. It felt beneath his dignity, because engaging in this petty squabble just showed that he was also acting like an immature, emotionally reactive person.
"Alright. We're done here," Rudeus announced.
He decided to end the embarrassing spectacle. He simply stepped back and abruptly let go of her forehead.
Without the resistance of his hand holding her up, Veronica's forward-leaning momentum immediately betrayed her.
-THUD.
She fell forward, landing face-first onto the soft, manicured grass bordering the cobblestone path with a heavy, undignified thud.
Rudeus sighed again, rubbing his temples. He looked down at her, expecting her to get up and storm off.
Instead, Veronica pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. Her dress was stained with grass and dirt. Her hair was a mess.
She looked up at him. Her lower lip began to quiver violently.
"You—!"
The dam broke again.
"Sniff... sniff... sniff..."
Massive, fat tears began to spill from her oceanic blue eyes. She sat back on her heels and pointed a trembling, dirt-stained finger up at Rudeus.
"You are just a big, mean bully!" Veronica wailed, her voice cracking into a high-pitched sob.
Rudeus's crimson eyes widened to comical proportions. He stared at her, utterly flabbergasted by the sheer, unadulterated hypocrisy of her statement.
"Me? A bully?!" Rudeus sputtered, his voice rising in incredulous disbelief. He pointed a thumb at his own chest. "You're literally the one who was internally planning to call me a 'defect' and a 'bastard'! You're the one who has been treating me as harshly as humanly possible for an entire year! You literally just tried to assault me! And now you are sitting in the dirt calling me a goddamn bully?!"
"Haah!"
Rudeus threw his head back and just laughed. It was a dry, hollow laugh at the sheer, magnificent absurdity of the situation he currently found himself in. He survived a war against gods to end up arguing with a teenager in a flower garden.
His laughter seemed to be the absolute breaking point for the Princess.
"WAAAAAAAHHH!!!! WAAAAAHHHH!!!"
Veronica threw her head back and began to truly, hysterically bawl. It wasn't the delicate, aristocratic crying of a noble lady. It was the loud, ugly, snot-nosed wailing of a toddler throwing a massive tantrum in a grocery store. The sound was deafening, echoing off the garden walls.
Panic suddenly spiked in Rudeus's chest. If the academy guards or a professor heard the First Princess screaming bloody murder while alone with the "Defect," he wouldn't be expelled; he would be executed on the spot.
"Shh! Shh! Hey, quiet down!" Rudeus hissed, dropping to his knees beside her, his hands hovering nervously. "Can you please just be quiet, Princess?! You're going to get me beheaded! Goddamnit, just—"
In a moment of pure, desperate panic, Rudeus reached out and clamped his hand firmly over her mouth to muffle the ear-piercing shrieks.
Veronica's eyes widened in outrage above his hand. She didn't stop crying, but her wails turned into muffled, furious humming.
Then, Rudeus felt a sudden, sharp, agonizing sensation in the palm of his hand.
His eyes widened.
"You goddamn—"
-CHOMP!
"ARGH!"
Rudeus yelled, violently snatching his hand back. He fell backward, rolling onto the grass, clutching his hand to his chest.
Veronica had bitten him. She hadn't just nipped him; she had sunk her perfectly straight, pearly white aristocratic teeth deeply into the meaty part of his palm, hard enough to almost draw blood.
"Yo-you! You actually bit me!" Rudeus groaned, looking at the distinct, red semi-circle of teeth marks imprinted on his skin. He glared at her. "This is incredibly childish, y'know! Are you a princess or a feral dog?!"
Rudeus looked up, expecting her to be crying again.
Instead, he saw Veronica sitting on the grass, wiping tears from her eyes, but her shoulders were shaking.
"Hihihihi..."
A small, genuine, incredibly un-royal giggle escaped her lips.
"'This is incredibly childish, y'know!'" Veronica mimicked his deep, serious tone flawlessly, before bursting into a fit of breathless, hysterical laughter. "Hahahaha! You... you look so stupid!"
She was laughing at him. She had bitten him, and now she was laughing at his pain.
Rudeus, fueled by the lingering irritation of a 32-year-old veteran who refused to be mocked by a brat, decided he wasn't going to let that slide.
He leaned forward, moving faster than she could react. He balled his hand into a loose fist, extended his middle knuckle slightly, and delivered a swift, sharp, but ultimately harmless 'knuckle sandwich'—a sharp bonk—directly onto the top of her silver-blue head.
-BOP!
"Ow!"
Veronica yelped, her laughter dying instantly as she brought both hands up to clutch the top of her head. She looked at him, completely stunned that he had actually dared to strike her, even lightly.
She felt a tiny, stinging pain radiating from her scalp. The sheer indignity of the action, combined with her overwhelming emotional exhaustion, triggered an immediate relapse.
Her lower lip quivered. Her eyes welled up with a fresh, massive tsunami of tears.
"Sniff... sniff..."
She sucked in a massive breath.
"WAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"
Veronica started to cry again, louder and more violently than before, rubbing the top of her head and wailing into the afternoon sky.
Rudeus just gave up. His shoulders slumped. He let his body fall backward, lying flat on the grass, staring up at the blue sky and the fluffy white clouds.
'I am fucked,' Rudeus thought, closing his eyes, accepting his inevitable execution. 'I survived the Demon God just to get the guillotine for making a teenager cry.'
Suddenly, the ambient temperature in the secluded garden plummeted. The warm afternoon breeze turned ice-cold, carrying the distinct, metallic scent of freshly sharpened steel and killing intent.
A shadow fell over Rudeus's face, blocking the sun.
"What, exactly, is going on here?!"
The voice was low, smooth, and incredibly dangerous. It was a voice that didn't ask questions; it demanded confessions.
Rudeus's eyes snapped open. He scrambled to push himself up into a sitting position, looking back over his shoulder toward the entrance of the alcove.
Standing there, framed by the wisteria archway, was the person he had been searching for all day.
It was none other than the Deathstalker.
Amanda Filderblue.
She wore the pristine, incredibly complex black and white uniform of the Imperial Head Maid. Not a single thread was out of place. Her dark hair was pulled into a severe, tight bun at the base of her neck. Her face was a mask of cold, professional stoicism, but her dark, slate-grey eyes were scanning the scene with the lethal, analytical precision of an apex predator assessing a threat.
Amanda raised a single, incredibly intimidating eyebrow as she looked between the two figures on the grass: Rudeus, holding his bitten hand and looking exasperated, and Veronica, sitting in the dirt, her dress ruined, bawling her eyes out while rubbing her head.
The moment Veronica saw her guardian, she scrambled to her feet.
"Amy~!" Veronica wailed, abandoning all royal protocol as she ran toward the older woman, throwing her arms around the Head Maid's waist and burying her tear-streaked face into the pristine white apron.
"He... sniff, sniff... he bullied me! He pushed me in the mud and hit my head! WAAAAAHHHHH~~~" Veronica sobbed dramatically, actively burying the evidence of her own unprovoked assault.
Amanda didn't immediately reach for the concealed daggers strapped to her thighs. She gently placed a gloved hand on the Princess's silver-blue hair, stroking it softly in a practiced, comforting rhythm.
She slowly lifted her gaze over the top of the Princess's head. Her slate-grey eyes locked onto Rudeus like the laser sights of a sniper rifle. The killing intent radiating from her was suffocating, thick enough to physically crush the air out of his lungs.
Amanda let out a slow, terrifyingly calm sigh.
"Can you please explain to me what, precisely, happened here?" Amanda asked, her voice dangerously quiet.
She took a single, deliberate step forward.
"Mr. Blackfyre?"
Rudeus stared at the legendary assassin. He felt the sheer, overwhelming pressure of her aura pressing down on his frail, teenage body.
He didn't try to explain. He didn't try to defend himself.
Rudeus simply let his body drop backward onto the grass again, staring hopelessly up at the sky.
'Ohh, I'm fucked,' Rudeus said inwardly, preparing his soul for a very swift, very painful death. 'I am screwed. Real, absolutely, undeniably screwed.'