“Okay, guys!” I shouted over the tense murmurs. Players exchanged looks, some hesitant, others already gripping their weapons, but there was a clear lack of direction—they were waiting for someone to take charge. “What we need to do now is gather outside on the walls.”

  The players’ eyes widened, hands flicking into the air as they instinctively checked their HUDs. A system notification for everyone.

  A quest from me.

  I blinked, taken slightly aback. Wait… I could issue mass quests that easily? That was normal, right? If I was in charge? Right?

  Before I could wrap my head around it, Scamantha—the closest one to me—let out a low whistle, her sharp grin cutting through the tension like a blade. “Woah, generous!” she remarked, flashing me a knowing smirk before she bolted straight for the doors.

  And just like that, the rest of the players followed suit, feet pounding against the marble floor, their murmurs escalating into excited chatter as they rushed out toward their assigned positions.

  I moved to follow, but my guards didn’t budge. They stood firm, a wall of steel and unwavering discipline blocking my way. I exhaled, turning toward the woman at their center. “Stand down, Alma,” I ordered, meeting her gaze head-on. “I need to go to the walls. I need to command.”

  She didn’t flinch. Didn’t even shift. Her eyes stayed locked onto mine, determined. “Mila can do that, Lady,” she countered, her voice firm but measured. “I won’t let you walk into danger—”

  “Alma, listen.” I stepped forward, lowering my voice, but keeping it steady. “I will get into danger. All the time, okay?” For a moment, she didn’t move, her jaw tightening as if she was forcing herself to process that reality.

  Then, after a breath too long for comfort, she finally shifted aside, the other guards following her lead. “So…” Alma muttered, arms crossed, her tone bittersweet, “my position is useless?” She wasn’t defiant, not quite. But she was bitter, as if the realization stung more than she wanted to admit.

  “No, no,” I said quickly, shaking my head, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s still important.” I shot her a half-smile, amused but still sincere. “But I’m thankfully not a helpless princess.”

  Alma let out a reluctant sigh, but there was the faintest hint of a smirk at the corner of her lips. “Not yet,” she muttered.

  I grinned. “Not ever.” Then I turned on my heel and strode toward the doors, stepping into the chaos.

  The fort was alive with movement. Not just the players, but the soldiers, too. Their actions were sharp, disciplined, a stark contrast to the more chaotic energy of the adventurers weaving between them.

  Orders were shouted, boots pounded against the stone. The air was thick with urgency, but there was no panic, just preparation. It was the calm before the storm. Behind me, a familiar soft whisper reached my ear. “Lady, squash them, okay?”

  I blinked, turning slightly to glance at Lola. Her usual calm, collected demeanor was nowhere to be seen. Instead, her eyes were steely, her fingers clutching her stack of papers with the intensity of someone who had personally been wronged by fate.

  I giggled, brushing my fingers across her stiffened shoulder. “Lola, aren’t you fierce tonight?”

  She didn’t even look at me, just stared defiantly out the nearest window. “They interrupted an important moment,” she declared, voice low, simmering, “so they deserve to cease existing.”

  …Okay, that was the most terrifying thing I’d ever heard from her. “Sure, sure,” I laughed, but made a mental note to never get between Lola and her meticulously planned schedules again.

  We reached the outer wall, my lighthearted smirk still playing on my lips. And then it vanished.

  Demon army.

  The sight hit me like a physical weight, pressing against my chest. Without hesitation, I stepped up beside Mila, my gaze sweeping across the battlefield. A thousand demons. They stood not that far away, arranged in tight ranks, their black armor uniform, their helmeted faces unreadable.

  For someone seeing them for the first time, the sight would be awe-inspiring, terrifying even.

  I could hear it, the uneasy shifting of boots, the sharp inhales of soldiers who weren’t quite used to staring down an inhuman force. But me? I recognized these.

  These weren’t high-level demons, nor terrifying monstrosities conjured from the depths of the abyss. No, these were Duwin’s foot soldiers—fodder. This wasn’t an unstoppable force, this was a token army. And at its head, standing tall, unmoving, was her.

  Irwen.

  She stood at the front; her flowing battle uniform was cut just enough to leave something for the imagination, but it wasn’t much. Her long silver hair cascaded over her shoulders, barely touched by the breeze, and I could swear her star-like blue eyes found me.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Even from this distance, I could feel it, her power, her control, the way the air itself seemed to bend at her presence. She inhaled and then… “Come!” Her voice boomed, magic laced through every syllable. Carrying far beyond the distance an elven voice should be able to reach.

  I flinched.

  Mila didn’t. …Because, of course, he didn’t. Out of the entire battalion, only a few held their ground without reaction.

  Hey, I was a pro, but even I jumped at sudden, unexpected sounds! That was completely fair!

  “Alma, Katherine, Techi, and… Lunaris. With me.” Their footsteps were immediate, boots thudding against the stone as they closed in, forming a loose semi-circle near me and Mila.

  Only Alma spoke, her voice a mix of disbelief and tightly restrained frustration. “Lady, you can’t be considering—”

  I was already moving, striding toward the wall’s edge with zero hesitation. Behind me, I heard the sharp inhale, the resigned exhale. “...You are serious.” Her voice dropped into a near-deadpan, a sigh dragging through each syllable, her armor shifting as she reluctantly followed.

  “Join me. We’ll get an answer.” Then, I turned, locking eyes with Lola, who was still standing near the command post, arms tensed, papers half-clutched in her hands as if she was debating throwing them at my face. “You have command of the royal company.”

  Her lips parted, a protest already forming, but before she could voice it, I spun back toward the enemy, my grin widening. Time to show off.

  I focused… Nothing happened.

  I focused slightly more… Still nothing.

  I focused a lot, and a pulse of mana surged from me, fizzing like raw lightning, twisting mid-air before coalescing into the form I wanted. Step by step, a staircase of shimmering ice unfurled downward, each step humming with frozen magic, reflecting the battlefield in fractured, ghostly light.

  The air snapped with cold, mist curling from the edges of the conjured path, the magic itself whispering, like an unseen force, breathing frost into existence.

  I let out a slow, satisfied breath. “Alright,” I mused, stepping forward, the first stair solid beneath my heels. “Now, let’s go say hi.”

  I took the first step, the magic beneath me solid. Cold seeped through my heels, an unnatural chill that wasn’t entirely discomforting, but still a sharp contrast to the lingering warmth of the fort behind us.

  Lunaris followed closely behind, her movements careful, her hand hovering near her rapier’s hilt as though expecting something to jump at us from the darkness. Alma strode just behind her, posture stiff, eyes locked forward, the tension in her stance betraying her outward composure.

  Katherine and Techi took up the rear, their boots clinking lightly against the ice as we descended. Somewhere in the middle of our slow descent, Lunaris leaned closer, her voice a whisper, the words slipping through uncertain breaths. “Why me?”

  Her gaze flickered around, uneasy, like she was afraid the attention might turn into a curse. “You have others…”

  I resisted the urge to grin, because I couldn’t tell her the truth. That she was incredible with the blades, a force of nature I’d watched carve through battlefields in another life. So instead, I whispered back, “Because you are strong, and great up close, as I heard.”

  Her steps faltered just for a second, but then she nodded, gripping the hilt of her rapier just a little tighter, before we finally stepped off the last stair, our feet crunching softly against the dry earth of the battlefield. And there she was.

  Queen Irwen.

  She stood in front of her demon army, a statue of regal indifference, the weight of a thousand soldiers behind her and yet… she looked unbothered, almost as if she had simply wandered onto the battlefield by accident. Her attire barely moved, even as a phantom wind rolled across the field.

  Of course, she wasn’t worried; she was mythic-tier. Nobody here could even dream of damaging her. So… yeah. That was fairly inconvenient for me. I took a measured step forward, stopping just within a respectful, yet entirely uncomfortable, distance. I licked my lips. “Hi, Mum?”

  A pause. A long, terrible pause, where I desperately hoped she would laugh and say this was all a misunderstanding, but…

  Yeah. Not a chance. Katherine, in true Katherine fashion, didn’t hesitate. “Ah, ‘sup.” She lifted a hand and gave Irwen a casual wave, grinning as if we had just bumped into her at a bar, instead of a battlefield with her summoned a demon army.

  Then, her grin faltered slightly, and she tilted her head toward me. “Mum?”

  Irwen’s gaze softened just slightly, her expression unreadable yet strangely gentle. And then she smiled. A small, knowing, painfully motherly smile. “We finally meet again,” she said, her voice carrying without effort, without magic, yet sinking into my bones. “And I am glad we did.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, watching my confidence drain out of me like a punctured whiskey barrel. I could hear it leaving, the sharp, hissing sound of my brain desperately grasping for something clever to say… and failing. “I… what are you doing here?”

  That was a solid enough question, right? I shifted my weight, crossing my arms, casual, confident. Totally not awkward. “I told you not to drop by unannounced. I have people at home.”

  I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder, motioning vaguely at the fort. Like this was some annoying family visit and not an apocalyptic-level confrontation.

  Silence.

  The kind of silence where you can feel someone processing the sheer level of nonsense you’ve just spoken. “Terrible joke,” Katherine declared, arms crossed, her grin half-mocking, half-amused. She leaned in just a bit, like she was delivering a secret, but whispered just loud enough for everyone to hear. “Yar nervous. Calm down.”

  Mother’s icy gaze flickered, not at me first, but at my group. Slowly, deliberately, she studied each of them, her eyes lingering, calculating. No judgment. Just assessment.

  Then she returned her focus to me. “You have impressive friends,” she finally said. Then her head tilted slightly, and with a faint smile, she asked, “But could we talk alone?”

  My terrible joke didn’t land? Time to double down. “I’m sorry, but this is a big party.” Katherine snorted, and I swore I saw Lunaris suppress a laugh out of the corner of my eye.

  Irwen, though?

  Unfazed.

  Her smile didn’t waver, her expression still holding that strange, almost serene happiness. “I’ll make it only two of us,” she offered, lightly, like we were negotiating tea preferences and not whatever this situation actually was. Her hand rose slightly, fingers flexing, a subtle ripple of magic pulsing through the air, just enough for me to feel it in my bones. “If you are amenable to that idea, I’ll put a shield around us.”

  I glanced back at the others, reading their reactions before answering.

  Alma? Shaking her head so furiously that if magic didn’t kill me today, she probably would.

  Lunaris? Inspecting the ground like it had just insulted her family.

  Katherine? Shrugging, like she was watching a particularly interesting bar brawl unfold.

  And Techi? The only one who actually spoke up. “The Queen’s strength is vastly superior. Shield or not, it wouldn’t change things.”

  “Alright,” I said, cracking a wry smile, even as my heart pounded just a little harder. “Let’s talk.”