The sound of fat sizzling in the rough cast-iron skillet was the only thing keeping Ed Rothtaylor firmly anchored to reality on that freezing, misty autumn morning.
Standing in front of the wood stove, whose heat radiated comfortably throughout the small room, Ed patiently stirred thick slices of smoked bacon and wild bird eggs he had gathered days ago.
His face maintained a completely neutral expression, a blank, lethargic stare that perfectly hid the slight headache beginning to throb in his right temple.
The cause of his headache had absolutely nothing to do with the assassins from the night before, nor the capital’s mercenaries, nor the impending downfall of Sylvania’s great commercial corporations.
The problem was much more earthly, much louder, and happening barely two meters behind him.
“I am telling you for the last time, Lortelle, you cannot use our tool trunk as your personal vanity,” complained Yenika Faelover.
She stood in the middle of the cabin with her arms crossed, sporting a pronounced pout of indignation.
“We keep very important survival gear in there.
You’re going to get dust all over it and get the wood wet.”
“Oh, relax a little, dear Yenika.
I’m just trying to clean my face and neck.
It’s not my fault that the administrator of this charming refuge doesn’t have a decent mirror within a fifty-mile radius,” Lortelle replied, gently dabbing her cheek with a damp cloth from a basin of cold water.
The merchant let out a sigh, looking down at her fine designer coat—now torn and stained with dirt—with evident disgust.
“Though I suppose a little dust won’t worsen my current state.
I reek of damp basements and magic gunpowder.”
Ed let out an almost inaudible sigh as he slid the breakfast from the hot skillet onto three carved wooden plates.
He didn’t scold them for the noise, nor did he coldly order them to be quiet.
He simply observed them out of the corner of his eye with the characteristic tired look of someone who has accepted, much to his regret, that his peaceful and quiet hermit life in the woods had permanently vanished.
He placed the three plates on the small, sturdy rustic table.
The light thud of the wood hitting the surface was enough.
The lump of thick blankets on the bed shifted immediately.
Lucy Mayrill poked her head out, her long white hair a tangled mess, her eyes half-closed and heavy with sleep.
Without saying a single word, the most feared archmage on the continent slid off the mattress, dragging a thick gray blanket over her shoulders like a royal cape.
She shuffled over to the table, sat down heavily, picked up a wooden fork, and began to chew on the bacon with puffed-out cheeks, keeping her eyes closed.
“Eat before it gets completely cold,” Ed said in a calm, morning-gruff voice, sitting on his own stool and taking his plate.
Lortelle and Yenika immediately halted their petty turf war and took their seats.
The young merchant stared at the rustic food for a second.
She was used to five-course breakfasts prepared with exotic ingredients by imperial chefs who charged in gold.
But in that moment, with an empty stomach after a night of pure survival and stress, the humble wooden plate in front of her seemed like the most valuable delicacy on the entire continent.
As the three girls ate, Ed imperceptibly relaxed in his seat.
Seeing the haughty Lortelle adapting to eating greasy bacon with a crude wooden fork, Yenika blowing on her food with a bright, satisfied smile just to be there, and Lucy nodding off while devouring her portion…
it was never something he had planned when building this camp.
It was loud.
It was chaotic.
It ruined his strict, silent survival routine, and his food reserves were about to take a critical hit.
But, as he took a sip from his glass of fresh water, Ed realized something profound.
He didn’t see them as a nuisance.
Much less did he see them as simple pieces on a political chessboard to secure his future.
In his past life, amidst the cold court of his kingdom, he had surrounded himself with generals, nobles, and advisors who were nothing more than calculated resources, people ready to stab him in the back at the slightest provocation.
However, looking at these three girls, Ed felt a strange, comforting warmth in his chest.
Yenika had marched into a dark basement ready to burn assassins alive just to make sure he was okay.
Lortelle had trusted him with her life and vulnerability when she had lost everything, seeking refuge in his cabin before anywhere else.
And Lucy…
well, Lucy simply trusted him enough to sleep deeply by his side, lowering all her lethal defenses.
They were his companions.
They were, perhaps, the first people in two lifetimes who were there simply because they wanted to be.
And Ed, though he would never admit it out loud and maintained his flawless mask of stoic pragmatism, genuinely appreciated them.
He finished his plate quickly.
While the girls continued chatting in low, amiable voices about how to ration the day’s clean water, Ed focused his gaze on an empty spot in the air in front of him.
With a simple, swift thought, he invoked his greatest secret.
A translucent, pale blue holographic screen appeared before him, visible solely and exclusively to his gray eyes.
It was the Multiversal Group Chat.
The interface was quite simple and intuitive.
Ed didn’t know exactly where these people came from.
He didn’t know their histories, nor the rules, magic, or laws of their respective universes.
The only thing he knew was that the system had grouped them at random, and that each of them possessed skills, perspectives, and mindsets radically different from what he knew in Sylvania.
So far, the system only had two active and verified functions: the text chat channel and the Exchange window.
This last function had been his tactical salvation the night before.
Before descending into the basement of Ophelius Hall, Ed had opened the Exchange tab and offered a few pure gold coins from Sylvania, not knowing if they would have any value in other universes.
A user named Miyabi Hoshimi had accepted the deal instantly, sending him in return the lethal tungsten-alloy black katana he had used to dispatch Elte’s assassins.
It was a direct, crude barter system that completely ignored physical or dimensional distances.
Ed reviewed the messages that had been rolling in while he cooked.
[The Observer (Kim Hajin)]: I still don’t completely understand how the Exchange economy works in this system.
I put up a high-density nutritional protein bar from my world, and the interface gave me an error message saying it didn’t have enough “essence value” for a basic short sword.
Has anyone figured out how items are actually appraised?
[The Eminence in Shadow (Shadow)]: The value of an object resides in its meaning, not in its crude matter.
A blade forged and sharpened in the depths of darkness is worth infinitely more than a million of your mass-produced nutritional bars.
Shadows do not negotiate with systems; shadows take what destiny offers them.
[Nightmare (Kurumi Tokisaki)]: Ara, ara~ Such cryptic, profound, and wonderfully melodramatic words, Lord of Shadows. The source of this chapter is g.com.
I find the exchange system fascinating just the way it is.
Those gold coins the Administrator uploaded last night had a very peculiar engraving and excellent purity.
How did it go, by the way?
You left us quite intrigued when you said you were going to “clean up a little commercial problem.”
Ed mentally typed his response, keeping a casual and relaxed tone.
[Administrator (Ed Rothtaylor)]: I survived.
The katana you sent me worked perfectly, Miyabi.
It cut through the imperial steel of the guys waiting for me like wet paper.
Thanks for the exchange; it was a good logistical deal.
[Void Hunter (Miyabi Hoshimi)]: I’m glad to know the steel of New Eridu was useful to you in real combat.
Those gold coins you sent will help me fund some urgent logistical supplies for my section.
If you ever need more weaponry or tactical gear, let me know.
You have a good eye for blade balance.
[The Eminence in Shadow (Shadow)]: Hmph.
Steel is merely a physical extension of true will.
Cutting down your enemies in absolute darkness is the perfect prelude to a night of chaos.
[The Observer (Kim Hajin)]: Wait a minute, did you actually fight professional assassins last night with real swords?
I thought your world was calmer based on how you spoke before, something more akin to a normal magic academy.
Sounds like you’re living in the middle of a dark fantasy battlefield.
[Nightmare (Kurumi Tokisaki)]: Fufufu~ It seems our mysterious Administrator had a night drenched in adrenaline and blood.
Tell me, after so much lethal action in the shadows and commercial problems, did you have time to relax?
People as stoic and serious as you accumulate a lot of stress if they don’t have a little fun every now and then.
Ed read Kurumi’s message.
He immediately noticed the deep curiosity and the clearly playful, provocative tone of the user.
Since the chat began, she seemed particularly interested in deciphering what kind of person the “Administrator” truly was.
Ed had no intention of playing the mysterious, inaccessible, or tragic hero.
So, he responded with the most mundane and boring truth of his current situation.
[Administrator (Ed Rothtaylor)]: Right now, my biggest problem isn’t elite assassins or residual combat stress.
My cabin in the woods is tiny, and I currently have three girls living here.
One is temporarily taking refuge so mercenaries don’t kill her, the second acts like the owner of the place to constantly mark her territory, and the third simply walked in, lay down in my bed, and is eating my provisions without me being able to do anything about it.
My peace of mind, my silence, and my food budget are in the critical red.
The chat fell into absolute, sepulchral silence for a couple of seconds.
[Nightmare (Kurumi Tokisaki)]: Ara, ara, ara!
Three girls?!
Well, well…
so our cold, calculating, and lethal Administrator actually has his very own entertaining romantic comedy in his secret base of operations.
What an enviable and deliciously dangerous situation.
Now I am vastly more intrigued by you and your daily routine~.
[The Observer (Kim Hajin)]: Brother, I pity you and envy you in equal measure.
Good luck with that.
If you manage to survive the territorial war of three powerful women locked in a wooden cabin in the woods, I assure you that you will be able to survive any global cataclysm.
[The Eminence in Shadow (Shadow)]: Tch.
Crowds are unnecessary and noisy.
Those who walk at the true pinnacle of power do not need company.
[Void Hunter (Miyabi Hoshimi)]: I recommend establishing strict cohabitation rules and rotating guard zones immediately.
If you cannot maintain basic discipline in a confined, saturated space, morale will decay, and you will become vulnerable to external attacks.
Ed closed the holographic screen.
Kurumi’s playful teasing and Hajin’s comments didn’t bother him in the slightest; in fact, he found it vaguely entertaining to interact with people from other worlds who didn’t judge him for his mana level, for being excommunicated, or for the simple fact of bearing the infamous Rothtaylor last name.
He stood up from his stool, drawing the attention of the three girls who were still sitting at the table drinking water.
“I’ll clear the plates in a moment,” Ed said casually, walking over to his heavy tool trunk.
He crouched down, unlatched the iron lock with a click, and pulled out a few items of rough fabric he had been carefully storing away.
He turned toward the merchant.
Lortelle was still occasionally rubbing her arms due to the morning cold that inevitably seeped through the cracks in the cabin logs.
“Lortelle, you can’t walk around in that coat stained with blood and dirt, and we have no way to wash it properly right now without drawing attention at the river.
Take this.”
Ed tossed her a pair of slightly worn, thick leather pants, a loose rustic linen shirt, and a dark wool hunting tunic.
Lortelle caught the clothes mid-air, blinking in surprise at the sudden gesture.
As she held the coarse fabric in her delicate hands, Lortelle immediately noticed a detail.
They weren’t new garments, nor forgotten work tools.
The clothes carried the faint, warm, characteristic scent of woodsmoke, pine resin, and the rustic soap Ed used every day.
They were his clothes.
Clothes he had worn and was now giving to her to keep her warm.
The merchant’s classic manipulative, calculating, feline smile vanished from her face, replaced by an expression of genuine, secret joy.
They would be baggy on her, the edges were a bit frayed, and they were definitely not the fine silk she was accustomed to in the imperial capital.
But she didn’t care at all.
Pressing the fabric against her chest as if it were an invaluable treasure, Lortelle turned her head slightly and shot Yenika an absolutely triumphant look.
A look loaded with superiority, victory, and subtle territorial mockery.
Yenika, catching the direct visual message that the merchant was going to wear Ed’s personal clothes, clenched her fists so hard on her knees that her knuckles turned completely white.
The kind mage made a tremendous, almost physically painful effort not to summon the Fire Lord Tarkan right then and there to burn the cabin to the ground out of sheer indignation.
“Hunter’s clothes?” Lortelle asked, looking back at Ed, using her softest, most playful, and seductive tone.
“Thank you, Ed.
It makes me feel much more…
secure.”
“Wear them so you don’t freeze while we wait for the capital’s market to stabilize,” Ed replied, subtly evading the girl’s honeyed tone by maintaining his typical blank stare, downplaying it as much as possible, though intimately satisfied that she wouldn’t be cold.
“The thick fabric is better for conserving heat in the forest.”
The blond boy picked up his heavy axe from the corner of the room, testing the iron edge with his gloved thumb.
“I’m going to chop some wood to prepare for the afternoon,” Ed announced, opening the heavy wooden door.
“Lucy, if you eat the jerky hanging from the main beam while I’m gone, I will charge you double when Lortelle recovers her liquid assets.”
Lucy simply let out an affirmative, sleepy snore from the table, resting her head on her crossed arms, completely ignoring the financial threat.
Ed stepped outside the cabin, shutting the door behind him with a dull thud.
The freezing, pure morning air hit his face, clearing his lungs.
The forest was enveloped in a light, ghostly mist that crawled along the ground covered in dry leaves, and the morning silence was only broken by the distant chirping of some birds and the soothing murmur of the nearby river.
Ed walked with firm steps toward the large wooden stump where he usually split logs.
He set the axe aside for a second and flexed his shoulders and neck to shake off some of the muscle tension still lingering from last night’s fight.
He looked back at his small, rough wooden cabin.
From inside, almost immediately, emanated the muffled sound of Yenika complaining loudly because Lortelle was trying on Ed’s shirt with far too much haughtiness and pride.
Despite the noisy disaster, despite his absolute tranquility as a solitary hermit having vanished, Ed let out the faintest of smiles.
He appreciated those three.
They brought life to a place that would otherwise just be a cold, logical, and miserable shelter.
They were his new normal, and deep down in his core, he knew he would do anything to protect Yenika’s smile, Lortelle’s ambition, and Lucy’s tranquility.
He placed the first pine log on the stump, raised the iron axe above his head, and brought it down with a satisfyingly sharp thwack, splitting the wood into two perfect halves.
He placed a second log in the center of the base, but this time, before bringing the axe down, his body stopped dead.
The faint, comforting smile on Ed’s face vanished entirely, erased as if it had never existed.
His cold, calculating gray eyes fixed on the iron blade of the axe.
The wind blew around him, ruffling his ash-blonde hair, but Ed didn’t even blink.
The warm sensation of comfort and camaraderie he had felt just a moment ago was abruptly replaced by a dark, oppressive, icy weight in the pit of his stomach.
This small, noisy, and chaotic refuge, along with the three girls who now inhabited it, was something he genuinely treasured and wished to protect with his life.
But peace was a luxury he still could not afford.
He was still too weak.
He was making a rookie tactical mistake by lowering his guard and getting comfortable with the silence of the forest.
The Sylvania academy, the student riots, and the greedy commercial corporations were only the surface.
They were mundane problems.
The true monster of this story was still waiting in the shadows, untouchable on his throne of noble opulence.
«Krepin Rothtaylor…» Ed thought, and the mere name of his father echoed in his mind with a glacial coldness that froze his blood.
The Patriarch of the Rothtaylor Family was not like the ambitious Elte Kehelland.
He wasn’t a simple merchant blinded by greed and gold.
Krepin was a dark scholar, an obsessed researcher, and a terrifying political manipulator.
He was a cold-blooded monster who viewed his own blood as a simple resource.
Ed knew the dark secret hidden in the depths of the Rothtaylor Duchy.
Thanks to the overwhelming memories from his past life regarding the original plot of this world, he knew the sickening truth the family had concealed: the brilliant and kind Arwen Rothtaylor, named the first heir and wielder of the ‘Dawnbreaker’, had not died of a rare disease.
His older sister had decided to stay in the duchy out of extreme, blind loyalty to their “lonely” father.
And Krepin, in response to that loyalty, had turned her into a monster.
Ed felt nauseous recalling the world’s canon.
He knew that, at this very moment, Arwen was still alive in the duchy’s underground laboratory.
She was missing a hand and a leg.
She was skewered to the floor with a sword engraved with healing runes that prevented her from dying, forcing her to endure endless agony and using her as a twisted living battery for his evil god research.
And worse still, Ed knew exactly what Krepin planned to do now with Tanya, his younger sister.
Krepin wasn’t raising her with paternal love.
He was using her.
Tanya was ambitious, polite, and yearned to make her father proud.
She hated Ed for his past behavior, seeing him as a stain on the Rothtaylor name.
But what Tanya didn’t know, what her innocent, elitist mind couldn’t conceive, was that the father she idolized so much was meticulously preparing her to be his next magical guinea pig.
Krepin planned to use Tanya as a living sacrifice to summon the Evil God Mebula, an act of madness that would end up destroying the family and unleashing hell upon the entire continent.
And little Tanya was completely ignorant of it all.
She followed her father’s advice to the letter, tried to gain allies in the academy, and dreamed of being the student council president, totally oblivious to the invisible guillotine that already hung over her neck.
In her mind, Arwen had died of a tragedy, and her father was an honorable leader.
Tanya didn’t have the faintest idea that the real monster smiled at her and patted her hair paternally every single day.
Ed squeezed the wooden handle of the axe until the fibers creaked under the overwhelming pressure of his leather gloves.
If he wanted to survive long-term in this ruthless world, hiding in the woods wouldn’t be enough.
And much more importantly: if he wanted to protect Lortelle, Yenika, and Lucy, and if he ever wanted to have enough strength to uncover the truth about Arwen and tear the small, ignorant Tanya from Krepin’s venomous clutches…
he was going to need much more than a log cabin.
He was going to need power.
Absolute, overwhelming, terrifying, and indisputable power.
A power capable of tearing apart the magic of an Evil God and that would force Krepin Rothtaylor himself to crawl in his own blood before he could even dare to complete his cursed sacrifice.
Ed raised the axe again.
His gray eyes, now devoid of any trace of warmth, distilled an icy, silent promise of destruction.
He brought the steel down with brutal force.
The impact shattered the thick pine log with such violence that the two halves were sent flying into the air, crashing against the damp grass several meters away.
King Grey knew perfectly well that the true war of his life was just about to begin.