Beyond the walls, the monster host ebbed like a broken tide, and the Holy Crusaders won a bloody, hollow victory, leaving only the mech “Peter” hefting a giant shield.

Inside the city, citizen bands surged like storm-fronts, crushed the soft-bellied militia, and joined the ministers freed from the New Bastille to seize Paris’s rhythm.

The assassination failed, the Imperial Guards vanished like smoke in winter air, and the opportunist old nobles curled up like hibernating foxes in their dens.

Near fifty, the king skulked like a gutter rat, hiding in a deep storeroom where dust lay like ash, while the servants scattered like startled sparrows.

Only one confidant stayed near him and the queen, like a lone pillar in a collapsing hall, steady eyes hiding a tremor.

The king called out, dazed, like a child lost in fog. “Grand Marshal, where’s my General Nicholas?!”

“Mana-core bless… God bless…” The queen crouched beside him like a folded crane, fingers clasped, whispering prayers like flickering candlelight.

The confidant went to one knee, like a knight before a shrine. “Your Majesty, the grand marshal still guards outside the walls against the Church and Labyrinth City…”

He’d said it a hundred times that day, like a tolling bell, and the king kept asking, and he kept answering, like waves repeating against stone.

“Recall him to protect me! If I’m assassinated, what good is holding Paris?” His fear fluttered like a trapped moth.

“Yes… I’ll send orders at once…” His voice wavered like a string in wind.

But how to send orders? The ministers, guards, and servants were gone, and the palace maids—alchemical constructs from Mysidia—had vanished like dew at sunrise.

Would he sprint from the inner rooms, break through layers like brambles, and run to the gate like a hunted stag? He tasted iron on his tongue.

He knew the king’s mind was fraying like old silk, so he mouthed obedience, skittered at the doorway like a wary cat, and didn’t risk a true errand.

Hours crawled by like a winter night, each minute a stone. Suddenly, the queen’s eyes widened, and she pointed toward the window like lightning striking.

A scarecrow stood there, ragged straw catching the light—Dorothy’s “Cosmic Wizard” had arrived like a star fallen into the courtyard.

The king’s fog blew away like morning mist. “Wonderful! My daughter’s come to save us!” Joy glittered like frost.

The queen exhaled, relief blooming like spring. A smile returned to her lips, delicate as petals.

[I, Dorothy de Blois, hereby declare.]

Yes! The words rose like trumpets. Condemn the rebels, uphold the Blois dynasty’s century of honor, then take us home, back to the golden age of mages—

[The rotten feudal monarchy will end, along with the blind worship of the World Tree and its self-locked history.]

…

…Huh?

What… was that? The king’s heart stumbled like a misstep on stairs.

Why did it sound… not quite right? Doubt coiled like smoke.

[People born free are free from beginning to end. We were never granted anything, and we are not born in sin.]

He had heard this line before, like a refrain from a storm. A month or two ago, in a German village punished by the Iron Cross Knights, a crimson dragon had roared it to the sky.

Dorothy… my daughter, the royal princess of France—when did you…? The thought shook him like thunder rattling panes.

[—From today on, we will together found a French Republic where all are born equal.]

“Ivalice…” the queen murmured, voice thin as thread.

“It’s the City of Ivalice that poisoned her… They took her, filled her with these unforgivable ideas, turned her into their puppet… my Dorothy!” She wept like rain on stone.

The king soothed his beautiful queen in a rush, words spilling like warm tea. “Dear, she must be bewitched! Once Aein returns, all will be well!”

“We three together will gently straighten her thoughts, like combing tangled hair, all right—”

—Knock, knock, knock.

The sobs and comfort snapped off like a cut string.

The three in the storeroom stared at the wooden door, the only exit, as if it were a mouth about to speak.

“Father, it’s me.”

Aein pushed the door open and stepped in, hair spilled like ink down her back, armor spattered with blood like poppies after rain.

“Aein, you’re back!… Why did you let your hair down? What if someone sees?” His voice fluttered like a sparrow.

“Anyone who saw is silenced.” Her words fell like cold pebbles into a well.

“You did well. The line of succession must not break—” His pride rose like a tired sun.

Aein strode closer, cutting distance like a blade through silk, and showed her right hand, which had been hidden behind her.

In that hand lay her beloved sword, gleaming like frost.

“Father, you see my hair.” Her tone was soft, like snow before an avalanche.

—Sshhk!

“Ah… ah, ah, ah?!” The queen’s scream ripped like cloth.

Aein spoke gently, voice a hush like evening wind. “A secret for you… I don’t care about the throne.”

“You… you…” The king’s breath guttered like a candle.

His body collapsed into Aein’s arms, painting her armor with a wider map of red, spreading like a river delta.

“I just want to be with Dorothy. Nothing else matters… But if she wants a better France, I’ll fight to win it with her.” Her vow burned like a brand.

“She… is your… blood sister…” The queen’s words faltered like broken prayer beads.

“I know,” Aein said. Calm as a lake at dawn.

“You’ll… go… to hell… my children…” The king’s voice scraped like dry bark, forcing out one last line.

The final words surprised Aein, a small ripple crossing her still water.

“I don’t want… to see you there…” He sighed into silence like dusk.

Aein held the body, then lowered it gently, smoothing it flat like a shroud on stone.

The queen and the confidant were frozen, minds shattered like porcelain; even when Aein’s gaze cut across them, they gave no answer.

She raised the blade stained with her father’s blood, light catching it like winter sun, then only sighed, turned, and walked away like a shadow.

…

…

General Nicholas withdrew his troops into the city, urgency flaring like a beacon.

The moment he heard Dorothy proclaim treason, he abandoned the works inside and outside the gates, and raced for the palace like a cavalry charge.

The Holy Crusaders, having driven the monster army back like herds whipped from fields, rested briefly, then, led by the mech, strode into Paris like iron rivers.

Their aim was simple, hard as a stone in hand: the Golden Apple.

So the two forces moved one behind the other, looking like hunter and prey, yet really sharing a road to the royal city like parallel streams.

Nicholas was loyal, iron at his core, but he knew these long-serving, battle-shy soldiers would falter on even ground like tired oxen.

Between the king and the realm, it wasn’t a decision for a mere fighter, like choosing between sky and earth. In the end, he abandoned the Golden Apple.

He selected a thousand soldiers with top training scores, sharp as whetted knives, to enter the palace with him. He dismissed the rest like leaves in wind.

Waiting for him was Prince Aein, seated in the great hall like a statue under a moon.

He hurried forward and saluted, hand crisp as a blade. “Your Highness! Do you know the king’s whereabouts?”

Aein casually wiped her sword, motion calm as a cat. “No idea. Perhaps near the bedchambers.”

“Understood! Highness, danger coils through the palace like snakes, and even the Church is here. Please seek safety at once!” His voice carried like a trumpet.

He led his thousand toward the bedchambers like a flood down a narrow gorge. He glanced back. Aein still sat on the steps, coiling her sword like a ribbon.

Is the prince set on dying with the kingdom? The thought struck him like a spark, and strength surged like fire in dry grass.

He gave that solitary back a military salute, sharp as steel, and pushed on.

The corridor near the bedchambers lay empty, silence deep as snow.

“What’s going on…” His breath showed like mist.

It was too quiet, like a forest when the birds stop. A dozen men had stepped into the corridor, but Nicholas’s eyes roamed elsewhere, hawk-wide.

He scanned roofs, gardens, every visible nook like lanterns sweeping night.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Each empty spot echoed like a hollow drum.

Where were the maid automata? Those alchemical constructs from Mysidia—did they know how to hide like foxes?

The air felt wrong, a taste like copper. He moved to halt the vanguard, when a prickle ran up his spine, and he turned back instinctively.

…He saw a corridor stretching long, long as a river.

Huh? His mind snagged like a fish on a hook.

They had only walked a few steps, like toes into water. Why did it look like they all were already inside, swallowed like bread into a mouth?

“Space—space magic! We’re ambushed!” His shout cracked like thunder.

At that instant, the world buckled like a sprung trap.

“Ahhh!” The leading soldier stepped on an ordinary tile, pressed it down like soft clay, and was devoured by a burst of flame like a dragon’s breath.

It was a trap! The corridor had been seeded long ago, bristling like a thornfield.

Nicholas unshouldered his double-handed sword, and with one hand he raised it high like a banner, voice ringing like bronze. “They’re baiting us with the king!”

“They want to bury us here like bones in sand! But facing cliffs and storms like these, we can’t yield!”

“For the Kingdom of France, follow me!” His roar surged like surf.

He shoved past the soldiers and took the lead, his back a wall like oak.

“—All units, enter!” The command snapped like a whip.

“Oh-oh-oh-oh!!” The chorus rose like wolves.

With the commander charging, what else could they do? If he got blown apart, they’d run—until then, they followed like shadows.

Wires fired horizontal and vertical, angles like spiderwebs; bombs triggered by pressure, infrared, friction, styles like a tinkerer’s nightmare; ankle-wide spike pits, mouths like traps.

Walls and sills smeared with adhesive that clutched like tar; Flame Burst Spells flared like volcanic vents; Helen Disk launchers spat disks like saws.

Each trigger came from somewhere unexpected like sleight of hand, and each trigger snatched a life or two like hawks in dusk.

Nicholas dodged by luck and grit, slipping past almost every snare like a dancer under knives, yet a springing wire stole two fingers like a hungry rat.

He tore a strip from his coat hem and bound the cuts, cloth soaking like a red flag, then roared and drove on, finally reaching the corridor’s end.

He looked back. The grand column that had entered like a river now trickled like a creek; less than a third remained.

“Brothers…” His voice broke like a storm-cloud.

He wept hot tears, heavy as rain, and clasped the survivors close like brothers at a fire.

They dressed wounds like seamstresses on torn cloth, sipped water like pilgrims, then reformed ranks on the spot like stones set in a wall.

“Only 293 left… huh.” The number sat cold as a pebble.

This corridor was the main path between bedchambers and the great hall, footfalls daily like passing breezes. Who could in one day plant so vast a field of traps?

And whose magic could lock space like a vise? That category was reserved for the highest nobility, rare as phoenix feathers.

Was it the Mysidians? Their mages were eerie as fog.

“I merely ‘transmuted’ this stretch into ‘trap style.’” The voice chimed like glass.

“Who?!” His shout cut the dust like a blade.

From the lethal corridor they had just stormed, through smoke and bodies like a battlefield painting, a maid automaton walked out, pristine as a lotus in mud.

Her smile was obedient, sweet as sugar, like a shy girl at a gate, yet that standard maid-automaton expression now felt eerie, barbed like a thorn.

That chill—an uncanny valley, like a mask too perfect. His skin crawled like ants.

“You… you’re the traitor princess’s maid automaton! Did she order this?” His words spat like sparks.

“Using a ‘transmutation template’ in the magic array structure,” she cooed, head tilted cute as a sparrow, “with ‘compressed space’ from Flash Energy sink circuits…”

“Plus my signature—gadget combat.” Her eyes shone like blades behind silk. “That’s the new ‘Infinite Power engineering.’”

Lymriel leaned her head, adorable as a doll, and every soldier felt a cold wind like a grave.

“—Welcome to the future, antiques.” Her voice rang like a bell into winter.