The world was in chaos, just like in the game...
But in the capital of the Douglas Duchy, the heir was already on the move.
Lusian—or rather, Erwin inside his body—didn't hesitate for even a second.
He had seen this future in that game. A simulation created by that damned god who had brought him into this world without asking for his permission.
The problem was that it wasn't fixed. It wasn't an absolute truth. It was only a possibility. It could fail, change... or even never happen at all.
But to Erwin, that didn't matter much.
What other choice did he have? He could only work with what he knew. If it didn't happen, fine. But if it did, it was better to be prepared.
Because to him, it was already happening.
And if he didn't act now, everything would be over.
So he made a plan.
And he started moving.
Without wasting time. The situation left no room for hesitation.
His order echoed throughout the duchy:
—Complete census. No one is to be left out.
The order spread quickly. Officials, scribes, soldiers, administrators... everyone went out to record whatever was necessary: families, occupations, crops, warehouses, routes.
At first, many thought it was preparation for the war against the Empire. No one questioned it too much.
In the Douglas Duchy, the heir's word was not debated.
It was law.
But the order didn't stop there.
Within days, all the rural villages began moving toward the main cities.
There were no major protests. No open chaos yet.
Just a massive, constant migration, as if the entire territory were folding in on itself.
The cities changed overnight.
The population tripled.
The barracks were opened as makeshift shelters, the stables were emptied and turned into dormitories, and the warehouses were reorganized to their limits.
The communal kitchens never stopped working, day or night.
The entire duchy began revolving around a single goal: keeping the people inside the walls.
The cost was brutal.
In thirty days, they consumed what would normally have lasted two years.
The nobles began to panic. Not because of the people... but because of the numbers. Resources were running short, roads were becoming overloaded, and the system was beginning to creak.
But Sophia didn't stop anything.
The Duchess watched her son in silence.
There was something about him that didn't fit his age: that strange mixture of urgency, restrained fear, and a certainty far too heavy to be imagination.
She didn't ask questions.
She didn't argue.
She simply supported him.
She moved entire administrations, ordered redistributions, and forced the political structure to sustain the impossible. Her experience kept the system from collapsing, even though it was constantly operating on the edge.
Without her, everything would have been a disaster.
With her... the Douglas Duchy remained standing.
And then the world changed.
The mana-laden stellar cloud began to envelop the world.
At first, it was barely noticeable in the sky. A strange glow, almost imperceptible. As if the air itself had a light that hadn't been there before.
Then came the trembling.
The plants felt it before anyone else.
They began absorbing mana at an abnormal rate, as if the entire soil had suddenly become fertile. They grew faster, denser, more alive... but also different.
And with that change came the magical herbivores.
Creatures that normally avoided any human presence began moving without fear, drawn by the newfound abundance. They emerged from forests, crossed rivers, and descended from mountains.
As if something were pushing them.
And behind them, without fail, came the predators.
The balance broke apart in a chain reaction.
In the Empire and the Kingdom, the first villages disappeared in silence. Entire farms were destroyed overnight. Towns that existed at dawn were gone before noon.
There was no time to react.
There weren't enough defensive lines.
But in the Duchy...
there were no exposed targets.
The villages were already empty. The farms had either been abandoned or integrated into controlled routes. The entire population had withdrawn behind the walls days earlier.
The families were inside the cities.
The army, though weakened by the recent war, occupied central positions. The roads were guarded. The entrances were controlled.
When the creatures arrived, they found nothing they were looking for.
There were attacks, yes.
Isolated losses. Confusion. Moments of panic along the outskirts of the cities.
But there were no collapses. No massacres.
No entire villages disappearing.
Compared to the rest of the world...
the Douglas Duchy was still standing.
A territory that had prepared without fully understanding what was happening. People who had no idea how close they had come to disaster.
And behind it all, a single decision that had changed everything.
An heir acting with one thought fixed in his mind:
survive.
ISABELLA — A LIFE THAT WAS NO LONGER HERS
Months had passed... and I still hadn't gotten used to it.
From being the daughter of Count Armett... to becoming Lusian Douglas The Mondring's personal servant.
The change happened so quickly that at first I thought I wouldn't be able to endure it. Not because of the work... but because of the humiliation.
I used to wake up whenever I wanted. I had maids, cooks, everything taken care of before I even thought about getting out of bed.
Now I'm the one who does all of that.
Waking before dawn. Preparing his bath. Choosing his clothes. Organizing his schedule. Having his tea ready before he opens his eyes. Checking meals, weapons, documents, schedules... everything.
Nothing can go wrong.
They seem like simple things. But when you do them every day without rest, they stop being simple.
And yet... I got used to it.
Not because I wanted to.
But because, if it weren't for him, I would be dead just like the rest of my family.
I owe him my life.
That doesn't make it any easier.
I thought that inside Douglas territory, everything would be like it was in the Kingdom:
fear, hatred, rejection.
That's what we had always been taught.
The Douglases were monsters. Tyrannical. Inhuman. A family to be feared, not questioned.
But when we crossed the border... something didn't fit.
People began coming out.
Not to hide.
Not to flee.
They came out to see the caravan.
And they did it smiling.
With respect.
With something worse... or better... than fear: devotion.
In every town, every village, every city...
people bowed to Lusian.
Not as they would to a noble.
Not as they would to a tyrant.
As if he were someone who had already saved their lives before anything had even happened.
Hands waving.
Children running excitedly.
Old people crying silently, without trying to hide it.
And I, sitting beside him in the carriage, could only watch without fully understanding.
Because there was no hatred.
No terror.
Only a loyalty so natural that it seemed... normal.
When we reached the capital... it felt like something else entirely.
Not a city.
A celebration.
Flowers falling from balconies, bells ringing without pause, people shouting his name until the sound echoed off the walls.
I had never seen anything like it.
It wasn't fear.
It wasn't obedience.
It was... worship.
That day I understood something the Kingdom had never taught us properly:
the Douglases aren't hated.
They are revered.
And the capital... was proof.
It was enormous. Ancient. Perfectly organized. Wealthy in a way that made no sense.
When I compared all of that to my father's castle... I felt embarrassed even thinking about it.
It wasn't a comparison.
It was a difference between worlds.
Then I heard something that left me silent for a long time.
The Douglases had spent nearly two thousand years accumulating power and wealth.
Two thousand years.
My family, if we were lucky, had a few generations of history.
We weren't small.
We were irrelevant.
And then something happened that I still don't know how to fully explain.
A stupid mistake.
I had forgotten to leave a towel in his bathroom.
I hurried back, in a rush, without thinking too much.
I opened the door...
and Lusian had already gotten out of the bath.
He was standing there.
Completely naked.
I froze.
One second.
Two.
Then I left, closing the door almost without breathing, red-faced, not knowing where to look, my heart pounding in my chest as if it wanted to escape.
But it was already too late.
Because that image didn't disappear.
It stayed.
His presence. His trained body. The way he stood there without hesitation, without discomfort... as if even in that state, the world belonged to him a little.
And that was when the thought that shouldn't have existed appeared.
What if I could be something more than his servant?
Not a wife.
That was impossible.
But a concubine...
In a duchy like this, even that was already more than any noblewoman in the Kingdom could dream of.
The problem was that I wasn't the only one thinking that way.
There were others.
Many others.
Daughters of counts. Barons. Marchionesses.
They all found some excuse to get close. To "offer help." To "see the capital." To "support the heir."
Ridiculous.
And at the same time... dangerous.
Because they were all beautiful.
And they all knew exactly what they were doing.
And Lusian...
Lusian didn't need to do anything.
With a single gesture, any one of them would be willing to stay by his side.
That frightened me more than I wanted to admit.
And then everything changed again.
Because Lusian ordered a census.
And the entire duchy moved.
At first, I thought it was something else.
A new army.
Another preparation to help his father, Duke Lawrence, in the war against the Empire.
It made sense. It was what anyone would expect.
But no.
It wasn't that.
He was preparing for something else.
For monsters.
He summoned adventurers. Explorers. Experts on magical creatures. People who knew the deep forests better than any map.
Everything felt... out of place.
As if the world had changed the rules without warning.
And then it happened.
A stampede.
Not just in the Douglas Duchy.
In the Kingdom as well.
The reports arrived fragmented, incomplete, desperate.
And I... could only think about my family.
My mother.
My brothers.
My father, who was still fighting the Empire.
Everything at once.
Too much.
And Lusian didn't hesitate.
He assembled an army.
Fifteen hundred warriors and mages.
Five hundred adventurers.
The best monster hunters they could find in such a short time.
It was a massive force.
And yet... what surprised me most wasn't the number.
It was the way everything moved.
Without chaos.
Without hesitation.
As if he had seen this before.
He was leaving for Carter County.
Without me.
"Stay here. It's safer," he told me.
And I didn't argue.
Not because I wanted to.
But because there was no room for argument when he spoke like that.
But I didn't want to stay.
I didn't want to be away from him.
By then, I was no longer just his servant.
I was his shadow.
And yet... he left me behind.
When he left, something tightened in my chest.
It wasn't fear.
It wasn't anger.
It was worse.
It was that kind of emptiness you don't know how to name until it's already too late.
The kind of pain that appears when you realize someone has already become a part of you... and can still leave.
That day, I understood.
I had fallen in love with him.