Chapter 5: Our Lord Has Gone Mad (3)

“Hah, hah!”

One year since I regained my identity as Kim Ian.
And three days left until the solar eclipse.

On the barren vacant lot of Seorigol. I was training my ‘elite forces’ using this place as a temporary training ground.

“Alright! Lower your stance! The tip of the spear should always be aimed at the enemy’s solar plexus, what are you doing pointing it at the sky!”

Despite my professional(?) guidance, my only infantryman threw down her spear and sat on a rock, groaning.

“Aigoo… my back is killing me! Where does this old woman have the strength to swing a spear, you brat!” Her voice was full of thorns.

This old woman, Ellara, was a native resident who had been here since I was appointed as the lord of Seorigol… or rather, an old woman with a somewhat outsider-like quality.

With a rough mouth and a twisted personality that tried to boss others around. The reason such a person was dragged to the vacant lot was practically due to my threats.

“If we pretend it’s not happening, we’ll both die! Monsters are coming soon, I tell you!”

“What monsters. After being tormented so much by your family, you’ve completely lost your mind! Tsk tsk! You’re mad, you’re mad!”

Ellara clicked her tongue and shook her head.
I had been talking about the eclipse and disaster for a year, but the world was too peaceful.
There was no way she would believe my words.

“Anya! You at least do it properly! Are you just going to hide behind that tree?”

My second soldier and only scout.

Anya was hiding her body behind a large oak tree, only showing her wary eyes.

Silver hair and sharp eyes. Anya, a snow leopard beastkin, was a child secretly raised by Ellara.

A wild creature in its purest form, she listened to no one but Ellara, and would hiss and throw stones at me whenever I tried to approach.

Today was no different. As I took a step towards the tree, Anya raised her fluffy tail and bared her teeth.

“Grrr…”

“Haaah...”

I rubbed my dry face with a deep sigh. This was my army. A nagging old woman and a disobedient little beastkin.

This was the result of a year’s worth of dedicated ‘training’ in Seorigol, where there were no knights or soldiers, not even proper farmers. It was a comedy in itself.

“See! I told you our lord has completely lost his mind!”
“Grandma Ellara isn’t usually like this, why is she playing along and spoiling the lord.”

Passing residents chimed in with a word or two.

“Hey! Is ‘lord’ some neighborhood kid’s name!” Despite my roar, the residents giggled and disappeared.

— Thud

I heard a hallucination of something falling to the ground.
What else could it be?
It’s the sound of the fief administrator’s dignity falling.

“…This is what you get for being a backwater administrator.”

These people already know.
That I’m an illegitimate son, practically kicked out of the family.

Sigh.

It’s frustrating. I can’t just shout that I know the future. If I did, the Inquisitors would come and drag me to a witch trial.

…Wait a minute.

If I get dragged away, at least I’ll live, right?

“Ah.”

I forgot about the part where I get roasted to a crisp. And more importantly. As the administrator, there’s no way I’d abandon my fief. As I was sighing in frustration, Grandma Ellara, who was patting her knees, shouted.

“The sun’s going down! Let’s go in, wash our feet, and go to sleep!”

At her nagging, I nodded weakly. There would be no progress even if I held on any longer.

***

The evening glow was settling over the desolate landscape of Seorigol. The smoke rising from the 15 or so mud houses looked peaceful.

Seorigol. Completely insignificant, always in the red, but my only legal personal property.

If all the fiefs on the continent were ranked, this place would surely be at the very bottom.
It had no resources and no troops.

[ Fief Level: 1 ]
[ Assets: -67,312,300 Rene ]
[ 3 years of taxes are overdue ]
[ Bankruptcy crisis! ]
[ The fief residents disregard the lord ]

If this were TeLe, a status window like this would have popped up.

I didn’t even have the money to put up a fence around the fief, let alone hire private soldiers. And in this situation, the ‘eclipse’ is coming. “Does this even make sense.”

If this were a game, I would have at least spent some real money. I almost didn’t want to believe it.

Will the eclipse really come? It was a question I had been asking myself for a year.

The memories of my past life were so vivid, but the reality before my eyes was terribly peaceful. Could it all have been a nightmare or a delusion? Have I gone mad?

──────────
The effect [Unyielding Heart (Lv. 3)] has been activated.
──────────

‘No. Always think of the worst.’

Every time, I composed my thoughts.

I pulled myself together. If my memory was wrong, I would just become a slightly ridiculous administrator. But what if my memory was right? The price of not being prepared is death. And in a very horrible way.

──────────
The effect [Unyielding Heart (Lv. 4)] has been activated.
──────────
──────────
The effect [Unyielding Heart (Lv. 5)] has been activated.
──────────

After repeating this for a year.

──────────
The effect [Unyielding Heart (Lv. 10)] has reached its maximum level.
▶ Trait [Mental Resistance] has been acquired.
──────────

Honestly, my mentality wouldn’t even crack at most things now. Considering the days I lived as an abandoned illegitimate child in the frontier before awakening my past life, this was a huge improvement.

Maybe people really do get stronger by rolling around in hardship. “Can I conquer it?”

In the game TeLe, the standard strategy for the ‘eclipse’ episode was to gather heroes and fend it off.

Heroes with powerful skills and stats would each perform their roles, fighting the swarming monsters and closing the rifts. But right now, I don’t have a single hero.

It was inevitable from the start.
The abandoned illegitimate son of the Darkest family.
The lord of a remote fief at the northern tip of the continent that no one cared about.
What hero would come to me, who had no money, no honor, and no connections?

‘…Should I run away?’

The thought suddenly crossed my mind. To abandon this insignificant fief and the disobedient residents and flee south or to some nameless place. But I shook my head.

This Seorigol is my only foundation and my lifeline. If I abandon this, I’ll be a penniless vagrant.

If my memory is correct, the situation is even more serious. The main scenarios of TeLe often revolved around specific strongholds.

What if Seorigol is an important place for future story progression? The moment I run away from here, I might be completely cut off from the flow of the game. That would be a direct ticket to a bad ending.

In the end, there was only one choice. To stay and endure somehow.

Click.

I heard the sound of a clock’s hand turning.

[0:00]

A day has passed, so there are 2 days left until the eclipse.

“Damn this world.”

A curse came out naturally. I wish I were the crazy one. I wish my past life and the future were all hallucinations and auditory illusions.

I hoped that the gazes everyone had given me over the past year were right. Even if all the preparations I had made went up in smoke. I definitely wished for that.

***

The Mage Tower, located in the heart of the empire.

Contrary to its grand and magnificent appearance, the Mage Tower was in a state of extreme chaos.

The urgent footsteps and loud shouts of magicians running down the corridors were endless.

“Is this data for real? Did you analyze it properly?”
“I’m telling you, it’s correct. I ran it again 100, no, 1000 times!”
“Ha… ha?”
“Get a grip, Chief! It’s not a measurement error! The chaos value is fluctuating rapidly! In the northern continent. Across numerous regions!”

The high-ranking magicians gathered in the observation room at the top of the Mage Tower were in shock.

A prophecy mage among them, who was renowned for his outstanding talent despite being the youngest, had accurately predicted the disaster that would come in 2 days.

The results of analyzing the flow of mana and reading the movement of the stars were clear.
It was not a simple astronomical phenomenon.
It was the beginning of a great disaster that threatened the world.

“Report to the emperor, report first!”
“We must dispatch troops immediately!”
“Are we the Knight Order? Where are the troops! And we can’t possibly block this area!”

Magicians are always calm and cold beings.
It was rare for them to be in such chaos.

At least, not unless a disaster-level crisis that was only heard of in legends was approaching.

Of course, even in that chaos, there were always calm individuals.

In a corner of the observation room.

A magician who was examining the data with a blank expression quietly opened his mouth.

“How about we just make it as if it never happened?”

Although it was a quiet voice, people focused on his words.

An elderly senior asked back.

“What do you mean by that?”
“We have a genius magician, don’t we. One who can manipulate time. There are even rumors that she recently completed a great research.”

A cold, sarcastic tone. Nevertheless, there was a point to his words.

“Rinea Yudit! That’s right! If it’s her, she might be able to undo this observation result!”

Rinea Yudit. A genius of the Yudit family and a rising star of the Mage Tower who had reached an unparalleled level in time magic. She might be able to find a clue to overcome this crisis.

Everyone’s eyes turned to the wisest person in the Mage Tower. The Mage Tower Master.

“I’ve already sent someone! But…”

The Mage Tower Master, Alberto, trailed off with a troubled expression.

“Rinea’s condition… has not been normal recently.”

For the past year. Rinea Yudit had been cooped up in her research lab and had not come out.

She had already been an abnormal girl since she entered the Mage Tower 7 years ago, but she had become even stranger in the past year.

According to the magicians who had witnessed it, she had filled her room with complex time coordinates and characters that seemed to be the names of unknown individuals, and was just staring blankly at the scenery of a desolate land reflected in a crystal ball.

The Mage Tower Master quietly held out a crystal ball. It was a surveillance crystal ball to check Rinea’s condition. Rinea Yudit’s figure was reflected in it.

[ “…….” ]

Rinea, with an expressionless face. She seemed completely oblivious to the commotion outside or the crisis of the Mage Tower.

Like a person whose entire mind was preoccupied with something more important than the end of the world.

While the entire Mage Tower was buzzing with fear in the face of the disaster’s premonition, Rinea Yudit seemed to be lost in a different time and space. And so, Rinea was staring into the crystal ball.

In the crystal ball she was looking at, the scenery of a desolate fief with a bleak wind blowing and the figure of a man standing there were faintly reflected.

[ “…I found it.” ]