The White Crown
"...It's hot."
A drop of sweat rolled down the boy's cheek, pooling at his chin before dripping off.
Before the boy's eyes, the endless expanse of sand shimmered and swayed as if dancing.
Dust began to rise over the horizon.
It was a sign that another fierce wind was about to blow.
The desert wind was scorching, carrying fine grains of sand that stung sharply whenever they brushed against bare skin.
If the wind grew any stronger, it would instantly whip up into a full-blown sandstorm.
The boy frowned and retreated into the mud hut behind him to escape the stinging dust.
The inside of the hut was relatively cool and shielded from the wind.
Though a sandstorm was difficult to endure, it wasn't impossible to weather if one prepared in advance. That was how they had survived until now.
"Grandmother, the wind is blowing again."
The boy set down a bucket filled to the brim with water in a corner of the hut.
"Be careful, child..."
The old woman's trembling hands and frail body looked far too weak to endure the harsh life of a desert hut.
Originally, they hadn't lived in a hut like this; they had owned a proper house. A sturdy home designed to easily withstand sandstorms, where they didn't have to walk miles just to fetch water.
But because the old woman had insisted on setting up a hut in this exact spot, the boy—who had lost his parents at a young age and lived with her—had no choice but to join her in this nomadic lifestyle.
The boy didn't harbor any resentment about it.
After all, his grandmother, who hadn't uttered a single word for several years, had suddenly started speaking again.
And her very first words had been a demand to pitch this hut.
It was said that the hunched old woman had once been one of the most renowned astrologers on the continent, long ago.
Since it was a tale from before he was even born, he didn't know much else, but he was simply grateful to finally be able to communicate with the grandmother who had raised him.
"A guest is coming..."
Her voice was raspy and dry, as if her throat had completely withered.
No one had arrived yet, and the only sound outside was the howling of the sandy wind, but the boy immediately ran to a corner of the hut to fetch her astrological tools.
Watching him, the old woman's wrinkled face creased into a warm smile.
"Hehe... No need for those today. We are only going to have a brief chat..."
The boy scratched his head.
A moment later, the sudden sound of a carriage reached the boy's ears from outside.
The guest had arrived.
The carriage stopped in front of the hut, and shortly after, a figure stepped inside.
The mysterious visitor wore a robe that was visibly luxurious.
As she pulled back her hood and lowered the veil covering her mouth, her face was revealed.
She had straight, bluish hair cascading down, and she wore a gentle smile as she looked at the old woman.
She stepped forward, knelt, and sat directly across from the elder.
She was the first to speak.
"Lady Cassandra, how have you been? I came as soon as I heard the news."
"Ah, Sicily... my gentle breeze... You have finally come..."
At the old woman's reply, the boy in the corner widened his eyes.
Delgrad was the only city in this desert, built around a massive oasis.
And as far as he knew, 'Sicily' was the name of the lord who ruled Delgrad.
The Lord of Delgrad, Sicily Windless.
Realizing this, the boy instinctively bowed his head.
"Is that your child in the carriage...?"
The old woman, Cassandra, did not speak formally to Lord Sicily. She had known Sicily's father since Sicily was a mere child.
"Yes, that is my second daughter, Liqua."
Sicily replied calmly, casting a brief glance toward where the carriage sat outside.
How on earth did Cassandra know Sicily's daughter was in the carriage when she couldn't even see it? The boy tilted his head in wonder.
But Cassandra could read the stars in the sky, allowing her to perceive what ordinary people could not.
"The child takes after you. She has a righteous heart and will rule Delgrad well... Hehe..."
At Cassandra's praise, Sicily smiled, thinking of Liqua waiting in the carriage.
"...You flatter us. More than anything, I am glad to hear your voice again, Lady Cassandra."
"Hehe... It is a miracle the Lord did not take my life instead."
Cassandra had once been punished for leaking the secrets of heaven by foretelling the war with the demons.
Her punishment had been silence.
The Chief God had stripped her of her voice.
Yet, for some reason, her voice had returned a few days ago.
Was it a whim of the Chief God?
Or had she finally paid her penance?
Only the Chief God would know the answer.
"What have you 'observed' this time?"
At Sicily's cautious question, Cassandra's mouth opened with a dry, cracking sound.
"Sicily, the 'Path of the Stars' has twisted several times over the past few years... and it has grown even worse recently. The stars, the very heavens, are in complete turmoil..."
The boy had no idea what the 'Path of the Stars' meant, but Sicily nodded slightly, seemingly understanding its significance.
Judging by Cassandra's expression, the boy surmised it was certainly nothing good.
Cassandra began to rock back and forth, her muttering growing more intense. She was trembling with anxiety.
"It is coming... 'It' is coming..."
"By 'it'... do you perhaps mean... the 'Calamity'?"
Sicily asked calmly.
It seemed 'it' was a word too heavy to speak aloud.
Sicily had learned from her father that asking direct questions was the best approach in these moments.
While it didn't completely bypass the taboo of leaking heavenly secrets, it allowed her to gather and organize whatever fragments of information she could.
At the mention of the word 'Calamity,' the boy recalled the faces of his parents, whom he would never see again.
The massive horde of Outworlders known as the 'Calamity' had claimed the lives of many of Delgrad's warriors. Among them were the boy's parents.
While dealing with Outworlders pouring from dimensional rifts was a daily routine for the people of Delgrad, the 'Calamity' of that day had been different.
Even though Sicily, the Lord of Delgrad, had personally joined the battle to suppress the Calamity, the casualties had still been devastating.
It was a horrific nightmare that must never be repeated.
To Sicily's question, Cassandra shook her head slowly.
"If it were merely those heaps of scrap metal, it would have been a blessing..."
"......"
Both the boy and Sicily were deeply shocked. To hear that the very 'Calamity' that had claimed the boy's father—Cassandra's own son—would have been preferable was beyond comprehension.
Before their shock could even fade, Cassandra spoke again.
"Coming from a place far beyond this land, 'it' wears a 'crown.' A pure white crown... Whether his arrival will halt the slaughter of kingless soldiers, or mark the beginning of an invasion that plunges everything into ruin... even I cannot tell. Too many... far too many paths are tangled together..."
It was an incredibly vague and cryptic prophecy, difficult to decipher.
When Sicily asked if she was referring to the resurrection of the Demon King, Cassandra shook her head firmly, clarifying that it was not the king of the demons.
Sicily pressed with a few more questions, but Cassandra fell silent after stating one final thing: 'it' was already on its way here.
She could reveal no more.
There was no need to force Cassandra to leak any more heavenly secrets. Thus, Sicily had no choice but to board her carriage without any substantial answers.
Waiting in the carriage, Liqua gazed quietly at her mother.
In Liqua's face, Sicily could see a faint resemblance to her eldest daughter, Lucia.
Sicily was deeply worried.
Of all times, this ominous prophecy had to coincide with the academy students' upcoming field trip.
'I hope nothing happens...'
Sicily wanted to believe that Cassandra was simply old and speaking nonsense, but having witnessed her father rely on Cassandra's prophetic astrology since his days as the family head, she couldn't easily dismiss it.
'A king...'
As far as Sicily could recall, there was no nation whose ruler wore a white crown.
The closest thing was the elven crown woven from the branches of the World Tree, which was relatively pale.
Yet Cassandra had specified it was not another race; 'it' appeared as though it wore a human mask, harboring an unfathomable darkness within.
Neither a king of humans nor a king of demons... what on earth did 'it' plan to do upon arriving in Delgrad?
It was far too late to postpone the academy's field trip now.
Thinking of Lucia's bright, innocent smile as she made her way to Delgrad, Sicily's anxiety grew as massive as a mountain.
Zeto, with a pure white blindfold wrapped around his eyes, sat leaning against the carriage wall.
They were currently on their way from Innocence Academy to the desert.
Unlike the shabby carriages he usually rode, this was a luxurious one with comfortably cushioned seats.
The moment Zeto had laid eyes on the carriage, he thought it would be a comfortable journey.
...Or so he had thought.
To his left and right, he could see finely braided red hair and platinum-blonde hair that shimmered like moonlight.
Yuri and Eisel had claimed one of his shoulders each, fast asleep.
Inside Zeto's mind, Sierra's grumbling voice echoed. [My disciple's shoulders were supposed to be This Lady's place...]
Pushed aside by Yuri and Eisel, Sierra had resorted to cradling Zeto's head in her arms.
Unable to move a single muscle, Zeto stared blankly into space and began counting sheep.
Since being paralyzed like this was nothing short of torture, he was trying his best to force himself to sleep.
But perhaps because his body had grown accustomed to roaming outside the academy every night, he didn't feel particularly drowsy.
Just as he finally felt like he might drift off while counting sheep—
Clunk!
—the smoothly moving carriage came to a sudden, jarring halt.
A vein throbbed slightly near Zeto's mouth. He felt a sudden urge to vent his irritation at Edward.
Suddenly, Edward's voice echoed from outside.
"Everyone~! It seems we're being ambushed by bandits~! And there are quite a lot of them?!"
Edward's booming, overly excited voice drifted past their carriage, waking the others inside.
"Ugh..."
Yuri groaned, having bumped her head against the carriage wall.
"..."
Eisel grit her teeth, clearly displeased at having her sleep interrupted.
"...It seems we've run into bandits. The instructor wants the cadets to help since there are so many of them."
Finally regaining the freedom of his shoulders, Zeto stood up and opened the carriage door.
Though the groggy cadets were still disoriented, they quickly followed Zeto outside.
Lucia, curled up in a corner of the carriage, showed no signs of waking. Amon remarked that whatever was happening, she would likely be of no help anyway, and everyone nodded in agreement.
And so, no one bothered to wake Lucia.
As Zeto's group stepped down, they saw cadets pouring out of the other carriages as well. The atmosphere was chaotic, yet none of them seemed particularly tense.
They all figured that with the instructors present, nothing could go wrong. Some probably thought, How dare mere bandits try to touch me?
As various thoughts crossed the cadets' minds—
"Kill the women, and spare only the men—!!!"
A rough battle cry from the bandits echoed from further down the road.
Judging by the voices, it sounded like an all-female bandit group.
Zeto, crossing his arms, scratched his head.
Through his Ki Sense, he had detected their approach long ago.
This was an event he had experienced in the game.
The bandit ambush on the academy's carriage procession.
This event only triggered when Edward was the supervising instructor. Naturally, no cadets would actually get hurt.
The other instructors, excluding Edward, were hiding in the forest to monitor the cadets' safety. They would spring into action the moment a cadet faced any real danger.
Spotting Edward—the main catalyst of this situation—approaching, Yuri asked him a question.
"Instructor Edward, should we kill the bandits, or just capture them?"
Edward, who had been happily skipping through the woods, replied to Yuri's question.
"Cadet Yuri, isn't killing a bit too extreme? You've all learned how to handle opponents without taking their lives, so let's treat this as part of your training!"
Hearing Edward's absurd response, Yuri glanced sideways at Eisel, silently wondering if Eisel hadn't already been killing bandits and the like without a second thought.
Eisel, whose face was stiff with annoyance after having her sweet time with Zeto interrupted, threw a rather chilling question at Edward.
"Instructor, what if an 'accident' occurs and a bandit dies while we're fighting them? For instance, a misfired spell... or a blind swordsman making a 'mistake' and swinging his blade the wrong way..."
"...I am curious about that as well."
Zeto, standing beside Eisel, chimed in.
Edward narrowed his already suspicious eyes, seemingly pondering their questions.
Then, raising his index finger, he spoke.
"In that case... it can't be helped! After all, we are in a life-or-death, touch-and-go situation right now!"