Corvis Eralith
The crisp parchment felt like contraband in my hands, the ink-etched secrets of the Phoenix Wyrm a tangible weight that both thrilled and sickened me.
I scanned the densely written pages, my eyes darting over migration patterns, habitat descriptions, and danger assessments—all classified guild intelligence.
A low click of my tongue escaped me, a sound of pure frustration.
The red-haired guild master had folded so completely, so quickly, after my ugly threat. If I'd known his spine was made of sand, I might have demanded the entire restricted archive.
The thought was a dark, tempting whisper, but I shoved it away, a visceral recoil. That would have been extortion. The word echoed in the chamber of my conscience, a judgment. I was already walking a path paved with deceit; I couldn't start robbing the armory along the way.
"Your Highness," Alwyn's voice, laced with a confusion that felt infinitely more innocent than my own thoughts, pulled me back. We were navigating the winding, sun-dappled streets of Zestier's merchant quarter, heading back toward the soaring branches of the palace district. "What do you need those papers for? It's not like we can read them."
The statement was so simple, so logically sound from the perspective of any normal four-year-old, that it left me speechless. Oh. True.
In the whirlwind of apocalyptic planning, of secret cores and clandestine training, of manipulating adults and wrestling with timelines, I had forgotten one of the most basic constraints of my disguise.
Among all the things I was desperately trying to be or not to be—a savior, a strategist, a fraud—the only talent that was genuinely, unambiguously mine in this life was my literacy. And even that was a cheat.
Common Dicathian, in its structure and grammar, had been suspiciously, mercifully close to English. The alphabet was different, but mastering it had been a matter of weeks, not years. It was a backdoor left open in the universe's code, and I'd slipped right through.
"Ehm… I know how to read," I said, the confession feeling absurd. In Elenoir, as in most places back on Earth, formal education began at five or six.
Tessia and I, as royal heirs, were exceptions only in that we'd receive private, elite tutors later.
A weak, disbelieving protest came from beside me. "I don't believe you…"
His doubt was a pinprick of normalcy in my surreal existence. "Believe me or not," I said, my tone sharper than intended as my focus snapped back to the papers, "I have things to do."
The words were dismissive, the preoccupation of a prince, but inside, I was screaming. The information was here—coordinates for a roosting site in the southern crags of the Grand Mountains, notes on the Phoenix Wyrm's affinity for geothermal vents—and I was wasting mental energy on a child's skepticism.
My attention was so completely devoured by the maps and notes that the world around me narrowed to the text.
The vibrant sounds of the market—the calls of vendors, the chatter of elves, the rustle of leaves—faded into a muffled haze. My feet moved on autopilot, following the familiar route while my mind soared over mountain ranges.
"Your Highness, watch your steps!"
Alwyn's cry was a jolt. A small, strong hand fisted in the back of my tunic and yanked, halting my forward momentum just as I was about to walk squarely into the path of a laden herbalist.
I stumbled back, the papers crinkling in my grip. The elderly elf, his arms full of bundled fragrant roots, had frozen mid-stride, his eyes widening in recognition and alarm.
"My deepest apologies, Your Highness!" he blurted, executing a stiff, awkward bow made clumsier by his burden. "I did not see—forgive my clumsiness!"
He scurried away, casting nervous glances back, swallowed by the crowd almost instantly.
I stood there on the cobblestones, the saved papers now feeling like accusatory scrolls in my hands. Heat flooded my cheeks, a mortification so deep it felt like a physical burn. Alwyn released my shirt, his expression a mixture of concern and residual fear.
Again. Again, I was confronted with the utter farce of my situation.
Here I was, plotting to hunt an S-Class mana beast, to cheat biological limits, to outmaneuver basilisks and dragons, and I couldn't even walk down a street without almost causing a public humiliation by bumping into a citizen.
The "grand, tragic hero of destiny," nearly felled by a basket of moonroot.
I tucked the precious, stolen papers under my arm, avoided Alwyn's worried gaze, and muttered, "Let's just go."
—
The southern slopes of the Grand Mountains, where the stone claws of the range scraped against the lands of the Beast Glades—not the western side that gazed upon the silent, stoic desert of Darv.
My finger traced the inked line on the smuggled guild map, a path leading to a specific cluster of jagged symbols denoting extreme elevation and thermal activity.
A cold, focused smile touched my lips. This was it.
The last confirmed nesting site of the Phoenix Wyrms. According to the densely notated reports, it was also the primary hunting ground from which their precious remains—scales, bone, and most vitally, their cores—were harvested and sold directly to the Glayder royal family of Sapin.
The economic chain was clear, and it led right to the source I needed.
This had to be the very place Gideon Bastius, in the story I knew, would have sourced the miraculous cores for his revival pendants. The symmetry was almost poetic. The artifacts that saved a life in one timeline could be the key to empowering a life in this broken one.
My plan, however, required specificity. I couldn't just hunt any Phoenix Wyrm. I needed the alpha of the… flock? Pack? The terminology for a group of dragon-adjacent, S-Class monstrosities wasn't covered in my royal etiquette lessons.
Flock would have to do. The alpha would be the oldest, the strongest, the one most likely to be the repository of the flock's accumulated Beast Will—the deep, generational Insight into fire and rebirth I needed to steal.
But this was the core of the danger. Phoenix Wyrms were notorious not just for their individual power, but for their social structure. While most mana beasts above A-Class became solitary apex predators, the mana beasts I was hunting defied this logic.
They moved and hunted as a coordinated unit, a flying phalanx of scales and flame. This made them arguably the most formidable collective threat in the Beast Glades.
The reports made a stark comparison: facing an Elderwood Guardian—the S-Class beast Arthur had famously, arduously defeated—was likened to a "leisurely stroll" compared to provoking a Wyrm flock.
A chilling footnote added that the Elderwood Guardian Arthur faced had been an anomaly, artificially corrupted and strengthened by Alacryan meddling. The baseline Wyrms were naturally this terrifying.
The designated nesting and hunting ground was a dungeon known as the Red Gorge. The name itself evoked imagery of blood and scorched rock.
Classified as SS-Level, it was among the most lethally hostile environments in Dicathen, a distinction owed entirely to its current inhabitants.
The documents described a grim ecological dominance: the indigenous mana beasts of the gorge had been hunted to absolute extinction by the Wyrms.
Even the mysterious, periodic "resets" inherent to dungeons—which normally repopulated them—had failed to bring the original creatures back. The Wyrms were a parasitic, permanent blight, a force of nature that had permanently altered the dungeon's ecosystem. The thought was deeply unsettling.
Then came the political snares. A detail that made my stomach clench. House Wykes. The name was a curse in my mind, synonymous with corruption, slavery, and ultimate betrayal.
They had purchased exclusive rights to the Red Gorge. Any adventurer seeking entry required Wykes approval, making them the sole conduit for Wyrm-derived materials flowing to the Glayders. This monopoly meant they controlled access to the very thing I needed. It was a barrier made of gold and influence.
To enter legally, I'd need their permission—an impossibility. To enter illegally was trespassing on a Wykes-controlled asset. But the legal wrangling was almost a secondary concern. The laws protecting such economic rights were Sapin's laws.
Here in Elenoir, they held no power. Yet, violating them would be a direct provocation to one of Sapin's most powerful and venal noble houses, a house I knew would one day sell out our continent. Was I starting my war years early?
The equation laid itself out before me, each variable more daunting than the last: an SS-Level dungeon. A flock of cooperative S-Class mana beasts. The predatory oversight of a treacherous human house.
And me: a four-year-old elf prince with a solid red-stage mana core and a head full of doomed futures.
I sat back on my heels in my room, the documents spread around me like fallen leaves. The ambitious fire that had sparked the idea was guttering, threatened by the cold winds of reality.
My hands, small and soft, looked ludicrously inadequate. How could they wield a sword against a Phoenix Wyrm? How could this body navigate volcanic gorges and evade mercenaries?
A dry, nervous gulp worked its way down my tight throat. The sheer scale of the idiocy was breathtaking. This wasn't a plan; it was a suicide note.
Yet, the image of that locked door—the fire magic forever barred to me by my blood—remained. The clock in my head ticked: twelve years to midnight.
Desperation, the old familiar companion, whispered a final, outrageous possibility. One that acknowledged my own pathetic physical limitations. I can't do this alone.
The thought formed, fragile and desperate. Hopefully, I can convince a Lance to help me.
The idea was almost as insane as the mission itself. Asking one of Dicathen's six ultimate guardians, a sovereign weapon of state, to accompany a child on a dungeon crawl to commit corporate espionage and beast-slaying for a personal power boost.
It was laughable. It was impossible.
But as I stared at the map of the Red Gorge, at the sketched illustrations of winged serpents wreathed in flame, Alea's face surfaced in my mind. Her knowing smile in the Hallowed Hollowe, her quiet pact, her own hidden burdens.
Was it truly impossible?
—
The word fell like a guillotine blade, clean and final:
"No, Your Highness."
Alea's voice held no room for negotiation, the gentle cadence of our training sessions utterly gone, replaced by the steel of the Lance.
A hot, childish fury, pure and undiluted by logic, surged through me. "What, why?!" I exploded, my voice cracking with a frustration that made me want to stomp my foot.
In that moment, I wasn't a reincarnated soul with a grand design; I was just a four-year-old being told he couldn't have the dangerous toy he desperately needed.
Alea sighed, the sound heavy with a patience that felt infinitely more condescending than anger. She knelt, bringing her blue eyes level with mine, but the gesture wasn't one of solidarity—it was one of explanation to a slow student.
"Your Highness, I fail to understand this sudden obsession with a death-trap dungeon, but that isn't even the primary reason I must refuse." Her words were measured, each one a brick in a wall she was building between me and my goal.
"For one, I cannot exit the borders of Elen—" She cut herself off, a flicker of surprise and caution crossing her features as she realized she was veering into classified territory.
Of course. The Lances were national assets, bound to their kingdoms. The political ramifications of a Lance wandering into another sovereign territory, especially one as volatile as the Beast Glades, were unthinkable. She recovered swiftly, masking the slip.
"I cannot abandon my duties here at the palace for an extended period," she corrected, her tone firm.
"But more importantly, Your Highness…" Her gaze sharpened, piercing through my desperation. "No matter what you may think of my abilities, a dungeon is a dungeon. And you are a child with no practical experience. It would be a death sentence."
"But I need it!" The protest tore from me, raw and pleading, and to my utter humiliation, I felt the hot sting of tears welling up. I was crying.
The pressure, the helplessness, the vision of the Phoenix Wyrm's fire slipping away—it cracked the careful facade, revealing the terrified child beneath.
"And what for, exactly?" she asked, one eyebrow arching. It was a simple question, the kind any reasonable adult would ask. It was also the one question I could never truthfully answer.
"..."
The silence stretched, filled only by my shaky attempts to control my breathing. I scrambled for a half-truth, something that would sound noble, ambitious, childish.
"I need to grow stronger…" It was pathetic, a weak echo of the real reason, which was a screaming chorus in my head: I need to cheat, I need to steal fire, I need to be more than a bystander when the world burns!
Alea's stern expression softened into a gentle, pitying smile. She had heard what she expected to hear: a gifted, impatient boy dreaming too far, too fast. She reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Your Highness, you are being too hard on yourself!" Her voice was kind, meant to soothe. It felt like a brand. "You are a tri-elemental mage at four years old. At your age, I hadn't even awakened my core."
You don't understand! The scream was silent, trapped behind my teeth, a torrent of apocalyptic knowledge that would sound like madness. This isn't about pride or potential! This is about buying seconds on a clock that's counting down to midnight!
For a wild, treacherous moment, I considered telling her everything. Unloading the burden of my foreknowledge onto her capable shoulders. Maybe she would believe me. Maybe that unshakable loyalty she swore to my family would extend to protecting this insane secret.
But the risk was astronomical. Knowing it could mark her, could draw the gaze of the very powers we needed to evade. The love in her eyes would curdle into horror, or worse, into the clinical concern one shows for the insane.
"Did you want to take the beast core of a Phoenix Wyrm?" she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, as if humoring a grand fantasy. "To absorb its Beast Will, like Elder Virion with his Shadow Panther?" I could only nod, the motion stiff.
"That's… ambitious," she said, and the word was laced with fond condescension. She reached out and pinched my cheek, a gesture so utterly, devastatingly adult-to-child that my humiliation was complete. "And very cute. Wanting to be like your grandfather is a wonderful dream."
Cute. The word was a dagger. My desperate, last-ditch plan for survival was cute. She saw a child emulating a hero, not a fraud trying to forge a weapon.
The logistics I'd been agonizing over—the vast distance to the southern mountains, months of travel, the impossibility of a prince traveling alone—crystallized into a cold, hard truth.
Alea she was the only viable means. Her power could bridge the distance in days, not months. Her strength could face the Phoenix Wyrms. Without her, the plan wasn't difficult; it was a fantasy scribbled on paper.
As the hot tears finally spilled over, tracing paths through the dust of the unused corridor, the frantic, begging part of me began to recede.
In its place, a colder, quieter desperation took root. Pleading had failed. Reason had failed.
Alea saw a child, and children, no matter how "cute" their dreams, do not get to dictate suicide missions to Lances.
I needed another strategy. One that didn't rely on asking permission. One that acknowledged the brutal truth: if I couldn't convince the Lance to be my shield, I would have to find a way to make her involvement inevitable.