Earlier that same day.
At the family farm on the far rim of Farville Village.
Amid the heavy snowfall, Stahl, the family's eldest son, finished closing the pinewood door of the sheep stable. It was a ritual as familiar as breathing, performed every winter evening to keep the flock safe from snow wolves, whose hunting season always began around this time of year.
"Let's go, Spark," he said with a smile.
Beside him, a husky-like dog with thick gray-and-white fur wagged its tail eagerly.
*Woof!*
Together, they left the stable behind, their boots and paws crunching along the dirt path now buried beneath a fresh layer of snow. Ahead stood their small pinewood Fachwerk house, its timber frame dark against the white, standing firm and warm amid the frozen blanket that swallowed the land. Smoke curled gently from its chimney, a quiet promise of safety waiting inside.
"I'm back," he said as he opened the front door of the house.
"How are the sheep?" his elderly mother asked nonchalantly from her rocking chair beside the fireplace, knitting a wool scarf.
"They're fine," he replied in the same calm tone.
The family home, once filled with laughter and warmth, had become a husk of its former self, reduced to a quiet theater of silence and grief by the pox plague that had struck swiftly and mercilessly, claiming the lives of both his father and younger brother.
He hung his wool cloak on the iron hook beside the door and stepped toward the fireplace, seeking warmth.
"Big brother's back!" his little sister shouted enthusiastically as she ran toward him.
He knelt and hugged her tightly in response.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm back," he said softly, one hand stroking her hair.
"Did you and Spark fight off any wolves today?" she asked.
Beside him, Spark answered with a proud *woof*, tail wagging.
"Not today. Maybe tomorrow," he said with an anxious smile, clearly wary of the situation at hand. He was the only adult man left in the family, burdened with every heavy task, from tending the fields to defending the sheep from snow wolves.
"Stop bothering your brother already! Go churn the butter!" Mother shouted sharply.
"Okaaaay," his sister replied with an irritated pout, cheeks puffed in protest. Despite himself, he found it heartwarming. She dashed off toward the butter churner in the corner of the room.
At least he still had his mother and little sister.
He would keep fighting on in this cruel world for them. That much, he knew for certain.
"Then, Mom, I'll go check the food in the basement," he said.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. After that, go rest, alright?" his mother replied, her tone returning to its usual blunt normalcy.
"Understood," he answered, fatigue seeping into his voice.
They parted ways. His mother returned to her knitting while he crossed the house toward the shabby wooden door that led down into the basement. He opened it carefully. The hinges groaned, and the floorboards beneath creaked in protest, worn down by decades of use.
"Come on, Boy maybe I'll give you some salted beef today," he said.
The dog's ears perked up instantly.
Together they descended the old, creaking stairs.
The basement was a sealed wooden room lined with shelves, clay jars, and carefully preserved food. He checked everything methodically, counting each jar and bundle one by one, calculating in his head whether it would be enough to last them through the winter.
Eventually, he stopped in front of a stack of salted beef.
Spark barked insistently, a reminder of the promised treat.
"Alright, alright, quiet down," He said with a chuckle, ruffling the dog's thick fur.
He tore off a small piece of beef and fed it to Spark, then another, talking to him all the while as if the dog could understand every word. It was how he let the stress leak out, one thought at a time.
After a while, he straightened up, giving Spark one last pat.
The food stores were sufficient. They would survive the winter.
He smiled.
Just the other day, word had spread that the baron intended to reduce taxes next year and distribute fertilizer for free.
"Finally," he muttered to himself as he climbed the stairs, "it took a damn plague to give us a somewhat benevolent ruler."
But as he ascended the stairs, something felt… wrong.
Spark suddenly barked furiously as they stepped back onto the ground floor.
Something was here.
His skin crawled as an icy winter wind rushed past him from the front door, a door that was supposed to be locked.
His heart lurched.
He scanned the room desperately for anything he could use as a weapon. His eyes landed on a broom leaning against the wall. He snatched it up without hesitation.
Mother and sister came before everything else.
That thought burned through his mind as he rushed toward the fireplace.
What he found stopped him cold.
His mother, the woman who had given birth to him, lay lifeless in her rocking chair beside the hearth. A finished wool scarf rested in her lap.
A deep V-shaped wound split her skull, carved so violently it must have reached the brain beneath. Blood streamed down her head, soaking her clothes, dripping from the chair, pooling on the wooden floor like a dark river.
There was no time to scream.
No time to cry.
His sister.
He spun—
"Brother!"
She ran into him, clinging to his chest, trembling like a hunted animal.
And something followed her.
A massive figure burst into view.
A bearded, burly man half-covered in white feline fur, towering nearly twice his height. Large feline ears twitched atop his head, and blazing blue eyes gleamed with savage delight. Tribal leather and bone ornaments hung from his body, and in his hands was a massive greataxe of sharpened bone and wood.
The beastman swung.
He raised the broom instinctively.
Spark lunged, biting into the creature's leg furiously.
The broom shattered.
The axe cleaved through the wood and buried itself into the back of his sister's head.
Blood spilled instantly. Her body went limp, her eyes rolling back as she collapsed in his arms.
Something inside him broke.
The beastman kicked Spark away with brutal force.
The dog's body slammed into the wall with a thunderous clang.
Crack.
The sound of breaking bone.
Rage flooded his's veins, burning away shock and fear. Adrenaline surged up his spine like fire.
With a howl, he drove the broken broom handle forward, stabbing it again and again into the beastman's exposed bicep. It drew blood, shallow wounds, but the creature only laughed.
With a casual kick, it sent him flying across the room toward the open doorway, snow blowing in around him.
The beastman raised its greataxe high, ready to split his skull.
In that instant—
He hurled himself forward and slammed the wooden door shut with all his strength.
The iron hook hanging near the doorframe drove straight into the beastman's skull.
The creature twitched violently, then collapsed onto the floor, lifeless.
Another corpse for this cruel world of Ol'Aetes.
He sank to the ground.
His family was gone.
His dog was gone.
His life might as well have ended with them.
Then—
A voice roared behind him.
"This one killed one of us! A worthy messenger!"
The sound was wrong. Human words twisted with a feline hiss.
Something heavy struck the back of his head.
Not enough to kill him.
Enough to steal consciousness.
As darkness closed in, the voice boomed again, burning itself into his mind.
"Relay this to your lord. We will return to this village in thirty-one days. Give us your food, your wealth, and your land… or the Tribe of a Hundred Leopards will wipe you from this world."
The voice cut off as everything went black.
When he awoke again, he lay on a church pew.
A rude knight in half-plate armor was already questioning him.
---
After he finished telling his story, the young man finally broke.
The words collapsed into sobs, his body shaking as grief he had held poured out all at once, again.
I did not blame him.
If anything, the fault lay with me.
I was his liege. The safety of this land was my responsibility, and I had left its borders thin and its villages exposed.
I pulled him into an embrace, holding him as a father would a grieving son, letting him cry into my shoulder until the worst of it passed.
"I swear it," I said quietly, my voice steady despite the fire burning beneath it."I will avenge your family."
He nodded weakly, unable to speak.
As I held him, my expression remained calm. Gentle. Reassuring.
Inside, something else was happening.
My blood is boiling.
I'll make them pay.
I'll kill them all.
I'll destroy their culture.
I'll slay their young.
I'll salt their land.
I'll make sure to genocide their worthless existence from this fucking world.
I shall leave not even a speck of dust behind.
Even their souls won't be spared.
I vowed this vengefully to myself as my wargaming mind ran like a computer, calculating how to raise an army and defend the land within thirty-one days time limit.