When the last embers of sunset painted the Royal City's blue-gray flagstone streets in a gorgeous wash of burnt orange, the first day of business at Tears of the Sea finally drew to a close.
Inside the little stone house, the briny, salt-kissed fragrance of the ocean still hung thick in the air.
Old Pierre stood trembling, hauling basket after heavy basket of copper coins into the back room. The sound of all that metal clinking together was, to his ears, sweeter than any siren's song.
Yet beside the shelves that had been swept almost completely bare, little Nina was staring at a row of large, troublesome items hanging from their hooks with a deeply furrowed brow.
They were Avalon deep-sea specialty giant salted fish — each one as tall as a grown person, their flesh dense and firm. Rubbed down with premium sea salt, they gleamed with a tempting silver luster in the dim lamplight.
And yet, despite being the most impressive-looking goods in the entire shop, these had spent the whole day's frenzied buying rush sitting completely ignored on the sidelines.
"Grandpa, these big things clearly have the most meat on them — so why does everyone just poke at them, let out a sigh, and walk away?"
Nina drooped her little head, long lashes fluttering, her voice thick with grievance.
"Do Mason people not like Avalon's big fish?"
Just then, a figure cool as fresh snow stepped into the doorway, blocking out the last of the fading sun.
Sophia walked into the little shop — still warm with the mingled scents of sweat and salt — flanked by Delilah and Irene.
Those pale golden pupils swept past Pierre, who was busy tallying his earnings, and came to rest on Nina's dejected little face.
"It isn't that they dislike it."
Sophia's voice in the quiet of the evening was unusually clear — carrying with it a rational certainty that left no room for doubt.
Old Pierre nearly dropped the coin basket in his hands from sheer fright. He was about to drop to his knees in greeting, but a single subtle glance from Sophia stopped him cold.
She walked unhurriedly to stand before the great salted fish, extended one pale, slender finger, and trailed her fingertip across the hard, dried scales of the nearest one.
"Nina, you need to understand — Mason's households are different from Avalon's."
Nina's round eyes went wide. She stared up at the Queen with a look of innocent bewilderment.
"In Mason, whether it was the epidemic of years past or decades of cruel misrule under the old King — both have robbed the common people of the means to raise large families."
Sophia turned, her black cloak sweeping an elegant arc through the air.
"A household of three, or a pair of elderly folk — that is the most common family structure here. They cannot afford a whole giant fish. More importantly, they cannot finish one. On the mainland, without any means of preservation, even salted dried fish will spoil if left too many days."
Sophia watched Nina's expression shift into thoughtful contemplation, and the faintest, barely-perceptible curve touched the corner of her mouth.
"You can sell them by the piece. Take these magnificent, unwieldy giants — and turn them into something every household can afford."
In an instant, the dull light in Nina's eyes exploded into something brilliant, radiant as a sky full of stars.
"Sell them by the piece — yes! That's it!"
She bounced on her heels with a burst of pure, irrepressible energy.
"I can cut them into small pieces — that way, even a little kid with only two copper coins could take a chunk home and make soup!"
Nina leaped with excitement, her whole body like a little firecracker bursting with life. She stared up at Sophia with eyes brimming with near-fanatical starry-eyed worship.
"Your Majesty, you must be the smartest person in the whole world! You even know how many mouths everyone has to feed at home!"
Sophia looked at this child cheering and bouncing over a flash of commercial inspiration, and something in those eyes — something that was usually frozen solid year-round — seemed to thaw, just slightly.
She bent down. Those long, gentle hands descended with quiet warmth and came to rest on the top of Nina's head, ruffling the slightly disheveled hair with a tender touch.
"Hold onto that sharp mind of yours, Nina."
Sophia's voice dropped, soft as a whisper to a seedling just breaking through the soil.
"If you can learn to read every small, quiet breath of this land — when you grow up, you will be smarter than your grandfather, and you will become a force Mason cannot do without."
Little Nina was so stunned by that gentle pat on the head that she went rigid all over. A moment later, the color blazing across her wheat-brown little face could have rivaled a sunset, and she was so overwhelmed with happiness she nearly fainted — all she could do was clutch the hem of her clothes and nod furiously.
Beside them, Old Pierre had been in the middle of hauling a coin basket when the scene stopped him dead in his tracks. A wave like a full ocean surge crashed through his chest.
Her Majesty manages the fate of all Mason and Avalon — ten thousand matters pressing upon her from every direction — and yet she has the time and attention to know the household sizes of common folk at the bottom rung, to know whether there's a scrap of fish left over on someone's dinner table.
What she taught Nina wasn't a technique for selling fish. That was the micro-management of a ruler.
She is cultivating Nina. She is cultivating a nascent commercial mind loyal to the Black Rose.
That single pat on the head was worth more than any title of nobility.
To elevate a small trick for selling fish all the way to the level of national demographic structure — Queen Sophia... just how unfathomably wise are you?
Irene, watching from the side, couldn't help curling her lip and muttering under her breath.
"Hmph. Stealing another little girl's heart. Your Majesty's charm stat is just permanently overflowing, isn't it..."
Delilah, as ever, kept her hand resting on her heavy sword, her expression perfectly blank — but watching Nina's face practically bubbling over with happiness, that high ponytail swayed just once in the evening breeze, as if granting some silent, wordless approval.
"Pierre — tomorrow I'll have a craftsman sent over to make you a proper cleaver for breaking down large fish."
Sophia withdrew her hand. Her tone returned to its usual cool composure, and she turned toward the door.
"Don't disappoint the small stone house This Queen chose for you."
"This old servant... this old servant would sooner die than fail! I swear my life and loyalty to Your Majesty!"
Old Pierre pressed his forehead deep against the floor in a full bow toward Sophia's retreating silhouette.
And Nina stood in the doorway, absentmindedly touching the spot on her head where Sophia's hand had been, a dazed smile stretched wide across her face. Even after that black cloak disappeared around the corner of the street, she still felt as though she were drifting inside the most wonderful dream she'd ever had.
She thought she finally understood why Hailey and all the other older sisters liked to buzz around Her Majesty like little bees.
Avalon's salted fish fell under the cleaver's blade into neat, even pieces — and Mason's future, through these countless small and quiet changes, began quietly and steadily to accelerate.
---
When the first golden thread of morning light pierced through the carved glass panes and scattered in fragments across the velvet bed of the Palace bedchamber, Sophia slowly opened her eyes.
The exhaustion from days of rushing about in Avalon's sea winds seemed to have dissolved completely in the night's rest.
Out of habit, she propped herself up slightly and addressed the blurred silhouette beyond the bed curtains with a quiet call.
"Someone come."
The words had barely left her lips before that sharply tailored steward's uniform — its hem embroidered with dark roses — slipped silently into the room.
Willow appeared as though she had been waiting just outside that door for a thousand centuries. She carried a basin filled with warm water, a snow-white towel draped over her wrist that carried the faint, clean fragrance of lavender, every movement as graceful and precise as a textbook illustration of court etiquette.
In truth, given Willow's current standing — overseeing all financial transactions of the Black Rose flagship stores and managing the logistics of half of Mason Royal City — she had long since ceased to need to perform these personal attendant duties with her own hands.
"You could leave this sort of thing to the chambermaids below," Sophia said, watching Willow wring out the towel with practiced ease, a faint note of exasperation in her voice.
"Your Majesty, only when I have tested the water temperature myself can I be at ease."
Willow's voice remained as gentle and warm as always — yet threaded through it was a quiet, unyielding stubbornness. She leaned forward slightly, carefully wiping Sophia's fingertips.
"After spending so long among ledgers and numbers, it is only when I am attending to Your Majesty that I feel I am still myself."
"Others only see the power and the gold coins I hold in my hands. None of them understand that without Your Majesty's shadow, I am nothing but a withered weed on an open wasteland."
Let someone else touch Your Majesty's skin? Even a strand of hair — I would feel it as an intrusion into my territory.
"If Your Majesty is worried about tiring me out, then throw those tedious guild documents to those old foxes to fret over. My hands move only for Your Majesty."
Sophia let out a quiet sigh.
She knew Willow's nature all too well. This girl had made 'attending the Queen' into an absolute spiritual anchor.
For the sake of balance, Sophia had given the order to forcibly reassign several of the more burdensome personnel review duties from Willow's hands to Valery's assistants — diplomatically framed as 'lightening her load,' but in truth aimed at giving Mason's Chief Steward more time to spend in the Palace fussing over her breakfast.
Once the morning routine was complete, the terrace outside the bedchamber had already been set with an elegant table.
Today's breakfast could only be described as a work of art — a marriage of sea and land.
Thick tamagoyaki with chopped Avalon red prawn, sweet and springy with every bite. Creamy truffle soup, exhaling the deep, earthy fragrance particular to inland forests. Fresh-baked wheat bread, golden-crusted and soft within, spread with a thin layer of pale yellow sea-salted butter. And most eye-catching of all — a cup of fresh milk, still steaming in delicate wisps.
In this era, fresh milk was an almost extravagant luxury. It demanded a dedicated livestock team, and an exceptionally high frequency of transportation and processing.
But for Sophia, this was merely the first step in reshaping her subjects' diets.
Sophia looked at the steam curling up from the beautiful spread before her and couldn't help but let out a long, satisfied breath.
This — this is what it means to live like a human being.
Hailey had somehow already slipped onto the terrace. Her small head bobbed up over the edge of the table, and the moment Sophia nodded, she immediately took gleeful occupation of one corner of it. The little notebook in her hands was already spinning with furious speed from sheer excitement:
Year One of the Holy Era, Spring. Palace Terrace.
Her Majesty's morning grumpiness? Nonexistent.
Willow-jiejie must be the greediest person in all of Mason — she's claimed exclusive rights to every single one of Her Majesty's morning hours.
The reason Her Majesty distributes Willow-jiejie's duties to others is because she also can't bear to see Willow-jiejie work herself ragged.
This kind of mutual tenderness — those old men in Grandpa Valery's faction could never possibly understand.
Watching Her Majesty drink her milk, I feel certain Mason's future will be just as white and sweet as that cup.
Note: Managed to sneak into Her Majesty's breakfast. Willow-jiejie's cooking can only be tasted here!
Sophia lifted the cup of warm milk and took a small sip.
The rich, creamy fragrance carried just the right touch of sweetness, warming her stomach in an instant.
She gazed out at the Royal City streets already growing busy in the distance. The little stone house called Tears of the Sea should, by now, have a queue stretching out the door.
Meat, eggs, dairy — output is still too low. Enough only for the Palace and the core echelons for now.
Avalon's sea salt had stabilized the supply. Next was to set the whole Northern border's flow of goods into motion.
Fragile Mason needed more mornings like this one — more of this quiet, settled peace that let a person calmly drink a cup of hot milk.
She set down the empty cup, stood, and her black cloak traced a beautiful arc in the morning breeze.
Willow deftly took the discarded napkin, and Hailey made a dash back to her room to swap out the quill pen she'd ground blunt from writing too fast.
Beneath the solemn watch of the Royal Guards, Sophia stepped into the heart of the Royal City's research operation — the West Tower.
The moment she entered, the old smell of rotting wood and alchemical reagents that had once defined the place was entirely gone, replaced by a dry, crisp metallic clarity.
The West Tower, as it stood today, had been transformed by Irene into a miniature industrial fortress.
The cards, cut with precise and seamless edges, caught the light at intervals and refracted a deep, ocean-blue luminescence.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty, look!"
A flash of pink shot out from behind one of the worktables. Irene launched herself directly in front of Sophia like a kitten desperately seeking praise. Her twin pink tails quivered with barely-suppressed excitement, and gripped tightly in her hands was a freshly completed sample card.
"Production is ahead of schedule!"
Irene waved the card with a flourish.
"Finished cards go straight up to the top floor. Daphne up there has basically turned into a magic stamping machine — every single card that gets sent up gets imprinted with the most stable Holy Light seal you've ever seen."
To verify the magical stability of the cards, Irene had even covered a nearby blackboard with dense, complex equations.
"As long as this value stays above 0.95, even if a citizen drops their card into a cesspit, the identity information won't be lost!"
Irene lifted her chin with pride.
Sophia took the card. Her fingertips registered the cool smoothness unique to metal. A faint glimmer of approval moved through those pale golden pupils.
"Identity cards are the cornerstone of Order. Well done."
Sophia handed the card back to Irene, then shifted the subject.
"However, Irene — Mason's appetite cannot survive on wheat and salted fish alone. Our subjects still look too pale. We need more vegetables and fruit trees."
Irene blinked, then scratched her head.
"But the greenhouse space is already at its limit, and most of the plains around the Royal City have been planted with drought-resistant wheat..."
"If I remember correctly, the land behind the Palace hill is still lying fallow."
Sophia walked to the window and pushed it open, gazing out at the jade-green ridge shrouded in morning mist.
Decades ago, the incompetent old King had conscripted ten thousand laborers to build a grand pleasure garden there — all to flaunt his own imperial majesty. The site enjoyed mountain backing and water proximity, its soil rich beyond measure from years of untrodden peace. But when the old King died suddenly, it was abandoned completely, swallowed by thorns and scrub.
"The soil back there is loose and fertile, sheltered from the wind and facing the sun. It is ideal for fruit trees and specialty vegetables."
Sophia's voice remained even, yet it carried a cold precision — the precision of someone who will wring every last drop of use from every available resource.
"More importantly — it is a restricted zone. No outsiders can enter. We can build Mason's core seedling reserve there, away from every unnecessary prying eye."
As she listened, the confusion in Irene's eyes slowly gave way to a blazing fire — until it bordered on something close to reverence.
Gods above... I thought Her Majesty was just thinking about growing vegetables. I was so naive.
What is that place behind the hill? It's the symbol of the old King's rotting power — a vanity garden built on the blood and bones of the common people.
Her Majesty is going to plant vegetables and fruit trees on those ruins. She is erasing the last brand of the old era.
And placing strategic food resources behind the Palace hill means placing them directly under the Palace's eye. The fine foods that improve health and boost immunity — they become the highest stakes for controlling nobles and rewarding loyal ministers in the future.
Concealing productive power within a restricted zone... a scheme that combines psychological deterrence, resource monopoly, and the purging of old politics all in one — and Her Majesty said it as casually as if she were discussing the weather. In Her Majesty's game of chess, that hill isn't just a plot of land. It is Mason's vital spring of life for generations to come.
Sophia turned from the window. She saw that Irene had already begun frantically sketching out a 'three-dimensional terraced cultivation matrix for the rear hill' on her drafting paper, and gave her shoulder an approving pat.
"Not just planting — planting with order. Classify the rear hill development plan as highest confidential. You will be my liaison on this matter."
"Mission accepted, Your Majesty!"
Irene leaped up on the spot, executed a salute that was nowhere near regulation standard, then transformed once again into a pink whirlwind and dove headfirst into the pile of blueprints.
Sophia turned and made for the top floor. She could already hear the steady resonance of Holy Light descending from above.
Up there, Daphne was engaged in a deeper kind of miracle-making.
As she climbed the spiral staircase, the dense clatter of metalwork from the second floor gradually fell away behind her, replaced by a low, steady, deeply sacred hum.
At the very top of the West Tower, the air held a faint scent of fir. Sunlight poured through the painted glass panels of the dome and dyed the entire laboratory in a color that was almost dreamlike — a sacred, molten gold.
In here, there was no grinding of gears, no clang of tools. Only Daphne's low, soft chanting.
What could be called industrialization on this floor manifested instead as an extreme form of magical craftsmanship.
Hundreds upon hundreds of perfectly polished Blue Gold cards had been stacked in orderly rows across enormous silver ritual-array trays.
Daphne was suspended at the center of the ritual array, both hands held open and slightly apart. Threads of pure Holy Light fell from her fingertips like silk, sinking with pinpoint precision into the grooves of each card.
Her complexion had taken on a near-translucent pallor. Two days and two nights of sustaining high-intensity magical output had drained the color from her lips entirely, and even her brilliant golden hair had gone slightly dim.
With every card completed, her body gave a barely-perceptible tremor from sheer depletion.
"Daphne. Stop."
Sophia's voice cut suddenly into the silence of the top floor.
Daphne's eyes snapped open. The instant she recognized who had come, a flash of startled joy crossed her face — only to be immediately swallowed by deep guilt. She struggled to rise and offer a proper bow.
"Your Majesty — please forgive this minister's discourtesy. The base circuit for this batch of cards is still just slightly short of—"
"Enough."
Sophia crossed the room in quick strides and caught Daphne by the shoulder before she could collapse.
Feeling the alarming heat radiating through her palm, Sophia's brow furrowed.
"Irene down below is pushing herself to the limit for efficiency. You up here are pushing yourself to the limit with magic output."
Sophia looked directly into Daphne's slightly unfocused eyes, her voice carrying a dominance that permitted no argument.
"This Queen does not need a Saint who burns herself out and falls."
The moment the words left her mouth, Sophia closed her eyes. That unique sensory-link ability was pushed in an instant to its absolute limit.
What flowed through was not merely a supplement of magical energy. It was something closer to a total system takeover.
Daphne's magic circuit — nearly depleted, cracked through with hairline fractures — felt in that moment as though it had received the direct gaze of a divine being.
What Daphne felt was a force that was cool, fathomless, and suffused with absolute Order — like a torrent of glacial water surging through her, instantly washing away the searing pain of over-expenditure.
Beneath her skin, now almost translucent with exhaustion, the previously dim threads of her magic circuit lit up at a visible pace, suffusing the air with a holy, luminous glow.
That flood of life returning — like dead wood meeting spring — was so overwhelming that Daphne couldn't help but let out a soft, barely audible cry. The tightness in her brow eased, and even her breathing slowed into a deep, measured rhythm.
But Sophia — the one doing the pouring — found her own eyes deepening in that moment to something unfathomable.
Through the closeness of their joined hands, she felt something — a miraculous pulse that transcended the physical.
It was not a simple heartbeat. It was not the monotone cycling of magic.
Sophia perceived it with startling clarity: Daphne's soul-frequency was resonating through those Blue Gold cards with the entire West Tower — and even, distantly, with the copper coins clinking in the Tears of the Sea shop far below — producing a strange, deep harmonic.
That rhythm was like the tides of the deep sea — unhurried, and immense.
In this connection, Sophia felt herself become something like a vast conductor.
She could feel the aftershock of Irene hammering metal two floors below. She could feel the precise frequency of Valery's footsteps climbing the stone stairs. She could even feel the living pulse behind each Blue Gold identity card held in her hands.
This was an enormous neural network — and it was taking shape.
And Daphne was this network's holy, luminous battery.
That sensation of commanding everything — of being stretched out infinitely through the world's pulse — extended Sophia's senses without limit, until she seemed to brush, faintly and distantly, against the sleeping will of Mason Royal City's very earth.
Daphne slowly opened her eyes. Her golden pupils swam with a dreamy, disoriented haze.
She turned her head and looked at Sophia — close enough to touch — and in her gaze, beyond the clarity born of exhaustion finally lifting, there was something new: a reverence close to frenzy.
Is this what Your Majesty truly is?
The force you poured into my body — there is not a single impurity in it. It is so pure it makes me want to weep.
In the moment of contact, I felt as though I were dissolving into Your Majesty's shadow.
You weren't rescuing me. You were remaking me.
I felt your breathing. I felt your absolute, razor-precise grip on this entire world.
Those identity cards are no longer cold metal. They are extensions of Your Majesty's body.
You have allowed me to participate in this great undertaking — and you were even willing to use your own essence to baptize me.
What Vasha and the others received was a touch on the face. What I received... was a resonance of Your Majesty's very soul.
This connection — it is the only reason I have left to go on living.
If I could feel this rhythm one more time — even if I dissolved into a point of light on the spot, that would be the most absolute happiness imaginable.
Sophia slowly withdrew her hand. Her fingertips still carried the faint, extraordinary warmth and resilience of Daphne's recovered body.
She composed her expression and settled the resonance — the one that had made even her own heart flutter slightly — back into stillness.
"For whatever work remains — no more pushing past your limits."
Sophia delivered the words in a cool, detached tone and turned to leave.
"Later on, I'll have Willow send you something good to eat."
"Yes! Your Majesty! This minister swears to fulfill her mission, even unto death!"
Daphne bowed deeply toward that retreating black silhouette, her gaze blazing with a loyalty bordering on absolute devotion.
Descending the stairs, Sophia looked at her own hand.
The strange sensation still lingered there, circling.
____
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