In the Kingdom of Eldoria, east of the continent’s heartland, stood the residence of Count Devereux. Within a small room on the right side of the second floor, a man sat on the edge of his bed, addressing the knight who stood before him.
“Is it done?”
“Yes, my lord,” the knight replied, bowing his head.
“As you commanded, I rescued the orphans from the small village in the eastern part of the kingdom. From the… facility for human experimentation.”
“And the orphanage? Is it being properly managed?”
“Yes. Just as you instructed, I placed it in the care of a girl named Seraphina.”
“What of the baron’s family who ran that village?”
“The moment I presented them with the documents detailing their experiments, they surrendered. We have everything you demanded, including the castle itself.”
With that, the knight, Gareth, produced a leather pouch from his tunic and set it on the table beside Caelan’s bed.
“Good.”
Caelan opened the pouch, a satisfied smile touching his lips as he glanced at the gold coins glinting within.
“Young Master,” Gareth began after a moment of silence, “if I may ask something…?”
“What is it?”
“You said your purpose in attacking the facility in Baron Lysander’s territory was to save that girl, Seraphina. Is that correct?”
Caelan nodded, gesturing for him to continue.
“She was… extraordinary,” Gareth said. “I’ve seen my share of things as a mercenary, lived a long life.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “But I cannot understand why someone so powerful was being held captive in a place like that.”
“And?”
“And why did you simply leave her at the orphanage?”
Caelan offered no reply to the question, which was tinged with a note of bewilderment. Gareth’s confusion was perfectly reasonable. To rescue a girl like Seraphina and not make use of her talents was an act devoid of any tangible benefit.
But that was only from Gareth’s perspective. From where Caelan sat, the situation looked entirely different.
I’ve removed one of the world’s destruction flags, he thought. For now, that’s enough.
Seraphina.
Her full name was Seraphina Corvus. In ten years’ time, she would become one of the Five Calamities—the “Calamity of Wrath”—and annihilate two of the five allied kingdoms, leaving hundreds of thousands dead in her wake.
If one were to ask how Caelan knew what would happen a decade from now, the answer was simple: he was a reincarnator. He was also keenly aware that this world was the setting for a dark fantasy RPG called Maledictum, a world doomed to total destruction in ten years.
“Sigh.”
Caelan clutched his head as a familiar throb of pain returned, a phantom of the moment he had first regained consciousness two months ago.
Just realizing this was a fantasy world laid me up in bed for three days. Discovering it was the world of Maledictum, ten years before the main plot, left me sick for another ten.
At first, when he thought he had simply been reborn into a generic fantasy world, he had despaired for three days straight. But as he slowly adjusted, the situation hadn't seemed so bad.
Being a noble, it turned out, was surprisingly easy.
The life was one of incredible comfort. He could wake when he pleased, sleep when he pleased, do whatever he wanted, and eat whenever he felt the urge. Though he was the third son of a count and held no real power, it was the perfect position to enjoy a life of pleasure without any of the responsibility.
For a time, he had been genuinely happy. For someone who had once worked seventy-eight hours a week at a miserable, low-paying job, this existence was an unbelievable luxury.
Of course, the lack of internet—the pinnacle of modern civilization—was a severe drawback, but the sheer ease of his new life was enough to overlook it.
That satisfaction, however, was short-lived.
Caelan’s pleasant mood shattered the moment he learned the continent was named Therasia. It crumbled further when he recalled that the noble family he’d been born into was that of Count Devereux.
Therasia was the continent of Maledictum, the game he had obsessively played in the slivers of free time his old job had allowed. And the family of Count Devereux was mentioned briefly in one of the game’s side quests.
The despair that followed—the realization that this was ten years before the start of the main plot—was as crushing as the time his paycheck had been delayed for three consecutive months. The world of Maledictum was a meat grinder where, in ten years, every living thing, noble and commoner alike, would be mercilessly ground to dust.
Among the most thoroughly doomed was the Kingdom of Eldoria, the home of the Devereux family. In every route of the game, the moment one of the Five Calamities appeared, the kingdom was wiped from the map.
Destroyed.
The kingdom would vanish. The nobility would be exterminated. The cities would be obliterated. In short, Caelan’s comfortable life as the third son of Count Devereux had an unavoidable expiration date: ten years.
Therefore, if Caelan wanted to continue his peaceful, leisurely existence, he had to eliminate all Five Calamities before they could become the human-killing machines of the future.
And the task he had just given Gareth was the first step in that plan.
“Well… that’s just how it is.”
He couldn’t possibly explain any of this to the knight standing before him.
“The time has not yet come.”
“…The time hasn’t come?”
“No. In any case, ensure this matter doesn’t get out, and continue to support the orphanage as we discussed. Oh, and one more thing.”
Caelan pulled a sealed letter from his coat and handed it over.
“Deliver this to her.”
“This letter?” Gareth asked, his curiosity piqued.
“Yes.”
It was, in fact, critically important. The letter contained a specific phrase, one that appeared in a mandatory event whenever the player encountered the Calamity of Wrath in Maledictum.
The suffering of the dark, the enlightenment of the light. A single despair and belonging.
In the game, a suspicious-looking archbishop from some holy nation would accompany the protagonist and attempt to pacify the Calamity of Wrath with those very words. The moment he spoke them, however, he would be reduced to a bloody heap, and an irritated Calamity of Wrath would mutter, “It’s too late,” before the battle began.
Caelan was using the phrase now because this was the era the Calamity of Wrath had referred to as “the past.” The archbishop NPC had claimed it was a “spell that could befriend the Umbral Kin,” a line Caelan had seen countless times while replaying the game.
Of course, the idea that a single phrase could befriend one of those lunatics who make pacts with Chthonian entities is ridiculous… But for people who worship such entities, it has a strange sort of logic to it.
It was impossible to predict the reasoning of a mind teetering on the edge of fanaticism.
As Caelan watched the mercenary knight bow respectfully and exit the room, he shrugged to himself.
That’s the first landmine defused. Now for the second.
A few days later, Gareth arrived at the orphanage once again.
“Here is the letter.”
He handed it to the girl, unable to mask his unease. It was understandable. The girl standing before him, Seraphina, was profoundly strange.
Her crimson eyes, a stark contrast to her snow-white hair, held no emotion at all. Not even a flicker. It was an unnerving, complete apathy, as if she viewed every being in the world as little more than an inanimate object.
She took the letter, her expression as blank as it had been the day he’d first pulled her from that facility.
With a soft rustle of parchment, Seraphina silently broke the seal and began to read.
Gareth’s brow remained furrowed in confusion. Though he was no master, he could manipulate mana, and with that came the ability to sense the energy of others. His talent for it was exceptional, far more accurate than that of most knights.
That was how he knew.
This makes no sense, no matter how I look at it.
The girl before him was far too formidable to have been held captive in such a place. As he mulled this over, another question surfaced in his mind—this one concerning his employer.
During his time as a mercenary, Gareth had heard the stories about the third son of Count Devereux. He was an outcast, the talentless black sheep of a noble house. Rumor had it his timid nature made him a frequent target for his notoriously cruel elder brothers.
So how could a man like that have known about the secret human experimentation being conducted by a baron in a hidden facility?
I don’t understand any of this.
As Gareth was lost in his thoughts, his eyes suddenly widened.
The reason was Seraphina. The expressionless girl who had been standing before him a moment ago now wore a wide, unsettling smile.
No, it was more than just a smile.
Her mana… it’s becoming visible to the naked eye!
A shimmering aura now clung to her form, a feat only those who had reached a state of true mastery could achieve. Yet she did it effortlessly.
And then she spoke.
“The one who sent this letter… was it Sir Caelan?”
As she asked, her eyes met his. Her pupils, Gareth now saw, were vertical slits, like a reptile’s—the unmistakable mark of the Umbral Kin. The directness of her gaze sent a primal warning screaming through his senses. He was an expert-rank warrior, yet that simple look made him want to flinch. He stifled a gasp, forcing his composure back into place.
“Yes.”
“Why did he not call for me?” Seraphina asked.
Gareth didn’t know the answer, but instinct warned him that saying so would be a grave mistake. Instead, he recalled a casual remark Caelan had made.
“…He said the time was not right.”
“I see.”
Her reply was short, but the long, curved smile that graced her lips told him it was the correct one.
She…
Seraphina Corvus—no.
“…I understand.”
The first daughter of the Umbral Kin, Seraphina the Crimson Queen, spoke, her enchanting red lips curling.
“I understand his will.”
Clutching the letter that held the secret phrase known only to her master, she twisted her mouth into a ghastly, beautiful smile.