Chapter 176

Chapter 176
## Chapter 176

In the Hero’s Footsteps (3)

The instant the concept of fleeing slipped past Hesperon’s lips, Princess Riley cast a wary glance around the room, instantly on her guard.

A span of nearly two months had slipped away since she was first locked away inside this Immortal Fortress.

In the realm of politics, two months represented an eternity where foes and allies could easily trade places in a single night, and as the leader of her faction, she couldn’t suppress the rising dread in her chest.

Furthermore, she carried a deep anxiety that Isea might end up harmed by rushing into a reckless rescue attempt.

Given those stakes, reacting with such hyper-awareness to the idea of breaking out was only to be expected.

Though a rudimentary sound-muffling barrier protected the room, this remained the central stronghold of the Immortal King, leaving her entirely uncertain of how much protection such basic magic truly offered…

‘Hold on a moment.’

Yet her skepticism proved fleeting.

She quickly recalled that the man standing before her had traveled to this realm just over a month ago.

And hadn’t he been a mere student of hers in the magical arts up until this very hour?

‘He isn’t the sort of person to jest about something so grave. Could it be that he actually possesses a way…?’

Ultimately, her expression shifted to show a faint glimmer of optimism rather than absolute conviction.

“…In what manner?”

“What is that look? Do you doubt my words?”

“A heavy sigh escapes me; I only wish I could trust it completely. Enduring just these two months has been exhausting, and I have no way of knowing if I am meant to languish here for years to come.”

In the beginning, realizing she was entirely powerless, she had attempted to calm her mind by treating the confinement as an unexpected holiday.

However, that forced mental fortitude was rapidly crumbling.

She likely would have broken down weeks ago if Hesperon hadn’t been there to share her confinement.

Directing her focus toward instructing him in the arcane arts had served as a vital distraction from her bleak reality.

…Even if she now felt a bit bewildered by how swiftly he had outpaced her own mastery.

As though reading the turmoil in her thoughts, he offered a bright, knowing smirk.

“Come to think of it, I believe I’ve kept the nature of my unique skill a secret from you, haven’t I?”

Riley offered a slow nod, her gaze locked onto him in surprise.

She had pried into it once out of sheer curiosity, but he had neatly sidestepped the question at the time.

“…What exactly is it?”

It was a breach of etiquette to interrogate someone regarding their innate talents, so she had patiently bided her time until he felt comfortable sharing…

And it appeared that moment had finally arrived.

Rather than offering a verbal explanation to her eager inquiry, Hesperon chose to demonstrate.

The function of his unique skill… or at least, the ability he claimed as such.

With an effortless motion, he reached out into the empty air, and suddenly a wooden skewer stacked with savory, roasted meat materialized in his grasp.

“…A meat skewer?… No, is that a pocket dimension?”

Riley’s features twisted in confusion before she instinctively tilted her head forward, sniffing the air with sudden focus.

While the meals provided by the stronghold weren’t entirely inedible, they fell far short of pleasing someone raised on royal cuisine.

The meat before her glistened brilliantly as if pulled straight from the flames, radiating an incredible aroma and curling steam that immediately made her mouth water.

‘Judging by how fresh it is, this transcends a basic storage void, but how could a talent like that possibly aid our escape…?’

“For you.”

Pushing past her internal skepticism, her hand moved as if guided by an external force to accept the skewer, only realizing what she had done after taking it.

Still, it was far too late to reject the food once it was already in her possession.

Abandoning any desire to maintain a polite facade before him, she yielded to her appetite and took a substantial bite.

A rich, charred fragrance flooded her senses as the tender, firm meat gave way under her teeth, releasing a burst of savory juices that blended flawlessly with a sweet, rich glaze.

By the standards of a princess accustomed to the finest banquets, it was hardly an elegant delicacy, yet it vastly outshone the dreary rations she had survived on during her imprisonment.

Truth be told, she found this humble item far more satisfying than the grandest courses of high society.

“…Could this be… a product of Earth?”

“Far from it, I didn’t retrieve this from a personal storage void. It originates from somewhere within this very realm. I merely called it to this spot by fulfilling a specific trade.”

To be entirely accurate, the item had been prepared at ‘Dancing with Orcs’, a tavern that had risen to immense popularity in Tarak following a massive cash injection from Hubert’s Trading Company, an enterprise currently expanding its reach in every direction imaginable.

While the blend of spices and the glaze traced their origins back to Earth, the actual ingredients and preparation belonged entirely to this world.

“A conjuring talent? That explains your profound fascination with summoning arrays.”

“It diverges slightly from that… though I suppose you could view it through a similar lens.”

Riley gave a small, discontented frown at his evasive phrasing.

Moreover, his casual habit of dropping formal titles and speech patterns was beginning to grate on her nerves.

She twirled the bare wooden stick in her fingers, making no effort to hide her annoyance.

“To break it down accurately, it isn’t simple conjuration; it is a power that bypasses the laws of physical distance under precise parameters. Thanks to the breakthroughs I achieved under your magical tutelage, the talent went through an awakening, granting me an entirely new method of application.”

He spoke with refined courtesy, clearly aiming to soothe her irritated mood.

Though his mannerisms tested her patience, the implications of his statement eclipsed any minor annoyance.

“…Bypassing physical distance.”

Riley felt her pulse quicken as her eyelids fluttered open wide.

If he truly possessed the power to cross space instantaneously, breaking free from their prison was no longer a pipe dream.

And seeing how effortlessly he had brought the food across, the anti-magic wards of this Immortal King’s fortress seemed incapable of suppressing his talent.

Hesperon watched her expression ignite with newfound optimism and nodded to himself in quiet triumph.

‘My initial thought was to summon Complete Harley and fight our way through the gates, but the security matrix of this Immortal Fortress is far too formidable. A stealthy disappearance is a vastly cleaner and more logical approach.’

To pull it off, he had hastily woven together the concepts of “Avatar Cloud” and “In the Hero’s Footsteps” to pass off as a spatial talent.

He hadn’t even bothered to devise a formal name or precise casting parameters for this improvised capability, but since he intended to keep the mechanics shrouded in mystery as a personal secret, the lack of details didn’t truly matter.

“In that case, we should leave at once…!”

“Hold on, there is a minor complication.”

His sharp tone instantly dampened her sudden excitement.

He went on to explain that his current mastery wasn’t advanced enough to safely transport a second individual alongside himself.

Riley’s expression crumbled into instant gloom.

Though her emotions were shifting like the rising and falling tides, he kept his composure perfectly and pressed on with his explanation.

“However, I have devised a workaround…”

Though they had shared a grueling trial within this bleak cell, their actual acquaintance spanned just over four weeks.

It was a fragile tie that could easily sever under the slightest strain.

‘I can’t afford to let her slip away. Once Riley reclaims her freedom, she stands as the prime contender for the imperial throne, meaning endless avenues will open up if I can anchor myself to her side. Furthermore, keeping a close tie to Isea, who is destined to become an awakened entity, will prove invaluable.’

Consequently, he had to forge an unbreakable bond between them, even if it required a bit of manipulation.

“Transporting an unrelated individual remains beyond my current reach, but wouldn’t our spiritual connection deepen sufficiently if we bound ourselves through a formal pledge?”

“…A magical pact?”

As it happened, pledge magic was an elementary discipline accessible to casters of their current standing.

Its binding intensity scaled directly with the magical power of the participants, meaning two low-level mages wouldn’t typically achieve much of a result…

“Could a basic pact woven by casters of our minor standing truly generate enough spiritual weight? It strikes me as insufficient to alter your spatial talent.”

“Do not worry about that part.”

Hesperon let a knowing grin spread across his face.

He held a secret weapon in his “Bond of Unity” capability, an attribute that vastly amplified the spiritual ties between a caster and their target, yielding massive efficiency spikes whenever a formal pledge was struck.

‘I never anticipated utilizing this particular talent in such a manner.’

Thus, with only a handful of days remaining before their intended flight,

Hesperon, a rookie traveler who had arrived in this foreign universe a mere month prior, managed to permanently tether his fortunes to the absolute frontrunner for the crown of the planet’s dominant empire.

—

The young New Talia Kingdom was currently enduring a turbulent phase of transition, grappling with the chaotic adjustments born of its meteoric rise.

No matter how thoroughly the leadership anticipated potential crises and drafted contingency protocols, transforming the very structural foundations of a civilization was bound to trigger massive friction.

Deep within the grand palace anchoring the capital city of Talaria, the administrative heart of the Talia Kingdom,

‘Heinz Hybrid the Second’ sat with a deep crease between his brows, reviewing the stack of provincial intelligence reports piled high on the ornate desk of the royal study—a room that had only recently come under his control.

“Hmph, just as I foresaw, the transition is hitting roadblocks.”

Though he had spent months orchestrating a framework to let the vampire population and humanity thrive side by side, reality rarely aligned perfectly with theoretical plans.

Reading through the accounts of open friction between ordinary citizens resisting the new order and vampires twisting his edicts to suit their own whims across the provinces, it was obvious that settling this volatile political environment would demand an immense amount of time.

‘At the very least, my focus on securing the bureaucracy has prevented a total collapse. Had the administrative gears ground to a halt, the situation would be catastrophic.’

Instead, the human civil servants were being pushed to the brink of exhaustion by the relentless mountains of paperwork, yet his proactive measures were proving their worth at this exact hour.

The offices were stocked with an endless supply of exhaustion-clearing drafts, focus-retaining elixirs to banish sleep, vitality-infusing tonics to sustain physical health, and an assortment of other restorative brews.

To have arranged such extensive support for humans, whose natural stamina paled in comparison to the immortal undead, was a testament to the brilliant planning of a compassionate monarch dedicated to all his subjects.

Heinz, quietly indulging in self-congratulation, stroked his chin thoughtfully as he flipped to the next set of state papers.

‘When all is said and done, the undead are far simpler to direct. Though I must carefully restrict the creation of new progeny to keep our numbers in check, I ought to issue a directive ensuring they are channeled into civil service positions first.’

While he actively sought to eliminate systematic prejudice against the human populace to ensure the realm ran smoothly, it was an undeniable reality that the ruling vampire tier enjoyed distinct structural advantages.

Most importantly, unlike the human citizens whose absolute loyalty could never be taken for granted, the vampires bound to Heinz’s lineage were utterly incapable of defying his direct commands.

Yet privileges were merely tools, and within the New Talia Kingdom—which operated on a foundational philosophy of strict capability-based advancement—an exceptionally gifted human could still ascend to the highest echelons of state power.

‘That layout streamlines my governance. Allowing useless figureheads to hold authority would only multiply my own administrative burdens.’

He systematically relegated operational duties to those possessing genuine competence without an eye on their heritage, while deploying the vampires who lacked an aptitude for desk work across the outer territories to serve as regional observers and military peacekeepers.

A vast portion of the old aristocracy, representing the traditional educated class, had been integrated into the state departments, though an impressive number of common-born citizens were also rapidly displaying remarkable administrative brilliance.

Unearthing such hidden gems fell squarely upon the shoulders of the vampire observers, ensuring that the realm’s stability would solidify at an accelerated pace as the months rolled on.

‘The primary concern rests with the present hour. I fully anticipated friction from the mortal populace, but I did not foresee such blatant insubordination emerging from the vampire ranks.’

He believed he had hammered his expectations into their minds prior to the ascension, yet it appeared their centuries-old conditioning of supremacy and arrogance was bleeding through anyway.

His initial response would be a stern reprimand, but if they failed to alter their behavior and persisted in their old ways…

He would have no qualms about processing their bodies into raw components for Blood Essence.

[Your Majesty, Lady Briki has arrived at the gates. Shall I grant her entry to the inner chamber?]

Right then, a mental transmission flared in his consciousness, forwarded by the elite sentries patrolling the perimeter of the royal estate.

Briki, the companion Sacred Blood of the Hybrid bloodline who had been dispatched to handle a remote assignment, had finally made her return.

[Permit her to enter.]

It went without saying that the objective she had been pursuing carried immense strategic weight, given that an elite entity of the Sacred Blood tier had been required to personally see it through.

‘An asset of a Sacred Blood’s caliber cannot be left sitting in idleness. And for an undertaking of this nature, there is truly no one better suited on the continent.’

Indeed, the subsequent objective on Hybrid’s agenda was clear…

A vital and unavoidable campaign, given that they had boldly christened their faction the ‘Auterica Vampire Clan Alliance’.

Their next grand step was to forcibly bring every remaining vampire bloodline across the land under a single, unified banner.