"Excuse my discourtesy," Ludwig said, his gaze hardening as he locked eyes with the ruler.
[Inspect]
Na: Octavius Lufondal
Level: 511
Race: Human
Title : Emperor of Lufondal
Status Effects: [Sovereign]
Abilities: [Might and Mayhem] [True Imperial Swordsmanship] [Grandmaster]
Lore: Current Emperor of Lufondal, ruler of steel and fire, one of the most prominent figures in this era. For having subdued any and all rebellions. Though he was the youngest of his brothers, he managed to claim the throne with power and steel. Many of his brothers died at his hand for wanting to eliminate him for the crown, only to have their fates reversed.
***
The Emperor’s brows twitched. It was a small movent, so subtle that most in the hall wouldn’t notice it, couldn’t notice it. But Ludwig did. At this distance, every minute tell mattered, every tiny slip in the Emperor’s composure was louder than the herald’s announcent.
It wasn’t anger. Not yet. It was the kind of reflex you had when sothing unexpected touched the edge of your domain. The twitch carried a warning in it, the sa way a blade’s faint ring warned of a draw long before steel beca visible.
"What is that?" he asked. "What you just did."
The question was simple, but it landed heavy. The Emperor didn’t ask like a curious scholar. He asked like a man who had ruled long enough to know that strange powers didn’t appear without cost, and that anything that could peel back strength and secrets was, by its nature, dangerous to a throne.
His gaze sharpened, not hostile, but asuring. Ludwig felt that attention settle on him like a weighted cloak, pinning down the smallest cracks in posture and breath.
"It is a way to gaze into one’s soul and see their power."
Ludwig kept his voice even. Formal. He didn’t overexplain. Overexplaining was weakness in this hall. The words tasted wrong anyway, soul was not the right term, not fully, not when [Inspect] was a function, a chanism, a tool that didn’t care about dignity. But that was the closest language he had without sounding like a madman speaking in system terms in front of the entire court. One was enough already, and the Hero already botched that notion with his crudeness.
"A dangerous power," the emperor raised his hand.
The movent was almost lazy, almost dismissive, like he was brushing dust from the air. Yet Ludwig’s skin prickled the instant the Emperor’s fingers rose, like the world itself had leaned forward. The hall didn’t notice. No one gasped. No one flinched. They saw only a ruler gesturing. Ludwig felt the truth behind it: intent, authority, and the kind of force that did not need to shout.
No one realized it, except Ludwig.
[You’re in a Deadly environnt]
The words cut across his vision like a blade across a throat. The change was imdiate and absolute. Ludwig’s lungs tightened as if the air had thickened into tar. His heartbeat, already loud, turned into a war drum in his skull. Muscles along his spine locked instinctively, every nerve screaming that one wrong breath would be his last. The pressure wasn’t the crude crush of bloodlust. It was inevitability, permission to die granted by the man who owned the room, the empire, the laws, and everyone standing within them.
And when the hand ca down.
[You’re no longer in a Deadly Environnt].
The relief didn’t co like warmth. It ca like the knife being pulled back from skin without cutting, close enough that you still felt phantom pain. Ludwig’s body didn’t relax; it only stopped bracing for the execution that had been a heartbeat away. His throat worked once, dry. He swallowed against nothing because his mouth had forgotten how to make saliva for a second. One gesture. One flicker. The Emperor had placed Ludwig’s life on a scale and then removed it again, as casually as setting down a cup.
He was close to losing a life right there and then.
"I had the displeasure of experiencing this before, from far away. They call him a hero..."
The Emperor’s voice stayed even, but the words carried an old irritation, like a thorn pressed into mory. From far away. Ludwig could picture it: the Emperor witnessing that oppressive presence without being able to crush it imdiately, having to tolerate it because distance and circumstance demanded restraint. That kind of displeasure wasn’t rely personal. It was imperial. The world calling soone else hero with power that could ripple across nations, it was the sort of thing that made rulers grind their teeth in private.
"Ah, yes, we... unfortunately share that ability."
Ludwig chose that word carefully, unfortunately. Because admitting they shared anything with him, the other "hero," the one the Emperor had just referenced, was poison in the wrong dose. Ludwig didn’t want the court thinking he was aligned. Didn’t want the Emperor thinking he belonged to the sa category. The pause in his sentence wasn’t hesitation; it was restraint. He could feel the room’s attention, sharp as needles, even when no one dared speak.
"How co? You’re no hero..."
The Emperor said it plainly, almost matter-of-fact. Not an insult, but a correction. As if the concept of Ludwig being a hero was an error in the world’s accounting. Ludwig could almost appreciate that. Almost. If he ignored the fact that the word hero was being used here like a label that ca with hooks and chains.
"Thankfully, i’m no hero, never wanted to be. Never will. However, I still don’t understand how we have the sa ability. I had it before he ever ca to this world..."
That part tasted worse. Ludwig hated how honest it was. He had no neat explanation. No lineage he could point to that wouldn’t raise more questions. He’d had the ability before the other "hero" had even entered the story, before the world had decided to carve the title into soone’s na. Yet he couldn’t explain why it had awakened in him, or what chanism in the universe had decided he should see behind the veil. He couldn’t simply tell the emperor he was a Summoned hero, also, well, at least not without ntioning the fact that he died and ca back with Dark Magic.
"I see, then what did you see..."
The Emperor didn’t let it go.
Of course, he didn’t.
He leaned into the question like a blade sliding under armor, polite on the surface, searching for a seam. Ludwig could feel the pressure again, not deadly this ti, but present. A sovereign’s curiosity was never harmless. It was always a hunt.
"I saw power," Ludwig said, "Enough of it that I think not even Titania could pose a threat to you, unless she were to go into Divine Descent."
He didn’t flatter carelessly. He frad it like an assessnt. Like fact. Like tactical evaluation. And it was the safest kind of truth: one that elevated the Emperor while still acknowledging that certain thresholds existed. Yet even speaking Titania’s na here, in this hall, carried weight. The court would have their own myths about her, their own fears. Ludwig didn’t need to see their faces to know he’d stirred sothing. The Emperor’s reaction mattered most.
"Is that so... but Titania still lost to a re mutt when she was using Divine Descent back in Tulmud," the emperor said.
The words were light, almost conversational, re mutt, but Ludwig felt the edge underneath. The Emperor was testing the narrative. Testing Ludwig’s loyalty to the story the empire preferred. If Ludwig agreed too quickly, he’d be affirming an insult that might have political consequences. If he argued too hard, he’d sound defensive, like soone protecting the "mutt." Every sentence here had teeth.
"It wasn’t the mutt by itself; it was also the pressure of the Wrathful Death, it corrupted her senses. Montarely that is."
Ludwig kept it clean. Clinical. He didn’t excuse, didn’t glorify. He gave a reason. Titania’s loss wasn’t because she was weak; it was because she was compromised. Because the battlefield wasn’t fair. Because forces like the Wrathful Death didn’t fight like humans. They infected, they twisted, they turned strength against itself. Ludwig could still rember that pressure, like a hand inside the skull.
"The one you took the heart of, for yourself." The Emperor said.
That line sharpened everything. It was no longer abstract discussion. It was possession. Claim. The Emperor spoke of the heart the way one spoke of a crown jewel, sothing that should be in the imperial vault, not hanging inside a young man’s chest. Ludwig’s fingers flexed once at his side before he stilled them.
"Yes."
One word. No apology. No embellishnt. Ludwig didn’t bow his head. He didn’t offer justification. He didn’t give the court a performance. Because if he started explaining, he’d never stop, and the explanation would sound like pleading.
"That is an enviable heart."
The Emperor’s tone was almost admiring, almost. But Ludwig heard the other aning: envy was not a feeling here. It was a category. A danger. A reason for people to kill and steal and call it duty afterward.
"Indeed, I do know."
Ludwig didn’t deny it. Denial would be stupidity. He had lived long enough with that heart to understand what it did to people. And he didn’t want this curse on anyone else. As it would also an one more Usurper he’ll have to fight again.
"And you know many would want it," the Emperor said.
The hall felt colder, or maybe it was Ludwig’s skin rembering the earlier "Deadly environnt" prompt. The Emperor’s words were a truth the court would pretend not to understand while absorbing every implication. Many would want it. Which ant many would try. Which ant the empire would not always protect him if it decided his possession was inconvenient.
"I do."
"So you’ll protect it no matter who asks for it?" the emperor asked.
There was a pause in the hall, the kind that wasn’t silence but tension, everyone waiting for the correct answer, the safe answer, the obedient answer. Ludwig’s pulse didn’t slow. His mouth tasted tallic, not from blood, but from restraint.
"I shall."
"Even if I ask for it. Even if I want it for my son," he said.
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