Steam rose in fragrant curls from a dish that filled the whole room with its mouthwatering aroma. “Special service!” she announced like she was unveiling a mythic artifact. “Golden Wolfsaddle!”

  The tray landed in front of me: tender chunks of prime wolf saddle, slow-braised in dark ale gravy. Sweet carrots gleamed orange in the thick sauce, onions caramelized soft and golden, steppe mushrooms adding their earthy depth. It smelled like victory and sin, both ladled onto one plate.

  Okay… now I hope it tastes good… Here goes nothing!

  The meat practically melted on my tongue… soft, juicy, the dark ale giving it depth, the carrots balancing it with a hint of sweetness. For a second, the inn faded away. No wolves, no politics, no looming gods; just food that felt like it could heal whatever stress I was carrying.

  “…Yeah,” I murmured to myself, chewing slowly. “That’s good.”

  I let myself take another bite. Still amazing… I was quietly happy, like maybe for once the world wasn’t a complete disaster and I could eat wolves and like it. Across the table, Dhriti was fidgeting until a second plate finally arrived for her. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t savor… just dug in. Bite after bite, she ate with the same rhythm she probably used for everything: efficient.

  To her, it was just meat, no matter how golden the name.

  I smirked faintly, resting my chin on one hand as I watched her polish off another forkful like it was bread rations. “…Glad one of us has taste.”

  She blinked up at me mid-chew, confused, then shrugged and kept eating.

  I speared another bite of wolf; the gravy dripping down the fork, and chewed slowly before glancing at her. “So… Dhriti. You’ve got shiny armor now, but what exactly can you do?”

  She straightened a little, but her voice came out quieter than usual. “I can’t fight yet. Not well. But I will study. I’ll be the best for you.”

  That made me pause, fork halfway to my mouth. She said it with such certainty, like the gods declared it. For her, that was me... I forced a smile, took a bite anyway, and let the flavor linger before answering. “…Alright. Ambition first, skill later.”

  Dhriti leaned forward, propping her elbows on the table in a way that made her polished gauntlets clink softly against the wood. “And you, q…noble lady? What is your favorite color?”

  I blinked at her. Of all the questions… “My favorite what?”

  “Color,” she repeated, as if it were the most logical question to ask someone you think is a goddess.

  I stalled, chewing another chunk of meat to buy time. The wolf was too good to rush anyway. “Well, definitely not that rose stone shade. I’ve seen enough of that to last a lifetime.”

  Dhriti burst out laughing, nodding eagerly. “It’s everywhere!”

  Her laugh was infectious; I found myself grinning back as I glanced down at my clothes. Right, these weren’t chosen; they were spat out by wish magic. Blue mostly with white accents. I tapped the edge of my sleeve thoughtfully. “…Blue. With some white, I guess.”

  She nodded solemnly, as if I’d just revealed a grand secret. Then, her eyes flicked up again. “Your temple shall be blue and white! What do I need to do before that?”

  I chewed slowly, frowning at my plate as I thought. “…Is there like… a course? Two weeks of how not to die with a sword 101?”

  Her head tilted. “Course?”

  “Training,” I clarified, pointing at her fork for emphasis before taking another bite myself. “I want you to learn to fight before… we leave.”

  “Oh!” Her face lit up. “Uncle can train me. He is a war veteran. But…” She twirled her fork awkwardly, eyes flicking down. “I don’t know what war.”

  I washed my bite down with a sip of Steppe Bite before nodding. “Good enough. Just bother him until he gives in. You’ll need it. Tell him I’ll cover the costs.”

  Her eyes shone with a mix of determination and childlike eagerness again. I reached for another forkful of wolf, letting the quiet stretch between us. “I’ll be working mostly at night anyway,” I added casually, careful not to explain why. Dmitry probably wanted me on Earth; he was talking about some PR. Yay… “So you’ll have time during the day to train and sleep during the night. Sleep at home, okay? I don’t need guarding all the time.”

  Dhriti nodded happily, cutting into her own plate as if everything had just been solved. Meanwhile, I savored another tender bite, realizing the rhythm of eating and planning together almost felt… normal.

  And I was going to unleash demons upon this…

  I shook my head and let out a sigh. “This is going to be a busy month.”

  And busy it was. Every morning and night I forced myself into meditation, in both worlds. Daytime, I played my Earth role, more mascot than monarch, drifting around the building so people remembered I existed.

  The middle managers started requesting my “presence” in their departments. At first, I thought it was some sort of side-quest trigger. Nope. They all noted what Lucas did in the fortress in Rimelion.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  And asked him to do it again. He’d called it a “performance upgrade,” but somehow that translated into me gaining a reputation as a full-blown villainess. Lucas dove into the role like he’d been waiting his whole life, gleefully spreading my “fame” through whispers and jokes until it became gospel.

  At first, I tried denying it. Pointing out the obvious… that I wasn’t an actual villainess. But the more I protested, the more they nodded like they were in on something. “Ah, of course, official propaganda. You have to deny it. We get it.”

  So, I gave up. Apparently, I was management’s evil overlord now.

  So I forced Dmitry to pay people a good wage… and that only made things worse. The line was everywhere. “You get good pay, but you work for the villainess!” Posters of me, courtesy of Lola, plastered the building like wartime morale sheets.

  It started as a joke, but people actually leaned into it… living as if they worked under a corporate villainess. Which raised a teeny-tiny question: didn’t being a villainess require, y’know, being evil? Doing illegal things?

  When I asked, the answer came back fast: “Other departments already handle that!”

  Only the IT guys were honest. They pulled me into their dark little den, grinning, and showed off their collection of pirated software and media like treasure. They puffed out their chests, proud. “All for you, villainess! We pirate in your name.”

  I made a tour to expose which department handled the evil stuff.

  Human Resources was first. A cluster of cubicles buzzing with quiet phone calls and too many inspirational posters on the walls. The problem was I was in the pictures, not the usual corporate propaganda. People were soothing someone on the line or typing up complaints with the grim focus usually reserved for battlefield healers.

  Finance was worse.

  Stacks of spreadsheets on screens, hushed voices, eyes bloodshot from squinting at endless numbers. I asked one guy what he was working on, and he mumbled something about “quarterly variance reconciliation.” I nodded sagely, like that meant anything. That could honestly be something evil.

  Marketing at least had color. Whiteboards crammed with slogans, mood boards with models laughing, and one poor intern trying to Photoshop a wolf logo onto everything because I mentioned wolves are friends.

  Legal was quieter, sterile. Stacks of contracts, walls lined with law books nobody probably reads. Everyone wore the same outfit as Iraklis. Honestly, wearing that instead of suits and being a lawyer could be considered a crime in itself.

  I escaped before they could tell me I had to read some of the contracts.

  Operations had maps, charts, and diagrams pinned everywhere. Logistics flow like troop movement. I half-expected someone to yell “flank left!” while pointing at a supply chain diagram. But everything was legal, at least as far as they showed me.

  By the time I rode the elevator back up, I’d decided corporate Earth wasn’t that different from Rimelion’s guild halls… just with fewer revealing outfits and less chance of stabbing.

  Progress under the binding stone was… slow.

  Sure, I knew the runes, but there were so many of them. It was like trying to defuse a bomb made by an overcaffeinated mathematician. Compared to that, Earth was the easy part… just walking around, nodding at people like I totally understood their corporate wizardry. Smile, nod, move on.

  Piece of cake.

  A few days later, I was sprawled back in the cushy chair of my top-floor office, “working.” Which in practice meant watching Rimelion streams with the kind of intensity people usually reserved for stock charts. Technically, it could be called work research. Or at least, that’s what I told myself.

  The soft ding of the elevator broke my concentration. The doors slid open and in walked Yuki.

  Yuki sat down across from me, smoothing her skirt as if it might buy her courage. Her hands twisted together, knuckles white. “I… I have something I want to tell you, Queen!”

  Oh no. That tone. She’d definitely heard the rumors. Great. I was about to get confessed to by an intern who thought I was running an evil empire.

  I forced a patient smile that probably looked more like barbed wire. “It’s okay, Yuki. What do you need?” My voice came out sharper than I intended, the annoyance bleeding through.

  Which, naturally, only made her more nervous. “I—I found… another sword? But if you don’t have time—”

  “Yuki.” I leaned backward, cutting her off. “You work here. You’re important. That’s why I gave you elevator access. So… another sword, huh? Spill.”

  Her eyes lit up like I’d just told her Santa was real. She nodded quickly, launching into the story like she’d been waiting all week for this.

  “Three hundred years ago,” she began breathlessly, “there was this adventurer. Just a man with a normal sword, but he fought like no one else. His strikes were quick, deliberate, and he never wasted energy. Everyone said he fought like a dancer, flowing from one enemy to the next. But what really amazed people was his journal! I found fragments in the archives, and he wrote everything down: his struggles, his victories, the duels where he—”

  “The sword, Yuki.”

  She blinked, her face going crimson. “Oh! Right, sorry!” She scrambled, waving her hands as if she could fan away her own rambling. “The sword is called… Mistrael.”

  Interesting. In the future, that sword was kind of famous. Guild leader Brian—absolute prick, by the way—had it. He wasn’t strong, but I remembered the clips: his sword practically carried the fights. He later retired from Rimelion, one of the exceptions, and took the sword with him.

  No idea what it actually did, but… if we got it before Brian? “Okay, Yuki, sounds interesting. Where is it? We still need to get yours.”

  She twisted her fingers together again, still nervous. “I… in his last entries, he wrote that he was near caves on the coast. We’ll be going there tomorrow, so I was trying to find the location, but it’s hard…”

  I nodded, already thumbing a message to Lola. Come here.

  “Don’t worry. Our ships are fast, and honestly we’re stalling more than traveling on the timeline. I still need breathing room for Altandai, too.”

  The elevator dinged, and Lola stepped in. She glided over, skirts rustling like quiet armor, and sat down beside Yuki. “Lady. Yuki. How can I help?”

  I tilted my chin at Yuki. “Our historian dug up a lead on Mistrael. A legendary longsword. Lunaris mentioned she still doesn’t have a good main weapon. This could help.”

  Yuki nearly jumped out of her chair. “I didn’t say it was a longsword!” Her entire face lit up as if she’d just uncovered a conspiracy. She turned her grin on me, triumphant. “You like history!”

  I blinked, caught in her enthusiasm, then glanced sideways at Lola. Then back at Yuki. “Uhm… not exactly? But... Lola, how fast can our ships go now that we’ve got those runes?”

  Lola tapped her tablet, scrolling through neat lines of data. “We installed the new flowing rune… after it was damaged in an accident—”

  “Tramar,” I interrupted without looking up. “Right?”

  Her eyes flicked at me, deadpan. “Yes. After Tramar damaged the ships, we were slowed to a crawl. But we located a riverside village with a skilled runeweaver and repaired everything. Now our ships can manage up to one hundred twenty miles downstream, and seventy upstream against the current.”

  I grinned, leaning back in my chair. “That’s more like it. Perfect little side-quest before the main one.” My gaze slid back to Yuki, whose eyes were still wide like she was processing the number as if it were mythological.

  “So,” I said, a little grin curling, “do you want to go on an expedition with them?”

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