Duke, Raphael Aurellia's Perspective
It's been three years. The frost hadn't lifted yet. A thin veil of morning fog clung to the stone tiles as I stepped into the courtyard. My breath came out in small, visible puffs—soft ghosts in the cold.
Once, this place had been nothing more than a soldier's yard—weather-worn dummies leaned against cracked walls, spears sunk deep in frozen soil. Now? Now the courtyard groaned under steel and movement. Pulley machines, weight racks, reinforced beams lined with adjustable loads—it looked more forge than field. The scent of iron filled the air, sharpened by sweat and cold.
I paused. A group of soldiers performed synchronized lifts under the guidance of a short, dark-haired girl in thick gloves. Her robes bore the mark of a healer, but her posture screamed instructor.
No. Not healer. That word was already outdated.
Field medic.
Alliyana's doing. Of course.
The name had sounded odd at first—too militaristic, too utilitarian—but now I couldn't think of them as anything else. They weren't just nurses anymore. These were trained operatives who joined expeditions, patched wounds on the frontlines, administered Alliyana's carefully rationed elixirs of various herbs, and, most shockingly, accelerated muscle repair through simple healing. A method only used for injuries and stabilizing vitals with constraints because of its dangers is now used in everyday training.
And yet... the men looked healthier. Denser. Not swollen with magic-fed growth, but compact, efficient, alive.
I remembered my resistance when Alliyana first presented the idea—simple healing in training. I had argued, reasonably, that such practices would leave soldiers sickly, prematurely aged. It was common knowledge that too much healing magic ruined the body over time. But she didn't flinch. She merely outlined her protocol—caloric cycling, post-casting rest, precise intervals, supplemental nutrients I couldn't even pronounce. Nutrition was the key.
And now?
Now every regiment in the duchy requested more medics. Every captain measured progress not in months, but in cycles of strain and restoration. Some of the new recruits had never known the old methods.
She told me the truth before I wanted to hear it—Demon Hunters wouldn't be enough. I could arm men, train them, send them into the dark… but it was knowledge, she said, that humanity truly needed. And she was right.
A soft voice rose above the clatter of chains.
I turned my gaze toward the far arch, where the new recruits stood in modest formation—robes freshly pressed, boots still too clean. No weapons. Just leather satchels, sashes of colored thread to mark trainee status, and nervous eyes. At their head stood a slender woman—voice too soft, shoulders too narrow, stance just shy of commanding.
Lina Kell.
She wasn't a leader, I can tell. Her posture gave her away—gentle, deferential, a little too eager to be liked.
And yet Alliyana had chosen her.
I still didn't understand the reasoning, but results were results. Two years of training cycles, and not one recruit failed out of the program. Her medics weren't charismatic or brave—they were reliable. Unshaken under pressure. Quick to stabilize, disciplined with mana, methodical in post-combat care. They didn't panic when a man's ribs showed. They worked.
Three months in the field. Three in the hospital. Three in physical conditioning support. Each cycle taught them something different—and made them hard to replace..
I walked further along the paved path, the polished stone catching slivers of early light between patches of snow. The library waited ahead, but I slowed my pace. I've come to enjoy walks.
Three years ago, this place was quiet. Not peaceful—stagnant. Soldiers went through the motions. Healers waited in clinics, hands folded. No innovation, no urgency. Just routines handed down by men long dead.
Now it pulsed. With sweat. With discipline. With purpose sharpened by necessity.
And all because a girl who was sent north to die refused to.
Girl—what a joke.
The warmth struck me the moment I opened the doors. Not the warmth of fire. The warmth of concentrated effort. Quiet obsession.
The library had become unrecognizable.
Once a hushed retreat for scholars, it now buzzed with silent urgency. Scribes hunched over parchment and binding tables, eyes glazed with focus. No idle reading here. No poetry. Just function—copied anatomy charts, training logs, recovery protocols, and updated field manuals written in that stark, exacting hand of hers. Scholars, scribes and artists to mass produce her books and manuals.
Her knowledge.
I passed a long table covered in diagrams of the digestive tract—drawn with near-surgical precision. Beside them, sketches of limbs mid-exertion, muscle groups annotated with looping symbols only field medics seemed to understand. Another table was stacked with notes on macro and micro nutrition.
A boy at the far end worked over a row of tiny glass vials. Alcohol fumes hung faint in the air—familiar, but off. Not the scent of old taverns, but something cleaner. Sharper.
Even alcohol had been repurposed. What once made drinks stronger now sterilized wounds.
Her touch was everywhere. Even the air in this place had discipline.
I remembered the requisition order she submitted two winters ago. A demand, really—hundreds of plants from across the continent. Some only found in the Dark Elven territory of O'Drexa. Others grown on the sandy desert in the far south. It had taken months. Several of our best foragers risked their lives.
At the time, I called the request madness.
She called it a starting point.
The result was a heavy, iron-bound tome:
A Manual of Crude Extraction and Applied Medicine.
Three hundred pages. Written for scholars and field medics. Pages stained with ink, sweat, and crushed leaves. Recipes for pain, fever, diarrhea, motion sickness—even the poison from demonic beasts was repurposed for bringing a soldier back to life if their heart stops.
Some could cure. Others just bought time. She never made the distinction sound noble. But soldiers came back breathing, and civilians stopped burying their young.
That was enough.
I climbed the short stair to the northern wing and found the door at the end of the corridor. A simple brass plate read:
PRIVATE.
I knocked once out of habit, then pushed it open.
The office was quiet, save for the scratching of a quill and the creak of old wood settling into the cold. The hearth crackled low, casting long shadows across the shelves—lined with scrolls, flasks, surgical tools, and preserved organs suspended in a liquid to preserve it.
And in the center of it all—
She stood before the mirror, barefoot on the polished stone, arms raised in a slow twirl.
Her reflection followed, graceful and deliberate, as if she were testing the symmetry of movement. The black dress she wore moved with her like poured ink—simple, elegant, designed for ease of motion. On her right hand, her slime rested in the shape of a glove, dormant but alert, clinging to her skin with an almost possessive sheen. Her blonde hair was tied high, accentuating the soft curve of her cheek, the long shadow of lashes.
She struck a pose—fist on her hip, one leg forward, brow raised in theatrical defiance.
Then she met my eyes through the reflection.
"Just admiring my beautiful vessel. It matured quite beautifully, don't you agree?" she said, jokingly, with a flick of her fingers and a half-spin like a dancer mocking royalty.
I snorted.
"Act your age, old man."
She grinned—genuine, wide, undignified. The kind of grin no one else ever saw.
"You're too serious all the time, Raphael. Loosen up." she said, returning to her desk with a stretch and a yawn that didn't quite match her perfect posture. She sat, the chair groaning under her slight weight as she resumed her work—notes sprawled out in symmetrical rows, ink still wet on a fresh page labeled: Recombinant Compression Patterns, Monastic Techniques – Draft I.
I stepped in and let the door shut behind me. The warmth inside was welcome.
"Are you done?" I asked.
"With the book?" she replied without looking up. "Almost. I just need a few more months with the monk."
Her voice dipped—not soft, but slower.
"If I can fully reverse engineer their method of rebuilding the body… this could change everything."
She didn't sound proud. She sounded tired.
Then she added, "I do feel a bit guilty. He trusts me."
I moved toward the fire. "I hear he's from Yor."
She nodded. "They're peaceful. Isolationists. They don't interfere with the outside world, and no one dares to interfere with them. I wouldn't be surprised if even the gods leave that island alone. Every man, woman, child there—monsters. No divinity. Just strengthening magic and brute strength. A peaceful bunch."
She folded the corner of a page, precise.
"And now I'm repurposing their sacred method into something that can be taught. Mass-produced. Used for killing."
For a moment, we both watched the fire. The wood hissed.
"I understand," I said.
She didn't reply, but the quiet meant she heard me.
"You agreed to it," I continued. "Because you know what's coming. Knowledge, medicine, sacred methods—humanity needs all of it now. We can't keep relying on relics and mythic heroes. Not after what we know."
I let the silence sit a little longer, then smirked faintly.
"Besides," I added, "you're a hypocrite. I know you're just as excited as you are guilty."
That earned a quiet laugh—more breath than sound. Her eyes stayed on the page, but the corner of her mouth curved.
"You caught me."
In all the years I've known her, I've only seen her falter once—and that was a few months ago. A change in her eyes. A stillness not born of calm, but something heavier. Regret, maybe. Or stagnation.
Her body had fully matured by twelve. She turns thirteen soon. And despite everything—her methods, her discipline, her singular will—I could tell she'd reached it.
The limit. The boundary of what the human form can become.
She never said it aloud. She didn't need to.
Her existence distorted my understanding of power. Paladins stood tall with divine blessings at their backs. She walked without it—yet she towers over them.
She once said she would kill a god. As strong as she is now, she's realized it's not enough. Nowhere near enough.
This monk… he's the key.
She interrupted my thought.
"Ethan, Alexa, Ban… they're progressing well."
Her voice shifted back to clinical.
"They've reached the level I was at three years ago, physically. Structurally sound. Efficient. But no real combat experience yet. Demonic beasts aren't enough. They don't teach you how to read intent. How to think under pressure."
She capped her inkwell with a soft click.
"They need something more."
I already knew what she was about to say.
"I'd like your permission to spar with them."
I met her eyes. Cold, clear, without cruelty. Just fact.
"You won't kill them?"
She blinked once, then smiled—thin, amused.
"Of course not."
I let out a quiet sigh, then nodded. "Be careful. No broken bones."
"I can't promise that," she said. "But I'll keep the important ones intact."