Episode-891
Chapter : 1781
"I want to protect this family," Milody corrected. "We will say Rosa fell ill. A mysterious illness after childbirth. A tragedy. She is in a coma, sleeping peacefully. And Mina... the devoted sister... she stepped in to marry you, to be a mother to the child her sister could not raise. It is tragic. It is noble. The people will weep, and they will accept it."
Lloyd looked at his mother. It was a brilliant plan. Cold, calculated, and effective. It erased the messy truth of betrayal and demons and replaced it with a sad fairy tale.
"Fine," Lloyd said. "Do it."
"Lloyd..."
"I said do it," Lloyd repeated, walking past her towards the door. "Draft the papers. Plan the ceremony. Tell the lie. I have a factory to run."
He walked out of the room, his face a mask of indifference. Inside, the soldier was screaming, but the Lord of Ferrum had a job to do.
The "Year of the Phoenix," the newspapers were calling it. In just twelve months, Lloyd had turned House Ferrum into a continental superpower. The transition hadn't been a blur; it had been a calculated blitzkrieg of industrialization and political maneuvering. The marriage to Mina had become the anchor of his domestic life—a quiet, professional arrangement of mutual respect and shared duty to little Leo.
Mina looked beautiful, of course. She wore white, and she held the baby—little Leo—with a fierce protectiveness. She loved Lloyd. He knew that. He could see it in her eyes, the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn't noticing. And he cared for her. He respected her. She was brilliant, kind, and strong.
But she wasn't Rosa.
Every time he looked at Mina, he saw the ghost of her sister. He saw the empty space where the Ice Queen should have been standing. It was a cruel joke. He had the family he was supposed to have, but the pieces were all wrong.
The lie worked perfectly, just as Milody had predicted. The public ate it up. "The Tragic Duchess," they called Rosa. Stories were written about her. Songs were sung about the sleeping beauty in the North. People sent flowers. They lit candles. They prayed for her awakening.
Lloyd found it hilarious in a dark, twisted way. They were mourning a woman who wasn't dead, just gone. They were praising a marriage built on a foundation of necessary deceit.
He threw himself into his work. If he couldn't fix his heart, he would fix the world. He expanded the manufactory. He optimized the Soul Farm grinding routes. He pushed the Titan Squad to new limits.
Lloyd felt like an intruder in his own home. He watched them for a moment, his face expressionless. He was the guardian of this peace. He was the wall that kept the monsters out. But he wasn't part of the picture. He was the frame.
He turned away and continued down the hall, the weight of the crown already feeling heavier than any armor he had ever worn.
[System Status: Normal. Mental State: Stable (Questionable).]
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Lloyd deadpanned into the silence of the empty corridor.
He stood up and adjusted his coat. Being a Lord was exhausting. Being a Lord with a secret identity, a missing wife, a new wife, and a baby was a logistical nightmare.
As he walked through the corridors of the estate, he passed a portrait of Rosa. It had been painted years ago, before everything went wrong. She looked cold, distant, regal.
"You played me well," Lloyd whispered to the painting. "You and Mammon both. I hope you're warm, wherever you are."
He didn't stop. He couldn't stop. The momentum of his life was dragging him forward, whether he wanted to go or not.
The nursery was on his way to the main reception room. He paused by the door. Inside, Mina was rocking Leo to sleep. She was humming a soft tune, something from the South. The baby was asleep, his tiny hand clutching her finger.
It was a perfect picture of domestic peace. It was everything a man should want.
Lloyd felt like an intruder in his own home. He watched them for a moment, his face expressionless. He was the guardian of this peace. He was the wall that kept the monsters out. But he wasn't part of the picture. He was the frame.
He turned away and continued down the hall.
"Status report," he muttered to himself.
[System Status: Normal. Energy Reserves: 100%. Mental State: Stable (Questionable).]
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Lloyd deadpanned.
Chapter : 1782
He reached the heavy doors of the reception room. He could hear the noise of the party inside. Laughter, music, the clinking of glasses. The sound of people pretending everything was fine.
Lloyd put on his mask. Not the white mask of the assassin, but the mask of the Lord. The confident, slightly arrogant, know-it-all genius that everyone expected him to be.
He pushed the doors open and stepped into the light.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Lloyd announced, his voice cutting through the chatter. "Try not to break anything. The furniture is more expensive than your titles."
The crowd laughed. They loved him. They feared him. They had no idea that the man standing before them was a hollow shell held together by duty and sarcasm.
Mina joined him a few minutes later, handing the baby off to a nursemaid. She took his arm, her touch warm and grounding.
"You're late," she whispered.
"I was having a deep philosophical debate with a battery," Lloyd replied. "The battery won."
Mina smiled, but her eyes were sad. She knew. She always knew. She knew that he was there, but a part of him was still wandering the frozen wastes, looking for a mana signature that wasn't there.
"Just get through the night, Lloyd," she said softly. "For Leo."
"For Leo," Lloyd agreed.
He looked out at the sea of faces. Allies. Rivals. Spies. They were all pieces on a board. And he was the player who had forgotten the rules but was winning anyway.
The shadow of the culpable hung over him, a dark cloud that no amount of magical light could dispel. He had blamed Rosa for a crime she didn't commit. He had wasted time hating her when he should have been saving her. And now, he was paying the price.
Success. Power. Respect. It all tasted like ash.
But he swallowed it down. He was Lloyd Ferrum. He was a soldier. And soldiers didn't stop marching just because their feet hurt.
"So," Lloyd said to a passing Duke, grabbing a glass of wine. "Let me tell you why your current salt mining operations are inefficient and frankly, embarrassing."
The Duke looked offended. Lloyd didn't care. It was better to be the arrogant genius than the grieving husband. It was easier to fix a mine than to fix a broken timeline.
The night went on. The music played. And somewhere in the North, the wind howled over empty snow, carrying the name of a queen who would never come home.
The map on the table was a mess of colors. Red for enemies, blue for allies, and a whole lot of gray for "people who are about to be conquered by capitalism." Lloyd stared at it, rubbing his temples. Being a hero was one thing. Being a politician was a headache that no amount of aspirin could fix.
It had been a year. A single, long, exhausting year.
In that time, Lloyd had gone from being the "useless heir" to the most terrifying man on the continent. They called him the "Continental Phoenix." It sounded cool, but mostly it just meant he had a lot of paperwork.
"My Lord," Ken Park said, stepping into the room. He was wearing his usual black suit, looking like a statue carved from granite and bad attitude. "The delegation from Zakaria is here. Princess Amina is... impatient."
"She's always impatient," Lloyd muttered. "It's the desert heat. Makes people cranky."
"She brought the Lilith Stones," Ken added.
Lloyd sat up straight. "Well, why didn't you say so? Send her in. And get some tea. The good stuff. Not the leaf water we gave the last ambassador."
This was the new reality. The Abyss was encroaching. The Devils were massing at the borders of reality like bad neighbors who wouldn't turn down their music. To fight them, Lloyd needed resources. He needed unity. And apparently, the only way to get unity in this world was to marry everyone.
First, it was Mina. That was duty. That was family.
Then came Amina. The Princess of Zakaria. She was sharp, dangerous, and she controlled the biggest supply of Lilith Stones in the world. Those stones were the batteries for Lloyd's tech. Without them, his railguns were just expensive metal tubes. So, they made a deal. A political marriage. A union of sand and steel.
The door opened, and Amina swept in. She was wearing silk robes that cost more than a small town, and her eyes were sharp enough to cut glass.
"Husband," she said, the word sounding more like a military rank than an endearment.