Ludwig did not understand why the throne room changed.

He had asked a simple question. At least, in his mind, it had been simple. The Fourth Princess had been sick. He had heard the whispers. He had seen enough strange ailments, curses, and divine rot lately to understand that sickness inside a palace was rarely just sickness. Asking where she was seemed like the natural next step.

The Queen’s smile told him everyone else had heard something completely different.

"How good it is to be young..." the Gray Tower Master said.

He said it softly, almost mournfully, as if remembering a time when he too had been foolish enough to bleed on imperial floors and ask after princesses in front of their parents. The Red Tower Master immediately turned his face away. The Blue Tower Master covered her mouth with one hand. The White Tower Master looked down, shoulders rigid with the heroic effort of not laughing. Even Van Dijk closed his eyes for a brief moment, which, from him, was practically an applause.

The Emperor failed to fully suppress his smile.

The Second Prince looked as if someone had shoved a thorn beneath his fingernail. Alexander, to his credit, stared at Ludwig with the tired expression of a man who had known him long enough to understand this had not been deliberate, which only made it worse.

Ludwig looked around. "What?"

The Queen’s smile deepened.

The Emperor cleared his throat. "It would be best to allow you to meet our princess after you have taken care of... that."

He pointed at Ludwig’s current appearance.

Ludwig glanced down at himself.

Blood. Torn clothes. Mangled hands. Dried sweat. Old wounds. A trail of red drops still marking the polished floor beneath him. Several fingers were bent at angles that made nearby guards look faintly ill. He had grown used to ignoring the state of the Living Vessel when it was not immediately relevant, but apparently presenting oneself before royalty while looking freshly excavated from a dungeon was considered poor etiquette.

"Ah, yes," Ludwig said. "Pardon me then."

He closed his eyes.

The air changed.

A burst of aura compressed around him, vile, dense, and monstrous. It was not the wide, uncontrolled flood he had used against Sloth. This was concentrated. Baleful. Heavy with rage and vitality, as if life itself had been dragged screaming into a furnace and forced to become fuel. The guards stiffened. Several priests took half a step back before remembering where they were. The Second Prince’s hand moved toward his sword.

The Emperor did not move.

Wrath gathered around Ludwig’s body.

Its greatest feature had never been destruction alone. Destruction was merely the obvious face of it, the part fools understood when mountains broke and bodies turned into ruin. But wrath could only destroy so relentlessly because it refused the body’s limits. It regenerated. It reinforced. It rebuilt the vessel so it could keep tearing forward, keep striking, keep burning until the world or the wielder gave out.

Ludwig’s bones began to crack.

Not break.

Correct.

His broken fingers twisted back into place one by one, each movement sharp enough that a few witnesses flinched in his stead. Mangled flesh closed. Torn skin stitched itself from within. Burns faded. Scars flattened. Wounds along his arms, thighs, and torso sealed under a red-black glow, leaving pale skin beneath the blood. His shoulders rolled as his frame straightened, the Living Vessel repairing itself under the brutal instruction of Wrath. Even his breathing became steadier, as if his body had remembered it was not allowed to look weak.

When the aura faded, Ludwig stood whole.

His clothes, however, remained a disgrace.

He looked down again. "Cleanse."

A new wave moved over him.

This one was cooler, more refreshing, and almost gentle compared to the rage that had come before. It washed over his body in a pale shimmer, taking away dried sweat, blood, grime, and the stale smell of the dungeon. His matted hair loosened, straightened, and settled neatly around his face. The torn fabric of his regalia repaired itself thread by thread, black and silver cloth returning to shape as though the last three days had been a tasteless rumor.

In moments, Ludwig looked as if he had never seen battle a day in his life.

Nobler than most nobles in his black and silver regalia.

He spread his hands slightly. "Should be good now, I hope."

"Presentable," the Queen said.

"High praise," Ludwig replied.

"But the princess," she continued, smile fading into something more careful, "is currently not in a mood to meet others. You will have to wait."

Ludwig looked at her. "She’s sick, isn’t she?"

The Queen’s face changed.

The teasing disappeared.

The Emperor’s gaze sharpened from the throne, and even the Second Prince, for all his anger, became still. The Fourth Princess’s condition was clearly not something spoken of freely, not in halls where servants could carry words faster than arrows.

"It seems some matters have been spoken too lightly within our halls," the Queen said. Her voice remained calm, but there was frost beneath it. "Yes. She is ill. We have brought the best physicians, priests, healers, alchemists, and scholars."

"Let me see her," Ludwig said.

The Queen looked to the Emperor.

He studied Ludwig for a moment, then nodded.

"Follow me then," the Queen said.

Several guards immediately stepped forward to accompany her. They did not block Ludwig, but they placed themselves close enough to make their role clear. Protection. Observation. Warning. It was a little insulting, though not entirely unreasonable. Everyone in the palace knew, whether they admitted it or not, that if Ludwig wished to cause harm, no ordinary guard could stop him. Perhaps not even all of them together. The only person in the palace with a realistic chance was seated on the throne.

Ludwig followed the Queen.

Behind him, the Emperor turned his attention back toward the Tower Masters.

"Now that our matters have concluded," the Emperor said, "we will need to discuss a few things about the influence of the Five Towers."

The room shifted again.

The matter of Ludwig’s grievance had been set aside, not forgotten, but politically sealed for the moment. What remained was larger. Sloth. The Peaks. The failure of holy power. The terrifying usefulness of forbidden dark magic. No one in the court, not the Second Prince, not Alexander, not Hiro, not the priests, not even the church envoys, dared interrupt once the Emperor began discussing security measures with the Tower Masters.

The conversation quickly sharpened.

A small portion of dark magic would need to be studied, tested, and perhaps sanctioned under extreme oversight for the sole purpose of countering a resurgence of Sloth’s army. Several priests tried to shut the suggestion down immediately, faces pale with outrage, but the Emperor’s gaze cut them silent.

"You were made to resist darkness," he said, "and yet you stood powerless before it. Listen before interrupting."

That ended that.

Ludwig heard only fragments as he left the throne room behind the Queen. Van Dijk’s voice, cold and precise. The Red Tower Master’s blunt insistence that if destruction failed, doctrine had no right to speak first. The Gray Tower Master discussing controlled parameters. The White Tower Master speaking of military application. The Blue Tower Master, far too interested, mentioning observation and repeatability.

Then the doors closed behind him.

The palace corridors were quieter.

The Queen walked ahead with the composure of someone who had been born into halls of power and had spent decades learning how to hide fear from servants. Guards surrounded them in a loose formation, careful not to crowd Ludwig but careful not to leave him unwatched either. Their hands were near weapons. Their eyes were disciplined. Their expressions made it clear that they all understood the absurdity of guarding a man who had helped chase away a living calamity while wearing freshly repaired clothes and the smell of court magic.

"So," the Queen said without looking back, "how did you know she is ill?"

"Loose-tongued maids," Ludwig said.

The Queen’s shoulders stiffened by a fraction.

"But that’s not the issue," Ludwig continued. "When did this happen?"

"A couple years ago," she said.

Ludwig frowned.

"It began as fatigue," the Queen continued, voice lower now that they had left the court behind. "Then long sleep. Then longer. At first she could still wake, speak, eat, laugh. Then the waking hours shortened. Now she sleeps most days and wakes only in brief moments, sometimes confused, sometimes in pain. The physicians call it strange. The priests call it spiritual exhaustion. The alchemists call it a poisoning they cannot identify. The curse specialists disagree with all of them."

"And you?"

"I call it watching my daughter disappear while learned men argue over vocabulary."

Ludwig nodded once.

That, at least, was honest.

The seriousness of it became clearer when they reached the princess’s chamber.

The room was large enough to make Ludwig wonder if entire families had lived in smaller houses than this. High windows were covered with pale curtains, allowing soft light to enter without becoming harsh. Shelves, screens, wardrobes, and decorative tables lined the walls, yet there were more maids than furniture. They stood in tense silence, some holding towels, some trays, some nothing at all, as if the act of being useful had become more important than usefulness itself. Several physicians waited near the far side, their expressions worn thin by failure.

At the center of the chamber was a bed large enough to accommodate a full family.

Celest Lufondal slept within it.

She looked smaller than Ludwig remembered.

The last time he had seen her, there had been fragility, yes, but also curiosity. A princess trapped in a gilded cage, eager for stories of heroes and knights because her world could not extend beyond palace walls. Now her cheeks were slightly more sunken. Her lips were pale. Her hair had been carefully arranged around her by attendants trying to make illness look dignified, and failing because illness did not care for courtly presentation.

She was unconscious.

Not resting.

Not peacefully sleeping.

Out cold.

Ludwig approached the bed.

A few guards tensed. The Queen lifted one hand, and they held position.

He looked down at Celest and activated inspection.

[Inspect]

[Celest Lufondal]

[Level 27]

[Princess of the Empire of Lufondal]

[Status Effect: Malnourished]

[Status Effect: Sleep]

[Status Effect: Hypersomnia]

[Status Effect: Black Dragon’s Curse]

[Lore: Sole princess of the ruler of Lufondal, a princess with weakening political support and a failing body. A princess that adores to hear stories of heroes and valiant knights, but unable to leave the perimeter of her own house. A gilded cage remains a cage.]

Ludwig took a deep breath. Black Dragon’s Curse.

He looked at the Queen. "Did you ask the Hero to see her?"

The Queen frowned. "Yes, we did. Why? Did he do something?"

"No," Ludwig said. "Fortunately for him, he didn’t. But what did he say?"

"He said something about a dragon’s curse."

"He’s not wrong," Ludwig said. "She’s cursed by a dragon."

The Queen’s hand tightened around the edge of her sleeve. "That is not possible. The last dragon that ever walked these lands died hundreds of years ago."

Ludwig looked at her.

"That’s not true. I met one some time ago."

The Queen went very still.

"You mean..."

"I can go and ask that dragon," Ludwig said. "If he has an answer, we’ll probably know how to fix this."

For a moment, the Queen looked younger.

Not physically. Not in the face. But something in her posture lost its imperial polish and became simply a mother hearing that a locked door might have a key. The Hero had provided a name, then done nothing with it. He had recognized the shape of the curse and left the burden where it was. Ludwig, in contrast, had walked into the room, inspected the illness, and immediately offered to go ask the only creature likely to know what it meant.

The Queen stepped closer.

"If you do me this favor," she said, voice soft but clear, "I will allow your marriage with my daughter."

Ludwig blinked.

"Huh?"