We reached the sanctuary about an hour later, covering the distance entirely on foot this time instead of rushing across the land on horseback like I had when I went to drag Knight out of prison, and the moment the golden barrier came into view, I noticed someone already standing outside waiting for us.
A woman.
She looked somewhere in her thirties, slightly chubby around the face with black hair falling down her back, and the shirt she wore did absolutely nothing to hide her big chest while the brown pants somehow made the entire appearance even more bizarre once the realization hit.
Knight slowed beside me.
I slowed too.
Both of us stared at her for a second.
Then immediately burst into laughter.
"What is so funny?" she asked flatly as she stood up from the rock she had been sitting on.
Knight pointed at her while trying and failing to stop laughing. "I’m sorry, but seeing the Mad Queen Lyrate reincarnated as a slightly chubby, big-breasted woman was not something I ever imagined witnessing in my life."
That somehow made it worse.
I turned away for a second because laughing directly into her face felt dangerous, but Knight had already lost control completely by then.
Lyrate looked down at herself slowly before letting out a long, exhausted sigh. "Yes, thank you for reminding me," she said dryly. "Which is exactly why I want to finish this mission and get out of this world as fast as possible because I cannot stand this body anymore."
Knight grinned. "The body isn’t even the worst part. It’s the fact you still have the same terrifying personality while looking like someone’s overworked aunt."
"I can still kill you," she replied instantly.
"See?" Knight laughed. "Exactly the same."
Lyrate ignored him and ran a hand through her black hair with visible disappointment. "I miss my red hair," she muttered. "At least I used to look intimidating before."
I looked at her again, then at Knight, and failed to hold it in.
"Yeah," I said between laughs, "right now you look like you’re about to lecture us about eating properly before sending us to school."
Knight nearly collapsed laughing at that while Lyrate just stared at both of us with the expression of someone seriously considering murder.
I checked her level.
[Defier Human - Level 44]
Knight managed to squeeze in a few more comments on the way inside, each one worse than the last, and Lyrate endured them with a level of restraint that didn’t match the expression on her face, which made it clear she was keeping a very detailed list of things she would deal with later.
"Did you get a talent?" I asked, leaning back slightly as I looked at her.
"I did," she replied without hesitation. "You really shouldn’t expect anything less from me. It’s called Vital Dominion. I can heal, drain life force, control the wood element, and build defensive structures through it.
I took the Guardian path because of that, but I’m not planning to stand in the back and babysit anyone. I’ll defend by ending things before they become a problem." She paused for a moment before adding, "My class is Blooming Doom. It’s built around sustaining, controlling, and killing while holding the field."
I nodded once, then went over both my own setup and Knight’s, explaining the core of our classes and talents without dragging it out, and by the time I finished, the three of us had a clear understanding of where each of us stood.
"This is good," she said, her eyes lighting up slightly as she leaned forward. "With this kind of strength between us, we can move properly instead of reacting to whatever gets thrown at us."
Knight tilted his head, still half relaxed. "Move how? Every city we’ve seen is empty except for alien races. Everyone else is still stuck in the tutorial, so what exactly is the plan here?"
"And that," she said, flicking her hair back in a small, annoyed motion, "is why I said you’re dumb."
Knight blinked. "I feel like that’s becoming a theme."
"I’m just being consistent," she replied before shifting her attention to both of us. "Tell me something. Did either of you actually try talking to the system?"
"Talking?" I asked. "What do you mean, talking?"
"Exactly what it sounds like," she said, crossing her arms. "The system isn’t just throwing notifications at you. It responds. It answers. It even argues if you push it enough, and honestly, it has a bit of an attitude, which I’m not a fan of, but it’s useful if you know how to pull information out of it."
Knight frowned slightly. "You’re telling me this thing has a personality?"
"Oh, it absolutely does," she replied dryly. "And not a pleasant one either, but that’s not the point. The point is, it knows far more than it tells you upfront, and if you don’t ask, you stay ignorant."
"Let me tell you a story," she said. "This universe wasn’t always like this. It used to be controlled by beings people called gods, and they treated everything under them like entertainment. Entire worlds were pushed into wars just to keep them amused, and inside those worlds, the same pattern repeated, races fighting, religions clashing, all of it driven without anyone at the lower levels having any real say."
"Then one man changed that. He started as nothing special, just another weak human, but he kept climbing, kept fighting, and eventually reached the very top. And when he got there, he didn’t just take power, he tore it out of the hands of those who had been sitting on it for ages. He killed gods, not one or two, but many, including the ones who were considered untouchable, and by the time he was done, the entire structure of control had collapsed."
"But killing them wasn’t enough," Lyrate continued. "Because even if the gods fall, the people who believe in them don’t just disappear. Influence doesn’t vanish that easily. So instead of trying to erase that, he created something else."
She looked between us.
"A system of conflict where gods can’t interfere directly, and the people of each world decide their own direction. Whether they want to remain under divine influence or break away completely, that choice is made through war, not imposed from above."
"Sounds like a hell of a man," I said.
Lyrate’s lips curved slightly, not quite a smile. "He was," she replied. "And everything we’re seeing right now is a result of what he built."
"Alright, I get the context," Knight said, frowning slightly as he looked at her, "but how does that help us, and how does it tie into your plan to end this quickly?"
Lyrate leaned back, a small grin forming as if the answer was obvious. "Because we don’t need to fight everyone. We just need control. If we capture all the safe zones before the tutorial ends, the result is already decided."
I narrowed my eyes. "Explain properly."
"The rule is simple," she said. "Alien races can guide, support, whatever but they can’t rule. The one at the top has to be native. And right now, that’s us."
The grin widened slightly.
"Two days," she continued. "That’s all we have before the tutorial ends. In those two days, we take this empire completely, then move to the believer empire and the republic, capture their safe zones, and lock everything down before they even get the chance to act."
Knight and I exchanged a look.
Was it really that simple?