The Imperial Palace.
The very heart of the Solhaven Empire—
a place where emperors ruled, where history slept beneath marble floors, and where the weight of countless generations pressed down on every stone.
It was revered.
Untouchable.
And, most importantly—
Overflowing with relics.
The moment I finished explaining the objective, Velra’s eyes lit up—not with surprise, but with unmistakable excitement.
"Oh?" She let out a soft laugh, one hand rising to cover her lips. "Stealing other people’s belongings and their emotions is your specialty, isn’t it?"
Her crimson eyes gleamed mischievously.
"Very well. Then let us plunder freely. A raid on the Imperial Treasury should be more than sufficient—even for me."
She smirked, already imagining gilded vaults and forbidden artifacts.
I sighed.
"...It won’t be that simple."
Velra blinked, clearly dissatisfied.
Perhaps it was because she had lived her entire existence in a world governed by raw power—
where the strong took what they wanted and the weak were trampled without mercy.
To her, preparation meant overwhelming force.
Anything else was unnecessary.
I raised a hand, gesturing for her to calm down.
"The Imperial Palace isn’t like some fallen demon citadel," I said. "It’s a fortress built to survive betrayal, invasion, and gods."
She crossed her arms, unimpressed.
"And yet it still stands. Meaning it has something worth stealing."
"That’s exactly the problem."
I continued before she could interrupt.
"Like any noble house, the Empire has a treasury. But today—my target isn’t there."
Velra’s brow furrowed slightly.
"Explain."
"The treasury is guarded by elite soldiers, Imperial Knights... and above all—"
I paused.
"—a guardian deity."
Her smirk faded.
"Deity?" she repeated. "As in... that kind?"
"Yes. Not a summoned spirit. Not a borrowed miracle."
I exhaled. "A true guardian bound to the Empire itself."
Velra clicked her tongue quietly.
"...Troublesome."
"The security is beyond absurd," I continued. "Multiple layered wards. Detection spells woven into the walls. Every corridor monitored. Even thoughts aren’t entirely safe."
I shook my head.
"A frontal approach with our current strength?" I scoffed. "We’d be strangling ourselves."
Velra glanced at me sidelong.
"And you’re saying this while standing next to a vampire noble."
I met her gaze flatly.
"A vampire noble who is terrible at subtlety."
"...Excuse me?"
"You’re powerful," I said honestly. "But stealth? Infiltration? Disguises that don’t end in intimidation?"
She opened her mouth—then closed it.
"...Tch."
Victory.
She looked away, clearly annoyed.
"Then what exactly are you aiming for?" Velra asked, irritation creeping into her voice. "If not the treasury, then where?"
I smiled faintly.
"Besides the treasury," I said, "the Imperial Palace is saturated with relics."
Her eyes flickered back to me.
"Everywhere."
The hallway.
The throne room.
The pillars.
Even the ornaments lining the walls.
"This palace wasn’t built in a single age," I continued as we walked. "It grew over centuries. Every generation added something—sometimes out of reverence, sometimes out of fear."
Velra’s steps slowed slightly behind me.
"A relic taken from a fallen hero," I said. "A divine fragment bestowed by a god who later vanished. Even cursed artifacts so dangerous they couldn’t be destroyed... only sealed into the very structure."
Her expression shifted.
The faint boredom she’d been wearing like a mask melted away, replaced by genuine interest.
"...You’re saying," she murmured, eyes glinting, "that the palace itself is a vault."
I nodded. "Exactly."
She let out a low, amused laugh, elegant and sharp.
"Hah. That is very human of them," Velra said. "Rather than discarding dangerous things, you bury them beneath layers of stone and tradition and pretend they no longer exist."
That earned a soft chuckle from me.
At the same time my thoughts drifted—unbidden—back to the game.
The Imperial Palace.
In the original story, the saintess—the player character—was a commoner. She visited the palace countless times, but only as a guest. Guards everywhere. Restricted wings. Locked doors. Until the very end of the main route, she was never allowed to roam freely.
For most players, the palace was nothing more than a staging area before the final battle.
Preparation. Dialogue. Cutscenes.
Naturally, everyone rushed the treasury.
Legendary weapons. Divine armaments. Mountains of gold that would be handed out anyway once the story progressed.
But some people noticed something else.
[Did you guys know there’s a dungeon inside the Imperial Palace?]
[Wait, you broke into the treasury early? They literally open it for you later.]
[No, not that—explore the map properly when it unlocks.]
A dungeon.
Hidden so deeply that even the royal family didn’t know it existed.
No guards.
No quests pointing toward it.
No warnings.
Just a sealed structure embedded into the palace’s foundations—older than the empire itself.
A place most players never found.
’And the difficulty,’ I thought, ’should be just right for me now.’
"Please follow me," I said quietly. "I’ll need your help, Lady Velra."
She raised an eyebrow, clearly amused.
"Hm! How refreshing," she replied. "Unlike those descendants of the ancient warrior who see demons as nothing more than prey, you at least know how to make use of one."
I ignored the jab.
Velra fell into step behind me, her footsteps light despite the marble beneath us.
Still, I could feel her gaze drilling into my back.
"You’re far too calm for someone trespassing through the heart of an empire," she said lazily. "Either you are a fool... or you know something I don’t."
"I prefer ’experienced,’" I replied.
We turned down a narrow corridor that clearly wasn’t meant for guests. The lighting dimmed. The decorations thinned out, replaced by plain stone and old reinforcement magic etched directly into the walls.
Velra frowned.
"This area feels... wrong," she muttered. "The mana flow is distorted."
"That’s because you’re standing on top of a mistake," I said.
She stopped.
"A mistake?"
I glanced back at her. "The palace has been renovated, expanded, and ’corrected’ countless times. Entire sections were sealed off after accidents. Others were abandoned when the cost of maintaining them outweighed their value."
I placed my palm against the wall as we walked, feeling the faint hum beneath the stone.
"And some places," I added, "were forgotten on purpose."
Velra’s lips curved upward again.
"Ah... secrets buried under secrets," she said. "You humans truly are obsessed with hiding your sins."
...And that’s how we reached a library.
A really old library.