Chapter 266

Daphne

I must say, this world is certainly... different.

After graduating four years ago, I took it upon myself to do something novel: travel.

With my bunny. She’d graduated earlier, of course, with Felix and the rest of her class. As for me? Let’s just say a few well-placed words—some nice, some less so—and the academy board suddenly found my academic record remarkably complete.

After the graduation the mission was 87% complete.The snake girl, decided to lean into her actual job, protector of the royal line. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Why she’d ever agreed to be just another concubine in the original timeline.

Whatever. I’m living the life.

And what a life. We’ve visited kingdoms that make the Phavian court look like a village play. I’ve met elephant shifters whose footsteps felt like minor earthquakes, their voices a low, thoughtful rumble that vibrated in your chest. I’ve shared a wary drink with rhino shifters in dusty plains taverns....beings so solid, so dense with power, that the air seemed to bend around them. It’s humbling, really.

Back home, I’m the apex. The panther. The shadow that moves and the world holds its breath. Out here? Let’s be honest. A determined rhino shifter would kick my ass. Honestly even an undetermined one, would turn me into a pancake.

Yeah. Some scary stuff out here.

We also, entirely by accident, paddled around a river bend and came across a sunning rock occupied by a couple of... enthusiastically entangled female hyena shifters. Let’s not talk about that.

Some cultural discoveries are best observed from a distance. A long, long distance.

We met a tribe of whale shifters off the eastern archipelago. Actual whales. Beings who sang in frequencies that made the water vibrate and whose idea of a greeting was a wave that could capsize our ship. Honestly, this world is pretty amazing.

But what makes it infinitely better is the bunny on my arm through all of it.

Watching Nima’s eyes, wide with wonder, reflect the bioluminescent wake of a whale calf. Feeling her press close against me during a desert sandstorm, her nose twitching at the strange, dry air.

Now, the wanderlust has run its course. Our ship has docked in the familiar, stinking, bustling port of the capital. I was looking forward to the dark, silent forests of Nyxclaw. To sleeping in my own bed for a year straight.

Until an SOS from Edith arrived and ruined all my plans.

Apparently, the male lead’s uncle—the Tiger who’s been nursing his bitterness like a fine wine—has decided patience is for losers. The old Lion King is unconscious after a heart attack. The kingdom is holding its breath, perched on the razor’s edge of civil war.

Yikes.

"System," I sigh, the word tasting of salt and resignation.

The purple orb manifests, hanging in the air beside me, utterly unmoved by the seagull cries and shouting dockworkers.

"Will I still have successfully cleared this world if it descends into a civil war anyway?" I ask, already knowing the pedantic answer.

[The primary mission was to break the destined harem to avoid the specific 50-year civil war triggered by factional strife between the male lead’s nineteen children from five mothers. This impending conflict is a separate political instability.]

I exhale, a long, slow growl of a breath. Of course. The job’s never just done, is it? You don’t just get to ride off into the sunset. The sunset usually has political problems waiting in it.

"Fine," I grumble, the weight of the crown I never wanted settling back onto my shoulders. "I’ll help." The words are pure obligation.

A thought strikes me. "But Felix didn’t have any problems claiming the throne in the original timeline. The uncle was a non-entity."

[In the original timeline, the Snowfrost Alliance guaranteed a smooth succession. Duke Snowfrost’s daughter married the male lead. His sister married the male lead’s uncle. Power and conflict were consolidated within a single allied family. The civil war was internalized, postponed, and later expressed through the harem’s bloodlines.]

Ah. So that’s how they’d played it. A clean, brutal piece of political knife-work. Control both the heir and the spare. No wonder Lumiya’s position seemed divinely ordained. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"Ah," I say, and a slow, sharp smile cuts across my face, all teeth and no warmth. "So now they’re just being petty. Throwing their weight around because their perfect pawn got kicked off the board."

The wind picks up, tugging at my now-short hair. I’d loved the long, flowing look but after the third time it got caught in a tree branch while stalking game, or tangled in a ship’s rigging during a squall, practicality won out. It’s cropped close to my head now, efficient. I miss the drama, but not the inconvenience.

I lean against the rail and watch Nima. She’s down on the dock, directing a group of hulking stevedores—bear and ox shifters twice her size—as they unload our travel trunks and carefully handled crates of artifacts and art we’ve collected.

She’s so tiny beside them, her lopsy ears twitching with focus, her cute little button tail a white dot against her skirt. But her voice is firm, her gestures clear. She points, she nods, she checks a manifest on a clipboard. The large men listen without a hint of condescension. Sure some had to learn the hard way but now they are nice little boys following orders.

As if sensing the weight of my gaze, she turns. Her eyes find mine across the distance. I don’t bother hiding my grin.She narrows her eyes at me, a silent, playful accusation of ’I’m working, you’re lounging,’ before turning back to her task, her ears giving one firm, dismissive flick.

I snicker, the sound lost in the harbor noise. My little bunny, playing supervisor. And doing a damn good job of it.

"Well," I purr again, to myself this time, the promise of violence humming in my veins like a second heartbeat. "The Snowfrosts aren’t the only dukedom capable of tossing its weight around."