[Aisha POV]

Hello, my name is Aisha Greyrat.

I’m the daughter of Paul Greyrat and Lilia, the half-sister of Rudeus Greyrat and Norn Greyrat. As the child born from father’s affair with our maid, my mother always reminded me to behave properly—to remember my place in the household hierarchy and conduct myself with the discipline befitting my station.

So I followed orders without complaint, cleaned without being asked, and kept my voice down when the legitimate family was present. The only time I could truly act like a normal little girl was when Claude visited us.

Claude was the best big brother anyone could ask for.

Unlike Rudeus, who remained more legend than person to me, Claude was a constant presence in our lives. Every month without fail, he would arrive with letters from our absent brother, reading them aloud with theatrical flair that made even the most mundane details sound like grand adventures. Through these stories, Norn and I began to understand what kind of person Rudeus truly was, even though we’d never really known him personally.

The differences in our treatment weren’t lost on me, even at my young age. Norn lived a charmed existence—never asked to clean, showered with attention from both Mother Zenith and Father. Was the disparity in our treatment really just because we had different mothers? The question gnawed at me, though I tried not to dwell on it.

But Claude treated us exactly the same! He would tease us both mercilessly, ruffle our hair with equal enthusiasm, and never made either of us feel less important than the other. When he and Father would engage in their training bouts—sometimes Claude emerging victorious, sometimes Father—I would cheer enthusiastically for both of them, unable to decide who deserved my support more.

Norn always fled indoors whenever the sparring began, claiming she disliked the violence. But I could see something she missed: the genuine joy that lit up Father’s eyes during those clashes. Even my young mind could recognize that Father loved the thrill of being challenged by Claude, of facing someone whose skills were rapidly approaching—and sometimes surpassing—his own.

“Claude! You were so amazing! It all went whoosh! And swoosh! And… and…” I would babble excitedly after each match, my words tumbling over themselves in my enthusiasm to praise his performance.

He would smile at me while catching his breath, drinking water from his favorite mug. I treasured those moments when he would pat my head afterward—there was something indescribably comforting about his gentle touch.

“So, are you ready to marry me now?” he would tease with that mischievous grin of his.

Slap!

I would swat away his hand when he tried to pinch my cheeks. He never seemed to realize his own strength—those pinches always hurt more than he intended.

“Mumumu, I don’t want to marry you! Claude is mean!” I would declare with all the dignity a five-year-old could muster, before running away in mock anger.

That playful exchange turned out to be our final conversation.

The next day, the Metastasis incident shattered our world, leaving Mother and me stranded in an unfamiliar place with no idea where we were or how to find our way home.

I remember the sensation of drowning, of water filling my lungs as the teleportation magic deposited us somewhere completely unexpected. Mother’s arms wrapped around me, pulling me to safety as we gasped for breath on unfamiliar ground. Together, we stumbled toward what appeared to be human habitation, seeking help from strangers in a strange land.

But the emotion that overwhelmed everything else was longing—a desperate ache for the familiar.

“Claude… where are you?” I whispered into the alien landscape around us.

Big brother Claude… please help…

When I next awoke, iron bars greeted my vision.

What was this place? Where had they brought us? The air was thick with dampness, and shadows clung to every corner like living things. I could see Mother nearby, her head bowed in defeat, and my heart clenched with fear.

We had arrived in the capital of the Shirone Kingdom. Knowing that Big Brother Rudeus’s former teacher, Roxy, was supposedly teaching here, Mother had brought me to seek her aid. Unfortunately for us, Roxy had already departed the kingdom to join the search for those missing from the Metastasis, leaving us without our hoped-for protector.

Without knowing this crucial detail, Mother had approached the soldiers for help and somehow ended up meeting Prince Pax Shirone—Rudeus’s junior disciple under Roxy’s tutelage.

As the Water King’s second disciple after my brother, Pax should have shown us respect, or at least basic courtesy. Instead, he had us imprisoned, driven by jealousy toward someone he’d never even met.

His resentment toward Big Brother Rudeus was pathetic and obvious. He desperately craved Roxy’s affection and approval, but his inferior abilities meant he was constantly compared unfavorably to his predecessor. Every lesson must have been torture for him, hearing about Rudeus’s exceptional progress while struggling with concepts that came naturally to others.

So he had decided to use Mother and me as bait, hoping to lure Rudeus into some kind of trap. The logic was flawed from the start—even a five-year-old like me could see the problem with trying to bait someone who might have been caught in the same disaster that displaced us in the first place.

I found myself understanding why Roxy had left. How could anyone tolerate teaching someone so fundamentally stupid? A prince who couldn’t grasp basic cause and effect? I genuinely feared for this country’s future if this was the quality of their leadership.

Despite being imprisoned, our situation wasn’t entirely hopeless. We weren’t treated as common criminals—instead, we were essentially conscripted as unpaid servants within the castle. Pax kept us under observation, but we were allowed to perform daily chores and move about relatively freely within certain areas.

It was during one of my attempts to sneak out and send a letter for help that everything went wrong. The soldiers caught me before I could reach the messenger, and I found myself cornered in an alley with my precious letter being torn to pieces.

That’s when the strangest sight appeared: a man wearing women’s underwear on his head, charging in like some demented hero to rescue me from my captors.

Despite his bizarre appearance, I recognized him immediately from Mother’s descriptions and the mental image I’d built from countless letter readings.

“Thank you for saving me…” I whispered, knowing I was finally looking at my legendary big brother.

[Rudeus POV]

[Aisha Greyrat. Currently, she’s being detained in the Shirone Kingdom. In the scene from just now, you will likely try to save her. However, you must absolutely not use your own name. Use ‘The Owner of Dead End’ to name yourself and listen to her circumstances. After that, send a letter to an acquaintance at the Shirone Royal Palace. If you do that, you will be able to save both Aisha and Lilia from the Shirone Royal Palace.]

That was what the Human God had told me in his vision.

The warning about not using my own name suggested serious consequences if I revealed my identity. But something about the situation didn’t add up. If Arbalest was still operating in the shadows throughout the kingdom, saving displaced people as they had been doing, how had they failed to rescue Aisha and Lilia?

What had happened to Claude’s network? Was there some higher power actively working against my family, creating obstacles that even Arbalest couldn’t overcome?

According to my information, Roxy should still have been here when they arrived. With her presence, the royal family should have had no reason to create problems for refugees connected to her former student.

But if Roxy discovered something about me and left to investigate… That would explain her absence and the royal family’s willingness to act against my family members.

At times like these, I desperately missed Claude’s analytical mind. He had an almost supernatural ability to gather information and piece together complex situations, finding patterns and connections that escaped everyone else. Sometimes I wondered if he was the reincarnated person and I was just along for the ride.

Hell, maybe he was some kind of reincarnated spy or intelligence operative. Or perhaps this world’s baseline human intelligence was simply higher than I’d assumed. Even Mike and Charles consistently outperformed me in strategic thinking. How was that possible?

What should I do now? I wondered, feeling overwhelmed by the situation’s complexity.

The logical first step was sending a letter to Roxy through the Adventurer’s Guild. Surely the royal family wouldn’t just arrest me out of nowhere for making inquiries about a teacher, right?

Several minutes after dispatching my message, I realized I was being followed.

At first, I assumed it was Ruijerd keeping his usual protective watch. Whenever I ventured out alone, I inevitably stumbled into some kind of trouble, so his vigilance made sense. However, his recent behavior had changed—instead of shadowing me from a distance, he’d been staying close and visible.

More importantly, Ruijerd’s tracking skills were far too sophisticated for me to detect. His ability to remain unnoticed was supernatural in its precision.

Whoever was following me now was embarrassingly obvious about it. Their technique was so crude that even someone with my limited counter-surveillance experience could spot them easily.

It wasn’t Eris either. Her tracking abilities were legendarily terrible—if she were following me, I would have noticed her the moment we left the inn.

So who could it be? Someone with a grudge against me in this country seemed unlikely, given that we’d only arrived yesterday. We hadn’t had time to offend anyone yet.

Could it be related to something from the Demon Continent? But who would follow us across such vast distances just for revenge? The logistics alone made it improbable.

There was a possibility of survivors from the Saint Port smuggling organization, but even that seemed far-fetched. The chances of a coincidental encounter were too low to seriously consider.

The fact that I could detect them at all proved their amateurish technique. While turning a corner, I stole a quick glance backward and caught sight of a small shadow hastily ducking for cover.

A child.

It could be nothing more than some neighborhood kid who’d decided I looked suspicious and was playing at being a spy. Children were prone to such flights of imagination.

Part of me was tempted to hide somewhere and then jump out with a loud “Boo!” when they came looking for me, but caution overrode amusement. In this world, the halfling race existed, and their diminutive stature could easily be mistaken for that of a child. Negligence could prove fatal.

I decided to lose my tail using the city’s winding alley system.

After crossing two intersections and turning into a narrow side street, I felt an odd sensation—a sense of familiarity that I couldn’t quite place. Without dwelling on it, I created an earth wall behind me, using my magic to raise a three-meter barrier that effectively turned the alley into a dead end.

From the other side came sounds of panic and frantic movement, followed by weak impacts against the wall. There were no attempts to destroy the barrier with magic or martial techniques, confirming that my pursuer was indeed harmless.

If it had been Eris, she would have simply leaped over such a modest obstacle. This was definitely just a prank by some local children.

Satisfied with that conclusion, I began to walk away, only to realize I’d gotten myself thoroughly lost in the process of evading my harmless stalker. The city’s street layout was nothing like Millishion’s orderly grid—instead, it resembled a maze designed by someone with a grudge against navigation.

In the worst case, I could always use magic to reach a rooftop and get my bearings from above.

Come to think of it, the scene the Human God showed me was in an alley similar to this one.

The thought triggered a flash of recognition. That strange sense of familiarity from earlier wasn’t random—it was déjà vu. I was approaching the exact scenario from the vision.

I ran back through the twisting passages, getting lost multiple times before finally finding my way to the earth wall I’d created.

“No, stop it!” A young girl’s terrified scream echoed off the narrow walls.

“Give it back!” The desperation in her voice made my blood boil.

I placed my hand against the earth barrier and concentrated my magical power. Using earth magic to create structural weakness while simultaneously channeling wind magic through the center, I shattered the wall with a thunderous crash that sent debris flying in all directions.

The scene that greeted me was exactly what the Human God had shown me.

A small girl was being forcibly restrained by two soldiers in royal livery. One of them was methodically tearing apart what appeared to be a letter while the child sobbed in distress.

“Don’t rip up the letter! I was trying to send it to Father!” she cried out desperately.

The soldiers stared at me with expressions of bewilderment and alarm.

“Wh-who in the world are you…?”

The girl’s face immediately caught my attention. She bore clear traces of Lilia’s refined features, combined with Paul’s brown hair worn in a practical ponytail. Her small maid outfit and the way she carried herself despite her obvious distress spoke of careful upbringing and natural resilience.

Looking at those cruel hands restraining her… Actually, upon closer inspection, the soldiers weren’t being deliberately cruel. Their expressions showed embarrassment and reluctance rather than malice. They were clearly just following orders, with no personal investment in the situation.

“Who are you?! State your name!” one of them demanded.

“I’m that child’s…” I began, then caught myself. I wasn’t supposed to reveal my true identity.

Think fast.

“My name is the Knight of the Moon’s Shadow, Shadow Moon Knight!” I declared with as much dramatic flair as I could muster.

“What do you mean, Knight? No matter how you look at it, you’re obviously a magician!” The soldier’s response was devastatingly accurate.

Damn it. Next time I’ll call myself Magician Ebil or something less confusing.

“Listen here, boy,” the soldier continued in a patronizing tone. “It’s fine to play at being an ally of justice, but we’re actual soldiers of the Royal Palace. The girl got lost, and we’re just trying to take her back home safely.”

His words were obviously a mixture of truth and lies, but Aisha’s reaction suggested the situation was more complex than simple kidnapping. These weren’t evil men—they were probably decent soldiers caught up in political machinations beyond their control.

Creating hostility with them might not be the wisest course of action. Perhaps I could resolve this through conversation rather than violence.

“Then why were you tearing up the letter she was holding?” I challenged.

“Ah… That is, well… There are various adult complications involved,” he replied evasively.

Right. Adult complications. Of course.

“Ah!” At that moment, taking advantage of a brief lapse in their attention, Aisha broke free from her captor’s grip.

“Pwease save me!” she cried out, running straight toward me and hiding behind my back. Her face was streaked with tears and snot, crumpled with desperate hope.

Looking at that expression of absolute desperation, I felt something fierce awaken in my chest. At that moment, I didn’t care if I had to make enemies of entire kingdoms.

“Th-those people, they took my letter and tore it up…” she sobbed, her words barely comprehensible through her tears.

I couldn’t understand everything she was saying, but her desperation came through loud and clear.

I give up. I can’t pretend to be some young hero of justice. I’ll handle this my way.

Without warning, I raised my hand and fired a voiceless rock bullet at the nearest soldier.

“Ah!” He noticed the projectile at the last second, unsheathed his sword with impressive speed, and deflected it cleanly.

Good reflexes! Water God style technique. That’s troublesome.

But rock bullets weren’t my only option, and at this distance, I had plenty of room to work with.

You’re the fourth person to successfully deflect my rock bullet. Impressive.

“Voiceless incantations!” one of them shouted in recognition.

“Then this guy… could he be Roxy-dono’s…!?”

“He really came!”

“Call for reinforcements!”

“Roger!”

I created a pitfall beneath the soldier who was trying to run for help, then launched a barrage of rock bullets at his partner to keep him pinned down while questioning Aisha.

“We’re going to run. Are you ready?”

“Hick… hiku… yes…” she nodded through her tears.

Alright. Just need to knock out one more and then we can escape.

[Whistle~?!]

A shrill sound pierced the air—the unmistakable call of an alarm whistle coming from the soldier I’d trapped in the pit.

Immediately, answering whistles echoed from nearby alleys and distant streets, each with slightly different tones and patterns. They were coordinating their positions, calling in reinforcements from all directions.

“All the paths around this area have been sealed off!” the free soldier called out. “Soldiers will be here soon. Stop your pointless resistance and hand over the girl! We won’t treat you badly.”

This is bad. They’ve got backup coming, and lots of it.

But I still had one more trick up my sleeve.

“Aisha, hold onto me tightly!” I commanded.

“Eh?!?”

“No matter what happens, don’t let go!”

While she was still bewildered, she wrapped her small arms around my waist and clung to me with surprising strength. I grabbed her clothes with one hand and began gathering magical power with the other.

Channeling earth magic, I created a concentrated earth spear beneath our feet and used its explosive formation to launch us into the air like a human cannonball.

“Wha-what?!?” the soldiers cried out in confusion.

“Kyaaa!” Aisha screamed as we soared above the rooftops.

Haha! See you later, foolish soldiers!

Unfortunately, in my excitement over the successful escape, I’d put too much power into the launch. We flew much higher than intended, and when gravity finally reclaimed us, I hit the ground with enough force to shatter both of my legs with audible cracks.

Note to self: Practice aerial magic daily, or don’t use it in emergencies.