The King's Human Shield

"Excuse me,” Anna said, her voice soft.

The old elf started, his eyes widening in fear. But Anna held up a placating hand. “We’re not guards,” she said. “We just have a question. Have you… found Ars Terran yet?”

The elf looked at her, then at the endless, dark tunnel behind him. A bitter, hollow laugh escaped his chapped lips. “Ars Terran?” he rasped. “Child, my great-grandfather died in these mines asking that same question. We have dug for kilometers. North, south, east, and so deep the air burns your lungs. We have found nothing. There is nothing to find.”

“He’s right, Anna,” Maren’s voice was a sad, “I can’t feel her. There’s no trace of my sister’s energy down here. Not a single spark. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would the kingdom dig a hole for fifteen hundred years looking for her here?”

Her initial hypothesis was wrong. Maren was right. The stated mission of this mine was a lie.

This place wasn’t built to find Ars Terran. It was never meant to.

A cold dread, far more terrifying than the fight with Marutur and Demidicus, settled in her gut. She looked around at the vast, sprawling underground city, at the endless tunnels, at the sheer scale of the operation.

It’s underground… directly under the capital…

“Maren,” Anna asked, her telepathic voice deadly calm. “A hypothetical. What would happen to the people down here if the city of Frola, the kingdom directly above us, were to fall to corruption? If the foundations of the city itself were to crumble and collapse?”

Maren’s angry light flickered with sudden, dawning horror. “What? Anna, that’s… the ground would give way! The whole cavern… it would collapse! Everyone down here… all the dark beings… they would be buried alive! Killed instantly!” Her voice rose to a panicked shriek. “NOO!”

She felt chilling, profound understanding. She saw the brutal, brilliant, and utterly inhuman strategy laid down by a king centuries ago.

The king fifteen hundred years ago had sent a message to every dark being, every potential enemy, for all of time. The message was simple and absolute:

“If you destroy our kingdom, you will kill three hundred thousand of your own kind along with it, it’s like they told everyone to search for a needle in a haystack, but they never put a needle in to begin with. And now, the person who gave the order is planning to burn the entire haystack down while everyone is too busy searching.”

The weight of Anna’s revelation crashed down on Uetum, and the catgirl began to tremble, her yellow eyes wide with pure, unadulterated terror.

“Nyaaa!!! Anna!! What should we do?!” she wailed, grabbing onto Anna’s arm. “The corruption is only a week away, and you said—you said we can’t save all of them here! I didn’t mean to hurt everyone! I just wanted to corrupt the city! I thought… I thought it would make it easier to take over the mine, not destroy it along with everyone inside!”

She wasn’t a villain fighting for a dark lord. She was a pawn, outmaneuvered by a king who had died a thousand years ago, a king far more cunning and evil than she could have ever imagined.

“I… I’m going to kill 300,000 of our own kind?!” Uetum choked out, her face pale.

“However smart you are, whatever plan you make. Saving three hundred thousand people from a mine that’s a hundred and fifty meters below a city, through a single exit, in less than a week can’t be done.” She gestured to the vast, hollowed-out cavern. “Most people would’ve just gave up.”

“Nya…” Uetum looks down.

“This mountain has been dug out for fifteen hundred years. It’s probably more hollow than solid by now. If one part of the mine collapses, all of it will collapse too. There are no safe spaces down here. They weren't given such a luxury.”

As if to punctuate her point, the old dark elf they had spoken to shuffled past them, his pickaxe back on his shoulder, heading towards another rock face.

“Why are you still working?” Anna asked him. “The guards are gone. You could rest.”

The elf paused and looked at her with a deep, soul-deep fatigue. A faint, glowing rune burned into the flesh of his neck as he drew back the tattered collar of his tunic.

“We cannot stop,” he said, his voice a dead, empty rasp. “The mark compels us.”

Anna stared at the intricate, magical brand. “What does it say?”

“‘Keep mining until Ars Terran is found.’” He let the collar fall back into place.

Anna stared at the old man as he returned to his eternal, pointless labor. She looked out at hundreds of thousands of others, each bearing the same mark, each a puppet on a string, forced to dig their own graves for a master who was long dead.

“What a scary slave mark…” she whispered, the full, monstrous weight of the king’s trap finally settling upon her.

Anna, who had been staring at the cursed rune on the old elf’s neck, straightened up. She turned to her two panicking companions.

“Let’s leave for now,” she said, her voice calm and absolute. “We don’t have anything to do in here yet.”

Both Uetum and Maren were stunned into silence. Leave? Just like that?

“Mnnaa? Anna?” Maren’s voice was a confused, hopeful whisper in her mind. “You have a plan?”

Anna nodded, “Of course I have a plan.”

“But… but you said it was impossible!” Uetum stammered, her yellow eyes wide with a mixture of hope and terror. “You said no one could save them! I don’t want to be known as the catgirl who killed three hundred thousand people!”

“One week is more than enough time,” Anna stated, her voice cutting through Uetum’s panic. She looked at the terrified catgirl, her gaze intense. “I said it was impossible for most people. But I am not most people.” She crossed her arms, radiating confidence that was so absolute it was almost a physical force. “I believe in myself. It’s only a matter of time before you do, too.”

She then added, her voice softening just a fraction, “Besides, I made a promise to Bella. I told her I would save the people in this mine.”

Uetum blinked, her innocent eyes full of confusion. “Bella?” she asked, the name unfamiliar.

“She’s my friend,” Anna said simply.

The confirmation was like a ray of sunlight piercing the gloom of the mine for Uetum. Her entire demeanor changed to a bright, beaming smile. “I see!” her tail starting to swish happily again. “So Bella is Anna-chan’s friend! She wants to save them too! Uetum is so happy so many people care about the people in the mines!”

She looked at Anna, her eyes now shining with a pure, unwavering faith.

They returned to the barracks under the cover of late night. The key to the mines was now safely tucked away, a problem for another day. The immediate priority was information.

It was 10 PM. The barracks were quiet, most of the off-duty knights asleep. But in Zebril’s quarters, a single candle burned brightly.

Anna was hunched over the massive tome on the desk.

With a speed and ferocity that was nearly inhuman, she absorbed the thick, antiquated text that filled the ancient pages of The Thirteen Emblems of Heaven.

Millennia-old legends were being turned into concrete, easy consumable point by her pen as it frantically scratched across notebook pages.

When Maren returned to her human form, she was incredibly bored. She was currently trying to balance on one foot on the bed, wobbling precariously. “Anna… Annaaaa … Are you done yet? Reading is so boring. Let’s go find Sir Jarce and make him tell us stories!”

Anna didn’t even look up, just waved a dismissive hand. “Go play with your… new feet. I’m busy.”

From the doorway came a low laugh. Zebril was leaning against the frame, holding a plate of honey cakes and a tray containing two steaming mugs. “She really does remind me of my daughter,” the Captain said.

She set the tray down on the small table. “My Sweteloue gets that exact same look in her eye. The world could be ending, but if she hasn't finished memorizing the elemental properties of moon crystals, none of it matters.” Zebril shook her head, “I once had to tell her the house was on fire three times before she finally looked up from a textbook on advanced golemancy.”

Maren, having given up on balancing, bounced over to Zebril. “Was the house really on fire?!”

“A minor kitchen incident,” Zebril said, ruffling Maren’s vibrant blue hair. “But the principle is the same.”

Anna remained completely absorbed, her pen flying across the page as she extracted key points.

Ars Terran - The Unbreakable Shield of Gaia. Not a sword.

Wielder Compatibility: Requires a state of ‘Zero.’ Absolute zero ambition, greed, or desire for conflict. Compatibility with most sentient races: effectively null.

Primary Function: Not offensive. Defensive. Capable of creating planetary-scale territorial wards that are functionally indestructible.

Last Known Interaction: Refused to be wielded by the goddess Orivaneia during the final battle against Morvane. Stated reason: “This is a war of gods and ambition. It is not my fight.”

Hypothesis: Not a weapon of conquest. It’s a weapon of absolute preservation. A world turtle hiding in its shell.

So why would a greedy king want to find a shield he could never use?

Zebril looked at the hyper-focused girl, then at the pouting, bored child beside her. “Let her work, little one,” she said softly to Maren. “Why don’t you show me that… ‘strategically compact’ fighting pose you were talking about?”

Immediately, Maren's face brightened, forgetting her boredom. "Mnnaa!! Okay!" Zebril watched with the patient smile of a mother spoiling her child. 

Then, imitating the anime Obsidian Halo, which Suzuha enjoys watching, Maren performed a series of clumsy yet enthusiastic punches and kicks in the middle of the room with Zebril clapping along.

After making sure Maren was comfortable on a pile of blankets, Zebril eventually succumbed to her own exhaustion and dozed off in the armchair as the quiet chaos in the room eventually died down.

But Anna did not rest.

The only sounds in the barracks as night fell were the faint cries of a sentry in the distance and the scratch of Anna's quill on parchment.

She leaned over her desk and went through her collected notes, piecing together disparate bits of knowledge to create a cohesive note.

Behavioral Patterns: Terran loves the sun. Terran dislikes stagnant air. Terran responds to deep, resonant sounds, like the singing of the earth itself. Conclusion: The mine is the last place she would ever be. The king’s premise was a lie from the start.

Key Aversions: Terran hates humans. The book described it as a deep, fundamental loathing for their greed and their tendency to scar the earth for their fleeting ambitions. Note: An eco-terrorist in the form of a holy shield. Fascinating.

Summoning Protocol: Requires a catalyst. Although the catalyst's nature is unknown, it is associated with the Aetrobia Leaf, a sacred plant that is believed to absorb and purify both dark and holy magic. Untouchable by human hands, it only grows in the first rays of sunlight. Her summoning also, the text noted, usually requires an environment of calm and safety.

Anna circled the word with her quill. “Usually…?” That was the loophole. The exception to the rule. What kind of catalyst could be so powerful it would override a fundamental need for safety?

She leaned back. 

Even though she had all the pieces, the puzzle would not fit together. 

The late hour, the intense focus, and the silent excitement of simplifying a complex issue to many points made the scene oddly familiar.

The musty smell of the book in front of her seemed to be overpowered by the smell of old paper and printer ink from her high school library.

Her old gel pen's smooth glide was even copied by her quill.

This was what she did. 

This was who she was. 

A student, cramming for a test, determined to ace it.

“Brings back memories, huh… Suzuha.”

If things had been different, if a glowing rune hadn’t appeared on her graduation stage, where would she be right now? Was it September?

Her first semester will begin soon. She could vividly picture it: a stack of advanced physics textbooks in her arms, a vast, verdant campus, and the cool autumn air.

Would she have chosen a university in the US? Caltech, maybe? Or gone to the UK? Cambridge had a brilliant program. The world, her meticulously planned, hard-won future, had been wide open.

After going to campus, she would call Haruna, "What a pleasant life..."

She let out a long, quiet sigh. That future was gone. Suzuha is dead.

Anna was here. And she had a much more difficult test to prepare for.

“Of sorrow… of silence… the earth shall come to cover.” Anna repeated the text in the legend.

"I wonder what's that for."

At last, the barracks night was falling into a tired, silent night. The air in the middle of Anna's room became cold as she went over her notes one last time.

A silent, vertical tear appeared.

She checked the corner of the room where Maren, back in her human form, was fast asleep on the pile of blankets Zebril had made for her. She was safe. Without a moment's hesitation, Anna stood up and stepped into the portal alone.