Prologue - The Puppeteer of the Battlefield

It is a name that brings more fear than comfort to the warriors of Dernier. An unsettling silence always follow when her name is announced on the list of assigned Supporters. For the warriors of Dernier, the Puppeteer meant that they will survive the fight, but the questions still remains whether they can truly live after.

"AAAHHHHHHHHH!"

The golden threads violently jabbed into the young squire's shoulder and injected mana directly into the shredded network of bones, nerves, and muscle.

"STOOOPPP! PL-PLEASE!"

The ripped stump of a right arm grew and regenerated.

"IT HURTS! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

It was true. The absurd control of mana was unimaginable but brought an incredible pain of burning to every fiber conceivable. For the squire, the pain of having his arm torn off by the Stéle was trivial to the pain he felt now. As his arm was reconstituted, the threads forcefully picked him up from the ground on his own feet. He turned to the Puppeteer who only raised an eyebrow at him.

"What? Fight is not over yet."

Before the squire could speak, the threads forced his body to run.

"AHH!"

It was an inhuman feeling to have your body move with no intent of your own. He was still reeling from the lingering pain of his now fully swinging right arm and was being forcefully marched forward.

"Alright, who’s next.”

The Stéle were ancestral beasts of stone and took on the form of beasts or large humanoids. The warriors of Dernier fought back using blunt blows from catapults and cannons and feats of mana and swords to cut through the stone. Individually, the Stéle were not difficult to defeat; however, they swarm in hordes in unpredictable waves. To make matters worse, their stone constitution are fused with unknown magical properties leaving human touch-

"MY LEGS!"

A knight, whose leg shins were punctured by an arachnoid-class Stéle, screamed in horror as his body began turning to stone from the wound.

Slice.

Like a butcher carving meat, she severed the limb. A golden flash preluded a sharp pain right above the knight’s knee. The rotting sediment consumed the newly removed limb but advanced no more. The knight clenched his right thigh with both hands to staunch the bleeding but quickly lost his grip as he was dragged across the ground on his back.

“AH!”

To his surprise, he was being dragged away from the arachnoid Stéle.

“The so-called Defenders of Dernier love screaming, don’t you.”

Once more, the jab of golden threads and the indescribable pain of bones being birthed and muscles being reknitted.

“Oh, no screaming? Good.”

The knight’s eyes were red with anger and anguish.

“Ha. Release those emotions at the Stéle.”

This time the Puppeteer threw the knight up high landing on top of the arachnoid Stéle. Not missing the opportunity, the knight focused his mana into his blade and bisected the stone insect in half.

The battle continued with voices yelling bouts of agony more so than orders or words of hope and unity. Such was the battlefield when the Puppeteer of the Battlefront was present. Even when the sun began to disappear on the horizon and the Stéle retreated far from the iron walls of Dernier, the relief of the army was not due to the end of enemies but, rather, the end of suffering. There was not a single death that day. Such a thing would normally be called a miracle. But the memories and lingering numbness caused the knights and warriors of Dernier to call it a deal with the devil.

“Finally. A break. Tell your commander to stop hiring me. It’s annoying.”

The Puppeteer of the Battlefield dressed in simple civilian attire adorned with her iconic black long coat re-entered the gates of Dernier with no hesitation. The men and women who fought for the last few hours looked at each other in an unusual comradery as those who survived an inhumane hell. And a squire spoke softly but all could hear, “A monster…”

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This is not a story of overcoming a great, ancient evil nor is it a tragedy of the complete decimation of hope. It is a story of a girl who accepted the cursed world and a boy who refused it. And, between the two, a cup of tea.