Nora ca at like a storm given legs.
Not running.
Not sprinting.
Speed-walking.
Which sohow made it worse.
Her boots crunched against the frozen ground with sharp, clipped steps, the sound echoing across the ruined battlefield. Shattered ice glimred underfoot, fractured plains stretching out where a living mountain had just collapsed.
The air was still painfully cold, my breath fogging with every shallow inhale, my body screaming in delayed protest from everything I’d just done.
She didn’t slow down.
Didn’t hesitate.
Didn’t even glance at Kent first.
Her eyes were on .
Only .
And that alone was enough to make the hairs on my neck stand up.
By the ti I realized she was close enough to hit , it was already too late.
She stopped directly in front of .
Too close.
Close enough that I could see the fine frost clinging to the ends of her white hair, the way her pupils flicked rapidly over like she was inventorying damage.
Head.
Torso.
Arms.
Legs.
Blood.
Burns.
Mana residue.
Tears in my clothes. My beautiful academy-issued clothes, the perfect aura farming equipnt, was gone just like that.
Her jaw tightened.
Sothing loosened in her shoulders.
Just barely.
Then she punched .
Hard.
Right in the stomach.
The impact drove all the air out of my lungs in one brutal, humiliating rush. My body folded forward on instinct, knees buckling as pain blood outward like a shockwave.
I stumbled back half a step, hands flying to my abdon as I sucked in air that refused to co fast enough.
For a second, all I could hear was ringing.
Then her voice hit .
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
The sound echoed across the frozen wasteland, bouncing off broken ice and distant trees. Her voice wasn’t cold.
It was furious.
Absolutely mad.
"You fought that thing," she shouted, fists clenched at her sides, moonlight flaring uncontrollably around her knuckles. "That wasn’t a duel! That wasn’t even a battle! That was a catastrophe wearing ice armor!"
I wheezed. "Hi, Nora. Missed you too."
She didn’t appreciate that.
"Do you have any idea how stupid that was?!" she continued, stepping closer again, eyes blazing. "Dualflow-reinforced eldritch horrors don’t just exist! That thing was closer to a walking natural disaster than an enemy, and you charged it without a weapon, without mana reserves, and without an exit plan!"
I straightened slowly, one hand still pressed to my stomach. "I had a plan."
She stared at .
"...you always say that."
"And I’m alive," I pointed out weakly.
Her glare sharpened. "That is not a strategy."
She took a sharp breath, clearly about to keep going...
And then stopped.
Mid-sentence.
Her face froze.
Her lips parted slightly, like she’d just realized sothing she absolutely did not want to acknowledge.
Color crawled up her cheeks.
Fast.
Bright.
Unmistakable.
"I-I an," she stamred, suddenly refusing to et my eyes, turning her head just enough to stare at literally anything else. "Not that I was worried. Obviously. I just-strategically speaking-it would’ve been... inconvenient."
"Inconvenient," I repeated.
"Yes!" she snapped, far too quickly. "Inconvenient. You’re useful. As a teammate. And-and you’re my first real friend for anything important, so it would’ve been annoying if you died like an idiot, that’s all!"
She crossed her arms so hard I thought she might bruise herself, posture rigid, chin tilted upward in defiance.
Then she huffed, icy steam gushing from her nose in short bursts.
I stared at her.
Then I laughed.
Not loud.
Not mocking.
Just a quiet, exhausted chuckle that slipped out before I could stop it.
She stiffened instantly. "What are you laughing at?"
I rubbed my stomach, straightening fully despite the lingering ache. "Nothing. Just... wow."
Her eyes narrowed. "Explain."
I shrugged. "Didn’t expect this."
"This?"
"Tsundere behavior," I said calmly.
She whirled on . "I am not—!"
"Relax," I interrupted. "I’m just surprised."
And I had every right to be, none of this was ntioned in the novel.
I know that this world is real, and that the novel might as well be useless right now, after all, it didn’t ntion anything about this damn ambush, too. Yet I still couldn’t help but compare the Nora standing in front of to the Nora I had read about.
The similarities in their personalities were staggering, yet so were the differences. Unfortunately, I was forced out of my wonderful train of thought by Nora’s glare.
It could have flash-frozen the sun.
"You are not funny," she said flatly.
"Oh, I know," I replied. "You’re usually all cool-headed. Regal. That whole ’I’m better than you, and you know it’ aura. This is... new."
She looked like she wanted to hit again.
For a heartbeat, I genuinely thought she might.
Then she exhaled sharply.
And looked past .
At Kent.
Pinned against the broken tree. Pale. Barely conscious. Blood frozen into dark streaks along his legs. He looked like a mushed-up human piñata, if the piñata didn’t drop candy after getting beaten up.
Everything about Nora changed in an instant.
The embarrassnt vanished.
The anger cooled.
What replaced it was sothing terrifyingly composed.
Her entire presence sharpened, like a blade sliding free of its sheath.
"Enough," she said quietly.
The words carried weight.
She stepped past without another glance, boots crunching toward Kent. "Heal him," she ordered. "Properly. Full focus."
I followed her gaze, my humor evaporating instantly.
"Until he can walk," she continued, voice low and controlled, "without dying."
She finally looked back at .
Her eyes weren’t furious anymore.
They were ancient.
Serious.
Heavy with sothing she hadn’t shown before.
"Then," Nora von Velkaris said, "we will talk about what that thing was."
She was no longer the sa girl who had been dying of embarrassnt a few seconds ago; now she was the princess and heir to the throne of the Velkaris empire.
The cold seed to deepen around us.
And for the first ti since waking up in this cursed forest, I felt a different kind of dread coil in my chest.
Because whatever she knew..
Whatever she’d just recognized...
ant this nightmare wasn’t even close to over.
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