Chapter 1: “A New Leash on Life”

Arthur’s party had traversed the icy tundra, beating monsters along the way, before finally reaching a small castle carved out of glacier. Normally, such an entrance would be guarded by monsters or minions of the floor boss, but the courtyard beyond the gate was eerily silent.

Arthur halted a few steps from the barely-opened door. He checked the frozen hall. “Why is it so quiet?” he muttered to himself.

He frowned, uneasy. He took a step forward and carefully pushed the heavy door. The iron hinges groaned, and a blast of cold air escaped from within. Inside was a grand hall of ice pillars and a vaulted ceiling. The polished floor stretched out before them, entirely empty.

Stepping inside, Arthur kept his sword at the ready. Serena and Eryndis fell into positions beside him, while Liana followed behind them with her staff raised.

At the far end of the hall was a raised platform. On it sat a throne of ice, and sitting on it was a woman.

Even at a distance, Arthur knew who she was. Her reputation was passed from mouth to mouth with the kind of relish people reserved for scandal.

Celestia Von Reingarde.

Rumors, sweet and poisonous alike, clung to her like perfume. They say she bought slaves to climb the tower. That she threatened merchant businesses until they folded into her hands. And that she treated her peers like dirt beneath her heel, and did so with a smile.

He had never expected to meet her here.

She was breathtaking in a way that felt almost offensive in this place of ice and death. Golden hair fell in a smooth cascade over her shoulders, too perfect to belong in the tower. Pale skin, composed expression, and those eyes… sharp crimson.

A white-haired maid stood beside the throne, and she looked out of place in the same way Celestia did.

Celestia held an ornate porcelain teacup, steam curled up to her lips.

She sipped.

Slowly.

Despite their confusion, Arthur and his party drew closer, and only then did Celestia’s gaze turn towards them.

For a brief moment, Arthur became painfully aware of how small he felt beneath her eyes.

The maid stepped forward immediately, she took the teacup from Celestia’s hand with both hands, while the latter did not look away from Arthur as the cup left her fingers.

Celestia stood from the throne.

She grabbed an extremely expensive-looking spear that was leaning against the side of the throne. She flipped the weapon through the air without any strain and angled it downward, the tip hovering just above the floor.

Arthur’s party tensed as one. Serena’s fingers tightened around her sword hilt. Liana shifted her footing. Eryndis’ gaze narrowed further, the elf’s calm turning watchful.

Arthur stayed still.

“Excuse me, Celestia…? What’s going on here? What happened to the floor boss?” he asked.

She did not answer immediately. Instead, the spear tilted slightly in her grip, not threatening yet, but implying the inevitability of it. When Celestia finally spoke, it was an order.

“Fight me,” she said.

Her gaze remained fixed on Arthur, sharp and unflinching.

Arthur’s grip tightened around his sword.

‘What was happening right now?’ Baffled by this turn of events, he couldn’t help but question the situation.

This wasn’t Arthur’s first encounter with the notorious noblewoman of The Empire.

* * * * *

Her own life had been a straight path with no bumps.

Born with a diamond spoon in her mouth, her parents’ names were behind every door before she even reached for the handle. After graduation, she used her family name to immediately land a high-level management position that most people her age could only dream of. The job was less about her impeccable skills and more about her family name, but she never questioned the arrangement.

Her days in the office were predictable: meetings began when she stepped through the door and ended the moment she closed her notebook.

“Rewrite this,” she would say, sliding a folder across her polished desk without opening it. “Make it perfect. I expect it this evening.”

She would snap her fingers at her secretaries while walking past. “Coffee. Use that new brand from Cali. And put in a call to accounting; I want their quarterly numbers before lunch.”

Any mistake was corrected with two words: “Fix it.” She never bothered with explanations.

And yet, even with all the money in the world, she found herself facing something she had never expected: emptiness. Every milestone that others celebrated felt unremarkable. Promotions were meaningless when they were guaranteed.

To distract herself, she searched for new hobbies. For a while, she found herself drawn to gacha games, lured by the promise of rare rewards. She spent far too much money rolling for digital figures, the rush of chance filling her evenings but the thrill disappeared as quickly as it came. After all, all she needed to do was pour more money in to solve the problem.

In that boredom, she found something else: webnovels.

At first, they were nothing more than another distraction, something to skim while lying in bed after work. But soon, she realized they offered more than she had expected. Unlike the polished books on bookstore shelves, webnovels had no filter. They came from anyone willing to write, whether or not they could, and within them she found ideas far stranger and more human than what she was used to reading. There were hidden gems buried under the endless lists of titles, obscure stories where authors dared to write about grief, betrayal, and ruin without softening the blow. These works struck her as more authentic than the carefully crafted happy endings she had grown to dislike.

There, in those raw, unpolished chapters, she found something closer to the genuinity she had always wanted to see. The unpredictability of webnovels gave her a sense of discovery, a feeling she rarely experienced in her own life.

The author’s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

But trends, as always, began to shift. More and more authors abandoned unique ideas in favor of what sold best. Romance-driven fantasies, shallow action stories, and formulaic plots increasingly filled the updates page. Writers who had once dared to experiment now wrote only what they thought would earn them views and income.

They disgusted her.

The very medium that had once offered her something real was being eroded by the same forces that shaped every other industry. To her, it was yet another reminder that happiness was cheap, and the pursuit of it ruined everything.

Whenever a story fell into predictable patterns, she gave it the lowest rating she could and left behind a scathing review. She wanted the author to know why their work was unworthy. The more she read, the more mediocrity she recognized, and the thinner her patience wore until her only outlet was criticism.

To her, that kind of writing was cowardice. It avoided the raw honesty of stories and replaced it with artificial highs that never lasted.

It was after one such late-night that everything changed.

She left the office with her phone in hand, sliding into the driver’s seat of her imported sedan. The engine roared to life, and the car rolled forward through the slick city streets.

Her phone dinged.

She normally kept it on silent, so the sound was a curiosity. Her eyes fixed on the screen as she tapped it open, revealing an email notification.

—Congratulations, you’ve been chosen.