The cold of the stone throne still clung to my skin like a tenacious memory when I finally rose. A ray of light filtered through a high window, calling me toward the outside of this strange world. Rising from this seat of power was almost like tearing myself away—a simple gesture that had become symbolic for the ordinary high school student I had been just yesterday.
I followed Greta out of the throne room, while my escort of succubus handmaidens reformed in my wake. Their movements, with feline grace, did not produce the slightest sound on the marble slabs. Frieda, that sergeant with disconcerting insolence, walked slightly ahead of me. Several times, I caught her gaze—her electric blue eyes sparkled with an energy that I did not yet understand but which inexplicably troubled me.
We traversed corridors of disproportionate dimensions, each hallway more imposing than the previous one. The walls, adorned with tapestries of complex patterns and portraits of beings I did not recognize, seemed to whisper age-old stories as I passed. The torches projected our dancing shadows onto the ancient stone, creating the illusion that we were followed by silent specters.
Then came this monumental door, carved from a dark, veined wood that I had never seen before. When it opened, the outside air struck me like a revelation.
It had nothing in common with that of my former life. Denser, richer, charged with notes of ozone and wild effluvia impossible to name. Each breath was a discovery—as if my lungs themselves were exploring this new world.
I advanced onto a wide balcony overlooking an immense courtyard, and the spectacle took my breath away. Below extended the royal court of Burg Schattenfels, a paved space where hundreds—no, thousands—of succubi waited. They formed a living tableau of superhuman beauty: handmaidens in delicate attire, guards in gleaming armor, officers with martial appearances. The strange light of the Aerdenreich sky played on their perfect silhouettes, creating a kaleidoscope of shadows and glimmers that made me dizzy.
At my sight, a shiver ran through this living tide. Then, in a movement of perfect synchronization, they knelt. The sound of this collective reverence resonated like the distant rumbling of an ocean. Their heads bowed, their graceful forms bent in a gesture of absolute allegiance.
It took my breath away. These magnificent and terrifying creatures were bowing before me—before *me*. The sensation was devastating, a surge of pure power that overwhelmed me without warning. An electric current passed through me, burning and icy at the same time, rising from my gut to the nape of my neck. It was... intoxicating. Frightening. Wonderful. An indescribable feeling of power that almost made me stagger.
Beyond the courtyard, the city stretched like a living map. It wasn't Tokyo with its skyscrapers and neon lights, but a city of dark stone and aged wood, with slender towers and sloping roofs gleaming under the opalescent light. The streets intersected like the veins of a complex organism, pulsing with a life that I sensed without yet understanding.
And further still, the horizon called to me. Undulating plains, dotted with groves of unusual colors, stretched to the foothills of distant mountains, whose peaks seemed to pierce the clouds. This was my kingdom. The Kaiserreich Valora. Not yet the power that its name suggested, but terribly, undeniably real.
Something changed in me at that moment. I felt it like one feels a muscle tense. The frightened and confused Kenji that I was shrank a little more inside me, giving way to a new presence, nourished by this unexpected power and recognition. My shoulders straightened by themselves, my chin lifted slightly. My gaze swept over the landscape with an assurance that I did not know I possessed.
"Your Majesty seems to appreciate the view," whispered Greta to my left, her voice carrying a note of approval.
We descended into the royal courtyard by a monumental staircase. The stone seemed warm under my steps, as if it recognized its master. My escort still surrounded me, forming a setting of supernatural beauty around my person. Sergeant Frieda now walked at my side, her feline gait contrasting with the ceremonious rigidity of the others.
The kneeling succubi remained frozen in their posture of devotion until we had passed them, rising only as we passed, like a wave rising and falling in our wake. It was only as we approached the gates of the city that I noticed the subtle change in the atmosphere.
Here lived humans too. And perhaps other creatures still—some glimpsed silhouettes corresponded to nothing known in my former life. Their clothes were simpler, their faces marked by daily concerns. At my sight, a clamor arose, different from the respectful silence of the succubi.
"Kaiser Konrad!"
"Glory to Valora!"
"Our Emperor has returned!"
These hoarse, passionate voices, these raised arms, these faces transfigured by hope or relief—it was another type of power that enveloped me. Not the mystical devotion of the succubi, but the raw fervor of the people. I let myself be carried by this wave of adulation, the arrogance I had sketched on the balcony anchoring itself a little more deeply in my being. I slowed my pace, savoring each second of this unexpected glory, a smile that I guessed was too satisfied stretching my lips.
At my side, Frieda let out a discreet but distinct sniff. Her steel-blue gaze settled on me, a troubling mixture of mockery and curiosity. She leaned slightly, just enough for her voice to reach my ears without being captured by the delirious crowd.
"Der Kaiser ist schon ein bisschen arrogant, n'est-ce pas?" she whispered, an irreverent smile playing on her perfect lips.
The mixture of German and French in her sentence destabilized me almost as much as her audacity. That she allowed herself to mock me openly, while thousands of her kind had just prostrated themselves before me... I felt my cheeks flush slightly, awkwardly trying to erase the arrogance from my expression. She had seen through me with disconcerting ease.
This girl was... different. Dangerously different, perhaps. Her comment, however, had the merit of bringing me back to a fundamental question that had been gnawing at me since waking up in this foreign body.
"Wait," I whispered, still staring at the crowd stirring at our passage, "this world... Aerdenreich... Valora... Did it really exist before I arrived?"
Everything seemed so ancient, so established. The buildings bore the marks of time, the traditions seemed centuries-old. How could I be parachuted into an already written story?
The look Frieda gave me mixed surprise and something more complex—an amusement tinged with a strange tenderness, perhaps. She laughed softly, a crystalline sound that reminded me of the tinkling of a bell.
"But of course not, Master," she said with disarming sincerity. "You are really strange, sometimes."
She paused, visibly searching for her words, her perfect forehead slightly furrowing.
"Our Master is... the source," she resumed more softly. "Your inner energy in the other world, the frequency of your deepest desires... Your..." She hesitated, then added with brutal frankness: "What did you call it? The frequency of your 'fap fap'?"
My brain short-circuited instantly. My frequency of... *what*? The blush that had timidly colored my cheeks the moment before exploded into a scarlet tide that must have risen to the roots of my hair. I felt my throat tighten, unable to articulate any coherent response. Had this elite sergeant, this creature of supernatural beauty, really just used that term to explain the genesis of an entire universe?
She continued, either unaware of my monumental embarrassment, or—and this was more likely—secretly relishing it.
"Yes, that's it. After your death, this energy exploded," she explained with confounding naturalness. "It reshaped the void. Created Aerdenreich." Her gesture encompassed the space around us. "And we appeared because of you. Because of that particular frequency. Succubi exist because you exist, Master. You are our creator. Our King."
I was stunned. My mind struggled to reconcile the majesty of this world—its grand landscapes, its diverse races, its palpable magic—with the origin she attributed to it. The idea that my soul, my vital energy, my... most intimate impulses could, upon my death, unleash and create an entire universe, populated notably by these creatures of dream and nightmare that were the Succubi, was truly vertiginous. Absurd. Embarrassing beyond words.
Frieda must have perceived my deep trouble, for her expression softened slightly. She looked at me with unexpected sincerity in her large blue eyes, almost vulnerable for a moment.
"Don't be embarrassed, Master," she said in a voice vibrating with an emotion I did not yet know in her. "It's simply the truth. And... we are grateful to you for it. It's thanks to this energy that we exist. It's thanks to you that this world exists. That anyone here breathes and lives."
Her gesture swept over the crowd, then the landscape that stretched beyond the walls. Cultivated fields, distant villages, the dark forest that was beginning to take shape on the horizon.
"So... thank you, Master," she concluded with a simplicity that completely disarmed me.
A sergeant who implicitly called me a pervert while thanking me for having created the world with my particular "frequency." This reality definitely exceeded the limits of strangeness.
The crowd dispersed as we approached the main gate of the city. The acclamations faded, replaced by the sound of hooves on the cobblestones and the discreet clinking of my escort's armor. Before us, beyond the last dwellings, waited a vision that almost made me doubt my eyes.
Sixty war horses of ink-black, powerful and magnificent, were pawing impatiently. On their backs, sixty Succubi in campaign uniform, looking determined and formidable. Rays of light reflected off their weapons and light armor, creating a moving constellation of points of light. My escort for the journey ahead.
They were all on horseback. Which meant I would be too. A groom—a succubus of perfect proportions, obviously—led toward me a particularly imposing mount. Its black coat gleamed like liquid obsidian, and its eyes seemed to reflect an almost human intelligence.
Horseback riding in my former life was limited to a few clumsy experiences during rare school outings. Here, it was manifestly an imperial necessity. I swallowed hard, trying to recall the basics I had long forgotten.
To my great surprise, my body seemed to know exactly what to do. My muscles reacted with a memory that was not mine, allowing me to hoist myself into the saddle with disconcerting ease. My white and gold uniform adapted perfectly to the position, as if it had been designed specifically for riding. This Emperor's body evidently had skills that I was still unaware of.
Frieda mounted her own steed with feline grace and came to position herself on my right. Greta, on an equally impressive mount, took her place on my left. The escort formed behind us, a moving wall of dangerous beauty and gleaming steel.
With my two guides flanking my sides, we set into motion. The last streets of the city passed around us, the acclamations gradually dying in our wake. Then we crossed the great gate, and the world opened before us.
Behind us rose Burg Schattenfels, its dark and slender silhouette dominating the landscape like a permanent reminder of my new status. Before us stretched... the unknown.
The terrain that immediately followed the city was a vast grassy plain with slightly bluish tints, undulating to the horizon like a frozen sea. The air there was drier, sharper, charged with unknown vegetal scents that tickled my nostrils. The wind blew without obstacle, making the tall grasses dance in hypnotic waves.
We galloped eastward, toward Eichenwald and the Black Forest. I could make out in the distance the first contours of this dense and mysterious vegetal mass that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. And beyond still, a blurred line on the horizon promised other discoveries.
As we advanced, the landscape subtly transformed. The vegetation became rarer, the grass gradually giving way to a drier, more granular soil. The few isolated trees that still punctuated the plain became stunted, twisted by constant winds. The air itself changed, becoming charged with tiny particles that glittered in the strange daylight.
Then came the sand. First a few scattered patches, like golden islands in the ocean of dying grass. Then increasingly vast expanses, until vegetation was but a memory. The wind now carried tiny grains that crunched between my teeth and slightly burned my eyes.
We were approaching the border—a natural border that even a stranger like me could recognize. Before us opened an immense desert, stretching as far as the eye could see under the strange sky of Aerdenreich. An ocean of sand with infinite undulations, where the sun created dancing mirages and unsettling areas of shadow.
This apparently empty territory, however, was anything but welcoming. The guards around me tensed imperceptibly, their hands moving closer to their weapons. I had caught snippets of conversations, whispers about the dangers that hid beneath these innocent dunes. Creatures lurking under the sand, waiting for the passage of prey. Predators camouflaged in the rare rock formations that broke the monotony of the landscape.
"The Great Desert," announced Greta in a solemn voice. "Three days of crossing before reaching the edge of Eichenwald. We will camp tonight near the oasis of Silberquelle."
The journey to meet the elders of Eichenwald would definitely not be a simple stroll. This hostile desert awaited us, the first trial of a journey whose true dangers I was still unaware of.