As they stood beneath the vast, star-studded expanse of the night sky, the flickering campfire cast elongated shadows that danced around them. Shotaro's crimson eyes, gleaming with an intensity that seemed to pierce through the darkness, met hers—emerald orbs reflecting the firelight with a depth that made his heart waver for just a moment. His silver hair, kissed by the glow of the fire and illuminated beneath the radiance of the dozens of moons hanging above, shimmered like liquid stardust.
Paliv stared at him, her lips parting slightly as if she wished to speak, but no words came forth. Instead, her lower lip quivered, caught in the delicate balance between a fragile smile and something more unsteady, something vulnerable.
"That's…" Her soft voice, almost hesitant, trailed off.
She had always seen Shotaro as someone untouchable. An existence that stood above all, as if he were a force of nature, always victorious, always unshaken. He was the kind of person who, no matter the odds, no matter the enemy, never seemed to falter. He carried himself like an unbreakable warrior, an invincible legend etched into reality itself.
Yet, when she had heard him cry—when his voice, usually so composed and unyielding, cracked under the weight of his anguish and burdens just days ago—her perception shattered.
Shotaro Mugyiwara was not some flawless, divine being who reigned supreme over all things. He was not an entity that stood perpetually above the rest, untouched by hardship or defeat.
No, he was something far more profound than that.
He was a man who had been knocked down countless times, crushed under the weight of his own struggles, battered by fate itself. A man who, despite everything, still found the strength to rise again. Someone who, in moments of despair, cursed his fate, lamented the cruel burdens thrust upon him—yet, in the very next moment, chose to bear them with unwavering resolve. Not because he had to. Not because there was no other way.
But because that was who he was.
A man who bore the weight of the world, not out of obligation, but out of sheer, unrelenting altruism.
And as Paliv looked into his crimson eyes, illuminated beneath the celestial glow of a sky that knew no dawn, she felt her heart tighten with an emotion she could not yet name.
Paliv's voice wavered, her breath hitching as memories long buried surfaced with the weight of the night pressing down upon her. The campfire crackled softly in the silence between them, its warm glow casting flickering shadows across her face.
"When my father died..." she began, her tone quiet, almost hesitant, as if saying it aloud made the loss real all over again. "I was... not in a good shape." Her gaze dropped momentarily, her emerald eyes dimming with sorrow. "I tried to learn magic to divert my mind, to focus on something—anything—so that I wouldn't have to think about it, wouldn't have to feel it." She let out a bitter chuckle, though there was no mirth in it. "But nothing happened. No spells. No breakthroughs. Nothing that could take away the emptiness that had settled inside me like a cold void."
Her fingers curled slightly, as if clenching an invisible thread of emotion too fragile to grasp.
"I had many... many friends," she continued, her voice quieter now, laced with something heavier. "The sons and daughters of the courtiers who worked under my mother. People who laughed, who played, who spoke sweet words of comfort but never truly understood. They were just... there..so I stopped meeting them all together."
She exhaled sharply, shaking her head. "But my mother... she was—" Paliv hesitated, then swallowed, as if forcing herself to continue. " She was drunk at that point. All the time. I couldn't—no, I never could—express myself fully to her. Because all I ever got from her were hollow hugs. The kind that felt empty, weightless, insincere. And the words she whispered? Just the same meaningless reassurances over and over again. Sometimes, when she kissed my forehead, all I could smell was the alcohol on her breath."
Her fingers twitched as she raised a hand and placed it against Shotaro's chest. His heartbeat was steady beneath her palm, grounding her in the present and reminding her that she was no longer alone.
"And then you came," she murmured, her lips curving slightly—not quite a smile, but something close, something nostalgic. "Or, well... more like I found you." Her eyes lifted, meeting his, and in them, there was a quiet warmth. "In my garden. Where you had already eaten all the mangoes."
She let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, but there was a softness in her expression now—something vulnerable yet unguarded, as if in this moment, she was finally letting him see the parts of her that she had kept hidden for so long.
Paliv's fingers curled slightly against Shotaro's chest, as if grounding herself in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. Her emerald eyes, gleaming in the firelight, softened with something between gratitude and exasperation.
"You fixed everything... mostly everything," she said, her voice laced with something unspoken, a quiet emotion that danced between admiration and frustration. "You did what nobody else dared to do. What nobody even thought was possible. While the others tiptoed around the problem, too afraid to act, too consumed by their own fears and self-preservation, you—"she looked up at him, shaking her head slightly, almost in disbelief, "—you just went ahead and punched my mother. Right in the correct spot."
She exhaled sharply, part sigh, part huff of amusement. "I don't even know how you managed that. But somehow, someway, you hit her so perfectly that it actually knocked her back to her senses. A single strike, and suddenly, she wasn't drowning in bottles anymore. She wasn't lost in that haze of grief and intoxication. It was as if you shook her awake in a way that nothing else could. And just like that, she started acting like a queen again."
Paliv let out a small laugh, though it held traces of genuine astonishment. "And that was just the beginning, wasn't it? As if flipping my mother's life back upright with one well-placed punch wasn't enough, you decided to fix the entire kingdom in your spare time. In just a single week, you turned everything around. The crime rate? Cut down drastically. The corrupt policies that had been strangling the people? Reformed. And how did you do it?"
She tilted her head, mockingly thoughtful for a moment before grinning. "Oh, right. You walked straight into the dens of criminals, looked them dead in the eye, and threatened to throw them into the atmosphere."
She paused, shaking her head. "And the worst part? They actually believed you. You didn't have to lift a single finger—just the sheer thought of you launching them into orbit like some kind of celestial punishment was enough to make them surrender on the spot. Some of them even turned themselves in before you could find them, just in case."
She sighed dramatically, shaking her head. "You're an absolute menace, you know that?"
But despite her words, there was no mistaking the warmth in her voice. No mistaking the way she looked at him now—not with disbelief nor frustration, but with something far deeper. Something that had been building for a long, long time.
Paliv's voice softened, her emerald eyes shimmering with an emotion she had kept buried for far too long. The night air was still, the crackling of the campfire the only sound between them. She inhaled deeply, as if steadying herself, as if gathering the courage to let the words she had always held back finally escape.
"I have been asking for someone to share my pain," she murmured, her voice carrying the weight of countless silent prayers. "Someone. Anyone. For as long as I can remember, I wanted—no, needed—someone to understand, someone who wouldn't just offer hollow words or empty reassurances but would truly stand beside me and take even a fraction of what I carried. But no matter how many people surrounded me, no matter how many so-called friends or courtiers offered their sympathies, it was never enough. Because none of them ever really saw me."
Her gaze flickered toward the fire, the orange glow reflected in her eyes. "And then, by Bhramha's grace... my mother brought you into the family."
She exhaled, shaking her head slightly, almost as if still in disbelief. "It feels strange, doesn't it? That a single person could change everything. That a single presence could turn my world upside down and yet make it feel more stable than it ever was before. But that's exactly what you did."
Paliv looked up at him again, her expression unreadable yet filled with something raw and unguarded. "My father was right," she continued, her voice quieter now, but no less certain. "Right to place his trust in you. Right to bet everything on you. And now, standing here, I understand why."
Her lips quivered slightly, caught between a smile and something far more vulnerable. "You're the best... big brother I could have ever asked for."
There was no hesitation in her words, no lingering doubt. Just honesty, just gratitude, just the kind of warmth that could only come from knowing, deep in her heart, that she had finally found what she had been searching for all along.
"Paliv," Shotaro said, his voice calm but firm as he turned to face her. "I wanted to ask you something… Why did you force Nyrebo to kill the Dark Elvan intruders?"
The moment the words left his mouth, something inside Paliv snapped.
Her face contorted into an expression of such exaggerated, visceral hatred that it looked like she had just been force-fed a spoonful of spoiled milk mixed with betrayal. It wasn't just ordinary hate—it was the kind of deep-seated, generational, irrational loathing that made no sense yet burned with the intensity of a thousand suns.
A comical level of sheer disgust radiated from her, as if the mere mention of Dark Elves had personally ruined her entire bloodline's legacy. The flames of the campfire flickered ominously, as if responding to the overwhelming force of her prejudice.
"I HATE THEM," she spat, her emerald eyes practically glowing with righteous fury. "Those filthy, no-good, soot-skinned, scheming, lying, stealing, underhanded, treacherous—"
She inhaled sharply, her chest rising as if she were about to unleash an entire thesis on why Dark Elves were the absolute scum of existence.
"Dark-born, dusk-dwelling, smooth-tongued, poison-dripping, dagger-hiding, manipulative, double-crossing, backstabbing, empire-tainting, mongrel—"
"Okay, that's enough," Shotaro interrupted, his eye twitching.
But Paliv wasn't done. Oh no. She was just getting started.
"They slither into our lands, pretend to be one of us, and then—BAM! Next thing you know, someone's missing their coin purse, your local noble's been swindled into signing away his inheritance, and half the kingdom's economy is mysteriously in shambles! And don't even get me started on their 'trade deals!' They smile, they bow, they shake hands, but the second you blink—poof! You're in debt for three generations!"
Shotaro pinched the bridge of his nose. "You do realize you just described, like, half the elven nobility too, right?"
Paliv gasped, placing a dramatic hand over her chest like she had just been mortally wounded. "Excuse me?! Are you saying we're just as bad as them?!"
Shotaro gave her the flattest, deadliest stare in existence. "Paliv, half of the crimes you listed literally happened in your own royal court. By elves. Last week."
Paliv cleared her throat. "That's... beside the point."
"No. That is exactly the point," Shotaro said, arms crossed.
She huffed, folding her arms, looking away with an expression that suggested she would rather fight an entire dragon than admit he had a valid argument. "Listen, all I'm saying is, if something goes wrong and a Dark Elf is nearby, odds are, they were involved!"
"That's… actually insane," Shotaro deadpanned.
"It's statistics!" Paliv shot back.
Shotaro exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down his face. "Paliv, what the fuck"
Her face immediately stiffened. Her eyes darted left. Then right. Then back to Shotaro.
"…I refuse to answer that," she muttered.
Shotaro sighed the sigh of a man who had given up all hope for rational discourse. "You need therapy."
Paliv scoffed, flipping her hair dramatically. "No, I need a world free of Sootskins."
"Okay, nope," Shotaro muttered, standing up, done with this conversation. "That's when I start dragging you to therapy by force."
Shotaro Mugyiwara had seen many things in his life. He had fought monsters that could flatten mountains, stared down tyrants with the power to bend nations to their will, and even survived the absolute lawlessness of Call of Duty multiplayer lobbies back on Earth—arguably his most harrowing battlefield.
To say he was desensitized would be an understatement. Back in his past life, he had witnessed (and, to his eternal shame, participated in) the absolute cesspit of online gaming culture, where slurs flew faster than bullets and insults were an art form honed to perfection. He had once watched an argument between a ten-year-old and a fully grown man escalate into a verbal war that could have permanently scarred the soul of a lesser person.
And yet.
Yet.
Nothing—nothing—could have prepared him for this.
As Paliv continued her utterly unhinged, frothing-at-the-mouth, near-legendary tirade against the Dark Elves, Shotaro felt something deep within him shift. Something fundamental. Something he never thought he would feel again.
He had lost.
He had lost the game.
This wasn't just racism. This was Racism: New Game+ Edition. This was a racism so raw, so pure, so astronomically irrational that it had outclassed everything he had ever encountered. It was like she had taken every single slur, stereotype, and conspiracy theory ever whispered in hushed, hateful tones and compressed them into an unholy ball of concentrated bigotry, then set it on fire and launched it directly into his face.
His mind struggled to process it. His soul struggled to process it.
How?
How did this medieval fantasy princess, who had never even seen an Xbox in her life, just casually outdo every toxic lobby he had ever been in? How did her sheer level of unwarranted, foam-at-the-mouth hatred reach heights that even the sweatiest, most rage-fueled Call of Duty player could only dream of?
His very existence as a former slur-spouting, trash-talking, toxicity-powered FPS player had been obliterated in the face of this eldritch-level racism.
He had been out-racist'ed.
By a medieval teenage girl.
Shotaro sat there, staring into the campfire, a distant, haunted look in his crimson eyes. His hands, which had once gripped controllers and keyboards with the ferocity of a man at war, now lay limp in his lap. He was done. Defeated.
This wasn't just losing.
This was respawning in shame.
Shotaro blinked.
Then he blinked again.
His mind struggled to reboot, desperately searching for the right words to respond to what he had just heard. But no matter how much he tried, all that came out was—
"What the fuck?"
Silence. The night wind whispered through the trees. The campfire crackled, throwing flickering shadows across Paliv's face.
But Shotaro wasn't done.
"What the actual fuck?"
Paliv simply crossed her arms, her expression somewhere between stubborn conviction and faint guilt, though the guilt was clearly losing the battle. Her emerald eyes flickered toward the fire, as if trying to avoid his burning gaze.
"This is why I had them killed," she finally admitted, her voice carrying a strange mix of justification and hesitation. "I couldn't handle those... Sootskins in my kingdom. Not after what they did to Mother."
For a brief moment, Shotaro just stared at her, expression unreadable.
Then, finally, he exhaled sharply and dragged a hand down his face. "Paliv," he muttered, his tone somewhere between exhausted disbelief and the sheer spiritual resignation of a man who had just realized he was never going to win this argument.
Paliv, ever defiant, lifted her chin. "I don't expect you to understand. You weren't here. You didn't see it."
"Yeah, no shit I don't understand!" Shotaro shot back. "You basically just told me, 'Oh, hey, I had an entire group of people killed because of something they were in process of getting acounted for!' That's actual war criminal logic, Paliv! That's 'congratulations, you've just committed a light genocide' logic!"
She huffed, flipping her hair. "Well, when you put it like that, it sounds bad."
"It is bad!"
Paliv rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, Shotaro. Don't act like you haven't committed mass murder before."
"That was different!"
"Oh?" She raised an eyebrow. "And how, exactly?"
Shotaro opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again.
"...Okay, you know what? Fair."
Paliv smirked, as if she had just won some grand philosophical debate.
Shotaro, on the other hand, felt his soul leave his body.
Shotaro exhaled slowly, rubbing his temples as he processed the sheer absurdity of what he had just heard. He had fought monsters, battled titans, and survived being in brazil, yet somehow, somehow, dealing with Paliv's brand of insanity was proving to be the single most exhausting challenge of his life.
He slowly turned his gaze toward her, crimson eyes unreadable, glowing faintly in the firelight.
"Like mother, like daughter, I guess," he muttered, voice flat.
Paliv blinked, tilting her head slightly. "Huh? What do you mean—?"
She didn't get to finish.
Because, in the very next instant, Shotaro's massive fist crashed into her stomach.
WHUMP.
A shockwave rippled through the air, rustling the leaves in the trees. The ground beneath Paliv's feet cracked slightly as the sheer force of the impact sent tremors through the earth.
Paliv's emerald eyes bulged wide. Her entire body jolted as all the air in her lungs violently evacuated in one go. For a split second, time seemed to slow, and a strange realization passed through her mind—
Oh.
Oh wow.
It's been a while since he hit her.
She had seen him punch monsters the size of castles into the stratosphere. She had seen him slap rakshases so hard their entire bloodlines felt it in past following days. But experiencing it firsthand?
Yeah. Yeah, she got it now.
Shotaro, meanwhile, stood over her, completely unfazed. "You both need some sense BEATEN into your skulls," he declared, voice firm, as if he were delivering an irrefutable law of the universe.
Paliv, still hunched over in agony, managed to let out a wheezing, "hhrkkkkkkk—"
Then, like a marionette with its strings cut, she collapsed face-first onto the ground.
Paliv lay sprawled on the ground, still struggling to breathe after Shotaro's gut punch had nearly sent her soul to the afterlife. Yet somehow, through sheer stubbornness (or maybe just spite), she managed to lift her head slightly, her emerald eyes burning with defiance.
Then, with all the energy she could muster, she spat out—
"You faggot…"
Silence.
The night air suddenly felt tense. The campfire crackled in the background, its warm glow unable to soften the sheer weight of what had just been said.
Shotaro's eye twitched. Where the hell did she learn that word?
His mind immediately began running through possibilities. Maybe some old knight muttered it in frustration? Maybe she overheard mercenaries talking? Maybe I shouldn't have let her hang around me too much…
But before he could ponder further, he heard a sudden noise behind him.
A rustling. Footsteps. And then—
"I won't let you hurt that beautiful fairy, you big beast!"
Shotaro turned just in time to see someone stepping out from the shadows—a Dark Elf.
A kid, no older than Paliv. In human terms, he looked like an average tenth grader—barely started puberty, just like her. His dark soot-greyish skin stood in stark contrast to the moonlit clearing, and his ametyst hair was slightly messy, as if he had sprinted all the way here without a second thought.
And now, with all the courage of a man facing down a dragon, he charged at Shotaro.
Shotaro blinked.
The Dark Elf clenched his fist. His legs moved as fast as they could. His expression was filled with determination, as if he genuinely believed he could take on a man who had sent criminals fleeing just by threatening to yeet them into the atmosphere.
Shotaro barely had time to process what was happening before—
WHAP!
The Dark Elf's fist connected squarely with Shotaro's abs.
Or at least, that's what should have happened.
Instead, the moment his knuckles made contact, a sickening crunch echoed in the air.
The boy froze.
Shotaro looked down.
The kid's face contorted in sheer, unfiltered agony as reality set in.
"AHHHHHHHHHH—"
The scream tore through the night as he stumbled backward, clutching his broken hand. Tears welled up in his eyes as he cradled his fingers, which were now twisted at angles they definitely should not have been.
"FUCK!" he shrieked, hopping in place, his entire body trembling from the pain. "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, AHHHHH, MY HAND—WHY IS IT LIKE THIS?!"
Shotaro, still looking down at him, was utterly flabbergasted.
He hadn't even moved.
This kid had basically punched a brick wall with full force and was now acting surprised that his brittle, teenage bones had given up on life.
For a moment, Shotaro just stared.
Then, as realization settled in, his face slowly morphed into something darker.
A sigh.
A tired, tired sigh.
"FUCK THEM KIDS."
And before the boy could react—
BAM!
Shotaro's open palm bitch-smacked him into the dirt.
The force wasn't even a fraction of what he had hit Paliv with, but for the Dark Elf kid, it was devastating. His body collapsed like a sack of potatoes, his head bouncing slightly before he groaned in pain.
His limbs twitched. He whimpered softly.
He had lost consciousness before he even hit the ground.
Shotaro exhaled. Then he turned his gaze back to Paliv, who was still lying on the ground, wheezing like an old man who had just climbed twenty flights of stairs.
Paliv barely had the energy to respond.
Shotaro sighed again. This was going to be a long night.