She roughly ruffled young Eren’s hair and continued with words he couldn’t understand.
“If I don’t endure, then there won’t be a place for you to return to.”
Perhaps it was from that time on.
The former Grand Duchess began looking only out the window, no matter who entered the room.
She would often gaze wistfully at the snow-covered mountains and tell him stories from her days as a nomad.
“When nomads become adults, they always live alone. We wander from place to place, and when we run into one another, we greet each other and keep going.”
“Mother, did you prefer those days?”
Hearing the longing in her voice, he asked — but she replied immediately:
“What nonsense, Eren. Why would I prefer being outside when I have a warm home here? Remember this well. Leaving home is the start of misery.”
Within the mansion, aside from the former Grand Duke and Eren, there was no one who spoke with her.
She minimized her answers, and most of the servants’ questions were met with gestures.
Eren never understood.
“Mother. Why do you not use your Word of Command even though you have it?”
With a single word, she could have changed even the disdainful looks cast at her.
If they had to coexist anyway, wouldn’t it have been easier simply to alter their emotions?
Eren had no doubt that if nomads had ever gathered and lived as a group, they would have become a tremendous power.
She stroked young Eren’s hair and smiled.
“Eren. You must never let others see you use your Word of Command. It can drag someone into danger, or the blade may turn back toward you instead. There is a reason nomads live alone.”
“But you showed it to Father.”
“I told you, that was because I thought he was a wild boar! If I had known it was him, I never would have!”
Back then, he didn’t know.
He didn’t know how desperately the former Grand Duke had been blocking things to protect his family.
The entire continent had stirred at the unknown power the North had gained — the Word of Command.
The balance of power had been broken.
And once it broke, the pressure immediately turned toward House Keilos.
Fear spread quickly.
The North was no exception.
Whether knights, subjugation soldiers, attendants, or servants — whenever people gathered, they whispered.
“Would a nomad truly have any affection for House Keilos?”
“Nomads never once helped us while we were suffering under endless subjugations.”
“If we’re not careful, we’ll all fall under a curse because of it.”
“Perhaps even the Grand Duke has already been caught in it. To make the entire continent an enemy…”
To the people of the continent, who constantly lived under the threat of monsters, she was an existence they could not accept.
The conclusion reached by those who feared the Word of Command was:
“Take Eren and flee.”
Eradication.
At dawn, assassins seized House Keilos.
The northern people closed their eyes under the excuse of sleep, and outsiders used the internal conflicts of House Keilos as justification.
The former Grand Duke, fighting with only a handful of his guards, first evacuated his wife and son.
“I will settle this quickly and call for you again. Hide with Eren for just a moment.”
Shadows fell across Eren’s room.
No matter how many were killed, the shadows only continued to increase.
Before his eyes, the guards of House Keilos collapsed one after another.
Among them was even the man who had once entered the Grand Duchess’s private quarters and knelt before her.
The once-honorable crest of the House was stained with blood.
Only then did Eren realize:
Even within House Keilos, there were those who had been warm toward them.
Now they were lying on the floor, unable even to close their eyes.
He had to protect them.
His place.
His family.
His people.
‘One word is all it takes.’
Why did he have to keep swallowing this power?
As Eren parted his lips, she hurriedly covered his mouth with her hand.
“Eren, no.”
In the darkness, her golden eyes caught the moonlight and shone with a frightening intensity.
Amid the chaos, she pushed aside a bookshelf and grabbed at the emergency passage door hidden behind it.
It didn’t open easily — perhaps because magic was placed upon it to react only to the bloodline of House Keilos.
“Just the door… We only need to open the door.”
Her golden eyes filled with turmoil.
Just as she firmly braced herself, covering Eren’s ears and about to mutter something—
“The nomads are using the Word of Command! Kill them!”
The shadows rushed in all at once.
The eyes of the former Grand Duke, turning back, quivered with despair.
To Eren, it felt as if every scene was moving in slow motion.
The mouth of young Eren, facing them, opened.
In that instant, his world went black.
He remembered nothing.
When he came to, there was no living being left in that place.
Only then did he understand why she had always warned him.
The authority he used to protect them had rebounded entirely upon those around him.
He paid a very heavy price for it.
Now, he could no longer tell who had died to the Word of Command and who had been killed by the assassins.
Eren quietly looked down at his parents, who no longer breathed.
Until the sun rose.
Until the people of House Keilos, who had been asleep, awoke.
Morning came, and the knights—who belatedly realized the intrusion—came running.
In the blood-soaked room, only a boy with golden eyes remained standing.
Twelve years old. Eren Keilos.
It was the moment he became the Head of the House as first in line to inherit the North.
***
The office fell silent.
Eren looked at Liselotte, who seemed to have even forgotten how to breathe.
After a long moment, her mouth slowly opened.
“So… at twelve years old, someone sent a whole group of assassins first, is that it?”
“That is correct.”
Snapping her fingers sharply, she exclaimed with clarity:
“Self-defense!”
Liselotte let out a huge internal sigh of relief.
She had already been bracing herself from the moment she came to his office.
She had worried it might be something like a murder disguised as an accident… or a patricide committed for power or wealth.
She had mentally prepared herself for even worse levels of disaster.
For example, things like: Eren isn’t the child of the former Grand Duke…
Stories like that.
Or, that he wasn’t actually the child of the former Grand Duke and his wife, but the child of some adulterer or adulteress whom they passed off as theirs.
And because even the little bit of northern blood he supposedly had could disappear if it had been revealed, he killed the previous Grand Duke or Duchess — the only people who knew the secret.
That kind of storyline.
‘Reality is usually worse than fiction.’
But what young Eren went through wasn’t his fault.
Sometimes in the world, there are things that happen beyond anyone’s control— things that come too late for regret and beyond prediction, where all one can do is endure them.
And when someone had been swept away like that, and needed help gathering the scattered pieces around them to stand again — that was what she was best at.
Liselotte looked down at his expressionless face with a gentle smile.
“Your Highness, you were young back then. Even the knights who were supposed to guard you weren’t present.”
She now fully understood why he’d reacted so severely when she entered his room while he was using the Word of Command.
It was that dangerous a power.
‘It makes sense that other Houses would be wary of it.’
And that wariness had continued until now.
If anything, now that Eren was an adult with a fully formed sense of self and will, he was even more dangerous than when he’d been a child.
‘In the original, after he lost control, he never hesitated to use the Word of Command again.’
Arms crossed, Liselotte asked gravely:
“Was the mastermind ever identified?”
“Not a single one survived, so interrogation was impossible. Outsiders were mixed in as well, and there were no clear points of connection.”
“Uh, then…”
Then the mastermind was still alive, wasn’t he?
A chill crept down her spine.
If she wasn’t careful, she might end up visiting the underworld before she even got to file for divorce.
At her short gasp, Eren answered as if he’d been waiting:
“We are still tracking the mastermind. Their blood price has yet to be fully collected.”
With an even colder expression, he continued:
“Still, it was put to good use in rebuilding House Keilos.”
“Put to… good use?”
“We have to correct everything that went wrong in the previous generation.”
She had absolutely no idea what he meant.
Seeing that, he asked again:
“Do you know what item outsiders covet most from House Keilos?”
“Uh… the teleportation magic stones?”
“That’s correct. And after a twelve-year-old with no one to help him survived an assassination attempt, he came to hold the exclusive rights to the teleportation magic stones. What do you think someone would do in that situation?”
The collateral branch had already turned their backs on him, and every retainer who might have stood with his parents and him was dead.
To make things worse, among the assassins were outsiders — making it the perfect setup for suspicion.
A sudden thought came to Liselotte, and unsure of it, she cautiously voiced it.
“Would someone… approach him, saying they want to help because he must be confused?”
