The Forgotten Warlord: Return of the Lost Son

---3rd Person POV---

“That thieving vixen is running for the women’s dormitory! Get her!”

Marie sprinted across the cobblestone courtyard, dozens of her peers hot on her trail. Exhausted from a long day of courses and running for her life, she barely made it into her room and barred the door before the mob caught up. Heavy fists began bashing against the wood as she hurried to lock and brace the frame.

“Get out here, you filthy bitch! Mistress Stephanie has shown you mercy multiple times, but her patience is officially dead. If you come out now, we will only beat you to within an inch of your miserable life!”

“After they're done, it’ll be our turn! Mistress Clarice is done letting you ogle her future husband. We will claw those thieving eyes right out of your skull!”

“Ha! We’ll do them one better for Miss Deirdre. Those toothpick legs of yours will be shattered into a million pieces. Good luck trying to steal Mr. Chris from her after that!”

Horrified by the murderous intent dripping from their voices, Marie curled into a tight ball on the floor and wept. After a brutal few days, she had redoubled her efforts to get close to her targets, only to end up in this pitiful situation.

As the rhythmic pounding shook the walls, Marie's mind raced. ‘What in the hell is going on here?! I’ve tried to follow the game’s storyline to the letter, but events aren't playing out right! The love interests are actually growing feelings for their original fiancées—that is not supposed to happen!’

Just this morning, Marie had spotted the boys and their fiancées walking to the cafeteria together. They were chatting about something; she couldn't hear the words, but the men were beaming. Unlike the day before, they looked comfortable around their fiancées, enjoying themselves. She had been forced to watch in silent horror as her golden future was stolen right out from under her nose.

“Damn it! Damn it!! Damn it!!!” Marie bit her lower lip so hard it bled. ‘If I don’t do something fast, I’ll be left with nothing but a mountain of debts and an ugly, fat bastard of a husband.’

Crunch!

Before she could lament her situation any further, the wood gave a loud, violent pop. Mortified, Marie looked back to see a massive split tearing down the length of the door. The mob outside redoubled its efforts, and the wood caved inward under the pressure.

‘Shit!’

Snatching the few sentimental items she owned, Marie scrambled toward her small window. A normal person would have found it impossible to slip through the tiny opening, but for the thin-framed Marie; it was a breeze. The exact moment her feet hit the dirt outside, her pursuers burst into the room. Realizing she had slipped through their fingers, the mob spilled back into the hallway to restart the search.

“The campus isn't safe anymore. I’ve got to find somewhere to hide until things cool off.”

Marie used her tiny stature to her advantage, dodging patrols and sneaking past the Academy gates without a single soul noticing. Once she finally found a secluded alleyway to take stock of her situation, she opened her wallet. The paltry ten thousand dia inside wouldn't get her far—not with half the high nobility in the capital hunting her down.

“If that stupid bitch Angelica hadn’t interfered the other day, I wouldn’t be in this mess. How did she even discover my plans? How did she know the exact moment I would approach them?” Marie sank onto her backside, overwhelmed, before slapping her own cheeks. “No, Marie, now isn’t the time to obsess over that. Focus on staying alive.”

By morning, most of the student body would be mobilized to hunt her. The only logical escape was to flee the capital and return to her family's territory until the storm blew over. It would decimate her social standing, but at least she would survive and return next semester. She could keep her head down and stay far away from the Prince and his inner circle.

But the thought of surrendering to those five smug fiancées caused Marie’s resolve to harden.

“No, I am not giving up yet,” she whispered, a vicious light returning to her eyes. “My father knows how to get in touch with shady people from the underworld. If I offer them some of my hidden game knowledge, they’ll be more than willing to protect me. Yeah! I can have them locate the Saintess items for me instead. Then I'll march right into the Temple and claim my rightful place. Once I’m the Saintess, I’ll beat every single one of those bastards into the dirt!”

With a new plan taking shape, Marie pulled her hood low and melted into the crowd heading toward the docks to buy a transport ticket. The next time she stepped foot in the capital, she would make everyone pay. She would take what was rightfully hers and humiliate those five bitches into absolute oblivion.

---Leon POV---

The tenth floor was not what I had assumed. Lucoa had referred to it as a tundra, but what we found was Niflheim. Hurricane-force winds tore across the landscape, encasing everything they touched in a thick layer of ice in seconds. Snowdrifts were over ten feet deep, and you could not see over five feet in front of you. If I were being honest, this place was what I imagined hell frozen over would feel like.

“An icy tundra, huh…” Roxanne said, her tail puffed up in wariness. “I don’t think we will last five seconds in that storm. Will it die down sometime soon?”

“Uh… We’ve never received a report of a blizzard on any of the frozen floors here,” Lucoa said, extending her arm past the archway before immediately jerking it back. “Eek! Five seconds is an optimistic assessment…”

I refused to allow a sudden storm to ruin my timeline. With unyielding resolve, I cast Investiture of Ice on myself and stepped across the threshold. The magic did its job, shielding me from the worst of the biting frost, though the howling wind still cut straight to the bone. I took a few deliberate steps forward, refusing to let the dungeon beat me.

“Haha! Come now, brother, don’t tell me a little cold is too much for you. If this is the extent of what you can take, turn back now.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, my boots crunching in the deep snow as I scanned the blinding whiteout. Over the roaring gale, I was certain someone had spoken. The voice was deep and gravelly, sounding almost as if the speaker were hoarse from centuries of laughter. It didn't belong to Nicks or Colin.

“Who goes there?”

Detect Life and the Force both registered absolute emptiness around me, yet my instincts insisted otherwise. Just as I was about to write the voice off as a trick of the freezing wind, the massive silhouette of a towering man materialized out of the gloom. On instinct, my hand flew to the hilt of my blade.

“Who are you!?”

Instead of an answer, a deep belly laugh rumbled through the storm. Annoyed, I charged forward to get a clear look at his face, but the giant shifted backward, staying just out of sight.

“Leon! Come back to the archway! We can't see you anymore!” Lucoa’s voice faintly pierced the howling wind behind me.

I glanced back over my shoulder. My common sense told me to retreat to safety, but a bizarre, heavy ache in my chest urged me forward. It was as if my very blood longed to catch this giant, even though I knew no one of that staggering stature. Against my better judgment, I ignored my caution and lunged deeper into the storm after him.

“I knew you had it in you, brother. All you needed was a little encouragement.”

The hoarse voice echoed again, closer this time. Furious at being toyed with by an invisible stranger, I channeled the Force directly into my muscles, accelerating into a full sprint. Yet, no matter how much ground I covered, the massive shadow remained out of reach.

“Damn it! I’ve tolerated enough of your games,” I shouted into the void. “Stop playing around and tell me who you are!”

“You already know me well, brother. We have fought on many battlefields together and shared countless pints of ale. Though I suppose that was eons ago now…”

Through his words, I could feel an immense weight of pain and anguish.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said, shouting into the whiteout. “When did we ever meet?”

“Your memories haven’t returned yet, have they, brother? In that case, I hope you can piece things together before it is too late…”

In an instant, the blizzard vanished. The howling wind died to an absolute standstill as the whiteout broke. As the giant's shadow dissolved into nothingness, a single sheet of paper appeared in its place. It floated gently through the quiet air, landing at my feet as if someone had lightly tossed it to me. I knelt to pick it up, freezing in horror the moment my eyes fell on the sigil inked into the page.

<Thank goodness, Master. I lost you in the storm. Is everything alright?> (Luxion)

As my AI companion floated over to my side, his optical sensor tilted down toward the paper. He paused for a long moment before his silence prompted me to speak.

“Tell me, Luxion. Do you recognize this symbol from anywhere?” I picked up the paper, my hands shaking against the crisp edges.

<My apologies, Master. This unusual symbol isn’t in my database.>

“I see…”

I looked back down at what appeared to be a secret document from the Holy Kingdom of Rachelle. It was a detailed reconnaissance report targeting our country, but at the very bottom corner, stamped in dark ink, was an eight-pointed star—a central circle with arrows jutting out in the cardinal and intercardinal directions.

The mark would mean nothing to the people of this world, but to me, it was the ultimate omen of death. My knowledge of the Warhammer 40,000 universe was limited to a few fan animations and video games, but I knew exactly what that star represented. It was the symbol of Chaos Undivided.

‘Damn it… if there is a Chaos Cult hiding inside the Holy Kingdom, I need to redouble—no, triple my efforts to secure power and technology. As I am right now, even with Luxion’s entire arsenal, a full-scale incursion will be impossible to defeat.’

“Leon!!” Roxanne’s voice broke the silence as she and the others came sprinting across the newly cleared snow.

I glanced back at them, quietly slipping the document into my inventory. ‘If I fail here, everyone on this world will be doomed to a fate worse than death. No matter the cost... I cannot afford to fail again.’

That last thought popped into my head completely out of the blue. My mind flashed back to the strange vision I experienced while fighting the King Slime, and I wondered if I was remembering the faceless woman I had instinctively called my wife. Just the phantom memory of her made my chest ache with a profound, hollow sorrow.

“Next time you decide to sprint into a damn blizzard, give us a warning,” Lucoa said, crossing her arms tightly against the lingering chill. “Anyway, did you somehow break the storm?”

“Haha, I wish! No, it just stopped the second I reached this spot.” I rejoined my colleagues with an apologetic grin. “But now that the storm is gone, we can put my plan into action. Tell me, have any of you ladies ever heard of windsurfing?”

They all shook their heads. I had assumed as much, given that the people of this world lived above the ocean, but it didn’t hurt to ask. With a sharp wave of my hand, I used ice magic to manifest a large, reinforced sailboard directly on the frozen ground.

I climbed onto the board, checking the mast to ensure the sail was maneuverable enough to catch the current. “Climb onboard. I’m going to give you all a crash course on windsurfing. If we are lucky, we might even avoid the ‘crash’ part. Haha!”

The women scrambled onto the board, immediately struggling to keep their balance on the slick material. When Solaris stepped forward to jump on, I gave my friend an apologetic look.

“Sorry, Solaris, I don’t think you’ll be able to windsurf with us. You have to be able to grip the handle on the sail to stay anchored. If you don’t, you’ll go flying the first time we hit a bump. Can you just fly alongside us?”

<Rawr...>

Resigned to his fate, Solaris slumped his shoulders, his head dropping in disappointment.

“Tell you what—how about the two of us go for a flight once I get Spacehog fixed? We can tear across the sky with wild abandon.”

<Rawr!>

Delighted by the trade-off, Solaris perked up instantly and extended the small thrusters built into his back. As they ignited, a pair of draconic wings made of pure, blinding light shot out into the air.

“What the...?! Since when have you had fucking wings?!”

<Rawr! Rawr! Rawr!>

“The fuck do you mean I didn’t bother to ask?! When we got back to my dorm room the other day, I… Ugh, there is no point in arguing with you about this. Just do your best to keep up with us.”

I put the topic aside for now and turned my attention to my confused comrades. Our exchange just now had clearly baffled them, as none of them could understand Solaris's growls the way I could.

“Alright, the concept of windsurfing is very similar to sailboating,” I said, adjusting my grip on the handle. “As the wind pushes against the sail, it propels us forward. We steer by swiveling and tilting the mast. Since the floor's regular breeze won’t be enough to move all of us at the pace I want, I’m going to use wind magic to drive us.”

Roxanne’s eyes lit up, her posture shifting as she braced her feet. “So, all we have to do is maintain our balance and follow your lead?”

“Yeah, that’s the gist of it.”

The women gritted their teeth and nodded. With everyone ready, I whipped up a massive gust of localized wind magic directly behind the thin ice sail and launched us forward. It took them a few moments to adjust to the unnatural sliding sensation, but once they found their centers, the tension left their shoulders. Once I felt confident they wouldn't slip off, I put the hammer down to make up for lost time.

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