A pair of reflective green eyes flared in the gloom.
A bipedal, canine-like nightmare, hunched over like a starving convict. Its grey-black fur was matted with mange and dried filth. In its hand—a hand that looked disturbingly human—it gripped a jagged, rusty dagger coated in viscous green liquid.
The wolf sniffed the air, drool dripping from its jowls onto the stone floor.
It crouched. Muscles coiled.
My brain stalled.
“Run...” Zayla wheezed on my back, her grip on my shirt tightening.
“Nowhere to run,” I hissed, my voice cracking. The rift was sealed. The wall was unclimbable. We were rats in a bucket.
The Wolf Scout didn't roar. It didn't monologue. It simply launched.
A silent, grey blur. The trajectory was perfect—a parabolic arc aimed straight for my carotid artery.
I flinched, raising my arm in a futile attempt to block.
No scream. No explosion. Just a sound like tearing silk.
The weight on my back vanished.
In the strobe-light effect of my frantic flashlight, I saw the impossible. The wolf, mid-air, suddenly froze. A flash of silver light bisected its torso.
Two heavy, wet chunks of carcass slammed into the ground at my feet. Black blood sprayed like a ruptured hydraulic line, drenching my face—hot, stinking, and metallic.
I stood there, frozen, wiping the gore from my glasses.
Three meters away, Zayla knelt on one knee. She was panting, her broken blade extended. The weapon was clean. Not a drop of blood. The cut had been so fast that surface tension never had a chance to form.
She turned her head. Those golden slit-pupils locked onto me. For a second, she wasn't a frail girl; she was an apex predator assessing a potential meal.
Then, the “Queen” collapsed face-first into the dirt.
I scrambled over to Zayla. She was burning up. The moment I touched her shoulder, the contract crest on my hand flared with searing pain.
Memory fragments that weren't mine violently inserted themselves into my cortex: Burning silver forests... cavalry riding giant wolves... the smell of ash and betrayal.
I jerked my hand back, gasping for air.
“Is this... your story?”
I shook my head, forcing the alien memories away. Her blood was soaking into the dirt, pooling beneath her leg. There was no time to think.
I ripped the first-aid kit from my cargo pants.
“Bear with it.”
I hesitated, then reached for her tattered leather armor. The main wound was a jagged tear running from her hip bone down to her upper thigh. Perilously close to the femoral artery.
“Sorry,” I muttered. I peeled back the blood-soaked leather.
The skin underneath was pale, but the wound was grotesque. The tissue around the claw mark was a sickly grey, looking like eroding rock.
I sprinkled hemostatic powder on it.
“Nngh...”
Zayla’s body arched off the ground. A low, guttural growl vibrated in her throat. Her tail whipped around, wrapping tightly around my forearm like a constrictor snake. Her nails dug into my skin.
“Don't move.” I gritted my teeth. “Unless you want to die of sepsis.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Zayla froze. She looked at me through half-lidded eyes. Her hostility was replaced by a complex, almost desperate exhaustion.
“Human... that was a Wolf Scout. If it's here, it means Garza's nose has already caught the scent.”
“Valsalia is dying, Builder,” she whispered, her hand weakly grasping my wrist. “The land cracks. If we build our walls slightly higher, they collapse due to gravity anomalies. Without a stable foundation, there is no survival.”
She pointed a trembling finger at the precarious stalactites above. “The prophecy said a ‘Builder’ would descend. He holds the secret of ‘Eternity’—a law that makes stones stop crumbling.”
My hand froze. “So... your so-called ‘Divine Prophecy’ just means finding a Civil Engineering student to do your infrastructure?”
“You are our last anchor. Give me a fortress that never falls, and I will be your blade.”
“And if I refuse?” I stood up, wiping the black blood from my hands. “I'm not a soldier.”
"Use your eyes," Zayla interrupted. The Eye of Truth.' Really look at this place."
Eye of Truth? Sounded like generic fantasy mumbo-jumbo."
| don't have magic eyes," | muttered, but my gaze instinctively drifted to the precarious stalactites above.
I squinted, trying to calculate the shear stress on that cracked limestone beam. That angle looks dangerous. If the load distribution is uneven... I focused hard, trying to apply math to the chaos.
Suddenly, a sharp pain pricked my temples.
I didn't issue a command. The System simply reacted to my intent. Blue wireframes violently overlaid my vision, hijacking my optic nerve.
“Holy shit...” I sucked in a cold breath.
In my eyes, this cave wasn't just a cave. It was a soda can about to be crushed. The three main load-bearing pillars were filled with microscopic cracks, the stress concentration points glowing purple-red.
Most terrifying was the ceiling. The rock strata above us were delaminating. The simulation showed that even a minor vibration—like a shout or a clumsy jump—would cause a catastrophic shear failure.
“Do you understand now?” Zayla watched my expression. “This hideout won't last past tomorrow. Even if you found an exit, the tunnel would collapse on your head before you reached daylight.”
I fell silent.
“Then... what about the wolf? You said that was a scout?”
Zayla forced herself to sit up, using her broken blade as a crutch. “A Wolf's nose is the scariest radar in this world. Garza's Iron Legion will reach this rift in three weeks max. That is an army that could flatten cities.”
She stared at me. “And if my heart stops beating, your brain will instantly die of hypoxia.”
Dead silence.
I looked at the Earth entrance—home, but now hanging with a permanent “Road Closed” sign. I looked at the cat-eared girl, covered in blood, attempting this “die together” mob-style extortion.
But what else could I do?
Zayla leaned heavily on her broken blade, her golden eyes burning with a desperate, commanding fire. She pointed toward the desolate entrance of the rift.
“The Wolf King’s army numbers in the thousands,” she rasped, her voice grim. “In three weeks, they will be here to wipe my clan from history. I need a stronghold, Builder. Not a hiding hole, but a fortress that can withstand a tide of steel and fang.”
She stared me down, issuing the impossible ultimatum. “Build me a castle. Or we both die.”
"Thousands?" The word caught in my throat like a shard of glass.
I looked at the dark tunnel, picturing a tidal wave of those two-meter-tall monsters tearing us apart limb from limb. A cold, violent shudder wrecked my frame. Bile rose in the back of my throat.
I'm going to die here. The thought echoed deafeningly.
I forced my brain to execute a desperate emergency override.
“Three weeks? I don't even know if we'll survive the next three minutes.”
I looked at the dark tunnel the wolf had just leaped from. Panic spiked in my chest. If another one came through, Zayla was in no shape to fight.
“We need a barricade. Just something to choke the entrance.” I scrambled in the mud, grabbing two heavy, flat slabs of slate.
“No concrete. No mortar. We have to dry-stack them.” I muttered, slamming the first slab down. Then, I hoisted the second one, placing it dead center on top of the first to build a rudimentary wall.
But the top slate didn't hold. It drifted sideways and slid off into the mud.
I turned to look at Zayla. My eyes burned with a gritty heat, and the 'humor' I tried to project came out sounding completely unhinged.
"You know, Princess..." I let out a jagged, breathless laugh, the sheer terror of the situation tearing at my sanity. "Building a fortress without heavy machinery violates every OSHA regulation back home. But asking me to build one without basic friction? That violates Isaac Newton."
I stared at the sliding stones, my voice dropping to a dead, mechanical whisper. "But since you’ve bolted my life to this bugged, godforsaken world... fine. We build. But we're going to have to hack the laws of physics first."
The Shadow Queen in the Dawn of Industry： Zayla V. Solaris
Question of the Day: You are stranded in a fantasy world with 3 weeks to build a base. Which tool do you wish you had?
(Click an option to see your fate)
?? A) A 3D Printer.
Result: Error 404: Filament Not Found. You printed a cute little plastic boat (Benchy), but ran out of material before printing a wall. The wolves were not impressed.
?? B) Infinite Duct Tape.
Result: The Engineer's Dream. If you can't fix it, you aren't using enough tape. You taped the monsters' mouths shut and built a silver fortress. You survive.
?? C) A Solar-Powered Chainsaw.
Result: Rip and Tear! You have infinite wood, but the noise attracted every beast within 10 miles. At least you looked cool going down.
Tell me your choice in the comments! ??
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