Hearts of Iron 4 Player's Guide to Save the Isekai World

Melancholy

Revised December 2024

***

Cascadia Palace

Her father hunched over his desk, consumed by his and his advisors' exchanging thoughts and words. Aurelia stepped forward and locked her joints, embracing the drill and the wooden wall furnishing behind his seat.

"We shall continue this matter later. You are all free to go."

As they bid their liege farewell, the advisors degraded themselves to Aurelia with a curt bow. The door shut, and her father's shoulders heaved. He glanced her way, shook his head on something, and began arranging his desk.

Her palm cried from the nails driven into it. She should've been quartered in the same cell and stripped of her rank, but here she was, still the princess, dignified above righteousness.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why would the king, who has tolerated his impulsive daughter's escapades, forcefully recall her all of a sudden?"

Nothing as important as the air they breathed and the living tragedies haunting them to this day mattered—maybe never.

"Is a sudden betrothal any better?"

"It would make the prairie hoods cast aside everything once they learn who might be the groom."

Just like she 'cast aside everything' once she learned what happened to Anna?

The pretense caught her attention, sure. So did the mother who pushed Aurelia away and continued cursing and digging alone her husband and child's graves for raising their pitchforks against bandits.

The voices may be hoarse, defiant, or hopeless, but it was the same cries of the innocent; the little child told not to look back by his brother as a pack of hungry dreadhounds that had ruined their village gave chase, the father seeking justice against the corrupt lord's hands on his daughter, and the children tricked into slavery still clinging to promises of peace inside a burning dungeon.

"The contrast in cultures and customs has already begun to bring unease among us. On one hand, we are apologetic. We seek to offer him compensation."

Her father settled on leaving some clutter on his desk.

"On the other, he recognized what occurred was due to miscommunication and reassured us that the incident would not affect our relationship."

Heroes throughout history have accepted sentimentality as a form of reparation. But why?

"Why must we be troubled over it?"

Aurelia maintained her disciplined posture, avoiding eye contact, and she was glad she did. Or else her father's searing gaze would've burned her where she stood defenseless to it.

"'Just kill me already.' Those will be the first words uttered in this era."

Aurelia tensed. Already, something welled up inside her stomach, bloating and going up... and there it was—a sharp, constant, burning prick straight to the heart. History has shown the Hero's Will as vindictive. A raw fury that burned the weak-willed and emboldened the zealous. But this was neither.

It was... disgusting.

She only knew he was suffering, not why. It would continue as long as she didn't break away from broad strokes and enter into finer ones that truly painted it. Aurelia broke from her posture and clutched her chest. The thought he'd hide it scorched it, meaning she was a step closer to unraveling it.