Very Wrong Reincarnation: Isekai with Game Nation

Vol. 3 Chapter 17

The prison was dark and dim, with only a few weak lights hanging from the ceiling. Inside one of the cells, a woman with messy crimson hair sat chained to the wall. She stared at the group of people standing outside her bars, led by a green-haired woman she instantly recognized. The same woman who ran away. The same woman she always considered a coward.

“Are you crazy? Is everyone actually crazy?” Dahlia shouted at them, her voice echoing in the cold room. She had been caught in the coup that was unfolding across Valur, and she knew exactly what this meant. “Cignus won’t let this chance slip! Are you all insane?”

The green-haired woman stepped forward. She spoke without hesitation. “A woman like you—one who gave herself to the people who killed her husband, and let her daughter throw herself at the man who destroyed the old empire—you have no right to speak to me like that.”

Dahlia lunged forward despite her chains holding her tightly in place. Her crimson hair looked as intense as the anger in her eyes. She glared at the woman in front of her.

“You don’t understand Cignus! You don’t understand what they can do!” Dahlia shouted. “They can kill demons! They destroyed the old empire! They crushed Kashim, and that monster killed millions in just a few weeks! Weeks! Cignus can attack anywhere on this continent in less than half a day. Their peacetime military alone can wipe us out without even mobilizing!”

She spat the words with so much force that saliva hit the floor just beyond the bars. Her voice was full of anger and fear, yet the green-haired woman didn’t react at all. She didn’t even flinch.

“I have a plan,” the woman said simply.

Dahlia gave her a laugh full of disbelief and hatred. “A plan? Cignus would laugh at your plan. They’d destroy it by accident without even realizing you had one! Don’t compare them using your weak, common-sense thinking. Don’t use your pretty, flowery ideas on a country that already died once!”

Her gaze turned past the leader and toward the generals and vassals standing behind her. Dahlia spat at them too. All of them had betrayed her. All of them had sided with the green-haired woman.

“You idiots! You betrayed me, and now you’re going to destroy this country by letting her lead! What kind of trick did she use on you? What kind of spell or witchcraft did she use to make your judgment collapse like this?” Dahlia yelled. “This is Cignus we’re talking about! Under that man, they will not hesitate to slaughter every single one of us! Men, women, children, old, young—everyone. They won’t stop at nobles or soldiers — even the commoners will die.”

None of them answered her. All of them stood in silence. Then they turned their backs to her as if they no longer wanted to hear anything she had to say.

Dahlia lowered her head for a moment, then lifted it again. She spoke louder so her voice would carry across the whole hallway.

“This country is doomed.”

Her words echoed through the prison. She said them clearly so every person walking away would hear them.

She then asked the one question she had been holding back since they arrived.

“Where’s my daughter?” Dahlia demanded. “Cignus will be looking for her. They’ll tear down the whole continent to find her.”

The group stopped walking. The green-haired woman turned her head slightly, just enough to answer.

“They sent an ultimatum,” she said. “If anything happens to her or her child, they will erase Valur.”

Dahlia narrowed her eyes. “So you won’t harm her then?”