The small worlds had not been touched by Oblivion’s forgetting.

Whether that was due to the Primordial Slime’s foresight, the layered protections woven into each small world’s structure, or some deeper principle tied to the way they had been crafted, no one there could say for certain.

But the result was clear.

Everyone here still remembered Lucien.

That truth made the journey inland feel heavier.

They rode airships across the skies, and Marie seized control of the rails. What should have taken hours was cut down savagely under her hands.

The vessel glided over forests, rivers, walled settlements, and familiar roads that Luke and Cienna had not seen in far too long.

And when Lootwell Territory finally came into view, both of them fell silent.

It was different from what they knew.

It was still small compared to the enormous territory Lucien had in the Big World. It was not even a hundredth of that scale. Yet what stood before them now did not feel lesser. It felt concentrated and dense with intention.

The important people were still here, doing exactly what they should be doing. Holding the territory. Anchoring it. Turning it into something capable of enduring even when its master was gone.

Most of the main fighting force had already been sent south once the Black Mass appeared. The people left behind were the ones managing local defense, activating protective devices, maintaining inner shields, preparing fallback positions, and guarding the territory in case the infection spread farther than expected.

So when the airship approached at frightening speed, it was not welcomed first.

It was challenged.

Signal lights flared. Ballista arrays shifted. Formation circles lit along the outer rings of the docks.

The people below did not panic.

They prepared to kill whatever had come.

It was only when Cielius stepped to the communication console and sent his voice across the dock-lines that the tension broke.

"It is us," he said. "Stand down."

The response was immediate.

The targeting arrays dimmed. The dock barriers softened. The figures below lowered their guard, and confusion had overtaken them.

Marie brought the airship down and parked it along the main docking rail.

The moment the doors opened, people were already waiting. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Vivian stood at the front.

Cielius stepped out first, and the questions began immediately.

"Grandpa Ciel, what happened?" Vivian asked, already moving toward him. "Why are you back so early? Do you need reinforcements? We were nearly done with the second preparation line and—"

Then she saw past him.

Luke.

Cienna.

Her whole body locked.

For a moment, she looked younger than she had any right to after all these years. The composure of the acting ruler vanished, and all that remained was a daughter seeing the impossible walk toward her.

"Mother... Father?"

Her voice broke on both words.

Luke and Cienna had never been her birth parents, but life was not always foolish enough to care where love had started.

Cienna’s face softened at once. She opened her arms.

Vivian ran to her.

When Cienna caught her, Vivian buried herself into the embrace and began crying openly. Cienna held her and stroked her hair again and again, eyes shining.

Luke stood beside them, one hand over his mouth for a moment, as though he needed to hide the expression trying to break through.

Then Vivian finally looked up, tears still on her face, hope rising too fast inside her voice.

"If you’re here," she said, "then Lulu must be here too. Where is he?"

That was the moment.

The one none of them had wanted.

Luke and Cienna did not answer immediately.

They did not need to.

Hope shattered in Vivian’s eyes before a single word was spoken.

Her lips trembled.

She understood too much too quickly.

The withering tree. The wrongness she had felt. The absence.

Her tears came harder.

Cienna pulled her close again, but this time it could not shield her from the truth.

Luke lowered his gaze for one breath.

Then he said quietly, "We are here to bring your brother back."

Vivian’s head lifted at once.

Her expression broke open between grief and disbelief.

"That means..."

Luke nodded.

"Although he is not with us now, he still exists where it matters. In truth. In memory. In what he left behind."

Cienna added more gently, "And this time, we are not too late."

That steadied Vivian more than comfort would have.

She pressed her lips together, wiped at her face, and forced herself upright.

The grief did not vanish.

It simply moved out of the way of duty.

Behind her, others who had heard the exchange were already reacting.

Some covered their mouths. Some looked down. Some let out quiet, shaken breaths at the thought that Lucien was truly dead and yet perhaps not beyond return.

Vivian inhaled once, then turned sharply to the nearest officers.

"The southern threat is gone," she said. "Stand down emergency lines. Keep the outer defenses active until the second confirmation is complete. Rotate the exhausted personnel. No one spreads panic. No one spreads rumors. We return to order now."

Her voice was composed again.

Vivian had matured too. They all had.

Cielius looked at her with visible pride.

Sebas gave several quick orders of his own, smoothly taking up the flow where she left it.

Soon after, Cielius suggested they move the discussion to the city hall.

No one objected.

Once everyone was seated, the real account began.

Luke spoke first, then Cienna took over where magic or world-law required clearer explanation. At times the elemental women added details. Eirene’s flower-fairy supplied some of the structural gaps. Step by step, they laid the truth before the small world’s leaders.

Lucien had gone to the Big World. He had built a territory there. He had gathered allies. He had fought things far beyond common reason. He had been forgotten by the world. He had still fought. He had killed one impossible enemy. He had died doing it. And before dying, he had prepared a path to return.

By the time they were done, the room had gone so quiet that even turning a page would have sounded rude.

Midas stared at them as though he had stopped hearing words halfway through and was now simply being struck by concepts one after another.

"That..." he said slowly. "That sounds less like a life and more like several stitched together."

Pope Augustus, on the other hand, looked transformed.

He had listened with widening eyes and fingers locked around the armrests of his seat. His face was pale enough to show every year pressing down on him, but now something else had appeared there.

Hope.

Hope sharpened by evidence.

"If he truly found a way back for the dead," Augustus said, "then perhaps heaven has not yet closed all its doors."

Midas glanced at him, then looked back to Luke and Cienna with a sigh.

"I always wanted to see the Big World myself," he muttered. "And the Marquis went there, built a territory, fought impossible creatures, died, planned around death, and still arranged his own return."

He let out a short laugh.

"He really is Lucien Lootwell."

Vivian and Cielius were no less shaken.

They were the only ones in the room who had already suspected the truth of Lucien’s death because of the withering tree. They had held that knowledge alone while the Black Mass rose again, unable to grieve properly, unable to explain, unable to stop moving.

Now, for the first time since that dreadful realization, they could breathe without feeling like each breath was betrayal.

Cielius wiped at one eye and failed to look dignified doing it.

"That grandson of mine," he murmured. "Even death cannot make him act normally."

Vivian laughed through fresh tears.

Her smile had returned now, fragile but real.

"I knew it," she said. "I knew Lulu wouldn’t just leave us with nothing."

Not everyone laughed.

Some simply bowed their heads in relief.

Others closed their eyes.

Even the women from the Big World, who had already known the broad shape of the plan, seemed steadier hearing it spoken here, in the place Lucien had first belonged.

Then came the next question.

If the plan was real, what now?

Vivian answered that before anyone else could hesitate.

"We begin immediately," she said.

Her decisiveness made Luke smile.

"Good," he said. "Because that’s exactly what he expected."

Vivian stood and went straight to the wall-map of the territory.

She studied it only briefly before pointing to a stretch of land near the main territory but far enough from heavy traffic and ordinary disturbance.

"There," she said. "Good soil. Close enough to guard. Far enough to keep interference low. We prepare the ground there."

Cienna nodded almost at once.

"That should work."

Luke added, "It needs protection, privacy, and people who truly knew him."

Vivian looked back at them.

"Then we’ll give it all three."

The leaders of the four nations did not remain long after that.

They understood that what came next was no longer political in the ordinary sense. It was intimate, dangerous, and unprecedented. Their role now was not to intrude, but to preserve stability around the process.

Midas rose first.

"I’ll suppress unnecessary spread of the news," he said. "The truth of the Marquis’ death will not leave this chamber through my side."

Augustus nodded slowly.

"If people hear only that he died, despair will spread. If they hear only that he may return, chaos will spread. Better they hear neither until there is something solid to stand on."

The others agreed.

Before leaving, Midas looked at Luke once more.

"When he returns," he said, "please tell him I want to hear his story someday."

Luke smiled.

"You can tell him yourself."

That answer pleased Midas far more than he let show.

Soon, the room began to clear.

Only those who truly needed to remain were left behind.

And as the doors closed and the next preparations began, one truth settled over all of them with growing certainty.

Lucien’s death had not ended his story.

It had only moved the story deeper.