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

Melancholy

Revised October 2023

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Cascadia Palace

Why did a Hero descend into this world? And why deprive this truth to her vexing heart?

Princess Aurelia hastened through the passages, contending with the ceaseless desires of creeping flesh that gnawed upon her being, wrestling with the profound burden of hidden truths and her own impulsive deeds.

She pushed through the ornate door, finding her father hunched over his desk, consumed by his studies of charts, messages, and advisors. But none mattered.

"Leave us."

King Henry, his face marked by the furrows of fatigue and the shadow of concern, raised his gaze. The advisors turned to the King, who gave the nod. At long last, both the instigator and perpetrator are now together. Nothing as paramount as the air they breathe and the living tragedies haunting them to this day was relevant.

"A weighty secret you've held, a truth that begets the revocation of logic, and yet..." her voice trembled. "How could you keep this from me?"

"Aurelia, I did it to shield you, to protect us all. The Hero's arrival is a concealed truth carefully guarded to prevent uncontrollable panic and chaos. I had to arouse your suspicion with the letter's contents and return to chastise me. I was wrong."

And something stabbed Aurelia. It was not the sharpness of a knife, of pain her father and mother know too well as one of many victims of altar diplomacy, nor was it the claws of a demon digging through her chest and raising her heart as its prized wine glass, but a broken heart — a crying heart.

But for whom it cried mattered not, for it was the cries of the bereaving souls praying to the Hero for salvation; the little child told not to look back by her brother as a pack of hungry dreadhounds that had marauded their village gave chase, the father seeking justice against the corrupt lord's greasy hands on her daughter, and the slaves chained in the dungeon as a fire spreads.

"And yet, in your efforts to conceal it, I have inflicted grave harm upon Annalise and the Hero," it had been four years already, and for whatever bait her father laid out, "You have miscalculated my dedication to this kingdom and the sacrifices I am willing to embrace."

Then her flesh became consumed by greed, by the allure of the Hero's aura crying injustice.

Aurelia wrapped herself within the flames of her element and useless arms. She spoke no hypocrisy; have condemned herself in spirit; what else does it want? Aurelia waited for it. She waited for the hand that would cross the threshold of her birth, authority, the trumpets announcing her crimes, and the huzzahs to what was written now happening before their eyes.

But to embrace her fall with ignorance?

Her father sighed. "Your concerns are warranted, my dear. We... I have grown weak as to beg on my knees for a 'god from the otherside' to save us from ourselves."

Aurelia leaned on the desk. Forget the calamity ahead and, it pained her, their struggles, "How can we appease the Hero?"

"We have lowered our heads to him before. I dare not assume he will believe it a second or third time. The Kingdom will have to reaffirm its stance for mutual cooperation."

She hung her head and clutched her father's hands. The options were already limited, but still. Concessions or gifts conveyed their willingness to settle feuds or apologize, but what does he want?

"Father, please tell me what you know about the Hero, his plans, arrangements, everything."

And so he did, the Hero's power and the incident in the academy; tomorrow's ceremony, the focal point, and the ultimate goal. He described what he and the Headmaster thought about him, how calm he was despite everything; when Aurelia grasped it all, her heart almost wavered for a second time.