Royal Reboot: Level up, Your Majesty!

Queen vs. Cafeteria 

3

Night wrapped the dining hall in silence. Doors locked. Lights out. Eydis slipped a stolen keycard through the reader, scanned the corridor, then eased inside.

What a sleight of hand, Your Majesty, a familiar voice coiled through her mind. It was Envy who was as welcome as a snake in a nest of eggs.

Solitary confinement teaches new tricks, she shot back mentally. You’d learn a few yourself with a week in a box.

Envy hissed, almost pouting. Ah, Princess Eydis, skulking in the dark. Tell me, Your Majesty, was exile everything you dreamed of?

Oh, absolutely. Stimulating company. Insightful debates with… myself. 

She stepped inside silently. Unlike certain forked-tongued parasites with more gossip than substance.

A sulky silence followed. She let the door shut behind her.

The hall no longer smelled of food, only bleach, old towels, and detergent. Too clean. Her senses brushed the air. Nothing unusual. Which, in itself, was unusual.

No trace of Gluttony.

“Curious.” She ran a fingertip over a stainless table. “And here I was, thinking that obscene lunch spread was Gluttony at work. Unless, of course, Birgit was just feeling particularly… thirsty today.”

She crossed the kitchen and unlocked the freezer doors. A wall of cold punched out. Shelves sagged under towers of frozen meat and pastry, each dusted in a fine layer of frost.

Envy solidified beside her. “No sign of our bottomless pit.”

Eydis gave a slight nod before closing her eyes, focusing. The presence of darkness was there, something she could still sense. But it wavered, shifting in and out of focus. Then vanished altogether.

That wasn’t how Gluttony functioned. It was insatiable, endless, an abyss that never faded. Yet now, it was nowhere to be found. She tried again, and still, there was nothing.

Had she made a mistake? Or had stepping into this world dulled her perception?

Frustrated, she turned to leave. Maybe she was running on too little sleep. Perhaps, her magic simply wasn't strong enough to sense it.

She relocked the door, and walked to the cricket field. Damp grass soaked her boots. Envy drifted off to scout while she knelt and traced fresh lines over an old sigil, subtly adjusting it. 

Unlike its usual visible violet essence, the sigil now functioned as a dark siphon, drawing the shadows inward. It was an elegant, discreet solution designed to conceal the visible glow emitted during her mana cultivation.

Almost perfect.

The real problem, however, was that even this method was hardly indoor-friendly. To the casual eye, she might look like a student pondering about the mysteries of lint in a mosquito-ridden field, but she knew Astra could see the unseen.

Back to the drawing board.

Closing her eyes, Eydis let the dark energy flow. As always, her body resisted, a violent push and pull racing through her veins. Why? Every being held the capacity for darkness. Light and shadows, two halves of one whole. Basic cosmic harmony.

Unless… her body wasn’t meant for it.

Just what kind of power was hidden in this body? 

Light?

But light could be corrupted too, she knew that better than most. A memory surfaced: a friend from childhood, name lost, face blurred, a victim of the former Queen’s guidance.

“That child is not your friend,” the Queen had said, her voice colder than usual.

Eydis had scoffed. “Oh, my apologies, Your Majesty. I must have missed the decree outlawing basic human interaction.”

The Queen didn’t reply.

“Is it the laughter that bothers you? The fact that someone, somewhere, might be happy without your permission?” she had continued.

“You don’t know the forces you toy with,” the Queen had hissed. “You will not see her again.”

And she hadn’t.

A month locked in the dark, alone with only her own thoughts. And her friend’s fate?

A question she never let herself answer.

Because deep down, she already knew. And not knowing was easier than staring into the void and finding it staring back.

A lie of a life, an illusion of safety, was… safer.

Shaking the memory, she returned to her current focus. This training wasn’t just to enhance her senses. She needed a more intricate spell, something precise enough to lure out Gluttony, a trap that could draw it in without alarming Astra..

An idea sparked in her mind, something most definitely outrageous. 

Envy felt a metaphorical sneeze tickle its nonexistent nose. Before it could wheeze out a protest, two figures materialised in its smoky vision, striding towards the abandoned cricket pitch.

Eydis’s golden eyes snapped open as Envy’s warning echoed in her mind. The dark aura around her withdrew, folding into the shadows as she did the same. 

One glance at the intruders was all she needed. No one could mistake their presence.

Theo and Astra, silver-haired and impossibly graceful, moved across the field quietly. Their posture was too rigid, vigilant, even. Hardly the picture of two people enjoying a quiet night.

A patrol, then. Interesting.

With the academy’s protective fields, patrols were redundant. Which meant they knew something. And if they knew something, it was worth prying into.

She cast one last glance their way before slipping back into the shadows. The pieces weren’t fitting together yet, but she would make them.

One way or another.

First, a stop at her dorm.

When Eydis slipped away, Astra hesitated mid-step.

Theo noticed instantly, his silver gaze flicking across the field. “What is it? Do you see something?”

“No,” Astra murmured. “Just a feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“That someone was here.” She turned, scanning the area. There was nothing. No clear disturbance.

And yet, the silence felt different. She just couldn’t put her finger on what.