Snow

Royal Blue Fort's situation was more complex than Leonel knew. 

In truth, there were many things that Leonel hadn't thoroughly thought through until he had a conversation with Aina. 

For one, what purpose was he truly trying to accomplish? 

Acting against Royal Blue Fort, even if it was just to kill a Junior Governor Duke, was no less than an act of war. At this point, Leonel would be truly setting himself as the lifelong enemy of The Empire no matter how one looked at it. 

Beyond this, after killing the Junior Governor Duke, how would things proceed from there? Who would take leadership of the people who would be left behind? Would The Empire treat them all as rebels if they chose to follow Leonel? Did Leonel even want to lead them?

It wasn't that Leonel was too unintelligent to think of these things, it was rather that he was still too immature. He cared more about paying the Junior Governor Duke back for harming Aina and slighting himself than he cared about the consequences his revenge would bring. 

This was the true reason Aina wasn't as enthusiastic about Leonel's plans to begin with. She had even initially rejected Leonel's suggestions. But, for some reason, in the end, she couldn't bear to say no after Leonel brought up the Segmented Cube plan. 

Still, she had no choice but to douse some cold water over Leonel's dreams. 

After talking some reason into Leonel, they decided on a plan. 

First, they would scout out the situation. With their abilities, it wouldn't be a problem to observe the Fort from afar. Even slipping into the core of the city protected by the Junior Governor Duke's illusion ability wouldn't be an issue. 

If they found that their friends and their families were struggling, they would use the snowglobes to take them in and escape the city. They would then bring them to another Fort in a new Province. 

This last part of the plan was a bit more difficult to pull off. After all, The Empire had strict monitoring standards. But, they had the perfect excuse for this as well. 

One had to remember the Right to Autonomy Ammendment of the Ascension Empire. As long as they had a valid excuse for breaking the law, they would be in the right.

There was really no better valid excuse for escaping one's Fort than the fact one's Junior Governor Duke bombed his own citizens…

Of course, Leonel still planned to kill the Junior Governor Duke one way or another. Even if he died, there were several other nobles there to take charge. It's just that he would be covert about his actions so as not to implicate his friends. 

With this more level-headed plan, Aina and Leonel made their way to Royal Blue Fort. However, they hadn't expected to find the scene they did after approaching…

…

Since the appearance of Camelot in the skies, Earth's climate had taken a massive hit. The poles seemed to flip, the magnetic field was out of whack, and there wasn't a single peaceful inch of Earth left. 

The common people didn't know what was happening, but the higher ups were shocked by the sudden appearance of a second moon. 

Unfortunately, the only person who knew exactly what was happening – Leonel – had washed his hands of the matter. Luckily, there was still the Slayer Legion and the Adurna family who had an inkling of what was going on.

That said, being aware of what was happening wasn't quite enough. Earth no longer had the means to calm this situation. 

Had this happened before the Metamorphosis, The Empire might still have some means of stabilizing the climate. But, with the interference of Force, not only was technology interrupted from functioning properly, but the weather was even more volatile than it would be otherwise. 

Royal Blue Province was a coastal continent near the equator. As such, it experienced tropical weather all year 'round. But now… 

It was buried beneath several feet of snow. 

Though it wasn't bone chillingly cold, this made the situation far worse. The snow fell as an almost half water, half snow combination, making the layering of the white precipitation quite heavy. In addition, where it wasn't heavy, it was exceptionally slippery. 

Sheets of ice covered everything. Even the tall Fort walls were covered with an ever-thickening layer of ice. 

Caught completely off guard by the sudden changes, the Royal Blue Fort was scrambling. 

The good news was that after several months of dealing with these conditions, the Fort had finally managed to find methods of combating this situation. The bad news, however, was that this wasn't the end of their problems. 

It had to be remembered that the appearance of Camelot wasn't just a matter of climate change. The most important point was that Earth's path toward the Fourth Dimension had been accelerated by several times over. 

The truth was that Earth had already cleared enough Zones. Leonel knew that Earth's progress had to be great because he didn't receive his usual reward for being the first to clear an SS-grade Zone. This meant that someone else had to have succeeded before he had!

This should have been a great thing, but it was very much not for two reasons. 

The first was that The Empire had yet to finish consolidating its strength. And the second was that… the activity of Invalids and beasts likewise skyrocketed. 

When Aina and Leonel found a collapsed building to observe the Royal Blue Fort from, they were shocked to find a horde of Invalids surrounding it. 

"That… Is that possible?"

Leonel's eyes widened. 

Amidst the horde, Leonel picked out several SS-grade and SSS-grade Invalids. Each of them had strength he couldn't have hoped to match up against before he entered the Camelot Zone. Facing such a horde, he would have had no choice but to turn tail and run away as fast as he could. 

In order to fight them off, Royal Blue Fort was using its tall steel walls and an endless barrage of bombs. If not for Earth's technology, the Fort would have long since been overrun. 

But, this wasn't what shocked Leonel the most. 

"… That's a Variant Invalid…" Aina said softly. 

In the distance, Leonel locked onto an Invalid dressed in all white. Its skin was as white as snow, its hair as white as bone, its robes as white as clouds. The only thing on its body that wasn't a blinding white were its piercing blue irises. 

Leonel was shocked. From what he knew, all Invalids had white irises. But this one…

A flood of memories were pulled from the depths of Leonel's mind. 

Variant Invalids. They were Invalids who managed to recover their intelligence. However, due to the fact their awakening was so much more difficult, they were far more powerful than their human counterparts. 

And, maybe the most shocking part of their abilities was that… they could lead other Invalids. 

Leonel was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't notice Aina's jaw clench tightly, her small hands trembling slightly. 

Her reaction to this Variant Invalid seemed much too strong. Maybe only those who knew the legends of the Mountain Sands Range she had escaped from might know why…