Ten years ago.

Reinhardt Helares had been nothing.

That is to say, he was merely one among countless orphaned commoner soldiers—someone whose death would hardly matter to anyone.

As was always the case in war, human lives were no more significant than swarms of insects—thousands, tens of thousands, vanishing in an instant.

Naturally, his life was no exception.

‘D*mn the Beatrix.’

Now, standing on the brink of death, his resentment and hatred turned there once more.

His parents had been executed for the crime of insulting the royal family after protesting the exploitation imposed by the Beatrix line. As if taking his parents hadn’t been enough, they waged war as though it were a mere pastime—snuffing out even their son’s life like dust.

A vile, wretched lineage.

Reinhardt could feel the life steadily draining from his body.

As long as the bleeding from his gunshot wound did not stop, he would soon lose consciousness—
and before long, be taken into the arms of God.

‘So this is how I die…’

Just as he resigned himself to the emptiness of it all—

“…Welcome back.”

A sweet voice, soft as a hymn sung by an angel, reached him.

At the same time, a fragrant, noble breath was blown into his mouth.

Like a man wandering a desert, driven to the brink of madness by thirst, Reinhardt swallowed it greedily.

And in that instant, a pure, overflowing vitality filled his entire being.

Fresh flesh knit together over the gunshot wound in his abdomen. The ruptured organs within him began to regenerate.

“You’ve returned from the threshold of death.”

Slowly, Reinhardt opened his eyes.

And what he saw was a woman radiant like a goddess, her golden form bathed in light.

He knew her.

The woman who had breathed life back into him as he lay dying.

She was the famed princess of the Estante Kingdom—one of those damned Beatrix.

Sienna Beatrix.

The Angel of Pyrran.
The noble saintess.

Princess Sienna would appear wherever war raged, wherever disaster struck, saving lives with her healing power.

The only hope of a decaying kingdom. The sole justification for the divine right of its rule.

Even after being transferred to a military hospital and receiving treatment, Reinhardt could not rid himself of thoughts of her.

He was confused.

He had lost everything because of the Beatrix—and yet, because of her, he had survived.

But one thing was certain.

He wanted to see her again.

The desire burned within him with a force he had never felt in his life.

She stood at the highest place in this nation.

And he—was nothing more than a common soldier fulfilling his duty.

They were people who belonged to entirely different worlds—so distant that, under normal circumstances, even a lifetime would not be enough for him to reach her.

‘How could I ever see her again?’

He hadn’t even managed to thank her for saving his life…

From that day on, driven by the single desire to say those words to Princess Sienna, Reinhardt threw himself into the mud—into a life that bordered on madness.

Even after completing his mandatory service, he did not leave the army. Instead, he remained and volunteered for the very front lines of the territorial wars.

There were dozens of times when the precious life she had given him hung by a thread. And yet, time and again, Reinhardt returned—bringing with him the heads of enemy commanders, rising through the ranks at a staggering pace.

Reinhardt, the bravest lion.
Reinhardt, the man who did not know death.

He seized territory without end, secured victory after victory, and laid all that glory at the feet of the very king he so deeply despised.

In time, with his countless military achievements, he became a national hero. Though born a commoner, he was granted knighthood by the king—an honor rarely bestowed upon someone of his origins.

Because of Reinhardt Helares, the Estante Kingdom—despite being the most corrupt it had ever been—ironically expanded to possess the largest territory in its history.

On the day he was granted his title and fief. He attended, for the first time, a royal victory banquet hosted by the palace.

Amid the dazzling luxuries and the sea of elegantly dressed nobles, only one person caught his eye.

Princess Sienna.

The golden angel who had once looked down upon his dying self and breathed life back into him stood before him now.

Suppressing the trembling within, Reinhardt approached her as though it were nothing and asked for a dance.

As the central figure of the celebration—the victorious general—his request could not be refused out of courtesy.

And so, Princess Sienna accepted.

Reinhardt could scarcely believe it.

The very reason he had endured years of brutal war—the purpose that had driven his life—stood before him in the flesh.

She was not a portrait.
Not a figure from his dreams.

She was real.

“Have we… met before?”

Perhaps unsettled by the way he stared at her so intently, Princess Sienna tilted her head slightly and asked, a hint of awkwardness in her voice.

It seemed she did not remember him.

And strangely, he found that to be a relief.

He did not want to be remembered as the pitiful, dying man he had been on that battlefield.

“I have wanted to see you again for a very long time.”

His mind had gone completely blank. Not a single word he had once prepared came to him.

He was trembling—so much that he could not even care how foolish or pathetic he might appear.

“I fell in love with you at first sight.”

At the sudden, clumsy confession, Princess Sienna looked taken aback.

“…I’m sorry.”

She rejected him without hesitation.

But Reinhardt did not feel disappointed.

It was only natural.

An orphan. A man of lowly, common birth.

Someone like him could never hope to meet the standards of someone as noble as her.

‘I’m still lacking.’

‘I need to become someone worthy of her.’

And so, Reinhardt returned to the battlefield once more.

Because for a man like him, burdened by the limitations of his birth, there was only one way to rise.

Through merit. Through war.

He crushed the southern barbarian tribes, secured the borders, and—despite joining late—entered the military academy to study strategy, eventually helping reform the army. As a commoner, he rose through the ranks with unprecedented speed.

Fortunately, during all that time, Princess Sienna neither dated anyone nor married.

To him, that was nothing short of a blessing—an opportunity.

“Your Highness, would you allow me the honor of dining with you?”

“…Captain Helares.”

Calling his name calmly, Princess Sienna smiled with quiet apology—and drove a blade straight into his chest with words as gentle as they were cruel.

“You are not suited to me. I prefer someone of similar standing. I hope you’ll find a woman who better matches you.”

She explained her refusal a little more clearly—and a little more mercilessly.

There were many possible reasons, but in the end, it all came down to one thing.

His status.

Reinhardt accepted it.

And so, to become someone worthy of her, he worked like a man possessed—rising higher, climbing closer to where she stood.

Sienna rarely attended social gatherings. And even when she did, she would dance once and disappear, making it nearly impossible to see her.

So whenever he had the chance, Reinhardt made sure to etch her into his memory—every detail, every fleeting moment.

That was how he came to notice it.

The way her face often carried a quiet weariness, as if life itself had exhausted her—only for that expression to vanish the moment someone approached.

The most noble and beautiful woman in the kingdom.

A woman blessed with the sacred power to save lives.

‘What burden could possibly weigh on you so heavily?’

There had been one moment—just once—when he thought he had come a little closer to her.

After showering her with countless gifts, all of which she had rejected, he finally tried something simple.

A bouquet of flowers.

He had expected her to refuse it as well.

But unexpectedly, Sienna stared at the flowers for a long time before speaking.

“Flowers… don’t they feel hollow and sad to you?”

Reinhardt swallowed the words that rose to his lips—I didn’t give them to make you sad.

She continued softly,

“They cling to such a fleeting moment of bloom… and that makes them pitiful. I can’t return these. They’ll wither and disappear soon enough anyway.”

When he asked if something was troubling her, she simply replied that it was nothing.

After that, nothing changed.

“Brigadier General Helares. I’m sorry.”
“Major General Helares. I apologize.”

As always, her refusals continued.

Countless suitors had been turned away by her impenetrable walls.

But Reinhardt never gave up.

“General Reinhardt Helares.”

“……”

“…I am not suited to you.”

Before joining the revolution, when he made his final proposal, she once again declined him—politely, firmly.

Reinhardt was at a loss.

There was nowhere higher left for him to climb.

‘What more was he supposed to do?’

If even after reaching the very top, he was still not enough—

Then perhaps…

There was only the thinnest line between love and hatred.

The fact that, even after all his effort—after staking his life and climbing this high—he still could not stand beside the princess became something Reinhardt could no longer endure.

By then, his longing for her had gone far beyond obsession. It had become something pathological.

At first, it had been reverence, admiration, gratitude.

Then, obsession and desire.

And after that—something far uglier. Stubborn pride. Petty, festering vengeance.

‘What’s so great about royalty?’

While you laugh and feast behind palace walls, I crossed the line between life and death. While you filled yourselves with meat and wine, I severed the heads of enemy commanders. While you sat in comfort and planted your flags in the lands I conquered, I gathered the bodies of my fallen comrades and tended to the grieving they left behind.

‘What makes royalty so special?’

‘Is that why you look down on me—treat me as something so insignificant?’

It was a time when the winds of revolution were sweeping through the world. Alongside the industrial upheaval, neighboring nations began establishing republics of their own.

Reinhardt was not, by nature, a fervent revolutionary. He agreed, to some extent, with the principles of republicanism and liberty—but he was not one to champion them.

And yet, there was one idea that captivated him completely.

In a world where everything was overturned, Princess Sienna could stand beneath his feet.

If the royal family were brought down and placed below him…would that noble woman finally kneel before him?

Would she beg for her life—humble, desperate?

And then…

Would he finally be able to claim her?

‘Ah… then I should overturn it all.’

‘A world where I stand above—and you lie at the bottom.’

With Reinhardt Helares, commander of the Estante royal army, joining their cause, the revolutionary forces rapidly strengthened—gaining not only military power but also structure and strategy.

And when the day of the great civil uprising finally came, the already decaying Beatrix monarchy was crushed in an instant.

For a dynasty that had endured for generations, its end was astonishingly brief.

And the princess he had longed for—Sienna Beatrix—was reduced to nothing more than a woman clinging to her life, waiting for Reinhardt’s judgment.

At last, she stood beneath his feet.