There's a strange kind of silence in war.Not the kind you get in a quiet room, that's peaceful. No. This silence is heavier, like the air itself is holding its breath, waiting to see who's going to die first.
I used to think I'd get used to it. After enough tours, enough dead friends, enough times staring at my own hands wondering why they were still clean when the ground was red… I thought maybe it would stop getting to me.
It never did.
Some men fight because they believe in something. Others because they're ordered to. Me? I fought because there was nowhere else to go. I'd seen the world before the army — small apartments that smelled like other people's cooking, jobs where you watched the clock like it was a prison guard. The military was louder and bloodier. but at least it felt like the days meant something.
Even if that "something" was just surviving until nightfall.
"Contact—north alley!"The shout ripped me back into the present.
Gunfire erupted, snapping through the air like someone tearing metal in half. I pressed my back to the cracked wall of a half-collapsed building, rifle tight in my grip.
The heat pressed down, merciless. Sweat stung my eyes. The air was thick with dust, smoke, and that coppery tang you never forget once you've tasted it.
I leaned out, two figures sprinted across the street. My rifle shot twice. One dropped. The other vanished behind a burning truck.
"Command's gone dark!" Corporal Diaz yelled, ducking behind a chunk of rubble.Of course they had. This was chaos.
An explosion rattled the ground, plaster dust sifting down on my helmet. Somewhere nearby, a man screamed.
I stepped out to cover Diaz.
The sniper's bullet hit before I even heard the shot.
It slammed into my chest like a sledgehammer. I gasped, vision tilting, knees buckling. Another shot, lower, gut level. Pain roared through me, hot and raw.
I collapsed backward into the dust, the rifle slipping from my fingers. Above me, the sky was a hard, blinding blue.
The noise was already fading,the gunfire muffled, Diaz's voice distant, like he was shouting through water. My own heartbeat pounded slower, slower.
A part of me wanted to rage against it. But another part — a quieter part — just… let go.
I thought about the life I'd never had.A desk. A chair. Air-conditioning. A coffee mug on a table I could call mine. A woman's laugh from the next cubicle. Ordinary. Safe.
The light swelled, burning everything else away.
I woke up in silk. Not just sheets a sea of silk, rich and soft beneath my fingers, warmer than any blanket I'd known in years.
The air smelled faintly of jasmine and something sweet I couldn't name. Above me, a canopy of deep crimson hung from a golden frame, swaying gently in a breeze.
I sat up, and something heavy slid against my brow it was a circlet, gold set with rubies. My clothes were gone; in their place, a robe of sapphire blue, embroidered in gold, draped over my shoulders. gold silver and diamond rings glittered on my hands.
The room was a palace. Marble floors gleamed under painted walls of swirling turquoise and gold. Beyond tall arched windows, I saw sunlit domes and slender minarets rising against a desert sky.
then approaching footsteps softly thudding closer.
From behind a woman emerged. silk whispering around her, gold bangles chiming on her wrists and ankles. emerald eyes, hair black as midnight.
she knelt at the foot of the bed.
"Your Majesty," she said, voice like honey, "you have awakened."
Before I could answer, a clear chime rang inside my skull.
[Welcome, Player.]
I froze. The voice wasn't in the room.
[Initialization complete. You are now the ruler of the Azaran Empire. Your Harem Management System is active.]
The women kept her heads bowed.
[Earn Prestige Points through political, military, and personal conquests. Use them to expand your harem, strengthen your empire, and unlock special skills.]
I swallowed hard. This wasn't a dream.It was something else entirely.