Epilogue: An Everlasting Winter hath no Mercy.

Somewhere in the northern provinces. A young man stares out of a veranda as a burning hot stove was radiating heat towards him and he is draped in a coat made with bear fur and lined thick wool.

This thick insulating clothing and piping hot heater beside him is normal, after all, the sight in front of him was something that can only bee seen in the harshest of blizzards.

But in this province where even the late autumns and early springs are plagued with such snowstorms, it has just become a normal thing.

"Master… I bear news from our liaison man with the fool."

"The fool… what an appropriate name for that woman…"

"Indeed, it is."

A ninja knelt behind the young man and he snorted a laugh after hearing how the ninja called the subject of their conversation.

"That aside, what did the messenger say?"

"He said that the fool wasted the lives of her followers again and even had the sword prodigy that we sent over to her killed without getting anything in return."

"She really is a fool… I'm starting to think of just giving up on her and having her killed somewhere."

"If you will allow me and my men-"

"I said that I'm just thinking about it. Don't jump to conclusions and make more problems…"

"I-I apologize…"

The young man took a smoking pipe from a table and stuffed its end with some tobacco leaves before taking a splinter from the stove to light up his pipe.

"…So, what's the special news?"

"P-pardon?"

"I know you. You won't come here unless something extraordinary happens. Come on, out with it."

"Y-yes…"

What the ninja said after that made the young man's jaw to drop and make the pipe fall to the cold wooden floor.

"W-What did you say?"

"A lord from the southern lands has just been crowned by the Phoenix Priestess. The title given to him is "The Kirin Lord of Kiko"."

"What the… how in the hell…?"

The young man cannot believe his ears… whatever that title is to him, it seemed to shake him after he learned that someone else has been given it.

"What would you want us to do, my lord?"

"Haah… This world, really… I thought I can live to the fullest in here like how the stories described the life of the first one… but the more things I hear from here every day, the more I am reminded of the shithole world I used to live in…"

After a short pause, he gave the ninja an order.

"Determine who this Kirin Lord is… and after that…"

The gears of destiny is again, moving towards a more dangerous future.

Will it favor Hiroshi? Or would it just turn everything he worked for into nothing?

"…kill him."