"Benister, look at what treasure I found!"
Sister Lynn burst through the door, calling into the room with an excited expression.
She hugged a backpack to her chest, her face slightly flushed—partly because she was out of breath after running all the way here.
The other half was from excitement.
"An autographed photo of Lady Nini! Signed in her own hand! This is the last one before she stopped writing!"
Lynn held up a photograph and cried out excitedly.
"Hah, it's only an autographed photo. Before I came here, I wrote Lady Nini a letter and got her signature already... Wait, Lady Nini is retiring?"
Lynn carefully put the photo away, then planted her hands on her hips and nodded proudly. "That's right. Lady Nini has decided to suspend updates indefinitely for all her current works, including the Monica Reborn and Transmigrated series, the Unofficial History of Blood Port series, and the Love, Death, and Machine Soul series..."
"What?! Why? Are the books not selling? I'll go buy some right away. We have to help Lady Nini through this difficult time!"
"Uh, no, that isn't it. I heard Lady Nini is putting those on hold to write some other books." Lynn's expression turned strange. "Apparently, they're more serious works."
"Those works aren't serious enough?"
"More serious ones. After all... a war is about to begin."
The room fell silent. No one from the Empire's delegation spoke.
Lynn and her group had been stationed in Castel for quite some time now.
At first, the Empire had not even signed an alliance treaty with Castel. Sister Lynn had spent every day on edge, wondering whether she would be dragged off as a sacrifice if war broke out one day.
Fortunately, relations between the two sides soon warmed up, and they formed an