Stellalius Aeon Brillnova 

My name is Stellalius Aeon Brillnova… If you get even a single character wrong, you’ll be executed, alright?

I am the youngest princess of the empire ruled by my Great Mother, known as the “Queen of Truth,” and as its most peerlessly beautiful princess, I am the object of admiration and trust not only from my vassals but also from many commoners.

Yes… my rare beauty, my unparalleled knowledge and refinement… one could say these already radiate a brilliance worthy of being designated a national treasure.

I would very much like to let the people of other nations behold my radiance as well… but unfortunately, our empire is currently at war with our neighbors.

Is that why? I am hardly ever allowed to leave the castle.

…Oh? But my older sisters seem to go out to the town below the castle quite frequently… That is odd.
I am the most beautiful, the most wise, the most noble, and the most demure in this empire, so why can’t I go out freely!?

…Grr! Grandpa! Come here! I need to talk to you!

“Sigh. Stella… why are you such a tomboy? The nation is in crisis right now; as a member of the royal family tasked with supporting the people, you must be more responsible.”

…Mother is giving me unreasonable lectures again today.
Even though it’s such a nice day, and I was just taking a nap on the roof of the castle tower in search of some excitement…

It’s as if I were a little bird trapped in a cage. There’s simply no variety here.
Everyone around me is kind to me, but the moment I try to spread my wings and fly away, they rush to lock the cage door…

If this continues, I’ll die of boredom and suffocation…

“If only I had the power, I could smash this cage that surrounds me to pieces.”

With such thoughts in mind, I drifted off to sleep.

…That day, I had a strange dream.
In the dream, I held a strange object, neither a stick nor a board, and was joyfully controlling it.
Then, a sound rang out from that object – a soul-stirring sound I had never heard before!

“…What on earth was that!?”
I jumped up in a panic… and right next to my bed lay the mysterious object from my dream!

“…Is this a musical instrument? Yes… It’s a guitar!”
I’ve never seen such a bizarre instrument before.
Even so, I was able to perfectly understand its name and how to play it.

“What is this…”
I couldn’t stop shaking.
Needless to say, it wasn’t a tremor of fear but one of joy.

As I touched the guitar with trembling hands, an incredible surge of power welled up inside me, and I could feel my spirits soaring.

“…Does it say WELCOME?”
On the guitar, written in blood-red letters, was a single message from the sender.

Holding the guitar, I took to the battlefield of my own accord and overwhelmed the enemy army with unstoppable momentum.

“…The show is about to begin! Come on! Bow down before my technique!”

The sound of my guitar would sometimes blow distant enemies away, and other times inspire the hearts of my fellow warriors.
No matter how seasoned a general, none could match it.

And so, with the power of a single guitar, I fought my way through the war and brought a glorious victory to the empire.

The people called me the “Princess of Salvation” or the “Princess of Destructive Sound”, praising and worshiping me as a hero.
It wasn’t a bad feeling, exactly…

“What I seek… is not this. But what exactly is it that I seek?”

Once the war ended and peace returned, the disease of boredom began to gnaw at my heart once more… No. This time, it was far more serious.

I spent my days agonizing alone, unable to discern the true nature of what I sought…

Though I had been consumed by the disease of boredom, the peace brought by the previous war seemed to be only temporary, and the sound of battle was once again drawing near to our empire.

“…What did you say? There’s someone else besides myself who owns a guitar?”
“Aye!”
“…I don’t like that. I’m deploying immediately!”

Though I said I didn’t like it, my heart was racing. Could it be that this unseen guitarist is what I’ve been longing for…?

“That is… a guitarist other than myself.”
The enemy soldier was indeed holding the same guitar as I. I could feel it with my very soul.

We strummed our guitars fiercely at the same time.
Then I felt an excitement unlike anything I had ever experienced before. By playing together, the sound of our guitars layered upon one another, soaring ever higher… My heart trembled with joy.

But that lasted only a moment; my opponent could no longer keep up with my technique.

“What a bore… Seeing someone like you holding a guitar discomforts me.”
I took the guitar from the defeated man and decided to add it to my collection.

As the war intensified, other guitarists began to be spotted in various regions.
Whenever I received word of a guitarist’s discovery, I immediately rushed to the battlefield.

(Perhaps… This time, I might finally find an opponent who can satisfy me!)

With that in mind, I engaged in session battles with the opponents I met on the battlefield, pushing both body and mind to their limits…
But in the end, it was always I who emerged victorious.

I confiscated all of my opponents’ guitars. I have no need for the feeble strength of the weak.
The more battles I won, the more guitars I accumulated.

“…This guitar instrument is truly mysterious. If you look closely, each one has a slightly different shape… And the sounds they produce are so varied! …It’s truly wonderful.”

At that moment, a sudden question crossed my mind.
(It’s such a wonderful instrument… I wonder who invented it, and for what purpose?)

At least within our empire, and indeed, across all nations, no such instrument had ever existed, neither in the past nor in the present.
So why, all of a sudden, were they now being discovered in all nations?

That day, too, I was in the midst of seizing the guitar from an opponent I had just defeated on the battlefield.

My heart was weary of this unchanging routine. And just as I was about to touch my opponent’s guitar…
Suddenly, the surroundings grew dark, and in the blink of an eye, a storm seemed to sweep in. Lightning flashed across the sky, and the battlefield descended into utter chaos, with neither friend nor foe spared.

“P-Princess! Look at that!”
When I looked up at the sky where the soldier was pointing, a giant had appeared, tearing through the air and shrouded in ominous flames.

“Is that… a god!? Or a demon!?”
The soldiers were in an uproar as if the end of the world had come, but my attention was elsewhere.
“That giant is holding… a guitar!”

The giant raised the guitar high into the sky, and as he brought it down, he strummed it.
The sheer ferocity of that sound! Even though the giant had played only a single phrase, the earth split open, and the battlefield was shattered.

Fortunately, I was unharmed and survived, but my pride lay shattered just like the earth.
Yet, at the same time, I was filled with joy.

“That sound… it surpassed my own. The sound produced by that flame giant is my ideal!”

Upon returning to the castle, I immediately summoned engineers from across the country and ordered them:
“…Evolve my guitar! And make it produce a sound that is truly unique! You won’t be allowed to go home until this research is complete!”

The obedient engineers readily agreed to my request. I certainly didn’t threaten them with my guitar or anything, you know?

And so, they literally worked day and night, sparing no effort in their research.
However, they just couldn’t seem to get close to that ideal sound…
(What simply… is missing?)

So I provided the engineers with the many guitars I had kept in my personal collection and ordered them to continue their research.

I had but one wish.
(No matter what, I must get closer to the sound of that flame giant… no, I must surpass it!)
　
…Perhaps my devout prayers reached the heavens, for finally, the greatest and most powerful guitar imaginable was completed!
“…With this, I can have a jam battle with that flame giant!”
My heart fluttered with sweet anticipation at the thought of meeting the flame giant I had yet to see.

“Every nation on the continent bowed down before my evolved guitar… But I still cannot find that guitar.”

Having obtained my evolved guitar, I began to race across the battlefield with even greater ferocity than before.

No matter how harsh the front lines, the moment I heard a guitarist had appeared there, far from being daunted, I would rush over with glee.

But the only ones there were always low-level guitarists with nothing but shoddy technique, people who, far from igniting my heart, only served to freeze it over.

Of course, I could not meet that flame giant.

(Aaaah, where is that flame giant!?)
No matter how much I wished for it, it never showed itself again after that.

Thousands upon thousands of guitars piled up in my possession, and finally, the time came for my journey to reach its end.

Our great empire had brought the entire continent under its control.
There were no longer even the most mediocre of guitarists to be found…

Even after ruling the entire continent and standing at the pinnacle of power… I still had not found the guitar I sought.

The people of our empire, who had once hailed me as the “Princess of Destructive Sound” for leading them to victory on every battlefield, ceased to call me by that name. Instead, they began to worship me as the “Goddess of Destructive Sound,” fearing and revering my power.

Even my mother… the “Queen of Truth” herself began to designate me, her youngest daughter, as the next heir and to respect my existence above all others.

Furthermore, mountains of tribute began arriving at my doorstep every day from the nations that had come under our empire’s rule…

But no matter how much I was revered, no matter what special treatment I received, no matter how much luxury I indulged in, I could not find any satisfaction in my heart.

If anything, I felt my heart growing increasingly dry.
“Ah… where must I go to find that sound again?”

Before I knew it, I found myself visiting the ruins of an ancient ritual site alone.
This is a sacred place where the people of old offered thanks and prayers to the gods…
I found myself strumming my guitar and humming a song as if praying to the gods.
Then…

“This sound! There’s no mistake! It’s that sound!”
To my astonishment, the sound of the flame giant’s guitar, the one I’d been longing for, came from nowhere!

Hearing the longed-for sound of that guitar, my heart soared with excitement.

“Where!? Where on earth is it coming from!?”
As if in response to my cry, a staircase leading underground, one that hadn’t been there a moment ago, appeared in the ruins before me.

“This is…”
The breeze blowing up from the stairs carried an ominous aura utterly unbecoming of a sacred site.
Peering inside, it was pitch black. Where did it lead? Did it even have an end?
…I couldn’t tell at all.

To begin with, what kind of being was that flame giant? I didn’t possess even a shred of knowledge about him.
But… Even so…

“…If I can make that sound my own, there’s no reason to hesitate.”

I pressed forward without fear. It didn’t matter what kind of place lay ahead.

I had decided to trust my guitar and follow my soul wherever it might lead.