In a Female-Dominant World with a 5:1 Gender Ratio, I Saved a Girl as a Kid, and She Said She Wanted to Be My Bride—Who Would’ve Thought She Was a Princess… - 17

Chapter 17: Drifting Iron Stars, and the Eerie Silence

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(Alto’s POV)

It was the second day of the secret meeting in the underground archive. In the dim space where the smells of mold and old books had settled, the noble scent of white lilies drifted so out of place it felt surreal. Steam rose from the tea that the head maid had left behind as a refreshment, making the lamplight flicker gently.

Princess Lilianna was standing right in front of me. She paid no mind to the hem of her luxurious dress brushing against the dusty floor, completely absorbed as she peered down at the documents spread across the desk. Her profile was not the manufactured smile she wore at balls, but one of utter seriousness.

“…How strange.”

Lilianna traced a spot on the parchment with her slender, beautiful fingertip. Spread across the desk was not the same document on mass weapons we had discussed yesterday, but an even older celestial chart from a far earlier era. Compared to the star maps used by modern mages, both the constellation arrangements and the number of stars differed subtly.

“This ancient star chart… It depicts many moving stars that are not observed in modern astronomy.”

Her voice carried pure curiosity, mixed with a faint hint of unease.

“At first, I thought they were comets. But comets should trail tails, and their orbits should be elliptical. …Yet these are different.”

What she pointed to were inorganic points of light drawn as if weaving between the zodiac constellations. They were recorded as circling the heavens with ruler-straight regularity.

I had an idea what they were. The discussion we had the other day—the ancient civilization’s ‘iron castle mass weapons’ floating in the sky—suddenly connected, point to line.

“…Those are not stars.”

As I scanned the margin annotations written in a difficult-to-decipher ancient language, I chose my words carefully.

“In ancient terms, they are called ‘watchers of the heavens’… or, in the words I know, ‘artificial satellites.’”

“Artificial… Satellites?”

Lilianna’s eyes widened at the unfamiliar term. I began sketching a simple diagram of a planet and its orbit on a scrap of memo paper.

“It’s the same principle as the ‘iron castle’ we discussed yesterday. However, instead of massive weapons, these were much smaller ‘machines’ launched in great numbers.”

“Machines… In the sky? …But how? Once the magic stone fuel runs out, they should fall, shouldn’t they?”

“No. They aren’t floating by magical buoyancy.”

I drew a circle around the planet I had sketched.

“By moving sideways at tremendous speed, they balance the force pulling them down, which is gravity, and the force flinging them outward, which is centrifugal force. Once they reach that height and speed, in theory, they can keep circling forever without consuming fuel.”

Lilianna alternated her gaze between my diagram and the ancient manuscript. A crease formed between her brows. It was a concept far removed from this world’s common sense—that heavy things fall to the ground, and light things rise to the heavens. Yet her genius mind did not dismiss it as “impossible.” Instead, she seemed to instantly grasp that “if this is true, then everything fits.”

“…How unbelievable.”

She caught her breath.

“Then it’s as if… There are invisible ‘roads’ in the sky.”

“Exactly. The ancients released countless machines onto those roads.”

At that point, Lilianna suddenly looked up, as if struck by a realization. Her blue eyes wavered.

“…Wait, Alto. In your theory yesterday, you said that the ‘iron castle’ lost control and fell, didn’t you? And that was the cause of the Great Catastrophe.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“But judging from this star chart… The number of these ‘moving stars’ isn’t just one or two.”

Her fingertip slid across the chart. Indeed, countless dots were drawn there. In the eastern sky, in the western sky. One, two, ten, twenty… So many points of light were depicted that they seemed to fill the night sky entirely.

“…What if the ‘iron castle’ that erased that great city was just one of these?”

Lilianna’s voice trembled slightly. The air in the underground archive felt as though it were rapidly cooling. At her words, I felt a chill run down my spine as well. That was right. If the ancient civilization had possessed technology that advanced, there was no way they would have launched only a single satellite. Communications, weather observation, positioning—or military use. They must have launched countless satellites for many different purposes.

“…That’s probably correct.”

I looked up at the ceiling, or to be precise, toward the sky beyond the thick bedrock far overhead.

“The one that fell during the Great Catastrophe was just one of them. It malfunctioned, or its orbit shifted… But what about the remaining ‘stars’?”

“…They’re still there.”

Lilianna murmured softly.

Her words fell between us with the weight of stone. Indeed, compared to the distant past, the number of stars drifting in the sky had decreased. Some had reached the end of their lifespan and likely burned up in the atmosphere without ever reaching the ground. Even so, many of them still…

“Their masters, the ancient people, have perished, and thousands of years have passed… Yet they’re still circling above our heads…?”

I couldn’t help but imagine it. The clear blue sky we casually look up at every day… The beautiful night sky where stars sparkle after dark… And beyond that, in the pitch-black void of space, countless iron relics of an ancient age drifting on in silence, unknown to anyone.

Were they merely decayed remnants? Or were they still operating, faithfully carrying out orders from masters long gone?

“…How frightening.”

Lilianna shuddered, rubbing her upper arms. Her complexion looked pale and not just because of the lamplight.

“We believed the sky was the domain of the gods. A pure place, untouched by anything. …Yet to think that an unknown ‘past’ is drifting there like ghosts.”

“Yes. …This world may be far more artificial than we think.”

At my words, the air in the underground archive felt heavier. Countless machines orbiting overhead. For what purpose had they been created? Were they merely tools? Or had they been given some far more terrifying ‘role’? There was no way for us to know. All we could be certain of was that in unseen places, a ‘principle’ beyond our common sense was at work in this world.

A system created by humans and then forgotten, might still be enclosing this world like a birdcage. That truth pressed down on us with undeniable weight and an indescribable eeriness.

After a moment of silence… Lilianna lifted her face, as if having steeled herself. Her eyes were strong, as though she were forcing down fear with sheer thirst for knowledge.

“…If the laws of the sky are this distorted and artificial…”

She slid the star chart aside and instead pulled out a thick ledger bound in black leather. Her expression shifted—from awe at the distant heavens to something more immediate, more visceral, and painfully real.

“…Then the laws governing our ‘lives’ on the ground may also be harboring some great distortion.”

“What do you mean…?”

When I asked, she solemnly opened the ledger. It was a highly classified record detailing the kingdom’s population dynamics.

“In truth… There’s a certain ‘number’ that has long troubled me. The far too unnatural state of ‘men and women’ in this world.”

On the page she opened were cruel statistics that threatened to deny our very existence. Iron stars drifting through the silent cosmos. And on the ground, incomprehensible deaths and distorted gender ratios repeating over and over. Sky and earth.

The two distortions might not be unrelated.

We were finally stepping into the very ‘core’ of this world—the phenomenon people feared and called the ‘Curse of the Goddess.’

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