Act Two: Academy / The Iron Princess of Thorns

Chapter Two: Desert Rose

Prologue: Grudge

“Raaaaaaaaah! Gostauraaaaaaa!”

Within an ancient castle beyond the reach of light, somewhere in the west of the continent of Sars, a lone girl cried out in lamentation. Before her lay the corpse of a man.

She had expected to see his smile as he announced the successful completion of an operation he’d led, which had involved over ten of their clan members. Instead, she saw only his silent remains. The vice chief of their clan—and her treasured friend—was no more.

“Why...? Why?!” she wailed, so lost in grief that she shed tears of blood.

In the past, dark elves had been persecuted by the Holy Church. They’d been branded demons, accused of being servants of evil, and driven out of their territory toward dangerous lands crawling with monsters. Since then, they’d waged war with other races time and time again, a practice that had greatly reduced their numbers.

Within the demonic nation there was a clan of vampires. The dark elves’ dwindling population had left them with no choice but to accept into their ranks monsters and other creatures—those who were no longer considered people. Thus, the group of vampires, who had been forced to live in the shadows of society, had finally been granted dignity.

Although these vampires had been dark elves before turning, they could no longer truly connect with their former kin now that they were monsters. They were seen as predators and viewed with suspicion, thus existing in a constant state of worry that even their allies might turn on them and drive them out. The vampire clan had to prove that they belonged to the demonic nation, even if it meant making sacrifices along the way.

The clan’s vice chief, Gostaura, had volunteered to lead their most skilled members on a dangerous mission to infiltrate the human nation. He had gone in lieu of the girl—the clan’s chief. One report, dispatched several months ago, had detailed a plan to kidnap the princess of the Kingdom of Claydale alive in order to sow discord within the kingdom and weaken its national power.

But the only result of that plan now lay before her: Gostaura’s silent remains.

The girl understood that their plan had not only failed but also resulted in the loss of her dear old friend and the other members of their clan, whom she had been with for ages.

“Accursed humans,” she spat. “You will pay for this!”

With that, she sank her fangs into Gostaura’s corpse.

By drinking a living creature’s blood, vampires could gain the power of their soul, but the blood of the deceased had no such benefit. Still, those with a certain level of power could absorb the memories of the departed through their blood.

“Ahh...”

Memories flowed into her. A powerful grudge against two humans who’d featured prominently in the recollections now burned intensely in her own mind.

“So it was you,” she hissed. “You killed my people. You killed Gostaura!”

Blood extended from her nailbeds, forming elongated claws. She bit her bottom lip, sending trickles of red dripping from the spots her fangs had pierced.

“You, with the black hair... And you, with the pink hair! I will never forgive this. I will cast you into the fires of hell and make you suffer for eternity!”

With the loss of its most powerful members, the vampire clan was likely doomed. Monsters who had no use as fighting stock were nothing but a burden to the nation. Still, the girl could have chosen to take up arms on the front lines and fought to ensure her clan’s survival.

But despite being their leader, she had chosen not to do so. To her, the clan meant nothing now. Preserving it would serve no purpose. Instead, she wanted to avenge those who had been her companions for centuries. She wanted to descend upon the Kingdom of Claydale and make them pay.

She couldn’t.

There were two factors in a vampire’s power: the skills they’d had in life and the length of time they’d been undead. The stronger they became, the more closely they spiritually resembled monsters, making it difficult to operate in towns. Gostaura and the others had already been quite limited in what they could accomplish, and it would be even worse for her. And even if she chose to go regardless, she was alone and couldn’t venture outside during the day. Finding the two women would be nearly impossible.

But that didn’t mean giving up. In order to destroy the two humans who had destroyed her friends and her clan’s future, the girl would lure them out of hiding using a method that was at once perfectly rational—and the height of irrationality.

There had been no major wars between demons and humans for over fifty years. Humans believed the demons had no strength left to fight, but giving up was far from the demons’ minds. To humans, the last war was a tale from over two generations past—but to the long-lived dark elves, it had been no time at all. What humans were forgetting, the dark elves could not.

The dark elves had worked to increase their thinning ranks, stockpiled weapons, and used various clans, like the vampires’, to sow the seeds of discord across the continent. Even now, the more hardline demons clamored for war. Though the current demon king had grown spineless enough to cast doubt on the memory of his past severity, the girl was certain that, if only she could employ the right unscrupulous means, the moderate demons could be swayed as well.

She would start another war and use the demon army to crush human settlements. Even if it took decades of calamity to rouse the two women, and even if the girl herself was destroyed in the process, it didn’t matter. She would lure to the battlefield the two warriors who had been strong enough to defeat Gostaura.

Still shedding tears of blood, she laughed, her voice echoing in the darkness.

“I curse you, humans! I curse all of you!”

The Desert Town

The Royal Sorcerers’ Academy should’ve been a safe haven for its students—sons and daughters of the foremost noble houses of the Kingdom of Claydale. Yet it was there that the nation’s princess, Elena Claydale, had been attacked and had gone missing.

Eyewitnesses had provided detailed accounts of the kidnapping, and the authorities had initially assumed that the blame lay with a faction of dark elves, also known as demons—the race that had gone to war with humans over five decades ago. However, when the corpse of one of the attackers, who had been defeated by the princess’s guards and left outside, had turned to ash in the morning sun, the court sorcerers and royal physicians had examined the remains left indoors and determined that the attackers had, in actuality, been vampires.

It was unclear whether the attack had been driven by the demons’ political agenda or simple vampiric instinct. Among those at court who were not partisans of the princess, some speculated that she might’ve been killed, but her attendants and servants, who had been grievously injured in the assault, had testified that this was untrue.

They’d confirmed that the perpetrators’ goal had been to take the princess alive.

To that end, the attackers had used a special gem—of the sort that could only be sourced from dungeons—to unleash a teleportation spell and whisk her away. At the moment the spell had activated, however, the demon using the gem had been killed by the princess’s personal guard. The young woman, an adventurer and the daughter of a baroness, had successfully prevented the worst-case scenario of the princess being abducted by the demons.

But the princess and her guard had been caught in the active teleportation spell and vanished somewhere.

According to the chief court sorcerer’s assessment, they had likely been sent somewhere between the Kingdom of Claydale and their probable intended destination, the Demonic Nation of Dais. How far from Claydale they were depended on the amount of aether sealed within the gem, but it was presumed they’d ended up somewhere around the midpoint between the two countries.

Interrogations and investigations, aided by sorcery, were conducted on the attendants and knights who’d been present at the scene, and no discrepancies were found among their testimonies. Thus, the kingdom’s focus had shifted from investigating the demons to searching for the princess.

Regardless of the circumstances of the princess’s disappearance, if news of her absence were to leak to the public, there was no telling how the nobility faction, which already actively opposed the royal family, would react. Fortunately, the dean of the Sorcerers’ Academy had already placed the faculty under a gag order, preventing any information from reaching the students. His Majesty the King had ordered a three-to-six-month closure of the campus under the pretext of improving security. He’d then commanded the Order of Shadows, the national intelligence agency operating under the prime minister’s command, to search domestically and internationally for the missing Elena.

Many believed the princess to be alive. However, her disappearance could only be kept under wraps for so long. It was estimated that, within three months at most, questions would inevitably begin to arise.

The king had determined that, should the princess’s whereabouts remain unknown after three months, he would prevent public consternation by announcing that she was convalescing. At that time, he would halt the royal succession process—a matter of choosing between the prince and princess—which had been ongoing in secret. Then, if another three months passed without news, he would officially announce Elena’s death from illness and appoint Elvan, the crown prince, as the heir.

Therefore, they had six months to find her.

There were many who had begun to take what actions they could. Within an office inside the royal castle, the prime minister, Margrave Veldt Melrose, had issued commands to the Order of Shadows to search for the princess. Simultaneously, he’d begun to investigate the possibility that certain nobles had facilitated the demons’ entry into the country.

“So you believe that there were nobles involved in the demons’ infiltration, Lord Veldt?”

“Correct. Non-noble dissidents wouldn’t have known the details of the academy’s internal security measures. I do not, however, think it’s necessarily the work of an entire noble house. Older nobles bear much stronger resentment toward demons.”

Veldt himself had been a boy during the previous war, but the memories and fear of the powerful, cold-blooded demons had been seared into his mind. Those who had lived through that time, including the heads of noble families, wouldn’t have forgotten that terror. Therefore, it was more likely that those working with demons had been individuals rather than entire families. Moreover, they were likely to be young.

Oz, Veldt’s personal steward, nodded at his master’s answer as he brewed a fresh pot of tea.

“It could be the work of multiple individuals as well. Perhaps someone facilitated their entry and someone else offered them shelter. I’ll have that looked into,” the steward said. “As for the search for Her Highness... What shall we do about foreign territories? If she was caught in a teleportation spell, it seems probable that she’s no longer within Claydale.”

“The chief court sorcerer considers that to be extremely likely,” Veldt replied. “We cannot conduct open investigations in other countries, but...Her Highness is quite capable, and she has her guard with her as well. The two of them will likely attempt to contact us. We must look into anything that seems like a message, even simple rumors.”

Sensing a certain feeling within his master, Oz bowed his head, said, “Yes, my lord,” and left the office.

Veldt leaned back into his chair, the seat creaking softly as he let out a shallow breath. The figure of a certain girl came to his mind and his gaze grew distant. This wasn’t the girl they’d discovered years ago who claimed to be the child of his late daughter but the adventurer girl who had gone missing alongside the princess.

Sera, a knight of the Order of Shadows, had adopted the girl so that she could attend the academy alongside the ever-vigilant princess, who would let no one near her except for academy staff and her personal retinue. But Veldt had managed to catch a glimpse of the adventurer girl as she accompanied the princess—and that image had been burned into his eyes.

Her gleaming, peach-tinted hair, the flickers of expression she’d shown in certain moments—all seemed to reflect traces of Veldt’s late daughter. She was the right age and had similar features, though tangible evidence of a connection remained elusive. There was at least limited circumstantial evidence favoring the other girl who claimed to be his granddaughter, but none at all for the adventurer.

How much hardship had this girl endured to have achieved such power at such a young age, he wondered? Regardless, she’d become Elena’s personal guard through sheer skill. If Veldt tried to force his hand, the girl, as an adventurer, could simply disappear somewhere.

But with the girl having vanished alongside the princess, Veldt found himself restless. Up to this point, he’d hoped to find evidence of their connection before the girl came of age, but now, he was wondering if she—just like his late daughter—was lost to him forever.

No. She’s alive. I’m sure of it.

The princess was blessed with good luck and the adventurer was blessed with exceptional skill. Together, their odds of survival, even in a foreign land, were high. Veldt was determined to find them. And this time, unlike with his daughter, he wouldn’t make the wrong choice. He would seek them out, even if it cost him all of his personal funds.

And then, he would reunite with the girl who might, truly, be his granddaughter.

***

Elsewhere, after receiving a report that the princess and her personal guard had vanished, a young woman was putting her own plans into action.

Lady Clara Dandorl, daughter of Margrave Dandorl, was the crown prince’s primary fiancée and had been chronically unwell since receiving a gift—for the royal family’s sake—during a dungeon expedition.

“Prince El...” she murmured.

When was the last time her fiancé had come to see her?

What had drawn Clara to Elvan were his gentle demeanor, his frailty, and the fact he wasn’t cold and calculating like the other royals. She had found herself truly in love with him—not as a character in an otome game but as a man. But of late, his heart had grown distant, which had contributed to her current indisposition.

But there was more cause for anxiety. Elena, the princess, was missing.

Following the otome game’s original plotline, it had been Karla who’d first facilitated the entry of demons into the kingdom. But Karla had forsaken them, and Clara had been the one to step in, providing them with funding, information, and a base of operations through Graves.

Though she’d lost contact with Graves, she’d been able to somewhat foresee the demons’ objectives based on her knowledge of the game’s story and the ability her gift gave her to calculate possible futures. Clara had determined that they would target the royal family to precipitate the kingdom’s decline, and had even anticipated attacks on the crown prince, Elvan, and his sister, Elena.

But she had thought these would happen further in the future. In the game, the demons only attacked when multiple love interests had high affection levels toward the heroine. Clara had assumed that the demon attack would only occur during what would’ve been the heroine’s second year at the academy, or perhaps even later.

Specifically, Clara had aided the demons in hopes of triggering a special event that occurred during the second year in-game: the heroine’s kidnapping. This event could only happen from a second playthrough on, since it required clearing the main story once. The kidnapping caused discord among the love interests, who, by this point, could’ve grown closer to her as she helped them fight off their inner darkness and grow as people. Those who had enough affection points toward the heroine would join an expedition to the demonic nation and work together to rescue her.

While it might have seemed counterproductive to forcibly trigger an event that would cause the love interests to try to rescue the heroine, Clara knew that reality and the game were very different. The real heroine’s kidnapping wouldn’t have mobilized a rescue mission, and even if Elvan and the other love interests cared deeply for her, they weren’t strong enough to act on their own. In order for their efforts to feasibly make a difference, all of them would’ve had to have high affection for the heroine—when, in actuality, many of them were not at all fond of the girl.

But the event had triggered now, during the heroine’s first year, thwarting Clara’s plans. Moreover, the attack had targeted neither Elvan nor the heroine but Elena. After beseeching the dungeon spirit for a healthy body, Elena had begun demonstrating her true talents—and thus had become a greater threat to the demons than the others.

There had been a time when, young and without the memories of her previous life, Clara had thought of Elena as a true sister. The echoes of that fondness remained, and now, with Elena’s life at risk, Clara felt her stomach twist.

Still, this situation had created a perfect opportunity for Clara.

The academy was closed, but some of the more illustrious higher-ranked nobles, who knew of the situation, remained on campus. A royal announcement had explained this away on the pretext that it was safer for the knights to provide collective protection for high-ranking nobles and their associates than it would’ve been to send these students back to their families’ domains. Thus, the nobles associated with the royal faction had chosen to remain within the academy grounds. At first, there had been talks of sending the prince and his fiancées back to the royal palace, but when both Clara and Karla expressed a desire to stay at the academy, the idea had been shelved.

Now, with both Elena and her terrifying guard gone, Clara was free to act despite her condition. She swore to herself that she would use her gift to peer into all possible futures and win back Elvan’s heart. Until now, despite loathing the heroine, she had relied on the efforts of others and done nothing herself.

It was time to change that.

“I’ll get rid of her for good,” Clara vowed.

***

Oblivious to Clara’s plans to destroy her, Alicia—or Licia, as she called herself—was elegantly sipping tea in the company of three men.

“You’re so kind, Licia,” Prince Amor said. “You worry not only for Elena but that boorish girl as well.”

“Your Highness is making me blush,” Licia said, blushing bashfully. “It is you who are kind for worrying about me so.”

Another boy, who sat across from Licia, leaned forward to try and get her attention. “Her Highness’s guard is nothing short of an ogre. And Princess Elena herself has a heart of ice. It is only because they can so easily take lives that this happened to them.”

“Please don’t say such things, Nathanital. Not everyone has a heart as pure as yours!”

“R-Right,” he stammered, managing an embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry, Licia.”

Alicia smiled innocently—the very picture of purity. It was a breath of fresh air to the two men, who were accustomed to the artificial smiles of noble ladies.

The boorish girl in question, the princess’s pink-haired guard, seemed to operate in a realm completely divorced from Amor’s and Nathanital’s realities. Unable to let go of their rigid values, wounded in their egos by the pink-haired girl, the two hung on Licia’s every validating word.

Elvan, meanwhile, watched the two men with conflicted feelings.

He was worried about the disappearance of his half sister Elena. Though she’d grown distant from him over the years, to Elvan, who had the mindset of a mid-ranked noble at best, she was still his cute little sister. He couldn’t be as detached from the situation as the others.

Besides, their behavior was puzzling. Amor had adored Elena. Where had that familial love gone? And Nathanital, who so abhorred killing people and devoutly followed the church’s teachings, seemed to be taking pleasure from others’ misfortune. Yet no one was reprimanding them.

Instead, this girl was affirming their feelings.

Was this truly acceptable? And was Alicia... Was Licia really right about all this?

I haven’t seen Clara lately, Elvan thought. When did I last meet with her? Being around her started to feel suffocating, and I wanted to put some distance between us, but... She was just worried about me, and... I...

“Prince El?” Licia called out, quietly grasping his hand under the table.

The prince, brought back from his reverie by her voice and the warmth of her fingers, murmured, “Licia...”

“Please, don’t punish yourself,” she said. “You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re just a bit tired. All you need is a little rest, and everything will be okay.”

“Ah. Yes, of...course.”

Elvan wasn’t convinced, but her words offered him a comfortable reprieve from the crushing weight of the responsibilities and complexities of his position as crown prince. He gently squeezed her hand back.

Licia chuckled, displaying her perfectly lovely smile to soothe the darkness within the three men.

She loved everything about them—but that affection was merely a reflection of her love of being loved. That was why each man, when faced with this perfect mirror, believed he was loved more than the others.

Being loved was Licia’s whole purpose. Only that could satisfy the hunger in her heart. Even at the potential cost of her own life, she was willing to toe the line of lèse-majesté if it meant getting more love. She was willing to see the country burn to satisfy her desires.

The loveless environment of her childhood, marred by constant emptiness, loneliness, and fear, had fueled a powerless, ordinary girl’s ascent to a temptress capable of toppling a kingdom.

And so, Licia smiled today too—from the bottom of her self-serving heart.

***

A third young woman was thoroughly amused as she watched the other two push their individual agendas.

Karla, daughter of the chief court sorcerer, had woken from her slumber two days after the disappearance of the princess and her guard. When she heard the news from her servants, she’d rolled around in such uproarious laughter that it had cost her half her stamina.

“Oh, Alia, what fun,” she said. “But please, do come back soon, or else I might have to burn all of them to a crisp. The men, the women. Everyone.”

***

Outside of nobility and academy staff, others were mobilizing as well. The adventuring party the Rainbow Blade—including their scout, Viro, recently recovered from his injuries—had taken on a new request from the prime minister to search for the princess and her companion.

Elsewhere, Nero, the mythical coeurl, dashed toward the abode of his pink-haired partner’s mistress, which it had once visited with her.

The princess was alive. Of this, those closest to her were certain—after all, that girl, Alia, was with her.

***

In the southwest region of the continent of Sars was a sandy expanse, completely hostile to living beings, known as the Desert of Death. Adjacent to it stood a massive ancient ruin.

No one knew which era the ruins dated from. They were considered remnants of a people who preceded even the Krus, the natives of the continent. The ruined city itself was vast—as large as a small nation—and because the sandstorms cast a constant veil over it, it had come to be called Reisveil.

Though long abandoned, the city teemed with desertic beetle-type monsters and undead creatures such as wraiths and skeletons. But where monsters abounded, so did materials and aethercrystals. And where those abounded, so did adventurers. There were also those who, dreaming of treasure, came to pillage the ruins. And where such people abounded, so did merchants hoping for profits.

Thus, settlements had gradually begun to form near the ruins. Greed was ever the driver of people’s actions.

In a desert town half a day’s walk from the outer perimeter of Reisveil, people of various races and backgrounds mingled: humans, beastmen, dwarves, and elves. Adventurers and tomb raiders, criminals and exiles. Personal histories and past crimes meant nothing in this town, where strength was king and weakness meant ending up a corpse, claimed by the desert’s thirst.

In a grimy tavern located in the slums just outside the walls of the town proper, leather boots crunched faintly on the sand-covered stone floor.

Swarthy men, already drinking with the sun still high, turned their menacing gazes toward the pair who had set foot inside. The figures wore cloaks, which wasn’t unusual given the strong sunlight that assailed this area, but the men could still tell from their builds and gait that these were young women. They flashed their teeth at the pair, a hint of something vulgar in their smiles.

Under the men’s unabashed gazes, the two young women walked to the counter, where the proprietor stood. The taller of the pair placed several small silver coins onto the wood.

“Food and nonalcoholic drinks for two,” she said, her youthful voice even in pitch.

Surprised, the owner frowned at the coins. “Which country are these from? You shouldn’t advertise that you have this stuff, you know.”

“Can I not use these here?”

“That’s not the issue. Listen, girl...” The proprietor gave his stubble an irritated stroke and leaned forward, planting his elbow on the counter and lowering his voice. “You two aren’t from around here, eh? You think foreign women are safe in a place like this? We don’t have fancy things like guards in this town. Now go on, git—”

“Hey now, let’s not be too hasty,” someone interrupted.

Four of the patrons were now standing behind the two young women, predatory smiles upon their lips.

“So, what are you two doing outside the walls?” one of the men asked. “Are you travelers? Part of a merchant caravan? No one who knows this place well would bring such pretty little things here. And if you lived here, you’d have the sense to stay inside the town.”

“Lucky you,” another said. “Anyone else would’ve robbed you blind and fed you to the livestock.”

“Or sold you,” a third chimed in. “Granted, that’d depend on how you look under those hoods!”

The drunken men laughed stupidly at their own joke. Based on their dusky skin, they were Krus people, who were known to inhabit desert regions like this. Presumably, they lived here.

“Pardon, but is this normal in these lands?” the shorter woman asked the tavern owner.

At her high-pitched, feminine voice and refined way of speaking, the men whistled mockingly.

The tavern owner’s face visibly contorted. “You lot don’t start anything in my damn store!” he snapped. “Look, misses, I’m telling you this for your own good. Stay quiet and these men might let you live. So...”

“He’s right,” one of the men said. “So don’t run your mouth again, you hear? You might get yourself killed.”

The proprietor gritted his teeth. “Tch...”

One of the men reached for the smaller woman’s cloak—only to be met with a powerful impact and a sharp cracking sound.

“Gah!”

The taller woman had flanked him, then brought her palm against his jaw with such force that his neck snapped to the opposite side. Unable to even process that his bones had broken, the man rolled his eyes back and collapsed on the spot.

“What the shit?!”

“What did you—”

Confused, the other three could barely register that they’d been attacked. They began to panic and reached for the weapons at their waists. At that moment, the taller woman’s cloak fluttered and her two pale arms emerged from underneath it. They intertwined and snapped the necks of two of the men like dried twigs.

“Wh-What the hell?!” the single remaining man shouted as he swung down a curved blade.

The taller woman’s gloved hand easily pushed the blade aside, and as the man lost his balance and stumbled forward, her palm struck his jaw as well. The impact was so powerful that his head turned completely backward.

As he fell, he gripped the girl’s cloak, exposing the face of the one who had massacred them all in an instant without spilling so much as a single drop of blood. The gruesome beauty and the sheer display of skill from the girl, in combination with her still-youthful features, pale skin, and peach-tinted blonde hair, made the tavern proprietor gasp.

The smaller girl adjusted her cloak’s hood slightly, studying the owner with blue eyes that stood out strikingly against her porcelain skin.

“For now, we’d like our meals, please,” she said. “And could I perhaps bother you to tell us more about this town?”

Their Bond

Elena and I had been caught in the teleportation spell and sent to an unknown land.

The wind here was dry, and coarse, fine particles clung to everything. Above us, the morning sun shone brilliantly, with not a single cloud in sight. Its rays illuminated a vast ruined city, hazy with sand and dust.

When Elena murmured the name of the city, I echoed, “Reisveil?”

“Y-Yes. I’ve only read about it in books, not seen it, but... If we’re still on the continent of Sars, I can’t think of any other ruined cities located in a desert,” she explained.

An ancient ruin with sand wrapping around it like a bridal veil...

Elena told me about this place. No one knew for certain when it had been built or who had first inhabited it, but it was known to have been standing since at least before the Krus, native to this continent, had formed their first nations.

The architecture was different from the style used by both the Krus, who lived in the western part of the continent, and the forest-dwelling, long-lived wood elves. Everything had been built entirely out of sandstone yet somehow remained standing, with only the exteriors of the buildings weathered by time and the elements. Thus, the complex structures had been largely preserved, telling of the city’s former state.

Most striking was the city’s sheer scale, which rivaled that of a small nation. It took a month to cross from one end to the other. No one knew its full layout, and it was even said that dragons dwelled in its depths.

“Does no one live there?” I asked.

“Probably not in the ruins proper,” Elena said. Her face, illuminated by the morning sun, seemed pale—and not only from the exhaustion that had overtaken her in the aftermath of the attack.

Assuming this was indeed Reisveil, it was at least four countries’ distance away from Claydale, which was located on the southeastern edge of the continent. If Elena’s status remained unknown for long, it might play right into the plans of the demons who had tried to kidnap her. She was clearly concerned that, were she to die now, her end would be unknown to those she knew.

Had I understood what she wanted and killed her instead of Gostaura, at least the neutral-leaning noble houses would likely have rallied in support of the crown prince, and the status quo would’ve been maintained, albeit precariously.

Still, I wanted Elena to fight to her last breath.

“Let’s go home, Elena,” I said. “If you want to die, you can do that anytime. Claydale isn’t so fragile that it’ll fall apart in just a few months.”

“Alia...”

Elena lifted her downcast face, her blue eyes reflecting my image. I knew it was selfish of me, but I wanted her to live. I wouldn’t give up. I would bring her back before the country descended into chaos. Perhaps my resolve had become clear to her, as the strength returned to her gaze.

“You promised to not give up,” she said, managing a small smile. “Very well, Alia. But do promise me one thing. If I am unable to make it back, you must kill me, return on your own, and tell them what happened to me.”

“Elena...” I murmured, reaching for her. She’s strong.

She brought both her hands to mine, enveloping it as if offering a prayer. “Please...”

“All right,” I conceded.

We drew closer for a few moments, then pulled apart once more and exchanged a glance and a nod, affirming our shared resolve to keep moving forward.

“Let’s decide on a course of action,” she said.

First, we had to reach a settlement. Ideally, there would be aetherial communication devices there, but...the odds of that were very slim. They were rare and few in number to begin with, and according to Elena, the devices capable of long-distance calls between countries could only be found in the Empire of Kal’Faan.

“This is speculation on my part, but I figure adventurers may search the ruins for treasure,” Elena said.

That meant they probably had a base of operations of some sort nearby. Elena suggested a high probability of settlements existing on the southern side of Reisveil, in the direction of Kal’Faan.

“Got it,” I replied. “First we find a settlement, then a way to Kal’Faan. We’ll figure out the details after we find people.”

“That’s fine with me. And...since we’ll be working together from now on, would you mind treating me as a companion?” she asked, her expression joyful at the prospect of going home together.

She managed to feel excited despite how dire the situation was...

“Got it. Then...Elena, you should sleep.”

“Huh?”

Elena looked puzzled. She’d likely expected me to assign her a task of some sort, but sleep was part of proper adventuring.

“You haven’t slept, have you? The temperature is lower now, but it’ll get hot very quickly once the sun peaks. We’ll travel in the evening.”

According to that woman’s knowledge, there were extreme differences between daytime and nighttime temperatures in the desert. I wasn’t sure whether that applied to this world too, but I could nevertheless feel the heat against my skin gradually increasing.

“Let’s go back a bit and find a place to rest,” I said. “Make sure you drink water regularly.”

“A-All right.”

As I started back toward the rocky mountain forest, with Elena following hurriedly behind me, I reached into Shadow Storage for some roasted nuts to give her.

“Flow...”

Perhaps due to the dry air, there wasn’t much water mana visible, and the amount of water I could produce through the practical spell was small. But Elena, who had an affinity for water, noticed this and helped me make more.

Though I called the area a “forest,” with the desert so close by, it was more like a haphazard grove dotting craggy ground, with straight and thin trees bearing few leaves. I found an outcropping that could provide some shade and gave Elena a cloak I took from Shadow Storage.

“We’ll take turns napping,” I said. “I’ll wake you in about an hour, so—”

“You rest first, Alia,” Elena interrupted, pushing back the cloak to reveal a somewhat irritated expression. “You have dark circles under your eyes. How many days has it been since you last slept? I’m fine. You sleep first.”

I paused, then conceded. “Got it.”

Though I could manage staying awake, my stamina had dropped considerably. And I knew how stubborn Elena was, so I figured I’d just let her have her way.

“Take this, at least,” I said. “Sorry, I only have my own dress to offer, but it’s better than that frilly thing, right?”

Elena was wearing a thin nightgown with one of my spare cloaks thrown over it and the academy loafers I’d given her. That wouldn’t do for our upcoming journey, so I took my other academy uniform from Shadow Storage and gave it to her. It wasn’t the type-three uniform used by noble attendants but the type-one uniform I rarely wore.

Unlike the outfits and gowns worn by nobles, academy uniforms were quite durable. Not only were they designed for long-term wear, they supposedly had some amount of built-in temperature regulation as well. Type-one uniforms were a bit shorter than either my servant’s uniform or the dresses Elena typically wore, only reaching down to the calves, but a long hem would be a hindrance when walking through the desert.

Elena seemed a bit unsure but took the uniform regardless.

“Shadow Storage, is it?” she asked, a bit puzzled. “That’s...quite the capacity it has. All this clothing, and food too...”

“Oh?”

At first, my Shadow Storage had only contained about one bag’s worth of space. But as I’d gotten used to the spell, my Aether Manipulation had gone up in level, and my Shadow Magic had reached Level 4—which was the level necessary to cast the spell to create expanded bags in the first place—meaning the capacity was now comparable to that of a large wardrobe. Since the inside of Shadow Storage was completely sterile, it could preserve food, protect clothing from the elements, and even eradicate odors. Thus, most of the items I used regularly, I kept stashed inside.

Now that my Aether Manipulation was Level 5, maybe I could store even more items.

“I’ll rest first, then,” I said. “Wake me immediately if anything happens.”

I sat with my back against a rock and curled up. Hugging my knees, I let my consciousness quietly slip away as I listened to Elena’s voice.

“Rest well, Alia...”

***

Elena smiled as she watched Alia fall asleep almost immediately. This strong, beautiful girl, who inspired sighs of admiration everywhere she went, looked so much more youthful than usual slumbering like this.

Now that Elena could get a closer look, she could see Alia hadn’t just been awake for days—the pink-haired girl also had unhealed wounds on her arms and cheeks, and her skin and lustrous hair were caked with blood and mud.

“Cleanse,” Elena chanted quietly.

The spell cleaned away the dirt clinging to Alia’s form...and reminded Elena of how much better Alia was at light sorcery. Although it was widely believed that illness was caused by atmospheric impurities and spirits playing tricks, Alia had told Elena that in actuality, tiny creatures, too small to be seen with the naked eye, were responsible, and that regularly using Cleanse for hygiene could help maintain one’s health.

“You’re such a mysterious one,” the princess whispered, running her fingers through Alia’s clean hair. She began to channel a Restore spell to mend the wounds remaining on Alia’s body.

What fierce battles Alia had to have fought. Elena felt tears welling up in her eyes at the thought of Alia fighting Graves—once the strongest member of the Order of Shadows—then rushing to her side. From now on, they would work together, but Elena lacked Alia’s knowledge of human anatomy, which made her Cleanse and Restore spells weaker in comparison. In combat, the difference between them was even starker.

I want to be stronger, she wished earnestly. If nothing else, she needed to protect herself so Alia wouldn’t need to get hurt anymore.

After healing Alia’s wounds, Elena quietly pushed herself to her feet. The sunlight had grown stronger, just as Alia had said it would, and the princess figured she should finish changing before it became too bright out.

Young women from high-ranking noble families tended to leave everything to their handmaidens. As a royal, Elena had been waited on hand and foot until age four, but after being abandoned by her mother, she’d become more aware of the harshness of the world. And, since meeting Alia at age seven, she’d begun practicing in order to be able to do the bare minimum for herself.

She took off her nightgown and picked up the uniform Alia had given her. The idea that this dress was something Alia had worn made Elena a bit bashful. As a princess, she never shared her clothes with others. Her outfits, chairs, and even the cups she used for tea were for her exclusive use. When dining outside the royal palace, Elena would use cutlery and dishes brought by her handmaidens.

Now, hygiene during meals was likely not going to be an option, but Elena didn’t feel too disgusted by the idea.

Upon first entering the academy, Elena had been surprised to see middle-ranked nobles share things with their friends. She’d even come to envy that freedom. The princess had no friends—young ladies she would exchange pleasantries with, yes, but those were relationships between a royal and her subjects. Once upon a time, she’d been close to her cousin Clara, and the two had shared something of a sisterly bond. Now, however, the rift between them was so vast that it was likely beyond repair.

The only person who was close to Elena’s equal was Alia. But the two were birds of a feather, not friends. A barrier still stood between the princess and her guard. And now...she was borrowing a personal item of Alia’s.

It’s like we’re really friends...

The thought rippled through Elena’s heart like a gentle wave.

Since she’d watched Alia get dressed before, Elena knew how to wear this dress. Her heart raced as she put it on for the first time. When she finished changing, she realized that—perhaps due to their height difference—the sleeves were too long, and the hem of the skirt fell farther down than expected.

Elena felt somewhat dejected that the dress didn’t look as good on her as it did on Alia, but nevertheless, the experience of having shared something with Alia for the first time brought a smile to the princess’s lips.

I want to journey home with you.

Wishing to become stronger for that purpose, Elena quietly sat down next to the sleeping Alia and gently rested her head against the other girl’s shoulder.

Journey

The passing of seasons wasn’t uniform across the entirety of the continent of Sars. Technically, spring was over and summer was starting, but in the Federation of Melrune, the first signs of the short northern spring had only just appeared. Meanwhile, in Claydale to the south—even in the northernmost domains, such as the Barony of Sayles—the weather had already grown quite hot.

Deep in the woods near the barony, a woman wearing a simple robe picked vegetables and medicinal herbs from her garden and put them in a basket. She rose from her crouched position, extending both arms as she stretched her stiff body.

“Mmm...”

Her silver hair fluttered and gleamed in the sunlight, her skin shining like lustrous obsidian. She belonged to the race of dark elves, said to reside in the remote, far western part of Sars. Long-lived like their cousins, the wood elves, the demi-humans of this species were so beautiful that some would even call them fae.

Though few in number, they were said to have lived on this continent even before the indigenous Krus humans, and in times long past, the two races had maintained a modest cultural exchange. However, a millennium ago, when the Mercenian people migrated to Sars, they’d wanted to avoid conflict with the Krus. Thus, their Holy Church had accused dark elves of being servants to evil gods, turning them into a common enemy of both the Mercenians and the Krus. Persecuted from all sides, the resentful dark elves had come to consider themselves the enemies of all people and adopted the derogatory moniker of “demons” out of spite.

A thousand years later, however, their reasons for fighting had changed. Back then, they’d fought out of hatred for their enemies, but now their hostility was more focused on the Holy Church than other races. To weaken the Church’s power, the demons frequently waged wars with human nations, seeking to undermine their very foundations.

Among the many who fought in such conflicts, one demoness, Cere’zhula—known and feared as the Fiend by friend and foe alike—had grown disillusioned with her path. More than that, she hadn’t wanted her younger sister to become like her. Thus, she had faked her own death, deserted the demon army, and hidden away in this land.

Upon returning home from her garden, Cere’zhula ate a meal of freshly picked leafy vegetables and leftover stew. Then, she brewed potions for a traveling merchant, who was one of her few acquaintances.

Though her days had always been the same, lately she’d found herself with extra tasks. When night fell and she determined that she wouldn’t need much more aether that day, Cere’zhula set about performing a certain experiment that had become a new routine for her.

“Iron Rose,” she chanted. Her silver hair billowed up as though caught in a gust of wind.

▼ Cere’zhula

Species: Dark Elf♀ (Rank 5)

Aether Points: 387/425

Health Points: 215/250

Overall Combat Power: 2,006 (Uniquely Boosted: 3,786)

Combat Technique: Iron Rose / 38 seconds

“Tch.”

When she noticed her aether points decreasing rapidly, Cere’zhula deactivated Iron Rose and sighed tiredly.

“To think Alia can actually use this thing...”

A year ago, her beloved apprentice Alia had paid her a visit and explained the principles behind the Iron Rose technique. She’d also mentioned that a dungeon spirit had given the move its name. Since it was a combat technique, anyone could use it as long as they met certain requirements. That was how Cere’zhula had gained the ability to activate it, though it had taken her time to get the gist of it.

But one of the requirements was to convert elemental mana within one’s body to pure non-elemental aether, and this step was particularly tricky. Even Cere’zhula, whose Level 5 Aether Manipulation allowed her to purify elements to an extent, found herself burning through her aether reserves at ten times Alia’s rate.

She couldn’t use the technique properly like this. Though she assumed the issue was that she couldn’t fully purify her aether, that was likely not the only factor. For one thing, Alia’s hair changed color upon activating the technique, while Cere’zhula’s did not. She had been writing down her observations and the results of her experiments for her reckless apprentice’s eventual perusal.

Cere’zhula had taught the spells she herself had devised to Alia, and now she was learning Alia’s own techniques as well. Shadow Magic spells such as Touch and Pain posed no risk to the user, but spells such as Shadow Storage, which used the shadows within the caster’s own body, were unprecedented and had a steep learning curve. Since it was unclear what effects they might have on the caster in the long term, Cere’zhula was also researching Shadow Storage using her own body.

“Someone’s coming,” she murmured, abruptly looking up from the notes she’d been taking on the living room table.

She used Darken to extinguish the light she’d ignited with Shine, then stood up, drawing a sickle from her Shadow Storage.

There was someone outside—but not a person. Sensing no hostility from that presence, she shouldered the sickle and strode toward the entrance, then forcefully pushed the door open.

“I didn’t know mythical beasts were so polite,” she said. “Are you alone?”

“...Yes...” the beast replied.

Sparks scattered from the tentacle-like whiskers extending from each of its ears, briefly illuminating its form. There, in the dark of night, stood a giant panther-like creature—a coeurl—with jet-black fur that seemed to melt into the shadows of the forest.

The beast, Nero, had fought beside Alia before. It had come here with her once, but Cere’zhula had been wary of Nero, and the coeurl, too, had kept its distance. So why was it here today? Mythical beasts didn’t exactly consort with lesser beings. Alia was the only one to whom this coeurl had opened its heart—she was also the one who had given Nero its name. Yet she was nowhere to be seen. Suspicious.

Still, something ominous gnawed at Cere’zhula, and she decided to speak to the beast while maintaining her distance.

“Well, how can I help you?” she asked. “Where’s my unsociable apprentice?”

Sparks flashed in the darkness to answer her questions.

“...Moon...”

“...Dark...”

“...Battle...”

“...Demon...”

“...Move...”

“Wait, wait, slow down,” Cere’zhula interjected, pressing her fingers between her eyebrows.

Coeurls emitted weak electrical signals from their tentacles that allowed them to both interfere with spells and convey their thoughts. But the creatures originally hailed from another world, and as such, their language was vastly different from that of any mortal race. Transmitted all at once like this, the coeurl’s message was incomprehensible word soup. Not only that, the sparks were giving her a headache.

To think Alia can actually talk to this thing...

When Alia and Nero had visited, the girl had translated all of the coeurl’s thoughts. It was difficult to communicate with the beast without Alia as an interpreter, but Cere’zhula could sense the urgency coming from the coeurl. With a sigh, she glared at the creature.

“All right, tell me everything. From the top.”

She listened to Nero’s obscure explanation until sunrise, by which point she finally understood what it was trying to say.

“So my unsociable apprentice fought vampire demons, but then she and the princess were whisked away by a teleportation spell?”

“...Yes...”

That was the gist of it. Nero hadn’t actually seen it happen but had detected a strange flow of aether. When it explained that to Cere’zhula, she’d managed—with great pains—to piece it all together.

“So Alia was caught in the spell, but you felt something go wrong with it. She can use spatial spells, so I figure she must’ve resisted the effect somewhat. And judging from what I’ve seen happen before, it’s very likely she ended up somewhere other than the destination point. So...the spell’s trajectory probably shifted away from the demonic nation to some extent.”

As a former soldier of the demon army, Cere’zhula had an educated guess as to what the demons had done. She recalled that the demonic nation’s treasury contained magical devices capable of teleportation. There were no Rank 6 shadow sorcery users capable of casting the spell themselves as far as she could recall, so she figured they’d likely made use of one such device.

Anyone using a device like that without expertise in spatial sorcery would struggle to visualize the destination point clearly, creating a high risk of misfires.

“So she either ended up somewhere in the desert or in Kal’Faan. And now that you’ve told me this, what do you want me to do, exactly?” Cere’zhula asked.

“...Ride...” Nero said as it turned its back and lowered its posture.

Cere’zhula was speechless. Mythical beasts never allowed anyone to ride on their backs. Acting as a mount was akin to submission, and such beings could not be made to submit. Nero had made an exception for Alia since it recognized her as an ally, which was outrageous enough. And now it was letting Cere’zhula ride on its back to go rescue Alia? It must’ve really wanted to improve the odds of finding her.

The two glared at each other in silence for a few moments.

Why would Nero go this far for Alia’s sake? But...on reflection, Cere’zhula realized she herself could never have explained in words why she would go to any length for Alia’s sake.

Her lips curved into a self-derisive smile. She was just as concerned about Alia, wasn’t she? Though she was sure Alia was capable of protecting the princess and returning home safely, she couldn’t help but worry about the girl like a mother worried for her daughter.

At that moment, something clicked between Cere’zhula and Nero. Their reasons were different, but their purpose was the same.

“Very well, then,” she said. “Let’s go.”

And thus did the dark elf and the mythical coeurl follow their hearts and head west.

***

“Still holding up okay, Elena?”

“Yes, I’m fine, Alia.”

Elena and I had taken turns napping until evening and begun moving once we’d judged that the temperature had dropped enough. Though her body had grown healthier thanks to the aethercrystal in her heart diminishing in size, her health points were still lower than an ordinary person’s.

Instead of taking our time preparing to cross the desert, we’d decided to aim for a settlement—making sure to skirt the ruins—while we still had health points and provisions to spare. Our first objective was the south side of Reisveil, where we presumed people would gather, since it was very likely that adventurers braved the ruins for monster drops and treasure. It was a gamble, but it was better than wandering around aimlessly.

According to the geographical information Elena remembered, the Empire of Kal’Faan was south of Reisveil, but it was a month’s journey away on foot. Traveling that far would be a reckless endeavor.

“Skreee!”

A beetle-type monster, about one meter long, attacked us. Elena used a water spell to stop it in its tracks, and I lunged at it; I thrust my knife into a gap in its shell and sliced off its head. Though it had been only Rank 2 or so, unfamiliar enemies were not to be underestimated.

Insect-type creatures could stay alive for some time even with their heads cut off, but it no longer posed us any threat in this state. Normally, I would’ve taken it apart to harvest its materials and aethercrystal, but for now, our sole priority was to keep moving forward.

Now that we had a goal, Elena seemed to have grown more proactive. She didn’t just hide behind me in combat anymore, and had begun actively asking me for instructions. I figured it was possible she was just trying to put on a brave face, though.

Had I been alone, I could’ve survived off monster carrion if I’d had to. But Elena wasn’t like me. She understood that too, and had been doing her best to survive.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Yes,” she replied, despite the traces of fatigue on her features.

Elena was strong, but...fragile. She’d hate being offered a helping hand as though she were weak or a burden. I knew that, but I nevertheless extended my palm to her as she walked behind me. She offered me a small smile and took it, and we began walking hand in hand beneath the cloudless, starry desert sky.

We moved at night and rested in the shade of rocks during the day, occasionally stopping to hunt monsters for meat. After four days of this, we finally spotted a small town from atop the rocky area we’d been traversing.

Two Boys

Near the Desert of Death and the Lost Mountains stood the Ancient Ruins of Reisveil. Half a day’s trip from there was a desert town, Cutlass, named after the curved sword favored by desert peoples. The settlement was a testament to the greed of its founders.

The neighboring Empire of Kal’Faan was a month’s journey away from Cutlass, but the town did not belong to that country—or any country at all. People of all races and walks of life mingled there: adventurers, tomb raiders, criminals, exiles. Though the majority of its inhabitants were of Krus origin, there were also canine and feline beastmen, dwarves, and even dark elves—though the latter were few in number.

Unsurprisingly, given that the town had been founded by adventurers and criminals and named after a weapon, it had no ruler and no soldiers to maintain public order. Life and death were individual responsibilities here. Membership in one of various powerful groups was the only way to secure protection for oneself, making this a place where strength was the key to survival.

“This is a lawless shithole, but it’s not all chaos,” said the proprietor of the first tavern we’d walked into after arriving in Cutlass. “Food is controlled by the Kiluri Merchant Company—the Krus are in charge of that. Dwarves are in charge of the Hogroth Merchant Company. That one deals in weapons and manages adventurers.” He looked unamused as he placed our meals on the counter before us. “They gave themselves fancy names, but they’re not proper merchants, mind you. Then we have the no-good beastmen in the Munza gang. Last, there’s the Reezan mafia, and they control gambling and red-light districts. Don’t mess with any of those four, basically.”

Since he was a resident of this place, we couldn’t fully trust everything he said, but he didn’t sound malicious either. At least he’d had enough of a conscience that when he’d seen a pair of unaccompanied Mercenian girls, he’d told us to leave town, knowing something terrible could happen to us.

He’d served us pale green fruit water and a type of flatbread made from corn flour, similar to what was called naan in that woman’s knowledge. The “fruit water” wasn’t actually water from a fruit; rather, it was made from the peeled and crushed leaves of thick, thorny desert plants. It was lightly bittersweet and apparently nutritious.

I tasted the grassy liquid and checked that the bread wasn’t poisoned before nodding to Elena, signaling it was safe for her to consume.

She took a sip of the fruit water, then asked the proprietor, “Which of those organizations do you belong to?”

“None of ’em,” he replied. “I’m more part of the ‘fifth faction,’ so to speak. Outcasts and poor folk too weak to make a place for themselves anywhere else. I barely manage to keep this place going, and it’s only standing because these people don’t want to lose one of their watering holes. Sad, eh? So...how’s the food? Awful, right?”

Elena, who was tearing the bread into small pieces to eat, gave him a small, ambiguous smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“I could get better food if I signed up with the Kiluri,” the owner continued. After I killed the patrons who’d harassed us, he’d been frightened, but now he seemed comfortable enough to teach us about this town. “But they charge a small fortune for that, and protection money on top of it. Fall behind on that kinda thing and they’ll bleed you dry and make you a slave. The dwarves are marginally better, but they have a nasty habit of crushing any powerful non-dwarves around here.”

The owner went on to explain that he’d once been an adventurer too, but since the Hogroth were in charge of the local Adventurers’ Guild, he’d attracted their attention and they’d smashed one of his legs. A fellow adventurer had cast Restore on him at the time, but the healing hadn’t been perfect, and the injury had effectively ended his adventuring career.

According to him, the patrons I’d killed were members of the Reezan mafia, the group that controlled the pleasure districts. But, since they were only grunts, the organization would probably not bother with retaliation.

A low-ranking adventurer came by to dispose of the corpses. He was holding his head, mumbling something about owing the Hogroth, so I paid him a few silver coins for the job and for some additional information.

This must’ve pleased the owner—or maybe he just had nothing better to do, as there were no other customers in the tavern now—and so he called out to us on our way out.

“You there, lass. I know you’re strong, but try to keep your head down. This kind of low-stakes conflict happens every day around here, but mess with any higher-ups and they won’t care that you’re just girls. They’ll make an example of you,” he warned.

We left the tavern and made our way toward the entrance to the town proper, following the owner’s directions.

“What do you think?” I asked Elena, who seemed pensive.

“Hmm. I don’t think he lied about anything, but I don’t think he told us everything either.”

Elena had been the one to handle negotiating with the adventurer who’d come to the tavern to collect the bodies. I could’ve done it myself, since I was somewhat familiar with the situation here, but I had a slight Claydale accent. It had been best to leave it to Elena, who’d had opportunities to interact with Kal’Faan natives before.

“He didn’t lie, but he omitted a good bit of information about the organizations,” she concluded. “It felt like there were things he couldn’t say for his own safety. Either way, we shouldn’t make any decisions based on just one individual’s words—we should gather more intel.”

“Got it.”

We were still outside the town’s walls, but as we kept walking, I noticed the significant number of people milling about. We were covered head-to-toe in hooded cloaks, so many curious eyes turned toward us, but no one approached.

Suspicious people were everywhere here. No decent person would come to a place like this, not even an adventurer or a drifter. Only criminals on the run or those with something to hide would end up here. Plus, Scan wasn’t usable on anyone concealing their entire body under a cloak. Perhaps for this reason, there were many people dressed similarly to us.

We followed the outer wall for a few hours and eventually reached one of the gates, which was guarded by crag dwarves clad in armor with a strange sheen to it. These were no ordinary guards—not like the ones in Claydale, where travelers could come and go freely. These were Rank 2 fighters, ready to fend off monster attacks. Since they were dwarves, they were probably with the Hogroth Merchant Company—this place’s answer to the Adventurer’s Guild.

Had I been alone, I could’ve snuck in by climbing over the wall, but...

“Alia,” said Elena. “Let’s take the direct approach. It’d be unwise to cause problems when we don’t know for certain what’s beyond here.”

“Got it.”

I followed Elena’s suggestion and stepped forward. Though she was responsible for negotiations, I figured that since these dwarves were adventurers, it was best for me to take point.

“Halt!” one of the crag dwarf guards commanded angrily. “Are you insiders or outsiders?!”

Insiders or outsiders? I wondered. So...residents or not, I supposed. The average person would’ve cowered at his imposing tone, but I was very familiar with the way crag dwarves spoke.

“We’re with a merchant caravan,” I said. “We had to step out for a bit.”

“You’re...just two girls?” the guard asked, seeming suspicious for a moment.

I deliberately kept my voice gentle as I extended my right hand to him. “I’m part of the caravan’s escort,” I said. “Apologies for the trouble. This is foreign coin, but it should buy you a few drinks.”

“Ah, thanks, missy.”

After counting the silver coins I’d given him, the crag dwarf grinned and told his companions to clear the way. Too little coin would’ve offended them, and too much would’ve been suspicious. For this many dwarves, just enough for booze was perfect.

As we stepped through the gates, we were met with a town completely unlike anything I’d seen in Claydale. The buildings were different, the people were different, there were no plants anywhere. Everything was built of stone, and fiber-woven awnings jutted out into the streets to block the sunlight.

Above all, what struck me was the strange hunger glittering in the eyes of the people here.

“Stay close,” I told Elena.

“I will.”

We had to find a relatively safe inn in this town. According to the owner of that tavern, safety here was best bought at an inn affiliated with one of the four factions. He’d told us that the Kiluri, the “company” that traded in food and daily necessities, would be amenable as long as we could pay. They owned several inns that visiting Kal’Faan merchants patronized.

Elena and I went inside one such inn. The middle-aged receptionist eyed us suspiciously, but when I handed her one small gold coin, her expression instantly shifted to a smile and she treated us as valued customers. Lodging for one night, meals not included, cost two silver per person—about the same as an upper-class inn in Claydale. The room, however, was closer to what a roadside inn might’ve offered for five small silver.

The small gold coin paid for two nights with meals for us both, and the remainder we gave to the receptionist as a “tip.” Though the woman’s silence had been expensive, Elena needed a safe place to sleep so she could recover her stamina.

After we went into the room and I confirmed everything was safe, Elena breathed a sigh of relief. She produced a small knife and handed it to me.

“Alia, is this worth any coin?” she asked.

It was the knife she kept on her person in case she needed to take her own life. Young noble ladies commonly carried such things, and since Elena was royalty, the hilt of her knife was embedded with gems that could be sold in a pinch. To my knowledge, a proper shop would’ve paid about five large gold for the entire thing.

I gently pushed the knife back to Elena. “We’re okay for now,” I said. “We’ll probably need money at some point, but until that happens, you should keep it.”

“I understand,” she replied, seemingly catching the implication.

Two drifter girls trying to fence such an expensive item would attract attention. We could only sell that knife if we were in a position where Elena’s identity didn’t need to be fully concealed. I could freely give my own name, which was an alias in the first place, but she couldn’t let anyone know hers.

Elena clutched the knife to her chest and nodded. “Let’s go over our next steps.”

Our ultimate goal was Elena’s safe return, but first, we had to inform Claydale that she was alive—within three months at most. We’d already discussed this during our journey to this town, but I figured that trying to borrow communication devices from the local “Adventurers’ Guild” was pointless. For one thing, governments across the continent strictly controlled such devices, so while there might be a few in the possession of guilds and high-ranking nobles, the possibility that a group of merchants had any was negligible. For another, if they somehow did but Elena’s identity leaked before we could return home, it was very possible she’d end up kidnapped as political leverage.

We also considered asking traveling merchants to allow us to accompany them to Kal’Faan, but with the empire being a month’s journey away, all merchants who came here had connections to either the Kiluri or the Hogroth. We would need connections of our own to convince them to take us along.

We agreed on the importance of trying to keep Elena’s identity hidden, ideally until we reached Kal’Faan. We deliberated how to make our way there without revealing who she was. One option was to present ourselves as adventurers and take on work as guards, but it was likely anyone traveling to the empire already had personal guards given the lengthy journey to and from there.

Another option was to go by ourselves, but the monthlong trip was a problem; no post towns along the way meant there was no place for Elena to rest, and her health points weren’t high enough to make the arduous journey through rocky terrain and desert. Even just these few days of travel had considerably reduced her health. She was putting on a brave face for me, but she wasn’t eating much, so I couldn’t push her too hard.

“You should rest for today. You haven’t been sleeping much,” I told her. “We can think about this tomorrow.”

“All right...”

Elena must’ve also been feeling her body’s limits. No sooner did I cast Cleanse on both her and the bed than she obediently sat down. Since I was her handmaid, I tried to help her change, but she firmly refused and said she would do it herself.

“Also, you should wear these,” I said. “They’re in my size, sorry. But they have defensive powers.”

“Th-These are yours?!”

I handed her some of the mithril-fiber undergarments Gelf had made for me. I had ten sets total, five in black and five in white, each consisting of thin tights with matching garter belts, panties, and bustiers; I gave Elena the white ones. She’d spread out the small silk undergarments, which tied at the sides, and then had frozen in place, her face bright red.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing! Um...”

Now that I thought about it, this style of underwear originated from Dandorl and was still only widespread among female adventurers and a handful of noblewomen. Elena was probably wearing bloomers, so I figured she’d probably need to get used to this more modern underwear.

She looked back and forth between the underwear and me several times, unsure of what to do. Her face was red all the way up to her ears.

Finally, she muttered quietly, looking down at the floor, “P-Please help me put these on.”

“Got it.”

***

The next morning, a waitress brought us a meal of potatoes and stew. After we ate, we made our way to the Hogroth Merchant Company, where adventurers congregated. According to the tavern’s owner, they were “marginally better” than the other groups, but we still couldn’t let our guard down.

Regardless, we needed them if we were to make money and, more importantly, establish a reputation as adventurers here. To buy safety, one needed money and power. But the Hogroth had a habit of beating down any non-dwarves who showed promise, so another option was to try and impress the equally powerful Kiluri Merchant Company.

By establishing ourselves as capable adventurers and earning a reputation with the Kiluri, we should be able to land jobs as guards that would take us to Kal’Faan. We figured the best way to achieve this was to make and sell medicine. We’d bribed the waitress at the inn, who’d told us that daily necessities were very expensive in Cutlass—it was difficult to gather materials in the desert, and the Kiluri brought potions, which were in high demand, from Kal’Faan. This made them prohibitively expensive for ordinary people.

But I had a knowledge advantage thanks to my mistress; Cere’zhula, a dark elf, had lived in this area in the past, and her almanac contained information on uncommon materials that could be found in this region and used to brew potions.

Of course, there were other dark elves in this town who could also craft these potions. But since some of the ingredients came from monsters, it was unlikely that the type of person who would hang around a place like this could procure these materials the same way my mistress had. I was certain she was a better alchemist than any of them.

Thus, our task was to earn money and obtain materials by taking on jobs as adventurers while trying not to stand out. We could brew high-grade potions using monster parts then make connections with the Kiluri to distribute them to adventurers. That way, we would become necessary to the town and they wouldn’t be able to hurt us.

Of course, the two other factions—a gang of criminals and a mafia—were a problem, but given the circumstances we couldn’t predict how they would react. We stood out enough as young Mercenian women, and there was always the risk of being targeted for that reason alone.

Worst-case scenario, I would crush anyone who touched a hair on Elena’s head.

“Um, Alia,” Elena said. “This doesn’t look like a typical place where adventurers would gather.”

“It really doesn’t,” I agreed. “First, we need to get some equipment for you.”

Though the Hogroth Merchant Company was in charge of the local Adventurers’ Guild, they were more of a trading operation; the guild and the Hogroth headquarters were basically one contiguous building. And since Hogroth handled all weapons, armor, and iron products in this town, these items were naturally sold at their headquarters.

The reason the dwarves of the company didn’t tolerate talented adventurers of other races was likely that such people would make monopolizing materials difficult. Still, even though these dwarves were very exclusionary, they seemed to operate from a business-is-business mentality, as the shop had quite a selection of armor for humans.

Back at the gate, the guards had been crag dwarves, known for their robustness. The ones milling about here in adventurer gear were mountain dwarves like Dalton, known more for their expert craftsmanship. An assortment of equipment was arranged in a space about as large as a ballroom, but a quick glance told me there was nothing here on the same level of quality as Galvus’s weapons or Gelf’s armor.

I assumed that the climate played a role in the selection as well. Heavy armor wasn’t ideal for a desert environment, and so most of what the shop had on offer was made of hard leather, likely produced from the hide of some sort of lizard. Other than that, they also sold defensive armaments with the same strange luster as the guards’ armor—likely crafted from insect carapaces. The insect-type monsters in this region grew larger than those found in dungeons.

Though that type of material was lighter than metal, it was still too heavy for Elena. I picked out leather armor with enough coverage to protect her vital points, as well as a pair of gloves and boots. Besides those, I got her a small dagger. All combined, the items cost four small gold coins.

Elena was reluctant to spend the coin due to our situation, but this was very much a necessary expense.

“How...do I look?” she asked, giving a happy twirl and a bashful smile as she showed off the ensemble. As the princess, she didn’t normally have the opportunity to wear such things.

Before I could answer, however, a voice came from nearby.

“Oh? A pair of Mercenian girls. How unusual.”

We turned around to see a Krus boy standing there, wearing a friendly smile. Behind him, a slender dark elf boy was silently staring at us with sharp eyes.

Elena hurriedly pulled up her cloak’s hood to hide her face.

Damn. I’d let my guard down and failed to notice the pair sooner. Both boys seemed to be about as old as we were, but Elena and I didn’t actually look our age, so I knew it was difficult to be sure from appearance alone—especially in the case of the long-lived dark elves.

I moved to shield Elena from the boys’ line of sight. The Krus boy noticed and gave the dark elf’s shoulder a light pat.

“Come now, Camille, don’t frighten the girls.”

The dark elf, Camille, turned on his heel without changing expression. The Krus boy shrugged theatrically, pointed, gave us a wave, and chased after his companion.

“Alia...” Elena said warily.

“It’s okay.”

They were a strange pair. Both were still young, but I could tell they were skilled. They’d been wearing cloaks that covered their bodies head to toe, so it was impossible to Scan them properly; likely, that was the reason they’d dressed as they had in the first place.

But, judging from their attitude, they didn’t seem the type to spread the word that there were two Mercenian girls in town. Elena seemed to concur as well, as her wariness wasn’t directed at them. Rather, I’d been sensing people watching us from the moment we’d set foot in this building. Though we couldn’t see the adjacent “Adventurers’ Guild” building from here, I knew there were likely people there trying to size us up.

From their perspective, we were probably quite the suspicious pair ourselves. It was hard to gauge what kind of reaction they would have, but that boy had probably been trying to warn us about the possibility that we would be targeted.

We had to connect with one of the four factions, but allying with a gang or a mafia was out of the question, so now what was left was to determine which of the two remaining groups—the Hogroth or the Kiluri—would be more advantageous to us.

First, we were going to see how the Hogroth Trading Company would treat newcomers like us, then decide how we felt about them.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“All right.”

As we left the building, I could sense several people tailing after us. We didn’t make it very far before they caught up to us.

“Hey, you two,” came a man’s voice. “You come all the way here and just walk right out without saying hi? Not very nice.”

Three men had followed us—two Krus and a dark elf. Based on this and the two boys from before, it seemed clear the people of this land didn’t shun dark elves as demons. The trio was equipped in light armor made of insect carapaces, with thin outer garments worn over it to protect against sunlight. Each of them had combat power exceeding 350, meaning they were about Rank 3 and intermediate-to-advanced in terms of skill.

“What do you want?” I asked.

One of them—a Krus man wielding a spear who stood between the other two—pointed out, “You sound young. We don’t get many newcomers around here besides merchant caravans, so word gets around. You caused trouble at a tavern, didn’t you? Sure, you might be able to take down a guy or two, but you’re still new here. Don’t act like you’re better than the rest of us.”

Back at the tavern, I’d killed grunts working with the Reezan mafia, which didn’t discriminate based on race. These guys were probably also with them, then.

“I hear strength is king around here,” I said.

The man barked out a laugh. “Ha! Exactly. You ask me, it serves those idiots right for being all talk. It’s exactly why here, power is in the hands of—”

“State your business already.”

The dark elf standing to the right of the man I’d just interrupted snarled in annoyance, and he reached for the twin blades at his waist. When he stepped closer, I could smell alcohol on his breath. “Do you know what happens to mouthy little girls around here?”

I ignored him and turned my gaze back to the Krus man at the center, who was flashing his white teeth in a grin. “Join the Reezan, girl,” he said. “Adventuring around these parts is for dwarves, and the Munza only take beastmen. Other races can’t make a living as adventurers here unless they join us. Besides, we control the pleasure districts. I’ll even train that little lady there myself.”

Elena gasped at the man’s words while the others laughed.

“I see,” I said.

In this town, the dwarves and beastmen tightly controlled matters related to violence. But that didn’t mean other races just took it lying down; the Reezan mafia was recruiting other races to try and break that pattern. In a way, this was a legitimate proposal. By working with them, one could make a living as an adventurer. And, for women, there were other paths available.

But we were never going to accept the offer in the first place.

“The answer is no.”

I activated Boost immediately, purifying my aether through my Level 5 Aether Manipulation. With my enhanced strength, I struck at the dark elf’s jaw with my palm, causing his head to tilt back. Before he could react, I grabbed his head and slammed it into the coarse stone floor.

That was just the kind of place this was. By threatening us and reaching for their weapons, they’d become our enemies. And even if they hadn’t resorted to violence, I would never let anyone even think of laying hands on Elena.

A squelching sound like a melon being smashed made the Krus man on the left snap out of his shock and reach for his scimitar. Before the blade ever cleared its sheath, I used my enhanced agility to fire a crossbow bolt from within Shadow Storage. It pierced through the man’s left eye into his brain.

“What?!” the man who had initially approached me shouted, having watched his Rank 3 companions be killed in an instant. He readied his spear. “You little bastard! We’re with the Reezan—”

“What are you doing?!” rang out a voice loud as a gong from behind the Krus man.

A one-eyed mountain dwarf emerged menacingly from the Hogroth building, his steps thudding on the sandstone. He had dark skin and a bone-white beard that reached down to his waist—I figured he had to be older than Galvus. The elderly dwarf was clad in magic iron chain mail and had a massive magic steel halberd over his shoulder.

“Jilgan,” the Krus man muttered, taking an unconscious step back.

So that was the dwarf’s name, then.

▼ Jilgan

Species: Mountain Dwarf♂ (Rank ?)

Aether Points: 220/220

Health Points: 438/454

Overall Combat Power: 1,413 (Uniquely Boosted: 1,707)

He’s strong... I thought, figuring he had to be either on the upper end of Rank 4, or perhaps lower Rank 5.

Jilgan glared at the corpses, then at me, then raised an eyebrow, then directed his one eye at the Krus man.

“What are you, Reezan grunts? Listen here, boy. If you’re an adventurer, I don’t care who you work for. But...”

“W-Wait, plea—”

The moment the man tried to back away, the dwarf’s halberd swung as lightly as a twig swaying in the wind. Its blade plunged into the man’s stomach, and his upper half went flying across the street.

“No one’s gonna lay hands on adventurers while I’m here!” the dwarf bellowed at the man’s lower half as it collapsed onto the floor. “Hey! Someone come clean up this mess!”

A group of young dwarves came rushing out to collect the corpses as passersby screamed at the sight.

Jilgan’s gaze slowly turned back to me. We glared at each other without a word, and only the fearful gasps of the cleanup crew could be heard as the surroundings fell into a tense silence.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Alia,” I replied curtly.

Jilgan’s lips curled into a smile and he turned his back as he shouldered the halberd once more.

“Strong ones are welcome here. But...”

He let his words hang in the air for a moment, and I could sense an intimidating—but not necessarily threatening—aura radiating from him.

“Don’t misunderstand what this was about,” he said finally.

***

Jilgan’s words had been a warning, but they—and his actions—had revealed much about how the Hogroth handled things. They didn’t trust non-dwarves, but as long as one knew one’s place, they wouldn’t go out of their way to be hostile. For now, understanding that was enough.

We walked around town, stocked up on blatantly overpriced food and supplemental equipment, then returned to the inn. The next morning, once I was sure Elena’s health points had recovered enough, we left town and made our way to the ruins while it was still dark out. The people in charge of the adventurers weren’t exactly friendly, but they weren’t unfriendly either, so the guards let us pass when I showed them my guild tag.

“How are you holding up, Elena?” I asked.

“I’m doing fine. Thank you for the concern, Alia.”

She looked pale. I knew it wasn’t just due to the desert climate or her physical condition; a significant part of it was all the violence and malice she’d been exposed to since our arrival. In this town, death was everywhere, and I would show no mercy to our enemies. But Elena wasn’t used to such things. While she was no stranger to killing, she’d never seen the ugliness of it all up close like this.

That was precisely why I’d taken her out of town.

“I’m okay,” she insisted, shaking her head as she looked at me. “I’m here because I want to be.”

“All right,” I murmured. I knew she was forcing herself to endure this, and if that was what she wanted, I would respect it.

She wasn’t just a fragile doll to be protected—she was a person acting of her own will.

We made the half-day journey to the ruins not to defeat monsters—though of course if any appeared we would kill them and harvest their parts—but to obtain precious materials exclusive to this region.

There was a rare and precious type of flower called deathroot that could be used to craft high-grade healing medicine. It could be found in the desert, but only in graveyards and the like, and even there it was unusual. According to my mistress, it could only bloom in arid climates and in the presence of miasma—though the reason it needed the latter was unclear.

Miasma was still not fully understood and there were various theories about its true nature. It materialized in places heavy with death and negative emotions, and acted as the source of power for undead monsters and fiends. Thus, since we needed a place rich in miasma to find deathroot, I figured Reisveil, with the many undead roaming about, was a safe bet.

It was dangerous, of course. Some monsters, like zombies and skeletons, were vulnerable to physical attacks and would be easy to handle. But incorporeal monsters like evil spirits would be difficult for most adventurers to even escape from, let alone fight.

But Elena and I were not like most adventurers. Weapons made of magic iron could damage evil spirits, even if they weren’t as effective as those made of mithril. Elemental spells were also effective, and the light sorcery spell Cleanse could even purify the miasma itself, blocking off the undead from their source of power.

“Alia, is this okay?” Elena asked me as she picked deathroot flowers, her expression serious.

“Yeah. We only use the petals, so you just need to cut off the flowers.”

“I understand.”

We’d left town early in the morning and arrived in the ruins in the evening. We’d taken light meals and naps, waited for the temperature to drop at night, then begun our foraging.

Ancient ruins like this were more dangerous the closer one got to their center. The outer perimeter was relatively safe—otherwise a town couldn’t have been built only a half day away. It would’ve been easier to find what we were looking for deeper in, where the miasma was thicker. But I could use my mana vision to spot pools of shadow-aspected mana, and by searching behind buildings, I could find deathroot with surprising ease, even in the outer areas.

This flower was also poisonous, and the toxin was tricky to deal with, so I would’ve preferred Elena not touch it—but she’d insisted. We weren’t both gathering; one of us always kept watch in case evil spirits appeared. Still, perhaps because of the many adventurers coming and going in this area, we hadn’t seen any undead monsters yet. Not even skeletons, let alone evil spirits. Perhaps the life force that humans possessed could also dispel miasma to some extent.

It was also likely that the main reason that we could find the flowers so easily wasn’t my mana vision, but rather the simple fact that not many people were gathering them in the first place.

Once we’d gathered a good number of petals, I put them into Shadow Storage. I noticed Elena staring at a nearby wall, a puzzled look on her face.

“Elena?” I called out.

“Oh, I just... I felt this before too,” she said, sounding a bit unsure. “Something like...vibrations, coming from the other side of the wall.”

“Vibrations?”

I approached the wall, but Detection wasn’t picking anything up, so I gingerly touched it with my fingers and focused on the other side. And, indeed, I felt faint vibrations. Maybe Elena had noticed because she’d been near the ground as she picked flowers? I put an ear to the ground to confirm and realized that the vibrations sounded like combat.

“There’s a fight happening,” I said, looking at her questioningly. “What should we do?”

It could be dangerous monsters, but it could also be that someone was under attack. If this was an adventurer who’d run afoul of peril, that was their own problem. My role was to protect Elena. But if this was someone truly in need of help, Elena would be loath to leave them to their fate. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least take a look.

“Let’s at least check,” she said. “It would be prudent to know what it is in case it happens again next time we’re here.”

“Got it.”

We left the ruined building and headed toward the road, where the vibrations were coming from. I couldn’t sense any monsters nearby—it felt unnatural. Though the moon was out, Elena didn’t have Night Vision, so I was careful not to get too far ahead of her. I slowly approached the road. On the far side, two humanoid figures were under attack by over ten beetle and caterpillar monsters.

Were these civilians or adventurers? I enhanced my mana vision with Boost, and for a moment, I could glimpse their faces. Familiar faces.

“What’s happening?” Elena asked as I returned to her.

“It’s those two boys,” I said. “The Krus and the dark elf.”

Elena’s expression shifted subtly.

Those two were probably adventurers. While they were surrounded by a significant number of monsters, the resolve to fight was part of being an adventurer. I would’ve helped any adventurers in danger within Claydale borders, but in a foreign land like this, I had no obligation to save them, especially when it would expose Elena to danger.

Elena, too, was likely unsure how much trust to place in the pair. They’d tried to warn us of danger earlier, but they were still residents of Cutlass, after all.

Since she didn’t seem able to come to a decision, I was about to abandon them to deal with their own problems when I caught sight of a cloud of sand approaching from the opposite side of the road.

“There’s something there,” I said.

“More monsters?” Elena asked.

Several giant beetles were barreling down the road, but they weren’t alone. The figure of a beastman was running in front of them. Not only that, but there was a faint scent on the wind—a scent I was familiar with.

“It smells like bug lure,” I said, frowning.

“Huh?”

I’d used that exact scent before, long ago, to lure insect-type monsters in a dungeon and trap a certain member of the Northern Border District branch of the Assassin’s Guild. Had that beastman set up a trap for these boys too? If this was a fight between enemies, it was none of my business. But if it was just a robbery or someone settling a grudge, that was different. Though I had no means of knowing either way.

“Elena?”

This was a lawless land where might made right and whatever faction held power decided what could and couldn’t happen. For that exact reason, we had to decide for ourselves what we wanted to do. But we had to settle on a single course of action, and so I wanted to leave it to the princess.

It took her only a moment to analyze the situation, our feelings, and everything else. She looked toward the approaching beetles and beastmen, and said, “Let’s wait.”

She had us stand on the side of the road and wait to see what the beastman would do. If these were decent people in an honest fight, they wouldn’t want to involve anyone else, and we would be able to see that much. Even just a glimpse of conscience would do. We just needed to see that, and we wouldn’t interfere.

But...

“Alia!”

The catfolk man spotted us and, without warning, threw a bag in our direction. That had to be a scented lure! Was he trying to eliminate witnesses?

He grinned and made for a nearby building, then began to climb.

At this sign of hostility, I threw my sickle pendulum at the airborne bag, hooked it, and spun it back toward the beastman.

“What?!” he yelled.

“Pain,” I chanted.

Stunned by the phantom pain, the beastman slipped from the wall he’d been climbing. The lure fell nearby, and the beetles rushed forth, engulfing the man. He sank into the swarm with cries of agony.

“Let’s help them, Alia,” Elena said.

“Got it. Can you cast it?” I asked.

“I can get it to go off, at least...”

“All right. I’ll go on ahead.”

I confirmed there were no monsters near Elena, then took off running to help the two boys. A guard normally shouldn’t leave her charge’s side, but I knew she had a plan to get us out of this situation.

The Krus and dark elf boys were under attack by over ten insect-type monsters. It looked like they were just barely managing; the dark elf seemed quite capable, but the Krus boy wasn’t as skilled and appeared injured. Since the dark elf had to protect his companion, he probably couldn’t afford to use major attacks like combat techniques, as those would leave him momentarily vulnerable.

Excited by the scented lure, the bugs wouldn’t flee, which only prolonged the stalemate. But I wasn’t going to interfere with that—instead, I headed straight for the root of the problem, focusing my mana vision as I ran. Mixed in with the presence of the boys and the insects was colored mana of a very specific shape.

I hooked my pendulum over the top of a ruined wall and ran up its surface, then leaped out and landed before the two catfolk beastmen hiding there, pulling back my pendulum in a wide arc.

“What the hell?!” the two yelped in unison.

They tried to ready their bows, but before they could, my sickle pendulum embedded itself into the carotid of one. The other stared at me in shock.

“H-Hey, girl, do you know who we—”

“I don’t care,” I interrupted.

But I could guess. Since they’d immediately tried to eliminate us as witnesses, and they were all beastmen, it stood to reason that they were part of the beastmen-only Munza gang. I didn’t know what the gang’s issue with the two boys was, but regardless, it had been important enough that they hadn’t wanted to leave witnesses.

Unfortunately for this guy, now that I’d killed two of their own, I couldn’t afford to leave him alive as a witness either.

“You brat!” he snapped as he drew a single-edged curved sword and swung it at me.

I ducked under the blade and lunged forward, crushing his throat with an elbow strike before wrapping an arm around his neck to snap it.

I’d avoided using a blade for a reason. The first man I’d killed had bled all over his belongings, but among the possessions of the man whose neck I’d snapped, I found an unopened bag containing a scented lure. My guess had been that if these men were serious enough to kill witnesses, they’d likely had spare lures.

I cut open the seal on the spare I’d found and tossed it into the distance. Several of the beetles that had been attacking the boys caught the scent and followed the lure, giving the pair some breathing room. But this was temporary—over time, the smell would disperse and more bugs would arrive, so we had to wrap things up quickly.

“High Cure!”

The healing spell surged forth from Elena, who had caught up by now, toward the Krus boy, whose eyes widened with surprise as his wounds rapidly mended themselves. A pair of beetles, enticed by the presence of new prey, turned toward Elena.

“Waterball!”

Elena’s second spell slowed the beetles down, spreading water everywhere. When the puddle reached her feet, she focused her aether further and slammed both palms into the mud.

“Dig Volt!”

The Level 3 composite water-and-wind spell Dig Volt whipped across the mud and struck the beetles, searing their nerves.

“Screeeeeeeeeeee!” they shrieked, trembling.

Insect-type monsters had little sensitivity to pain. They rarely fled from enemies smaller than themselves and would attack even when damaged. Elemental magic typically had little effect: Wind and water didn’t deal enough damage, fire and earth weren’t very effective unless enhanced, and even ice spells could only slow them down. They were very troublesome to deal with.

But lightning spells were different, as they were able to penetrate their hard carapaces and directly affect their nervous systems.

Since Elena had lost her affinity for the fire element, she’d been practicing lightning spells as an alternative form of offensive magic. Currently, she was only barely able to activate Dig Volt—it didn’t pack enough of a punch to defeat the beetles—but stunning them was enough for now.

I leaped down from the ruined rooftop, my cloak fluttering in the air like the wings of an eerie bird. Lunging at the paralyzed beetles, I took aim and thrust my black knife into the neck joint of one, then sliced its head off. The second soon met the same fate.

Decapitation didn’t instantly kill insects, but without their central nervous system, the beetles couldn’t attack and would eventually perish.

Farther ahead, the two boys were still fighting, but with the insects reduced in number and the Krus boy, now healed, able to protect himself, the dark elf could use his twin daggers to finish off the wounded ones. Finally, only a few insects remained, all close to death.

Without warning, the dark elf boy leaped out from among the bugs and lunged at me, his daggers whistling through the air like a gale.

Clang!

I intercepted the attack with my black dagger, and a shrill sound echoed through the air.

“What’s your angle, woman?” he asked.

“I should be asking you that,” I replied.

Shing!

We separated, striking out at the same time, and sparks flew from our blades once more. The dark elf kicked up sand and I flipped backward to create distance. Mid-movement, I drew a knife from my thigh and flung it, but the boy deflected it with his blades.

“Alia!”

“Camille!”

Ignoring Elena’s and the Krus boy’s shouts, Camille radiated malice toward me. In turn, I readied myself to fight to the death.

I focused Boost on my speed and leaped forward. His blades barely grazed me as I dodged his attempt to intercept without looking away. His eyes widened, and he dodged my leaping thrust by backing away. I followed up with several throwing knives. Off-balance, Camille unleashed a black chain from his sleeve to block the oncoming blades.

A thin magic iron weighted chain. The demoness I’d defeated in the mountain village had used something similar. If he had the String Manipulation skill, the power of his chain would exceed that of my pendulums.

He continued to swing his chain, crushing ground and rock as the tip rotated at high speeds. I predicted its trajectory, took out my weighted pendulum, and unleashed it to intercept the chain, producing an ear-piercing clang that echoed through the desert night.

Our similar weapons, the string and the chain, entangled in a breathtaking moment. Neither of us let go, pulling with our left arms as our aether surged and we readied our combat techniques—

“Stop this, Alia!”

“Stop right now!”

As the shouts echoed from nearby, our techniques misfired, and our blades stopped just shy of each other’s foreheads.

“Wait. Camille, wait!” the Krus boy shouted, stepping breathlessly between us.

He’d finished off all the remaining beetles, it seemed. I used String Manipulation to untangle my pendulum from the dark elf’s chain and backed away. Elena, looking quite stern, stepped up to stand beside me.

“What are you doing?” she asked the boys, her voice sharp with anger.

She must’ve been quite enraged, because her whole body was thrumming with aether as though she were about to cast a spell, and her golden hair was floating slightly, rippling through the air as if electrified.

Camille, wary of Elena, made as if to step forward, but the Krus boy raised a hand to stop him.

“I said wait, damn it,” the boy snapped. “You’re in the wrong here. They were helping us.”

“We were fine on our own,” Camille protested.

“Oh, for crying—” The Krus boy paused. “Whatever. Sorry about that, Mercenian ladies.”

Elena was startled at the realization that the hood hiding her face had slipped down. She reflexively reached for it but stopped and decided to confront him with her face bared, glaring.

She must’ve noticed it too—a sharp, appraising gaze from the Krus boy that had lasted just a moment.

“I’m terribly sorry for the mix-up,” the boy said. “Can we talk? What’s your name?”

“It’s rude to ask a woman for her name before offering your own,” Elena retorted.

“You’re right. I’m Ron.”

“I see. Call me Lena.”

Both names were clearly fake, but there was no point in using real names here. I was just an adventurer, so it wasn’t an issue—besides which I used a fake name in the first place—but Elena was a princess, so giving out her real name casually was a bad idea.

Ron didn’t seem to mind the fake introductions and bowed his head, his expression serious.

“Thank you for the assistance,” he said. “We had some...troublesome individuals after us.”

“Did you do something to earn their ire?” Elena asked, playing dumb about the Munza gang.

Ron gave a strained smile. “We may have crushed one of their businesses. But you two are probably safe now. Maybe? I believe that lady over there finished off the others.” His gaze turned to me, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re pretty strong, aren’t you? This is the first time I’ve seen a girl who can fight toe-to-toe with Camille.”

“Your friend is quite strong too,” Elena remarked.

Camille was, indeed, powerful. I couldn’t measure his combat power accurately due to his cloak, and neither could he measure mine, but I felt his abilities had to at least match if not surpass my own. Had our fight continued, I would have redoubled my efforts to win, but he probably felt the same. From our brief crossing of blades, I could tell he had a few aces up his sleeve too.

“Are there many fighters as skilled as you in town?” Elena asked.

“Hardly,” Ron replied. “If guys as strong as Camille were gallivanting around everywhere, I’d have long since quit town. But...if you’re asking that, you must be pretty new here, no?”

“Is that relevant?” Elena said coolly, deflecting the thinly veiled probe.

Ron shrugged and gave a small smile. “Not really. I just thought you seem like a proper young lady, and she looks like your guard...”

“Oh dear. So we look like you two, then?”

Elena and Ron exchanged cold smiles while Camille and I exchanged silent glares.

“Look, that’s enough.”

Surprisingly, it was Camille who broke the tense atmosphere. He placed a hand on Ron’s shoulder, and the Krus boy gave him a somewhat displeased look in turn. Camille then flicked something at me.

I caught the object in midair. When I opened my palm, I saw a large golden coin, but the currency was unfamiliar to me.

“It’s Kal’Faan gold,” Camille said. “I trust that won’t be a problem?”

“This seems like a lot,” I replied.

If this coin was similar in value to a large gold coin in Claydale, it would be quite the sum. It felt like too much for just coming to their rescue.

“It includes an apology for Ron’s rudeness,” Camille explained, seemingly having forgotten his own contributions.

“Excuse me?” Ron said, giving his companion a pitiful half-lidded look.

With the atmosphere having relaxed somewhat, Elena plucked the coin from my hand and flashed them a mischievous smile.

“For that much rudeness?” she said coyly, her expression serene. “I would say this doesn’t quite cover it.”

Ron smiled wryly at Elena and tossed a smaller gold coin my way. “Pricey, pricey. But compared to our lives, this is nothing. Well, then, we should go our separate ways. More bugs might show up.”

“Yes, let’s,” Elena agreed. “Would it be all right for us to act as strangers in town, by the way?”

“That would be ideal,” Ron said. We began to walk away, but he called out, “Say, allow me to give you one final piece of advice...”

We stopped.

“Don’t trust anyone in that town,” he said. “Don’t trust children. Don’t trust the elderly. Anyone smiling at you today could put a knife in you tomorrow. Of course...that includes us too.”

Girls

Two weeks had passed since the attack on Princess Elena Claydale and her sudden disappearance from the Royal Sorcerers’ Academy. To prevent the matter from becoming public, the kingdom had announced that the academy needed repairs and sent about seventy percent of its student body home for the foreseeable future. Among the thirty percent remaining on campus grounds were high-ranking nobles and their retinues as well as students who couldn’t leave easily because their families had no separate residences in the capital and their home territories were too distant.

The reason that the crown prince, Elvan, and other high-ranked nobles had stayed behind was to control the flow of information and to calm the confusion of the students who hadn’t been able to leave. Thanks to that, a semblance of tranquility had returned to the academy.

To help keep up appearances and reassure those who weren’t privy to what was happening, it was important to maintain the illusion of daily academy life through leisurely activities such as tea parties—after all, seeing a royal and a group of important nobles running about nervously would only have aroused suspicion.

At one such tea party, however, the atmosphere was far from reassuring. An eerie tension hung in the air among the attendees.

“Clara, I hear you treated Licia quite harshly. Why would you do such a thing?”

Hearing Prince Elvan refer to “Licia” by her nickname, Clara Dandorl—daughter of Margrave Dandorl and the prince’s fiancée—gave him a chilling, scornful smile.

“That’s a rather odd accusation, Prince El. I merely told the girl how a noblewoman ought to behave.”

Five students sat around a white marble table in the rose garden of the academy’s seventh building—the most recently built—which had executive offices for the exclusive use of high-ranking nobles. Elvan and Clara, the engaged couple, sat not side by side but across from each other. Beside Elvan sat Alicia Melsis, daughter of the middle-ranked Viscount Melsis. Flanking those two were not Mikhail and Rockwell—the crown prince’s close aides from margrave families—but Nathanital, the grandson of the current high priest, and Prince Amor, the king’s younger brother. Both had their glares fixed on Clara as though she were an enemy.

Standing at a distance from the table were each guest’s attendants and guards as well as a number of maids sent by the royal palace. Among the attendants stood the Krus steward Theo, anxiously watching the exchange. When his “lady” shot him a pleading gaze, he shook his head bitterly.

Alicia—who called herself Licia—lightly puffed her cheeks, annoyed at her steward’s attitude. A moment later her expression shifted to fear, and she brought her hand to rest over Elvan’s under the table.

Though the gesture was concealed, Clara glared darkly at Licia as though she’d sensed what was happening.

“You still don’t understand, I see,” she told Licia coolly.

“Lady Clara, I’m not that kind of...”

Licia trailed off and cast her eyes downward pitifully, calculating the ideal angle for all present to see.

Unable to meet his fiancée’s gaze, Elvan made a desperate attempt at changing the subject. “The tea’s gotten quite cold. I should like a fresh steeping,” he said, lifting Alicia’s now-cold teacup and turning to the maids. “Could someone please—”

White fingertips gripped the cup and pried it from his hands. The contents were unceremoniously dumped over Licia’s head. A pale figure seemed to manifest out of thin air at Elvan’s side.

“Oh my, what fun you’re all having,” she said nonchalantly. “I can’t believe I wasn’t invited.”

While everyone—including the tea-doused Licia—sat there stunned by the outrageous act, Karla gave them all a genuinely joyful smile that contrasted with the haggard look of her dark-rimmed eyes.

“What are you doing, Lady Karla?!” Amor snapped. He slammed both palms on the table with a loud bang as he stood up, glaring at the young woman.

Pouring tea over the head of a young lady seated next to the crown prince was facially inappropriate. It was only natural that such behavior would earn a reprimand from Prince Amor, the sole adult at the table. But instead of backing down, Karla smiled sarcastically.

“People really shouldn’t give unsolicited opinions,” she said.

“What?!”

Amor was struck speechless. He was a royal, after all, and never in his life had anyone spoken to him in such a way.

The others all sat in flabbergasted silence.

Karla smoothly moved over to Nathanital and stared down at the young man, who occupied one of the seats next to Elvan.

“Move,” she commanded, shoving Nathanital from his seat.

As realization began to hit the others, Prince Amor yelled, “You uncouth little—!”

“Oh my, Your Highness, I’m so glad to see you in great health,” Karla said, as though she’d only just registered his presence. Ignoring Nathanital, she continued, “Prince El. Lady Clara. How fare you today?”

Karla was the daughter of a count, and her position as the future second queen meant she enjoyed near royal status. That placed her below Prince Amor, and even after marriage, she would only be his equal. In practice, however, the moment she’d received a gift from the dungeon, Karla had become politically superior to the prince.

Even so, for the crown prince’s fiancée to behave in such a manner toward the king’s younger brother was undoubtedly disrespectful. However, Amor had watched her incinerate a Rank 6 minotaur destroyer—a terrifying feat even if the beast had already been weakened. He couldn’t help but feel intimidated and could only grit his teeth, unable to say anything more.

“W-Wait! Let’s not argue!” Elvan intervened. “And Licia, are you all right?” He placed his hand on Alicia’s shoulder and called out to the servants, “Someone, please see to her!”

Alicia’s young steward hurried over to help.

“What are you trying to do, Karla?” Elvan asked with uncharacteristic sharpness, glaring at Karla beside him.

Behind Elvan, the ignored Nathanital, now bereft of his seat, comforted Alicia and glowered at Karla as well, although he was clearly frightened.

Karla chuckled. “I heard you’d adopted a stray, so I came to observe. Ah, but it stinks, doesn’t it? I thought the tea’s aroma might help, but it seems I only managed to make the stench worse. Now it smells of wet dog instead. My apologies.”

The men’s eyes widened.

“Karla!” Elvan snapped. “How can you say such terrible things?!”

“Please wait, Prince El,” Licia said, clinging to Elvan’s side to stop him from rising from his seat. “I’m fine!”

“Licia...”

“Lady Karla is just in a bit of a bad mood, that’s all. She doesn’t like to see you, Prince Amor, and Nathanital being good to me...”

Pressing her small figure against him, Licia gently took Elvan’s hand and subtly guided it toward her.

“My, what an odd thing to say,” Karla said mockingly. “You make him sound like a pathetic fool of a man who, despite being engaged, is completely infatuated with a mutt.”

Clearly affected by Karla’s taunt, Elvan averted his gaze.

“I wasn’t trying to—” Licia began.

“My, how it yips,” Karla interjected. “Quite loud, wouldn’t you say, Lady Clara?”

Clara, who had been watching in silence, shot Karla a quick glare. Her expression then turned contemptuous as she looked over Licia and the men. “I tire of this. I shall take my leave.”

“Clara!” Elvan called out reflexively. He’d finally remembered that the reason he’d invited her here had been to question why she’d spoken so harshly to Licia.

Clara’s eyes turned somewhat sad, then hardened as she looked down coolly on the men. “Prince El, I maintain my stance. You may indulge in dalliances here and there as you please, but do at least choose someone with the bare minimum standards of decency. And...!”

She didn’t give Amor or Nathanital the chance to retort.

“Prince Amor? I thought you had come to the academy as a teacher. Yet all I see is favoritism toward a particular student. Pray enlighten me—what good is a royal who won’t fulfill his duties?”

Clara shifted her gaze from the speechless Amor to Nathanital.

“And you, Lord Nathanital? Are you not to eventually become a man of the cloth? What would the high priest think of your infatuation with this girl? In fact, why are you here? Where’s my brother? Where’s Mikhail Melrose? They are the ones who should be serving the next king.”

Amor and Nathanital could only grit their teeth. And Elvan, implicitly criticized for the absence of his two supposed closest aides and friends, twisted his lips with shame.

Clara had spoken true, but emotions cared little for truth. Amor and Nathanital, having seen their beloved Licia disparaged by the two other women, thought of them as the villains in a play. Their eyes were filled with hatred.

She only scoffed, then turned to leave. Seeing her slender back reminded Elvan of the girl who had been with him since childhood, and he looked like he was about to cry over their changed relationship.

“I think I’ll take my leave as well, then,” Karla said with a delighted smile. “Ah, my prince, what a lovely expression.”

Karla chuckled at Elvan’s obvious pain. She stood, then gently reached out to touch Elvan’s cheek, whispering in a singsong.

“Beautiful, beautiful prince. Fall deeper into the muck of corruption. Suffer more for me, won’t you? Writhe in the flames. Be the king I want you to be. And when your bones have cooked just right... I shall eat them.”

Feeling actual heat emanating from Karla’s fingertips, Elvan recoiled with a terrified yelp.

It was an unspeakable act, one meant to harm—it couldn’t be dismissed as mere jealousy. Still, the surrounding guards didn’t seem to understand what Karla had done, and any who did were so overwhelmed by the girl’s eerie presence that their bodies wouldn’t move.

Karla wanted to defile Elvan. She wanted to watch the innocent prince betray those he loved and who loved him. She wanted to see him sullied, wounded, sinking into self-hatred. It was one of her few pleasurable pastimes.

In the unsettling atmosphere, only Licia’s eyes, harboring a dark light, met Karla’s. Licia embodied a different type of shadow than Karla; she was a monster of desire, out to sully the prince in her own way.

A cloying, poisonous smile spread across Karla’s lips. She knew she couldn’t match the other girl, who seemed to shine like a blade in the darkness.

“Well, that was fun,” Karla said. “I’ll see you soon, Prince El.”

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the tea party as Karla left. Elvan hung his head, struck speechless by the two girls’ harsh words.

With both of the prince’s fiancées gone, Licia gently brought her fingers to Elvan’s reddened, burned cheek. “You’ve done no wrong, Prince El. You’re only human. It’s okay to need an escape in times of hardship. I’ll always be here for you when you’re in pain.”

“Licia...”

Amor and Nathanital sighed in admiration of the girl’s pure, luminous smile.

Under the table, Licia took the still-hesitant Elvan’s hand. When he reflexively tried to pull away, she pressed her small frame to his arm, holding it down. The moment his focus shifted to her, she leaned closer to whisper in his ear.

“I will heal you.”

***

“My lady, is it truly a good idea to—”

“It’s fine,” Clara snapped, interrupting her handmaiden.

She had used her gift of Foresight and calculated that remaining at the table would have been unwise. Had she stayed, her position would only have weakened further. Still, she’d had to say something or her heart might’ve burst.

That girl...the heroine was tricking Elvan. That was all. Clara had thought that if she could explain that her hypothesis had been derived from her gift, the gentle Elvan would turn to her once more. But with emotions growing heated, her attempt at persuasion hadn’t gone over well.

Clara didn’t wish to be queen. She only wanted her Elvan back. But to be united to him, she had to become queen. As long as she had Elvan’s heart, she could overlook any dalliance on his part, but if his heart chose another...Clara wasn’t sure that she could endure it.

Her aunt, the second queen, had suffered a similar betrayal and had been unable to overlook it—had even grown ill from the heartbreak. Clara was beginning to think that perhaps her in-game counterpart hadn’t been able to bear it either and had willingly taken on the role of villainess to distance herself from the prince and the heroine.

“What of the item I asked for?” Clara questioned.

“It’s ready. Will you truly use it?” asked Hilda, Clara’s handmaiden, worried for her mistress.

Clara had saved the lives of Hilda and other veterans of the Assassins’ Guild who had tangled with Cinders several years ago. She’d given them a place to belong. Though fully aware of Clara’s actions and weaknesses, Hilda had grown so devoted that she was now entirely willing to risk her life for her mistress. She was not only Clara’s poison taster but also her eyes and ears at the academy.

At Clara’s request, Hilda had procured a specially concocted illegal poison. The mixture had been devised by a former guild member—a demoness. Because human aethercrystals were a key ingredient, the demoness had destroyed the recipe and disposed of the poison to prevent abuse. But a shaman with the guild had successfully replicated the recipe and created a small amount of the toxin.

The shaman had gone up in flames with the rest of the guild. But Hilda knew that some of the guild’s poisons, sensitive to moisture, had been kept in a separate location—and when she’d checked that stash, she’d found the remaining vial of the powerful concoction.

“If it’ll help me put an end to all of this... I’ll use it,” Clara declared.

“As you wish, my lady.”

***

“What is it, Licia?”

“Sorry to pull you away from your duties, Nathanital. I really wanted to see you in private,” Licia said with a bashful smile.

The pair was in the academy’s chapel. Though it wasn’t quite as grand as the temple located in the royal capital, it was still moderately large, about the size of any chapel one might find in the countryside. It was managed by priests the church dispatched from the capital, but when it wasn’t in use, Nathanital could go inside on his authority as the high priest’s grandson.

Though the two were still students and only about thirteen years old, it was considered improper for a nobleman and lady to meet alone like this. But Licia’s steward, who would’ve otherwise admonished her, had excused himself to deliver a report to the Order of Shadows about the Clara and Karla situation from earlier.

“It’s okay. I wanted to see you too,” Nathanital said, looking completely besotted.

To him, Licia was special—something that the old Nathanital would have scoffed at. Before, he would’ve been wary of a girl like her, one rumored to be of common birth. However, a few months ago, something had happened that had challenged Nathanital’s values completely.

During the attempted kidnapping of Princess Elena by rogue elements within the Royal Guard, Nathanital—who had been inadvertently caught in the incident—had been saved by the princess’s personal guard. But in the process, the girl had stolen lives that had been created by the divine. Nathanital had tried to reprimand her, but she’d told him bluntly that it was none of his business and that he had no right to speak for the divine about the weight of taking a life.

He couldn’t accept those words. If he, a child of the divine and preacher of the heavens’ will, couldn’t speak for the divine, then what was left for him? Nevertheless, the girl’s words had wedged into his heart, and he’d found himself questioning everything he’d ever believed.

Licia had been the one to save him.

“You’re not wrong,” she’d told him. “Life is important. The words of the divine are important. Your words save many people, Nathanital. You’re not wrong at all.”

She had taken his hands in hers and smiled shyly.

“Relax. You’re free now. We can hold hands, okay?”

The warmth of her hands had buoyed his wavering heart. Nathanital had fallen in love for the first time with this girl who unconditionally validated everything about him. And now here they were, face-to-face in the quiet of the chapel.

“You see,” Licia began, “I want to save Lady Karla!”

“Huh?”

She explained that Karla had only done such outrageous things due to a lack of faith. For that reason, Licia wanted to reach out to a certain someone in the capital’s temple.

“I think Maiden Ursula could save Lady Karla’s heart.”

Nathanital thought about it in silence. He knew that name, of course.

Ursula had been abandoned on a temple’s doorstep. A devout follower of the Holy Church’s teachings, she’d awakened to an affinity for the light element and saved countless lives. The people revered her as a holy maiden.

But Nathanital also knew of Ursula’s dark side. She was the captain of the Holy Disciplinary Corps, a group that led sinful souls to the temple’s underground chambers to correct their spirits.

Though he wasn’t sure what happened there, his grandfather had told him that the Disciplinary Corps helped people awaken to the church’s teachings. Still, Nathanital wasn’t allowed anywhere near the underground, and so he couldn’t help but wonder what horrible things they did. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe his grandfather’s words, but...he wanted nothing to do with any of it.

How could Licia know about such confidential matters? Even within the church, only a select few were aware of this.

No, she must simply be worried about Karla...

Ursula was said to be as skilled as a Rank 4 adventurer. Surely she and her disciplinarians could educate even someone as terrifying as Karla—though it might mean that the young noblewoman would never return to the surface.

Remembering the way Karla had humiliated him at the tea party, Nathanital withheld the truth and nodded to Licia. Still, he felt as though he’d committed a grave sin. He dropped to his knees, praying for forgiveness.

Something soft enveloped his head.

“L-Licia?!” he cried out in confusion.

“It’s okay, Nathanital. You’ve done no wrong,” she assured him as she held his head close to her body. “Have more faith in yourself.”

He tried to pull away, but she only held on tighter, burying his face in her flat stomach. Gradually, her compassion wore down his defenses. As she gently stroked his head, he clung to her like a lifeline.

“I’ll comfort you, always.”

In the dimly lit chapel, silhouetted against a glowing holy symbol as she held Nathanital and ran her fingers through his hair in a motherly gesture, Licia smiled. Somewhere underneath that smile, something dark and twisted festered.

The Holy Maiden of Darkness

“We have located another sinner.”

In a room with plain but pristine white walls, a woman in her mid-twenties wearing simple priestly robes smiled gently, her smooth flaxen hair brushing her shoulders. She was beautiful in an understated way, and between her white outfit and soft aura, she exuded the purity one would expect of a holy maiden.

According to this continent’s lore, mythic heroes and holy maidens were chosen by spirits when evil threatened the land. One could not choose to become either thing, no matter how virtuous one might be.

But Ursula, who had been abandoned in front of a church as an infant and raised in the temple’s orphanage, had grown up a devout believer. She had joined the clergy due to her light-elemental affinity and performed countless miracles, saving many souls through divine mercy. The people believed her akin to a holy maiden and called her such.

“Today, we prepare,” she said. “Are you all ready?”

“Yes, Lady Ursula,” the four women in the room with her responded in unison, all smiling as they rose to their feet together.

They were young, ranging in age from their early teens to their early twenties, and belonged to what the church called the Holy Disciplinary Corps. They had all been saved by the church and gathered under Ursula, and now traveled with her to various places to aid the downtrodden.

“Before that, I would like to see how the children are doing,” Ursula said, smiling gently.

“Yes, my lady,” the women replied with joyous smiles of their own.

Ursula began walking, and the women, wearing similarly pure-white robes, trailed behind her. The group gracefully crossed the cathedral, attracting admiring gazes that bordered on fanaticism from the worshippers and young priests alike. A few of the priests, however, gave them tense glances—these were the ones who knew that their purity was but a mask.

When Ursula arrived at the orphanage within the temple, the young children, clad in unbleached tunics, all ran up to her, beaming.

“Lady Ursula!”

“Hello, everyone. Have you all been good?”

Here lived many unfortunate children who had lost their parents to accidents or illness. Thanks to the unconditional love from Ursula and the priests, these children, who had once cried themselves to sleep asking after their parents, could now smile innocently again.

Ursula gently patted the head of a child clinging to her robes, then picked up and soothed another.

“I’m going down,” she told her entourage. “Please take care of the others.”

She left the children with the disciplinarian maidens and proceeded alone toward the deeper part of the temple, where she unlocked an iron door guarded by priestly knights, then descended the stairs leading underground.

The stairs went so far down that as one approached the bottom, sounds from the surface could no longer be heard. The white plaster of the walls gradually grew tainted with dark smears, and from beyond came the sounds of banging and children’s sobs. Chains ending in shackles extended from the walls, and dark red stains clung to restraining platforms. Along the corridors were small iron-barred rooms fitted with rusty torture devices in which disciplinarian priests were forcing harsh training on young children.

All of the children gathered underground were those who had never known their parents’ faces. Here, they were drilled in Holy Church ideology and efficient ways to break the human body, taught that this was a just and fair practice. These children would become the next generation of disciplinarians, who would capture those that opposed the Holy Church’s teachings and “educate” the “sinners” by breaking them.

They believed that this was justice. Nevertheless, the whip had worn down their spirits. To offer them the sweet respite of compassion, Ursula embraced the children, smiling at them like a mother.

“My sweet, sweet sisters,” she cooed. “How many did you break today?”

***

“Vivi, are you really doing it alone?”

“Yes. I’ll kill our lady’s enemy.”

Vivi, Clara’s youngest handmaiden, had volunteered to assassinate Alicia Melsis in lieu of Hilda. She, too, had been a beneficiary of Clara’s mercy. Doris and Heidi had as well, when their families had fallen into poverty, but Hilda and Vivi, whose lives had been saved directly, had pledged their full loyalty to the noblewoman.

It was only because Clara had hired skilled physicians to treat Hilda’s and Vivi’s burns that the two women bore no scars. Unlike the older Hilda, Vivi wasn’t as skilled a handmaiden, and her wounds had taken longer to fully heal. Now that she was finally whole, Vivi was eager to finally be of use, hence the fact that she’d volunteered in place of Hilda, who was a less formidable combatant.

The plan was to poison Alicia, but since she was favored by Prince Elvan and Prince Amor, and likely had her own specialized guards, Hilda had to agree Vivi was more suited for the role.

“I’m going,” Vivi said.

Wrapped in black garb covering everything but her eyes, Vivi melted into the dark of night. In her hand was a vial of illegal poison devised by a demoness and perfected by a shaman. The powder could be administered via inhalation or dissolved and mixed into food. Most strong poisons were quite pungent and rapidly lost effectiveness when exposed to air, but this one had no smell or taste and was guaranteed to kill.

It did have one flaw, however—it could only kill people without aethercrystals in their bodies.

The main ingredients for the poison were human aethercrystals. It worked by reacting with the blood of the human target—it was important that the target be the same species as the source of the crystal—and generating irregularly shaped pseudo-aethercrystals in their heart. This eventually halted blood flow entirely, resulting in certain death.

Because it required a target with no crystals in the first place, using the technique on monsters was pointless, as monsters all possessed aethercrystals. The poison was also ineffective on nobles, who almost invariably used magic. But Alicia Melsis, previously a commoner, still couldn’t use magic. It would be certain to work on her. Besides, Alicia’s poison tasters were unlikely to lack aethercrystals themselves. Not only that, Vivi, like Hilda, had Poison Resistance. Despite not having a crystal of her own, she should be able to safely administer the poison without anyone noticing.

Avoiding the watchful gaze of the patrolling knights, Vivi crept toward the area where the middle-ranked students lived. Generally, students of middle rank and below were supposed to live communally, in dormitories. But, unlike the much more numerous low-ranking nobles, middle-ranked nobles could afford to rent what amounted to one of several small mansions arranged in rows.

After the disaster of having allowed demons to infiltrate the academy grounds, the administration had tightened security significantly. Though most of it was allocated to high-ranking nobles, infiltrating the mansion of a middle-ranked noble was still dangerous, even for a former assassin like Vivi with Level 2 Stealth.

The increased security made it impossible to administer the poison through indirect means, and moving in a group with Heidi and Doris would’ve been unwise, only increasing the likelihood of detection and capture. Thus, Vivi had come alone.

According to Clara’s intel, Alicia Melsis likely had an apprentice steward from the Order of Shadows as her personal guard—but any security had gaps that could be exploited. Sneaking into the estate proper or the kitchen was dangerous, but the laundry area was less so.

Freshly collected linens could be found in the communal building just beside it. The highest quality items would undoubtedly belong to noble students. Though other middle-ranked nobles besides Alicia remained, it would not be an issue were Vivi to accidentally poison someone else’s linens, as the others would all have aethercrystals.

She crept toward the communal building and moved to unlock the door. Knights and soldiers wouldn’t be able to sense her, blended into the dark like this, except perhaps during combat.

Or rather, they shouldn’t have been able to.

The moment Vivi sensed danger, she reflexively leaped away from the door just in time to avoid a knife. The blade embedded itself into the wood with a soft thunk.

A Krus boy seeped out of the darkness, his steps silent and smooth. He directed his cold gaze and the throwing knife in his hand at Vivi.

“Who are you?” he asked.

***

The soft sounds of a carriage traveling down the royal capital’s roads echoed through the night. It bore no noble crest, but anyone with connections to the court would have recognized it as belonging to Count Leicester, the chief court sorcerer.

Even this late at night, cheerful chatter and soft lights streamed from the capital’s taverns. But once the carriage crossed the main street into the noble district, lined with mansions, the darkness grew quiet and still. No one was in sight.

The black-lacquered carriage glided over the cobblestones and came to a halt behind a smaller temple adjacent to the Holy Church’s main cathedral, in an area surrounded by planted trees. From within the temple’s back entrance, two women emerged holding glowing staves.

For a moment, the coachman was enchanted by the sight of the modest maidens in their pure-white robes. Then he seemed to remember himself and hurriedly bowed his head before opening the carriage door. A girl with gently swaying jet-black hair and sickly pale skin quietly exited the vehicle.

“Welcome, Lady Karla,” one of the women said.

“Thank you for coming out to greet me,” Karla replied in an unexpectedly conventional manner.

Though her life force was so sparse as to seem ephemeral, Karla’s massive aether reserves were oppressive, giving her an intimidating aura. The two women gasped at her ghastly appearance but maintained their usual smiles.

“Please, this way,” one of them said. “We will take you to Lady Ursula.”

Several days ago, a secret correspondence from Ursula—extolled by the people as a holy maiden of the church—had arrived for Karla at the academy. The contents had been vague, with many coded words, but Karla had grasped the gist of it. Ursula had wanted to privately discuss the whereabouts of the princess and her guard as well as the successful infiltration of Claydale by demons.

Karla didn’t believe any of it.

While she had been the one to facilitate the demons’ entry into the country, all evidence and witnesses had already turned to ash. But the Holy Church’s information network spanned the entire kingdom, and it was possible they’d caught wind of Karla’s involvement. So, feeling like this could provide some entertainment, Karla had answered the summons and secretly come to the capital.

At the end of an empty, dimly lit corridor was a room for receiving dignitaries. Inside, a modest woman with flaxen hair smiled softly at Karla.

“Welcome, Lady Karla. Thank you for taking the time to come and meet me tonight,” the woman said.

“It’s no trouble at all, Lady Ursula,” Karla replied.

“This way, if you would.”

Ursula guided Karla to a sofa and sat across from her. The room was plain, its white walls undecorated, but the massive cut stones lining the floor were pristine and polished like mirrors. The soft seats were of the luxurious quality that high-ranking nobles favored.

Four priestesses were in the room as well, one in each corner, keeping silent vigil as Ursula made small talk with Karla over cups of fragrant tea the holy maiden had brewed herself.

After some time had passed in this manner, Ursula suddenly leaned forward with a melancholy look in her eyes. “Lady Karla, I must confess there are some within the church who claim you were the one to bring demons into our country.”

Karla gave a small smile and tilted her head. “Oh, that’s rather terrible of them. I may look like a grown woman, but that’s because of my aether, you see. Inside, I’m still but a girl, barely thirteen. Who might’ve said such awful things, I wonder?”

“Yes, yes, I understand completely. Between you and me, though, within the Holy Church there is a group that specializes in handling vengeful spirits.”

“Is there, now?”

Indeed, exorcising vengeful spirits could be seen as part of the duties of the clergy, whose job it was to save people. But these spirits were rare compared to other undead creatures. Undead monsters were created when miasma corrupted the aethercrystal in a corpse, and in places where mana density was high, this corruption merged with the deceased’s lingering thoughts to reanimate the body as a monster.

But spirits, lacking aethercrystals or physical vessels, didn’t spawn outside of monster-infested territories where humans didn’t go. Exceptions existed, but only in the presence of immense amounts of mana and miasma. This tended to require the presence of high-ranking undead.

So why would a department of the church specialize in such things?

“There must be a recently departed soul who harbored considerable resentment toward this world,” Ursula explained. “Though their remaining thoughts were incoherent and dreadfully mad, the spirit was shrieking hatefully about demons and a certain noble lady.”

Karla narrowed her eyes. “Oh? The ravings of spirits can hardly be called credible, don’t you think? Still... What an interesting intelligence department the Holy Church has.”

The maiden priestesses in the room grew tense at Karla’s words. Ursula lifted a hand to still them, then brought her teacup to her lips.

Karla, too, drank from her own steaming cup.

Speculating aloud, she surmised that this department specialized not in exorcising such spirits but in raising them through necromancy—the art of utilizing miasma to deliberately produce vengeful spirits and extract information from them. Necromancy was forbidden on this continent, and even possessing old research materials on the topic was considered a crime. Given that the Holy Church itself had forbidden it, for them to employ it seemed like a bad joke.

The fact Karla had managed to reach such a conclusion from so little information left Ursula astonished. It was all the convincing the holy maiden needed that this teenager had been the one to bring demons into the nation.

“The young master was right,” Ursula said sharply. “You truly are a blight upon this nation’s holy splendor.”

Ursula’s four cohorts slowly approached.

“He said we didn’t need to kill you. That it would suffice to educate you so you couldn’t return to the academy. But the divine has spoken. A new candidate for future queen must be chosen.”

It wasn’t the fact Nathanital was the high priest’s grandson that had made Ursula entertain the boy’s request for “education.” Any attempt to use the Disciplinary Corps for personal gain behind the high priest’s back would’ve normally resulted in Nathanital himself being mercilessly educated.

But Ursula had received a special mission from the church’s headquarters, located in the Theocratic State of Fandora. They wanted to have a maiden connected to the Holy Church among the three queens.

The high priest had been scheming for years to get a noblewoman connected to the church to become one of the crown prince’s fiancées, but Duke Hoodale had gathered allies and pulled strings, resulting in his daughter being chosen.

Still, that didn’t mean they were bereft of options. After hearing about Karla from Nathanital, Ursula had thought it would be a great opportunity to put the plan into action. Karla was known to wander and dive into dungeons solo, which undoubtedly caused consternation for the crown prince. Her disappearance would likely be a cause for relief, not concern. Besides, Count Leicester himself seemed to be struggling with his daughter. By making her vanish, they could curry favor with him.

Then, they could transfer Ursula’s title to an appropriately gullible noblewoman with an affinity for the light element and achieve their goal.

“Lady Karla,” Ursula said, slowly pushing herself to her feet. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes as she looked down at the pallid girl. “How do you like your tea?”

Karla remained motionless, holding her cup. The disciplinarians drew needle daggers as they surrounded her from all directions.

“Mmm... Sephriore blossom,” she said. “A nostalgic flavor.”

One of the women, sensing something, thrust out her dagger with alarming speed—all disciplinarian maidens were Rank 3 light sorceresses and fighters, after all. But before the blade could find its mark in Karla’s slender neck, the girl’s pale hands, now marred by thorny black patterns, grabbed the attacker’s arm.

Crimson flames roared forth from Karla’s palm. Half of the maiden’s body was incinerated in an instant, her face frozen in a voiceless scream.

Still holding the woman’s arm, amid the strange stench of burnt hair and flesh, Karla took another sip of the familiar poisonous tea. She’d often consumed it to build Poison Resistance for her dungeon ventures.

A blissful smile crossed her features.

“What a marvelous aroma.”

***

“I wonder if Vivi’s okay...” Clara murmured in the dark of her chambers.

Hilda, her handmaiden, watched painfully as Clara looked up at the night sky outside the window.

Vivi, Hilda, Doris, Heidi—saving these women had been a calculated move. Clara hadn’t cared about them personally; their backgrounds and circumstances had simply been a perfect fit for her motivations. Clara had failed to stop the emergence of the heroine of the otome game, who was a lady of House Melrose, and now could only operate from a defensive position. She’d begun building her own information network, independent of the Order of Shadows.

It was then that she’d found Hilda and Vivi. While she had sympathized with their circumstances, Clara had taken them under her wing as pawns. But...she’d gotten a little too attached to them.

This was due to the influence of Clara’s previous life. She couldn’t be completely ruthless and instead had gone soft. While she and the women had grown close, that meant Clara could no longer freely use them as disposable pawns. Because of Clara’s inadvertent weakness, these women were willing to lay down their lives for her—but this was a source of anxiety for Clara, who couldn’t stop them.

And that wasn’t the only thing making Clara afraid either. She feared the heroine might steal something precious from her. She feared the pink-haired girl and her cold gaze. Most of all, however, she feared herself.

She hadn’t thought that she, knowing the fate of the villainess in the story, would grow so obsessed with Elvan. Clara didn’t understand how it had come to this. She should have been working to avoid the villainess’s end, not stepping onto that path herself, yet here she was.

Clara didn’t think of this world as a game either. To her, it was a world that had perhaps inspired the otome game. This was exactly why she was so terrified. She was afraid to consider the possibility that she hadn’t reincarnated as Clara from the game but rather, that she was the real Clara, who had become the inspiration for the game character.

But Clara believed the future was not set in stone. In otome games, the player could choose to pursue a specific character and thus change the outcome of the plot, and she thought that she could likewise change her own path depending on her actions. Still, she couldn’t seem to prevent those dear to her from getting hurt.

She was truly afraid of her own foolish sins.

***

Meanwhile, Vivi had been ambushed while attempting to infiltrate the middle-ranked nobles’ dormitories. She felt cold sweat flow down her spine.

“Who are you?” the boy steward asked, glaring coldly at her.

Her mistress had told her about this Krus boy—Alicia Melsis’s steward, young but exceptional. House Melsis was a branch of the Melrose family, and Clara suspected that this boy was an apprentice guardian steward sent by House Melrose. Though Clara had said the boy couldn’t be much of a threat yet, Vivi could tell now that they were face-to-face that he was about as skilled as she was, roughly Rank 3.

That wasn’t anywhere near the skill level of Cinders, who had destroyed the Northern Border District’s branch of the Assassins’ Guild, or of the feared Witch of Thorns, whom none dared approach. Still, only about a hundred individuals in the kingdom were that skilled. Rank 3 represented professional-level ability in one’s field, and Vivi was stunned that a twelve-year-old-boy had already reached that.

And so, even after being discovered and addressed, she found herself unable to move, inadvertently yielding initiative to the boy.

I’m in trouble!

Sensing the boy’s intent to attack, Vivi finally turned to flee.

Many humans had high combat power, but only those with the resolve to kill and be killed could emit that kind of aura. This wasn’t just a guardian steward—Vivi suspected he was a battle steward with the Order of Shadows. The order was known and loathed in the underworld, and she was well aware of what its members could do.

Something flew past Vivi as she moved, wedging itself into the wall.

Slinging pellets?!

Some assassins used metal pellets in similar fashion. Though they were inferior to throwing knives and arrows in both range and power, in expert hands, these stones were lethal weapons and very difficult to avoid at close range.

“I won’t let you escape,” the boy said flatly as he flung throwing knives to cut off Vivi’s escape route.

A throwing specialist?

Figuring he had to be specialized in ranged combat, Vivi picked up a knife stuck in the ground and threw it back at the boy, then drew her own dagger and lunged into melee range.

Clang!

The boy deflected the knife with his bare hand. At the sight of this, Vivi froze, and the boy kicked out, grazing her mask.

“Ngh!”

She backed away from the sharp kick, and the back of the boy’s fist roared through the air as he leaped in with a sliding rotation. Vivi tried to block with her arm, but the impact was worse than she’d expected. She swung her dagger in an attempt to counter, and the boy simply ducked low to avoid it. Placing a palm on the ground for leverage, he kicked up at the small Vivi, sending her flying back.

“You’re making it worse for yourself by resisting,” the Krus steward—Theo—said as he rotated his legs and bounced back up into a fighting stance.

Young Theo, who had once taken his talents for granted and never trained seriously, had fallen in love with an older girl and wished to grow stronger so he could “take responsibility” for something he’d done. Dreaming of meeting the girl again, he’d trained endlessly, surpassed his peers significantly, and had just managed to reach Rank 3 before entering the Academy. He’d become better than the adult staff members. Under the right conditions, he could even go toe-to-toe with knights of the Royal Guard.

And then he’d heard that his first love, who had been missing, had resurfaced. Upon finally meeting her again, Theo had realized he was still arrogant when it came to his capabilities. The girl, only a year older than him, had reached Rank 4 all on her own—a level that most skilled practitioners couldn’t breach through talent alone.

Not only that, she’d grown into such a notorious presence that while her fame in the surface world was still low, in the underworld, everyone knew of her. She had even taken down a Rank 5 monster solo. This had made Theo realize he’d never catch up to her by trying to mimic her. He’d since switched tactics to focus on his own strengths.

With a loud metallic clang, Theo struck together the magic steel gauntlets fitted on his fists.

His new strategy was to focus on martial arts and concealed weapons that best utilized his Martial Mastery techniques. He kept weapons hidden in his sleeves, shoes, and other such places that were inconspicuous from the outside. His main weapon, the gauntlets—capable of intercepting enemy attacks—doubled as offense and defense.

Theo sighed inwardly at the intruder.

Alicia Melsis might have been the adopted daughter of a viscount, making her a middle-ranked noble, but she had relationships with Prince Amor and Crown Prince Elvan. She also displayed eccentric behavior completely unbefitting a noblewoman. Various noble houses despised her, and incidents like this, where spies tried to infiltrate her dormitory, had become increasingly common.

Theo could tell the intruder before him was likely female, but she was different from the ones he’d fended off before. She was desperate. He wasn’t sure why just yet, but he assumed her employer detested Alicia.

This is such a hassle...

He actually felt the same way. If he was being perfectly honest, Theo found Alicia’s behavior unpleasant. She’d already cozied up to the crown prince, the king’s brother, and the high priest’s grandson—and she kept trying to do the same with Theo. He’d already reported as much to Houses Melrose and Melsis, but since royalty was involved, resolving the matter wasn’t as simple as pulling Alicia from the Academy.

But while he sympathized with Alicia’s detractors, he was still committed to his task. If Theo was to become an official knight of the Order of Shadows, and if Alicia Melsis was under the protection of House Melrose, he couldn’t let a spy sneak past him and jeopardize his employers and their branch families.

The opponent was on the lower end of Rank 3, the same as himself. But she was a scout, and he was a combat specialist. As long as he kept his focus, he wouldn’t lose.

But for all his skill, he couldn’t prevent irregularities.

“Theooo! Where are yooou?” came a voice from Alicia’s dormitory.

“Y-Young Miss, please, stop this,” another voice pleaded.

Ignoring her servant, Alicia stuck her head out from the terrace window. Theo and Vivi were both momentarily shocked.

Since she’d been bullied by other girls in the past, Alicia refused to keep maids nearby unless it was absolutely necessary. The only servants she would invite into her room were male—since she could charm them into compliance—and they couldn’t physically restrain her, as touching her would be inappropriate.

Theo wanted to click his tongue but held back. In that brief moment, his attention turned to Alicia.

Vivi didn’t waste the opportunity.

She was so grateful to Clara that she would risk her life for her mistress. But she was a little different from Hilda and the others: Vivi craved approval. She’d joined the Assassins’ Guilds to follow in the footsteps of someone she admired. She hated Cinders not for destroying the guild but for killing people she relied on.

Vivi still adored even Tabatha, despite the fact that their former leader had betrayed, trapped, and tried to kill them.

Right now, it was Clara and Hilda whom Vivi was attached to. That was why she was more than glad to work for Clara and why she, fearing for Hilda’s life, had volunteered for the assassination mission.

She would kill Alicia Melsis here. Clara and Hilda would praise her for her success. And to that end, she leaped without a single thought spared for her own safety.

“Wait!” Theo shouted.

The pellet Theo unleashed pierced through Vivi’s shoulder as she ran, but she didn’t stop, instead tossing the small bottle in her hand toward the window.

Vivi, fighting for Clara and Hilda. Theo, protecting his target for House Melrose’s sake. With both their resolves in the balance, the scales tipped in Vivi’s favor.

The sound of shattering glass echoed through the night, but when Vivi fled and Theo made to pursue her, screams from the mansion halted his movements.

“Damn it!”

Theo hesitated for a moment, then dashed toward the direction of the screams.

***

“High Cure!”

In a room deep within the temple in the royal capital, Ursula’s spell visibly healed the burns of the disciplinarian maiden whose body had been half burned by Karla’s spell. As a “holy maiden,” Ursula could heal with remarkable speed.

But Karla was still gripping the maiden’s arm. Her smile widened as flames spouting anew from her palm again scorched the maiden’s recovering body.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”

Though the maiden’s emotions should have been completely dulled by her training, the torture of being burned and healed at the same time was so intense that she shrieked. Everyone else was stunned, unable to move as the hellish scene continued until, finally, the vigorous flames won out and turned the maiden’s body to charcoal.

“You! How did you survive the poison?!” Ursula demanded.

The Disciplinary Corps maidens were sweating, and not just from the heat filling the room.

Karla, who had leisurely drained the poisoned tea, brushed the soot off her hand, her smile unchanged.

Sephriore blossom extract was a muscle relaxant that could be used medicinally in small amounts. Too much of it, however, and it became a difficult poison for sorcerers to handle; it numbed the mouth, making it difficult to speak and chant. The existence of such dangers was exactly why Karla—who trained to fight alone—had willingly risked her life and taken a variety of poisons to build Poison Resistance.

But her tolerance to the toxin wasn’t the sole reason she could still cast.

“Restrain her!” Ursula commanded. “She can’t chant yet!”

The frozen disciplinarians finally began to move, their needle daggers at the ready.

But Karla, still seated, effortlessly mouthed words. “Did you not just see me use a spell without chanting?”

Chanting was a basic requirement for sorcery-based spells. Even magic-based spells—which required no incantation, as they relied on complete understanding of the spell’s structure—still required an invocation—the chanting of an activation word.

Ursula and the others had naturally assumed that they’d simply not heard Karla’s invocation. Even if basic sorcery could be cast using the same principles as magic, they had assumed that in a fight like this, under the effect of the poison, Karla shouldn’t have been able to accurately enunciate the invocation.

But they were wrong. Even monsters could activate non-elemental combat techniques by roaring, after all. All it took was to accurately visualize the meaning of the invocation.

Karla was indeed poisoned. Even with Poison Resistance, she couldn’t fully negate the toxin’s effects. However, she had practiced her spells hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. Through precise visualization, she could still activate them using the same principle that underlay combat techniques, even if the overall efficacy of the spell was somewhat reduced.

And even with her muscles relaxed, she could still manipulate her own body with Soul Thorn. This meant that she could silently chant the Cleanse spell and rid herself of the poison.

The maidens had attacked non-vital points, like Karla’s shoulders and arms. As powerful as Ursula’s Holy Disciplinary Corps was, its members didn’t have the authority to execute a noblewoman—especially one engaged to the crown prince. Their plan was to confine the troublesome Karla and “educate” her with drugs and spells, thus effectively banishing her and forcing her withdrawal from the position of royal fiancée.

But Karla Leicester wasn’t so ordinary that she could be stopped by such half-hearted measures. Black, thorny patterns writhed on her pale skin, manipulating her body to leap up and avoid the attacks.

Though the church was aware that Karla had obtained Soul Thorn—a gift from the dungeon that enhanced her sorcery—they hadn’t expected it to affect her physical abilities as well. Ursula and the others had known she was strong but still thought her to be an ordinary sorceress.

They watched in amazement as Karla practically flew around the room, dodging each strike, her arms spread like a bird’s wings.

Sensing massive aether gathering at the girl’s limbs, Ursula jumped back and commanded, “Get away from her!”

“Fireball.”

Explosive flames roared through the room, reducing the remaining three maidens to charcoal so fast they didn’t have the time to scream.

“What have you done?!” Ursula demanded angrily.

Using area-of-effect fire spells in enclosed spaces was madness.

In the blazing room, only Ursula remained standing, thanks to a combination of her quick retreat, mithril-fiber robes, and timely casting of the Level 4 Light Sorcery spell Blessing, which increased physical and sorcerous resistance.

Karla, who kept herself safe from the flames using only her own surging aether, emerged from the inferno and glanced for a moment at Ursula, the sole survivor. Then, she cast a puzzled look around the room. She asked, “All this racket and no one has come to intervene yet? Did you send all the others away?”

Aware of the possibility that Karla might put up a fight, Ursula had moved the priests who weren’t aware of the circumstances from the temple to the chapel dormitories. Only low-ranking priests and orphans had rooms within the building, so that hadn’t been particularly difficult.

Using her own aether to confirm there were no other human sources of aether in the temple itself, Karla sensed something deep underground and turned her gaze to the floor.

“Oh! Looks like there are still people below us,” she said.

“What are you?!” Ursula asked, wide-eyed.

Not waiting for an answer, she readied her concealed mace and closed in through the flames. With an explosive crack, the mace connected with the burning oak table and shattered it.

Karla, who had leaped back mockingly, lunged through the burning door toward the corridor.

“This way, perhaps?”

“Wait!”

Ursula gave chase, but each time she felt Karla was within reach, the girl managed to elude her. Her features slowly twisted with anxiety—a feeling that was completely new to her.

Though the priests and orphans had been sent away, the next generation of Disciplinary Corps members were still being educated underground. To the orphaned Ursula, everyone in the temple was family. This was especially true of the children underground—her beloved sisters, who would carry on her mission to correct the world with the Holy Church’s light when she was no more.

As she proceeded into the temple’s depths, Karla spotted an iron door—currently unguarded—and sensed faint aether beyond it. She pointed a finger toward it, gathering aether around the tip.

“Stoooooop!” Ursula cried out in anguish.

But her screams reached no willing ears.

“Levinstrike.”

Lightning whipped forth from Karla’s fingertip, and the massive bolt pierced straight through Ursula, who had tried to shield the door with her own body. When it struck the iron door, the now red-hot metal ignited the surrounding wood, sending massive pillars of white smoke billowing up.

Though her body and organs were completely scorched, Ursula still lived thanks to the increased sorcerous resistance afforded by Blessing. She crumpled to the floor, begging the heavens for answers.

“Why...?”

Why could such evil be allowed to exist in the face of the divine?

Why had faithful servants of the heavens, who’d done nothing but destroy the enemies of the Holy Church, met such a fate?

Ursula’s heart filled with hatred, for the evil in the world and the divinity that would allow it to exist. For the high priest’s grandson, who had sent this monster to her.

As she cursed the heavens and everything related to them for the first time, Ursula’s unrewarding life drew to a close.

***

Caught off guard and having watched a foreign object fly into the room with his charge, Theo rushed back to the mansion at full speed, threw open the door, and dashed up the stairs.

“My lady!” he called out.

Though he had Poison Resistance, he brought a cloth to his mouth, wary of the unknown substance.

He aimed at the room and chanted, “Blast!”

The Level 2 wind spell blew the poison out of the room through the open window.

Theo ran inside. He couldn’t smell anything, and his body showed no abnormalities, but two servants lay clutching their chests, their faces ashen. Beyond them crouched the young noblewoman.

“My la—”

His voice died mid-word.

“Ah ha... Ah ha ha ha!”

Licia was laughing maniacally while clutching her chest. Theo stood frozen, speechless, as she slowly stood up and turned to face him. Her whole body was wrapped in light-aspected aether, and though her mouth was red with blood and her face was terribly ashen, she continued to cackle, making the young steward take a step back.

“Look, Theo, look!” she exclaimed. “I can finally use light aether! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

Theo’s face paled and he gasped at the eerie sight.

This Alicia Melsis, unlike the one in the story, had been unable to learn Light Sorcery at all. That was why her conquest attempts had stagnated. But now, by a cruel joke of fate, when exposed to the poison that blocked blood flow through the heart by forcibly spawning aethercrystals there, she’d survived—thanks to a light-elemental aethercrystal born of her own twisted obsession.

Prince Amor could now recommend her as the next holy maiden of the church, and from then on, she would win the hearts of the crown prince and all the others, deepening the rift between Elvan and his fiancées even further.

And the academy, with the politically savvy princess and her exceptionally powerful guard gone, was headed further into chaos.

***

“Wh-What the...”

Late at night, at the deserted entrance to the temple, Nathanital shivered at the faint sounds coming from within the building.

He’d accepted a request from the girl he loved and petitioned the Holy Disciplinary Corps to educate Karla, but as time passed, he’d lost confidence in whether he’d done the right thing. No matter how terribly Karla had treated Licia, was personality correction something that humans, children of the divine, should do at all?

And besides, Karla was the crown prince’s fiancée. Would it have been best to get permission from his grandfather, the high priest? And if his grandfather disagreed with the idea, would Nathanital be held responsible? Ursula had also agreed, so he wasn’t fully at fault, right? Humans like Karla and Alia, who made light of life, couldn’t possibly be forgiven by the heavens. He wasn’t wrong...was he?

With such thoughts plaguing his mind, Nathanital had secretly come here, alone, to see what had happened and be sure that the matter wouldn’t be made public. But for some reason, not even the guards were at the entrance today. Anxious, he used the key his grandfather had entrusted to him to open the temple door and go inside.

He was greeted by the sight of a hazy white mist and the faint smell of something burning deeper within.

“Is that smoke? Has there been a fire?”

There were children in the temple orphanage too. Worried that they might be caught up in the blaze, with no adults around to alert, and above all unable to conjure up an excuse for his presence there even if he did alert someone, Nathanital decided to step into the depths himself, timid as he was.

“Oh, Lord Nathanital. Good evening.”

“Eek!”

Karla’s slender fingers reached out of the darkness and gripped Nathanital’s face. The boy tumbled to the ground, and she began to drag him along.

“Aaaaaaaaargh!”

Flames emerged from the hand on his face, making him shriek in agony as his skin was scorched.

At that moment, fresh air rushed in from the open entrance, and flames surged from the depths to meet it, licking through the interior of the building. Fire magic radiated from deeper inside the temple and blew away the great entrance doors.

Karla emerged from the flames, still gripping the screaming and writhing Nathanital. Several onlookers had rushed out of the surrounding houses to gawk at the blazing temple, and Karla smiled at them with genuine joy.

Thanks to the efforts of the surrounding residents and chapel priests who rushed over to use water sorcery, the late-night temple fire was extinguished.

Karla, Count Leicester’s daughter, was thought to have ignited the blaze. But after discussing matters with the royal family and Count Leicester, the Holy Church—fearing exposure of both their underground education facilities and the attempt on the life of a royal fiancée—ultimately decided to treat it as the work of an unknown arsonist and not pursue the matter any further.

But there were witnesses, even if they were few. They could not be kept quiet.

Noble houses, fearing the madness of a girl who was individually as strong as an entire noble family’s military force, expressed dissatisfaction and concern to the royal family. His Majesty the King assured them that Karla’s qualifications as the crown prince’s fiancée would be reassessed and the results would be divulged by the prince’s graduation day.

Thus, the incident reached a tentative conclusion.

Children of the Desert

“Where did you get these?”

That day, a man known as Jed the Pharmacist—one of the Kiluri executives—sat face-to-face with a pair of strange women.

Among the four factions that ran the desert town of Cutlass, the Kiluri controlled forty percent of all food, alcohol, and daily necessities. They had various departments, and the Pharmacy Department, led by Jed, had been making profits by buying up materials collected by the Hogroth members and processing them into medicine, which was then sold to adventurers and wealthy residents.

After one such deal, Jed had received an odd report: Unknown young women had come by to peddle potions.

Generally, the Pharmacy would buy raw materials, but not medicine. Sometimes, however, adventurers in dire straits would come by with homemade remedies to sell, and Jed’s people bought what appeared usable at ten to twenty percent of retail price. These weren’t offered to general customers—instead, they got hefty markups and were sold to poor residents of Cutlass.

But the young women had dropped off what appeared to be low-grade potions, completely free of charge.

Even lesser quality recovery potions could restore health points, close wounds, and completely heal shallow injuries in a few days. Not only that, they could also cure most illnesses when supplemented by just a few days of bed rest.

In a world where having greater aether made one less prone to illness and injury, recovery potions were the most common type of medicine. But even the lowest-grade ones cost one silver each, typically. Here, where they were luxury items, they cost three silver a bottle.

This was, first of all, due to the scarcity of materials. Countries and regions with abundant flora had no shortage of such items, but this was a monster-infested desert. What little existed was difficult to forage. Not only that, alchemists capable of brewing such potions were rare. It wasn’t because there were few alchemists in general but rather because most of them would rather work in safer regions with abundant resources.

There weren’t any specialized alchemists in Cutlass. The rare few who came here were second-rate or had skeletons in their closets, and even such inadequate individuals were fought over by each faction. They also worked arduous hours to meet demand, and of course, their products were far more expensive than what low-ranking adventurers and the impoverished could afford.

Therefore, most of what circulated in town were items the Kiluri had imported from places like the Kal’Faan empire, many of which deteriorated from exposure to the desert climate during the monthlong journey here. Yet these women’s potions showed no signs of deterioration at all.

“What merchant would reveal their suppliers?” asked one of the women sitting on the couch across from Jed.

Jed, being a fellow merchant, smacked his dark, balding forehead and laughed theatrically. “You’re not wrong...”

On the table between them were high-grade potions—with a recovery factor that rivaled Level 3 light sorcery. Even imported ones that had lost about thirty percent effectiveness from deterioration still fetched five small gold, several times the standard price, in Cutlass.

And these showed no signs of deterioration; it was as though they were freshly brewed. The women had proven the potions’ effectiveness by providing a sample to a servant who’d been nearly dead from severe sunburns. Low-grade potions with no signs of deterioration could be procured locally, but how had these two acquired fully effective high-grade potions in the desert, where materials should’ve been unavailable?

She’s so young.

Jed’s gaze narrowed slightly as he looked at the young negotiator: a pale-skinned Mercenian woman, a rarity in this town. While a scant few existed, one this young and beautiful was a hard find, even in the Reezan-run pleasure districts. She’d initially had her hood up but had lowered it when negotiations began, surprising Jed with blue eyes and light-golden hair fit for a noble. She was still a girl, looking to be about fifteen years of age, but he knew she might be younger still depending on her aether.

It was hard to believe someone like her, still ostensibly a child, was a high-level alchemist. And even if she were, without materials, how could she have crafted these potions?

There had to be some sort of secret to all this.

Had she used magic to import fresh materials? Was there a method to transport potions across the desert without impacting their effectiveness? Perhaps she’d used magic to protect the potions from deteriorating?

There had to be something he could steal.

An intimidating aura suddenly emanated from the girl’s companion, and Jed nearly choked. This other girl—probably a guard—was the only reason he was bothering to negotiate with someone so young in the first place. She was standing behind the blonde, with her hood pulled low over her face, consistently making the danger of her presence known while keeping an eye on the surroundings.

As a resident of Cutlass, Jed, too, had killed, stolen, stripped others of their dignity, and subjected people to horrors worse than death. He’d done so countless times. People here didn’t hesitate to kill. They knew that it was steal or be stolen from. They would even sell their own dignity to survive.

Yet, even to him, this guard seemed to be in a category all her own.

The moment he’d laid eyes upon these two, he could tell they would be trouble. He had guards, and even the children of this town knew that laying hands on a Kiluri manager would get you and all your loved ones murdered. Even still, Jed couldn’t help the feeling forming in the pit of his stomach—that these two would be the death of him.

“Now then, back to business,” he said at last. “If you can promise to deliver these regularly, I can pay you four small gold for each. Fair?”

“Mm, that’s fine,” the blonde replied. “I look forward to a long and mutually beneficial partnership.”

“Yes, of course...”

Jed paid them two large gold coins total for five high-grade potions. With that, the girls left.

He would’ve paid a traveling merchant no more than one small gold per potion, though a potion in good condition would sell for over one large gold. Four small gold was an exceptionally high price.

Still, it was a small price to pay for the profits these girls could bring him.

The room still smelled of sweet tea, generously brewed with sugar yet ultimately left untouched on the table. Paying it no mind, Jed gave an eerie smile.

“Don’t underestimate the Kiluri, little ones.”

***

“I’m not sure that was a success,” Elena muttered underneath her hood as we walked down the road.

Though Cutlass was hardly a safe place, the main streets weren’t particularly dangerous during the daytime. The food stalls selling simple meals and shops selling cloth and thread were important for the inhabitants’ daily necessities, after all. Most of the shops were under the jurisdiction of one of the four factions, and the shop owners looked haggard, no doubt in part due to the considerable protection fees. Not only that, the high prices kept most customers away. Many resorted to theft and robbery to survive, and I had to constantly glare daggers at people to keep them away from Elena and me.

“Maybe,” I said, nodding. “But we don’t have a lot of options.”

We were selling potions for coin, yes, but for connections as well. To leave this town and make the journey to Kal’Faan, we needed to join merchant caravans that knew the roads well. For that purpose, we needed trust and large sums of money.

I’d made high-grade potions from materials found in the desert using uncommon recipes my dark elf mistress had left me, so they had no degradation. By selling them, we could make ourselves important. That came with its own set of risks, but if we played our cards right, we could use it to our advantage.

Still, Elena’s doubts likely stemmed from the Kiluri man we’d traded with. He felt greedy—and not just as a merchant.

“Should we sell directly to the Hogroth?” Elena asked.

“The Kiluri supply the Adventurers’ Guild with potions. We’ll draw their ire if we sell our own potions in large quantities,” I replied.

“Then let us pray for now that the Kiluri don’t do anything foolish.” She paused, looking puzzled. “Alia? Is something the matter?”

“I smell death,” I said, my gaze fixed on a certain point.

Cutlass might have been dangerous, but it wasn’t as though corpses were left to rot on the main streets. Quite the contrary; because people here were used to death, they quickly disposed of bodies to prevent diseases from spreading. Yet here we were, on a main street that smelled like death.

But corpses weren’t the only thing that had that stench—in fact, fresh corpses didn’t smell like death at all. Humans who died of illness and such, meanwhile, often gave off a much more pungent odor.

“Look, Alia, over there.”

I used Boost to focus my eyes and looked over to where Elena was pointing: the corner of a dim alley, where a small figure lay collapsed.

“A child,” I said. “Still alive.”

Elena let out a soft gasp.

What to do? We didn’t have the luxury of getting involved. But to ignore a dying child would only wound Elena’s heart. For a brief moment, our gazes met, and I knew what to do. I headed toward the alley, and she hurried after me.

She tried to rush over to the injured, ragged child, and I grabbed her shoulder to stop her.

“But the child—”

“Don’t. They may be sick.”

The child was injured, yes, but the smell was the more significant warning sign. I didn’t want Elena to potentially be exposed to anything contagious. I took high-proof distilled alcohol out of the pouch at my waist, put a few drops on my palms to disinfect them, then approached the child.

A dark elf boy, it looked like. Now that I thought about it, I realize I hadn’t seen any small children since coming to this town. This one seemed to not even be ten years old yet, even taking into account an elf’s lifespan. As I looked over the boy, I realized he was indeed sick, but likely not from anything contagious. He seemed to have been bitten by local insect monsters.

Since the disease wasn’t airborne, the boy was safe to approach—though infection was still possible from prolonged contact with his blood.

“High Cure,” I chanted.

His visible wounds closed thanks to the Level 3 light spell. Elena would’ve likely prioritized potency over speed, unlike me, but this would suffice. Either way, any illness that couldn’t be cured through rest and recuperation couldn’t be cured with recovery magic either.

“Alia, this boy...”

“We need to move him somewhere clean,” I said. “Wash off the blood first.”

Though the boy’s illness was the result of insect bites, his wounds were not. Considering how advanced the disease was, it was likely that someone—family or a neighbor, perhaps—had been alarmed by his condition and, afraid of contracting whatever he had, had beaten him up and dumped him here.

But we could investigate later. I’d treated his wounds, but the disease needed separate intervention. Daily potions could keep him alive, but there was something else I wanted to try.

Thankfully, I’d stocked up on hemp cloth upon arriving here, so I used some to wrap his entire body and avoid touching his blood. Then I gently lifted him into my arms.

“Should we take him to the inn?” Elena asked.

“No, let’s go farther this way.”

We hadn’t seen any children around, so I assumed they could probably be found in the slums, away from the main streets. As we headed that way, a familiar figure came running toward us from the opposite end of the alley.

“What are you going to do to him?” the figure asked, breathless.

“How is that your business?”

The figure—Camille, the dark elf we’d met before—narrowed his eyes and drew his daggers.

“Hand him over...!”

That was interesting. He’d never shown us any emotion, never been interested in us at all, yet here he was, evidently irritated.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll cut you down!” he snapped, one of his daggers flying at me like an arrow.

Camille’s anger was such that the boy stirred slightly. At that moment, I moved away from Elena and ran up the alley wall with the boy still in my arms, clicked my heels against the sandstone, and kicked out to block Camille’s follow-up swing with the hidden blade in my boot.

A shrill metallic clash echoed in the air.

“You’re going to kill this boy, you know,” I said.

“Let go of him!” he demanded.

He was fast. At the mere implication that I was using the boy as a shield, Camille swung even faster. I used the blades on my heels to climb farther up the wall and dodge his attack, then, with quick flicks of my wrists, drew knives from within Shadow Storage and threw them at him.

“Tch!”

Camille dropped low to deflect the knives, likely realizing that physically pursuing me was futile. He really was powerful, though. I figured he surpassed me in raw stats. That wasn’t what got me about him, however—what was really threatening was...

“So the secret lies in those blades of yours.”

Camille’s eyes widened.

The discomfort I felt from him was small, almost insignificant, like the nagging feeling of having forgotten to cut one’s nails. He had weighted chains and, being a dark elf, could probably use sorcery too. But those were not options because of the child. Was he secretly soft under that prickly exterior? Most people would’ve wagered that. But someone as strong as him had to have more than one way to handle this situation.

For how threatening he was, he seemed to lack experience in true bloodshed. His secret, I noticed, lay in those crude daggers he wielded and the aether they were imbued with.

“Here,” I said, throwing the child in Camille’s direction as he began to climb up the wall.

He reflexively wrapped his arms around the boy and lost his footing.

I erased my presence, moved behind him, drew my knife, and raised it high—

“Stop this right now!” came Elena’s sharp command, just before my blade touched Camille’s neck.

I kicked off the wall immediately and landed next to her.

By then, Camille—holding the boy—had put some distance between us and was glaring at me.

Elena sighed but said nothing to me as she stepped forward. “The child is bloodied, but we’ve treated his wounds,” she told Camille. “We didn’t harm him. Quite the opposite. We couldn’t bear to leave him to die.”

Camille was silent for a moment, then gave the boy a suspicious look. After a few moments, he likely noticed that there were indeed no wounds underneath the blood and, realizing he’d misunderstood, grimaced and gritted out, “Sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Elena said. She looked at me. “Our actions certainly didn’t help the misunderstanding.”

I gave a small nod.

While I didn’t necessarily think Camille or his companion Ron were evil, I couldn’t say whether or not they were trustworthy either. Elena probably took Camille catching the boy as a sign that he could be trusted, at least to an extent...but doubtless she thought I could’ve been more conciliatory in my approach.

But we couldn’t afford to show weakness.

Neither Elena nor I liked acting in such a dishonorable manner, but she had a duty to return to the kingdom, and I had reasons to protect her. I’d thrown away my softness to shield her body and her spirit.

“Do you have a way to cure his illness?” I asked.

Camille stopped at a safe distance away from us, still holding the boy, and threw my words back at me. “How is that your business?”

“It’s not. I just happen to have the means to do it myself.”

He looked at me again.

I had no intention of making friends with him. If he could handle it himself, I wanted no further involvement with this. But the boy was innocent, and I still wanted to save his life—ideally while keeping everyone else at arm’s length. That was the most I was willing to concede.

Camille was a wary person by nature, so it would be difficult for him to trust me. Unsurprising, given how I’d just behaved. That was why I wanted to give him an out to avoid owing me anything as well.

“I’ll pay,” he said after a long pause.

“Works for me,” I replied.

***

On the rocky outskirts of the town stood a shack, so small it barely provided shade.

A catfolk girl, still in her mid-teens, emerged from the shack and called out, “Camille! How’s Neu?”

“Chaco,” Camille said. “Neu is hanging in there.”

Neu must have been the name of the dark elf boy. The girl, Chaco, was beastkin, so she was probably not related to any of them by blood. But from her relief at hearing that Neu was bloodied but uninjured, it was obvious she thought of him as family regardless.

“Um... Who are they?” she asked.

“These two healed Neu’s wounds,” Camille explained perfunctorily, clearly dissatisfied.

Despite the fact Elena and I were obviously suspicious and had our faces hidden under our hoods, Chaco hurriedly bowed to us. “Th-Thank you! But, I can’t really offer you anything...”

“He’s paying, so don’t worry,” I said, gesturing at Camille. “You do know this boy is sick, right?”

“Yes,” Chaco confirmed.

She told us that they were street urchins. That there were many others—abandoned by parents who could no longer provide for them, left behind by adults trying to escape from town, orphaned by mafia conflicts. These were just a few of the countless reasons a child might become homeless in Cutlass.

Even among urchins, the strong stole food and money from the weak, paving their road to adulthood with the corpses of others. So the weak banded together to survive, living on the edge of death in desolate rocky terrain to avoid having their meager belongings taken.

Ron and Camille had chanced upon the dark elf boy, Neu, and learned of his extreme poverty. They’d been offering him food and assistance in various ways since. Besides Neu and Chaco, two other children lived in this shack: a dogfolk child and a small, somewhat sturdy girl. A dwarf, perhaps?

But Camille couldn’t provide for every urchin. They were everywhere in this town, after all.

To survive, this small group had Chaco, the eldest, extract fiber from succulents in the area to craft footwear and sell it for a handful of coppers daily. Neu, for his part, had found work tending giant beetle larvae in town.

These larvae were nutritious and a precious food resource in this region. But since giant beetles were monsters, even their larvae could be dangerous. And since few were willing to take on such risky work, it was easy for an urchin like Neu to get a job caring for them. The result was as we’d seen: He’d gotten unlucky, been bitten by beetle larvae, and contracted some disease.

Neu had gradually grown weaker and come to the realization he was sick. When Chaco and the other children began to worry, he’d lied to them and gone to work. That had been two days ago. I speculated that after that, Neu’s employer realized he was sick and had him beaten and dumped in the alley. Most likely they knew that the children caring for the larvae could get sick and simply killed and disposed of those who had outlived their usefulness.

“Lena, could you fill that jar with water?” I asked, using Elena’s chosen nickname. “Chaco, I need cloth and fresh clothes for him.”

“Yes.”

“O-Okay!”

With that, I began ripping off Neu’s bloodied clothes. Camille approached, rattled, and I handed him the tatters and instructed him to burn them and bury the ashes in the desert. Though infection from contact with the clothes was unlikely, it was still better to take the precaution.

I wasn’t sure whether Cleanse could completely eliminate all risk of infection, so I doused Neu with the water Elena had created, used the rags Chaco brought to scrub off the blood, and, when Camille came back, sent him out again to burn the rags. I was about to use a spell I’d never used before, and if possible, it was best to not have any distractions around.

“Will it be okay?”

“I can do it,” I said. “Recover.”

Recover was a Level 4 light sorcery spell specifically for curing illness. Like Detoxify, it required knowledge of the cause of the disease to work.

My Light Magic skill had been at Level 3 until now. At Level 4, the spells Recover and Blessing became available. But between my aether reserves and my pink hair, which made me immune to disease, I’d never seen the point in bothering to train the skill further.

Now, however, I had a solid reason. And not just Neu’s illness—my coming battles would probably benefit from Level 4 Light Magic as well. Blessing increased physical and sorcery resistance, and I knew I would need it if I was to attain my goal of becoming the true Fiend, the war demon that my mistress had aimed, and ultimately failed, to become. Cere’zhula had sought to master Light and Shadow Magic both, and so would I.

This was just another opportunity for me to grow stronger.

“Did it work?” Camille asked, his expression conflicted.

“Yeah.”

Recover had done its job: Neu was cured. But focusing so hard on an unfamiliar spell had left me exhausted, and Elena and the others took over and sent me outside to rest.

Camille had likely looked conflicted because he was torn between annoyance that I’d driven him from the shack and assigned him menial chores and gratitude that I’d cured Neu’s illness.

I estimated only about ten people in Claydale had the skill necessary to cast Level 4 light spells. Archbishops of the Holy Church, perhaps. I’d also heard that in Cutlass there were two such individuals, one with the Hogroth and one with the Kiluri. Seeking treatment from them would likely have taken either of them at least ten large gold coins and appropriate connections.

Camille had offered me one large gold coin for the spell. I would’ve taken a small gold instead, but to avoid bruising his pride, I’d accepted his offer. Seeing him now, trying to show gratitude despite his ill temper and wariness, I realized he was unexpectedly principled.

“Thanks,” he mumbled earnestly. “You saved him.”

“It’s fine,” I said with a small wave of my hand.

Then I lowered my hood in the shade to dry my sweaty hair, and Camille’s narrow eyes widened.

Right. He’s never seen my hair before.

“Pink-gold hair...?” he muttered.

“Something wrong with it?” I asked.

“No... It’s unusual, that’s all.”

He averted his gaze and hesitated as though searching for words. Was something the matter? If he was going to act bothered by my appearance, I figured I might as well ask what I’d been wondering myself.

“Right. Just like adventurers with magic weapons and dark elves with light skin are unusual, that’s all.”

He stared intently into my eyes in a way that would’ve sent even wild beasts fleeing. After a long few moments of complete silence, he looked away and sighed heavily.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“You’re inexperienced.”

I didn’t clarify. Perhaps my words had done something, because he frowned again.

After another interval of silence, he quietly asked, “How old do I look?”

“If you’re a dark elf, I’d guess around thirty.”

Like me, he looked to be about the age of a young human adult. Dark elves were long-lived, however, hence my guess.

“I’m fifteen,” he said. “As you guessed, I’m part human. And aether-driven growth works the same for humans and dark elves.”

“I see...”

“The human woman who birthed me said her own mother had beautiful pink-gold hair.”

While hair colors that could be called pinkish existed, only direct descendants of the Melrose family line had true pink hair. Was his grandmother a Melrose noblewoman who had married out?

If so...perhaps we were relatives.

“I heard my dark elf father gave my human mother these magic daggers,” he explained, touching the blade’s hilt somewhat wistfully. “For protection.”

So it was special, then.

“Where’s your mother?” I asked.

“Killed,” he replied. “By my father’s other wife.”

“I see...”

This time, I sensed anger rather than sadness in his tone.

“What about your parents?” he asked.

“Gone,” I replied. “They died protecting me.”

“I see.”

Anger had seeped into my own tone. My anger, however, wasn’t directed at the monsters that had killed my parents—but rather at the otome game that had dictated my fate. What was Camille’s anger directed at, I wondered? Why was he helping street children? Why was he hostile to the Munza gang?

We never spoke of any of those things, instead sitting in silence until Elena and Chaco came to get us.

***

Two days later, Elena and I were once again heading to the children’s shack outside of town.

It was a bad idea for us to get too involved with them—that was best left to Camille and Ron—but Elena had grown fond of the children and was concerned about their nutritional needs. Succulents in this area were rich in nutrients, and they were enough to fend off starvation, but without meat and grains, one would still be prone to illness. It had been somewhat expensive, but we’d bought thin slices of meat to bring to them, apparently cut from some sort of sheeplike livestock rather than the bugs the poor had to make do with.

As we approached the rocky area, I sensed something.

“Alia!” Elena yelled as she saw Neu, who should have recovered completely by now, collapsed in front of the shack.

“Wait,” I said, holding out a hand and stepping forward to stop her.

The boy wasn’t dead, from what I could see. Aether still flowed through his body, so if he got immediate treatment, he could still be saved. It was urgent, to be sure, but we couldn’t approach.

Three beastmen emerged from inside the shack. Munza members?

“Finally,” said one of them, with fur like that of a black tiger. “You’re the alchemists who treated this runt, right?”

“Where’s Chaco?” I asked.

The two other beastmen each held one of the children, likely wanting to use them as hostages. The children had been frightened into complete silence. Behind me, Elena gasped at their state.

Why did they think we were alchemists? How had they found out about Neu’s illness?

“The girl? We took her back to our place,” the beastman replied. “Be good and do as we say, and we’ll be nice. We have lots of sick kids that could use your potions. That way we can sell them to the Reezan—along with your friend.”

He and his two cohorts laughed.

I looked at them, then the children, feeling something small ignite in my heart. Was this what they wanted?

“Now come with us,” he said. “Quietly—”

“Are you just going to cry?” I asked, loud and clear.

The beastman frowned, puzzled. “What the hell are you talking abo—”

“Are you just going to let them steal from you?” I interrupted.

The dwarven child lifted her head.

“Aren’t you angry?”

The beastman child gritted his teeth.

There it was. The anger.

“Enough! Shut up, woman!” the beastman snapped.

“You want to live? Fight.”

“Gah!”

He hadn’t noticed, had he? The children had stopped crying. They’d decided to fight to protect their family. People like these beastmen underestimated children far too much. Even children could kill, if only they could find their fangs.

The men recoiled in pain as the children bit their arms, and I took advantage of their distraction, pointing a finger at them.

“Pain.”

The two stiffened. “Ngh?!”

Moving smoothly, I thrust my black dagger into the forehead of one, then stabbed my black knife into the back of the other’s skull. I caught the two children before the men collapsed, then gently set them on the ground.

The black tiger beastman was still frozen in place, in shock from the instant kills. “Wha—”

He tried to ready a weapon, but I struck his right wrist with the side of my palm, shattering it, then kicked his right knee in with my heel, crushing the bones.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”

As he screamed and rolled in agony, I stepped on his face, using Intimidation and glaring icy daggers down at him to silence him.

“Now ‘be good’ and tell us where we’re going,” I said. “I’ll drag you there.”

Desert Rose

“Lena,” I said. “As a precaution, I want you to take the children and evacuate outside.”

“I will,” Elena replied, her expression serious. She knew what I’d meant by “outside.”

We’d set up a simple base outside of town in case of emergency and stashed some food there, enough to last them a few days.

Elena had healed the injured boy, Neu, with light magic. Now that our rooms at the inn were no longer safe, we were waiting here for him to wake up. When Neu came to and heard Chaco had been taken, he declared he would come along to rescue her.

“No need,” I said.

“B-But...” Neu stammered anxiously. As an older brother figure to the smaller children, he probably felt like he had to help their big sister figure.

He didn’t.

“Your duty is to protect those kids. Don’t throw your life away on the wrong task.”

Neu paused for a moment. He looked at the two smaller children, who were gripping his clothes and fighting back tears—though they’d resisted the kidnappers earlier, they were still anxious. Neu then nodded firmly. “Yeah.”

I watched Elena and Neu leave with the children, then turned toward the other remaining person. “Sorry for the wait.”

“You little...!”

Had he tried to escape? His position had shifted slightly. Even on the ground with his knee and wrist shattered, the striped beastman still growled menacingly when I approached and kicked at me with his good leg. I estimated his combat power to be on the lower end of Rank 3. While his will to fight despite his injuries was admirable, it couldn’t go unanswered.

I kicked his foot, then stomped down on his ankle, breaking it.

“Ngaaaaaaaaaaah!”

“Where did you take Chaco?” I asked, my tone flat but intimidating.

The man’s face contorted with something other than pain. “Y-You...”

“You came here for me, didn’t you? Who told you we’d cured that boy?”

“You’re gonna regret messing with the Munza in— Aaaargh!”

“I didn’t ask about that,” I said as I trampled his ankle, further crushing it.

Likely fearing retaliation from the Munza, the man refused to answer, so I drove my heel into his left knee too for good measure.

“Rrgh... Aaaaaaaargh!”

When he passed out from the intense pain, I just woke him up with more pain. The more fearful he grew of death, the less hostile he seemed.

“St-Stop... I... I don’t know... Our boss just...”

“Someone came here, didn’t they?”

When the only joint of his that remained intact—his left wrist—broke, so did his resolve.

Soon, I had the info I needed. While aware I couldn’t fully trust the striped man’s words, I grabbed him by the collar and began to drag him toward Cutlass anyway.

***

As I approached the town, two figures came running toward me. “Alia!”

Very few people here knew my name, and fewer still walked the road leading to the children’s shack.

“Camille, and...Ron?”

Camille’s hood was down, and though his companion’s wasn’t, the hooded figure had to be Ron. The two approached me, their eyes wide at the sight of the beastman with shattered joints.

“We heard the Munza were out to get Chaco and the others!”

“Is that guy...?”

The pair explained that Munza thugs had attacked them as well, but even defeated, one of the assailants had mockingly hinted at the attack on the kids.

“We saved the others, but they took Chaco,” I said.

“Then I’m going,” Camille said.

“Wait, Camille!” Ron called out. He grabbed his friend’s shoulder before the dark elf could rush out, then lowered his hood and fixed his serious gaze upon me. “Alia, right? Camille told me what you did. Thank you. But...why go to all that trouble for kids you don’t know?”

Ron’s doubts were reasonable. Even I had suspected there might be ulterior motives behind the assistance these two had freely offered the orphans.

“You’re one to talk,” I said.

“You’re right,” he conceded, bowing his head. “Sorry.”

There was no real answer to his question. I could dress it up with pretty words, but the truth was simple: I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen what I’d seen. That was all.

“Your companion, Lena. She’s with the children, right? That means they should be relatively safe for now. Listen, we have information. The Munza resent us for disrupting their business, but apparently, the Kiluri are in on it this time.”

“That makes sense. It’s probably related to Lena and me. They must think we used our potions to cure Neu.”

That Kiluri man, Jed—I’d thought him smarter than this, but if he was going to be this greedy instead of just taking the already sizable profits, he was no different from the other thugs in this town. Or perhaps it wasn’t necessarily blind greed but a mix of wanting profits and wanting to come out on top. He might’ve concluded his best move was to take everything for himself—also typical of a resident of this town. Those with power were often cautious, but some fools mistook organizational power for personal power.

It turned out our decision to stay away from the Kiluri-owned inn had been the right one.

“I’m going to go get Chaco back,” I said.

“All right. Then we—”

“No. There’s something I need you to do.”

***

Though Cutlass was more a giant slum than a town, it did have its own slums where the truly poor lived, which managed to be even more lawless and violent than the rest of the place.

“Ngh... Argh...” the striped beastman groaned, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Under the blazing sun, several sets of predatory eyes watched from the half-collapsed buildings of dirt and stone as I dragged the man down the center of the road. I didn’t have Intimidation active, but no one attacked. They probably recognized that I was dragging a Munza member and, seeing the state he was in, didn’t want to chance it.

Heat and hostility mingled in the air as I approached a large stone mansion—completely different from the surrounding buildings. Maybe this was the home of the Munza boss who controlled this area.

Originally, my plan had been to ambush them from the back and retrieve Chaco, but I’d decided on a deliberate frontal approach instead. Perhaps due to the harsh atmosphere, two beastman guards—one canine, one feline—pointed their spears at me.

“Who the hell are you?!” one asked.

“Don’t you know this is Batil’s mansion?” The feline guard paused when he noticed the man I was dragging. “Wait... Is that—”

The tiger beastman’s eyes lit up with hope, and he shouted, “This is the woman! Tell the boss!” He laughed. “You’re finished, girl! You have no idea how many of us—”

“Shut up.”

“Guh!”

I crushed the tiger man’s throat with my magic-steel-plated heel. I had no more use for him.

“Fucker!” the catfolk shouted, readying his spear.

He charged at me. I activated Boost, then threw the tiger beastman directly into the spear’s path.

“What?!” the guard yelled, stunned.

His spear pierced the striped man’s heart from behind. I grabbed the guard’s head and smashed it into the dry ground.

“W-We’re under attack!” desperately howled the other guard, who was only alive because he’d frozen.

Hurried footsteps, mixed with hostile intent, echoed from inside the mansion. Canine and feline beastmen holding spears and swords kicked down the doors and burst out, baring their fangs and growling at me as I stood beside the two corpses.

“What the hell are you doing?!” one asked.

“He said this is the woman we’re looking for!” the canine guard said.

“You think you can mess with us and get away with it?!”

“I’ll tear out your throat!”

Just as the snarling beastmen were about to attack, an intimidating voice shouted, “Stop!!!”

A male catfolk with dark fur like a panther’s emerged from the second-floor terrace, his arms around the shoulders of half-naked beastwomen. Courtesans, perhaps. He seemed to be in his mid-thirties, his build wiry and toned. His upper body was bare, showing off his muscular torso, and his silver eyes were glaring at me.

“Boss! This girl—”

“Quiet!” the half-naked catfolk said. “Huh. So you’re the woman we’re after. Guess you got the message if you made it this far.” He looked at the dead men and grinned.

Though I couldn’t tell for sure at this distance, I estimated he had around 1,200 combat power—the upper end of Rank 4. Since the others were calling him “boss,” this had to be Batil, one of the Munza gang’s higher-ups.

“Damn, it cost us two guys to lure you out here? You’re expensive, you know that? Hey, what happened to the two other guys who went out there?” he asked.

“I killed them,” I replied simply.

Batil raised one eyebrow slightly. “We’re gonna have to charge the Kiluri extra, then. You look skilled enough, but you care about what happens to that little girl, don’t you?”

“This man attacked us. I came to settle the score.”

“So you don’t care?”

“Doesn’t matter. If I lose, something happens to her anyway. If I win, that settles things.”

“Heh! You’re not wrong.”

Batil and I glared darkly at one another, and the temperature around us seemed to drop slightly.

After a while, he bared his fangs in a grin and called to his men. “You lot break her limbs and bring her here. Don’t kill her! She’s worth nothing to us dead. You women, bring me chairs and booze. Gonna need a private viewing area to watch the crazy bitch get her ass kicked.”

The courtesans left Batil’s side to fetch the items, and he turned his back on me to head to his “private viewing area.”

“Get her,” he said.

All of the beastmen, who at this point had surrounded me, roared in unison and charged. Their strikes were brutal—they seemed to have forgotten their orders to not kill me. Regardless, I dodged the attacks by leaning back. In the process, I spun my slashing pendulum to cut the ankles of three approaching beastmen, then stabbed my black dagger into the eye of the wolfman closest to me.

One.

“You little—”

I wrenched out the dagger and, while the second man’s vision was blocked by the spraying blood, slashed his throat with my knife. I spun, unleashing the all-purpose pendulum from the shadows of my cloak to gouge the throat of a canine beastman who’d stopped moving when his ankles were slashed.

Three.

“Raaah!”

A fourth beastman aimed at my neck with a long sword, while another thrust at my legs with a spear. I stepped onto the spear tip, which reached me first due to the range difference, then ran up its shaft to dodge the sword while simultaneously releasing my sickle pendulum to tear the swordsman’s neck.

Using the bladed tip of my boot, I kicked through another beastman’s jaw, then vaulted over him to unleash my weighted pendulum at a distant catfolk, crushing his skull.

Six.

“Hi-yah!”

I dodged the screaming guard’s axe swing by sliding, then leaped in close. My elbow caved his face in as I scooped up the still-moving axe with my ankle to launch it at Batil’s turned back.

The axe tore through the air, but just as it was about to find its mark, Batil grabbed a chair a courtesan had brought and used it to intercept the flying weapon.

“Tch...”

As I stood among the corpses of half of his men, dead in the few seconds since Batil had turned his back to me, the pantherman scowled angrily.

“So you can fight, girl,” he growled. “But now that you did that, I can’t let you live.”

“Are you coming down here?”

“Who said that?”

Batil loudly clapped his hands.

The hostility in the air thickened, as though people had been waiting for that signal. From every hut, every alley, every shadow along the roadside, they began to emerge. Beggars stood with blades in hand, well-fed middle-aged women readied kitchen knives, and teenage boys held rusty hatchets. All of them had malicious glints in their eyes as they smirked.

From what I could see, there were roughly two hundred people or more.

“Did you think people around here were ordinary? Families of our guys? Nah. We Munza are a pack, girl. Women, children, doesn’t matter. If they’re in our pack, they’re Munza.”

Same as beasts, then.

Sheer numbers could overwhelm anyone, even if all these people were Rank 1 with no combat skills. Nevertheless, I quietly readied my blade against the swarm of encroaching people while Batil took a seat in the new chair a courtesan had brought him and took a swig of booze straight from a bottle.

“Don’t think you can run, girl. And try to last until my drink’s done. Now go on. Fight. Show’s on!”

At Batil’s declaration, the crowd stepped forward as one.

A faint whistle echoed from the distance. Batil and other beastmen, who had good hearing, tilted their heads up.

My lips curled into a small, defiant smile.

I’d asked Ron to keep an eye on the Kiluri’s movements and asked Camille to rescue Chaco while I boldly approached from the front to buy time.

Now that I’d heard the signal, I knew Chaco was safe. But that wasn’t the only reason I was smiling.

If the Munza gang had only a few hundred members, like the Northern Border District branch of the Assassins’ Guild, I could’ve ended them by killing each of their top executives one by one. But against an organization of this scale, assassinations would only fan the flames and cause collateral damage to innocent children.

Instead, I had to show them it was pointless to challenge me, just like I had shown the other Assassins’ Guilds and the Thieves’ Guild. The only potential problem had been that once they realized I was a threat, they might have harmed Chaco.

But now there were no such shackles to bind me.

Common sense would dictate an individual couldn’t prevail against this many opponents. But the strength I sought lay beyond that challenge.

I discarded my bloodied cloak, releasing my peach-tinted hair, which glittered in the sunlight. The approaching attackers faltered slightly.

Batil was right. The show was on.

“I’ll build true strength,” I said.

What was strength? Powerful muscles? Abundant aether? High combat skill levels?

All of the above. Brute force could bypass any obstacle. That was how monsters operated. Between monsters of the same rank, the difference in physical ability was the difference in power. Dragons were the ultimate example of this—strong from the moment they were born.

I’d been weak. A powerless, aetherless child with no combat skills. To battle those with power, I’d had to grow strong of spirit. That was why I was always ready to fight to the death. Resolve to kill meant resolve to be killed. To take, so I didn’t get taken from. As someone born weak, I wasn’t afforded the luxury of mercy against those who opposed me.

Resist fate and fight. That was the path I’d chosen. Living meant fighting, and I’d forged my heart into a weapon.

But that strength had limits. There would come a day when I couldn’t defeat opponents through willpower alone. In my current state, I wasn’t sure I could beat Karla, who’d staked her life on the path of pure violence, whose search for power had driven her to madness.

The dungeon spirit had gifted me Iron Rose, and that had given me the decisive power I’d lacked. But that power was a weapon, nothing more. A weapon with a time limit—no different from a quiver with only a few arrows.

So what was the strength I sought?

That answer had been within me all along. Thanks to that woman’s knowledge, I knew focusing on any one type of power would’ve given me some degree of strength. But I had refused that, stubbornly pursuing the ideal strength.

My mistress had sought that same thing and failed. But because she had reached the same conclusion as I had, she could pass on to me the combat techniques necessary to manifest that power.

The power to become the one true Fiend.

***

The voices ceased.

A voice that had been mocking one girl as insignificant.

A voice that had boasted that she was no match for them.

A voice that had scorned this maiden who had opposed the pack of beastmen, boldly declaring, “One for all and all for one!”

A voice that had clamored to boil the skin from her bones and drain the blood from her veins.

They all ceased at the sight of the girl without her bloodied cloak. The over two hundred beastfolk had all stopped for a moment.

Her peach-tinted hair shone lustrous in the sun—the god of this land, reigning absolute, yet unable to burn her porcelain skin. Her jade-colored eyes didn’t waver in the slightest before their numbers.

She was beautiful. They had seen men and women with well-formed features such as hers before, of course. But despite her youthful appearance, she was fearless in the face of the oncoming bloodbath, not cowering, not angry, not hateful. She simply stood there, naturally still and graceful, like a rose blooming in the desert. That beauty had them subconsciously enchanted and terrified in equal measure.

From among the slowed pack, one boy stepped forward as though drawn by the rose’s fragrance. A wolf beastman with gray fur, with eyes only for the girl who had stolen his heart with one glance.

He could practically smell it—the sweet scent of her blood, turning his brain to mush. Despite his youth, the boy had already executed many for his pack. He could picture it perfectly: her soft flesh, yielding to the blade of his hatchet.

The boy readied his rusty weapon and charged ahead.

Whoosh.

His hatchet swung powerfully downward, but the girl merely pushed the flat of the blade aside as though it were nothing. The weapon struck air, and the boy staggered, unable to comprehend what had gone wrong. The girl reached for his elbow, and it snapped backward.

Another strike. A scream died in his crushed throat. The arm he extended, pleading for help, shattered. The girl’s pale arm wrapped around his neck, and it twisted in a full semicircle with a sickening crunch, displaying his terrified expression to his packmates.

What skill did this girl have to do such a thing?

How cold was she to do such a thing?

She’d brutally killed the boy without moving an inch, without so much as drawing a blade. Lightly, she pushed his corpse, and as it crumpled to the sandy ground, she quietly drew a black blade.

“Well, Munza pack? Anyone else with a death wish? Come get me.”

***

“Raaaaaaaaaah!”

At my provocation, several of the pack members couldn’t take it any longer and jumped forward, roaring. They were frightened, confused. The rage they used to mask it was meaningless.

I spun my slashing pendulum in a horizontal arc, gouging the eyes of the man pulling ahead of the rest. Blinded and in agony, he screamed, making several others around him flinch. I swung my dagger sideways, stabbing it under the jaw and into the brain of a woman who stood stunned nearby.

Then, I heightened my focus. With Level 4 Detection and honed combat instincts, I could read even the air currents as they brushed against my skin—and thus twisted to avoid a spear coming at me from behind. I grabbed the spear and yanked it toward me, then kicked the face of the catfolk wielding it with my iron-plated heel.

Using specialized footwork, I immediately closed the distance to a middle-aged canine beastman to slash his neck while swinging down my weighted pendulum at the skull of a portly middle-aged woman behind him. Both were dead within seconds, their blood turning the dry soil muddy.

Focusing Boost on my agility, I leaped into the pack, not waiting for them to attack. The swarm, panicked, parted.

That woman’s knowledge mentioned an old military tactic that revolved around brutally making an example of the first enemy to approach in order to instill fear in the others. My strategy was based on that.

If I got caught by that many people, regardless of their ranks, I would be torn apart in an instant. Pushing the instinctive fear of death deep into my heart, I braced my body to face the maelstrom of people, controlling my movements as though walking on a blade’s edge.

My slashing and weighted pendulums spun around me like a bloody barrier as I lunged into the pack, tearing the necks and crushing the skulls of those careless enough to come near. Any who avoided the pendulums met the wrong end of my black knife.

Pack hunting was a survival strategy used against stronger enemies, but fear had dulled their wills. Batil had said they were “one for all and all for one”—but how many individuals would he sacrifice “for all”? And were those who had joined his pack willing to lay down their lives for the group? The few who had been were already dead, having jumped out first.

But I couldn’t make them too afraid either. Excessive fear could drive one to throw caution to the wind out of desperation. No, I had to keep them minimally hopeful—that was the true source of fear.

Conscious of this, I leaped out of the swarm and into a nearby hut, kicking through a wooden window shutter. This wouldn’t have been an option while they had a hostage—trickery would only have prompted Batil to use Chaco as leverage.

But I was no longer shackled by such concerns.

If their survival strategy was to hunt in a pack, mine was to hunt the pack itself.

“G-Get her!” someone shouted.

Their numerical superiority trumped their fear of slaughter. To shatter that illusion, I unleashed my all-purpose pendulum into the forehead of a man trying to climb in through the broken window.

Fear rippled through the pack again as I cut the throats of those who had followed me into the darkness of the hut, killing them instantly. Before the others could surround the building, I leaped out another window and broke into the window of a different hut. A few relatively capable beastmen followed me, and I slashed their throats in the darkness too.

Catfolk had an advantage in the dark, and dogfolk had a sharp sense of smell. But they were still demi-humans, not wild beasts, and relied primarily on their vision. At a high enough rank, their sharpened senses would allow them to detect danger, but with low Aether Manipulation levels, they couldn’t instantly activate Night Vision. Lured from the bright daylight of the battlefield into the unlit indoors, they’d died in the darkness, unable to do anything.

I repeated the process until I lost count of how many I’d killed. Sensing the number of pursuers had decreased, I activated Boost at full capacity and leaped out at the over a hundred beastmen still remaining.

As if on cue, several attack spells danced through the air toward me.

Beastmen were ill-suited for elemental sorcery, instead priding themselves on their physiques, perfect for close combat. But, like Rahda, some of them were still quite skilled. Besides, even unbalanced, slow-to-activate spells could be lethal in some cases.

I had leaped into the air precisely to flush out the sorcerers. With my thoughts accelerated by Boost, I pinpointed their positions. They hadn’t done anything before due to the risk of friendly fire.

Twisting my body and kicking at the air to dodge, I cast a quick, low-power Shield spell to deflect incoming Fire Arrow and Stone Bullet spells. The beastmen grew agitated as they watched me evade what should’ve been a lethal barrage.

At that moment, I used the practical spell Gust to scatter powder into the air, drawing screams from the beastmen who made contact with it. It wasn’t poison but a regional pepper-like spice, finely ground. It was a staple in local cooking and easily purchased—a simple irritant that caused sneezing and tears but was extra effective against beastmen, whose vision and smell were stronger than those of other races.

I used the shawl around my neck to cover my mouth, closed my eyes, and leaped into the pack.

“Shadow.”

Several phantom shades, shaped like me, ran through the crowd of beastmen. Blinded and unable to smell, with many of their comrades dead, they had now crossed the threshold of desperation. Startled by the presence of what appeared to be enemies running past, they began fighting each other. I could’ve used the Level 4 spells Dread or Confusion, but Shadow consumed less aether.

Blood gushed everywhere as the beastman sliced with kitchen knives, hacked with hatchets, struck with clubs, and crushed with hammers. They collapsed one after another.

Gone was the unified pack.

I moved through the melee, sensing threats by presence and killing any who stood in my way as I eliminated the sorcerers one by one.

“B-Blast!” chanted a catfolk sorceress I’d failed to identify, her spell dispersing the spice powder.

At that moment, I lunged with enhanced agility and stabbed my dagger into her. My reflection was a blur in the frightened eyes of the surrounding beastmen.

Good for me. Not for a certain someone, though.

“Fang Brothers!!!” Batil roared from the terrace as he shot to his feet.

Hope mixed with profound dread flickered in the wounded beastmen for a moment.

I could practically see the hostile aura leaking from the depths of the mansion.

“Raaaaaaaaaaah!!!”

There was obvious delight in those deafening roars. The sounds of chains snapping followed, and I could sense a massive presence drawing nearer.

Four bearlike beastmen with bulging, abnormal muscles burst out of the mansion’s entrance and window into the harsh sunlight.

Batil’s expression was somewhere between hateful scowl and twisted smile.

“Now you’ve done it,” he said smugly. “Brothers! Tear her to pieces!”

The beastmen—the Fang Brothers, he’d called them—roared joyfully at the scent of blood.

I see. That’s where Batil’s confidence comes from. He had these cards up his sleeve.

These men looked like bears, but that was because of their enlarged muscles. They were catfolk, and I wagered they’d been artificially enhanced and driven mad by drugs, like Gord of the Assassins’ Guild.

The four of them had around 1,000 combat power each, and I suspected that was the result of forcibly raising Martial Mastery and Brawling Mastery to Level 4.

“Kill her!!!” Batil commanded.

“Graaaaaaaaaah!!!”

The Fang Brothers shot forward, claws and teeth bared.

Keeping my cool, I closed my eyes and pointed a fingertip at them.

The strength my mistress and I sought was simple: We wanted to raise all of our powers equally. That was all. But in a world like this, where life was cheap, focusing on specific powers to grow strong quickly made sense. So people focused on sorcery only. Or melee weapons. Ranged ones. Stealth. Anything could be honed into a weapon—which was why people spared no effort to cultivate their strengths and build advantages around them for unparalleled displays of power.

Even the Adventurers’ and Assassins’ Guilds considered focusing on one power the optimal strategy. Those who tried to diversify were called fickle, scorned as unwilling to commit. And true, collecting low-level skills was akin to collecting cheap weapons. It didn’t make one stronger.

What did was using that arsenal to duel much stronger opponents.

But wars were different. My mistress had been thrust into all manner of battles, fighting multiple opponents at once. She’d sought stable, genuine strength. The power to eliminate enemies, the agility to parry attacks, the sorcery to increase her offensive and defensive capabilities. By practicing sorcery, one could achieve high amounts of aether and improve one’s capacity for sustained combat. Detection and Stealth improved survival rates. But Cere’zhula, with her heart compressed by four elemental aethercrystals, couldn’t master close combat.

I was different. I’d carefully selected my skills from the beginning and trained them equally, each skill improving the next. To handle that range of powers, my mistress and I both saw Aether Manipulation as the most important skill of all. It was only through aether that every other skill manifested. Combat techniques became stronger and Boost more precise. The effects on sorcery were self-explanatory, but even Detection and Stealth were greatly affected.

That was why Aether Manipulation was my only Level 5 skill. Thanks to that, I could focus Boost on my strength or agility, and my Martial Mastery and Non-Elemental Magic were at the peak of Level 4.

I was fortunate to have been granted another opportunity to foster that power.

And now, I would obtain true strength.

“Pain.”

My Level 5 Aether Manipulation made it possible for me to use that spell on multiple targets.

All four of the Fang Brothers froze in place for a moment. Just enough for my mana vision to confirm their Boosts had deactivated, lowering their defenses.

“Iron Rose.”

Void and matter. Darkness and light. Two opposing forces working in harmony.

That was the power my master sought, the power gained by raising everything equally. I wasn’t yet at that stage, but through Iron Rose, which doubled my physical ability...I would show them what that looked like, even if for just a moment.

Particles of light, imbued with Iron Rose’s power, concealed my four pendulums and enhanced them beyond what the Fang Brothers could perceive. A moment later, each blade found its mark—one Brother’s brain was pierced, the second’s throat torn, the third’s medulla slashed, and the fourth’s skull crushed.

With my thoughts accelerated, blood splattered around me in slow motion as the Fang Brothers dropped onto the dry soil before they knew what had killed them. The battlefield was silent, as though time had come to a halt.

Faint sounds of retreating footsteps began to arise as the remaining hundred-plus beastmen turned tail with terrified expressions.

“Eeeeek!”

“What happened to the Fang Brothers?!”

“This girl is an abomination!”

“Move! Out of the way!”

In their desperation to flee, they dropped their weapons, shoved aside their fellows, and clambered over one another. So much for being a pack.

I dropped Iron Rose and exhaled, mental and physical fatigue hitting me all at once. I shook the sweat from my hair as it returned to its usual color, then pointed my black knife at the remaining foe.

“Done with your tricks, Batil?” I taunted.

Batil trembled with barely suppressed anger and grabbed a pair of hand axes, eyes gleaming with pure hatred as he leaned out over the terrace railing.

“You little shit,” he hissed. “I’ll tear out your damned guts!!!”

***

What the hell is with this girl...? Batil wondered.

Who was this human woman, pointing a blade at him?

It had all begun with a request from one of the Kiluri executives.

The four factions that ruled Cutlass kept one another in check but weren’t hostile toward one another. They’d divided the territory according to their specialties. Living here required some compromise, besides which they couldn’t afford to show weakness before the Kal’Faan Empire or the Demonic Nation of Dais, both of which saw the town as a potential military base.

Cutlass belonged to the children of the desert. They refused to cede an inch of it to any outsider, and thus the delicate balance of power was maintained.

Recently, the head of the Kiluri’s Pharmacy Division had requested the capture of a young female alchemist and her guard. Though the Kiluri had their own hired hands for dirty work, if that particular executive had mobilized them, word would have gotten out and profits could have been lost. Not only that, but even from the amateur executive’s perspective, the guard was abnormally skilled.

Truly monstrous people of Rank 5 were rarely seen, but Rank 4 warriors could be found by the dozen in this town of tens of thousands. Not even a Rank 5 opponent would stand a chance against the Munza pack. Still, Batil had foreseen considerable casualties and demanded dozens of large gold coins as payment—and the Kiluri man had agreed.

The women were likely worth far more than that, Batil figured. The Kiluri made it a habit to kidnap skilled traveling alchemists and keep them drugged. Moreover, the alchemist was Mercenian and beautiful—a rarity in this area and worth dozens of large gold in its own right. There was no doubt this was a lucrative investment.

But Batil hadn’t liked that the Kiluri executive had remained tight-lipped about his golden goose, pushing only the dangerous part of the job onto the Munza. He’d wondered for a moment what to do, then settled on simply stealing the prize.

If these two were worth extraordinary amounts of gold, they could keep the alchemist captive and force her to make potions. If she looked good on top of it, they could eventually sell her off to the Kiluri elders, even if that caused friction between Batil and the Pharmacy Department’s leader.

Besides, Batil’s impression had been that the executive felt humiliated by these women and wanted to bring them low more than he wanted profit. As long as the capture was successful, surely Batil keeping one of them wouldn’t be that bad for their professional relationship. Plus, the Munza dealt in brute force, while the Kiluri dealt in food and daily necessities—they weren’t in direct competition. A simple dispute between two higher-ups wouldn’t lead to all-out war between the organizations as a whole.

The Munza had captured one of the kids the alchemist woman had allegedly healed with medicine. The plan had been to use that kid as leverage to bring in the two women, but that guard had killed two of his men, broken the third’s limbs, and boldly marched up to their front door.

Opposing the Munza was lunacy, but Batil appreciated the woman’s guts.

Still, she was ultimately soft at heart and wouldn’t leave the hostage to die. That had been his mindset when he’d ordered his Rank 2 and 3 subordinates to beat her down and bring her to him.

They’d been killed in seconds instead.

He’d understood then that this woman was dangerous. Even a member of the Munza, which counted rabid dogs among its ranks, could tell this woman was not to be trifled with.

Then she’d leaped into Batil’s two-hundred-strong pack without hesitation, coldly killing everyone who stood in her way. There had been a certain beauty to it, he had to admit. It was moving, even, that a young human woman could become this strong.

Batil wondered if he could do the same.

The pink-haired woman was on the upper end of Rank 4. Though he was the same rank, her overall combat power probably exceeded his own. But that difference, he figured, came down to aether points. More aether meant more sustained combat ability and more combat techniques at one’s disposal. Batil was likely superior in health points, muscle strength, and endurance. In direct confrontation, he’d have the upper hand.

Batil couldn’t fight two hundred people, but dueling one was another matter.

He didn’t recognize the power she’d used to defeat the Fang Brothers, but nevertheless, he couldn’t afford to let someone this dangerous leave with impunity. She’d killed over a hundred of his people. His reputation would be in shambles.

Besides, she was taking from him. He couldn’t let her live.

Batil had grown up in the garbage dump of the slums, collecting other beastman urchins like him. Stealing had been his domain for as long as he could remember. He’d lost many packmates, gained many more, and through sheer brute force had become one of the bosses of the Munza gang.

And now this one woman had slaughtered his pack.

No one stole from him. His title, his pack—they were all his. And this little bastard was trying to take them away?

Batil’s heart, like black oil catching fire on the desert sands, was ablaze with fury.

“You little shit,” he hissed. “I’ll tear out your damned guts!!!”

***

The pantherine beastman, Batil, kicked off the terrace railing and landed on the ground below.

▼ Batil

Species: Catfolk Beastman♂ (Rank 4)

Aether Points: 187/200

Health Points: 452/470

Overall Combat Power: 1,203 (Boosted: 1,446)

With his dark torso exposed to the sun and a magic steel hand axe in each hand, he slowly approached me.

“I’ll kill you, girl,” he hissed.

“You can try,” I said.

Clang!

My black dagger collided with one of Batil’s equally black hand axes as we lunged at each other. Pushed back by his greater power, I deflected with grip and muscle strength, then swiftly swung my black knife. He blocked the strike with his free axe and kicked; I kicked back with my sole, using the impact to put distance between us.

“Raaah!”

Batil’s axe came hurtling toward me, and I spun backward to avoid it, then threw a knife from my thigh holster. As soon as Batil dodged it, my pendulum arced in from his flank and grazed his shoulder, forcing him back as well.

He had better stats than I did.

Our ability level was equal, and I had slightly better agility, but Batil beat me in every other aspect. Though my overall combat power was higher than his, I was at a disadvantage in short-term, head-on combat.

I was also severely fatigued from fighting two hundred people. On a battlefield where a lucky hit could kill me, fighting like this was like walking a tightrope blindfolded. The load on my mind and body was greater than I’d anticipated, and I was sweating even while standing still.

But that suited me just fine.

Batil’s eyes widened in alarm as I closed the distance between us in an instant with special, brutally efficient footwork, forcing my exhausted body forward. My black knife swung in an upward arc, and he responded instantly, his axe plunging down with the combined force of his weight and gravity.

Clang!

The axe smashed into the knife’s blade, but the sound didn’t match the magnitude of the impact. Taking advantage of Batil’s momentary surprise and the recoil, I thrust out my dagger.

“Tch!”

Batil didn’t retreat or switch weapons. I could only partially block his attack with my knife, and his axe grazed my arm—but my dagger gouged his shoulder too.

Ignoring the spurting blood, I dodged a swing from his powerful arm by dropping onto all fours. My body went taut as a bow, and my foot kicked out like an arrow, aiming for Batil’s legs.

“Haaah!!!”

“Raaah!!!”

Batil countered with a kick of his own, and we hit each other’s stomachs, sending both of us flying back.

“Ugh.”

“Tsk!”

I coughed lightly while Batil spat out a mix of saliva and gastric juice. We’d both taken damage, but thanks to Boost, we were still standing.

We readied our stances simultaneously and, this time, gradually slid closer to one another, watching for openings. The surviving beastmen looked on with bated breath.

He was strong. Stronger than other Rank 4s I’d fought before. The vampires, for example, had relied entirely on physical ability.

But my mistress and I could fight optimally even when exhausted. We moved with extreme efficiency and wielded our opponents’ strength with lethal precision against them. So, no matter how strong he was, if I failed to defeat him, it would be my own fault for not being skilled enough.

“Phew...”

Expelling the heat that had built up in my body and the anxiety that had welled up in my heart, I readied my knife once more. Batil must’ve sensed something, because he leaped out as though something had propelled him forward.

“Raaaaaaagh!”

His axe’s blade flashed sharply and seemed to burn on contact. The difference in strength between us was such that even just deflecting the blow with my knife injured me slightly.

“Die!” he shouted.

I said nothing. Something was missing, but what?

No. The answer was within me.

I pushed the flat side of his axe with my hand, slightly altering the trajectory of his powerful follow-up swing. Using that momentum paired with special footwork, I shifted half a step sideways and let the blade scrape past me.

“What?!” Batil blurted out.

He immediately slashed diagonally upward, but I deflected the axe’s handle with my knee and used that as leverage to move half a step back and avoid the attack.

My muscles were exhausted, so I had to spare them as much as possible. I would dodge with every technique I’d learned so far, use every trick I’d picked up in battle, and take advantage of my high-level skills. I could see the flow of mana with my eyes. Read the enemy’s presence with Detect. Use modest amounts of Intimidation to hinder my foe’s actions. Conceal my next moves with Stealth.

Something seemed to click within me.

I had to rely on technique and skill, not muscle strength. As I used simple yet complex techniques to evade Batil’s attacks, he finally began to sweat and let out a beastly roar.

“What the hell are you?!”

▼ Alia (Alicia)

Species: Human♀ (Rank 4)

Aether Points: 213/330 △ +10

Health Points: 103/260 △ +10

Strength: 10 (14)

Endurance: 10 (14)

Agility: 17 (24)

Dexterity: 9

[Dagger Mastery Lv. 4]

[Martial Mastery Lv. 5] △ +1

[Throwing Lv. 4]

[Bow Mastery Lv. 2]

[Guard Lv. 4]

[String Manipulation Lv. 4]

[Light Magic Lv. 4] △ +1

[Shadow Magic Lv. 4]

[Non-Elemental Magic Lv. 4]

[Practical Magic x6]

[Aether Manipulation Lv. 5]

[Intimidation Lv. 4]

[Stealth Lv. 4]

[Night Vision Lv. 2]

[Detection Lv. 4]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 3]

[Status Resistance Lv. 2] △ +1

[Basic Scan]

Overall Combat Power: 1,497 (Boosted: 1,853) △ +69

I wanted to become stronger.

To fulfill my vows...

To make Elena’s desires come true...

To give Karla what she wanted—death.

Until then...

“You fucking braaaaaaat!!!”

Batil, his face dark with anger, swung his axe down again. I used my knife-holding hand to smack the blade’s flat side and used that as leverage to spin my whole body—then turned my evasive maneuver into an attack, elbowing Batil’s flank as I spun to his side.

“Guh!” he groaned, then immediately kicked at me.

I caught his kick with my right leg, sliding on the ground with a slightly raised left foot to let the force dissipate. My black dagger was at the ready, aiming for Batil’s throat.

“Argh!”

Batil dodged the dagger by leaning back. Because his focus was on my knife and dagger, I halted mid-slide and stepped into range, striking his flank with my knee. His face contorted with shock, and he unleashed a desperate horizontal slash. I parried by lifting his axe with the back of my hand, then drove my elbow into his chest, near his heart.

He’d have dodged any weapons swung at vital spots, but even if he didn’t, I wasn’t sure my small blades could pierce through his tough muscles to reach internal organs. I opted for palm strikes to deal internal damage through shock instead.

“Ngaaaaaaaah!!!”

Batil ignored my attacks and smashed down both axes. I met the left axe with my dagger and the right with my knife, then struck his nose with my knee, sending him flying back.

He was taking more and more internal damage. In the few seconds since I’d switched to attack mode, the fatigue from the relentless offense and defense had taken a toll on him despite his health points. His swings had grown weaker—weak enough that I could parry them with my blades.

But the fire wasn’t gone from his eyes yet. Seeing his fighting spirit alight beneath his rage, I readied my blades again to wear him down further.

“Enough, both of you!!!” came a shout.

Ten new beastmen were standing on the edge of the battlefield. When had they gotten here? Most of them were Rank 3 and below, but two of them—flanking the small, elderly wolf beastman who had shouted—seemed to be about Rank 4.

The elderly beastman, with eyes and mouth covered in pure-white hair, glared at me sharply for a moment. Then, his gaze shifted to Batil, who was frowning and breathing heavily.

“Elder...” Batil muttered.

“Doing as you please, I see,” the elderly beastman said. “Jobs are one thing, but killing willy-nilly will only cause problems. Keep your claws off that young lady.”

“What are you saying?!”

“Jilgan has marked her, but that’s not the only reason. Surely you’ve noticed she’s trouble.”

I observed them in silence but kept my weapons at the ready and didn’t drop my guard. So this man was an elder of the beastmen? And Jilgan... That was the Rank 4 dwarf from the Adventurers’ Guild. How much did this old man know?

“I don’t give a rat’s ass! She killed my pack! I can’t let her live!” Batil roared.

“Even if that means leaving the Munza pack?”

“Yes!”

So he was willing to cast aside his position for his pride and honor. Packs had to be important to beastmen. Batil’s face had gone slightly pale at the threat of expulsion from his main pack, but his pride had won out, and his expression had steeled somewhat.

“Girl,” he spat, readying his axes again. “Use that power from before.”

He wants Iron Rose?

“The power you killed the Fang Brothers with. Why are you holding back? Are you mocking me? I’m their leader. I can’t lose to some random woman! Fight me for real!”

“So demanding,” I muttered, keeping my blade ready.

I glanced at the old man for a moment. He was grinning, tacitly approving Batil’s actions. What did the Hogroth have to do with any of this? I couldn’t risk asking. Still, I didn’t appreciate these people interrupting Batil to try and gauge my power either.

But I would let Batil keep his pride.

“All right. I’ll kill you with everything I’ve got, Batil,” I said. “You better be ready to put your life on the line.”

He scoffed. “Cheeky little brat.”

Batil abandoned his defenses and took a purely offensive stance, maximizing his Boost. In turn, I sheathed my knife and drew back the dagger in my left hand.

“Where’s the power?” Batil asked.

“That power is one of my weapons,” I said. “And I decide when to use my weapons.”

“Ha! Whatever. Won’t use it now? Suit yourself.”

Batil twisted his body to pull back his right arm and launched himself forward like a coiled spring being released.

“I’ll just kill you before you get the chance!!!”

In an instant, he raised his axe high and struck down directly from above.

“Fury!”

Fury was a hand-axe combat technique. It was similar to the dagger technique Critical Edge in that a single direct hit could be instantly lethal.

The moment before he’d unleashed his technique, I’d flung out a pendulum from my left hand and, at the same time, used a full-power technique of my own with my raised dagger.

“Cyclone.”

Batil’s eyes widened. Cyclone was a sorcery-type technique with low offensive power. Matching his lethal technique would’ve at most resulted in us killing each other. Cyclone hit a wider area and could slightly deflect Fury but not reduce its power.

Still, that was sufficient.

Since we’d both used combat techniques, our bodies were momentarily stunned. But the momentum of my weighted pendulum shifted my motionless body slightly sideways.

“Argh!”

Fresh blood gushed from my right shoulder. Batil, unable to dodge my technique, groaned as his own spraying blood blocked his vision.

“Iron Rose.”

My hair changed to the color of burnished iron. I broke free from the stun effect a moment before Batil did, and kicked off the ground with my left leg. Leaping over Batil’s head, I wrapped my pendulum’s string around his neck and used the momentum and my full weight to snap his neck in one motion as I landed back-to-back with him.

Crack.

As the string loosened and Batil took his last breath, I thought I heard him click his tongue. “Tsk...”

I pulled back the pendulum string as his corpse collapsed. The beastmen watching the duel let out mournful howls.

“Still coming?” I asked, glaring and pointing my dagger at the elder.

All of his guards readied their weapons.

“Stop!” the elder commanded. “Fools, deceived by appearances. Have you forgotten how inaccurate combat power is as an indicator of strength? You can’t handle this one.”

He smiled benevolently at me, and I narrowed my eyes. What did he know? Why was he so wary of me when we’d only just met?

“I’m an old friend of Jilgan’s,” he told me. “Anyone he’s wary of at a glance isn’t ordinary. I had the feeling I should come here, and lo and behold. Arrived just in time to avert a crisis with the Hogroth.”

I stood there, radiating silent menace, and the elder grinned.

“I’m Kushum, the Munza’s Elder of the West. I have an offer for you, young lady.”

“An offer?” I echoed.

“Indeed. We’d prefer not to deal with a rabid dog like you, but killing someone Jilgan’s got an eye on would be worse. So, I propose a truce. You sell your potions to the Hogroth. We’ll handle things with the Kiluri. Fair?”

“What?!” some of his guards blurted out.

That an elder of the Munza, a pillar of one of the four ruling factions of this town, would bend over backward for an adventurer like this was incomprehensible. But Kushum only glared sharply at the younger beastmen.

“You don’t get it, do you? Strength isn’t power. It isn’t technique. It’s will. Until you get that through your thick skull, trading blows with her is pointless.” He turned back to me. “So? How about it?”

“I accept.”

As settlement for attacking me and laying hands on someone marked by the Hogroth, the Munza would offer us a way to off-load our potions. The Hogroth, in turn, would gain our high-grade medicine.

“Then that settles it. You have a good day, young lady.”

With that, Kushum turned on his heels and began to walk away with his companions in tow.

Then he stopped and turned back slightly. “Ah, yes! Young lady, have you heard of this ‘Cinders’ character? A merchant from Kal’Faan told us of this little girl in a distant land, who’s made enemies of their Thieves’ and Assassins’ Guilds, massacring entire branches. Supposedly, she wears ashes in her hair. Just like you.”

I didn’t respond. Had my infamy traveled this far? Was that why Kushum was wary of me? Perhaps that was why Jilgan had been too.

Kushum had stopped Batil, seen through my identity, and avoided hostility with me while making me into a pawn for the Hogroth. I couldn’t be sure whether they also knew of Elena, but as I watched Kushum and the others leave, I made a mental note to be warier of the Munza—no, of all four of the factions of Cutlass.

Two days later, I heard rumors that the Reezan had attacked the Munza and Kushum had been killed.

Those Who Struggle

Once thought to be a safe haven, the Sorcerers’ Academy had been attacked by demons and temporarily closed. With adult supervision reduced due to the ongoing efforts to locate the missing princess, a secret struggle had begun on campus grounds between Crown Prince Elvan, first-queen-to-be Clara, second-queen-to-be Karla, and a viscount’s daughter who wasn’t even a high-ranking noble.

The results were even better than what the demons—who had risked their lives to kidnap the princess and weaken the next generation’s national power—had planned. Slowly, a faint dark cloud had begun to form over the kingdom.

Two boys walked through the academy grounds.

Granted, calling them boys was a bit misleading. In Claydale, one became an adult at age fifteen, and while these boys would reach that age later this year and already looked seventeen due to aether-induced growth, they were still students and thus treated as boys.

In the otome game, the heroine was the only character whose appearance had matched her physical age, due to the fact she hadn’t had an aether-accelerated growth spurt. That conspicuously youthful look had, in the original plot, caught the eye of the crown prince. And in that game, these two boys would initially admonish Elvan for his closeness with the protagonist—but eventually, they would accept it and simply look on.

But that was only because they witnessed the growth and character of the protagonist, Alicia, thus coming to admire her. The current reality wasn’t developing that way. The two boys were strongly wary of Alicia Melsis, who called herself Licia. They found her manipulative and difficult to read and felt she was trying to worm her way into people’s hearts.

In this world, as in the original game, they had tried to admonish Elvan. But he was already deeply captivated by Licia; she had positioned herself as a woman who would wholeheartedly accept his inferiority complex. He had rejected the advice of his friends and future close aides, instead becoming even more enmeshed with Licia. The result was that the two boys had distanced themselves from the prince.

Once upon a time, perhaps these two wouldn’t have been able to abandon Elvan so readily. They, too, might even have been enraptured by Licia’s seemingly omniscient actions and words. But they had encountered a girl named Alia who had enabled them to think more critically than their in-game counterparts.

Alia was intense, for better or worse. Her existence was both balm and poison. If one of the boys hadn’t met her before enrolling in the Academy, if clear boundaries hadn’t been set...perhaps the boys might’ve been unable to bear it, categorized her as pure poison, and rejected her as Nathanital and Prince Amor had.

But the two had accepted her way of being. They weren’t bright-eyed, dreaming boys whose judgments were clouded by emotions. They had broader perspectives as people who would in the future be in positions uniquely suited to handling both domestic and international affairs.

And that was why the boys—Mikhail Melrose and Rockwell Dandorl—had reached the conclusion that, to resolve the current chaos, they needed both Princess Elena and her guard Alia, and they needed to set aside their personal feelings.

“You really think she’ll tell us?” Rockwell asked as he walked beside Mikhail.

“I hear Lady Karla is fond of Lady Alia,” Mikhail responded, furrowing his brow. “We’re her fellow students, not court nobles. Perhaps she will.”

The noble house that had facilitated the demons’ entry into Claydale had yet to be identified. Only the lower-ranked nobles and underground organizations who had dirtied their hands had been identified, and those had already been dealt with. But the identities of those who had given the orders remained a mystery.

A list of dozens of suspects had been compiled, and the fact that his sister Clara was on it made Rockwell’s heart ache. She had clocked Alicia Melsis as dangerous from the moment of the younger girl’s enrollment. Using demons to eliminate Licia—who was always hovering around royals—seemed like a bad gamble, but with Clara’s gift of foresight, perhaps she’d seen something others hadn’t. Rockwell wanted to believe in his little sister, but he understood that, given her gift, pressing her for information would be futile.

Also listed among the suspects was Karla Leicester. Like Clara, she was one of the chosen royal fiancées, and neither girl was considered a strong suspect due to their young ages, but Karla was known among nobles to be particularly dangerous despite being only thirteen.

In fact, she was currently under house arrest within the academy for destroying a chapel in the capital. Normally this would’ve warranted much harsher punishment, but the Holy Church had chosen not to press charges. Not only that, His Majesty the King had judged that trying to arrest Karla—who could incinerate Rank 6 monsters—could result in thousands of casualties among the knights. Removing her royal fiancée status was also not feasible; this would only have caused further domestic chaos. The current king, having caused the political precariousness in the first place, couldn’t afford to lose the support of Count Leicester’s faction, and as a result, house arrest had been the only option.

Behind the scenes, there was also a secret agreement between the king and Karla that certain actions of hers should be overlooked, but this was known only to a select few.

To her credit, Karla was bearing her punishment gracefully. Still, no nobles wanted to freely associate with her, knowing she was willful and might act unpredictably on a whim. But Mikhail and Rockwell thought that, precisely because she was powerful and dangerous, she might provide clues about Alia—powerful and dangerous herself—and her whereabouts.

And Karla did possess this information, but every court noble who’d tried to pry it from her had failed miserably. Nevertheless, since Mikhail and Rockwell were genuinely concerned about the missing girls, they figured there was a chance she might open up.

“Mikhail, can you bow your head to Lady Karla?” Rockwell asked.

“Yes. My grandfather, as prime minister, and your father, as grand general, may not be able to. But as of right now, I’m just a man. Bending the knee for Lady Alia is no trouble to me.”

The image of the peach-haired girl came to Mikhail’s mind. Though he knew she wouldn’t even give him a passing glance after the terrible impression he’d made during their first meeting, his desire to support her as a man had only grown stronger as she continued to fight in solitude.

“I, too, want to rescue Lady Alia, Mikhail, but... You do understand that rescuing the princess is our top priority?”

“I know that, but—”

“No, you don’t, actually. Lady Alia deserves respect as a warrior, but Elena is indispensable if we’re to restore order to this country. She is wise and sees much, and is noble and virtuous besides. Why, I would pledge my sword to her even if—”

Mikhail’s eyes widened. “Rockwell, did you just call the princess by name? Are you...?”

Rockwell was the picture of knightly virtue. The only reason he referred to the crown prince by name was their friendship. For him to refer to the princess by name like that could only mean she had secretly touched his heart.

“Is that wrong of me?” Rockwell asked.

“No,” Mikhail said with a grin.

The heart obeyed no logic, after all. In the game, Rockwell had no feelings for Elena beyond those expected of a cousin. But in the game, she had kept her own capabilities a secret and committed to supporting the crown prince. In reality, having distanced himself from Elvan and witnessed the princess handle the royal duties that should’ve been the crown prince’s, Rockwell wanted to pledge his loyalty to her.

Both boys’ affections seemed unrequited. As they walked side by side, the two lightly bumped fists.

“Shall we go?”

“Let’s.”

Setting aside their personal feelings for now, the pair carried on in silence, two nobles concerned for their country.

In the story, they’d been friends but kept each other at arm’s length. Now, having grown through their mutual understanding, brought on by their feelings for these two girls, Mikhail and Rockwell were best friends walking the same path. Their bond transcended noble connections, and the two were unified in their shared purpose.

***

Through dangerous forests where Rank 5 monsters lived, along the unpopulated border of the kingdom, a beast ran, carrying a woman on its back. A month had passed since they’d left Claydale.

“That’s enough for today, Nero,” the woman said.

“...Proceed...”

“You want to keep going? Really, you should be more mindful of your elders.”

Though she spoke as though she were an old woman, Cere’zhula was only about thirty in dark elf years, which matched her youthful appearance. Had she been living among other dark elves, or even humans around the same life stage, she wouldn’t have felt so much older than everyone else. But, having watched the few humans she’d interacted with grow older, Cere’zhula didn’t feel her age.

Much had happened in her life. The pushy human woman who had declared herself Cere’zhula’s apprentice over a decade ago had been a headache, what with her strange delusions, but even so, the dark elf hadn’t disliked having the foolish girl around. But then she’d disappeared suddenly.

Two years later, an odd girl named Alia had showed up, claiming that she’d been attacked by Cere’zhula’s former apprentice and forced to kill her.

Exasperated, saddened, but not surprised by the foolish woman’s demise, Cere’zhula had understood that Alia hadn’t been at fault. She’d taken the strange girl as her new apprentice and passed down her fighting techniques—hoping to at least keep the girl alive.

Life with Alia had brought with it new emotions.

The girl had absurd power for a child and was brave to boot. But inside, she was still young. Not only that, her sense of modesty had been twisted by that foolish apprentice’s actions. She knew things no child should know and didn’t know things any child should have known. Alia understood the weight of taking a life at only seven years old but didn’t understand how to trust adults to take care of her.

So while Cere’zhula had been a strict teacher, she’d still treated Alia as an adult would treat a child. The girl, skittish as an abused stray cat, had gradually opened up, and Cere’zhula had begun to feel like she’d found the daughter she’d given up on ever having.

Neither of the two had ever said anything, but a familial bond had formed between them.

And what would a mother do for her daughter?

“...Advance...”

“You want to keep going despite your condition? Just stop for the day, stubborn beast.”

Cere’zhula and Nero had gotten almost no rest, having proceeded at a grueling pace to get through the monster habitat. Nero had been running nonstop, had fought Rank 5 griffins and goblin lords, and was evidently injured.

The coeurl called Alia “Moon.” For a beast who had spent its life in solitude, Alia must’ve seemed like a light in the darkness. But could beings as distinct as mythical beasts and humans, whose ways of life had nothing in common, truly communicate?

Though Cere’zhula and Nero were currently cooperating, the dark elf was wary of the coeurl and the danger it posed to the girl she thought of as a daughter. Nero, in turn, wouldn’t truly open its heart to anyone but Alia.

Still, Nero didn’t seem intent on ignoring Cere’zhula’s input. It understood she was family to Alia, and so it evaluated its own condition and conceded that it needed to rest.

They ate separately. Cere’zhula caught a wild bird and roasted it over a fire, while Nero hunted and devoured a young doe. The pair didn’t typically converse unless it was necessary, but perhaps having a proper meal and resting for the first time in a while had somewhat eased their mutual wariness.

“Why do you go to such lengths for Alia?” Cere’zhula asked casually.

Nero, who had been resting after its meal, opened its eyes slightly. “...Not...Clear...”

“You don’t know? Is that what you’re saying? You don’t know why you’re doing it?”

“...No...Meaning...”

“Oh, so you don’t understand why I’m asking?”

“Yes...Moon...Natural...”

“You’d naturally do it for Alia? I’m asking why that is.”

“...You...Foolish...”

“Hey now!”

“...Moon...I...Same...”

“You think you and Alia are the same? I didn’t raise her to be a beast!”

“...Not...Daughter...”

“You’re not even remotely the same species as her. Don’t act like you know her!”

“...Know...All...”

“What?! You know all there is to know about her?! Preposterous!”

“...Foolish...”

Woman and beast both slowly stood, glaring at each other in the dim firelight.

“I suppose we’d best settle this, then.”

“...Agree...”

Cere’zhula and Nero went on to engage in a heated debate over how much each of them knew about Alia. This went on until dawn, when fatigue finally won out and the two fell asleep, piled on each other.

It delayed their departure by about a full day.

What a strange thing...

Having left the demon army and lived in hiding in a human nation she’d been so hostile to, Cere’zhula had gone on to take human disciples. One had died for foolish reasons, and the other looked to her as a parent. Now here she was, traveling with a mythical beast to rescue her apprentice—her daughter—and heading straight into the demon territory she’d been fleeing from.

The image of her unsociable disciple, whom she’d watched grow, overlapped in her mind with that of another girl.

Aishe...

Her much younger sister and only blood relative.

After the two lost their parents, Cere’zhula had joined the demon army to support Aishe. She’d raced across countless battlefields, grown to recognize a few of her opponents, and eventually lost sight of what it meant to fight. She had left her sister with a couple they knew, faked her death in battle, and defected from the demon army.

Cere’zhula had worried that, should Aishe have stayed with her, the girl would’ve followed in her footsteps and joined the army too. From infancy, Aishe had admired her older sister—the infamous Fiend.

How was she now? Had she fully grown up?

It was Cere’zhula’s earnest wish that her sister was living a life away from battle.

***

“We have received new information and an official request from Margrave Melrose. The Rainbow Blade is to leave the country by ship to search for Her Highness the Princess.”

At Dalton’s mansion in the capital, four of the five members of the Rank 5 adventuring party Rainbow Blade—Dalton himself, Miranda, Feld, and Viro—had gathered. Their fifth and youngest member, Alia, had gone missing along with her charge, Princess Elena. The party had been planning on searching for them even without the formal request, but their leader, Dalton, had chosen to go the official route, as it would offer additional freedom as well as provide them with accurate intel and better support.

“We leave tomorrow,” Dalton declared. “Margrave Melrose’s ship should be at the port town to the east. We board it and make for Kal’Faan.”

The whereabouts of Elena and Alia, who had disappeared into a teleportation spell, were unknown. But a relative of Prime Minister Veldt Melrose had brought him confidential information as relayed by a certain girl.

She’d reportedly said:

“If the caster of a teleportation spell—be it cast through sorcery or gem—dies in the middle of the spell’s activation, its targets are likely to land partway to its destination. I have no doubts that, with that girl’s help, the princess could find her way back from anywhere. But, considering there has been no contact thus far, it seems obvious that they landed somewhere in the desert on the way to the Demonic Nation of Dais, no? I would personally begin the search in the Kal’Faan Empire and proceed from there toward Dais.”

The source of this educated guess had seemed certain that the princess and her guard were alive. She hadn’t even remotely considered that they might have died, despite this being the likeliest possibility. But if someone like her—whose mental capabilities far exceeded those of ordinary people, who knew much about both teleportation spells and gems—had no doubts that Alia and the princess would find their way back, it might very well be true.

This girl had provided such information for no reason but a desire to see Alia sooner rather than later.

Though the information on the gem used to cast the spell was speculative, it matched the conclusions reached by the Sorcerers’ Guild and the court sorcerers. While the royal family couldn’t afford to send an entire expedition abroad based on such uncertain intel, an adventuring party with no ties to royalty but with a personal interest in the matter had been commissioned and paid for directly by His Majesty the King.

At Dalton’s command, each member began to prepare. One of them, Feld, took his specialized magic-steel greatsword from his room in the mansion and flexed his fingers.

“Alia...”

To him, Alia was a reliable companion and a cute junior. Before he’d known her actual age, he’d considered her a marriage prospect as well—but now, he saw her as a sister.

Viro had told him something, albeit only after the dense Feld had noticed himself: Alia apparently carried a steel knife that Feld had once used. Feld recalled meeting an urchin in the woods along a road several years ago, while on his way to pick up this very greatsword, which he’d commissioned from Galvus.

At first, he’d mistaken the child for a monster and given chase, but upon realizing his mistake, he’d spent a little time teaching the urchin survival skills. The steel knife, used for dressing game, had been a gift from him to replace an item of the urchin’s he’d broken. It was Galvus’s work too, and the old dwarf had noticed. It had, Viro had said, been the trigger for Galvus to give that urchin a magic steel knife, claiming it was fate.

To Feld, this had been a half-forgotten memory. But Alia apparently had held on to that knife this whole time.

Now that he thought about it, perhaps that was why Alia had seemed so comfortable with him. She must’ve thought of him as trustworthy—as family, even—from the beginning. Though Viro had tried to comfort him about not noticing, saying it was inevitable since the small urchin Feld had thought was a boy had grown into a stunningly beautiful girl, Feld still felt pathetic.

The girl was like family to him, and yet there was nothing he could do to protect her.

“I’ll find you, Alia. I swear it.”

While Feld steeled his resolve, another of Alia’s mentors, whom she’d met not long after parting ways with him, was troubled.

“Now what?” Viro muttered.

Of course, he didn’t object to rushing to Alia’s rescue. She was his beloved student, and he, her respected mentor. In fact, as the person in the party who’d spent the most time with her, he’d been the one most actively gathering intel.

With heavy steps, he trudged toward the home he’d only just purchased in the royal capital. It was small compared to Dalton’s place but still considered a manor—spacious enough for a low-ranking noble to live with their family and several live-in servants.

“I’m back...”

He’d been living with a woman for several months now—a receptionist with the Adventurers’ Guild he’d known for some time. He’d fallen for her cold gaze when she’d suspected him of kidnapping a young Alia and grilled him about it. Viro had spent the next several years courting her.

Though he was still young by adventurer standards, he’d retired and accepted an invitation to join the Order of Shadows because the woman had wanted him to find stable work with steady pay.

With a notorious weakness for women and having spent money on bed warmers far too many times, Viro had been surprisingly broke for a first-rate adventurer. He’d only bought this home thanks to a loan from Dalton, and now he was completely under the thumb of his new partner.

A beautiful long-haired woman wearing a white apron emerged from deeper inside the mansion. “Oh, you’re early.”

“Yeah. Hey, Mary,” Viro replied.

Mary was still working as a receptionist, but she’d used her accumulated paid time off to stay home and put her cooking skills to use for Viro, who’d been particularly busy lately. How would she react, he wondered, when he told her that he’d be going abroad tomorrow? That he wouldn’t be back for several months? She’d be angry, no doubt. She’d glare at him.

Viro certainly didn’t mind being scorned by a beautiful, mature woman, but he didn’t like it when Mary got truly angry. No matter how gorgeous a woman was, no one was pretty enough for him to risk death by rage. Not even Alia.

But there were times when a man had to make firm decisions for a beloved student. This was one such time.

He steeled himself. “Mary, listen...”

Sweating bullets, Viro explained the situation, revealed things he’d been keeping quiet about, and told her what was to come. Mary’s warm gaze immediately dropped to below freezing.

“What?” she said.

“Wait, Mary, look, I’m her mentor, okay? I’ve gotta—”

“I know that!”

She was angry, just as he’d thought, but...not for the reasons he’d assumed. Viro had figured she would be mad that they couldn’t spend the holidays together.

“Huh?”

“You didn’t tell me about Alia! How could you?! She’s still a child! She’s only thirteen!”

“No, I know, but—”

“You giant buffoon. I’ll go cook you something, so sit tight. Then you eat, and you bring her home. Get it?”

“Mary...”

Though he should have been happy to be forgiven and at the prospect of a delicious meal, Viro ended up feeling a bit dejected at the realization that he ranked somewhere below Alia in Mary’s list of priorities.

He grudgingly wolfed down his food.

Prelude to War

Nearly two months had passed since Elena and I had arrived at the desert town of Cutlass.

We’d reached an ambiguous noninterference agreement with the Munza gang’s beastmen—to the extent possible, at least; hot-blooded low-ranking members still stirred up trouble sometimes. In such cases, the Munza would dispose of the bodies free of charge.

Through our agreement with them, the high-grade potions we made would be sold directly to the Hogroth. While that had established funding prospects for us, it had cost us our chance to travel to the Kal’Faan empire with the Kiluri caravans, as we’d inadvertently drawn their ire.

I walked alone down Cutlass’s main street. All around me, under the blazing sun, dark-skinned Krus, tanned dwarves, and beastmen all worked busily.

This didn’t mean they were energetic. In this desert town, food was expensive, and the only way to obtain it more cheaply was to join a faction. But joining meant paying protection fees, thus resulting in the food being expensive anyway. The struggle to make enough money to survive was desperate.

Despite the town looking like little more than a slum, it was rare for the poor and the street children to pickpocket or steal. Getting caught meant getting killed, and anyone driven to desperation by hunger would resort to more violent methods instead. Living here required power, and with power, there was no need to steal. One could simply take what one wanted from the weak.

The town looked to be the same as always, but I was certain there was a faint tension in the air.

My leather boots squeaked against the stone floor as I arrived at my destination. I removed my hood, revealing my face. Murmurs rose from the adventurers at the Hogroth-run guild, then quieted like a receding wave.

In the tense silence, a group of beastmen who were likely aware of my arrangement with the Munza showed a mix of hostility and, more importantly, apprehension as they averted their gazes. Krus adventurers who weren’t familiar with the situation eyed both me and the beastmen with suspicion, but sensing the strange atmosphere, they fell silent as well.

As for the largest force among adventurers in this land, the dwarves...

“State your business, Mercenian,” said the young dwarf blocking my path to the back. He was about my height but probably weighed three times as much as I did.

“Potions,” I said. “I have an appointment. Feel free to check.”

“Didn’t hear anything about that,” he said. “You don’t get free rein here, pasty woman.”

His fist, sheathed in a beetle-shell gauntlet, suddenly roared toward me. He had a combat power of around 400, so somewhere between middle to upper Rank 3. I wasn’t sure whether he was testing my strength or just didn’t like me, but that had been a serious punch, and he’d thrown it without warning, so I figured he could probably read my ability to some degree.

Just by looking at his thick arms, I could tell he had higher muscle strength than I did, even with my Boost at full power. He was skilled. Smart enough not to underestimate female opponents. But that was all.

“Guh!”

I dodged his fist and countered with a palm strike to the underside of his jaw, beneath his short-trimmed black beard, making him reel backward. Though my glove was fitted with magic iron plates, I still couldn’t break his sturdy bones. He spat out blood but grinned and raised his fist again.

Not that I had any intention of standing there waiting for a low-agility dwarf to attack me again.

I wrapped both arms around his and leaned back, pulled his arm forward, then drove my knee with full force into his elbow joint, which yielded with a loud crack.

“Ngaaah!”

The man, his arm now bent backward, writhed on the ground, clutching his arm in agony. Seeing this, the surrounding dwarves, who had been content to observe, rose up angrily.

“What’s going on here?” came a booming voice, echoing through the guild and shaking the angry dwarves.

It was Jilgan—a Rank 4 dwarven heavy fighter and Hogroth authority. His thundering footsteps made not only his fellow dwarves but all the surrounding adventurers grow pale. He approached, looked at me, then down at the man with the broken arm. The younger dwarf began to sweat profusely, though I wasn’t sure whether it was from the pain or fear.

“W-Wait, Mr. Jilgan, sir! This woman—”

“I told you to call for me when the pink-haired woman came.”

“N-No, I was just—”

“I have no need for fools in my ranks.”

Jilgan placed a foot on the fallen man’s knee and pressed down, crushing it with a loud snap. The man’s screams were the only sound in the otherwise silent guild hall. Jilgan didn’t even spare him a glance before turning to me, then gesturing toward the back with his chin.

“I’ve been informed of what’s happening, ‘Rose.’ Follow me.”

“All right.”

That dwarf’s adventuring days were probably over, I figured. Jilgan’s expression remained stoic despite the fact he’d just destroyed the livelihood of one of his own. I followed him to the back of the guild, walking silently behind him. We climbed stone stairs and proceeded down a dimly lit corridor until we reached a wooden door—a rarity in this town.

“Guildmaster, she’s here,” Jilgan announced.

“Come in,” said a voice from beyond the door.

Jilgan opened it and went inside. I followed him to find a female dwarf waiting there, sitting on a leather couch. He moved behind her and stood with arms crossed. She smiled at me, though it didn’t reach her eyes.

“So you’re the famous Rose. Come now. Sit.”

Kushum, the Munza elder, had figured out that I was Cinders. But the surviving beastmen had apparently begun to refer to me as the “Desert Rose” instead. Perhaps my infamy as Cinders was a problem in itself. I’d thought nobody would care, given everything had happened in another country, but as a high-ranking assassin who’d made enemies of those whom others wouldn’t normally cross and had lived to tell the tale, I was a thorn in everyone’s side.

For the time being, it was worse for them to be hostile to me, so the Munza and the Hogroth had decided to stay out of my business. Still, either of them could turn on me at any moment.

The female dwarf sized me up, an intimidating aura about her. I ignored it and sat directly across from her, meeting her gaze. She snorted.

“I’m Jaysha. Jaysha Hogroth. Old man Kushum told me all about you.”

“I’m Alia. I hear you’re open to doing business.”

“That I am. But is this whole story about high-grade potions true?”

“Yes.”

I pulled one such potion from Shadow Storage, pretending to retrieve it from my bag, and placed it on the table between us. Jaysha leaned forward to examine it.

Jaysha Hogroth... Perhaps a daughter or relative of the leader of the faction? She had a wild bright-red mane and a large build. Usually, dwarf women were small, looking at most like sturdy human girls. Since dwarf men grew thick beards, supposedly to hide their youthful features, it was probably a racial trait.

But unlike typical female dwarves, who were only as tall as a short human woman, Jaysha was about my height—and I was slightly taller than average. She was nearly twice as wide as me, however, resembling a veteran warrior built like a wall of muscle.

“Try it, old man,” she ordered.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jilgan casually stabbed a dagger into the back of his hand, then took the potion from the table and poured it on the wound, not even bothering to consider the possibility that it might have been poison.

“Well?” Jaysha asked.

“Good quality. Nothing like the deteriorated crap the Kiluri sell us. I’d even say the base quality is superior.”

Jilgan wiped away the blood and showed her the stab wound. It had almost completely disappeared.

Jaysha nodded, satisfied. “Good. This destroys one of the Kiluri’s advantages. So, Alia, how many did you bring? How many can you make on a monthly basis?”

Maybe she was in a good mood, since she’d suddenly switched to addressing me by name. I arranged more potions on the table, my expression neutral.

“I have fifteen, and I can make fifty per month,” I said.

“Not a lot. But, considering these are just for our own use, not for selling, that won’t be a problem. Hey, old man? Pay her well, yeah?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jilgan took a leather pouch out of his pocket, put several gold coins in it, and tossed it to me. The money inside was of Kal’Faan mint and about twenty percent more than what the Kiluri would’ve paid.

The ongoing conflict with other factions wasn’t the only reason the Adventurers’ Guild wanted to secure high-quality potions. In the deepest parts of the ruins of Reisveil were dangerous monsters, including Rank 6 lesser earth dragons. If one of those were to emerge, they’d want to have at least a hundred potions as a contingency.

“Looks good,” I said.

As I made to leave, Jaysha casually called me back. “Hey, now, leaving already? It’s not every day two beauties like us get to hang out. Why not stay for some girl talk over fire wine?”

“That’s a funny joke.”

Jaysha made a face at Jilgan behind her, only to see him with his eyes closed as though he were meditating. She put a hand to her face and looked up, exasperated.

Fire wine was a strong distilled dwarven spirit. I couldn’t claim to have any desire to drink something that would literally catch fire when lit. Regardless, I sank back into the couch.

“Alia, you’ve heard the news, right?” Jaysha asked in a low voice.

I gave a small nod. “Yes.”

“Kushum is dead. The Reezan did it.”

Kushum, the Munza’s elder of the west, who had acted as a middleman between the Munza, the Hogroth, and myself, had been killed in an attack by the Reezan mafia. There were agreements between the various organizations, and this wouldn’t be sufficient to void them, but Jilgan—who had known Kushum personally—looked very displeased.

That was why the town had been so tense. Fighting could break out at any moment.

Why had the Reezan—who ran the pleasure district and accepted all races—picked a fight with the heavily armed Munza? Ron and I had tried to gather intel, but the reason remained unclear. The Reezan had already captured ten of the perpetrators and executed them publicly to set an example, but no one had taken that act as genuine.

“Scapegoats, that’s all,” Jaysha said. “I don’t have time to waste on a farce. The question is, what are they plotting? Say, Alia, did you notice anything amiss?”

“I’ve been wondering where the guild’s dark elves went,” I said.

Jaysha’s eyes narrowed slightly. The guild was led by dwarves but accepted members of all races—yet not a single dark elf was anywhere to be seen.

“They vanished a few days before the hit on Kushum,” she explained. “The few still around are young and were born here.”

So the stronger dark elves—the nonlocal ones—had all vanished. Where to, and why?

As if to signal that the time for conversation was past, Jaysha began to chug the fire wine straight from the bottle. Jilgan gave me a silent nod, and I stood to leave.

Just as I was about to step out of the room, Jaysha’s voice echoed behind me. “Beware the evil race.”

***

Demons. Evil race. Those terms were slurs for dark elves, but here—where dark elves mingled with everyone else—they weren’t really used. So why had Jaysha chosen to do so? I could make an educated guess, but couldn’t be certain.

Back on the street, I pulled up my cloak once more, erased my presence, and went about buying what I needed. Cloth, rare alchemical materials, food—but not the cheap, sandy grain the townsfolk usually ate. My best option was to trade with small merchant caravans passing through town. They were wary folk, and we weren’t experienced enough to travel with them, but sometimes they had decent food and materials on offer.

I bought a batch of grain and salt that, while expensive, wasn’t gritty with sand. I also got a large sack of millet and tucked it all under my cloak and inside Shadow Storage before leaving town.

A few presences were tailing me. Maybe they were Hogroth? Kiluri? But they seemed clumsy, almost. I figured they were small-time thugs looking for an easy score. Anyone who knew of my strength wouldn’t have sent pursuers Rank 3 or below, and I was skilled enough now to easily sense even a Rank 4 scout. Following me was pointless.

Still, to be safe, I ran across the desert and made a wide detour that took half an hour before circling back toward town and suppressing my presence as I approached a crumbling watchtower on the outskirts.

No one ever came near the old stone structure, which had been here since the town was first built. It looked unstable, but I knew it wasn’t going to collapse.

“Welcome back, Alia.”

As I slipped past the ragged cloth serving as a door, a young dogfolk child, alerted by the greeting, wagged his tail and clung to my leg. Elena, who had been playing with the dwarven child, looked up at me and smiled warmly.

“Hi, Lena.”

For now, this place was our best shot at escaping this town.

Escape Plan

In the darkness of the desert night, six people met in secrecy. On one side stood three Krus men, and facing them, three figures hid their forms under cloaks.

“As arranged, then.”

“How far has your main force come?” asked one of the Krus. “If it takes too long...”

“No cause for concern. Yet. Depending on how things go, that may change.”

“Hey! We trusted you—”

“We’re ready for our next move. You wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity, would you?”

“As long as you keep your word.”

“Which we will. But you get it, don’t you?”

“Y-Yes, but...”

For the three Krus, this was a golden opportunity. They’d already discussed the plan itself at length—but it was dangerous for any one faction within Cutlass to go up against all the others. They’d nevertheless agreed to cooperate with this plan because, in a stroke of luck, they’d managed to eliminate one of the elders of a rival faction, the Munza. The gang’s security had also been temporarily compromised by the death of a Rank 4 warrior who had been a cornerstone of their military prowess.

Still, why had such careful opportunists assassinated an opposing faction’s elder? Despite having ordered the hit, they hadn’t so much as considered directly targeting a Munza elder before this. They’d only taken action because a cause had presented itself, one that made the risky assassination worth it. It was serendipitous that the Munza had been weakened, but even without that factor, the cause was important enough that they would’ve chanced it.

These meetings were always held outside the bounds of the town. One of the participants, a young woman who had been present each time, quietly removed her hood before the hesitant Krus trio, exposing her youthful face to the night air.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’ll go perfectly.”

The moment the girl spoke, her eyes gleamed bright red. Anxiety disappeared from the three Krus’s faces, as though they’d been hypnotized.

After that, the group split, and the girl—leader of a vampire clan but currently far away from her companions—gazed at the distant town. Baring her sharp fangs, she walked into the dark night.

***

“You’re back,” Camille said as he descended from the upper floor of the crumbling watchtower, a small, relieved smile on his lips.

This tower was Camille and Ron’s hideout. We weren’t quite allies yet, but we’d joined hands to survive this situation. There were things we kept secret from each other, things we couldn’t talk about—such as Elena’s position and mine. Though I doubted these two would do us any harm at this point, an information leak could ruin our plans. If it became known that Elena was the princess of Claydale, even Jaysha, who was currently our business partner, might make a move to seize her.

Though I was now known throughout Cutlass to be the assassin Cinders, there was no reason for anyone to connect the dots with the missing princess situation. We had to keep our information confidential for now.

Likewise, we didn’t ask Ron and Camille about their true identities either. Knowing that could end up hindering our own actions.

“I bought food. I’ll give it to Chaco,” I said.

“Thanks,” Camille muttered, bowing his head. “It’s a big help.”

“Thank you, Alia,” said the beastgirl Chaco as she emerged from behind him. She somewhat sheepishly accepted the food I’d brought.

While I’d been fighting, Ron and Camille had saved Chaco from the Munza. But since they’d butted heads with the Munza many times, their group was still in danger and so was hiding Chaco and the younger children here.

With Kushum dead, the Munza probably had other concerns, but I’d judged it best for Ron and Camille to continue to refrain from going into town. Though Camille could probably keep himself hidden and get food if necessary, considering the distance and the number of mouths to feed, it was more efficient for me to transport supplies in Shadow Storage.

Besides, there was something else I wanted them to focus on.

“Camille, did you gather the ingredients I mentioned?”

“Yeah, a good bit of them. But there aren’t a lot of fully grown ones around here, so I had to go pretty far...”

“I’ll take that into consideration. Should I give Ron the aethercrystals?”

“He’s upstairs, so go on ahead. Also, don’t work too hard or anything. The food and Lena are help enough.”

“I know,” I said, lightly punching Camille’s shoulder.

Camille looked conflicted, like there was something he wanted to say but couldn’t. I walked past him and made my way to the upper floor.

I climbed the spiral staircase extending along the tower’s inner walls. From the outside, this place looked like a stiff breeze could knock it over, but the collapsed inner stairs and cracked walls had been reinforced with plaster and bricks.

They’d been working on repairing a certain something here for over a year. Apparently, Ron had come to this tower using said something, where Camille had happened upon him. The two boys, whose circumstances were similar, had initially been wary of each other, but eventually they’d reached an understanding and begun to work together.

Why had Ron come to this tower, you ask?

“How are the repairs going?” I asked.

“Hey, Alia,” Ron said. “I’d say they’re about ninety percent complete.”

Ahead, where the roof of the tower had collapsed, exposing its interior to the elements, was a hot-air balloon. I only knew what it was thanks to that woman’s knowledge. It was a small thing and would fit at most a handful of adults, but everyone here could nevertheless escape the desert aboard it.

I’d never seen anything like it, not even in Claydale. It wasn’t due to a technological deficit but because the kingdom was rife with airborne monsters. Balloons weren’t practical as transportation options. But here, where large flying monsters like griffins and wyverns were rare and the worst threats were Rank 2 greater eagles, balloons were more viable. Granted, greater eagles would have been a significant threat to the hot-air balloons described in my knowledge, but in this world, the balloons were made with monster hide, making them significantly more durable.

But that also made them heavier. Therefore, instead of ordinary fuel, magical tools with fire-elemental aethercrystals were employed to generate heat and buoyancy. That was why I’d brought some crystals to Ron.

“I brought the fire aethercrystals,” I said.

“Thank you,” he replied. “That’s a big help. This thing goes through them like crazy.”

“How many more do we need?”

“Hmm...” Ron paused his repairs to scratch his head and consider the materials he had on hand. “If we’re going into the safe zone in the Kal’Faan Empire, we’ll need a few more. We could reach there with what we have now, but there’d be no margin for error.”

“Got it. I’ll be on the lookout to hunt for or buy more.”

We’d agreed to accompany Ron and his group to Kal’Faan; they were all eager to leave this increasingly unstable town. To that end, Camille would gather materials to repair the balloon as well as ingredients for my alchemy from the ruins of Reisveil, while I would continue to sell potions in town and buy aethercrystals and food. Ron focused on repairs, and Elena cared for the children with Chaco, using her light and water sorcery to keep people healthy and the space livable.

The arrangement was advantageous for all of us. They got materials, food, and their needs taken care of, and we got a new hideout—a necessity now that we’d antagonized the Kiluri and could no longer patronize inns in town.

Deal aside, repairing the balloon itself was a problem.

Maintaining a balloon was costly. It required the hides of desert lizards—heat-resistant reptilian monsters—but only their soft underbellies were usable. Not only that, the hides needed to be sizable, as the more seams the balloon had, the weaker it would be. Additionally, though the lizards resisted fire, they had earth-elemental aethercrystals, so we had to hunt other monsters or buy the fire aethercrystals we needed. Lastly, to counter airborne monsters, at least two Rank 3 or higher sorcerers were necessary. The balloon was the type of thing only nobles could really operate.

Ron, who had ridden the balloon here, had to be a Kal’Faan noble. Still, we had no intention to pry when they already trusted us enough to let us know of the precious balloon’s existence in the first place. It would have been foolish to destroy that trust by pressing Ron for information on why he’d come here.

Our group and theirs were both acting in self-interest. But...

They’re naive, I thought.

I came back down and was getting ready to leave again when Elena approached me, a worried expression on her face.

“Alia, are you going out again?” she asked.

“Yes. There’s a bit more I can do.”

We didn’t have the luxury of time. Elena and I had been missing for two months, and we estimated Claydale would abandon any search efforts after three to six months. Technically, we were making good progress, but the more time passed, the likelier it was that bad actors would make a move. We had to deliver Elena to Kal’Faan and contact Claydale by the three-month mark, ideally.

“Wait,” she said, bringing a hand to my cheek. “Restore!”

The gentle light erased the sunburn on my skin.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome. Be careful, Alia.”

I put on my cloak and pulled on my hood, then set out into the desert by myself.

***

A little ways out from the watchtower, I sensed a faint presence and pointed my finger in that direction.

“Illusion,” I chanted.

The illusory flames I created, modeled after the Fire Breath spell Karla was skilled at, licked at a rocky area ahead. They looked quite convincing and even ran hot. It was enough for two figures in sand-colored cloaks to leap out from the rocks.

“Wait, wait!” the larger of the two called out.

But the smaller one, thinking they’d been attacked, rolled on the ground and shot at me using some sort of crossbow.

I ran toward them, disentangling the bolt I’d caught from my cloak. The larger figure drew a dagger from his waist, determined to stand his ground.

They might not be enemies. But they also might be.

The larger one—a man—applied some sort of viscous poison to his dagger and stepped forward to protect the smaller figure. I dodged his slash, confirmed that the bolt I’d disentangled was tipped with poison as well, and stabbed it into the man’s neck.

He collapsed silently, and my weighted pendulum shot out of his shadow and struck the side of the archer’s head. The shrill scream that escaped her lips as she was sent flying confirmed that she was female.

I immediately leaped in and kicked her down before she could draw any more weapons, then pressed my black dagger to her throat.

“Wh-Who are—”

“I’m asking the questions here. Who are you after?”

The woman gasped at my intimidating aura. Her hood slipped, revealing the face of a dark-elf girl around my age, her eyes furious.

“A dark elf?” I muttered.

She grabbed her hood in a panic but seemed to realize there was no point anymore and instead just kept defiantly glaring at me despite the dagger pointed at her.

“H-How dare—”

“He’s still alive,” I interjected.

She gasped again at the realization that the man I’d stabbed with the bolt still drew breath. The bolt had likely been treated with the same poison he’d used for his dagger, but if he was still alive, that meant it wasn’t instantly lethal. Had my mana vision told me the man had no life force left, I wouldn’t have shown this girl mercy.

But if they weren’t using lethal poison, that meant they likely weren’t my enemies. Still, what were they after? Or who, rather?

“But if you don’t start talking, he won’t be alive for long.”

“Tch!”

Based on their earlier behavior, I’d figured this would get her to talk, but...she remained silent. I pressed the knife lightly against her throat, and blood spilled from her dark skin. I kept my gaze steady on hers to show her that I was serious and held the blade perfectly steady. Just as I was about to press further—

“Wait...”

The bloodied bolt fell to the ground, and the man I’d stabbed was now on his feet.

“Father!” the dark-elf girl blurted out.

The man, pressing a hand to his bleeding neck, scowled at his daughter for revealing their relationship, then turned to me.

He wasn’t a dark elf. He was Krus. Was she adopted? Or were mixed-race children common here? This made it difficult to identify which faction they were with, but...I could always ask.

“Ngh!”

I stepped on the fallen girl’s chest, pushing her down and using her as leverage against the man while simultaneously using the man, still unsteady from the poison, as leverage against the girl.

▼ Middle-Aged Man

Species: Krus♂ (Rank 3)

Aether Points: 134/165

Health Points: 212/350

Overall Combat Power: 207 (Boosted: 586) ▽ -379

[Affliction: Paralysis]

▼ Girl

Species: Dark Elf♀ (Rank 2)

Aether Points: 155/185

Health Points: 152/210

Overall Combat Power: 308 (Boosted: 344)

Though there was a rank gap between us, I could tell the two were trained. Perhaps the daughter was still too green to realize the disadvantage they were at, but the father would know what would happen if he tried to fight me while suffering from paralysis, even if the poison wasn’t potent.

“Please...wait,” he managed, dropping to his knees. “We’re not trying to kill you.”

“Fathe—” The girl tried to get up, and I pressed harder down on her. “Ngh!”

“That so?” I asked flatly. “Then why were you watching us?”

The man, perhaps sensing something, said, “I can’t give you details, but our duty is to protect a certain someone. I apologize for our suspicious behavior, but I promise, we have no hostile intent.”

He and I stared at each other in silence. He didn’t seem to want to attack unless I attacked first. The daughter was gritting her teeth and glaring at me for hurting her father. I looked into the man’s eyes for a moment, then stepped off the girl.

“What...?” she mumbled, eyes wide with disbelief.

“Go,” I said.

“My thanks,” the man replied.

The girl ran to her father and helped him to his feet. The man, leaning on her shoulder, gave me a respectful nod.

“Young lady, war is coming to this land. If you’re thinking about leaving, do it soon.”

I was silent for a moment, then said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

With that, the two disappeared toward the rocky area. I picked up the discarded bolt. The material was unfamiliar to me.

I hadn’t trusted the man or shown the pair mercy. They’d been monitoring us. If Elena were my only concern, eliminating them would’ve been the best option. But...though our exchange had been brief, it had convinced me not to kill them yet.

His eyes... The wistful way he’d looked at me, his eyes far away, as if seeing something through me...

It bothered me a little. I wasn’t sure why.

***

That day, Camille and I went into the ruins to procure materials. I’d largely left foraging to him, but for potion materials specifically, Shadow Storage offered protection from temperature changes, which afforded the finished products more consistent quality.

Though I was concerned about splitting up our forces, Elena had told me that delegating responsibilities based on each individual’s strengths was more efficient.

▼ Camille

Species: Dark Elf♂ (Rank 4)

Aether Points: 233/260

Health Points: 252/280

Overall Combat Power: 1,064 (Boosted: 1,298)

Together, Camille and I could handle Rank 5 monsters. His combat power rivaled Viro’s, but I could sense he was even stronger than that thanks to the two daggers at his waist—magic weapons.

They weren’t ordinary aether-imbued blades like those made by the Sorcerers’ Guild. They’d likely come from a dungeon and probably had something dwelling in them. He’d mentioned before that they were mementos from his mother, and anyone who owned such things had to have a certain social standing. And the son of such a person might reasonably be under the protection of someone. Or multiple someones.

“Camille?” I called out as I watched the surroundings while he harvested the belly skin from a lizard.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

Desert lizards were technically edible but slightly toxic, so only demi-humans with the appropriate resistances ate their meat often. We were gathering some for the children, who enjoyed it, but that wasn’t why I’d called his name.

He caught the crossbow bolt I tossed him and his expression changed slightly.

“This...!”

“Are you familiar with it?”

Who were that father-daughter duo watching over? It couldn’t be Chaco or the other local children. Ron, as a Kal’Faan noble, would’ve been an option—if not for the fact that a Krus nation would never employ dark elf guards. So...there was only one other possibility.

As he looked at the bolt—made from neither metal nor bone, but tree sap, a technique I’d never seen in person before—Camille seemed troubled. He lifted his head to look back at me.

“Do you know what this is, Alia?” he asked.

“First time seeing it, but I know where they make them.”

Cere’zhula had taught me about demon weapons and tactics. Though her knowledge was from over fifty years ago, before she left the demonic army, the fundamentals wouldn’t have drastically changed since.

Camille’s expression changed as it dawned on him that me having the bolt meant someone had used it.

Though I didn’t know what he was hiding, I trusted him to an extent—otherwise I wouldn’t have left Elena back at the tower with his friends.

He averted his gaze but seemed to want to tell me something. “I’m—”

“Wait.”

I put my ear to the ground. He understood immediately and looked around, then climbed onto a crumbling building.

“Over there,” I said, lifting my head and pointing west.

Camille looked in that direction and shouted, “Shelled dragons!”

Despite their name, shelled dragons were not, in fact, dragons. They looked like scaled chickens, taller than the average human, and were actually snake-type monsters, similar to basilisks.

They were difficult to deal with. Ferocious and fast, they breathed poisonous mist and could deflect low-quality arrows. But they were considered Rank 3 as far as danger level went, and for warriors of that same rank, they weren’t difficult as long as their poison could be managed.

Rather, one of them wouldn’t have been difficult.

“Five incoming!” Camille yelled.

“Got it. I’ll take point.”

The most dangerous characteristic of shelled dragons was their cowardice, which meant they favored hit-and-run tactics. But since their intelligence was low, they occasionally grew aggressive instead of fleeing.

I pointed a finger and focused on the monsters as they approached, dust clouds trailing behind them.

“Confusion,” I chanted.

I rarely used the Level 4 shadow spell, as it wasn’t very effective against highly intelligent beings. In particular, it had practically no effect on opponents of the user’s rank or higher. But against a lower-ranked, skittish opponent, it was much more viable.

The shelled dragon leading the group stopped. Two others charged past it.

“Haaah!!!”

Camille, with his magic blades drawn, attacked from above, spinning fluidly and instantly beheading the two scaly creatures.

It would’ve been difficult for me to cut through hard scales so easily. But, thanks to the Rainbow Blade, I had experience fighting in a group and was used to leaving things to the vanguard when possible.

My spell took effect, and the confused monster turned on the other two.

“Fall back, Alia,” Camille instructed.

“Got it.”

Regardless, we chose to retreat. Several more shelled dragons were coming up behind the others, and soon, they began attacking and devouring their infighting kin.

Why did they keep coming? And why were they cannibalizing one another? This was clearly abnormal—something had to have forced them into this state. If monsters were behaving oddly at the edge of the ruins like this, something had to be going on deeper inside.

“I’ve never seen monsters act like this,” Camille said. “Something’s not right.”

“I’ll head back into town. Maybe the Adventurers’ Guild will know something.”

“All right. I’ll get back to Ron and the others. You take care, yeah?”

After getting far enough away from the group of monsters, Camille and I split up. He hadn’t had the chance to tell me about the crossbow bolt, but that would have to wait. We needed more information on the shelled dragon incident.

Thinking that he could handle defending the tower, I focused Boost on my legs and ran across the rough desert terrain at over twice normal human speed, making the half-hour trip in fifteen minutes. Beastman adventurers near town were alarmed at the sight of me and made to draw their blades, but I ran past them before the weapons were out of their sheaths.

Rather than pass through the town gates, I maintained speed, ran up the high walls, leaped across rooftops, and practically burst into the Adventurers’ Guild like a cannonball. Several adventurers by the entrance turned to me, stunned.

The town had been quiet, but a commotion was happening inside the guild.

“Rose!” came a roar from the guild’s depths, and a vertically challenged but horizontally massive mass of muscle burst out, shoving her way through the crowd toward me.

“Jaysha?”

“Great timing! How many of those potions do you have? I’ll take any number.”

“I just got back from the ruins. The monsters were acting weird. What happened?”

Jilgan emerged from behind the young guildmaster and gave her an admonishing look for her eagerness, then calmly said, “Let’s talk in the back.”

“All right. You come too, then.”

They took me through the commotion into a meeting room that was packed with staff. Something had to have happened during the few days I had been away from town. It seemed serious, so I offered up ten high-grade potions, which Jaysha took.

“We got intel on the monsters in the ruins too,” she said. “We’re not totally sure yet, but we think it’s a stampede.”

A monster stampede. The phenomenon happened once every few decades in areas where many monsters were present—be they natural habitats or dungeons. My parents had died when a group of monsters had rampaged through my hometown. I frowned slightly at the memory.

But stampedes didn’t happen randomly. There had to be a cause. Though increased monster concentration was certainly a factor, it wasn’t the only one.

Jaysha paused, exhaled, then said, “There’s an earth dragon deep in the ruins, and it’s on the move.”

Stampede

Dragons were among the strongest beings in this world.

Unlike monsters—animals and plants that had undergone mana-influenced mutations—dragons were mythical beasts. Their immense power and high intelligence made them objects of worship in some places, and even children knew of them.

While all mythical beasts were known for their impressive size, dragons were most known for their diversity. Several subspecies existed—from weakest to strongest: flying and sea dragons, lesser dragons, elemental dragons, and ancient dragons. The latter, Rank 8 and above, commanded a rich variety of draconic magic. They had beautiful horns, fangs, and scales that captivated countless people.

The result was that the power of dragons was feared, admired, and spoken about in equal measure.

One such dragon—an earth dragon—had stirred from the depths of the ruins of Reisveil and begun to tread its way toward the perimeter.

That’s a very convenient story. Does this have anything to do with the Reezan breaking code and targeting the Munza?

Jaysha Hogroth, guildmaster of the Hogroth-run Adventurers’ Guild, organized her thoughts in the meeting room as staff bustled about. The first report had come in the dead of night, brought by several adventurers on their way back from an expedition: There had been a massive monster outbreak—a stampede. Though various causes were possible, such as food shortages due to the blazing heat, if the stampede had originated in Reisveil, the likeliest cause was monsters panicking en masse due to a more powerful monster stirring in the depths.

The chief possibility was that this powerful monster was an earth dragon, first spotted about a hundred years ago.

Adventurers had reported frightening roars echoing in the distance, and the old dwarf Jilgan, who had once faced an earth dragon, had estimated the sounds were almost certainly coming from one such beast. Dragon roars could inflict the status effect Panic on weak targets. Though the vocalizations of sub-dragon species didn’t have that effect, true dragons—even lesser ones—could use the primordial draconic spell Roar.

Though earth dragons had “earth” in their name, they weren’t actually elemental dragons. Earth-elemental dragons did exist but were known as gem dragons, and their sub-types were named after various precious stones: ruby, emerald, and the like. Gem dragons, however, did not inhabit the continent of Sars; the only known local varieties of elemental dragons were fire, water, ice, and wind.

Earth dragons were lesser, wingless dragons. Over hundreds or even thousands of years, they devoured elemental aethercrystals, which eventually transformed them into elemental dragons.

It was fortunate that the dragon nesting in Reisveil wasn’t an elemental dragon yet, as those were Rank 7. But as a lesser dragon, an earth dragon could sometimes pose an even greater threat, despite being Rank 6. Its exact strength would vary depending on its age, but its overall combat power would be at least 4,000. But, unlike other Rank 6 monsters, an earth dragon wasn’t particularly intelligent—and so it was vulnerable to manipulation.

Are demons controlling it...? Jaysha wondered.

Those dark elves who’d disappeared—that reeked of demon schemes. Had they coordinated with the Reezan? But jumping to the conclusion that they were working together was too rash. Other possibilities couldn’t be ignored. Should the Hogroth dwarves stay in town to handle this matter, leaving the stampede and the earth dragon to humans and beastmen?

No!

The Hogroth was a dwarven organization. As one of the leader’s children, Jaysha didn’t fully trust non-dwarves, believing only dwarven warriors such as herself and Jilgan were capable of taking on an earth dragon. A war party had already been organized to kill it—with Jaysha herself among the participants. The other monsters could be left to fighters Rank 3 and below, dwarven or otherwise.

But...

Standing before Jaysha was a human girl who was impossible to ignore. Her name was Alia, and she was a white-skinned Mercenian woman—a rare sight in this region, where the dark-skinned Krus predominated. Jaysha had first heard about Alia from her confidant and right-hand man Jilgan, who’d mentioned an “interesting human woman.” Jaysha had been both surprised and intrigued.

If Alia had been a danger, Jilgan would have eliminated her on the spot. But he hadn’t so much as fought her. Had she not been worth killing, or had he had other reasons? But she hadn’t returned to the guild, and Jaysha’s interest had begun to fade—only to be rekindled when Kushum, one of the Munza elders, reached out to offer an exclusive deal for high-grade potions as an apology for having targeted an adventurer Jilgan had marked.

That adventurer had turned out to be Alia, who was also an alchemist capable of brewing precious high-grade potions, which were quite rare in this desert. If she was a highly skilled alchemist, it made sense for the Munza to have targeted her. Apparently, their actions had gotten her in trouble with the Kiluri, and as a way of making amends, they’d offered her an alternative channel for selling her potions.

But why would the Munza—a group of wild, rough beastmen—act so meekly toward an adventurer?

Kushum’s answer to that question had made Jaysha wonder whether he’d been messing with her.

Cutlass was a town with no magical tools for long-distance communication, and therefore, information spread fastest via rumors told by merchants. They often covered matters in the neighboring Kal’Faan Empire and the United Kingdom of Ganzaal, though only juicy stories like the assassinations of kings really caught on.

One such rumor that had spread in town was the story of a girl named Cinders.

Jaysha had certainly found it interesting. A child had joined a branch of the Assassins’ Guild and destroyed it, marking her as an enemy of all other branches. Not only that, but she’d also repeatedly had run-ins with various Thieves’ Guilds. She’d become a legend—someone who had survived the two organizations, which both ordinary and shady people avoided at all costs.

Such stories were far more interesting than tales of some king going mad. They made great tavern chatter, after all, and it made sense that the rumor had traveled all the way over here. But to hear that the legend herself was in Cutlass had made Jaysha nearly smash her precious wooden table, wondering if Kushum had been mocking her.

According to the Munza elder, Alia had fought and defeated two hundred beastmen.

It was difficult even to imagine. Jaysha didn’t think she herself would’ve stood a chance against a mere hundred people. She could’ve fought them, sure, but surviving them was another story. Not only that, the Rank 4 Batil and the Fang Brothers, famous enough that Jaysha knew of them by name, had been there. How could anyone have emerged victorious?

No sane person was capable of such things. The rumors had to be exaggerated, she’d decided. She’d asked several beastmen adventurers, but they seemed to fear Alia more than they feared Jaysha or Jilgan. They’d referred to the human girl as “Desert Rose,” but said nothing else. Reportedly, her appearance was reminiscent of a solitary rose blooming in the barren desert.

When Jaysha had first seen Alia at the guild, she’d immediately understood where that impression had come from. Blonde hair with a tinge of pink was rare even among Mercenians and wood elves; it was no wonder she looked like a blooming rose to the people of this region, used to shades of black and brown.

Roses didn’t bloom in deserts, which made them extremely precious here. Merchants often offered single sorcery-processed roses as tribute to the local organizations, and those were more valuable than gems. To desert dwellers, the rose was a symbol of beauty and a source of admiration and awe.

Alia appeared to be a young adult at most, with a delicate frame that made her look more like a noblewoman than a formidable warrior. Still, Jaysha had clocked Alia as trouble the moment she’d laid eyes upon the human girl. Alia wasn’t a beautiful blade—she was a beautiful trap, poisoning anyone who dared to touch her. The men in the guild had been deceived by her appearance, thinking her frail, but as a fellow woman, Jaysha had instinctively sensed the danger.

The girl’s combat power was on the same level as Jilgan’s, and the old dwarf had fought on the front lines for decades. But in the depths of Alia’s eyes, Jaysha had seen something that belied those raw numbers—a certain spark that had immediately told her the rumors about this girl were all true.

No one would want to be on her bad side.

If Alia joined the dragon hunt, victory would certainly be likelier. But as a daughter of the Hogroth clan, Jaysha couldn’t afford to let a non-dwarf claim the glory.

Jaysha personally sympathized with Alia as a fellow female warrior, and so her attitude toward the girl was half business, half genuine. Still, protecting Cutlass was the duty of the Hogroth dwarves. As Jaysha of the Hogroth, she wanted Alia to stick to high-grade potions. As Jaysha the guildmaster, however, she acknowledged that letting such combat power go to waste would be a poor strategic move.

Though at the same time, Jaysha knew Alia was unlikely to take orders from the guild either way. So...how could she get Alia to behave optimally?

“Alia,” Jaysha said, “just protect what you must protect.”

***

Jaysha had given me freedom to do as I pleased as an adventurer.

My primary objective had always been Elena’s safety. To ensure that, I wouldn’t hesitate to fight a dragon—but I sensed deeper meaning in Jaysha’s words. Kushum had been murdered by the Reezan, and the town’s powerful dark elves had disappeared. Now, to top it all off, there was a monster stampede...

It had all started because I’d antagonized the Munza and punched holes into their defenses. Most people believed the Reezan had taken advantage of this, but in my opinion, they’d already been waiting for a chance to act.

Jaysha thought something was going to happen in this town. The father and daughter I’d run into recently had also warned me to leave as soon as possible.

I wasn’t sure if the stampede was related to the Reezan, but it didn’t seem to be advantageous to them in any way. So what was their goal? The town itself? Did they just want to crush one of the other factions?

The missing dark elves likely knew the answer.

I put on my cloak again and ran through town to return to the watchtower. I hadn’t heard anything on my way in, but talk of the stampede had to have reached town, as I saw several merchants closing up shop in a hurry. No adventurers were milling about—the guild had probably called upon them to handle the monsters. Residents were on edge, weapons at the ready, as though they could sense the danger.

My feet came to a halt halfway through town. Something wasn’t right.

The Kiluri were merchants and prioritized profit. They wouldn’t fight. The Hogroth and the Munza would be sending their forces to deal with the monster rampage.

So who were the armed people lurking around that corner?

I slowly approached them. Maybe they were just sensing something was off and had their guard up. But where had they gotten such quality spears and swords? Even low-ranking adventurers in this town wouldn’t own those.

“What do you want, brat?” a sun-kissed Krus man asked, scowling.

One hooded figure and five Krus people. The hooded figure was the slimmest of them but had the strongest presence.

Keeping out of range of their weapons, I said, “Not much. Just wondering what a dark elf’s doing here. Thought they’d all vanished.”

At that moment, the hooded man’s presence turned hostile, and the others all readied their weapons.

I’d guessed right.

Omens of Turmoil

The hooded man was a dark elf, and he’d grown visibly agitated the instant I figured that out. The others surged forward, weapons drawn—single-edged swords and thin spears, now evidently meant for killing rather than self-protection.

“Raaah!”

The stern-faced Krus man I’d first spoken to slashed at me with a cutlass. I wrapped it with my cloak to deflect it, and the man gasped in shock.

“Who are you, woman?”

“Who are you?” I retorted. “Why are you attacking me? What’s so bad about mentioning dark elves?”

“Shut up!” the man snapped, trying to yank his blade free. “Die already!”

I released the blade and kicked him away.

From behind him, the dark elf grumbled, “Stop yelling. Just kill her.”

Though there were few prying eyes here, making noise would nevertheless attract attention. If they didn’t want any, they were here with a purpose. Maybe the hooded man was one of the missing dark elves. Maybe he was involved with demons.

Before I could make sense of it, the remaining four Krus people attacked.

“Yaaah!” one man shouted as he thrust out a flexible thin spear. Like the others’ weapons, this was most effective against ordinary people, not monsters or armored soldiers.

I spread my cloak wide to puff it up with air, and the spear pierced through the empty space underneath the fabric. As I stepped forward, a sharp hidden weapon stabbed out of the shadow in my palm and through the spearman’s throat, piercing his medulla.

Against multiple opponents, tactics focused on maiming and disabling were superior—any combatant who couldn’t fight was a burden. But against so few people, killing was more efficient.

Assuming the Krus man who had first confronted me was Rank 3, the others had to be around the upper end of Rank 2, maybe with 200 power or so. Small fry were of no concern to me; they’d drawn their weapons and I had no reason to show mercy. I didn’t need to keep them all alive for interrogation—the two stronger ones would be plenty.

The spearman collapsed with a thud, and my weighted pendulum launched upward from his shadow. I swung it down, crushing the skull of a nearby man holding a cutlass.

“Y-You little...! How dare—”

Watching his friends fall one after the other, the first man, who was on his bum after I’d kicked him down, was turning even darker with anger as he readied his own cutlass.

“Wait! That girl is not normal!” the dark elf warned.

“Shut up, pointy-ears! I don’t take orders from you!” the man bellowed, then attacked again.

They were allies but not comrades, it seemed.

I glared at the other two Krus people to intimidate them into not interfering, then decided to question the angry one. Sliding in, I deflected his blade with my black knife, then elbowed him in the face.

“Ngah!” Blood sprayed from the man’s nose as he staggered back several meters. He fell to his knees. “Y-You brat!”

He was a hardy man, but still, that would keep him immobile for a while.

Just as I moved to finish off the other two, I saw the bloodied man grinning in my peripheral vision. From where the dark elf sat, I heard rhythmic, rhyming chanting.

“Heh!” the bloodied Krus man scoffed. “You’re gonna die.”

Behind him, fire-aspected mana surged.

“Fire Arrow!”

The dark elf shot four Fire Arrows, and I leaped sideways to dodge. Casting multiple simultaneous instances of the same spell like that was an advanced technique—but only one of them was aimed at me.

The other three arrows struck the three surviving men in the backs while they were focused on me.

“Gaaah!”

Even a Level 1 Fire Arrow could be lethal if it struck vital spots from behind. The man who had only just gloated about my imminent death was hit in the back of the skull, his face exploding into a ball of fire as he stared at me incredulously before collapsing.

The dark elf clicked his tongue and turned his back on the Krus allies he’d just killed. “Tsk.”

He must’ve realized the Krus had little chance of victory and changed tactics to silence witnesses instead. I spun my skirt and threw a knife but was a moment too late. The dark elf leaped into an alley, and the knife deflected off a nearby building.

I immediately gave chase, but upon entering the alley, I found no one at all. I tried to locate him with Detection and glimpsed the hem of a cloak disappearing over the rooftop of a two-story building. My sickle pendulum shot up and hooked onto the roof’s edge, and I ran up the wall in one go. As soon as I reached the rooftop, another Fire Arrow came flying—but I’d used this exact tactic to escape before, so I was prepared.

“Shield!” I chanted, and the spell quickly deflected the arrow.

“What?!”

The shocked dark elf hurriedly tried to leap to another building, but by then, I had finished casting my next spell.

“Pain.”

“Aaargh!” the dark elf shouted, tripping from the intense pain.

He fell from the rooftop. I jumped off after him.

“How...do you know that spell?” the dark elf asked. His leg appeared broken, and his hood had come off. He was glaring at me, still under the effect of Pain. “Only our kind knows how to cast Shield...”

“So you are a demon, then,” I said.

My mistress, Cere’zhula, formerly the Fiend of the demonic army, had taught me this spell. She’d learned it from her own mentor—and only demons from her homeland would know it.

“Tch...”

Having accidentally revealed too much, the dark elf fell silent. This only confirmed my suspicions. Though using my mistress’s spell risked revealing her survival to the demons, my tactics and martial arts were entirely based on the demonic versions either way, so it was a moot point. If Cere’zhula would be in danger because this man had learned of my techniques, I would simply eliminate him.

But first, I needed to know what he was plotting. I took out my sickle pendulum, and before I could do anything, the man—who had been glaring at me and sweating—suddenly looked serene. He bit down on the pendant hanging from his chest.

“Ngh...”

Blood gushed from his mouth, and he collapsed face-down.

He’d committed suicide, poisoning himself before I could get any information out of him. The pendant must’ve been fitted with a poison crystal or a small resin container filled with toxins. But what could have possibly been that important to hide? If he’d committed suicide that quickly, without even trying to fight back, whatever the demons were plotting had to be extremely significant.

I went back out onto the street and focused on the nearby presences. Several groups like this one—Krus people and dark elves—were scattered all across town. I couldn’t handle all of them, and trying to extract information was pointless if they had suicide as a backup plan. I couldn’t tell Jaysha about this either, since she’d already departed to deal with the stampede.

A massive monster outbreak. An earth dragon stirring. And now the conspiracy between the Reezan mafia and demons. There was no time to investigate all of this, and it was probably too late to stop whatever plot was already in motion.

“I don’t have enough information,” I muttered to myself.

This was concerning, but my priorities were elsewhere. For now, determined to fulfill my role, I started running again toward the watchtower, where Elena was.

***

“Why is this thing here?!”

On his way back to the watchtower, Camille encountered a monster: a humanoid giant, easily over two meters tall, with rock-hard skin the color of sand. Two horns grew from its distorted, humanlike head. The monster, which blended in with dust clouds, was a sand ogre—a local variety of ogre.

Standard ogres were powerful monsters ranging from the upper end of Rank 3 to the lower end of Rank 4. Sand ogres were always Rank 4, and though they were endemic to this region, they normally stayed deep in the ancient ruins of Reisveil. Very rarely, groups of ogres would wander out during territorial disputes—but this one was alone. It had likely been driven out of the ruins, like those shell dragons, but by what?

“Groooar!”

Ogres were a man-eating species. This one, likely starving, roared with joy at finally finding prey. Not only that, it somehow possessed a rusty greatsword with a broken tip. Unarmed ogres were trouble as it was...

Camille figured battle was unavoidable. His expression turned blank as he drew his two magical blades. He and the ogre had roughly the same combat power, which made it a significant threat. But more importantly, he couldn’t let this man-eating monster reach the watchtower where Ron and the others were.

“Grr...” Sensing something shift about Camille’s aura, the sand ogre now seemed to view the dark elf as an enemy, not food. “Groooar!”

“Haaah!”

Clang!

The broken greatsword collided with one of the magical blades, scattering sparks of aether into the desert air. The impact chipped the blade of the ogre’s weapon and sent Camille flying back.

But the dark elf used the force of the blow to counter, spinning to slash at the sand ogre’s arm with his remaining blade.

“Graaah!”

The sand ogre’s face twisted into a smile as Camille’s blade connected with its arm. The cut was shallow, unable to do much to the ogre’s rock-hard skin.

Startled, Camille chose to establish distance instead of pressing the attack. It wasn’t just that the ogre’s raw stats were higher than his—it probably had more practical experience as well. It was the same with Alia, whose rank was similar to his, but whose combat experience vastly surpassed his.

The ogre’s combat power neared 1,000. Camille had means to bridge the experience gap, but it would take time that he wasn’t sure he had.

At that moment, a projectile came flying from somewhere and deflected off the ogre’s skin with a shrill sound. A small cloaked figure burst out from behind a rocky outcropping and rapidly fired an array of crossbow bolts at the sand ogre while circling to the side.

“Graaah!!!”

Roaring angrily at the interloper, the sand ogre raised its broken greatsword to deflect the projectiles. But another attacker emerged, exploiting that opening to strike the back of the ogre’s head with a blunt weapon.

“Gaaaaaaaaah!!!”

The sturdy monster staggered slightly, its roars growing angrier still. Its attention shifted to the two newcomers, who were about Rank 3. It would be difficult for them to beat a sand ogre with that level of skill, but their interference created an opening for Camille to unleash his trump card.

“Release.”

With the invocation, the seals placed on Camille’s magical blades were lifted. The accumulated experience from the swords flowed back into him, and the sensation was sickening—Camille felt as though his very brain were being eroded. Still, he endured it and leaped forward, unleashing the technique etched into the blades.

“Dancing Reaper!”

“Graaah?!”

Camille waltzed in the air as he delivered a furious eight-hit combo with his two daggers. Caught in the vortex of strikes, the sand ogre bled from countless cuts in its rocky skin as it collapsed onto the dry ground.

“Ngh,” the dark elf groaned, pain shooting up his arms from the exertion.

His magical blades had the ability to store experience, and within them was engraved the Level 5 dagger technique Dancing Reaper. The blades carried with them the skills necessary to use the technique as well, but since Camille was of a lower rank than the blades, the process was highly taxing on his body.

“Are you hurt?” asked one of the interlopers.

Camille’s gaze went to the Krus man and his dark elf daughter. Their hoods were now down, their faces visible in the desert sun.

“Kadri...? Izelle?”

Kadri and Izelle offered small smiles as they walked closer. The two knelt and bowed their heads.

“We’ve come to escort you, Your Highness.”

***

“Alia...” Elena murmured softly while looking out the crumbling watchtower’s window.

Though she constantly worried about Alia, she trusted her more than anyone else in this world. Still, today she had a particularly unsettling feeling that refused to fade.

Elena had no dungeon gift and only three elemental affinities remaining. However, she’d originally had four before losing her affinity to fire—and that meant she still had Level 4 Aether Manipulation despite being Rank 3.

▼ HRH Elena Claydale

Species: Human♀ (Rank 3)

Aether Points: 250/250 △ +10

Health Points: 135/135 △ +10

Strength: 7

Endurance: 8

Agility: 12

Dexterity: 8

[Light Mastery Lv. 3]

[Water Mastery Lv. 3]

[Fire Mastery Lv. 0]

[Wind Mastery Lv. 3]

[Non-Elemental Magic Lv. 1]

[Practical Magic x5]

[Aether Manipulation Lv. 4]

[Intimidation Lv. 2]

[Poison Resistance Lv. 1]

[Basic Scan]

Overall Combat Power: 480 (Sorcery Power: 576)

Perhaps noticing something amiss with the mana in the atmosphere, Elena unconsciously stared at the ancient ruins, hazily visible in the distance.

“Do you see something, ‘Lena’?” Ron asked as he came down from the rooftop, where he’d been repairing the balloon.

“Are you taking a break, ‘Ron’?” Elena asked with a somewhat detached smile.

Both she and Ron knew each other’s names were false. Ron was probably a noble from some country, and he’d likely realized Elena was a noble herself. Over time, she’d come to partially trust his and his friends’ characters, but as a noble, she couldn’t afford to fully trust someone who couldn’t reveal their identity.

Granted, I can’t reveal mine either...

Drawing boundaries around personal relationships was part of being nobility, but Elena nevertheless wished it didn’t have to be so. Though Alia didn’t completely trust these people either, seeing how the children had taken to Elena, Alia had decided that she trusted Ron and his friends enough to leave Elena in their care.

For her part, Elena wouldn’t have wanted to stay with them if not for the younger children and their caretaker, Chaco. Naturally, she figured Ron and Camille would be similarly wary of her and Alia, but...

“What, nothing on your mind of late? Surely desert life is taking its toll on you,” Ron said.

“Ah, I’m fine, thank you...”

Recently, particularly since she’d begun to care for the children, Elena felt Ron’s attitude had softened. It wasn’t as dramatic as Camille’s soft spot for Alia, but still, perhaps watching Elena be genuine with the children had made him trust her more.

The children are really sweet...

Elena hadn’t meant to be genuine with the children, but she couldn’t help it. Neu, older and a dark elf, was a bit shy and didn’t approach her much, but the dwarf girl Rana and the dogfolk boy Naru, the two youngest, had grown to adore Elena and always clung to her.

But their affection could be problematic at times.

“Lena,” the four-year-old dwarf girl murmured as she came up the stairs, teary-eyed.

“Oh, dear. What’s wrong, Rana?”

Elena had thought Rana was still napping. She must’ve woken up, not found Chaco—who had gone to tend the field and likely hadn’t returned yet—and come here.

“Did you have a bad dream?” Elena asked.

“No... Naru went outside,” Rana said.

“What?”

Naru was only three years old. As a boy of the beastfolk, he was much more active than human toddlers, but he was still too young to go outside on his own.

“Where did he go?” Elena asked gently, holding Rana’s gaze and trying to hide her own anxiety. “How long has he been gone?”

Rana bit her lower lip, looking like she was about to cry. “Um, he went to pick grass...”

“Grass...?”

“It’s my fault! I told him there’s this bright red grass over where the rocks are, and it smells funny, and we use it for medicine, and...”

“Oh...”

Red grass. Elena knew the plant—a succulent that grew in specific locations in the desert. It was different from the edible succulents found in the area; this one could be processed to make high-grade potions.

Unlike deathroot, which bloomed in miasma-dense places, this one was relatively easy to gather and could be found outside the ruins. Naru had probably overheard Alia and Camille talking about gathering ingredients and pieced together that they were short on that particular red grass.

Young Naru had probably wanted to contribute in some way. Instead of sitting around using his age as an excuse, he’d figured out what he could do and taken action for everyone else’s sake.

“I’m sorry...” Rana mumbled in tears.

“Rana...”

Elena embraced the crying child. Rana had done nothing wrong. Still, were something to happen to Naru, it would break the young girl’s heart.

“Lena, I’ll go look for him,” Ron said, his usual easy smile gone.

“Ron!”

Their two combat specialists were responsible for gathering materials for high-grade potions so they could make money and repair the hot-air balloon. This was the agreement between the older members of the group, Elena and Ron included.

Ron probably felt responsible for having carelessly discussed such things in front of the children, figuring they were too young to really understand. Not only that, but maybe he shared Elena’s inexplicable feeling of unease.

Seeing his sense of responsibility and thinking of Naru’s desire to help, Elena felt conflicted. She and Alia bore no responsibility for the children—it had been Ron and Camille who had decided to save rather than forsake them. Her and Alia’s objective was to send word to Claydale of their survival and make their way back. Everything else was secondary.

But...was that really right?

Returning to her home country would prevent a fracture within the nobility. Elena considered any sacrifices for such a purpose to be worthy. She had to return for her people, even if it meant forsaking everything else.

But was there a line somewhere? How much of her heart could she bear to abandon to prioritize duty?

A ruler’s life was solitary. Her own life was among the things she had to forsake for duty.

Still. Was it justified for Elena to sit here and wait, safeguarding herself as the future queen, and discarding her heart for the sake of her people? Was it really, when everyone else was pushing through suffering, and even a child as young as three was doing what he could to help?

How was she any different from her brother, who just sat around waiting for the crown to be handed to him?

She could save the children—save everyone here—then complete her own objective. How flimsy of a queen would she be if she couldn’t even do that much? Would the people follow someone so passive?

Elena made her decision.

“I’m coming too, Ron.”

What It Means to Rule

“Lena?!” Ron exclaimed in shock.

It was only natural that he would go searching for Naru—Ron had taken on the duty of sheltering the children, after all. But Lena was staying with his group to avoid danger. He’d figured she would have chosen to stay put, not join him in his search. Why was she heading into potential danger?

Ron figured Lena was using a fake name and was likely a foreign noble. At first, he’d suspected her and Alia of being spies. Though he’d never personally dealt with any, some of the traveling merchants who came to town gave off that impression. But those suspicions had been quelled quickly; the two girls—likely a well-bred lady and her guard—were too conspicuous to be spies.

There were countless possible suspicious reasons for them to be here, but if he were to be charitable, another possibility was that Lena had fallen victim to a scheme or accident. If so, their desire to escape the town was understandable.

At first, Ron hadn’t wanted to get involved, but after learning of their abilities, he’d figured he could use them for his own ends. Camille, who had allied with Ron for his own reasons, seemed taken with the words and deeds of the guard girl, Alia. But Ron was more interested in Lena’s judgment and negotiation skills.

Ron was a Kal’Faan noble. Though he was considerably younger than his older brothers, their supporters might still target him for elimination if he failed to establish a firm foothold within the family hierarchy. Thus, he’d taken his chances with a dangerous solo mission and obtained permission to use the one-of-a-kind hot-air balloon to travel to this land.

Normally, his position wouldn’t have allowed such risks, and he eventually came to realize the only reason he’d been able to leave was that his brothers’ supporters had pulled strings. Upon arrival, Ron had been attacked by his own attendants, who were supposed to have been guarding him. He’d only survived by destroying the balloon itself. The attendants, who had died in the fall, had likely been acting under orders of his brothers’ supporters. Left alone, Ron had been forced to fend for himself and figure out how to survive in Cutlass.

Nearly two years had passed since then. Since Ron couldn’t contact his homeland, his noble registration was about to expire. He had to live and make it back. Though his reasons for escaping town were the same as Lena and Alia’s, Ron had a feeling that their motivations differed from his own.

Over these two years, Ron had grown attached to the orphans. Though he knew he couldn’t save every urchin in Cutlass, he couldn’t leave Chaco and the others he’d grown close to. Camille probably felt the same.

Speaking strictly as a nobleman, this was foolish sentimentalism.

Lena, meanwhile, regarded Ron with eyes that seemed to view the world with a broader perspective. In that regard, she reminded him of his father. Though they both wanted to save people, their ambitions seemed markedly different in scope.

At first, he’d thought her a mere noblewoman. Over their time together, he’d grown fond of her genuine, lovely smiles. Before he knew it, his eyes were following her every move. Now he could see that, despite being younger than Ron, Lena had a firmer grasp of what nobility truly entailed.

“All right,” he conceded. “Let’s go, Lena.”

“Let’s!”

***

“All right, people! Show them what we’re made of!!!” Jaysha bellowed.

“Raaaaaaaaaaaah!” the guild members shouted back.

The guild had mobilized a mixed group of adventurers to deal with the stampede: crag dwarf heavy fighters wielding massive shields and axes and mountain dwarves brandishing halberds. The Munza gang had sent a group of light fighters, all beastmen, equipped with swords and spears and clad in desert-appropriate light armor. Joining them was a group of human adventurers. In total, over 150 adventurers Rank 2 and above were marching toward Reisveil.

But...

“Tch,” muttered Jaysha, who had a two-handed magic-steel axe balanced over her shoulders, as she looked back at the adventurers under her command. “Something smells fishy.”

Her people, the dwarves, weren’t the issue. And the Munza, with whom the Hogroth had renewed agreements after the Rose incident, were keeping the bloodthirsty beastmen in line. The dark elves were, of course, missing.

But something felt off among the human adventurers—who comprised about twenty percent of their full numbers.

“My lady...”

“I know, Jilgan,” Jaysha snapped.

Unlike the sturdier dwarves and beastmen, humans struggled in desert environments, and so few of them became adventurers. Some did, of course, but most were outcasts or orphans driven to desperation. Bringing such low-ranking individuals along would’ve only caused more problems. Instead, they’d recruited the few humans Rank 2 and above—who seemed oddly unsettled.

“I can’t say it too loud,” Jaysha murmured. “The Reezan, you think?”

“You figured it out. Good job.”

Jaysha scoffed at being treated like a child. “Hmph!”

Still, she knew arguing with Jilgan, who had been her chaperone for nearly thirty years now, was useless. In dwarf years, she was barely an adult.

Wait, that’s not the issue right now.

The Hogroth Merchant Company dealt in weapon and armor sales as well as smithwork, but as managers of the Adventurers’ Guild, they also had the responsibility to protect Cutlass from external threats. Doing so, even without being asked, served as a show of force and afforded them considerable standing in the town despite having the smallest numbers among the four factions.

Therefore, the Hogroth had to stop this stampede—their reputation was at stake. Even if an earth dragon from the depths of Reisveil was behind it, Jaysha had no intention of retreating. But swirling beneath this situation were shadows that clung like sand to her skin. It was dangerous to make assumptions regarding the mastermind who’d orchestrated this crisis—demons, the Reezan, someone else—but it was impossible to not be wary.

What if their objective was to lure the Hogroth adventurers away from town?

“What of the shifty bunch?” Jaysha asked.

“Moved them to the rear, just in case,” Jilgan said. “But we don’t know what they’re up to, so it’s hard to say whether that was the correct call.”

“Right...”

After breaking for a meal, the adventurers resumed their march.

In this region, relatively docile subspecies of shelled dragon were sometimes used for transportation in lieu of horses. However, procuring enough of them in time to transport this many people wasn’t feasible. Therefore, the main group was traveling on foot with almost no rest—all the more reason to have the fragile humans in the rear, guarding the supply carts the dragons were pulling.

After several more hours, a panther beastwoman shouted, “Guildmaster! Dust clouds in the distance!”

“Here they come!” Jaysha shouted back, grinning boldly.

Dust clouds in the distance meant many monsters were stampeding—but Jaysha, who far preferred swinging her axe to ruminating on detailed strategies, liked it this way.

“Form up, you dirty bastards! Shields to the front! Block them with your lives if you have to! Mountain dwarves, follow behind and strike when they hit the shields! Beastmen, do whatever you want! Kill them!!!”

“Yeeeeeeeeah!!!”

“Hey! Not all of us are dirty, Guildmaster!” joked several beastwomen, including the scout.

While the guild was partial to dwarves, Jaysha often favored the few female adventurers and personally offered them quests, which had led to a degree of casual rapport between them that transcended race.

“Very funny! Focus up! Sorcerers, get ready to strike first!”

Over half of the female adventurers were sorceresses. At Jaysha’s command, human and beastfolk sorcerers began to ready spells from behind the shield bearers.

“Incoming!”

The first to emerge from the dust clouds were nimble-legged shelled dragons and a few flying insect monsters. Upon confirming no heat-resistant desert lizards were among them, Jaysha ordered the sorcerers to channel fire-elemental spells.

“Trip them up! Fire!”

***

“Air Bullet,” Elena chanted.

“Raaah!”

Her wind spell tore several beetles from the ground, exposing their abdomens. At that moment, Ron leaped in and struck with his blade, severing their heads at the mandibles.

Elena could’ve defeated these beetles on her own with powerful sorcery, but she’d learned that coordinating with a melee fighter allowed her to conserve mana. Though Ron wasn’t as skilled as Camille, he had still survived for two years in this town, and his ability had reached Rank 3.

“Why are there monsters here...?” Ron muttered, his expression somewhat anxious despite how easily they’d taken down the beetles.

“Something’s not right,” Elena said. “Let’s hurry.”

The two weren’t yet aware of the massive monster stampede, but they were both wary, trusting the bad feelings in their guts. Ron was anxious not only for Naru’s safety but for Elena’s as well. He felt a mix of worry and wounded masculine pride for placing her in the way of danger like this.

But Claydale women were not damsels in distress.

Elena’s old self might’ve been anxious, but she’d since grown stronger and more determined. Despite the circumstances, she could maintain surprising calm.

Before, I was ready to die but not to stake my life...

As a princess, Elena had been prepared to act as a “bridging queen”—educating a royal scion or one from a cadet bloodline to become the next king if her brother, the crown prince, was found unfit to rule. This had been the best option for a girl like her, frail and unable to bear children—or so she had persuaded her father. But now, as she thought back on the appeal she’d made, it felt like passivity. A resolve to escape, not act.

That resolve served the crown, but not the people.

For the crown, choosing death over manipulation by one’s political enemies was best. But that was running away, was it not? A ruler truly thinking of her people would do her utmost to survive.

Even her brother, raised by a peace-addled mother and lacking the mindset of a royal, could become a decent king with Elena’s support. But was that truly what was best for the people? Did she have to make Elvan king? Her body had recovered. She was no longer frail.

So...who was it that should become king?

Rulership was a solitary endeavor, but one person did not a nation make. Nations existed thanks to the stalwart support of vassals. Adults paid taxes. Children helped with work and followed in their parents’ footsteps. Nobles protected them. All of them were a king’s beloved people, and anyone who preyed on them—even the nation’s own citizens—were enemies to be dealt with.

Therefore, to Elena, young Naru—wanting to do what he could to help—was already a cherished vassal, even if he had no idea she was a princess.

But she needed the resolve to cut away that which did not serve. She needed the resolve to stake her own life on her mission. She couldn’t afford to be swayed by emotion.

So how much could she save with her own hands? With this limited vessel to which she, who had resolved to become queen, was confined?

“Lena, look over there!” Ron called out.

Near the rocky area where Naru had headed, groups of monsters were milling about.

“We can’t face them all,” Elena said. “Let’s avoid them as best as we can, get Naru, and escape.”

“I suppose that’s all we can really do...”

The red grass Naru had gone to pick grew in colonies all over this area. He was little and couldn’t carry much; hopefully he’d picked whatever his small form could manage and left. Children growing up in this area should know how to escape a monster.

But not this many monsters. In groups this large, even slower creatures like caterpillars might not be escapable.

“Look at these,” Ron said.

As they proceeded while avoiding the monsters, they came upon the carcasses of caterpillars, crushed by thin, sticklike objects.

“Adventurers, perhaps?” Elena ventured.

“No, they were beaten repeatedly. It must have been people living around here.”

“People live here?” Elena asked, suddenly hopeful. “Maybe Naru sought refuge with them.”

“Yeah...” Ron muttered, but he remained wary. “But don’t get your hopes up too much.”

Elena was confused for a moment, but as they headed toward where these residents supposedly lived, it dawned on her why he’d said that.

To put it bluntly, these people were likely the worst of the scum of this town.

Many wary gazes turned toward the pair as they walked. The people here weren’t weak, but they weren’t strong either. Too half-hearted for any of the factions, too proud to do menial work, they lived only by taking from the weak—such as children and the elderly—and hiding from the strong.

About ten people, armed with crude clubs, looked fearfully at Ron and his proper weapon.

“Wh-Who the hell are you people?” a middle-aged human man asked.

“We’re looking for a beastman boy. Have you seen him?” Elena said.

“N-No, I haven’t. Just get out when you’re done, all right?” he replied, averting his gaze.

Based on his attitude, Elena suspected he knew something, but before she could press him, Ron stopped her by tugging on the hem of her cloak.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Best not to provoke them.”

“But...”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s here.”

Ron had noticed several residents glancing in a specific direction when Elena described Naru.

“Come on,” he said. “They’re probably using him as bait.”

Elena gasped and hurried after Ron. After a while, they heard the voice of a small child.

“Naru?!” Elena exclaimed.

“Over there!” Ron said.

They took off running toward the familiar sound and spotted Naru climbing a rocky outcropping and throwing pebbles down at a group of caterpillars.

“Waterball!” Elena chanted, hastily unleashing a mass of water that swept away the insect monsters. “Ron!”

At her cue, Ron lunged at the caterpillars while Elena rushed to secure Naru.

“Naru!” she called out.

“Lena!” the boy replied, leaping down into Elena’s waiting arms. He was filthy but uninjured.

Elena peered into his eyes. “I’m glad you’re safe. Why did you go out alone?”

“For this!” Naru answered innocently. He proudly showed her a hemp pack stuffed full of red grass.

“Naru,” Elena said sternly.

Though doing so made her want to cry, she lightly slapped the boy’s cheek.

“Huh?”

“Don’t do such things,” she told him. “You worried everyone. What if you got hurt? We’d all be sad.”

Naru understood what was allowed and what wasn’t, but couldn’t distinguish right from wrong. He was only three, but more than that, he had no adults to teach him. Chaco and Neu, desperate just to survive, couldn’t teach him either.

Elena hugged the boy tightly, hoping to reinforce the lesson. “I’m really glad you’re safe,” she murmured. “And thank you. You’re a fine boy.”

“I’m sorry, Lena...”

She wasn’t sure if Naru truly comprehended what he’d done, but he hugged her back, crying. Within moments, he fell asleep, likely from relief and exhaustion.

“Lena, we should go,” Ron said as he approached. He’d already taken out the caterpillars and had just been waiting for Naru to calm down.

“Yes. Thank you for waiting,” she replied.

Ron gave a small smile but averted his gaze. “I mean, of course I’d wait.”

Elena’s smile widened slightly. “Right.”

Now all that was left was to go back. As the two began to return the way they came, the residents they’d encountered earlier moved to block their path.

“What do you want?” Ron asked, stepping forward to protect the other two. His hand moved to the hilt of his blade.

The residents, seemingly intimidated, backed away—but the middle-aged man from before stepped forward.

“Y-You guys are strong, right? Kill the monsters around here!” he demanded.

“Yeah! There’s monsters in town too!” another resident added.

“I ran from there, but there’s more monsters here!”

“Yeah! You’re strong! Do something!”

The grimy rabble were all pleading now.

“Seriously...?” Ron muttered.

Though the group could surround and kill individual monsters, they weren’t brave enough to face groups and had grown used to running away. They’d even gone as far as using children as bait. Now they performed helplessness to foist responsibility onto the strong.

Ron clenched his fist in anger, but before he could say anything else, Elena spoke up. “Ron. Wait.”

Her tone sent chills down his spine. “Lena...?”

Elena’s smile had turned cold as she handed the sleeping Naru to Ron, then stepped toward the group.

“Why should we help you?” she asked, her usual measured tone replaced by something more forceful, matching that of the residents.

Ron and the group all gasped.

“Defeat them yourselves,” Elena said.

“Easy for you to say! W-We can’t, all right?! We’re not strong like you! I mean, is that even your kid? Why are you helping him? Help us instead!”

“No.”

The immediate answer seemed to freeze the air around them for a second.

“This boy wanted to help me and my companions. He did his best. You people interfered, and now you want help? Why do you think we’d help you?” she asked incisively and matter-of-factly.

A ruler protected her people and showed no mercy to her enemies.

Sensing the cold determination in her words, the group fell silent.

Elena smiled sweetly. “Whose town is Cutlass? Yours, no? If you don’t protect it, who will? Is this not your home?”

“I-I... I mean, we...”

The man’s eyes wavered with confusion. He hated this town—even just living here was painful. He wanted to escape it someday. But the word “home,” spoken with such a gentle smile, stirred a long-forgotten warmth in his heart.

Suddenly, a new voice said, “You know, I’d prefer it if you didn’t rally them.”

Startled, Elena and Ron turned around. There, looking down from atop the rocks, was a hooded man. Though his face should’ve been visible at this angle, it was obscured by the backlighting. Still, they were certain he was smiling.

“Who are you?” Elena asked.

“You, Mercenian. Are you the one they call Rose? Or are you her friend?” he asked. “Either way, my orders say to kill you if I ever run into you. Just in case. You know, I swore they were messing with me, but nope. You really do exist.”

Elena didn’t respond. This man was very chatty—either by nature or because he was sure he had the upper hand. He sounded sadistic, almost.

Several other Krus people emerged from behind him. “Boss, you shouldn’t talk so much...”

“What? I figured the lady wants to know why she’s gonna die, yeah?”

All of these people were Rank 2 or above. The chatty man’s power couldn’t be discerned with precision due to his cloak, but Elena had enough experience from the dungeon venture and everything else she’d gone through to estimate him to be around Rank 3. According to him, they were here not to capture her, but to kill her “just in case.” In case of what? If his words were to be believed, something had to be happening—or was about to happen—in town.

Elena pondered whether she and Ron could defeat this group. In close combat, their chances were low; Ron could probably use sorcery as well but probably couldn’t defeat any of these people in one hit. While Elena could use lightning spells, at this distance and with her skill level, they’d lose power and disperse. She could use ice spells for instant kills, but they were slow and could be dodged from this far away.

An opening... Is there an opening...?

Ron could distract them with magic, but she couldn’t communicate this to him, and they weren’t attuned enough for her to convey it silently either.

But before she could figure anything out—

Whoosh.

The hooded man looked up at the source of the sound, just as a small arrow pierced his right eye. “Ngh! Ack!”

“Ice Javelin!” Elena chanted.

Her spell pierced the man’s heart. His hood fell back to reveal the dusky face of a dark elf just as his body tumbled from atop the outcropping.

The man’s companions looked around in shock. “Wha—”

Only Elena knew where to look. She turned to see a girl with hair the color of burnished iron holding a small crossbow, breathing hard, atop an opposite rocky outcropping.

“Sorry for the wait,” the girl said.

“Impeccable timing, Alia,” Elena replied.

The Master of the Ancient Ruins

“Chaco,” Rana mumbled, anxiously gripping the catfolk’s hand. “Is everyone okay?”

“I’m sure they are,” Chaco replied.

Neu, the dark elf and only boy, looked like he was about to cry. Still, his features had a determined set to them as he stared intently outside.

The youngest of them, the dogfolk Naru, had wandered outside and was nowhere to be seen. Everyone wanted to go look for him, but they also knew waiting at the tower was important—for the sake of Ron and Elena, who had first left to search for the boy, and for Alia, who had come by earlier, admonished them that staying put was necessary, then left again.

Alia...

Chaco was a little scared of Alia. Though she knew Alia had cured Neu’s illness and risked life and limb to save her from the Munza, she also thought that the pink-haired girl lived more ruthlessly than any adult. It made Chaco feel small and useless, and she was afraid of being scolded for it.

Though Alia was strict with herself and others, Chaco figured she was also the kindest person she knew—someone who would risk her life for others.

That was why Chaco had been afraid to tell Alia that Lena had gone to look for Naru. Alia was more protective of Lena than anyone else. She cared about the children, yes, but Lena had a place in the deepest part of Alia’s heart.

Neither Alia nor Lena had a responsibility to protect Chaco and the others. Lena had chosen to help Naru out of an obligation to something much greater than Chaco could understand, but the catfolk girl had been terrified of what Alia would think when she found out. What would she feel when she found out that her precious Lena had willingly walked into danger?

Would Alia be angry at Lena?

Would she be disappointed in Chaco’s group, who were ultimately responsible for what had happened?

When Chaco finally explained to Alia why Lena was gone, Alia had listened in silence and nodded. Chaco had wanted to say something to soothe Alia’s feelings, but before she could muster the courage to speak, Alia had gently patted her head.

“Leave it to me.”

She’d uttered only a few words, but there was such power behind them. Though the words themselves had doubtless provided some reassurance on their own, Alia had understood that staying put and trusting one’s friends was frightening in its own right. She had to have wanted to run to Lena immediately, but she’d still taken the time to pet the heads of Chaco and the other anxious children.

Chaco had really wanted to say something, anything, about Lena, if only to repay Alia’s kindness—but the moment Alia had turned to the light outside, Chaco had seen a small smile playing upon her profile. Feeling Alia and Lena’s connection reflected in that smile, Chaco had chosen to say nothing.

“Please save them, Alia,” Chaco murmured.

***

After returning to the watchtower and hearing Chaco’s story, I ran out into the desert again.

Naru was only a child, so it was hard to predict where he’d gone—but since he’d been looking for red grass for alchemy, I could think of several gathering spots a child could get to. Elena and Ron had left the tower about thirty minutes ago, and though there shouldn’t have been any local monsters that the two couldn’t defeat, there was a possibility, given the ongoing stampede, that they’d run into some of the more dangerous ones trickling in from the ruins.

Not only that, those suspicious groups I’d seen in town were doing...something. I wasn’t sure what, but I knew it couldn’t be good.

I chugged down a potion to replenish my reduced aether points and activated Boost as I ran at three times an average human’s speed. If the two were looking for Naru, they couldn’t have gone far. I focused my aether into my eyes and watched the flow of mana around me. There were faint water and shadow particles nearby. Ascertaining that they’d come from monster corpses, I concluded something was happening in this direction.

Assuming the pair had headed for red grass gathering spots, they would’ve had to go around the rocky areas. But I didn’t need safe detours.

“Iron Rose,” I chanted quietly.

My pink hair changed to the color of ash, leaving trails of light in its wake as I breathed deeply and accelerated further, taking the shortest route possible. Though the potion’s effects disrupted the flow of aether through my body, preventing precise control of Iron Rose, I could still manage to adjust my speed.

“Ah re!”

Accelerating further still, I ran up the rocky rise faster than rocks could fall, slashing wormlike monsters that attempted to attack me as I passed.

Then, my enhanced Detection caught Elena’s presence in the distance. Hers and multiple others. Hostile. The moment I sensed Elena’s aether surging, I switched into combat mode.

I couldn’t throw knives with my fine motor skills impaired, so I chose to take my small crossbow from Shadow Storage instead. I loaded in a steel bolt as I leaped onto a rocky outcropping, made a split-second judgment that a hooded man—likely a dark elf—was an enemy, and fired. The bolt pierced cleanly through his right eye, and Elena’s precisely aimed Ice Javelin tore through his chest.

“Sorry for the wait,” I said.

“Impeccable timing, Alia,” Elena replied, exhaling with a relieved smile.

I’d cut it close but made it. Ron’s eyes widened at my sudden arrival, and my gaze swept over him and Naru, looking for signs of injury. Finding none, I turned my attention to the remaining Krus men.

“B-Boss?!” a man shouted.

“What happened?!” another asked.

A third, agitated, readied his bow and arrow and alerted them, saying, “Someone’s on the opposite cliff!”

Based on their equipment, it seemed they were one of the many shady groups I’d seen in town. The man shot an arrow, and the others tried to ready their bows as well, but arrows were useless against melee fighters Rank 4 and above. All one had to do was pay attention; dodging the arrows was trivial.

“She’s flying!”

Without need for a running start and relying solely on Boost, I leaped over the ten-plus meter gap to the opposite cliff. Iron Rose wasn’t necessary anymore, so I deactivated the skills as I discarded my cloak, using that and the remaining trails of light as decoys to dodge the barrage of arrows. Then, I jumped toward the men and struck out with my knife and dagger to slice the throats of two men before they could switch weapons again.

“What the hell?!”

“K-Kill her!”

“It’s just a girl!”

Three Krus men remained—one in his twenties and two in their forties. I spun my skirt to conceal a knife throw, and the blade pierced the forehead of the youngest man, who’d been too slow drawing his weapon.

“Alia!” Elena called out.

“Got it,” I said. I understood—I wanted to ask them questions too.

With my black knife in one hand and dagger in the other, I stepped forward. The first man who’d shouted pulled back as though seeking an escape route, while the other trembled with rage at the sight of his dead comrades as he thrust with his spear.

“He’ll do,” I said.

Those with a strong sense of loyalty made for worse interrogation targets. I pushed the spear aside with my hand and slashed at the spearman’s carotid with my knife as I moved past him.

“Guh!”

Before the blood had the chance to spurt from the dying man’s wound, I was gone, closing in on the other man. He threw his spear at me and turned around, ready to flee.

“Ngah!”

My weighted pendulum struck the back of his head, making him stumble and fall. I pointed the spear I’d caught in midair at his neck.

“Want to live?” I asked. “Then tell me what you know.”

***

“Hiii-yaaah!”

Jaysha’s axe smashed into an ogre’s head.

“Look alive, people! Show ’em what you’ve got!”

The adventurers under her lead had defeated the first wave of monsters and were now engaging the second. The first attack had been so swift that the shield bearers had suffered some casualties clashing with rampaging shelled dragons. That aside, since most of the monsters had been lower in rank, there had been no major issues.

But this second wave included sand ogres, and the Rank 4 monsters were causing damage to more than just the shield bearers.

“You lot, go help!” Jaysha told her guards.

“Our job is to guard ya! No way!” one of them replied, amused.

“If we leave your side, Jilgan will have our asses!” another added.

Because sand ogres were Rank 4, killing the strongest ones took several Rank 3 adventurers working together. While the group did have multiple such adventurers, most of them were tasked with guarding Jaysha and were near her side. Moreover, others who had known Jaysha since her childhood—including her loyal retainer Jilgan—sometimes ignored orders to prioritize her safety.

For now, the Munza fighters, who were highly mobile, had avoided any major casualties. Still, there was no guarantee things would continue smoothly.

“You people...” Jaysha gritted her teeth at the fatherly dwarves fussing over her, then smiled proudly. “Fine! Have it your way! Hey, tell the beastmen to corral the ogres toward the middle! We’ll take them down as a group!”

“Yeeeeeah!” the adventurers roared in response.

Four hours had passed since they’d begun fighting off the monsters, and they’d likely taken down over five hundred of the beasts. Though they still had potions left, including the carefully rationed high-grade ones they’d bought off of Rose, monster stampedes usually involved around a thousand creatures, so the future remained unclear.

There had been a few hours between the first and second waves, which had allowed them to heal up and sorcerers to replenish their aether. But depending on what happened with the third wave, they might not be afforded that luxury again.

Though Jaysha appeared confident, she’d begun to feel anxious inside about the seemingly endless cascade of monsters.

Dammit. This feels bad.

She figured the reason that these monsters felt more dangerous than those from the last stampede was the overall panic among the fighters—which stemmed from the knowledge that the dragon was approaching from the depths. Jaysha’s group had the goal of eliminating it, but between the suspicious behavior of the human adventurers and the possibility of another wave on the same scale...

Should I have brought Rose too?

Jaysha hadn’t requisitioned Alia’s assistance because the main force was the dwarves, and she’d wanted the human girl to prioritize potion production. That was her superficial reason, at least. Deep down, she saw Alia—a fellow woman of Rank 4—as a rival, and requesting her help would’ve felt like admitting to inadequacy.

While she knew this was bad form for a guildmaster, Jaysha was still young in mountain dwarf years.

“Guildmaster! Look there!” a beastwoman scout yelled as she leaped over to where Jaysha stood and pointed toward the ruins.

“What? Is it the third wave?”

Jaysha squinted. Dust clouds were approaching from that direction, but that wasn’t the reason behind the urgency. The monsters were crag and desert lizards—relatively slow species. They had hard scales, but weren’t powerful by rank. But behind them...

“Oh crap...”

A massive figure was advancing slowly, seemingly urging the monsters forward as it began to emerge from the veil of sand. It had lustrous, iridescent black scales, and four horns extended back from its head like flowing streams. Its reptilian eyes gleamed in a mix of gold and silver. The beast had gigantic proportions, and even on four legs, it took craning one’s neck to fully take in.

Its roar shook the desert sands.

The master of the Ancient Ruins of Reisveil had just found new prey.

▼ Earth Dragon

Species: Mythical Beast/Lesser Dragon (Rank 6)

Aether Points: 334/350

Health Points: 792/820

Overall Combat Power: 4,557

The Moving Darkness

Dragons were mythical beasts that had existed since before recorded history and were counted among the most powerful beings in this world. They were said to live between thousands and tens of thousands of years and, according to one theory, grew more intelligent as they aged, evolving repeatedly until they reached dragon godhood.

Over the millennia, they changed from lesser to elemental dragons, gaining high intelligence, flight, and immense power. But humans’ fear of dragons didn’t come from the terrifyingly strong elemental dragons—it came from earth dragons, mere infants among dragonkind.

These dragons fed on elemental mana, eventually taking on element affinities of their own. But until that point, earth dragons devoured everything they came across, acting on instinct. And dragons that had tasted humans—who lived in groups, weren’t particularly good at escaping, and had plentiful aether—began to actively attack human settlements due to their low intelligence. They were widely feared as man-eaters.

“Grooooooooooar!”

One such earth dragon emerged from the Ancient Ruins of Reisveil and let out an earthshaking roar.

“Eek!”

“Waaaaah!”

Some of the adventurers shrieked at the sight. Dragon roars had the ability to induce fear in the weak—it was a specialty of their kind. They could terrorize those unfit to stand before them, regardless of rank or skill level.

Those who’d come here had known they might face a dragon. The ones with greater resolve had only trembled, but the younger ones, awestruck by the massive creature, began to panic and disrupt battle lines.

“Beat the panic out of anyone who’s freaking out! If you can’t, cut them down!” Jaysha commanded, loud enough for those who weren’t lost to the dragon’s roar to hear.

Though this would’ve been an unthinkable command in most cases, it was only natural in a land like this, where life came cheap. Veteran adventurers moved immediately to obey, striking to kill and prevent worse damage.

But people hadn’t been the only ones to panic. Alarmed monsters had leaped over the disrupted battle lines and attacked those who had retreated due to injuries, causing significant damage to wounded and healers both.

Jaysha clicked her tongue. “Tch!”

Her mind raced. She’d anticipated the earth dragon would emerge but hadn’t expected their formation to collapse this quickly. Had their barricades not been enough? Had their healers been too slow? They had limited high-grade potions and few sorcerers capable of using light magic, but they should’ve had a solid supply of low-grade potions. So why...?

“Jilgan!!!” Jaysha bellowed. “Get the shelled dragons! We’re going in!”

There was no time to mull it over. She needed to do something now, and her fighter’s spirit took over.

As a last resort against the earth dragon, Jaysha and Jilgan had considered killing it themselves. Still, one or two Rank 4s couldn’t possibly take it down. Therefore, they’d formed a suicide squad of Rank 4s and upper Rank 3s, fully intending to put their own lives on the line.

But the front lines had collapsed faster than anticipated, meaning they were still too far from the dragon. Jaysha realized that, at this rate, they’d be drowned in dragon flames and accomplish nothing; she’d thus opted to ride the shelled dragons—which they’d brought along as pack animals—and charge immediately.

Jaysha’s group had been supporting the vanguard. Without them, the adventurers would take considerable damage. Not only that, the squad headed for the dragon had minimal chances of survival. Nevertheless, the adventurers—who saw Cutlass as their home—grinned fiercely, trembling with anticipation, and steadied their grips on their weapons.

But before they could do anything...

Boooooom!!!

“What the?!” Jilgan shouted as a massive explosion rang out behind them.

Fires rose from the carts of food and medicine parked behind the sorcerers in the rear guard, and arrows flew forth to strike the vulnerable casters in the back.

Jilgan had organized each unit in Jaysha’s place. He’d left combat-capable people in charge of their supplies. How could their rear be under attack?

Realizing something, he lifted his head. “Don’t tell me—”

“Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Laughter echoed from around the explosion, and over ten shelled dragons carrying riders burst forth from the clouds of smoke and flame. That number accounted for almost every pack animal they’d brought.

The adept riders shot more arrows at the rear guard, then scattered in all directions to flee. From among them, one deliberately changed direction and came close enough for Jaysha and Jilgan to see his face.

“You...!”

“Eat shit, you bastards!” he mocked. “We’re done letting you dwarves and those stinking beasts trample all over us!”

The Krus man was a veteran of the guild—one who had managed to achieve Rank 3 despite not being a dwarf. He’d had a humble attitude, which had kept him in the dwarves’ and beastmen’s good graces, and that had been precisely why he’d been brought along for this mission.

“You were in cahoots with the Reezan!” Jilgan accused him.

“You don’t fucking say!” the man retorted. “Why should we listen to you?! Treating us like crap, making us do all the menial shit, even though we’re every bit as strong as you are! You’re don—”

Clang!

The man lifted his shield just in time to deflect a hand axe that came flying from beside Jilgan, the blow landing with tremendous force despite the distance.

“Sneaky, guildmaster!” he taunted her.

“What the fuck are you people trying to do?!” Jaysha roared. “You think you can go back to town after pulling this shit?!”

The man tossed aside his half-destroyed shield and grinned wickedly despite inwardly breaking into a cold sweat. “I told you, you’re done! The town belongs to the Reezan from here on out! Watch and learn!”

He chanted something, and a beam of darkness shot skyward from his hand. The shrill sounds of flutes—likely from the shadow spell Noise—echoed across the desert.

“Groooooooar!!!” the earth dragon bellowed toward the heavens, halting its advance in response to the noise.

From the dust clouds behind it, ground lizards carrying riders in jet-black clothing emerged. A man in black armor—their leader—raised his equally black spear.

“The demonic army?!” Jaysha yelled, shocked.

Before anyone could process the meaning of those words, the knight pointed his spear at the adventurers. As if on cue, the earth dragon opened its jaws, and a massive ball of fire burst forth from its throat, scorching even the sand itself.

Jaysha shrieked amid the flames. “Aaaaaaaargh!”

Screams rose from all around. Comrades who had once talked together, eaten together, adventured together now fell together in the inferno.

This was the power of the dragon species, the strongest beings in this world. With one breath attack, it had turned elite adventurers to ash.

“Retreeeeeeeeat!”

The scream tore from Jaysha’s throat. She hoped to at least save those who’d survived the blaze. But—

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

“What?!”

Bolts from the demons’ crossbows mercilessly plunged into the survivors.

“Stoooooop!!!”

Whoosh!

An enormous bolt flew at the screaming Jaysha.

“Ngaaaaah!”

“Jilgan!”

It pierced straight through Jilgan, who had thrown himself forward to shield her.

“Jaysha!” he shouted. “Fall back! Now!”

Jilgan had also protected her from the flames, suffering severe burns on half his body, and now was blocking spears thrown in their direction with his large frame. He tore one out and flung it at a demon soldier, killing him.

“You’re...pathetic...” Jilgan ground out.

“Jilgan! Jilgan...!” Jaysha cried out.

She caught Jilgan’s body as he fell, his blood staining the burnished sand, and realized he was gone. Gritting her teeth in a ferocious snarl, she gripped Jilgan’s halberd and pushed herself to her feet.

“I haven’t...lost...yet! Come at me, you bastards!!!”

***

“Demons, then.”

Elena and Ron gasped at the testimony from the last man remaining. The demon army was invading—that was why the dark elves had disappeared from town and why these Krus men, members of the Reezan mafia, had made a move.

“H-Hey, I told you what you wanted to know,” the man pleaded. He was still sitting on the ground after having been struck in the back of his head. “I can go now, right? Yeah?”

“Not yet,” I snapped, keeping the tip of the spear steady at his throat with just my left arm. “What do the Reezan want? Why are you in cahoots with dark elves? Why are the demons invading?”

The middle-aged man’s fake smile faltered for a moment. His expression turned calculating, as though he was considering what he could say.

“H-Hey, chill, all right? We were supposed to attack the other groups when the demons invaded. I don’t know the details, just that the higher-ups made a deal with the demon army. We’re supposed to manage the town after the demons take over. See? I told you everything!”

“So why are the demons invading?” I pressed him.

Men like this were like con artists. They said only what benefited them and spoke in half-truths.

“W-Well...” he stammered, hesitating.

Demons hated humans. For them to have mobilized an army, this couldn’t be just about territorial expansion. So maybe...

“Do they want to turn this town into a military base for an invasion of Kal’Faan?” Ron asked suddenly.

The man, startled and wide-eyed, whipped around to face Ron.

So...yes, then. Dark elves had vanished from Cutlass, except for those born there. The missing elves were probably acting under orders from their homeland, the demonic nation.

Still, they’d lived in Cutlass a long time and were bound to have made friends there. They wouldn’t just forsake those friends, unless the demons had major reasons to mobilize. This couldn’t be just about putting the Reezan in power. Perhaps those who opposed the plan would be massacred? That would explain this man’s hesitation.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes,” Ron said, drawing his sword with an anger I’d never seen from him before.

“W-Wait—”

The man turned to flee, but Ron’s sword pierced through his heart before he could get away.

“Ron,” Elena murmured, her expression pained.

“Sorry, I...”

They both fell silent.

I figured Ron had acted on impulse. I wasn’t sure whether his anger had been born of simple patriotism, but perhaps Elena could relate. Without praising or chastising him, she touched his sword-wielding hand and gently lowered the bloodied weapon.

“U-Um... What should we do...?”

The Krus people nearby were frightened. Did they live here? I sensed no hostility from them, and when I looked questioningly at Elena, she gave me a small nod before turning toward them.

“We can’t help you. There’s nothing we can do against an army. You should be safe from further danger if you stay here,” she said.

“Y-You say that, but if they attack the town...” the man mumbled.

Elena’s eyes turned somewhat cold. These people were foisting the responsibility for their well-being onto others, voicing hopes that someone would do something rather than taking any action themselves.

“I’m sure you can manage to at least survive,” Elena said. “Live as you please. This is your hometown, after all.”

The desert was harsh, but survival should still be manageable. Adults, unlike orphans, had power. They could kill monsters and live anywhere that edible succulents grew. Unlike us, they had no objectives and were free to do as they pleased.

“I...” The man’s expression turned anguished for a moment, then he lifted his head as though he’d made a decision. “Right. This is our home. It’s a shithole, but I have people I care about. I can’t fight, but I can tell them to run...”

“Is that so? Well, I won’t stop you, then. Just take care of yourself,” Elena said.

“Y-Yeah!”

The man ran off somewhere. For a moment, the others dawdled in confusion, but then they convinced themselves in their own ways and followed suit.

“Lena, Alia,” Ron said, sheathing his sword without relinquishing his hold on the sleeping boy. “Can I entrust Naru to you?”

“Of course, but...what are you planning?” Elena asked.

“I’m...going to search for Camille.” His expression was serious. “Have you seen him? He should’ve made it back to the watchtower.”

“He wasn’t there,” I said, somewhat pointedly.

Ron shook his head and frowned. “Trust me, Camille may not be from this town, but he’s not with the demon army. If anything...”

Was Ron aware of Camille’s background? He couldn’t seem to find the words to continue.

Elena shook her head. “We don’t think Camille is in league with the demons just because he’s a dark elf, Ron. Do you know where he went?”

“Ah, yes, sorry. I asked him to procure fire-elemental aethercrystals. I figure he may have gone to a certain trustworthy merchant he’s become acquainted with in town.”

Though I trusted Camille as a person, there were some shady aspects to his background. I didn’t think that necessarily meant he was in cahoots with the demon army, but I couldn’t completely discount the possibility either.

If Camille really had gone to town, as a dark elf, he could’ve been attacked by residents mistaking him for a demon. Assuming Ron knew Camille’s true identity, he probably was worried that his friend had high chances of getting caught up in this incident.

“Ron, are we still short on fire aethercrystals?” I asked.

“No, we have just enough to reach Kal’Faan’s border.”

“Then you should focus on getting the balloon ready. If the demons find it, they’ll definitely take it.”

“I get that, but... I just...”

He probably wanted to search for his friend. I understood how he felt, but considering our objective, the optimal course of action was clear.

“I’ll go into town,” I said. “You and Lena prioritize getting ready to escape.”

“Alia...”

Even if Ron did go into town, I wasn’t sure he was skilled enough to make it back. It was still dangerous for me, but I was used to being surrounded by potential enemies. I wasn’t sure whether saving Camille was the best idea, but I trusted him enough to think that he—who had worked so hard to protect the children—deserved to be saved.

Ron was speechless that I’d matter-of-factly declared my intent to run into danger alone. Elena’s eyes grew slightly bright, and she pressed her forehead against my shoulder, just barely.

“Again, you’re...doing things all on your own...”

“You and I are the same,” I said. “If we can protect something, we should. I’ll come back, I swear it. Do you trust me?”

She lifted her face from my shoulder but remained close as she looked up at me.

“More than anyone in this world,” she said softly, pulling away with a complicated, worried smile.

“Yeah,” I replied simply.

Ron looked at us, his gaze determined.

“Sorry I can’t tell you everything. But I’ll take care of everyone, I promise. To you, who have placed your trust in Camille and me, I swear here and now, on my name and title as Imperial Prince Lawrence Kal’Faan, third son of the emperor, that no harm shall come upon them,” he said, resolute. “Alia...please save Camille.”

***

“General Aishe! We’ve received word that the detachment has isolated the adventurers!”

The sorcerer corps, with monsters under their command, had successfully lured the adventurers away from town. Within the town itself, their number one concern had been the beastmen—but since the death of one of their elders, their command system had been in disarray.

With a silent nod of acknowledgment, the dark elf general Aishe pushed herself to her feet, her armor clinking. She was tall for an elf woman, and her body—marked with scars from various cuts—was wrapped in black leather clothing, with the chest area open. She brushed aside her silver hair, and her golden eyes stared intently at the men lined up before her.

Aishe raised her beloved black greatsword high, and declared, “Your general commands: All forces, advance!”

***

Meanwhile, a hooded figure looked down from the sand dunes at the black-clad demon legion as it advanced across the desert. Under the harsh sunlight, she had to cover every last bit of skin with a thick hooded cloak, and even then, wisps of white smoke rose from the cloth.

She laughed maniacally under her hood.

Plans for an invasion had been laid well before her intervention, but they’d stagnated. She’d pushed them forward, won over moderates using any means necessary—including her own body—and come here herself, despite being weak to sunlight, just to make sure that things would progress.

All to avenge a dear friend.

All out of hatred toward humans.

Despite the pain of the desert sun reaching her even through her cloak, the vampire chief was delighted to see the marching army.

“War at last!” she exclaimed. “A curse upon all humans!”

Burning Town

“The main forces have begun to move,” a hooded dark elf reported. “We now commence our operation.”

“Yeeeeeeeah!” the Krus people of the Reezan mafia cheered.

There were two types of dark elf in this town: those born here or in the desert, whose mentality was similar to that of forest elves; and those who hailed from the demonic nation, who, despite having left their homeland, still took pride in it.

In the past, the Holy Church, upon establishing itself on the continent of Sars, had branded dark elves as evil, persecuted them, and driven them out of fertile lands. To ensure none forgot that history, the dark elves had embraced the derogatory term “demon” and repeatedly clashed with nations and people who followed the Holy Church’s teachings.

Most citizens of the Demonic Nation of Dais were part of the army, even when living outside their country. Despite having moved to this town, made human friends, and shared drinks and laughter with them, these demons would take up arms at their nation’s command.

Such behavior was beyond the understanding of the Krus people of the Reezan mafia.

Their objective was to seize authority over this town. They’d brought the demons on board as mercenaries to weaken the other factions’ power from within. They believed everyone—even demons—had a price, and couldn’t understand the dark elves’ true nature.

Meanwhile, the demon army’s objective was to secure Cutlass as a military base from which to launch an invasion of the Kal’Faan empire. Though the Reezan knew as much, they were ignorant in matters of politics and had assumed the demons would simply operate out of Cutlass and nothing else.

Using that naivety to their advantage, the demons had formed superficial agreements with the Reezan and used them to blockade the town. The demon army had provided them with equipment and military power, incited them to attack the bases of the other three factions, and encouraged them to wreak havoc in town as needed to serve their own objectives.

Fools, a dark elf thought, scoffing as he watched smoke rise from the town in the distance.

The attacks within Cutlass had been commanded by the dark elves who lived there, but several demon military personnel had blended in with them to negotiate with the Reezan.

One of them—Gieva, a Rank 3 sorcerer—was stationed with members of the Reezan at one of the main roads through the walls surrounding the town, attacking caravans and residents attempting to escape. This was a temporary assignment, lasting only until the main forces arrived—their role was to secure the roads so the main forces could enter the town.

The Reezan seemed to believe the demons would eliminate the other three factions. In reality, once the main forces got here, the armed Reezan mafia, too, would become a problem to eliminate.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Wait, don’t—”

The Reezan members had fallen upon a party of adventurers guarding a fleeing caravan. Blood sprayed into the air and fell upon the dry earth, staining it red.

The blockade of Cutlass was meant to prevent information from reaching Kal’Faan. It wasn’t sufficient for the demon army to secure the town itself; if Kal’Faan were to hear of their plan before the demons’ forces were ready, it might attack first. The slain merchants and adventurers were from Kal’Faan—the demons could not allow them to escape.

The Reezan were more than happy to assist, as it meant easy plunder: coin, merchandise, and good-looking women for their pleasure districts. Though the residents here, used to harsh living, could fight back, they were no match for fully armed Rank 2 and 3 fighters. Those trying to escape had their property seized and families taken, and those who resisted were mercilessly cut down.

“P-Please, at least spare my baby!” a young mother pleaded while holding a crying infant.

“Hmm? I dunno. Boss, what do you think?” the Reezan member asked Gieva.

Though young humans had value as slave labor, babies were a problem. Gieva gave the mother and crying child an annoyed look and spat, “Useless. Kill anyone who can’t work.”

The Reezan member laughed and raised his single-edged blade. “Shit luck, babe.”

“N-No...” the mother murmured in despair.

Such actions were unthinkable for a soldier, but these people were with the Reezan—worse than the worst back-alley mercenaries. For his part, Gieva held no sympathy for those whose lives were forfeit one way or another, and he wasn’t interested in anything beyond his orders.

“Hurry and hand over that brat—”

Just as the man tried to tear the baby from its mother, a mutter came from somewhere.

“Hey. What’s that?”

A shadow raced through the hazy desert, distorted by the scorching heat of the sun overhead. The figure’s cloak fluttered like phantom bird wings as they moved at unbelievable speeds, drawing closer so fast that the men couldn’t believe their eyes.

Before the stunned men could react, the shadow had closed in and slashed the throat of one of them with a black blade; he hadn’t so much as had the chance to ready his spear.

“Huh?”

Only a few had the time to utter exclamations of disbelief. Most had no idea what had happened, barely registering the blood suddenly gushing from their dead comrade. The only sounds came from those who’d realized that they didn’t know what was going on, and by the time they understood that they were under attack, five men on the perimeter had already collapsed, their blood gushing forth just as the spearman’s had.

“Someone’s attacking us!” Gieva managed, his voice cracking.

The Reezan men hastily readied their weapons, and Gieva began casting his specialty—fire sorcery. But before the spell could activate, the figure was upon the men, cutting them down with such terrifying speed that space itself seemed to warp around them. The large fluttering cloak, seemingly unsuited for battle, concealed the figure’s form, triggering a primal fear that this enemy might not even be human.

“Ngah!”

Seized by fear, the men froze, their movements dulling. Black blades swung and flashed and danced, and one by one, the men were slaughtered—eyes pierced, foreheads stabbed, throats slashed.

“Raaaaaah!!!”

The survivors had finally come to their senses. They roared as one, swinging axes and thrusting spears.

“Die! Flame Javelin!” Gieva chanted, his spell piercing through even his own allies.

No matter how inhuman their foe was, surely they couldn’t survive this—

But the figure leaped into the air instantly, clearing the spears with ease. A shield made of pure light deflected the flame javelin. The air whistled around the fluttering shade as the surrounding men had their skulls crushed, throats pierced, and carotids torn in a gory spectacle.

“Gah...”

At the surreal scene of his allies drowning in a sea of blood, Gieva stopped moving just long enough for a throwing knife to find his own forehead. In his darkening vision, he caught a glimpse of peach-tinted brilliance—and then he was gone.

The girl who had annihilated the dark elf and his Reezan co-conspirators in but a few dozen seconds pried her knife free from Gieva’s forehead, then turned toward the stunned civilians, her expression unchanged.

“The demon army is coming. Flee or go back into town—you have your lives to do with as you please.”

***

A strange atmosphere hung over the town. The mixed groups of demons and Reezan thugs that I’d seen earlier had finally made their move. While the residents of the desert weren’t weak, the demons had launched attacks on the bases of each faction and set fires all around town to sow chaos.

The buildings, made of stone, wouldn’t collapse from fire—but the town used massive amounts of cloth and plant fiber for doorflaps and awnings. The blazes had struck fear in people across Cutlass, and amid the confusion, those affiliated with the various factions had been attacked.

I surveyed the mayhem in silence.

There was little I could do about any of this. No individual could or should attempt to stop it. But...

“Out of the way.”

“Gah!”

While running through the streets, I clicked my boots and, with the protruding heel blade, kicked the face of a Reezan man who’d been attacking townspeople.

“You—”

My weighted pendulum crushed the skull of a nearby dark elf as he turned around.

I had no reason to let these people run amok.

Avoiding the roads, which were teeming with people running about in a panic, I raced across the tops of the stalls that remained unburned and attacked any Reezan members I saw using my all-purpose and slashing pendulums. One man noticed me and pointed his spear upward, but I wrapped the hem of my cloak around it and yanked it away, then turned it on him and pierced his heart.

Though I had no spear skills, I wasn’t completely hopeless with one thanks to Martial Mastery and other melee abilities. I didn’t know whether I’d be able to replenish my throwing blades, so I made sure to pilfer weapons from enemies and use those to finish them off when I could.

I leaped from stall to stall, throwing stolen daggers and spears. Using a bow and arrows I picked up along the way, I shot a dark elf sorcerer through the skull before he could finish chanting.

Though I’d sustained some damage, I reached my destination—a small shop, deep in an alley—with no injuries that required magical healing.

I figured it was likely that the shop owner was hiding or had fled already, all things considered. But, when I pushed aside the cloth flap and went inside, I was met with an elderly Krus man with a pure-white beard, puffing on a pipe.

“Hell of a time to be shopping,” he said. “Or are you here to rob me, little lady?”

“Hell of a time to be selling,” I retorted. “A dark elf named Camille told me he ordered fire-aspected aethercrystals from you. Has he come for them?”

Since my cloak was stained with blood and soot, it was understandable that this man thought I was a robber. But when I mentioned Camille’s name, he raised one eyebrow and gesticulated with his pipe.

“Are you with that boy? Sorry, I haven’t seen him these past few days. Also, a lady like you should be running away from here.”

“And why aren’t you running?”

“I figure this is the doing of the dark elves and the Reezan,” he said nonchalantly. “I’m too old to care about fleeing for my life at this point.”

“I see...”

I couldn’t convince this man to flee if he’d already made peace with the alternative. In a world like this, if one couldn’t choose how to live, one could at least choose how to die. This man was entitled to his dignity.

I bowed and made to leave, but then he unexpectedly called out to me again.

“One second, little lady. Take this with you.”

“What is it?”

He handed me a large bundle of aethercrystals wrapped in oil paper.

“The boy’s order. You need it, don’t you? Those guys will just steal it if you leave it here. He already paid, so go on. Take it.”

The old man paused, then looked straight into my eyes.

“You’re not from this town, are you? Seeing it get attacked by these thugs might make you want to do something, but don’t bother.”

He exhaled snaking wisps of smoke, then strained his eyes as though looking into the distance.

“This is our town. We were born here. We’ll die here. We know our fates. But you should live your life. Don’t worry about us. You must have more important things to do than grieve for a sorry town like this, no?”

I didn’t respond. What had he seen in me to say such things? What was important to me? I wasn’t sure, but I was grateful for his consideration and bowed deeply before leaving the shop.

Camille wasn’t here. I had one more place to check—and if he wasn’t there either, I couldn’t afford to keep searching. I had to choose between looking for him and letting it go and returning to Elena.

But...I wanted everyone to survive, including Camille. Had I developed camaraderie with them?

What was important to me? Not just my priorities as an adventurer—what did I truly wish for?

As I once again took off running through the blazing town, I alerted those I passed that the demon army was coming. I figured my final destination was dangerous now—and the sight of the Adventurers’ Guild in flames and under attack by the Reezan confirmed it. A gang of dark elves and Krus had them surrounded. Had they been unable to defend themselves with their main forces gone?

I instantly switched into a combat stance and chanted, “Illusion.”

At that moment, the flames enveloping the guild suddenly swelled, engulfing the attackers.

Chaos erupted as the Reezan members began to flee at the sight of the realistic—and hot—flames. I leaped in, slipping into the gaps in their formation, and began to take them down.

An abrupt surge of real flames roared toward me and the survivors. I quickly jumped away, sacrificing my cloak to avoid the blaze.

A dark elf emerged from behind my dispelled illusion. “You. Mercenian. Are you an adventurer?”

He looked to be around twenty, but his black armor and presence were in a different class from the other dark elves’.

“A soldier of the demon army?” I asked.

“Oh? You seem different from the other adventurers. The skilled ones were all lured out of the town. None who remained have been particularly challenging. Boring, if you ask me. But this? Now this should be fun.”

The unarmed youth stepped forward boldly, grinning as he channeled powerful aether into both of his arms.

▼ Young Demon Soldier

Species: Dark Elf♂ (Rank 4)

Aether Points: 261/315

Health Points: 215/215

Overall Combat Power: 1,108 (Boosted: 1,330)

A Rank 4 sorcerer, then. Not only that, his presence reminded me of Karla and Samantha—meaning he had Martial Mastery and could cast spells at close range. Perhaps he was an overseer of sorts sent by the demon army to direct the dark elves in Cutlass.

Considering he’d just torched his Reezan allies, he seemed to be quite confident. He clearly enjoyed battle and hadn’t so much as flinched at my combat power.

“What’s the matter? Not going to attack?” he asked. “I am Grohl. Let me teach you that battle is about more than just combat power. Show me what those numbers of yours can do!”

Flames roared through the air, dyeing the surroundings in crimson as Grohl unleashed a Fire Breath spell with neither incantation nor invocation. That prevented him from unleashing it at full power, but he seemed confident a Level 4 spell would be lethal nevertheless.

“Shield,” I chanted, adjusting the spell’s potency to match that of his Fire Breath based on the color of the mana. As the flames were deflected off the light barrier, I used Martial Mastery to help me evade.

Though his stratagem had failed, Grohl joyfully exclaimed, “So humans can use that spell!”

I picked up a charred sword and flung it at him mid-evade, but he used his iron gauntlets to parry. Grohl leaped closer and kicked, his foot clashing with my own.

“Good one! How’s this?”

Nearly ten Fire Arrows appeared around him, again without any chanting, and shot at me simultaneously. Using only Martial Mastery and nearby obstacles as cover, I avoided the worst of the barrage. The spells had grazed me, but the damage was minor.

“Not calling for reinforcements?” I asked. “I thought you were here on orders from the demon army.”

“We demons respect the strong,” he replied. “Weaklings—even fellow demons—just get in the way. What else would I prioritize here, if not fighting you?”

“I see.”

So that was what it meant to have nothing of value. People lived their lives fueled by wishes. The value of such things was subjective and impossible to quantify, but everyone had at least something they wanted to protect.

Desires and wishes were superficially similar but fundamentally different. Grohl was prioritizing his desire to fight powerful opponents over fulfilling the wishes of the demon army and even his own wishes as a member of the demon race.

But what did that desire mean? What lay behind it?

I protected Elena and eliminated everything that could hurt her. I wanted to grow stronger for that purpose, and so I had thrown myself into avoidable battle after avoidable battle. Behind that choice lay fear—of being weak, of that weakness hurting her.

My strength would only protect her body, though. Not her heart. And to protect her heart, I had chosen to forsake her wishes.

Seeing Grohl, who spoke of the pride that spurred demons to seek combat yet lacked true pride as a demon, I felt like I understood the words of the old Krus man from earlier.

What was important to me? I already knew that. I’d always known.

“Let’s see what you can do! You’re slippery, but can you dodge this?!” Grohl asked, grinning as he produced a set of aethercrystals and activated a massive wave of aether. “Flare Barrage!”

Using an invocation for the first time, Grohl unleashed nearly a hundred small fire projectiles all around me.

“Your illusion magic can’t save you now!” he bragged, raising his arm and swinging down dramatically. “Too bad, so sad, goodbye!”

Shut your mouth.

“Shadow Walker,” I chanted.

The rain of fire bullets scorched the earth as my blade found Grohl’s heart. I’d struck him from behind while he was distracted by his certainty of victory.

“Guh... How... Why...?”

He was careless. Overconfident. The sorceresses I knew were not like that.

Grohl stared at me in disbelief as he collapsed. I looked down at him coldly as I donned a spare cloak.

“Thank you,” I said as the life left his eyes. “For reminding me of what’s important.”

Elena would live. I would make sure of that.

***

Several dwarves had survived the attack on the guild. I’d thought the guild had fallen so easily because only low-ranking adventurers had remained, but as it turned out, the survivors were guild staff; the adventurers had already fled.

Part of the reason the staff had held their ground was likely a sense of dwarven solidarity, but I figured Jaysha and Jilgan ran a tight ship too. The survivors said they’d protect Cutlass as members of the Hogroth even if the guild was no more.

Lawless though this place was, some people still had principles and pride. They had their reasons to fight. I did too, and so I left the guild to pursue my own objective.

“So many fires...”

Flames rose all over town. Based on how many smoke columns were rising in the distance, I wagered that the number of dark elves who had taken part in the attack was significant. Add in the Reezan, and it had to be hundreds.

Many merchants and townspeople were attempting to flee, but others were fighting back, brandishing hatchets and hammers against the attackers.

“Ngah!”

My pendulum sliced into the arm of a Reezan member who was fighting a group of townspeople, making him drop his weapon.

There was nothing I could do for this town—but I could brush off the sparks that happened to fall on me. I used my pendulum to injure the limbs and faces of any Reezan and dark elves I came across, which spurred the surrounding residents to swarm and take down the assailants. Watching them do so, I could see the true strength of the people of the desert. Their town’s fate was secure in their hands.

I—no, we—would escape this place. That was what I had to do to safeguard Elena’s life and her wishes. But until then, I’d do what I could.

Like a typical town, Cutlass was surrounded by walls, but several sections had collapsed, leaving gaps open to dangerous, monster-ridden areas—which were also where poor people and orphans like Chaco lived. I climbed over the collapsed walls and headed to a nearby watchtower.

There were many watchtowers dotting the perimeter of the town. Some, like the one we used as a base, were in ruins, but about half remained active. Supposedly, those towers existed so that the town could be alerted if anything happened in the ruins. Silence had to mean either the monster rampage wasn’t visible yet, Jaysha’s group was keeping it contained, or...

“Hey! Halt! Don’t come any—”

“Out of my way.”

My throwing knife pierced the forehead of a dark elf bowman. He wore black armor—so the demon army had occupied the tower after all. I recovered the knife from his corpse and used my pendulum to slash the eyes of a Reezan member who came running when he heard noise. Then I closed the distance and stabbed his heart with my blade. Others fell in turn.

“W-We’re under attack!”

Cries of agony echoed within the tower as I leaped in, and several Krus people came running down from the upper floors.

Typically, in close combat against an evenly matched opponent, those who held the higher ground had the advantage. But magic changed that equation.

“Pain.”

“Argh!”

The last man to descend, who had been slowed by his heavy weapons and armor, was stunned by the sudden pain and tumbled down the stairs, crushing several of his comrades in the process. I ran up the walls of the spiral staircase and stomped on the larger man’s neck, using it as a foothold.

After finishing off the survivors, I ran up the stairs at full speed.

“Stone Shot!”

“Dark Mist.”

The moment I reached the top floor, both the dark elf waiting there and I unleashed spells simultaneously. Though one could aim magic at the presence of an unseen enemy, hitting was another matter. The Stone Shot, unleashed only after the caster had visually confirmed where I was, pierced through the darkness.

I’d leaped to the ceiling. Maintaining momentum, I kicked off and struck the shocked man’s face with my bladed heel.

A Rank 3 water-elemental spell like Waterball could’ve been very dangerous in this situation, but the caster’s foolish obsession with guaranteeing kills over strategically using lower-power spells had handed me the win.

I finished off the others inside the tower, then directed my enhanced vision toward the ruins. Dust clouds blurred the scenery in the distance, but a group clad in black was hazily visible within.

If the demonic army had gotten this close, that could only mean one thing: Jaysha’s expedition had failed.

They could’ve survived by retreating, but knowing Jaysha and Jilgan, they would either fight to the death or sustain heavy injuries.

Still, the fact that I couldn’t see many monsters meant the adventurers had at least accomplished something. But with the defeat of the Hogroth, the town’s fate was practically sealed.

I estimated the demon army to be about two thousand strong. That number was small compared to the armies of major nations, but the true value of their troops was in their quality, not their quantity. Most human-nation soldiers were ranked 1 or 2 at best, with skilled soldiers and knights hovering around Rank 3. But in a war, most fighters would be conscripts, with hardly any combat skills.

In contrast, the demon army had no weak soldiers. Among fighters and sorcerers, most were Rank 2 or higher, and their loyalty and fighting spirit meant retreat wasn’t an option. It wasn’t surprising they were feared.

“This is bad...”

Sweat trickled down my cheek as I noticed the direction they were advancing in. At this rate, they’d pass near our watchtower.

I began looking around this watchtower. Sending messengers each time would have been inefficient, so I knew those manning the towers had to have some other means of communicating with the town. I found what I was looking for in the back: a basket full of massive amounts of dried succulent fiber and several ceramic bottles. Immediately, I threw a few bundles of the fiber into a fire pit and lit them with practical magic. Then, I poured the contents of a bottle over the burning bundles, which produced a column of red-black smoke.

I’d come here hoping to inform Camille of the situation in case he wasn’t in town. Hopefully Ron, back at our watchtower, would also notice this beacon and understand the condition the town was in.

And any residents who took this as a sign of outside attack could evacuate—

I gasped as a sudden chill ran down my spine.

From behind the dust clouds thrown up by the demon army’s advance came an earthshaking rumble, and barreling right through the dust clouds, with enough force to clear them away, a giant ball of fire shot toward this watchtower.

Immediately, I leaped out the five-story-high window.

A moment later, the top floor where I’d been was incinerated with a thunderous roar. I kicked off the outer walls, avoiding the falling debris and riding the shock wave. When I neared the ground, I spread my cloak to decelerate and landed on the desert sand. I rolled forward repeatedly to soften the impact and, after taking considerable distance, finally looked up.

The stone-built tower wasn’t sturdy enough to withstand the impact, and its upper half was about to collapse. Had I chosen to run down the stairs, I’d be dead. It had been pure coincidence that the blast had helped me slow down and break my fall. Not only that, had the ground not been soft desert sand, I’d have been seriously injured.

That ball of fire had probably been a breath attack from the earth dragon. But it had come from behind the demon army. They didn’t look like they were running from a dragon. So were they controlling it...?

“High Cure,” I chanted to heal the damage from the fall, then spat out saliva mixed with sand.

▼ Alia (Alicia)

Species: Human♀ (Rank 4)

Aether Points: 178/330

Health Points: 195/260

Overall Combat Power: 1,497 (Boosted: 1,853)

I had about sixty percent of my aether points remaining. They wouldn’t naturally recover past seventy percent at this point, and using more aether potions would only make them less effective—not to mention interfere with my aether control.

Chewing on nutritional pellets from the pouch at my waist, I rewrapped the cloak—now spattered with blood and riddled with arrow holes—then ran out into the desert again.

With the demon army able to attack from such an astounding range, aerial escape was dangerous too. Neutralizing that threat would have been ideal, but I had to keep my priorities straight. If we were going to escape, we had to get going now or we wouldn’t make it.

And I already knew what I was willing to do to ensure that, if necessary.

***

The army and the dust clouds were plainly visible in the distance now, even from ground level. After running through the desert for about fifteen minutes, I finally made it back to our base.

The moment I walked in, Elena came running over, exclaiming, “Alia!”

Had she been waiting for me? She looked as though she was about to hug me but caught herself and stopped, remembering her position.

“I’m back,” I said.

“Yes. Hello,” she murmured, her voice catching as she looked at me.

No matter how close our hearts grew, the chasm of social standing remained between us. Our roads were parallel. They would never cross. Even in this harsh situation—or perhaps precisely because of it—she maintained discipline, prioritizing her duties as a princess, while I acted as her sword and shield.

My eyes reflected her. Hers reflected me. We stayed silent, unable to voice what was deep in our hearts.

She’d grown...thinner. Her lustrous golden hair and pale skin were marred with sand and dust. In this environment, where physical and mental fatigue were incessant, the lack of sleep had cast faint but undeniable shadows under her eyes. It was natural, of course. She’d been raised in a palace, trained to fight a different sort of battle. Still, she had bravely endured this miserable place for two months without complaint.

I cupped her cheek with my right hand and wiped the sand from her shadowed eyes with my thumb.

Elena’s eyes grew moist at my unexpected gesture, and she lifted her left hand to cover mine.

But an earth-shattering roar echoed in the distance, and we both looked up, alarmed.

“Where are Ron and the children?” I asked.

“Upstairs. The children are already in the basket of the balloon. Have you seen Camille?”

“No. Couldn’t find him. I lit a beacon in another tower, so hopefully he saw it.”

“We saw it too. Thanks to you, Ron’s already started preparing to depart. The fire aethercrystals we have are barely enough.”

“I brought several more. But the situation outside is...”

“Yes, I understand. Given the range, that fire ball they shot was...dragon breath, if I’m not mistaken. To think they have access to such a thing...”

“We should hurry.”

“Yes.”

The weakness from before was gone from Elena’s eyes, but I had no doubt she was pushing herself. I wanted to protect her.

“Alia!” Ron and Chaco called out when we arrived upstairs.

I took the aethercrystals from Shadow Storage and tossed them to Ron, then patted Chaco on the shoulder—the little girl was deathly pale.

“The children?” I asked.

“Th-They’re already in the basket, but...”

The hot-air balloon basket was spacious enough to fit five or six adults, plus equipment and food. The food we’d gathered in the past month was already loaded, and with Elena present, water wouldn’t be a problem. Also in the basket was Neu, fearfully clutching Rana and Naru. The dragon’s roars must’ve affected them, even from this distance—they had the effect of frightening the weak. Chaco had also looked rattled, but she brought a hand to the shoulder I’d just patted and seemed to relax as blood returned to her cheeks.

“Alia, have you seen Camille?” Ron asked urgently.

“No. Maybe the beacon will bring him back?”

“I don’t know. But...I doubt there’s a demon out there who can kill him, at least.”

“I see...”

The earth shook with another roar, and Chaco and the children shrieked. It sounded closer this time. If the demon army passed nearby, it was unlikely they’d miss the tower. And if they came closer, they’d notice there were people here—and that would cost us our chance of escape.

“We need to go!” Ron said. “I’ll heat the balloon! Lena, Alia, help me out!”

“Yes!”

“Got it.”

Ron had already begun the heating process. Now he threw the new aethercrystals into the pile, trying to speed up the process. Elena and I pulled at ropes to spread the balloon as it began to inflate.

“How sturdy is the balloon?” I asked, concerned.

Ron shook his head while continuing to work. “Some of the glue isn’t fully dry, but we should be fine for several days. Lena, please board. Alia, keep an eye out and cut the ropes.”

“All right,” Elena said, but as she boarded the balloon, she cast worried glances back at us.

When the balloon began to float, I cut the ropes so it wouldn’t touch the tower’s inner walls.

“We’re taking off! Get on, Alia!”

I cut the last rope and leaped to grab the edge of the basket.

The balloon’s ascent was agonizingly slow, but it gradually emerged from the collapsed ceiling. Everyone’s eyes sparkled with a mix of hope and anxiety about leaving this town.

But the moment we cleared the collapsed outer walls, with me still dangling from the rim, I sharpened my eyes and noticed that among the demon army approaching in the distance, the earth dragon was once again opening its jaws, gathering flames.

“Everyone brace yourselves!!!” I shouted.

“...Roar...!!!”

“Eeeeeek!”

The dragon’s breath swept over the top floor’s outer walls, sending fragments flying toward the balloon as Chaco and the children screamed.

“They saw us!” I said. “Ron, how’s the balloon?!”

“I don’t know! But we’re rising too slow!”

The balloon portion was made from monster hide to help counter attacks by airborne monsters, but after the hit we’d just taken, air might be leaking from somewhere.

Still gripping the basket’s rim, I silently looked over at the dragon. It wasn’t going to let us go, was it? But...that attack had made me realize something. Dragon breath wasn’t produced by any bodily function—it was draconic magic. I’d heard the invocation. They cast magic through their roars, not unlike how humans relied on spirit language. That was how they could fly, despite their massive bodies, and breathe fire.

But...actually, my mana sight made me think this was more like a combat technique—non-elemental magic that activated with a single word. If so, that meant there was a cooldown period, just as there was for humans who used combat techniques. They couldn’t be used consecutively. How long until it could breathe fire again? A count of ten? A hundred? Several hundred?

I didn’t know, but my path was clear.

“Alia, don’t!” Elena screamed, gripping my hand with surprising strength. She must’ve sensed something. “What are you thinking?!”

She sounded anguished, as though she already knew the answer.

“Let go,” I said.

“No... No! Why must you—”

Her knuckles turned white as I tried to shake free.

“We’ll all die at this rate,” I said.

“But why?! Why must you be the one who—”

“You have to understand.”

“No, I do not! Why?! Why you?!”

I knew she did understand, more than anyone. Now that the enemy had spotted us, our chances of survival were extremely low. Even if we managed to take off, we could only survive the dragon’s breath attacks through sheer luck.

If the group was to survive, someone had to stay behind and act as a decoy before the dragon could breathe again. And among all of us, I had the highest combat power. No one else could do it.

“I’ll stay too!” she protested. “You’re my—”

She caught herself, and the words died in her throat. Words she could never say, as a princess.

That day, back when we were little, we’d sworn to never leave the thorny paths we’d chosen to walk. We’d made a vow together.

“Elena...”

Her tearstained face shot up when I called her by her true name rather than her alias.

“I want you to live,” I said.

“But I—”

“I couldn’t bear it if you died. I want you to fulfill your dreams. I want everything you believe in to come true.”

“Why...would you say...such...”

As Elena’s eyes widened at my sudden shift in tone and argument, I placed my free hand on hers.

“Because you’re my most precious friend.”

In those wide-open blue eyes, I could see the reflection of an innocent, childlike smile I should have forgotten long ago.

Elena’s strength faltered for just a moment, and she gasped as I managed to free my hand, gently releasing the basket. She leaned out, trying to catch it, her pale hands grasping only air.

“Alia... Aliaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

My eyes narrowed as I smiled at Elena’s dwindling image. I would not say goodbye.

I leaned back and glared sharply at the demons and dragon. “Iron Rose.”

Pink turned to blazing iron, scattering afterimages of light like silver wings. I kicked off the tower’s outer walls, leaving comet-like trails in my wake as I ran down to the dry earth.

I placed a palm on the sand as I landed, my glare still fixed at the approaching army.

“You want a fight? I’ll give you a fight.”

The Fiend of the Desert

“Missed,” Aishe spat coldly from atop the giant armored dragon that served as her mount.

Despite their name, armored dragons weren’t true dragons. Like wyverns, which were winged but had no forelegs, armored dragons were a sub-dragon species. They were large, wingless lizards that could never exceed Rank 4, no matter how much they grew.

True dragons were fundamentally different. A single breath attack from even a lesser earth dragon could blast through entire groups of adventurers and destroy man-made structures kilometers away.

Earlier, Aishe had spotted a foreign object trying to take flight from atop a crumbling tower and ordered the earth dragon to attack. But either because it had aimed poorly or the distance had been too great, the blast had only blown away more of the tower’s upper portion, and the foreign object remained aloft.

“That’s...a hot-air balloon, I think,” Aishe mused as the object came into clearer view. This was her first time seeing one, but she’d heard about them from her older sister, decades ago.

She’d ordered the attack on instinct, and that had apparently been the right call. It was unbelievable that such a thing could exist in a dump like Cutlass. Whether it was somehow connected to Kal’Faan was unclear, but regardless, letting it get away would increase the odds of human nations being alerted to the demon invasion.

“Make the dragon attack again!” Aishe commanded. “Don’t let that thing escape!”

One of the nearby dark elves, sweating profusely, bowed his head low. “A-Apologies, General, but we cannot issue consecutive commands...”

“Tch.”

There were no skills for monster taming—that was because no single ability could permanently brainwash another creature. Monster taming was considered a technical occupation, like alchemy and smithing, and only certain clans in the demonic nation had inherited the relevant techniques. The clan leaders had ordered that the earth dragon be tamed, but controlling a dragon was extremely difficult, and even with multiclan efforts spanning several years, they’d suffered considerable casualties. Thanks to a combination of special drugs and suggestions made through shadow sorcery, this dragon was no longer hostile to the demon army. However, frequent commands risked breaking the suggestion.

“Hurry up,” Aishe hissed, frowning.

The tamer clan leader hesitated but replied, “Yes, General!”

His dark skin was noticeably paler as he fearfully ran toward the rear, where the earth dragon was.

Aishe was still young—a novice by elf standards—but was ruthless enough that the demon army feared her. Behind that ruthlessness was the loss of her only family, over fifty years ago, in the war against humans. Her hatred smoldered still, five decades later.

She would let nothing stand between her and revenge. Even women and children would suffer the consequences if necessary.

Aishe directed her hateful glare at the hot-air balloon—and saw what appeared to be fluttering wings of silver light spilling from it.

***

“What is that?”

Among the two thousand advancing demon soldiers, the knight Hassan—commander of a hundred-strong unit at the vanguard—witnessed trails of silver light dancing down from the tower the dragon had attacked.

A distant figure, framed in fluttering light particles that looked like wings, reminded him of the angels from fairy tales.

Hassan narrowed his eyes. “What a foolish thought.”

He couldn’t help but mock himself for that notion. Hassan and others of his kind had been branded evil by the Holy Church. They were feared and reviled as demons. Their existing conflicts with wood elves had been exploited to drive them away from their fertile lands.

They had embraced the “demon” moniker and sworn revenge. For such people to be captivated by the idea of an angel was laughable.

But what was it that had fallen from that flying object? The figure was too distant for clear visual identification. Perhaps the dragon’s attack had broken something off and scattered debris?

Nevertheless, it was evident that something was there. If it posed a danger to the demon army, then as commander of the vanguard, Hassan had a duty to eliminate it.

“Men, we march to the tower the dragon attacked! Something may be lurking there—and our brave clan will destroy whatever awaits us!”

“Raaaaaaah!”

The hundred soldiers cheered and raised their weapons as they made for the tower, seeking their prey.

Hassan smiled. His unit consisted of members of his clan and had been organized by his father. Even the common soldiers, divided into groups of ten, were at minimum Rank 2, and some of their captains were as high as Rank 3. They were far above human soldiers in skill, so even if they were outnumbered two-to-one, Hassan knew his soldiers could handle it.

But that expectation wouldn’t last.

“Chief! Something’s coming!” a young soldier at the front shouted.

“What do you mean, ‘something’? Be more clear!”

Hassan turned around to see a figure racing across the desert at terrifying speed, wrapped in rags, coming straight from the tower.

The sun began to dip, dyeing the sky in shades of crimson. Long shadows extended from the rags, fluttering like phantom birds. It was as if a vengeful spirit had manifested in the desert, and Hassan gasped.

“Archers, shoot it!” Hassan’s uncle, the vice commander, shouted from beside him. “Don’t let it approach!”

He glanced at his still-young nephew with a rueful smile.

“Focus up, Hassan. You’re our clan’s future leader.”

“Sorry, uncle...”

Trained archers immediately unleashed a barrage of arrows toward the racing phantom. Vengeful spirit or no, with this many trusted comrades at his side, Hassan had nothing to fear.

He should’ve had nothing to fear.

“What?!”

The arrows missed their mark, arcing over the figure as it sped up even further.

Panicked, the archers readied the next volley—but nocking new arrows took time. This was different from shooting at large advancing armies. Taking proper aim at a small target in the distance was a slow process. Not only that, but the enemy figure was also approaching at several times normal human speed, which made the vanguard infantry shudder with fear. That terror was passed on to the archers. By the time they’d taken aim, the figure had already reached the infantry.

“Aaah!” the soldiers screamed, hiding behind their shields and thrusting out their spears without looking.

But aimless spear thrusts were meaningless. The enemy deflected the spearheads with their palms, jumped onto a massive shield, then leaped over the wall of spearmen.

“Eek!”

The tattered phantom danced through the air, the silver light that leaked from the seams of their rags making the soldiers scream. Jet-black blades gleamed in the phantom’s hands, and the archers were sliced open before they even had the chance to drop their bows. The survivors tossed aside their weapons and drew daggers, but by then, the figure had already left the archers behind and was coming for Hassan’s group.

“Keep it away from us!” the vice commander shouted.

The guards protecting the clan leader’s son thrust their spears toward the approaching foe. Several of them pierced the dancing rags, but the phantom twisted and kicked upward, using their tattered wraps as a decoy. They crushed one soldier’s face as they descended to the ground.

“What? That fighting style—”

Before the wide-eyed vice commander could finish his sentence, a throwing knife stabbed into his forehead.

The figure was lightning quick. Their fighting style—not only their movements but the way they cut through enemy lines solo and went straight for the enemy commanders—reminded Hassan of an infamous demoness who was said to have died in battle decades ago.

“Fiend,” Hassan murmured.

A lone girl was reflected in his irises, her ash-iron hair dancing in the wind. The Fiend of the Desert.

Her sharp eyes didn’t so much as look at Hassan as her blades ended his life—instead, they were fixed straight ahead.

***

That’s one barrier cleared...

I’d killed what appeared to be two commanders of the vanguard.

Cere’zhula had taught me war tactics—crushing leaders disrupted formations and kept units from being at full power. But this was only a sound strategy when reinforcements were on the way; fighting alone invariably had limits. I was merely buying time, but still, I had my reasons.

I’m sorry, Elena.

When we were young, I’d promised her I would kill the demon king himself if she asked me to. And now here I was, risking my life when she’d begged me not to.

I slipped past the scores of confused soldiers around the dead commanders and kept racing forward toward the main forces.

▼ Alia (Alicia)

Species: Human♀ (Rank 4)

Aether Points: 178/330

Health Points: 195/260

Overall Combat Power: 1,497 (Uniquely Boosted: 2,797)

Combat Technique: Iron Rose / 154 seconds

I had about 150 seconds left. My target was the demon general’s head.

“Ah re!”

Further enhancing the speed of my legs, I kicked up sand clouds as I ran, the scenery blurring past me, remnants of light trailing behind me like comet tails.

Dozens of arrows came flying toward me from the main army when they noticed my approach. I wasn’t worried about projectiles from this distance, though, and dodged them easily. Again I evaded the wall of spearmen and the thrusts they made from behind the safety of their shields by twisting my body and leaping straight into their formation.

“What is this thing?!”

“Kill it!”

“Wait, you’ll hit each other!”

The confused soldiers carelessly swung at me with their spears and blades. Though they grazed me, the wounds weren’t serious enough to warrant stopping. I deflected a thrust, redirecting it at another soldier, then spun as I jumped closer and cut down the foes in my path.

This wasn’t enough. I could move faster. Time seemed to crawl as I slipped through the enemy lines, deflecting even spatters of blood with my palms as I raced forward at such astounding speeds that my enemies’ eyes couldn’t keep up.

Finally, I jumped straight at a man who seemed to be their commander. He was staring at me, bewildered, as my dagger found its way into his forehead.

Two barriers down.

***

“What is that...?”

The demon army was confused. A girl had appeared out of nowhere, raced across the battlefield at abnormal speeds, and, in a few dozen seconds, killed commanders of multiple units.

Of course, they hadn’t just watched. They’d changed formations, switched weapons, and sometimes even struck their own allies with spells. Still, the girl hadn’t stopped. She was bleeding from several wounds and her burnished-iron hair was stained red, but she continued to swing her equally bloodied black blades.

“Stop her!!!”

After her blades had reaped the lives of more than five commanders, despite the many arrows embedded in her body, the girl—Alia—had finally cut into the main force, where General Aishe was.

“You little rat,” Aishe spat from the giant armored dragon’s back, drawing her sword. “Who are you?!”

From Aishe’s voice and figure, Alia could tell immediately she was the general. She used her weighted pendulum to crush the skull of a guard who tried to stop her, then glared sharply at Aishe.

“I’m going to need you to keep me company,” Alia said.

“What?!”

Guards instantly surrounded Alia. What options were left to her? As the guards all pointed blades at the seemingly foolish girl who had jumped straight into a death trap, Alia took a ceramic bottle out of Shadow Storage and threw it.

“Watch out!”

“Don’t let that land!”

The trained guards reacted immediately, throwing daggers to shatter the airborne bottle. But it hadn’t been aimed at Aishe. Instead—

“Graaaaaaaaah!”

A terrible stench rose as the broken bottle’s contents—likely some type of nerve agent that caused intense pain—hit the armored dragon’s snout. Lost in its own agony and the foul smell, the armored dragon began to flail, and Aishe, who had been standing, was forced to kneel.

That created a brief opening, and in that instant, Alia broke through the guards and grabbed at the armored dragon. Losing her balance, Aishe threw a dagger at the girl, who then kicked off the creature’s hide to dodge the blade. Then, with all her strength, the girl pulled at the rampaging armored dragon’s reins to show it an escape route.

“You!” Aishe yelled, eyes wide at Alia’s display of acrobatics.

She slashed at the bloodied Alia from atop the flailing armored dragon, and her magic steel blade clashed with Alia’s magic steel dagger, sending sparks flying.

“Why do you interfere, human girl?!”

“I have something to protect.”

Alia’s health points were at their limit from the spells and blades that had hit her. But Aishe’s sword still couldn’t find its mark.

Aishe was Rank 5, superior in terms of pure technique. But with Alia’s stats enhanced by Iron Rose and on a battlefield with unstable footing, the long-lived general, unused to the terrain, found herself evenly matched against a human girl barely over a decade old.

“So this was your plan!”

Alia had separated Aishe from her men and lured her toward advantageous terrain. Both the girl’s acrobatics and fighting style were reminiscent of the infamous Fiend.

“You’re wasting your time!” Aishe spat. “Trickery won’t help you win!”

Still, Aishe had techniques refined over decades as a demon warrior. No matter how abnormal Alia’s stats were, she couldn’t defeat Aishe.

“I said I needed you to keep me company,” Alia said.

Only then did the girl’s true objective dawn on Aishe. The armored dragon had run off toward the rear—where the earth dragon had been preparing to fire its next attack at the balloon.

“Graaaaah!”

The bewitched earth dragon was distracted by the rampaging mount charging at it. Although the taming performed on the true dragon wasn’t perfect, it would’ve still held even if puny humans had tried to attack it. But an armored dragon? The incomplete mind control meant the earth dragon’s defensive instincts came alight at such a massive creature barreling toward it.

“...Roar...!!!”

A massive fireball that should’ve been aimed at the hot-air balloon was instead directed at the armored dragon.

Aishe clicked her tongue harshly and leaped backward. “Tch!”

Alia, too, jumped back in time to avoid the earth dragon’s breath. The armored dragon had no such reflexes and kept charging straight into the flames until its ashes scattered across the desert.

Though the massive creature had acted as a shield, Alia was nevertheless blown away by the shock wave, and Iron Rose’s light vanished from her hair. Aishe saw the opportunity and raised her blade. Alia’s gaze remained fixed on the enemy general, and she, too, swung her blade.

“Vorpal Blade!!!”

“Critical Edge!!!”

The two techniques, unleashed simultaneously, clashed in the air. Aishe’s sword pierced Alia’s abdomen, and Alia’s blade slashed Aishe’s side. Both women’s bodies went flying, spraying massive amounts of blood into the air before falling to the ground.

Several seconds later, one of them unsteadily pushed herself to her feet.

Holding her bleeding side, Aishe stared at the unconscious pink-haired girl and asked one of her many questions. “Who in blazes is this...?!”

Why would she go this far?

Was she not afraid of death?

How could she possibly know that move?

The move that had allowed her to dodge Aishe’s technique and evade certain death. Her move.

And what was this hair color? Aishe recalled something similar. Not quite exactly the same shade of pink.

“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured.

This girl was dangerous. This Aishe knew. She still had mountains of questions, but as the general of the demonic army, she couldn’t leave alive someone who had interfered with their invasion and killed several of their commanders.

Despite her severe wound, Aishe raised her sword. “Die.”

“Wait!!!”

But someone stopped her before she could swing.

Aishe’s eyes widened at the youth before her. “You...!”

A prince of the demonic nation, who had been missing for many years, here, now? How?

“Lower your blade, General Aishe,” he said. “I am taking custody of this girl.”

Her breaths ragged, Aishe glared silently at the prince—who sat atop a mount and had two attendants with him, a young girl and a middle-aged man—but grudgingly complied, lowering her weapon as she spat out a wad of bloody saliva.

“Do whatever you want with that half-dead thing,” she said. “But if she lives, I have questions for her about why she moves like my sister.”

***

“We’re falling! Hold on tight!” Ron shouted from within the gradually descending hot-air balloon’s basket.

There hadn’t been a follow-up attack from the dragon, so the balloon had managed to take off. But, likely due to damage caused by flying debris from the first attack, it had reached its limit about an hour after departure and begun losing altitude.

“Alia...!” Elena murmured, tightly gripping the basket’s edge.

Why had Alia done such a thing? Why alone? And why after calling Elena a friend?

Though this was something Elena had always wished to hear, given their difference in station, she’d thought that word was doomed to go unsaid.

The image of Alia smiling was burned into Elena’s mind. Was that Alia’s—Alicia’s—true smile? Or had she forced herself to smile because this was the end? Was her usual self a facade?

No, that’s not right.

Both were the true Alia. That had likely been a smile directed at a true friend—not because it was the end. Elena would not accept that as the end. Alia was alive. There was no way she’d break her vow to Elena and die.

“You’re not allowed to die. Understand?” Elena muttered, lifting her head.

The tinge of pain vanished from Elena’s eyes, replaced by a determined, somewhat angry spark. Alia had gone to such lengths to preserve Elena’s safety—there was no way she’d die. Elena would never forgive her for it.

Now, Elena would go to Kal’Faan and contact her homeland of Claydale, then use every last card she had to save Alia. She would survive, even if it meant eating rocks.

“Ron! Tell me what to do!” she said.

“Lena...”

“I’m not sad anymore. Also, please call me Elena.”

Ron paused, then said, “All right! Pull that rope!”

With Elena’s recovery, Chaco and the other frightened children had likewise regained some color. But that didn’t mean they were out of the woods. The balloon’s altitude was still unstable, and with their two strongest fighters absent, it was unclear whether the group could handle dangers.

“Ron, monsters from above!”

“Now?!”

Two giant crows approached from the sky. Their massive size afforded them Rank 3, but they weren’t normally threatening to a hot-air balloon of this caliber. But in its current condition, it was unclear whether the monster hide would endure. Elena could use offensive spells, but not on such unstable footing. If she hesitated and the crows snapped even one of the ropes connecting the balloon to the basket, they wouldn’t be able to land softly or repair anything.

“Caaaaaaaw!”

“Eeeeeek!”

One giant crow dive-bombed the hot-air balloon, making the basket shake violently. As the ground grew closer and Ron struggled to land, the second crow attacked the ropes.

“Hurricane!”

A Level 4 wind spell was unleashed from somewhere nearby, tearing apart the charging crow and blowing it toward the distant sky. Elena gasped in admiration—not at the level of the spell but at the precision required for an area-of-effect spell to blow away only the crow without so much as shaking the balloon.

Everyone was surprised, and the remaining giant crow even stopped attacking. Next thing anyone knew, a jet-black beast leaped like a gale at the low-flying crow and dragged it to the ground, tearing it apart.

“W-We’re falling!” Ron called out.

The balloon landed on the mercifully flat, sandy ground. Though the landing had hardly been soft and the balloon and basket had overturned, the children had only suffered scratches from falling on sand.

“Is everyone okay?” Ron asked.

The children’s eyes were wide with shock as they nodded.

“Yeah, but...”

No one had major injuries, only bruises and scrapes. They felt more relief than pain as they looked around in a daze. From where they were, Cutlass seemed quite small on the horizon.

A woman with her hood pulled low—likely the sorceress who’d cast the spell—gently said, “You folks appear to be all right.”

Chaco and the children gasped at the adult woman’s voice.

“Thank you. But...who are you?” Elena asked.

She and Ron were still wary. The woman gave them a sympathetic smile and removed her hood, revealing herself to be a dark elf.

“I’m looking for someone,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to have seen my pink-haired, unsociable apprentice, would you?”

Epilogue: Pulse

“So that’s what happened. I suppose I should be calling this apprentice foolish too. I’m sorry, young lady, for the trouble she’s caused you.”

“Oh, no, no. Alia has helped me countless times. I will say, I didn’t know Alia’s magic teacher was a dark elf.”

In the starlit desert, Cere’zhula and Elena had just concluded sharing their tales with each other. Now they exchanged a nod.

Ron had been restless since Cere’zhula had introduced herself and had turned to repairing the hot-air balloon, as though he needed to keep busy. He had no plans to tell anyone about the history behind that name, but he was nevertheless in great shock.

The two youngest children, who at first had been frightened of the coeurl Nero, were now asleep on Chaco’s lap. Neu, a dark elf like Cere’zhula, sat stiffly next to her as she patted his head—perhaps he was bashful, or nervous, to be in the presence of a female dark elf the same age his mother would’ve been. Female dark elves were rare in Cutlass.

Nero, meanwhile, despite cooperating with Cere’zhula, was uninterested in people other than Alia. Instead, it was staring down monsters in the distance, unwilling to permit any harm to those under Alia’s protection.

“I left Claydale as soon as I heard Alia was missing, so I’m afraid I don’t know the situation there,” Cere’zhula lamented.

“No, it heartens me to know you came here for Alia. What will you do from here, Lady Cere’zhula?” Elena asked.

“Well...before I answer that, could you tell me your plans?” Cere’zhula said, looking straight into Elena’s eyes.

They were strong eyes, she thought. She’d immediately caught on that it was this girl whom Alia had wanted to protect, and she understood why her beloved but unsociable apprentice had risked her life to guard Elena.

But she also felt uneasy. From the conversation, she could tell Alia and Elena were embedded deeply into each other’s hearts. It would’ve been fine if they were mistress and guard. It would’ve been fine if they were friends, even. But if Elena said she wanted to join Cere’zhula in searching for Alia, it would hint at unhealthy dependence.

Elena nodded quietly, her gaze calm. “First, I’ll head to the Kal’Faan empire, reveal my identity, contact my homeland, and request rescue. I’m thinking of contacting the prime minister to dispatch Alia’s companions—the Rainbow Blade—and a number of knights with the Order of Shadows.”

The Rainbow Blade was a group of Rank 5 warriors, one of Claydale’s foremost adventuring parties. Normally, such a high rank would have facilitated international travel, but that party was so deeply embedded with the nobility that their political relevance made leaving the country difficult.

Given how strongly they felt about Alia, they would probably want to rescue her. And Elena was prepared to use the full weight of her authority to resolve any issues they might encounter—such as funding or travel difficulties—for Alia’s sake.

“I see...” Cere’zhula nodded, satisfied with Elena’s calm judgment and determination. “I’ll do what I can for my unsociable apprentice as well, rest assured. And so will the black cat.”

Cere’zhula pointed behind her with her thumb, and Nero turned sideways with a snort that almost sounded like a laugh.

“Besides, Dalton and Miranda may well already be on the move,” Cere’zhula said.

“You know those two?”

“It’s an old story,” Cere’zhula said, grinning. “Keep it a secret, all right?”

She’d fought bitter battles many times, over fifty years ago, against those two and another former Rainbow Blade member, Samantha. They’d been enemies then, but precisely because of that, Cere’zhula knew they wouldn’t abandon a comrade.

Not that she was any different.

I’m coming for you, you foolish girl. Even if it means going back to Dais...

***

The port town in Kal’Faan was a scenic place lined with pure-white buildings. It was early morning when an enormous ship entered port, its sail bearing the crest of the great House Melrose—a major noble house in the Kingdom of Claydale. Those in the know within the tradition-honoring nation still treated the Melroses as royalty.

Despite the hour, the port was bustling with mercantile traffic. The Claydale ship, having been granted priority by small, hastily moving administration boats, carried one of the kingdom’s foremost adventuring parties.

“Finally!” a medium-built, unremarkable man exclaimed, stretching his back and cracking his joints after the monthlong sea voyage.

He seemed to be in his early to mid-thirties, but in reality, was nearly forty. He also happened to act like someone even older than that.

“You’re practically elderly, Viro.”

“You have no right to call other people old, Mira.”

“What was that?”

The hundred-year-plus wood elf looked to be about twenty, and having been raised in a forest, she was still innocent inside. Nonetheless, Mira had lived among humans for over a century, so she’d essentially become a middle-aged woman; her youth was only skin-deep.

“All right, you two, enough of that. Get ready to disembark. No dawdling,” said Dalton, their leader, sighing as the pair glared at one another.

He was a mountain dwarf and over a hundred too, but what he really stood out for was his massive height—upward of 180 cm, unlike typical dwarves, who stood at around 160.

Next to him was an even taller human clad in light metal armor and armed with a magic steel greatsword. The giant man smiled wryly at his companions’ banter.

“Feld, you good to go already?” Viro asked.

“I mean, we have to find the princess. Also, Alia is your student, right? Don’t you think you should be in a bit more of a hurry?” Feld retorted, exasperated.

Viro awkwardly scratched his head. “Honestly, I don’t see the point in worrying about that one.”

Alia had gone through all sorts of trouble since Viro first met her when she was only seven. He had enough faith in her competence that he wasn’t worried about her. But for Feld, it was different—she was his comrade, yes, but also somewhere between an attractive girl who’d caught his eye and a little sister who needed protection. If she either looked or acted her age, he could see her as a child, but she was far too dependable, which made some part of his brain mistakenly see her as a peer his age.

“The princess is our priority,” Dalton warned. “Then we worry about Alia. Once we finish docking, I’m taking the baroness to the royal palace to negotiate with this country’s prime minister. Mira, with me. Viro and Feld, handle finding us transportation and supplies.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mira said casually.

“You’re taking Mira?” Viro asked, tilting his head.

If Dalton was going to negotiate, Viro would’ve been the natural choice. And Feld had noble status, which could have helped with introductions.

Dalton’s face soured at Viro’s implicit criticism. “They’re not walking around out in the open, but dark elves exist in this country too. We don’t want Mira running into any.”

“Ohh. Yeah, makes sense.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Mira said with a rare belligerent smile.

The pale-skinned wood elves and dusk-skinned dark elves hated each other. This rivalry predated the label “demon,” and the mutual prejudice, stemming from ancestral feuds, was passed down from generation to generation. Though Mira’s hundred years of city life had made her less prejudiced against dark elves, demons were a different story.

One of them, a woman, had thoroughly provoked Mira on countless battlefields decades ago. Even now, seeing demons made the wood elf go into murder mode.

“Are we ready, Rainbow Blade?” asked a woman holding a leather trunk case and a parasol.

“Baroness Leighton. We should be done by the time we dock,” Dalton replied.

“See that you are.”

Dalton and the baroness bowed to each other, and Viro, who was very much not done with his preparations, paled at the indirect jab.

Baroness Sera Leighton was a senior handmaiden to the royal family and one of the knights of the Order of Shadows responsible for security at the queen’s palace. Normally, a higher-ranked noble would’ve been sent to negotiate with the Kal’Faan empire. But Sera was known to dignitaries of various nations and one of the Order’s most trusted knights. The king, concerned for his daughter’s safety, had personally arranged for her to go.

Instead of her usual handmaiden outfit, today Sera wore a dignified navy gown.

“As you know, our top priority is the princess’s safety,” she said. “We do, of course, hope to save her guard Alia as well. Nevertheless, bringing back the princess takes precedence.”

Sera felt cold saying that, having grown to care for Alia as a true daughter despite the adoption having been a practical choice. She had to compartmentalize, but...still.

“I expect maximum effort from all of you. I will do my utmost as well. Should any foolish Kal’Faan nobles interfere with the rescue of the princess or my daughter, I will end them myself.”

Dalton and Feld fell silent at the graceful lady’s unexpectedly radical statement.

Supposedly, Sera had physically subdued her son, who’d insisted on saving his older sister, before boarding the ship and leaving him behind. And Viro, of course, had worked with her before. He knew how harsh she could be.

“You act tough, but you dote on her the most out of anyone,” he muttered.

“What was that?” Sera asked.

“Nothing!”

***

At a mansion owned by a major noble in the Royal Sorcerers’ Academy of Claydale, a girl wearing a jet-black dress enjoyed a cup of tea on a wide terrace.

“There’s so little to do,” she lamented, twining her long black hair—so dark it seemed to swallow the light—around a finger. Her skin was a ghastly white, and the shadows under her eyes gave them a sunken appearance.

Karla Leicester, one of the crown prince’s fiancées and the daughter of a count, looked less like a sickly girl than a phantom. Despite her complaints of boredom, a smile played upon her lips—not a cheerful, reassuring one but a pleased smile that made others uneasy.

She was under house arrest at her mansion within the academy grounds, on orders of the royal family and her father. This was because Karla had attacked the Holy Church in the royal capital, massacred its disciplinary corps, killed the so-called holy maiden, and gravely injured Nathanital, grandson of the high priest.

Though the Holy Church had agreed to not press charges, possibly due to having skeletons in its closet, the scandal wasn’t going anywhere. The decision served the interests of Karla’s father, Count Leicester, who wanted the honor of his daughter becoming a queen, and the royal family, who had kept Karla’s punishment mild to guarantee connections with the powerful House Leicester and its supporters. Above all, however, the royal family had secret agreements with the girl.

Count Leicester’s retainers stopped by frequently to monitor Karla. When she was young, her father and his retainers had been cruel to her—but now that it was obvious she far surpassed his skill, despite him being chief court sorcerer, he refused to meet with her, and his retainers watched her with undeniable fear in their eyes.

What face would her father make if she killed his retainers, she wondered? She’d once burned one of them to the bone, but her father hated scandals and had covered it up.

“Hee hee...”

Nathanital, whose face Karla had severely burned, still hadn’t completely healed even after a month. With how thoroughly she’d maimed him, it would take about half a year for his facial nerves to fully regenerate.

About once a month, her financé, crown prince Elvan, would come visit. Though this was likely an order from his father the king, he was also far too earnest for his own good, and his visits were a way for him to fulfill his duties as her betrothed. That same earnestness had gotten him completely wrapped around the finger of a foolish girl, but Karla found the young man’s behavior endearing.

This ridiculous, ridiculous, adorable man whose beloved sister had disappeared and whose heart grew sicker by the day. This symbol of the glory and joy of the kingdom that Karla despised. When he became king, how much chaos would ensue? How many lives would it cost?

Her desire to see it through had impelled her to aid the nobility faction, invite demons into the country, bury his supporters in darkness, and sow seeds of discord. The more sources of anxiety for Elvan, the more devoted he grew to that foolish girl and the more his heart grew distant from Clara—who truly loved him.

Karla found it absolutely delightful to watch this unfold.

Once Elvan had surrendered body and soul to that girl, who should Karla kill first to cause maximum damage to his heart?

Her lips curled into a smile. “There’s so little to do.”

Karla knew the true reason she was bored: She wasn’t here. Alia. The only girl who could kill Karla. The only person she would ever acknowledge. The one she wanted to fight, the one she wanted to slay her while the capital burned to ashes in the background.

She didn’t want to waste away or lose her life to some mediocrity, nor to die with her neck on an executioner’s block. Karla wanted to live for Alia and die by Alia’s hand. She knew Alia would make it back alive, no matter how harsh the environment she’d ended up in. She’d use everything as nourishment for her growth and return stronger to kill Karla.

Still, Karla had begun to tire of how dull life was without Alia.

“Perhaps I should go fetch her soon,” Karla mused. “Would she like that?”

With her eyes closed in rapture, Karla’s smile was chilling yet luminous, like that of a girl in love.

***

A dark room. Damp air. Floor and walls of cold stone.

In the dungeon of an old castle north of the desert, a chained, wounded girl quietly came to, her strong jade eyes glaring at the darkness.

I Want to Be the Heroine

“******, hurry and go!” a woman commanded.

She seemed to be a mother figure to a young girl. The girl didn’t remember her own name—it didn’t seem relevant to her and was only ever used when this “mother” barked orders at her.

The woman was a lady of the night. To the young girl, she was beautiful, worthy of her lifestyle of gaudy outfits and gaudier behavior. Perhaps out of confidence in her appearance, the woman was haughty even toward her fellow night workers and was not well-liked.

Still, the sins of the mother should not have been visited upon the daughter. The other women should’ve felt sympathy for the young girl, whose parent treated her so coldly—yet they acted as though she didn’t so much as exist. They went to greater lengths to avoid her than they did to avoid her mother, to whom they could at least relate to an extent. It was as though the girl was seen as some sort of incomprehensible, alien object.

That made the girl uncomfortable with women. For as long as she could remember, she’d been oppressed by the woman who called herself her mother and ignored by the other women. Only men—the women’s customers—ever offered her food and affection.

In her mind, a simple association formed: Men were protectors and women were bullies.

Perhaps it was the girl’s physical resemblance to her mother that made men favor her. She had refined features and gentle, sleepy eyes that looked up at them adoringly. Few could resist her.

Today, she’d yet again been driven out of their quarters by her mother, who’d brought in a male client. With no intention of asking other women for help, the girl wandered alone at night, consoling the pitiable men whom her mother figure had rejected and thus finding food and a place to sleep for the night.

She knew her looks were outstanding, but she also knew she was very different from her mother. The woman lorded her superiority over others and pursued only good-looking male customers. But the girl was different. She’s grown up without a father and with no love from her mother—all she wanted was to be loved. And she hated women, so she sought love only from men who treated her kindly.

Appearance didn’t matter. Birth and status were irrelevant. Anyone was fine as long as they loved her above all others. She simply wanted an abundance of love.

What mother and daughter each sought was fundamentally different.

As more men treated the girl as a daughter, she began to feel that her mother, who was picky about her clients, was becoming burdensome. Gradually, she began to see her mother as an obstacle.

“I don’t need her anymore.”

So she discarded her mother.

It was serendipitous. The Barony of Horus was adjacent to monster habitats, and one day, a stampede descended upon the town. Though it wasn’t particularly large, it still led to over a thousand casualties.

The mother, who had brought a man into her room, was slow to escape. Knowing monsters were approaching, the girl placed objects in front of the door and fled. Her burden disappeared, but the young girl’s plan didn’t go too well—many of her benefactors also died, and survivors who had lost their homes and jobs left town.

But many dead meant many orphans. The girl schemed to blend in with them and enter an orphanage.

She finally got lucky—or so she thought. The orphanage she’d managed to worm her way into was a living nightmare. Its budget was low, but the old woman who managed it would accept any orphans sent her way, even when donations were few.

The only reason the old woman could do this was the fact she exploited the defenseless children, using them as free labor. To survive the harsh work on little food, the girl charmed and manipulated older boys. This made the girls hate and bully her, but she saw this as mere jealousy and further sought the company—and protection—of the boys, posing as a victim.

But working children could only make so much money. The old woman forced them to do her own chores, yes, but most of the money she made was from selling the better-looking orphans to wealthy people in lieu of proper adoption.

Other orphans didn’t notice what was happening, but given her past life, the girl knew. But she didn’t denounce it to anyone. She didn’t want to be adopted. She wanted to be loved by a man, as a woman.

And yet the girl wasn’t chosen to be sold. Instead, the old woman chose a pink-haired child. Since the girl had no interest in other girls, she didn’t know much about the chosen child other than the fact that the old woman often dumped an unfair amount of work on her, which she did without complaint.

The girl wondered how she could gain the man’s attention instead of that child.

But the next day, the pink-haired child disappeared, the old woman was killed, and the buyer failed to show up. The orphanage’s management was taken over by retainers of Baron Horus, and next thing she knew, the girl came across an aethercrystal containing knowledge about the future.

The crystal was like a signpost pointing to men who had been as completely unreachable as the clouds above. It was the path to becoming the protagonist.

When the girl first picked up the crystal, she cut her fingertip on its sharp edge. Through contact with the girl’s blood, something inside the crystal—something akin to a will—tried to swallow her mind. But either because the will of the crystal lacked compulsive force without its own source of blood flow or because the girl’s mind was simply stronger, that will had become background noise in her mind, providing her with knowledge.

To fulfill her singular wish of being loved by many men, paternally or otherwise, the girl began to go by the name “Alicia.” Following the story of the game she learned about from the crystal, she claimed she was the daughter of a noblewoman who had eloped with a squire, seeking to usurp the real Alicia’s place.

It was obsession, plain and simple. Existing only to be loved, the girl replaced even her own memories of the mother she hated with those of the game’s heroine. She mimicked the heroine’s mannerisms, speech, expression, and even thought processes perfectly. She used her knowledge of Alicia as she was featured in the game’s artwork to make herself appear more attractive.

Orphan boys, captivated by her even lovelier form, helped spread word of her fabricated background, until finally, she hooked a noble family who believed they were related. Through them, she became a viscount’s adopted daughter—Alicia Melsis.

Now officially on the heroine’s path, she could charm noblemen.

Each of these men had his own inner demons and limitations. They were still vulnerable and hadn’t awakened to their full potential. In the game, the heroine would face her chosen man’s dark side, join him in his anxiety and pain, grow with him, make him see his true worth, and the two would fall in love.

The “woman” within the aethercrystal insisted that the girl should focus on winning over the crown prince, whose requirements were relatively simple and whose status was highest.

But the girl had never planned on stopping at one man. She wanted all of their love. Even if she ultimately chose the crown prince, she wasn’t going to pass up on all the others right away.

The “woman” protested. Chasing multiple men was impossible. The only way to open up another’s heart was to dedicate oneself fully.

Instead of listening to that, the girl chose to coddle the men, validating them indiscriminately, never facing the darkness and pain in their hearts.

The “woman” protested again. She said no one would find happiness like this.

But the girl only wished to be loved by as many men as possible. Nothing else mattered. The men could collapse under the weight of their own darkness. They could self-destruct. The girl could be implicated and sentenced to beheading. None of it mattered.

“Love me, and I will hold you until my last breath...”

She didn’t wish for happiness. She didn’t wish for self-destruction. She only wished to love and be loved. She wished for the ultimate loving bliss, in which the crown prince, the king’s younger brother, and the high priest’s grandson would all give themselves to her fully, abandoning everything else for her sake.

Only that could satisfy her endless hunger.

But her plans weren’t without obstacles.

There was Princess Elena, who would become the crown prince’s political enemy.

There was Karla, the dangerous daughter of a count, who was the crown prince’s fiancée.

There was Alia, the princess’s pink-haired guard, who was feared in the underworld.

And that was why...

“Everyone,” she said, “I think we need a dungeon’s gift.”

At a table in the Sorcerers’ Academy, the girl—“Saint Licia”—smiled adorably like a child pleading for a flower before Elvan, the crown prince; Amor, the king’s younger brother; and Nathanital, the high priest’s grandson.

Chef Alia’s Cooking Class

After they were transported to the desert near Reisveil and reached the town of Cutlass, Alia and Elena had faced many days of hardship.

“Do you cook often, Alia?” Elena asked on their first night camping outside.

Although Alia had been somewhat bewildered by her experience of the harsh desert climate, she didn’t find it particularly strenuous and instead had been more worried about Elena’s condition. The princess, despite having become healthier, only had average health points.

That thoughtful consideration had become a source of distress for Elena.

“I cooked at my mistress’s place,” Alia replied.

For Elena, who had been raised in a palace, that night was a shock. Alia suddenly threw something somewhere, then pulled it back, and out of nowhere, what looked like a hard-scaled lizard appeared in her hand.

Seeing the anchor-like blade stuck into the creature, Elena realized that Alia had actually been hunting. The shock made a swift return when she watched Alia slit the lizard’s throat with the blade and begin draining its blood.

“Wh-What are you doing?” Elena asked.

“Draining the blood. It’s a bit of a waste, since blood is nutritious, but since I’m not familiar with these lizards, I figured this is the safest way.”

“No, I mean...”

“Don’t worry. I’ll taste it for poison.”

“Right...” Elena said hesitantly as she realized they were going to eat that creature.

Despite being sheltered, Elena knew that the meat she ate came from living creatures. She convinced herself she could manage as long as the meal took on the familiar shape of cooked meat. Except...Alia’s cooking had her speechless.

“Alia...?”

“There’s no poison. Go ahead.”

Alia had roasted the lizard whole, directly over the open flame, without skinning or descaling it.

“This part is good,” Alia said of the lizard’s neck as she boldly cut it with her knife.

“Thank you,” Elena mumbled.

She bit into the meat while trying not to look at the roasted lizard’s eyes. The fact it tasted fine somehow made it worse.

Elena soon came to understand that by Alia’s standards, that night’s meal had been presented to her with quite a bit of consideration for her delicate sensibilities.

***

“Um, Alia...?”

The desert was nearly devoid of life, so proper meat like that lizard’s was quite rare indeed.

“I got lucky. Found this,” Alia said.

“Right...”

Elena understood Alia had caught this for her sake, and so she couldn’t protest any further. Even if “this” was a giant caterpillar. Still, she wished Alia had at least cut the thing into pieces. Instead, Alia presented Elena with the caterpillar sliced vertically in half, cooked through, with a spoon in the cross section. The princess had no choice but to solemnly accept.

She swallowed so fast she had no idea what it tasted like.

***

The thorny succulents they occasionally found in the desert were decently nutritious, according to Alia, and they provided hydration as well, so Elena would’ve been content with just those. But, out of consideration for Elena’s condition, Alia hunted snakes, insects, and other creatures high in life force.

Snakes were the best of the bunch. Quite good, actually. Skinned and chopped, they looked like regular meat.

“I found a centipede and a scorpion today,” Alia announced. “Give me a bit to get rid of the poison.”

Seeing Alia handle still-writhing arthropods as long as Elena’s arms, she felt woozy and her vision darkened.

***

Finally, they reached the human settlement of Cutlass. By then, Elena had lost sight of their objective. Reaching the town was a cause for celebration.

Elena could only smile vaguely as the proprietor of a seedy tavern served her food he called “awful.” She could not openly admit that no matter how awful this was, it was still leagues better than what she’d been eating.

Although...Alia’s cooking actually tasted better. Which was somehow very frustrating to admit.

***

Months passed, and Cutlass was beset by a monster stampede. Separated from Alia, Elena was rescued by a dark elf named Cere’zhula who claimed to be Alia’s mentor.

While Ron repaired the damaged hot-air balloon, Elena tried to prepare simple meals in lieu of Chaco, who was still in shock from their fall. Cere’zhula’s eyes widened as she watched Elena select and prepare different ingredients.

“What are you doing, little lady?”

“Have I made a mistake?” Elena asked. “This is how Alia did it...”

Elena had somehow found a giant pill bug—larger than a human head—and begun spit-roasting it over an open flame. She didn’t think this was proper cooking either, but her natural earnestness had made her assume that all camping cooking was like this. Though she had no intention of eating it herself, she was still making it as a gesture of goodwill toward Alia’s mentor.

Cere’zhula brought a hand to her forehead as if staving off a headache. It seemed she now had even more reason to find her unsociable disciple beyond simply rescuing her.

“I really need to have a word with her,” she muttered, chuckling.

Nero gave her an exasperated look, let out a simple “Grr...” and went to sleep.

Afterword

Hello if we’ve never met! And if we have, welcome back! I’m Harunohi Biyori.

Despite having very few scenes at the academy, this book features the second chapter of the Academy Act, “Desert Rose.” Our protagonist has finally left campus, and so we instead get an arc of shadowy conflict between the fake heroine and the villainess—a showdown between Karla, who dabbles in both traditional villainy and total bloodshed, and Licia, who tries to eliminate her rivals by manipulating the men she’s charmed.

Clara has finally steeled her resolve and made a move to try and kill Licia, but with everyone around her being exceptional, she’s found it to be more difficult than anticipated.

Without Alia to solve problems through force and Elena to provide common sense, the academy has become a battleground. Hopefully everyone will manage.

Those of you who read the web novel will know that Alia being teleported away corresponds to the otome game’s secret character route. The bachelor is from the demonic nation. Now, who might that be? (I totally have no idea. Trust.)

In the original game’s hidden route, the demons, seeing the heroine as dangerous due to her ability to awaken others to their true potential, kidnap her and spirit her away to the demonic nation. Successfully finishing the route leads to a ceasefire with Dais, but failing to build enough affection points leads to battle against the demon king. The awakened bachelors appear as reinforcements in that fight, but with too few points, the player will have few allies and may get a bad ending.

Granted, Alia doesn’t need all that backup. With Cere’zhula, Nero, and Karla joining the fray, I’d be more worried about the demons’ safety.

Hitaki Yuu-sensei is still in charge of the illustrations. The art style’s been updated, but it remains wonderful. Some of you may have been surprised to see Alia growing cuter and the bachelors becoming more like handsome otome game men back in volume 5.

Volume 3 of the manga should be released the same month as this book, so if you’re reading this afterword at a bookstore, check out the comic section! If it’s not out yet, you can reserve it!

As the number of volumes has increased, so have the reviews on online video platforms, and I’m quite relieved to know that the series has been well received so far!

See you in volume 7! My utmost gratitude to everyone who read this book, all bookstores and retailers who stock it, and everyone who participated in its production!