Chapter 5: Mercenaries in Maynard City

Fort Clonfert had been retaken. I had buried a quarter of the Llewynian soldiers under the earth, and another quarter had been taken down by the Évrard soldiers.

We’d managed to take the Llewynian commander captive this time. According to him, they’d anticipated my ability to be the same as what they’d seen at Évrard, so they’d planned to wait until I reached my limit before launching an all-out attack. For that reason, half of them had stayed inside the fort... but they were all buried under the soil now.

If they’d ignored me and just launched their full-scale attack from the start, our side would have taken far more damage—or so claimed General Edam of the House of Reinstar when he praised my efforts in passing.

At the time, I was covered up in a cloak Reggie had tossed over my head, so Edam asked me if I was hurt anywhere. The only injury I had, of course, was the one I’d given myself.

My head was just fine, but Reggie had taken issue with my puffy, reddened eyes. When he left to go take command of the troops, he’d given me his cloak to hide under.

Moving right along... It was great that we’d recaptured Clonfert and all, but its function as a fort had been severely compromised. Since, you know, I’d gone and destroyed the wall. Until we cleared away all the dead bodies inside the fort, it wasn’t a great place to keep our prisoners or take a rest, either.

Thus, I decided to help out with the cleanup after taking a short break—without using any blood this time. Tidying up and rebuilding the part of the wall I’d destroyed could have taken days upon days with only manpower at our disposal, after all.

Master Horace asked me how tired I was and what condition my mana was in, but I was just a little feverish at worst.

I waited for my fever to go down before joining the restoration and repair work, and when I did, the soldiers welcomed me with open arms.

The problem there was that sand and dirt were very hard to move using a golem. Everything just spilled through the golem’s hands.

“You don’t have to make it in the shape of a human, kid,” Master Horace suggested.

“I know, but that makes it harder to envision it moving,” I fussed.

Since we were cleaning, a giant broom or something would work best. However, lying underneath the soil were the bodies of the many soldiers I’d killed. I didn’t want to expose their dead faces, nor did I want to roughly sweep them around.

If only I could move the dirt like it was traveling along some kind of conveyor belt. But if I tried to move all that soil on my own, I would run out of steam right away.

“Oh!”

Struck with an idea, I created something with four wheels and an arm and a wide shovel attached to the front—or, in modern terms, a bulldozer. Naturally, I built the shovel in just the right shape to slide under the dirt, scoop it up, and carry it around.

“What in god’s name is that?!”

“It’s a very handy, um... carriage... that transports dirt around.”

Master Horace gave a hysterical shout at the finished product. Cain’s eyes went wide.

Their reactions were understandable. There weren’t any bulldozers in this world.

It didn’t make the vroom vroom of an engine, of course, but the wheels hardened by magic began to spin into motion. My creation scooped up the dirt in front of us, lifted it up so it wouldn’t spill, and carried it to an area just outside the fort.

I’d never driven a car before, so it took me a little while to get the hang of moving it, but the crumbled remains of my golem and the sandy residue of the fort wall were taken away several times faster than human hands could have managed.

I finished up in about an hour, then went to work creating a makeshift wall where I’d left a hole. With it being a stopgap and all, I only had to make it about three mers tall.

I made a large hole in the ground right underneath the pile of dirt and buried it all away. For a finishing touch, I built a hard stone fence around it to make sure no one would step on it... since it was a graveyard, after all.

Once my work was done, I exhaled deeply, and Cain took me somewhere I could rest. It was beside a rather large river near the fort. A check was being conducted to make sure there were no enemy soldiers left inside the fort, so I couldn’t go in there yet.

I wondered if the fort had been built here because of the river. Drinking water had to be drawn from the well to be on the safe side, but that alone wouldn’t provide enough water for daily life.

Cain had taken me upstream. There was no one else around, so it was quiet. I washed my hands in the water.

I finally took off Reggie’s cloak, which I’d been wearing the whole time. After I folded it up and set it aside, I held my hair back with one hand, knelt by the shore, and plunged my face into the river. The water felt nice and crisp against my eyes, still puffy from crying.

“Wait! Don’t drink the water, Miss Kiara!” Cain cried out in a panic.

Uh, don’t worry, I know that... Trust me, I know all about hygiene from my past life. I wouldn’t drink water straight from a river unless I was really desperate. I’d definitely make myself sick.

“I know, I know. But sometimes, don’t you just want to stick your head right into the water?”

I was feeling very refreshed now.

Cain just sighed.

While I was off taking a break, the inspection of the fort had been finished. When Reggie and company returned from routing the enemy, I was ushered inside the fort.

In the main tower of the fort were the living quarters for nobles and military commanders. The stone building was designed with its inhabitants’ protection in mind, so the windows were small. Even in the daytime, it was as dim as twilight, and even during the summer, the air was cool. After sunset, it became downright chilly.

I had someone bring me hot water after dinner. I wet a cloth and wiped away all the dust and sweat on my body.

Ahh. Much better.

After I’d returned the water jug to the cooking station, I ran into Reggie, his hair dripping wet.

“Oh, you got rid of the dye,” I said.

In the light of the torches lining the corridor, I could see that his hair had returned to its original silver color.

“Who knows when I’ll get my next chance. I had to do it while I could.”

He had a point. It was easy today, when we were staying in the fort, but we had to assume there would be Llewynian soldiers in the towns we were marching toward. If we stopped for an actual visit, it would have to be after a battle, and if fighting did break out, we’d be too busy fixing up the place afterward to relax.

If I really tried, I could always have a bath prepared while we were camping. But there was always a chance the enemy could attack while our guard was down, so there wouldn’t be enough time to wash out the dye with hot water. It would take more than just splashing some water on it to get rid of the dye, so if he hadn’t done it now, Reggie might’ve stayed a blond all the way to Cassia Castle.

I ended up walking nearly all the way back to our rooms with Reggie, who was wiping down his hair. Suddenly, I heard the patter of footsteps catching up to us from behind. The one who came running up to us, panting, was Reggie’s brunette lord-in-waiting, Colin.

“My deepest apologies, Your Grace! If you could just wait a moment, I can take care of your hair—”

“Oh, there’s no need for you to worry. You have more important things to do than look after me. Besides, this is your first time on the march. Things never go quite as smoothly on unfamiliar ground.”

Reggie’s reassurance brought tears to the boy’s eyes. This was his first time traveling with an army, and under the circumstances, he was running a little behind schedule in tending to Reggie’s needs.

“Still! Please, allow me to do this, at the very least...”

Colin was holding a bundle of warm, dry towels. He really seemed to be having a rough time, so I turned to Reggie and said, “Do you want me to take care of it for you? It’s hard to dry your hair on your own.”

I was all too familiar with the struggles of having long hair. Reggie’s hair was shorter than mine, which reached all the way to my waist, but no doubt it still took a long time to dry.

“What? Oh no, Lady Kiara, I couldn’t ask that—”

Colin began to protest, but Reggie cut him off, plucking the towels out of his hands.

“I’ll have Kiara help me. I just had you change my water, so you ought to go rest. You haven’t received the same training the rest of us have, so you must be tired. Go get ready for tomorrow.”

“Erm...”

Reggie walked away, leaving the surprised Colin behind with a “Good night” and pulling me along by the hand.

Uh... I would’ve come along if you’d asked. Did you really need to grab my hand?

I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I wanted Colin to rest easy, so I waved goodbye with a smile. He seemed somewhat apologetic, but he bobbed his head in a bow, a slightly embarrassed look on his face.

When we made it to Reggie’s room, the sandy-haired Felix was standing outside. He was looking at us with a grin. Was it because of the hand-holding? Yeah, that had to be it. Still, I was pretty sure it would be rude to shake off the prince’s hand with someone else watching.

Felix opened the door, and Reggie and I went inside. Then, for whatever reason, he closed the door behind us instead of following us inside.

Is this... really okay?

I mean, true, Reggie had gone inside my room and shut the door behind him pretty recently. Was this just how everyone around Reggie had decided to handle me now?

Whatever. I would just be doing an attendant’s work today, so I decided not to say anything about it.

Perhaps the room had been used by the baron and other nobles; simple as it was, there was a full sofa set inside.

For now, Reggie’s hair was the important thing. It was hot this time of year, sure, but if we left his hair like that for too long, he could still catch a cold.

“Have a seat.”

I sat Reggie down on the sofa, stood behind it, and absorbed the water from Reggie’s hair with a dry towel. Thanks to all the heat, it dried pretty quickly. I finished up the back of his hair and moved around to the front.

This part was a little more difficult, however, with Reggie staring at me so intently. Before I could think about what I was doing, I threw a towel over his head a little roughly. But that successfully hid me from his gaze, so I crouched down and kept at my task.

I was trying to finish up quickly, but I couldn’t just muss up the prince’s hair like I would with a wet dog.

Of course, I couldn’t leave the towel on his head forever. When I took it away so I could wipe the sides of his hair, Reggie closed his eyes for me. Relieved, I was able to concentrate on finishing my work.

Just when I was about to finish, something suddenly brushed against my ear.

“Eep!”

Surprised at the ticklish sensation, I tried to jump back, but the same hand that had touched my ear grabbed me by the shoulder and reeled me back in. I lost my balance and collapsed on top of Reggie.

Reggie pulled me all the way in and held me close to his chest.

His cheek, his shoulder, and the arm looped around my back to hold me up were all warm. Although it was summer, the air in the fort was chilly at night, so my own shoulder and arms must have grown cold at some point.

The warmth felt really nice. Perhaps I’d been hugged by Reggie so many times now I’d just gotten used to it; I didn’t feel the urge to escape his grasp.

Still, it wasn’t proper for us to stay in this position when there was no urgent reason for it. I tried to get up, but Reggie tightened his grip around me, holding me in place.

“Hey, Reggie? Um, sorry about that. You surprised me, so I lost my balance.”

I was glad that he’d caught me, but we couldn’t stay like this. As I began to fret, for some reason, Reggie patted me lightly on the back.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?”

“Well... yes?” I answered, puzzled. His touch was purposeful, warm, and soothing. It was almost like he was trying to lull me to sleep.

Before I knew it, I felt the strength seeping from my body—almost like I’d curled up on the futon and was about to fall asleep.

Just when I was about to yawn, Reggie said, “We’ll probably be staying at this fort for a few more days, so you should get in some good rest.”

He then released me from his grasp. To my own bewilderment, I felt almost reluctant to move away, but I knew that clinging to Reggie for too long would only trouble him, so I stood up.

After that, I returned to my room. I was so tired that I just said goodnight to Master Horace where he sat on my desk, then dove straight into bed.

◇◇◇

The dream I had that night was both very nostalgic and very distressing.

In it, somebody who had been by my side disappeared.

I searched everywhere for that person, wandering and wandering. I’d feel someone touch my arm, but the moment I turned to see who it was, they would vanish into thin air. It was that vague sort of dream.

When I woke up, I noticed how much hotter it was than yesterday, changed into a sleeveless outfit, and forgot all about it.

◇◇◇

Why did I get so sleepy last night?

I had acted strangely, for sure, but so had Reggie. At first, I’d thought he’d just wanted to be around someone he could easily talk to, but then he’d barely said anything. After that, I’d figured that he’d just wanted to give his lord-in-waiting a break, but then he went and hugged me. He’d even acted like my mom or something.

I was just as bad, getting successfully lulled to sleep.

Either way, I didn’t really understand Reggie’s feelings.

I casually glanced out the window.

We were set to stay at the fort for a few days, both to wait for the injured to recover and to give our scouts enough time to poke around the province of Cassia.

The temperature had suddenly skyrocketed, so it was a good thing for our men that we’d paused the march. Their military uniforms stripped away and their sleeves rolled up, soldiers stood guard and cleaned up the battleground in shifts, then cooled off in the river to escape the heat.

Meanwhile, other soldiers had been sent all over on reconnaissance, anywhere from the neighboring towns all the way to Cassia Castle. The job had to be done, but I felt sorry that they had to work in this heat.

A warm breeze came blowing through, reminding me of the summers in my past life. I was briefly overcome by a craving for shaved ice. Unfortunately, earth magic was all I could use, so I couldn’t make my dreams a reality.

The inside of my room was cooler, almost like a cave, but it was still plenty hot. I was lounging around in my room, wearing the sleeveless dress Lady Évrard had prepared for me, when I turned to Master Horace.

“I can’t use anything but earth magic, right?”

What with his clay body and all, the heat didn’t slow Master Horace down. He answered immediately, “Not necessarily.”

“Really?!”

“But you need to have the right aptitude, even for that. Besides, the results are barely worth it.”

“But I can cast it?”

“Typically, the sort of magic spellcasters can cast outside their main element hardly counts as sorcery. For example, someone with a slight aptitude for fire might be able to produce burning coals instead of flint, after ten years of hard work.”

“Ten... years?”

“You heard me. Ten years.”

It wasn’t going to do me any good if it took that long. Besides, if all I’d get in the end was such a measly ability, it wasn’t worth the effort.

“I’ve heard that someone who can fully master two elements only shows up once every two hundred years.”

Come to think of it, the spellcaster I’d learned about from the Évrard Castle archives had wielded two elements. Who knew I’d been reading about such an incredible genius?

I gave up on my dream of dabbling in ice and water magic and decided to focus my efforts on mastering earth.

I went outside, determined to finish up my construction work. Earlier, I’d been so exhausted that I’d left the bodies piled up outside the fort proper to deal with later. Now was the time to take care of those.

Over my sleeveless dress, I threw a bolero—once again courtesy of Lady Évrard—over my shoulders to keep them hidden, then went about finishing up my work.

I buried all the dead bodies, enemies and allies alike. Doing away with the blood-soaked earth freshened up the air, too.

Some of the soldiers had initially expressed disdain toward my burying the enemy. However, they were so defeated by the heat and the stench that by the time the burial was done, the prevailing attitude had become, Sure, why not?

The heat was oppressive, but at that moment, I was grateful for the sun.

To put it another way, a portion of the soldiers who no longer had to dig holes in the hot weather sang my praises for that alone.

“I’d heard stories from the men of Évrard, but how truly convenient!”

“We won’t be able to do things this way every time, but it certainly helped us out.”

“Thank you, Lady Spellcaster!”

I returned their delight with a silent smile. If I got them used to the idea, perhaps by the time summer was over, they would think it was only natural to bury enemy soldiers. If it became a Farzian custom, maybe I wouldn’t have to be the one to bury them each and every time; other people would start doing it of their own accord.

I really hope it happens one day.

Once that was taken care of, I conducted a few experiments in the shade.

With the help of my mysterious and definitely-not-cursed artifact (the bloody copper ore), I had successfully extended my time limit. The next thing to work on was quantity.

I tried making as many tiny golems as I could. I had Master Horace stand around as a reference point and made them all about his height. If the clay figurines were identical, I wouldn’t be able to tell which one was Master Horace, so I just made them miniature versions of the usual jumble of rocks.

“One, two, three... That’s ten of them,” he said.

“I can make a lot of them at this size.”

The cluster of golems all lined up in a row reminded me of something. Something I’d seen in a history textbook in my past life. What was it called again?

“The Terracotta Army?” I muttered aloud.

The sculptures had been buried inside an emperor’s tomb in place of the real soldiers and horses. These tiny little guys were one thing, but the life-size ones had to be a pretty terrifying sight. Once they started marching forward, even these miniature ones got comments of “That’s horrifying!” or “The spellcaster has such strange ideas” from the onlooking soldiers.

Ignoring the bystanders, I moved the golems forward to a rhythm of “one, two, one, two” in my head. A short distance away, I had them pivot and walk back to me.

Hey, this is kind of fun.

“Look, Master Horace! If I have a bunch more of these, they’ll be pretty intimidating, right?”

“They’re plenty off-putting already.”

“But if there’s too few of them, they won’t stick out on the battlefield.”

Excited, I tested the limits of how many I could make at once. As a result, I found that I could control about fifty of them as long as they all performed the same motions.

“I really hope I can use this for something.”

Watching them closely, I decided to test how far I could move them remotely.

The three rows of golems advanced at my orders. Any soldiers who ran across them let out startled yelps. Cain came along, his eyes wide. Alan nearly stepped on one. Through all the havoc, the golems just kept moving forward.

“Nice!”

Eventually, the golems walked right out of my line of sight and vanished.

“Oh, I can keep them going for a pretty long time.”

To my surprise, the golems had gone beyond my field of vision. I commanded them to stop and went to catch up with them. They’d ended up pretty far ahead, and all that was left was their remains after turning back to soil.

A soldier who had been passing by was frozen with terror after witnessing the moment they’d dissolved into dirt.

Sorry about that!

◇◇◇

After I spent two days conducting all sorts of experiments, a scout finally returned from a Cassian city close to the fort.

It was Maynard City of the province of Cassia. In the RPG, the city was occupied and looted by mercenaries hired by the Llewynians.

“As Lord Alan just mentioned, Maynard City has been occupied by mercenaries. Llewyne permitted them to plunder the city in lieu of a reward. We believe their forces total about two hundred men, and there are three different groups of mercenaries involved. Since Maynard’s leadership was killed by the Llewynians, the townspeople have no means by which to resist.”

The usual suspects were gathered to hear the report.

There was Reggie, Alan, and the two commanding knights of Évrard. Next came me and a representative of each noble house, plus our respective escorts.

After the Llewynian army’s initial descent on Maynard City, many houses had been destroyed, and a large number of people had been killed, injured, or forced to flee the city. The ones who hadn’t managed to escape had no choice but to give in to the mercenaries’ demands, anxiously opening up their stores to be robbed. So far, there had been no bloody murders outside of the initial battle, but surely the citizens were all scared to death.

After looting the city, the mercenaries were staying in manors and inns they’d made into their bases.

Evidently, the Llewynians had instructed the mercenaries to come running if they came under attack by the Farzian army at Fort Clonfert or Cassia Castle. Now that news of Fort Clonfert’s recapture had reached them, they were making preparations to head out and meet up with the forces at Cassia Castle.

“If we miss our chance now, the mercenaries in Maynard will join up with the Llewynian forces at Cassia Castle,” announced Edam.

Mercenaries were people who sold their combat skills. They could only make a living in a world full of skirmishes. Nobody needed them during peaceful times, so they often had to disband for lack of profit.

Their participation in the war was problematic for one main reason: their level of experience.

The bulk of an army’s firepower came from recruits who typically worked in rural villages. Most of them had no battle experience whatsoever. Thus, many of them would flee in fear when it came down to it, and the moment they heard the enemy was driving them back, they would assume the fight was lost and surrender quickly.

However, mercenaries had more fighting experience, so they could better judge the tide of a battle. Plus, they were bound by a financial contract, so they had to make sure their employer won. Sometimes they would even work to raise morale by encouraging the drafted soldiers.

They were extra trouble on the battlefield, too. Some could take on knights in a one-on-one fight and leave over a dozen dead men in their wake.

For the record, I was the one tasked with raising the fighting spirit of the Évrard army.

Évrard was a region that saw war quite frequently, so many of the farmers who enlisted with our army had plentiful battle experience. Thus, we rarely hired mercenaries.

If the Llewynians didn’t have any mercenaries in their ranks, we wanted to keep it that way. We couldn’t let them meet up, so we decided to strike them down in Maynard City.

“However, if we try to take all our forces to Maynard, we’ll be too slow. They’ll see us coming and flee the city before we arrive,” said Alan, who stealthily held my strategy notebook under the table in one hand. “I’d like to lead five hundred men to Maynard City before that can happen. Lady Kiara should accompany me as well.”

He looked over at me, and I nodded.

I figured Reggie would try to stop us, but to my surprise, he allowed it.

“Very well. We’ll leave the matter to you, Alan.”

Reggie immediately gave us his approval, and everyone else agreed.

There was something unsettling about how smoothly it all went, but it was swiftly decided that Alan and I would head to Maynard City.

◇◇◇

Maynard City was a good distance away. We departed just after noon, and by the time we neared the area, the sun had already set.

We stopped just outside the city, figuring that at this distance, the enemy wouldn’t find us even if they had men out on patrol. There, we went over the facts one last time.

“There are three different bands of mercenaries. That part is the same as your memories.”

“Right. In that case, we can probably assume they’re using these three places as their bases.”

Alan, Cain, and I were forming our plans around the strategy booklet I’d made. The three of us faced one another above my little notebook, determining the points of our current location and attack route.

There was no doubt that drawing the maps had made it easier to understand and explain, but it was still so embarrassing. It got even worse when Cain added annotations of his own; his handwriting was so neat it made me want to cry.

Boy, I wish my handwriting were that nice.

Meanwhile, Alan made a small note from the side with his charcoal pen. “Shouldn’t this be like this?”

The sight of it put my heart at ease. Thank god. Alan’s handwriting is dreadful!

I smiled at Alan like he was my own personal savior, and he glared at me in return.

“Why are you in such a good mood all of a sudden?”

“Oh, it’s nothing! Nothing at all! Ehehehe!”

I hid the truth so as not to hurt him. As comrades-in-bad-handwriting, I wanted the two of us to get along.

“I don’t like it. What are you up to? I’m sure it can’t be anything good.” Alan backed away from me uneasily.

Come on, you don’t have to act so repulsed by me!

“Don’t let him get to you, Miss Kiara,” Cain said, giving me a comforting pat on the head. The “little sister” treatment was both a little embarrassing and hard to protest, so I just let him have at it.

Eventually, Alan looked over at me, a little put out. “Come to think of it, we set out from Évrard half a year later in your story, don’t we? Were the mercenaries in Maynard for all that time?”

“No. At first, they accompanied the Llewynians to the royal capital, but once Évrard started raising an army, the Llewynian nobles occupying Cassia and Delphion called them back.”

If things had gone according to the RPG, Maynard would have suffered twice over.

At any rate, there were three mercenary bands stationed in the city. Each one had made their base in either large inns or the mayor’s manor. We were going to strike at those places.

This battle was going to be a bit of a pain; if we let the mercenaries get away, they would start burning down the nearby houses.

At our three-person meeting, we settled on eliminating the groups in order from largest to smallest. If the smallest band got away, there would be less damage as a result, and they wouldn’t be as much of a threat if they joined up with the Llewynian army at Cassia Castle.

“My condolences to the property owners, but the most efficient method would be to lock them inside and burn the buildings down,” Alan suggested. Now that we knew where they were located, he jumped right to the easiest strategy.

Cain gave a faint, wry smile. “We could do that, if it weren’t for the people inside who they’ve forced to work for them.”

If they wanted to maintain a certain quality of life, having just their fellow mercenaries around wouldn’t cut it. They likely had townspeople-turned-servants staying in each of their bases, and we weren’t in such dire straits that we had to let innocent people die.

We wanted to free Maynard City from its mercenary oppressors. Given our position, we couldn’t write off the very people we were supposed to be saving. Eventually, it would come back around and harm both Évrard and Reggie’s reputations.

Next, we explained our strategy to Alan’s knight-guards, Lyle and Chester, who were in charge of directly organizing the soldiers in this operation. They relayed our plan of action to the rest of the soldiers.

That marked the end of our break. Thus, we set out and marched the rest of the way to Maynard City.

We sent a scout to check on the current situation one last time. If all was well, we would launch an attack on our first target, the manor of Maynard City’s mayor.

In the moonlit forest, we waited for the soldiers we’d sent on reconnaissance to return. One of them came back earlier than expected.

“What happened?” asked Lyle.

Gasping for breath, the soldier reported, “It’s terrible! Maynard is ablaze! The mercenaries set fire to the city!”

Alan immediately called for our troops to head out, then asked the soldier, “Where did the fire start?”

“A building in the middle of the city that looked to be the mayor’s manor! And a few others started near a city square to the north!”

“They must have noticed we’re here. They’re planning to make a run for it while we have our hands full putting out the fires,” Cain postulated.

Alan nodded in agreement, then began barking orders. “Let’s split into three teams. Our main squad of three hundred men will proceed to the mayor’s manor, as originally planned, and strike down the mercenaries as they’re leaving the city. To cut off their escape route, I will take one hundred other knights and stand guard at the western gate. The remaining hundred will infiltrate from the east. After that, the bulk of our forces should focus on wiping out the mercenary bands while another squad focuses on putting out the fires, taking down any mercenaries they find along the way.”

“Now we don’t have to worry about the people inside,” I muttered.

It had already taken some time for the scout to investigate the fires and come back to us. Chances were very low that we could still save any of the civilians inside the buildings, and there was no way that the mercenaries would have rescued those people themselves.

I raised my hand and said, “Once we’ve extinguished the fire at the mayor’s manor, I’ll go around the city. It should be easy enough to put out the fires with dirt.”

Alan nodded. “You take care of Kiara, Wentworth.”

While Alan and his men mounted their horses, the soldiers began to move out. Cain pulled me along by the hand and sat me down in front of him on his horse.

We weaved through the forest and headed for Maynard City.

We couldn’t charge in without our foot soldiers, so we couldn’t just gallop straight ahead. Luckily, we weren’t that far from the city, so it wasn’t long before we passed through the walls. The gates, about twice the height of an adult, had already been opened. Most likely, someone had opened them while making their escape.

Beyond the gates, smoke rose from over the roofs of buildings. Raging flames lit up the sky. We proceeded into the city, bright during these supposed hours of darkness.

On the cobblestone road, we passed by people leaving the city. Evidently, the mercenaries took no issue with this as long as no one raised a hand against them; they didn’t go out of their way to chase down and kill the escaping townspeople. All the people who had been hiding away to escape the notice of their oppressors were taking full advantage of that and running for their lives, their families in tow and their hands full of bags.

When they saw us heading in the opposite direction, toward the city center, they stopped in surprise and moved out of our path in a hurry. Surely they were hoping we would stamp out the fires and get rid of the outlaws.

Eventually, we arrived at the front entrance to the mayor’s manor. The left side of the building was almost entirely enveloped in flame. I didn’t see anyone still escaping from inside, and fortunately for us, the mercenaries had only just left the manor.

“Get us a little closer, Sir Cain! You can stop as soon as I throw something!”

“Just so you know, I won’t take you within a sword’s reach of them.”

Cain met my demand, galloping ahead. Held in place by his arms, I flung a copper coin toward the mercenaries who had stopped to glance back at us.

The sound of the coin bouncing off stone echoed through the area.

When Cain brought his horse to a stop, I jumped down onto the road and touched the stone pavement. My power could reach anywhere connected to me by stone or soil.

The mercenaries changed course, preparing to come at us.

Unfortunately for them, I was faster. As soon as they broke out running, they ran straight into a stone wall of my creation, then screamed and took a tumble on the bulging cobblestone road.

“It’s a spellcaster!”

“That little girl is a spellcaster!”

The mercenaries stood up and pointed at me, and the ones who hadn’t fallen ran toward me in a wild frenzy. Apparently, I was very popular with the enemy. Whoever took my head would be commended, and maybe even given a reward. The idea of it sent a shiver down my spine.

The deluge of people trying to kill me was honestly pretty terrifying, but cowering in fear wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Besides, I had Cain with me.

Cain left his horse to a fellow soldier who had caught up to us, dismounted, and stood in front of me. In the meantime, I did what I had to do.

The stones on the cobblestone path rapidly expanded, one by one. First they took on the shape of a rectangular shield, then they transformed into thin humanoid figures with hands and feet.

I made twenty of those stone golems, each about the size of an adult human. If I made any more than that, I would run out of breath, so this was my limit in terms of quantity.

Under my orders, the stone dolls arranged themselves into rows and advanced toward the mercenaries.

“W-What on earth ARE those?!”

“How revolting!”

Some of the mercenaries ducked around the stone dolls and ran toward us. Each of them fell with a flash of Cain’s sword.

The rest of our soldiers caught up to us and launched an attack at the command of Alan’s knight, Lyle, taking some of the burden off of Cain.

While all that was going on, the stone golems pressed on in solemn silence. Along the way, some of them extended their slender arms, wrapping them around the nearby mercenaries. The hulking men, infinitely taller and broader than me, let out throaty, petrified screams.

I couldn’t blame them; it must have been scary. After all, they’d been seized by slender stone wraiths, marching on without expression in the flickering light of the flames. Moreover, since their captors were made of stone, any efforts to chop off the arms binding them proved useless, leaving them unable to do anything but squirm.

The other nearby mercenaries grew frightened when they caught sight of their apprehended comrades, giving our soldiers plenty of openings to take advantage of.

I had the stone golems keep up the good work. Then, I had Cain throw another copper coin far into the distance. The cobblestones there swelled up, knocking over some mercenaries in the middle of their escape.

Évrard soldiers had flocked there as well. The mercenaries had swords of their own, so our men weren’t getting by unscathed, but everyone seemed to be having an easier time of fighting than usual.

Before we knew it, we had successfully taken down all the mercenaries near the mayor’s manor.

After making sure that all the people they’d apprehended were tied up, I dismantled my stone golems, and... Oops, looks like the cobblestone road is still all torn up. I’ll fix it later, promise!

The captured mercenaries were handed over to the residents of the city. We left the decision of what to do with the crooks in their hands.

“I don’t see any more enemies around,” Cain said, scanning the area and sliding his sword back into its sheath.

Then, Lyle announced that he was moving to the western gate to chase down the remaining mercenaries. Chester would lead the other half of our group to the stronghold of one of the other mercenary bands. The place he was headed for had also gone up in flames, so he was sure to end up chasing down escaping mercenaries.

I went to work to prevent the spread of the fire. I brought forth a giant golem, had it collapse on top of the burning parts of the building, covering up the fire, and then dispelled it. By the time I had repeated the process twice, the left half of the mayor’s manor had caved in, smoke rising from the remains. That way, the fire wouldn’t spread to the nearby properties. I nodded to myself, satisfied.

Suddenly, I felt something tug at my skirt. I looked behind me, wondering if I had caught it on something, and my eyes went wide.

A creature with pale fur was looking up at me.

It was a shaggy animal, with legs and a face slimmer than a dog’s. A fox, perhaps? It definitely looked like a fox. The size of its body was about on par with a wolf.

When did you get here?

In my utter surprise, the fox and I just stared silently at each other for some time. Eventually, a nearby soldier shouted, “A-A frostfox?!”

“Is that a monster?!”

The soldiers were familiar with this creature, apparently. A murmur arose from the people who overheard their cries.

Cain stepped out in front of me. His hand was already on his sword.

However, the frostfox didn’t look scared in the least; it just whined and nosed at me from behind, like it didn’t want to be separated from me. As it nuzzled up against me, I thought, Wait... Does that mean this little guy likes me?

My heart warmed, I found myself extending a hand toward it.

“Miss Kiara, what are you doing?!” Cain tried to stop me, but the frostfox behind me submitted itself to my petting without so much as a growl.

Eventually, the frostfox once again bit down gently on my skirt and tugged at it, trying to guide me to the right.

“Is your owner over there?” I asked, but of course, the creature couldn’t respond. Still, such a domesticated monster couldn’t be wandering around a city all by itself.

Unsure of what to do, I looked up at Cain for guidance—and that was when I noticed smoke in the distance.

There was a fire burning in two different areas. One of the fires was to the west, the same direction in which the mercenaries staying in the mayor’s manor had fled. To the north, where the frostfox was trying to lead me, several buildings were burning, and the resulting fire looked huge.

Near the eastern gate, where the third group of mercenaries was supposedly located, there were still no signs of any fire.

“Sir Cain, let’s take care of the fires to the north first,” I suggested.

The frostfox seemed appeased, releasing my skirt from its jaws. Apparently, that was exactly what it had wanted from me.

“You want us to put out the fire?”

The fox gently swayed its bushy tail, a contrast to its slender face, as if to say, That’s right!

“Could fighting have broken out among the mercenaries? Perhaps this frostfox’s master sympathized with the townspeople and headed to where one of the fires was started,” Cain hypothesized.

I nodded in agreement. There was no way this frostfox’s master was a regular townsperson. It had to be someone from the third mercenary group. If their frostfox was here, and there was no evidence of a fire at their base, it was a sign that they weren’t in line with the rest of the mercenaries.

“Let’s go!” I said.

Cain nodded. He thanked the soldier who had been holding onto his horse, jumped back into the saddle, and pulled me up into his arms.

The frostfox broke into a run, acting as our guide.

The source of the fire wasn’t too far away. Several houses were engulfed in flame, burning brightly enough to give off the look of twilight. On the side of the road, the owners of those houses had fallen to their knees, stunned. Nearby were the fallen, bloody corpses of those who had likely been killed in their attempts to stop the arsonists.

A little further ahead, we heard the sounds of fighting. The clang of a sword. Someone toppling to the ground.

The frostfox ran off in the direction of those noises. Cain followed close behind.

When we rounded the corner, a flurry of wind and snow hit us smack in the face, and I instinctively turned my head away.

It was freezing cold, but it was dangerous to look away. I opened my eyes and squinted, only to see a man and woman taking on over a dozen surrounding mercenaries all by themselves.

Impressively enough, they weren’t on the losing end of the fight.

The woman’s mahogany hair was tied back behind her. At her command, the two frostfoxes at her feet each conjured up a blizzard.

While their enemies shrunk back in the face of the snowstorm, her muscular companion with short-cropped hair sprang forward energetically, shouting, “Here comes Mama!”

Wait... That is a man, right?

With a feminine battle cry, the man swung down his broad, curved blade. The oversized collar of his cape, shaped like an Elizabethan ruff, fluttered in the icy winds.

A spray of blood mixed in with the wind and snow. Three men were killed in an instant. The curved blade shimmered in the light cast by the flames once again, spilling even more blood in its wake.

One of the frostfoxes came running in from the side and froze several mercenaries’ arms with its blizzard, leapt off the top of their heads like a springboard, and landed back near the mahogany-haired woman.

“Stand back, Girsch! Go on, Reynard!” commanded the woman.

The man took a step back, and another fox immediately rushed forward in his place, its body encrusted in ice.

All who came in contact with its tail groaned in pain as their legs were sliced by the sharp blade of ice. While the snowy assault escalated, the fox returned to its place behind the woman.

Despite the impressive show, it was taking the pair quite a bit of time to defeat their foes all by themselves. I dismounted our horse in a hurry, then made a golem laced with cobblestone. It was about half the size of my usual creations, but that was plenty.

The mercenaries panicked at the sudden appearance of my golem. It charged in and kicked several of the men away, sending them flying into the air. When it snatched up two of the men at its feet, they fainted on the spot. A few of the mercenaries came barreling in my direction, but Cain cut each and every one of them down.

The man and woman with the frostfoxes had successfully slain the enemies before them, too.

Once things had calmed down, I had my golem huddle around the burning houses before dismantling it. A nearby house collapsed, half-buried in the earth, and the flames subsided.

“Oh, you’re going to put out the fires for us?” asked the woman controlling the frostfoxes. After a short pause, she exclaimed, “Wait, you’re a spellcaster?!”

I pointed at the frostfox I’d met earlier and asked, “Are you this frostfox’s owner? This little fella found us and brought us over here.”

“What? Lila! What did you do with Kenneth?! I told you to look after him!” the lady demanded, seizing the frostfox by her side and bringing her face close to its nose.

The frostfox named Lila snorted, making a face that said, What are you talking about?

Right then, a child (presumably the Kenneth in question) leaped out from beside one of the untouched houses.

“Auntie Ginaaaaaa!”

“Kenneth!”

The woman scooped up the boy in her arms as he came running over to her.

Wait... what? “Auntie”? No way! This lady couldn’t be more than a few years older than me. Is that really her nephew?

I had plenty of questions, but most important of all was finding out if these people were our enemies.

Cain beat me to the punch and asked the woman named Gina, “Are you Llewynian mercenaries?”

Before she could answer, the man with the ruffed cape responded, “Llewyne’s been paying us, but we’re not loyal enough to them to care about breaking our contract. I mean, my goodness, we just made a show of killing a bunch of their other men! I’m afraid they wouldn’t even take us back at this point.”

Cain looked a little taken aback by the feminine lilt to the man’s voice, but he nodded.

Now that we had confirmed that they weren’t our enemies, we focused our efforts on putting out the fires. The mercenary duo used their frostfoxes’ blizzards to aid the townspeople fleeing from the flames.

While we had been busy fighting, Alan had taken down the mercenaries fleeing to the west and prevented them from setting any more fires.

Thus, the battle of Maynard City and our firefighting escapades came to a close.

Outside the mayor’s manor, which had been half-charred and eventually buried under a landslide, we met up with Alan and his men, who had subdued the remaining mercenaries.

“Mind explaining why you have monsters with you, Kiara?”

“Um... it just sort of happened? I’d like to bring along these frostfoxes’ owner and her partner, too.”

I introduced him to the mahogany-haired woman behind me, Gina, and the well-muscled, short-haired... but slightly effeminate man, Girsch.

“They invaded Farzia with the Llewynian army, but here in Maynard, they worked really hard to help evacuate the people of the city. They said they’re mercenaries from Salekhard. Gina takes care of these frostfoxes, but the little guys don’t want to leave my side, so they were hoping they could just come with us.”

“I beg your pardon?!”

Alan’s jaw dropped. I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t seen this coming, either. My homemade strategy guide didn’t say anything about recruiting mercenaries to our side.

For the record, I hadn’t even solicited them.

Settled snugly around my feet was the largest of the three frostfoxes, the bushy-tailed Reynard. The little guy refused to move from my side. When Gina had tried to peel him away from me, he’d just dug in his heels and whined like crazy. Unsure of what to do, she’d eventually just asked, “Can we come with you?” That was how we’d ended up here.

I looked over my shoulder at Cain, hoping he would explain everything, but he was busy gazing down at Reynard with a look that defied description.

“For now, let’s talk things over,” suggested Alan, who looked like he had a headache coming on, and we all agreed to move elsewhere.

Alan asked a few people who had wandered over at the sight of our Farzian blue capes where we could best talk in peace. We were subsequently led to a trading house. Some merchants offered to let us stay there as thanks for saving their city.

Since it had grown quite late, the rest of the soldiers left one after the other to go stay in lodgings offered by grateful innkeepers.

When morning comes, I have to remember to bury the dead mercenaries.

I was told to put our discussion first, so I had left the mercenaries’ bodies to be tossed out of the city at the hands of the enraged citizens. Even some of the mercenaries we’d taken alive had been pelted with rocks or killed by townspeople who attacked now that their oppressors couldn’t fight back.

When Cain had seen it happen, he’d held me close to his chest to shield me from the sight and guided us away from the scene, so I was lucky enough not to have witnessed it in gruesome detail. I knew that sort of thing was inevitable, but seeing something that felt like it belonged to a distant world happen right before my eyes was so shocking that I’d let Cain steer me away without protest.

Alan told me that if I buried the enemy while everyone was still seething with anger, I might be resented strongly enough to end up as the target of violence. Once a night had passed, things were sure to calm down a little.

Plus, he added, if we told them that the stench and disease would be bad for business, they’d realize that the pros of performing the burial outweighed the cons and give their consent. I hoped he was right.

Putting those thoughts aside, I got ready to listen to Gina’s story. We borrowed a room in the trading post we were staying at, where Alan, Cain, and I sat down around a long table with the two mercenaries.

“It went like this: our country put out an official notice that all local mercenaries should join the war effort. And look at me, with these frostfoxes here! There was no way we could escape the eyes of authority and sit it out, so we came along reluctantly.”

Unlike the other two mercenary groups, Gina’s people were all from Salekhard, and their new king had ordered all mercenaries to take part in the war. Since they were drafted against their will, Gina and Girsch were the only two people their mercenary group bothered to send in. Their plan had been to quietly sneak back home once they finally arrived at Cassia.

However, after witnessing the horrible plunder of Maynard City, they’d started meddling here and there, striking deals with Maynard’s merchant associations and using their frostfoxes’ power to keep the rest of the mercenaries in check. Thus, in order to make good on their word, as well as to keep an eye on the situation, Gina and Girsch ended up stuck in Maynard.

It was then that they had received a call to Cassia Castle. Now that they had no business left with the place, the two Llewynian mercenary groups had set fire to various city buildings on their way out.

“In fairness, the fires probably doubled as a means of slowing down our forces,” Alan assessed. “After all, we couldn’t just pass right through and ignore the disaster.”

“Agreed. You boys are fighting to save the people of your country, no? They knew you wouldn’t be cold-hearted enough to leave the townspeople to burn and rush ahead to attack Cassia Castle,” Girsch agreed, placing a hand to one cheek with a sigh.

Girsch was tall and well-muscled, clearly bigger than Cain when they stood side-by-side, with the look of someone born to fight... and was also one of the girliest people I’d ever met. Earlier, the mercenary had lamented that no matter how much money the job brought in, they could never wear frilly clothes out on the field, and decorating their cloaks was the best they could manage.

That amazing physique and deep, velvety voice in combination with the feminine timbre packed a real punch. I noticed the deliberate attempt to affect a higher pitch of voice, and that extra bit of effort to radiate womanhood nearly moved me to tears.

“Either way, we had hoped to take advantage of this opportunity to escape from Farzia. But then the stores of some people who had treated Reynard and the girls well went up in flames...”

As I was listening to Gina’s story, I suddenly felt a small weight on top of my thigh. When I looked down, I saw that one of the frostfoxes had rested its head on top of my leg, where I was sitting in my chair. Reynard was already sprawled around my ankles, so this had to be Lila.

The other fox, Sara, had been by Gina’s side for most of the conversation but was now sitting in a corner of the room.

The reason the duo had ended up fighting the rest of the mercenaries was because the three foxes had grown attached to a certain child. They kept going to see the kid, who happily played with them despite the surrounding circumstances. Thus, during their stay in Maynard City, Gina and Girsch had become close to the boy and his family.

When the fires had broken out, the two mercenaries had rushed to rescue their friends. The family had managed to escape from their burning house, but the boy had been about to be killed by mercenaries when the duo had rushed in to save him. The enemy mercenaries had cursed the pair as a thorn in their side, and a fight had broken out.

“We didn’t expect the Évrard army to show up so quickly, so we did our best to stop the arson ourselves. But as you can see, we were far outnumbered. I was hoping we could let the kid escape, if nothing else, so I left Lila to look after him... but you know what happened next.”

For some reason, Lila had abandoned her task to keep the boy hidden in order to go bring me over. She was an intelligent monster, so maybe she had been aiming for two birds with one stone—getting her master some backup and helping take care of the fires.

“Our mercenary band fills out its numbers by raising orphans picked up off the street, so seeing that boy reminds us of the kids we left behind in Salekhard,” said Girsch.

“Thanks to your help, we managed to save a lot of houses from burning.” Gina smiled, relieved, but her expression became more conflicted when she looked down. “Reynard... When are you going to give this girl a little space?”

Reynard seemed unbothered by Gina’s exasperated tone.

“I wonder why he likes me so much.”

“You’re a spellcaster, so maybe it’s your mana he’s after. Whenever these little guys use up their own mana, they’re drawn to people of the same element as them.”

“Element?”

“Whether they’re a spellcaster or not, everyone has some kind of element—water, fire, earth, and so on. Monsters tend to stick to people who have the same element as them. That’s how they replenish their mana—or that’s what I heard from my master, whose frostfox-rearing techniques have been passed down for generations. My element is water, and that’s why I was able to tame these guys.”

Gina’s explanation made me think back to all the defective spellcasters I’d seen die. Each of them had manifested their magic differently. That probably reflected whatever element they were. The fact that I could use earth magic had to mean that was my element, too.

Reynard was cozying up to me to replenish his mana, apparently. If becoming a spellcaster meant that animals I’d never otherwise get to pet would take a liking to me, that seemed like a pretty good part of the deal.

“By the way, what happened to your master? He’s being unusually quiet,” Alan asked me. Gina mentioning her “master” must have made him think of it.

“Apparently, he has some bad memories involving foxes.”

He was keeping deathly quiet and pretending to be a regular clay doll.

Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t hard to detect his unusual amount of magic energy. Reynard and Lila started sniffing at him, and... Whoops, one of them licked him.

Master Horace started vibrating like a cell phone.

“You need to get over it, Master Horace,” I told him.

I untied the strap hooking him to my waist, then lifted him up, up, and away to where the foxes couldn’t get to him. The ceiling to his back, the clay figurine seemed relieved to be far away from the furry menaces.

“Look here, little lady, these guys and I just don’t see eye to eye! It’s all their fault my back pain drove me down south—and after I went to all the trouble of involving myself in a turf war, too!”

Apparently, frostfoxes were the real reason Master Horace had to move.

“Don’t be silly. It’s not like these are those same foxes.”

“They’re all cut from the same cloth!” he declared. “This is all your fault, you wanton disciple! What’re you attracting monsters for? Weren’t all the human men enough for you? Looks like this is the one field where I have a thing or two to learn from you, mmheehee!”

I shrieked, “What?! I have no idea what you’re talking about! How dare you slander me like that!”

“Hah! Go do some soul searching deep in that flat chest of yours!”

“I-It’s not flat!”

It’s totally average! This is the one modest joy I gained from being reincarnated, so don’t you dare take that away from me!

Despite my protests, Master Horace only further fueled my anger with a grin in his voice. “Are you suuure about that, kid? Based on what I’VE felt... ghk!”

I shook Master Horace up and down like a salt shaker. Covering his mouth wouldn’t work, because he didn’t use his mouth to talk. Hitting him wouldn’t actually hurt him, either. This was the most effective way to shut him up.

“Geh... Hrk... Wait!”

“Promise you won’t say that again? No, scratch that. Promise you’ll erase it from your memory?”

“Okay, okay, okay! Ggh, I give up... Someone help...”

I ended my shakedown there. My arms were tired anyway, so I decided to let him off the hook.

Alan was looking away uncomfortably after listening to that crass conversation, so I wanted to change the topic as quickly as possible. Cain’s expression hadn’t changed, but his eyes were staring off into the middle distance.

I’m sorry you guys had to hear all that. I’ll train my clay figurine a little better.

For a start, I gave him a warning. “Listen up. If you pick on me too much, I’m going to get rid of you! Once the war is over, I’ll build a shrine somewhere called ‘Master Jizo,’ leave you there, and only come back to supply you with more mana from time to time. I’m sure Maya will make a LOVELY bib for you. The neighborhood kids will get such a kick out of playing around with you, too. Oh, and in case you try to wander back on your own, I’ll tell everyone to put you back in your nest, so you can just rest easy!”

“What?! You’d make a public display of your own master, you ungrateful disciple?! YOU’RE the one who made me this way!”

“Revealing a maiden’s secrets is a serious crime. So, what will it be?”

“Guh... Obviously I’d rather stay with you! I’m going to be by your side until the day you die!”

I’m going to be by your side until the day you die. My heart skipped a beat at the declaration.

I couldn’t believe that, even for a brief moment, my heart had fluttered over a crusty old-man-turned-clay figurine, so I feigned indifference. “Very well. I suppose looking after you is the only responsible thing to do.”

“Ahahaha! You two sure seem close.” Gina burst out laughing at our banter. Even so, she didn’t come across as a crude lady. Part of that was probably due to her good looks, but her cheerful demeanor also made it hard to get a negative impression from her.

For the record, she claimed to be twenty-three years old. That was older than I’d expected.

“So is your teacher some kind of cursed doll?” Gina asked point-blank. Master Horace slumped over; the “occult item” treatment came as a shock to him.

Grr! I think he took that worse than what I said to him. That kind of pisses me off.

I explained Master Horace’s situation to Gina and Girsch... or at least the part about how I’d put his soul into a vessel I made. I didn’t go into all the other details.

They both seemed impressed by what a spellcaster could do.

Alan cleared his throat and attempted to steer the conversation back on track. “Let me make sure I have this right. You want us to take you two under our wing for however long your fox stays attached to Kiara?”

Gina and Girsch exchanged glances. Then Gina said, “Sooner or later, you’ll head to Trisphede to liberate the province, right? If we could have you hire us up until that point, once Trisphede is free, we’ll head home to our country from there.”

“We’re not in it for the money here!” Girsch tacked on.

Gina leaned forward and added, “What Girsch said! You already have a spellcaster, but monsters are still good to have on your side! Their presence alone puts the enemy on the defensive! And so far, we haven’t personally done anything to get on Farzia’s bad side; all we’ve done for Llewyne is drag our feet and pretend to be running late, so we practically just took our deposit and ran. It’s a good deal!”

“For the both of us and the frostfoxes, it’s just five silver coins a day! Oh, but since this is a long-term contract, we’ll make it cheap at twenty pieces of gold, no matter how many days we end up working! I’ll put my all into it, I promise!”

“It’s a bargain, sir!”

Gina and Girsch went hard on the self-promotion. It reminded me of the fliers full of flashy sales and advertisements I’d see at the supermarket in my past life.

Girsch tried enticing the adjacent Cain with, “Please? I’ll do my best just for you, dear!” and Cain scooted away.

Alan still seemed reluctant to give his approval.

Twenty gold coins was a lot of money; maybe that was too high a price to keep mercenaries in our employ until Trisphede. I didn’t know what the going rate was, though.

Her chin resting on my thigh, Lila let out a snort. Master Horace flinched with a clattering noise from where I’d left him on the table, and my heart skipped a beat.

Thinking back on it, it had been a while since I’d messed around with any cats or dogs. There were some of both back at Évrard Castle, so I got to play with them every now and then. The foxes of this world must have been part of the canine family, too, considering how much their fur felt like a dog’s... or so I thought as I petted Lila’s back.

Oh yeah. I think Alan liked dogs, too.

For a while now, he’d been stealing sideways glances at Sara, who was sitting in a far-off corner of the room. He must have really wanted to pet her, even if she technically wasn’t a dog.

I whispered to Cain, who was sitting next to me. “Say, Sir Cain?”

Maybe Cain was a dog person, too. He’d been staring, expressionlessly but intently, at where Reynard lay at my feet. When I spoke up, he jumped and turned his gaze to me.

“Is five silver coins a day higher than the typical going rate for a mercenary?”

“A bit, yes. But considering the price covers the frostfoxes, which have magic at their disposal, it’s not an unreasonable fee. Twenty gold coins to accompany us all the way to Trisphede is quite a bargain. Lord Alan’s concern is likely whether or not he can make the executive decision to bring Salekhardian mercenaries along. Besides, if he does hire them, those foxes are bound to stay glued to your side.”

True. If the frostfoxes accompanied us into battle, they would wind up coming to me to recharge their mana.

Still, if all they did was rest their chin on my leg or curl up at my feet, that seemed pretty harmless. Would having them around me cause some sort of inconvenience?

“I’m sure Lord Alan is concerned about whether His Highness would find it acceptable.”

“The prince isn’t allergic to animals or anything, is he?”

I’d seen Reggie play with dogs and cats before, so I figured that wasn’t an issue. Cain didn’t answer me, though.

Later on, Alan decided to welcome Gina and Girsch into our ranks. The fact of the matter was that skills like the frostfoxes’, which could compete against enemy magic, were hard to come by. Alan decided that if we could get our hands on that, it was worth any price.

Gina sending Lila to go whine in front of Alan (on my advice) gave him the final push.

Now that everything was settled, we finally had time to rest. Two days later, however, I received some shocking news.

“We’re not going back to Fort Clonfert?!”

Nobody told me that until we were leaving Maynard City.

Alan nodded. “Reggie and his men are launching an attack on Cassia Castle as we speak.”

Judging by his lack of reaction, Cain already knew about this.

“Why? What are we in such a hurry for?”

The two of them just dodged my question, refusing to give me a proper answer.

◇◇◇

The reason Cassia Castle did not boast especially high walls was because of the wall surrounding the entire castle town.

If that wall was torn down, there was nothing left to do but surrender. In exchange, so long as it stood strong, the townspeople could help hold the defense. That was how Cassia had dealt with every attack on their castle until now.

For that reason, the interior of the castle wasn’t particularly vast. It wasn’t equipped with any of a fort’s functions, so it was about the same size as any other elegant manor.

In one of the rooms designed for entertaining guests, Lord Weber, the Llewynian viscount currently occupying Cassia Castle, was kneeling before a man seated on the sofa. A blond boy with shoulder-length hair was standing behind that man, gazing intently at the grizzled viscount as he humbled himself.

“My deepest apologies for entertaining you in such a small—”

“No need for such formalities. My business here will be finished shortly. I just came to give you this.”

The reddish-haired man on the sofa held out a tiny bottle, small enough to pinch between his fingertips. The sand accumulated at the bottom of the bottle was dark red in color.

“Oh my! You’re giving me the spellcaster’s powder?!” Lord Weber exclaimed in wonder as he looked up at the bottle.

“It’s a gift from Farzia’s magical viscount. The prince’s army of Évrard has a spellcaster in its ranks, yes? Use this to wipe them out.”

Lord Weber groveled and thanked the man most enthusiastically. “My deepest gratitude! Fort Clonfert’s untimely capture had my soldiers all in a panic, and I didn’t know what to do. This should make for a sufficient countermeasure!”

The viscount had been quite nervous, it seemed. The smile on his face now looked wholly genuine.

“I’ll be off, then. Best of luck, viscount.”

The young man stood up and made to leave, his blond lord-in-waiting by his side.

“Allow me to see you off, Your Highness!” The viscount attempted to tag along, but Isaac motioned for him to stay put.

“No need. I simply snuck in while I was in the area on some trifling business. I’d rather not make a scene of it. Also... must I remind you of my proper title?”

“My apologies, Your Majesty,” Lord Weber corrected himself.

Isaac took one last look at him and left the room.

Once they’d left the castle grounds, Mikhail, who was walking a step behind his master, heaved a sigh. “If you care enough to correct the man, you ought to have held a coronation...”

Mikhail had been muttering under his breath, but Isaac heard him all the same. “What would you have me do, Mikhail? The perfect time to trounce my father and lock my brother away was right before my brother began negotiations with Farzia. Did you forget that you were the one who said it was the perfect time to strike? We had to rush straight into the war after that, so there was no time for a ceremony. This way, we could put Llewyne in our debt. Plus, we could get a tour of Farzian affairs, which will be useful after we say our goodbyes to Llewyne. Once we’d taken control of Trisphede, so long as we left some fresh new soldiers there, there was no problem sending another ten thousand men off on a long expedition. You raised some very good points.”

“Ughhh...”

Mikhail had indeed been the one to lend him such advice.

“Still, I’m impressed you managed to acquire more of that spellcaster’s sand.”

Mikhail responded indifferently, “It was quite simple, really. Who was it, again? That one viscount’s men brought along two bottles when they left for Évrard, so I ‘borrowed’ one of them.”

“What?” Isaac’s jaw dropped. After a lapse of silence, he followed up with, “I didn’t know you could do magic tricks.”

“That’s all you have to say after acting so surprised? I took advantage of all the commotion surrounding their departure, so it wasn’t particularly hard to pull off.”

Isaac chuckled. “So you’d send another man to the underworld for the sake of our own experiment?”

“All for the sake of our country. If we never watch them fail, we’ll never see where their weaknesses are.”

They knew the enemy had a spellcaster in their ranks. If they wanted to size her up properly, they had to make sure she would show up on the battlefield. Defective spellcasters were perfect for the job.

“You are a smart one,” Isaac said with a laugh.

Mikhail muttered, “I wouldn’t call myself that. It’s more like ‘cunning.’ Why would you praise me for that? You’re the one who’s been dragged into all sorts of trouble, well on the way to throwing away your happiness, all because you were taken in by my silver tongue.”

The boy glared at him, but Isaac didn’t respond. He simply rushed ahead, thoroughly enjoying himself. However, when he heard the sound of shrieks, yells, and cheers, he came to a stop.

The noise was coming from somewhere a good distance away—one of the four gates in the wall surrounding the city.

“Aren’t they here a little early?” Isaac wondered aloud.

Mikhail nodded. “Well, I suppose it’s possible if they didn’t stop for a proper break after Clonfert.”

“What a bind. This means we can’t leave, doesn’t it?”

“Let’s find somewhere to hide, Your Majesty. We can’t let anyone notice us.” Mikhail heaved a sigh. “It won’t be long before the castle falls now. The citizens will let the Évrard army through the other gates, too, for the sake of driving the Llewynians out. If the young and old alike rise up waving their axes and sickles at the same time the soldiers descend, the Llewynian soldiers stationed in Cassia won’t stand a chance. This came fast enough to qualify as a surprise attack.”

Évrard didn’t need to set an ambush; there were already plenty of people inside who would let their soldiers in. Unprepared as they were, the Llewynians wouldn’t be able to stop the invasion.

“Please, Mikhail. I don’t mind hiding, but I want to witness the results of our experiment myself.”

When Issac began walking off in the direction of the gate, Mikhail tugged at his cape to stop him.

“This is no time to be saying that! You’re Salekhard’s leader, for goodness’ sake!”

◇◇◇

Reggie was at Cassia Castle. When I first heard that, I didn’t understand why. What was the point of attacking there at the same time as Maynard City? What were the benefits? Most importantly, was Reggie safe?

I wanted to go running right to where he was, but neither Cain nor Alan seemed to be in a hurry.

That was when I finally understood why something had felt off yesterday: we’d stayed in Maynard City for an unnecessarily long amount of time.

I was glad that everyone was so happy we’d rescued them, sure. Still, I’d assumed that we could head back as soon as I’d buried the bodies and helped clear away the remains of the burnt houses. When I’d heard we were staying one more night after that, I’d wondered why we were taking it so easy.

Oblivious as I was, I’d assumed that if we set out by morning, we would arrive at Clonfert by sunset, so I’d thought it very strange when Alan suggested we leave at noon, too.

On top of that, no one had told me where we were actually headed until Girsch asked about it.

Why had I been left in the dark about all this?

“Would a spellcaster just get in the way?” Perhaps having me there would make Reggie’s strategy difficult to execute. I asked Alan about it, but he was reluctant to answer.

Then, from behind me in the saddle, Cain said, “I told you back at Clonfert, didn’t I? ‘Until the battle is over, I will assist you in getting wherever it is you want to go.’”

Yes, I remembered that. And I’d known that it meant he would do what I wanted that time around, but he made no promises about next time.

“That doesn’t mean you need to keep me out of the battle altogether!”

“I’m aware it’s not a good idea to keep the spellcaster away from the battlefield, in case things go awry. But His Highness and I both knew that as long as you were nearby, you’d jump to actions neither of us could account for, so this was the plan we came up with.”

Cain confessed to his role as the mastermind without batting an eye. The two had taken steps to keep me away from the fighting.

“You are our one and only spellcaster, as indispensable as the prince himself. What’s more, His Highness needs to prove that we can win battles even without your help. We want you to understand that there’s no need to strain yourself to protect us.”

I bit down on my lip. I understood what they were trying to do, and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t use my magic to fly straight to Cassia Castle, so the best I could do was ask Cain to hurry up.

Cain claimed that he and Reggie had resorted to this method because I wouldn’t listen to them otherwise. They wanted to show me that things could turn out fine even if I didn’t go nuts so that I would do as they said and stay where it was safe.

Still, I was just as worried about them as they were about me.

If something happened, swords and arrows alone might not be enough to deal with it. Why did they refuse to utilize me to protect themselves?

It was especially bad for Reggie. Just when I’d thought he was safe, he was nearly killed the same way as in the RPG. For all I knew, the same thing could keep happening over and over until he finally died.

While we were camping out, anxiety ate away at me, keeping me from getting any sleep. I knew that if I could just make it through the night, we would arrive at Cassia Castle tomorrow afternoon, but it was hard to fight down the part of myself that wanted to keep pushing onward through the dark.

Maybe my fretting had made it hard to sleep. Gina was staying with me inside an earthen hut I’d made, since we were both girls, and she woke up in the middle of the night and helped me to calm down.

“You know what? When I first met you, I was really shocked. I didn’t think such a young girl could be a spellcaster.”

Gina sat down next to me where I was hugging my knees, her blanket wrapped snugly around her. When I caught a whiff of her sweet, flowery perfume, I felt myself relaxing a little.

Thinking about it, our whole army was nothing but men. Before I knew it, I’d gotten used to the smell of blood on the battlefield drowning out everything else, but her gentle scent reminded me of what I’d been missing all this time.

Pushed over the edge by my own sentimentality, perhaps, I let myself whine, “Having such a teensy girl for a spellcaster doesn’t inspire much confidence... does it?”

Was that why Reggie and Cain tried so hard to protect me?

When she saw me getting down on myself, Gina panicked. “What?! No, no, I didn’t mean it like that! Um... hey, just look at me! How many female mercenaries have you heard of? Plus, I’m not that great with a sword, and the only reason I’m useful at all is because a bunch of frostfoxes took a liking to me!”

“But you’re an adult, and you seem so well put together.”

It seems like she talks with her partner on equal footing, too, I thought to myself. Then Reynard, the only one of the frostfoxes sitting next to me, plunked his chin on my foot and stretched out. It was getting a bit too warm for comfort, but it soothed my heart to have an animal silently snuggle up to me.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Girsch is always needling me like a second mother. ‘Gina, dear, are you slacking off on your sword practice?!’ You know, things like that.”

I felt bad making Gina work so hard to console me, so I just dropped the subject.

“Did you become a mercenary after taking in Reynard, Lila, and Sara?”

Honestly, it felt like some kind of mistake that such a beautiful woman had ended up a mercenary. If this were a manga, I could see her as an “elegant warrior” type, but it wasn’t something I’d expected to see in real life.

The moment I thought that, I should have realized there had to be a good reason for it. Unfortunately, it didn’t occur to me until Gina smiled uncomfortably, like it was a difficult subject for her.

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to, um...”

“No, it’s fine. It’s not anything I’m desperate to hide. The truth is, I’m the daughter of a Salekhardian noble. Since I’m from a branch estate, I was able to live pretty freely... until there was a bit of a dispute over marrying me off. Then I missed my window for marriage, and none of it mattered anymore.”

In both Salekhard and Farzia, the marriageable age for a woman was between sixteen and twenty. If it weren’t for those complications, there was no way Gina would still be single.

“I didn’t want to be a burden on the family, so I decided I’d get by on my own. I already knew Girsch and a few of the other mercenaries, so I asked them to let me join their group.”

Gina fixed her eyes on me after she finished telling her story.

“Why did you become a spellcaster, Kiara? I heard that your master nearly died, and you turned him into that doll. Were you training to become his disciple ever since you were a child?”

I’d never explained the process of becoming a spellcaster to Gina. After some deliberation, I told her, “I was afraid a friend of mine might die. That’s why I became a spellcaster.”

I’d wanted to save Reggie and the others. At the time, I really hadn’t been thinking about anything but the people close to me. I had never imagined that I would end up killing thousands of people as a consequence of my decision.

That was the problem. Because I hadn’t been prepared for what it would take, because I’d made the mistake of admitting how much I hated killing people... Reggie and Cain had taken pity on me and gone ahead with their plan.

I was nearly lost in thought when Gina said, “Oh, so that’s why everyone cares so much about you. They all really love you, don’t they?”

“They what...?”

“Isn’t that right? You worked so hard to keep your loved ones from getting hurt or sad, so now those knights want to keep you out of danger as much as possible.”

I understood the feeling. I felt the same way every time Reggie and the others tried to protect me, too.

Still, I didn’t want things to be so one-sided. No matter how much I wanted to keep them safe, they always hated it when I protected them. They wouldn’t let me do anything to help them.

“I just want for us to protect each other. You look out for Reynard, and Reynard looks out for you, right? That’s the kind of dynamic I want.”

Gina blinked. “So you want them to trust you more?”

“I don’t think they really believe in me, that’s all.”

They knew what I was capable of, and they knew how useful I could be to them, but it was like they didn’t want to acknowledge it.

“I see. You both want different things, then. You know, I’ve been on the receiving end of that, too. When there’s someone you don’t want to lose, you just want to hide them and protect them from all danger, I guess. And I’m a woman, too. The stronger I got, the more that kind of thing hurt my pride. Well, maybe he just cared so much about me that he didn’t know how to handle it.”

They cared about me. Gina’s words rang true. The issue was simply that the way they expressed that was too one-sided for my tastes.

Maybe it was selfish of me to think that, when they were going out of their way to protect me. Still, I couldn’t help feeling like they’d left me out in the cold.

The next day, I couldn’t help myself. I urged Cain and the rest of the knights to hurry.

When we arrived at Cassia Castle and its castle town, the attack had likely just begun; the place was in an uproar.

However, it seemed the victor was already decided.

According to what Alan and the others finally revealed to me, even if the day of the assault had been pushed back, Reggie had firm plans to launch his attack during the afternoon.

Two of the gates in the walls surrounding the town had already been opened. Not only that—the ones standing guard there were Évrard soldiers.

After we headed in through the gate, I chewed on my lip as I observed the state of the town, marked by the remnants of battle. The side of the road was littered with Llewynian soldiers run through with spears and arrows. Occasionally, bodies of the townspeople were mixed in with them. Most likely, their desire to drive out the Llewynians had been so strong that they’d picked up weapons of their own and teamed up with the Évrard soldiers.

I was shaken by the sight, but I couldn’t let myself get too upset. It wasn’t time to mourn the fallen yet. Besides, if I started crying, people would think I was weak. As I told myself that, my distress gradually subsided.

After heading further into the town, we eventually met up with the soldiers standing outside Cassia Castle, Edam among them.

However, there was no sign of Reggie.

“Where is His Highness?”

Edam responded with a conflicted expression. “His Highness took a shortcut. He’s breaking into the castle as we speak.”