Chapter 6: The Fort Inion Rescue Mission

On the second day of our stay at the Finard estate, we received news that the captive Lady Emmeline Finard and her companions were nowhere to be found in Delphion Castle. Word had reached us so quickly because Ernest had sent along a scout with orders to report back to him directly. He had suspected that the need might arise to promptly send reinforcements, whether the women were actually being held in the castle or not.

The assault squad hadn’t made a headlong rush into the castle either; they had sent one of their men to infiltrate the castle and see what was going on inside. Given that it was Delphion Castle, the servants were naturally going to be Delphion citizens. With their assistance, the investigation was over in no time, allowing the squad to turn back immediately.

That being the case, our next move was to head for the place Ernest had suspicions about: a fort near a town called Inion, just south of the baron’s castle.

The hostages Llewyne had taken were members of the nobility. Depending on the circumstances, they could serve as human assets—in other words, they could always be ransomed in the event Llewyne ran low on funds. Whatever use the Llewynians had for their captives, they had to let them live in reasonable comfort for the time being.

Moreover, if they didn’t want to make it easy for us to come to their rescue, Fort Inion was the perfect place for the job. A long time ago, back when relatives of the House of Delphion had revolted, there had been too many detainees for them to accommodate. The solution had been to convert an entire tower of the fort into a prison.

Castles and forts always had dungeons, but those weren’t terribly hospitable or hygienic living quarters. Some didn’t even have ventilation shafts. As the years went by... Well, let’s just say their prisoners came out in rough shape. Women and children wouldn’t last long in those conditions. If the Llewynians were looking to keep their hostages alive, Inion was the best place to lock them up.

Taking all that into account, I really had to admire the valor of Emmeline, who had acted as a decoy and allowed herself to be captured in place of Lucille. Even if it was preferable to a dungeon, prison life still had to be tough on a young girl.

Now that our plan of action had been determined, we had to capture the fort as swiftly as possible—that was Reggie’s stance.

“We’ll be in trouble if they catch on to our plans and move their prisoners elsewhere,” he explained. “Until we can secure the hostages, there’s always a chance any Delphion soldiers we accept into our ranks might defect later.” Then, he made one more request. “Try not to destroy the fort this time, Kiara.”

“What?”

“That would just make it harder to protect our soldiers and captives when the Llewynians come after us. It’s not easy for you to carry out large-scale repair work right after a battle, is it?”

“I see what you’re saying. Although... I wouldn’t say doing it this way is any easier.” I couldn’t help but groan.

Destroying things was simple enough, and I didn’t even have to expend a huge amount of mana to do it. To fight without destroying the fort—in other words, to leave the walls untouched and manage everything with my golems or whatever—would be much more challenging.

The first issue would be the soldiers atop the wall. We had to take them out first, or else we would have to worry about them pelting us with arrows, dumping hot water on us, or most dreadfully of all, pouring boiling oil over our heads. It would be great to have my fireproof, oilproof golem get up close to them, but if I were riding on top of it, I’d be painting a target on myself.

Wait, hold on! Cain won’t tattle on me this time, and I’ve gotten a lot better at handling my magic, so I could probably operate it from a distance if I blended in a few drops of my own blood.

I could just lie to Reggie and say, “Hey, guess what? I leveled up!”

Once my golem got within range, what came next? If my goal was to remove the soldiers without destroying the wall, would I just have to pluck them off one by one? Given that I would be attempting all this from a distance, the task sounded about as difficult as trying to split a watermelon blindfolded.

I made a drawn-out “hmm” sound, at which Master Horace laughed. “Now if only I were still alive and kicking... Eeeheehee!”

“Huh? Would you have had a good trick up your sleeve?”

“Darn right I would’ve. My specialty was wind, remember? Why, back in my prime, I could get around by flying through the air!”

“Seriously?! No fair! I want to fly, too! Aaargh, why did I have to be an earth mage?!” I sagged dejectedly, clutching at my head, and Master Horace gave a triumphant cackle.

Bitter as I was, I tried to imagine Master Horace in flight—but instead of an old man, all I could envision was a clay figurine soaring through the sky.

Launching Master Horace into the air wasn’t a terrible idea, really. He was hollow on the inside, so he didn’t weigh much. Perhaps I could make him fly if I attached a propeller to his head. He’d probably turn out similar to a remote-controlled airplane or helicopter.

But I would have to keep the propeller spinning somehow, right? If it stopped turning the minute he was out of my reach, he would just come plummeting down to earth.

While my mind was occupied with these inane thoughts, we made our way back to the main body of the Farzian army. Our forces were slowly but steadily marching toward the fort where the Llewynians were stationed. Alan had been cautious, it seemed, and refrained from recklessly charging in and attacking.

“If we can intimidate them into staying inside, we’re better off that way,” Alan explained. “Playing it safe was our best option here. Attempting a siege without you would have cost us too many of our men.”

I was struck speechless for a moment. With that one comment, I felt like all my hard work had really amounted to something.

“Yeah! When we do go attack the fort, you can count on me to lay it to waste!”

“Really now? ‘Lay it to waste’?”

“Perhaps you should choose your words a bit more carefully, Miss Kiara.” In a rare occurrence, Cain tried to interrupt me, a look of concern crossing his face.

But by then, it was already too late. Lord Azure, who had just happened to be passing by, had already overheard me.

“Wh-Wh-What did you say?!” He stopped where he stood, raising both arms to the sky. “God’s blessing truly rests upon Farzian royalty! Seldom is there a spellcaster who can offer such generous military contributions! Yet here we have a goddess of war who has descended to the prince’s side, ready to grant his any wish!”

“Erm, hey...”

Did he just call me a goddess of war? This is so embarrassing!

“Miss Kiara! We need to get out of here!” Panic overtaking his features, Cain tucked me under his arm and took off running.

“Oww! That hurts!”

“Just whose fault do you think this is?! Deal with it!” Alan yelled, running alongside Cain.

Exactly what can of worms did I open here?

Meanwhile, Lord Azure only grew more animated. “I would expect no less from the progeny of the silver-haired king—the chosen one! Indeed, this must be the will of God! Truly our land of Farzia was destined to be ruled by a silver-haired monarch!”

All the nearby soldiers had bolted without looking back. Even from a distance, I could hear the marquis loud and clear; I could only guess how badly my ears would be hurting if I were still standing next to him.

“Oh, glory upon FARZIAAA—hrk!”

Lord Azure’s cries of joy fizzled out soon enough. Lord Enister, who hadn’t been anywhere near him just seconds ago, had come running over to knock the man out with his cane.

“It’s about time you fixed that habit of yours, lad. I don’t want to see you injuring soldiers outside of combat. Good grief... I can’t believe you made me use my cane over something so stupid.”

After his little soliloquy, Lord Enister wandered off as though nothing had just happened. A few of Lord Azure’s men showed up to carry him away somewhere. Relief spread over the troops once the unconscious marquis was safely out of sight.

Cain heaved a sigh and put me back down. “Azure is the region with the largest Jeremian population,” he explained. “As I’m sure you know, throughout all the oldest kingdoms—Farzia included—the royal family’s rule is justified with the claim that the king once received an oracle from God in a dream, after which he built his country on that land. In most other territories, military strength has become the greatest basis for loyalty and trust in the royal family, but the devout Jeremians of Azure still believe that the royal family was promised the throne by God, and consequently that Farzia was meant to be ruled by a silver-haired monarch.”

“Oh, I see... That’s why he got so worked up.” I sighed, resolving to take extra care not to light any more fires under Lord Azure.

Anyway! It was time to revisit my initial problem: I wasn’t allowed to break down the wall. So, how were we supposed to capture the fort?

“Hmm... the people atop the fort... umm...”

I was overthinking this to the point that I began to suspect this was just a trap of Reggie’s. Then again, if he really were setting me up, he wouldn’t have hesitated to say, “If you can’t think of something, we’re going to leave you behind.” Clearly Reggie hadn’t given me that restriction just to be mean. Besides, his reasoning made sense enough. It had taken a long time to repair Fort Clonfert.

If he had handed me the task believing I was up to it, I had to prove my worth by rising to the occasion.

During one of our breaks on the way to the fort, I decided to do some experimenting. I was following up on the idea I had considered earlier: attaching a stone propeller to Master Horace’s head.

Frankly, I can’t deny that this bizarre idea may have been a product of my brain overheating. Even I knew this was nuts, but hey, anything was worth a shot.

“If this works out, I might be able to build something I can fly in, too! Got that, Master Horace? Go on, take to the skies!”

“Hmm. Flight would be pretty ground-breaking, I’ll give you that.”

As an ex-spellcaster, Master Horace never seemed bothered by these sorts of experiments. He was willing to go along with my ideas to satisfy his own curiosity.

First things first, he was going to distance himself from me if he really ended up flying, so this called for a drop of my blood. I used one of Girsch’s sewing needles and pricked my finger. I smeared the blood over some ore, which I used to make a stone propeller bigger than Master Horace. I attached the finished product to his head.

I made the part underneath shaped like a round cap, careful to build it so that the propeller could rotate freely without the risk of flying off on its own.

Cain, who had been watching from off to the side, was staring at me like I was insane.

“It’ll be fine! In theory, this should work!” I asserted.

If it’s good enough for helicopters, it’s good enough for this!

For all my confidence, Cain still didn’t look very convinced.

“Okay! Off you go into the big, blue sky, Master Horace!” I shouted, turning the propeller with my magic.

But then, we ran into an unexpected development.

“Hey, something tickles—whoaaaaa!”

No sooner had the propeller on his head started blowing puffs of air than he soared up into the sky at an alarming speed.

And then... Master Horace vanished into the skyline, never to be seen again.

Just kidding. Instead, he started plummeting to the ground from a great height, likely because he had used up all my mana.

“Waaaaah!” Master Horace didn’t have a sense of pain, but he was still a sentient being; he shrieked as he hurtled toward the ground.

“M-Master Horaaace! Somebody please break his fall! I’ll do anything you ask!” I called out desperately.

A few soldiers who had been watching me from a distance came running over.

“Quick, catch him!” one barked.

“He went that way!”

“Whoa! Got ’im!”

At last, someone caught hold of him. When I hurried over to see if he was okay, I found an awfully young soldier clutching Master Horace. His propeller had come to a stop.

“Thank you!”

Once I got close enough, the soldier spoke up, his cheeks reddening. “Erm... Did you really mean what you said about doing anything?”

“Y-Yes! So long as it’s something I can do!” I replied.

Cain grabbed me by the arm, holding me back with a worried look. “I really don’t think you should agree to that, Miss Kiara.”

“It’s fine!” I insisted. “Now, what would you like?”

At my prompting, the soldier boldly voiced his desire. “I want to ride on your earth giant’s shoulder!”

According to this boy, a great number of soldiers had secretly yearned for the opportunity. I had promised, so I let the soldier hop aboard my golem’s shoulder and had it run a lap around the campground, steering it from where I sat atop its palm.

Observing this, Girsch mumbled, “Any child would love to go for a ride on that. I bet we could market it as entertainment, charge a fee for each lap, and make a killing off of that.” Girsch had started counting our chickens before they’d hatched, and Gina didn’t look terribly impressed.

“What happened back there, anyway?” I murmured to myself, tilting my head.

Later on, I tried turning the propeller again—this time, all by itself. It floated up into the air as it spun, but there was no accompanying gust of air. As much as I wanted to determine the reason behind that, I was strapped for time, so I decided to leave it for another day.

Incidentally, I also designed a propeller chair big enough to lift me into the air. Unfortunately, it was way too heavy to get off the ground, and the only thing that went flying was the propeller stone itself after it broke. Cain gave an extremely out-of-character shriek and proceeded to ban me from any further experiments, insisting that it was too dangerous.

Consequently, by the time we reached Fort Inion, all I had to show for my efforts was an incredibly simple trick.

I had Reggie order his soldiers to wait somewhere outside the range of any arrows, and then Cain and I stepped forward. I created a golem which, just as I had planned, I could operate remotely.

First, I had my golem sprinkle a few copper pieces just outside the gates. In the meantime, it was pelted with arrows; there were a great deal more than had been shot from the forest on the border. I was feeling pretty good about my decision not to ride my golem today.

With Cain to accompany me, I edged toward a spot where my golem could serve as our shield.

“Kiara?!” Seeing as I had promised him I wouldn’t be fighting alongside my golem, Reggie was caught off-guard and moved to stop me.

Cain was the one to cut him off at the pass. “I’ll be there to protect her. Don’t worry.”

Holding a shield in hand, he covered for me as I stepped out in front of my golem, migrating to an area where I could get a decent view of what was happening atop the walls.

Now everything was ready.

I had my golem toss a piece of copper nearby.

“Let’s get a big hole going... right there!”

I dug a hole in the ground gigantic enough to fit a good number of objects—as deep as a two-story house and as wide as the main tower of the fort. Next, I had my golem advance toward the rampart.

The Llewynian soldiers panicked and started shooting at my golem like crazy. Consequently, its front side was beginning to look like a porcupine. It could still move, though, so there was no problem.

Maybe sticking it with arrows isn’t enough to put a dent in its HP? I guess you have to chip away at it in order to take it down.

Since it was fortunate enough to lack a sense of pain, my golem ignored the arrows and placed a hand on the wall, gathering up the nearby soldiers into its palm like it was scooping up a handful of sand. Then, it lifted those soldiers up and transferred them into the hole I had just made.

For a moment, the remaining Llewynian soldiers forgot to keep shooting, simply gawking as the scene unfolding before them. They continued to watch in a daze as my victims were dropped into the hole, screaming. A few among them had even fainted.

“Oho. So the hole is a makeshift dungeon, huh?” Master Horace mused aloud.

“Exactly. It’s not very exciting, I know. But this way, I can move the Llewynian soldiers somewhere they can’t do us any harm.”

It didn’t involve any damage to the wall, so this method ought to have met Reggie’s criteria.

While I was busy explaining, my golem methodically finished its task.

More Llewynians were climbing up to the wall, which meant we would just find ourselves a target of their arrows once more. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the entrance from where I stood on the ground, so instead, I packed dirt into the passageway atop the wall. That way, no one could walk through it anymore.

Naturally, their next move would be to hole up inside the fort, so I moved into phase two of my plan. I set my golem out to destroy the gates. All it took was a few good kicks to knock them down.

The Llewynians piled up various objects near the gates in an attempt to block the entrance, but I had my golem fling handful after handful of earth into the fort. Eventually, they gave up, concluding that they weren’t any better off inside.

Llewynian soldiers started pouring out from inside the gates. Just as they charged forward to attack, I used the copper my golem had scattered around to form a hole under their feet. At this point, I was starting to feel a little drained, so the hole turned out shallower than I had planned. Luckily, there was still plenty of room for men and horses alike to topple in.

That was a close one, though...

At Reggie’s command, the Farzian troops swooped down upon the Llewynians. I moved on to the next part of my plan.

“We need to get all the way up to the walls, Sir Cain,” I pressed him.

Cain nodded, hesitating only slightly. “Very well.”

I left the golem where it was, nothing but an unmoving sculpture. For a brief time, all eyes would be focused there, providing the perfect distraction for us. With that, Cain and I made our way right up to the wall, where we dismounted our horse.

Cain sent the horse—and only the horse—back to our original position.

Then, I bored a hole in the wall. We were going to sneak inside Fort Inion.

Amid this whole attack, our biggest concern was the safety of the hostages. There was always a chance the enemy might use them for human shields as a last resort. It was equally likely that they might pick the girls off, starting with the daughters of the lowest-ranked branch families to serve as an example to the ones of the highest standing.

It would be even worse for us if the girls ran away.

Of course, Reggie had also arranged for soldiers to be sent inside. Still, in order to get to where the hostages were, they would first have to kill all the Llewynians trying to force them back at the gates, then take down any other soldiers who attempted to obstruct them along the way.

When compared to your usual siege, we had carried out this raid on pretty short notice, but I was convinced we had to act even faster. Thus, my plan was to determine the hostages’ whereabouts ahead of anyone else, construct a stone wall, and hide us all behind it.

Seeing as Cain and I were fending for ourselves, I didn’t want to be spotted by too many enemy soldiers. So, although I had opened up a hole in the wall, I didn’t make it go all the way through to the other side. We were going to travel along the inside of these thick walls.

While we were on the move, I made a peephole every now and then to check what was going on inside the fort. I dug a tunnel as we went, progressing little by little. By the third time I made a peephole, we had reached an area with almost no one around, as far as I could see.

Evidently, entering the fort some distance away from the gates had been the right choice. All the soldiers seemed to be concentrated over there.

“The earth giant stopped moving!” came a shout.

“The spellcaster exhausted her magic! Now’s the time to push back!”

I asked Cain to take a look for himself and make a judgment call. “What do you think?”

“At this distance, we should be alright if we make a run for it. We’re likely to be noticed by lookouts in the inner main tower across the way, or the ones on top of the wall, but as long as we’re inside before the guards can shout, we should be able to give them the slip. They won’t be able to tell where we’ve gone.”

Fort Inion was designed so there was another fort built within the outer walls. With most forts, the main tower and everything else were built into the walls themselves, but here, the tower and structures were all part of the inner fort. That was where the prison holding the hostages was located; thus, our goal here was to sneak inside the inner fort.

“Let’s go!” Cain urged. At his command, I created an exit, turning just enough of the wall into sand to allow us to slip through.

I was used to battle by this point, but infiltration was new to me. Cain pulled me along by the hand, and together we made a run for it. I was so nervous that I could barely register any of the sounds around me. To make matters worse, I couldn’t even take the initiative by riding in on a giant golem. This was pretty terrifying. The real icing on the cake was that we didn’t have any allies in the vicinity.

After running as fast as my legs could carry me, I somehow made it all the way to the wall of the inner fort without tripping. There, I opened up a hole in the wall, and...

“These walls are so flimsy!”

When I made the hole for us, it turned out there was already a tunnel inside the fort wall, so all I had really done was build a new entry point.

Right before us was a soldier who had just happened to be passing through. Oh, I see your cape is black. Does that mean you’re a Llewynian, sir? I could have asked, but that clearly went without saying. I was fully aware that he was an enemy, but I was so shocked that I found myself frozen to the spot.

Cain grabbed me and took off running. “Come back to your senses, Miss Kiara!”

“Ahhhhh!” came my delayed, hushed cry as we escaped, Cain dragging me along with him.

Caught off-guard by the sudden encounter, the Llewynian man likewise seemed to have been paralyzed for a few moments. After a brief delay, he gave chase, but there was already a good distance between us... Wait, there’s another one coming from the other direction!

Panicked, I made an exit leading into the courtyard, and we rushed outside. We had found our way out of the wall, sure, but all that had done was save us from a pincer attack. Since this was a fort, structurally speaking, I figured there would be a courtyard beyond the wall, and there were bound to be soldiers working inside.

As expected, several soldiers had gathered near the inner gates to tighten the guard there. They noticed us immediately.

“Eeeeek!” I screamed.

Cain grabbed me by the arm again, and I desperately sprinted away with him.

“Right here, Miss Kiara! Hurry!” Cain hissed, and I managed to make an entrance just in the nick of time. This time, it led into a room.

I closed the hole as fast as I could before running even farther at Cain’s insistence. We fled to the next room over, then the next... Wherever we finally ended up, there were no soldiers to be seen.

I plugged up the last entrance I had made, then slumped down on the spot. It was quiet there, which made my ragged breathing sound all the louder.

We had stumbled upon a small chapel. It was narrow enough that there was only room for about twenty people to kneel. There weren’t any chairs for people to sit in and quietly listen to the sermons of the priests and friars, either. However, the ceiling was high, and adorning the altar was a statue of the goddess said to bestow men with dreams foretelling their fates.

“This is the chapel, right? That means...”

This fort had formerly been supervised by the baron of Delphion. Ernest had drawn us a map of its internal layout.

I unfolded the piece of paper. Cain and I checked where we were, then determined our next move.

◇◇◇

Groul glanced back at Reginald, stunned.

“Is something the matter?” the prince asked.

Groul turned to face forward again, flustered. “No, not at all.”

Most likely, he had overheard the click of Reginald’s tongue. No doubt he was shocked by the unusual outburst, but the prince felt the reaction had been more than warranted.

Reginald was just about ready to cut ahead of the front lines and barge into the fort. If only he could rush inside and ensure Kiara’s safety, there would be no need for him to make those sounds. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make any careless moves. This wasn’t a situation where he needed to be on the forefront, so he simply watched over his soldiers as they worked to break through the gates.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Wentworth. He knew the knight would protect Kiara with his very life. After all, this was the man who had guarded both Alan and himself for years now. Reginald had complete faith that he would never break that particular vow.

All the same, he had grown more concerned in recent days. He knew the real reason: it was because Wentworth and Kiara had gotten closer.

Reginald himself was the one who had created the opportunity for that; he had denied Kiara what she wanted over and over again. Thus, Kiara had chosen to find an ally in Wentworth, who seemed much more receptive to her ideas.

Worse still, Wentworth had stopped holding Kiara back altogether. He had even allowed her to do something as reckless as infiltrating the fort with only him to accompany her. If Wentworth was permitting that now, Reginald couldn’t help but wonder if he had made some special sort of pact with her. If Wentworth had agreed to go along with anything she said in order to be the one she chose, and Kiara had accepted that...

“Then perhaps it’s time to let go completely.”

If she had picked Wentworth, Reginald knew he had no choice but to accept that. He didn’t want to tie her down. He didn’t want to see anyone other than himself worn down by their inescapable circumstances. If Kiara had managed to escape the place she had been tethered to, he wanted her to remain free. That desire was why he had never acted on his thoughts of locking her away, although he was fully aware it was the best way to protect her.

That was why he had always used such roundabout methods of stopping her. If it was something Kiara had chosen of her own free will, Reggie couldn’t object.

Wentworth had played a part in Kiara’s injury, but ultimately, Reginald hadn’t said anything about it. Kiara had asked for someone else’s help and dealt with the matter on her own, and still she chose to keep Wentworth by her side. So long as Wentworth wasn’t actively ignoring Kiara’s wishes, there was nothing Reginald could say about it—no matter what loomed over his heart.

Regardless, for the time being, he had to hurry up and capture the fort. He put his feelings behind him, telling himself that this was all he could do to protect Kiara.

His soldiers had already broken through the gates. Some of the Llewynians who had poured out of the fort were fleeing now. The battle within the gates would soon come to an end, and at last they could move on to the next step.

The moment he thought that, a loud scream rang out from inside the fort.

A soldier came tumbling out of the gates, enveloped in burning flame, and an ally quickly covered him in soil to extinguish the fire. The victim was a Farzian soldier. Most likely, a defective spellcaster had made an appearance.

Gina ran past, her ice monsters in tow. If it was bound to turn into a bloody battle, Reginald couldn’t push Kiara to the front lines; thus, the plan had been for Gina and Girsch to rush over if a defective spellcaster appeared.

“Let’s go, Groul.” Reginald dismounted and headed for the gates. Once he was inside the fort, his horse would be nothing but a hindrance.

Inside the gates, the situation was being handled according to plan; the foot soldiers had the defective spellcaster surrounded at a distance but were concentrating on the other Llewynians. There were concerns about an attack from the rear, but Gina and Girsch protected the soldiers as they sent their frostfoxes around to keep the flames from spreading. Whenever they had a chance, they launched attacks with the help of several archers.

But perhaps that soldier had a bit of aptitude, after all. Smoke was pouring from his body, but he had yet to disintegrate. As blood flowed from his hands and spilled onto the ground, it too caught flame, raising countless pillars of fire around him. Nearly all of the arrows shot at the defective spellcaster burned away before they could even touch him.

Reggie threw a spear at the defective spellcaster, who was currently focused on Gina and Girsch.

The spear flew high into the sky, and once it was above the defective spellcaster’s head, it began to plummet with its sharp tip turned toward the ground. The shaft burned away, but there was enough momentum behind the blade to pierce the man through.

A moment after taking that spear right between the eyes, the defective spellcaster’s entire body burst into flame. A few seconds later, he turned into black sand and disappeared.

◇◇◇

When I looked down at the map Ernest had drawn, I nearly let out a whoop. We had lucked out; the tower-turned-prison we were looking for was right nearby.

“Do you have enough magic left to use?” Cain asked.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I took stock of how I was holding up physically. I was feeling a little tired, but I was still good to go. I was carrying some copper ore on my person, and I probably had just enough mana left to bring out a golem and tear down a wall if I wanted to.

That was when I suddenly realized something was off. “Wait, what?”

We had been so busy running, I hadn’t noticed: even now that my puffing and panting had subsided, I still felt a small pain in my chest. A small wave rode in from who-knows-where, and each time I felt it, my heart started pounding like crazy.

“Don’t tell me there’s a defective spellcaster around!” I cried out loud.

It was the same sensation I had felt back when I was searching for Master Horace—and whenever there were defective spellcasters nearby, too.

When I tried to pin down where it was coming from, I got the sense it was hitting me from two different directions. One was the gate of the fort. That was where Gina and Girsch were, theoretically. The other one, however... felt like it was coming from the same tower we were heading toward.

“Is something the matter?”

“We have to hurry, Sir Cain! One of the hostages may have been turned into a defective spellcaster!” I rushed over to the wall closest to the tower.

“Just be careful not to use up too much of your power. The next room over is the priest’s quarters. Let’s head in from here.”

We headed for the door beside the altar. Considering the chapel didn’t appear to be in use, we assumed there wouldn’t be a priest inside. Nevertheless, Cain opened the door with the utmost caution. He carefully inspected the room, sword at the ready.

It did indeed appear to be empty. Inside the simple room, its stone walls covered in white plaster, there was nothing more than a writing desk and a wooden bed with no sheets.

“Our best option is to check what’s past this wall first. There’s a good chance that the hostages are all gathered at the top of the tower and they have soldiers guarding the lower levels.”

“Good point. We’d be better off going straight up, in that case. I’ll take a look.”

I made a small hole that led to the other side of the wall. It was no bigger than the peephole one might have seen on a front door in my past life.

Apparently, there was someone on the other side; I could hear a couple of voices.

“As I’ve been saying: surrender now, and I can guarantee your safety.”

“Don’t lie! Do you honestly believe a mere hostage has that kind of authority?!”

“Heheh... Remember, we were taken hostage precisely because we’re the wives and children of those who do hold that authority. We have husbands, fathers, and relatives who are close to those in power. I am certain I can get through to His Highness, the one who’s attacking this place as we speak. There are only a few of you here; to have you spared would be a trivial matter.”

I tilted my head, puzzled. Now this was strange.

The voice demanding surrender belonged to a woman. The one calling her suggestion outrageous was a man. To make matters even more confusing, I was getting strong “villainess” vibes from the woman’s laugh.

After some indecision—and after having Cain listen to some of it, too—I patched up the hole and conferred with him.

“That had to be one of the prisoners... right?”

“I have to assume as much. So long as they don’t volunteer themselves, women can’t be conscripted.”

Even so, we couldn’t quite grasp what was going on.

To get a clearer idea of the situation over there, I transformed half the width of the thick masonry wall into sand, made another peephole, and peered out at what was happening with Cain. The wall was bulky—easily one mer thick—so earlier, while we had been able to pick up on the conversation, we hadn’t been able to see much. Now that wouldn’t be an issue.

Apparently, the first floor of the tower had been designed as a prison that could hold a large number of people. It hadn’t been prettied up with a coat of plaster; the wall was made up of rugged, bare stone, and iron bars ran down the middle of the room, splitting it in two.

The only sources of light were two simple lanterns sitting on the floor, so we couldn’t get a clear view of everything. Still, I could tell there were about fifteen women. Two children were mixed into the group, and half of the remaining bunch were young women. The other half consisted of middle-aged ladies—probably wives of the branch families or the House of Delphion.

Leading the pack was a girl with long, straight, dark hair. Standing with her head held high, her features were placid, but her gray-violet eyes were steadily fixed on the soldiers outside the cell.

There were three Llewynian soldiers, and one of them was holding another woman in a full nelson. The victim looked about one or two years older than me. Her brown hair was falling loose from its bun, and her turquoise, upturned eyes were narrowed in agony.

Judging by the situation, I assumed the soldiers were threatening the women. So what was up with the conversation we had just heard?

From the sound of it, Reggie and his men had successfully invaded the inner fort while I was busy deliberating. I began to hear shouts and the clangs of swords clashing from outside the window.

“See? You’re running out of time to consider your options. Release that woman and surrender,” the dark-haired girl urged the soldiers as they grew fearful of the tumult outside.

There’s no sign of a defective spellcaster anywhere, though. That’s weird.

Maybe they were somewhere else? That would certainly be preferable. If there were a defective spellcaster among all these noncombatants, it wouldn’t surprise me if none of them survived the encounter.

Regardless, we couldn’t leave things as they were. After Cain and I exchanged nods, I blew open the wall and we burst into the room.

Right off the bat, Cain attacked the soldier who was keeping the woman pinned. He stabbed the man through with his sword, pulled the woman away from him, and escorted her back to the cell behind us.

“Dammit!” Cursing, one of the soldiers produced a vial of red liquid. Then, he poured the contents of the container into the mouth of the man who was bleeding out on the floor.

My heart began racing wildly, as though I’d just been given a fright. A moment later, the body of the fallen soldier froze over. The soldier kneeling beside him turned to ice, too.

I instantly flipped my switch to attack mode. The stone wall I’d just started building stretched out into dozens of sharp spears, piercing the body of the fallen soldier. A spine-chillingly cold wave of air swept through the room, and in the next instant, the man turned to sand.

The frozen soldier stayed as he was—a silent corpse. The other remaining soldier had fainted on the spot.

I turned the spears back into a wall. Then, while Cain was busy restraining the unconscious soldier, I gripped the hand of the woman I had just saved, who was looking completely overwhelmed.

“Are you alright? You’re not hurt, are you?” I asked.

“I... I’m fine.”

She nodded with a dazed expression. Now that I was looking at her up close, I could see that her hair was an auburn color. It looked like she still hadn’t recovered from the shock.

While I was relieved to see that nobody was hurt, I abruptly noticed that the pain in my chest had yet to fade away. When I looked for the very close source of the sensation, my gaze fell upon the woman I had just saved.

Could it be...? I thought for a moment, but my eyes were immediately drawn to the stone pendant hanging from her neck. It was a dark red... probably. It was hard to differentiate colors in the dim light, but that was definitely a contract stone. Perhaps I had mistaken that gem for a defective spellcaster.

Relieved to have an explanation, I decided to inform the girls of what was going on outside. I approached the straight-haired girl who had been threatening the soldiers. “Hello. I am the spellcaster serving under the first prince of Farzia, His Highness Prince Reginald. I’ve come to save you girls.”

The straight-haired girl curtsied in response, then went on to introduce herself. “I am the daughter of Lord Henry Delphion’s younger brother, Ernest Finard. My name is Emmeline. You have my deepest gratitude for saving Ada, as well as the rest of us here.”

Oh, I see. So this is Emmeline.

I caught myself staring at her a little too hard. Since she appeared to be the most levelheaded of the hostages, I gave her a cursory briefing on the situation—completely oblivious to the way Ada, who was standing off to the side, was chewing on her lip as she watched me. Of course, I was planning to make it so no one could access this dungeon from the outside, so all I asked the girls to do was wait here quietly until the battle was over.

Emmeline gathered up the other hostages and started explaining the situation. Meanwhile, I buried the door to the tower under a wall of stone. Now nobody would be able to break in.

However, it sounded like the battle was still raging outside.

“I should go help them,” I insisted.

“No. You should rest, Miss Kiara.” Cain held me back.

He did have a point. I was pretty tired. The last thing I wanted was to push myself too hard, fall apart in the midst of everything, and become a liability, so I opted to lay low for a while.

Instead, I decided to go see what was happening from a crenel on the roof of the tower. Necessary as it was, I almost regretted taking a look. Ever since the fighting had moved inside the fort, it had turned into a bloody battle, a mess of enemies and allies jumbled together. It wasn’t like watching a clash on a vast battlefield; witnessing people meet their end inside a building felt so close to everyday life that it held a different weight. I trembled, the fear I had nearly forgotten rushing back to me.

Blue-caped and black-caped soldiers alike collapsed against the wall, covered in blood, still sitting upright as they breathed their last. Among the Llewynian troops were soldiers from the House of Delphion, no doubt. Knowing that fellow countrymen were fighting against each other down there, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more I could have done.

“You can close your eyes and rest, Miss Kiara. I’ll be here to watch,” Cain offered, but I shook my head.

“I’m fine. More than anything, I have to wonder why I’m still not used to this.”

Most people would be scared if they were told to go to war. Nobody wanted to die. But there probably wasn’t a single soldier out there who hesitated over the act of killing itself. The people of this world never had doubts when it came to battle.

I knew full well that even if we tried talking things out with Llewyne, they wouldn’t withdraw their troops. We had no choice but to force our demands on them through a display of power. If we just let them invade, they would ignore our pleas. That was what we were fighting for, and there was no way around it... but that didn’t make it any less distressing sometimes.

It felt almost like I was killing another version of myself.

“Perhaps it’s because we held you back for so long. In a sense, all that did was make it harder for you to adjust,” said Cain. “If everyone is always telling you to run away, of course you would hesitate to fight.”

Part of me wondered if that was truly the case. Still, I couldn’t come out and say that to Cain when he was just trying to be nice.

It took another hour before the battle came to an end.

◇◇◇

Shortly afterward, I found myself under attack by Girsch.

“Kiara, dear! Are you alright? Tell me you’re not hurt!”

I had just come down from the prison tower after I saw the flag flying from the main tower had changed. I wanted to know what exactly had happened, so I was on my way to hear a report from Groul, who had led the conquest. That was when Girsch caught me.

Girsch swooped in from the side, gave me a big bear hug, then grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me over. Next thing I knew, I was spun the other way to make sure my back wasn’t injured either. Following that, the mercenary exclaimed, “You’re good!” and immediately ran off somewhere.

I was somewhat taken aback by the whirlwind of events. When I asked Groul, who had been watching nearby, he explained that as a skilled seamstress, Girsch had gone to attend to the injured. Gina was assisting, too. She was using her frostfoxes to help stop bleeding and heal bruises or fractures.

I went to work helping to carry the injured. My mana had stabilized while I’d stayed put observing the battle earlier, so I figured I was up to the task. Cain took care of our report, and meanwhile, I used part of a nearby wall to make a stone golem that looked a lot like a paper doll. The golem was even taller than Cain, so it had no trouble hefting even the largest of soldiers.

After running around and swinging their swords for so long, even the uninjured soldiers were exhausted, so they were more than happy to accept my help. I made three more stone golems, then repeated the process of carrying the wounded men to Girsch’s station in a hall inside the fort, or wherever else they needed to go.

By the time the task had started taking a physical toll on me and I stopped to take a break, the fort had been cleared of all enemy soldiers. Weakling that I was, as soon as I was shown to a room where I could rest, I passed out before I even had time to eat dinner.

Not long after that, Ernest, Lucille, and all the Delphion soldiers who had gathered under the House of Finard apparently joined up with Reggie’s troops. I say “apparently” because I wasn’t actually there when they arrived; I heard about it later on.

I clearly had expended more of my mana than I’d thought, seeing as I woke up around noon the next day. As embarrassing as it was to be the only one sleeping the day away, everyone else around me just assumed that was normal for a spellcaster. Gina told me as much when she came to wake me up, advising me to eat something.

“My frostfoxes tend to sleep for half a day after they use a lot of magic, too. Our doting Miss Lila and our little warrior Reynard are out like logs today. Sara is watching over them.”

“Oh, so this is normal? I’ve been stuck in bed with fevers a few times since becoming a spellcaster, but I’ve never really slept this much before, so I didn’t realize it was so common,” I replied, devouring the simple meal of soup and bread Gina had brought for me.

“Your mana reserves must outstrip the average spellcaster. Heheh!” Master Horace speculated from the side. He had been placed up on the windowsill. Evidently, he’d complained that sitting right in front of food he couldn’t eat was a special kind of torture.

“Where did the arrivals from the House of Finard go?”

“I’m not sure about Lord Ernest himself, but the baron’s daughter went to go see the hostages.”

“Oh, that reminds me! Have we run into any problems taking care of the girls?”

Branch family or no, they were all members of the nobility. It would be hard for them to manage everything on their own.

“It doesn’t seem like it. Some of the people who used to work here are still around.”

Oh, right. The noncombatants who took care of the cleaning and cooking were probably left somewhere inside the fort.

“Were any of them hurt?”

“No. They were hiding out in the cellar. Apparently, soldiers who originally belonged to Delphion helped them escape down there.”

“Oh, I see...”

If noncombatants happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, they couldn’t complain if they got caught in the crossfire—that was how wars in this world worked. It made sense that fellow countrymen would help each other out. As for those Delphion soldiers, though... I certainly hoped they had either surrendered or escaped in one piece.

Of course, I was pretty confident that Reggie was counting the Delphion men as separate from the Llewynian soldiers. But considering they had fought on the opposing side, they would still need to be punished somehow.

I wanted to know what Reggie was planning, so once I was done eating, I went to go find him. I stopped by his room first, but the middle-aged soldier standing guard outside his door told me he wasn’t inside. Left to wonder where he had gotten off to, I wandered the fort aimlessly.

After asking around, I learned that he had gone up one of the outer fort’s towers. The fort made up part of the wall, so it was the perfect spot to get a bird’s-eye view of the surroundings. Unfortunately, walking all the way over there wore me out; this fort was pretty huge.

By the time I was most of the way there, I realized I could have just asked Groul or somebody, but by then it was too late. Turning back at that point would just have been a waste of effort, so I did my best to climb the stairs of the tower. Eventually, I heard Reggie’s voice.

I was relieved to have finally tracked him down, but when I overheard a snippet of his conversation, I stopped in my tracks.

“That was too dangerous, Wentworth. What were you thinking, infiltrating the fort all by yourselves?” said Reggie, his voice calm but laced with worry.

“I’m not sure I agree, Your Grace,” came Cain’s nonchalant reply. “It was Miss Kiara’s idea, but I was confident we could pull it off, for my part.”

Oh no. Was Cain getting rebuked over what I had done? There had always been a chance we’d get in trouble, but I had assumed we would both be reprimanded for it. And why wasn’t Cain using the excuse that I had ordered him to do it?

Whatever the case, I had to go explain that it wasn’t Cain’s fault. I started climbing the stairs again, only to hear:

“I thought you understood that part of your job is to balance her out and keep her from pushing herself. Surely there must have been a safer way to go about it. Or else... would you charge through the gates of the underworld, so long as she wished for it?”

Perhaps Reggie had guessed that I’d ordered Cain to help me. Truthfully, maybe he had a point. Maybe my plan had been dangerous. Still, what had mattered to me most then was reaching the hostages as quickly as possible, and Cain had figured out the safest route for us to take to get there. Wasn’t that good enough?

There was no time for me to get a word in, however.

“Doesn’t that mean going against her will? I thought you wanted Miss Kiara to be free. If you want to keep her any safer than that, you have no choice but to stop her altogether. She’s going to resent you again, I’m sure,” Cain responded. Reggie was struck into silence. “Besides, it’s not as though Miss Kiara herself wants to rush headlong into danger. So long as the enemy doesn’t develop a strategy to use against her specifically, our side will always have the initiative. If she’s drawing on her magic, it’s easier for her to keep herself safe fighting alone than as part of a larger assault.”

Exactly. I thought our plan this time had worked so well because it had involved us hiding in the walls. I’d figured that if we made it just a little further down the wall, we would be much safer than Reggie and his men, who had rushed right in through the gates.

“Besides,” Cain went on, “if you truly want Miss Kiara to be free, why won’t you let her protect you? If you can’t even allow that, you ought to have just shut her away, no matter what it took.”

Here we had Cain, voicing all the things I should have said myself. It ought to have been a relief to hear someone else say it—to know that I wasn’t the only one who thought that way. Yet for some reason, all I felt was anxious and shaken.

I got the sense that I wasn’t meant to hear the rest of their conversation, so I turned and left the tower. After considering where to go next, I decided to go check on Lucille and the other girls.

Thus, I never knew what they said next.

◇◇◇

“If you try to tie Kiara down, she’ll just run away.”

“You expect me to believe you couldn’t figure out how to do it? I’m sure you of all people would know plenty of ways to drive her to fixate on you,” Cain responded, exasperated.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Reginald said, “You’ve become quite the extremist as of late.”

“If so, there’s no one to blame for that but you and Miss Kiara,” was Cain’s blunt conclusion.

Reginald sighed. “I’m meant to be dead. Wouldn’t it be wrong to force her to protect me? To keep her by my side, even if it hurts her?”

“By that logic, if Miss Kiara hadn’t run away, she too would have died in the not-so-distant future. It isn’t wrong for you to live, Your Grace.”

“I’m not like Kiara. I haven’t run from anything, and I haven’t made any choices of my own.”

“You always have been a stubborn one. But if you’re going to be like that... I don’t want to hear you object to my actions, Your Grace.”