“Hurry! We have to get back to the carriage!” Bianca shouted, holding a long sword that looked impossible to conceal.

The moment she drew her sword, she became the leader of our group. A maid leading the children of high-ranking nobles—ordinarily, the idea would have been absurd. But with the force of her presence as she held that sword, none of us could do anything but follow. Even we could tell Bianca was more skilled than most knights.

Was she a knight secretly trained by the marquis’s family? Or a noblewoman whose identity had been hidden? I couldn’t tell, but even Simon followed her orders without complaint.

We raced through the fortress, its remaining walls and pillars turning the interior into a maze. Apart from Bianca, we were all still young, but every one of us moved far faster than an ordinary adult.

Before we could even leave the ruins, someone blocked our path. He was an ordinary-looking man in leather armor. He raised his sword and shouted, “Found them! They’re he—Ghk!”

Before he could finish, Bianca was upon him. She swung her sword hard.

SLASH!

Blood spurted from his chest. Bianca ran on, drenched in it. “Don’t stop!”

It was as if she had eyes in the back of her head. She had noticed Simon and Adria flinch, and at her command, they kept running.

Had someone heard the noise? Unfortunately, we came under attack again before we made it out of the fortress.

“Die!” A man with a sword sprang from behind a collapsed wall, shouting the most predictable thing imaginable. The instant Bianca passed him, he lunged at Adria.

Bianca had no time to turn, but Simon stood in front of Adria. The heir the ducal house took such pride in calmly swung his sword at the oncoming attacker. The man seemed reasonably skilled, but he was no match for a young noble trained properly by knights.

CLANG!

The attacker’s sword was knocked aside, and Simon’s blade struck him, sending him to the ground. “Hah... hah... You thought you could take me on with skills like that?”

Simon barked at the fallen man, then turned away. Bringing down an enemy in one move seemed to have restored his wounded pride. He looked every bit the confident heir to the ducal house again.

But neither Bianca nor Adria praised him. “Watch out!” “Look out!” they cried, their faces stricken. Simon whipped his head back around.

THUNK!

He saw the man lying facedown, about to throw a dagger that glistened green. But the poisoned blade never left the attacker’s hand. Instead, blood poured from his mouth, and a sword was buried deep in his back.

“This isn’t a sparring match. You have to make sure they’re dead,” I said, pulling my sword from the man’s back.

The attacker gave a wet, rattling breath.

When I drew the sword out, he breathed his last and stopped moving. I flicked the blood from my blade. The area had suddenly gone quiet. I looked up to find everyone staring at me.

Bianca looked relieved, while Adria’s eyes sparkled as she watched me. She wasn’t going to ask for another sparring match, was she?

And Simon... Simon stared at the corpse and then at me, his face drained of color. “You killed someone?”

I tilted my head at his unexpected reaction, but soon understood. “Ah. You haven’t been in a real fight yet.” He had never killed anyone, so watching me do it had left him looking like that. But Bianca had killed an enemy too. Had he missed it because we’d rushed past?

“Neither have you! You’ve spent your whole life at home!” Oh. Simon was right. I had died several times, but this was the first time I had killed someone else.

I looked at my bloodied sword, then at the corpse again. Hmm... Nothing felt particularly different. My heart was beating as usual; I felt neither fear nor the urge to vomit. I felt none of the shock of my first kill.

Would it hit me later, once we were safe? Or perhaps I had simply grown too accustomed to death. Either way, since we needed to keep moving, the lack of shock was a good thing for now.

“I don’t think this is the time to worry about that. Let’s move.” My words brought everyone back to their senses, and we started running again.

Bianca took the lead, I brought up the rear, and Adria and Simon stayed in the middle. Back in formation to protect the two of them, we hurried out of the fortress.

“It doesn’t make sense. How can he be fine? I made a mistake. I should’ve killed him.” I heard Simon muttering ahead of me, but I had no desire to listen. I let his words drift away on the wind.

Once we emerged from the fortress, I saw a knight running toward us. Blood was spattered across his armor; it looked as though he had already fought someone. “You’re safe! The decoy worked!”

A decoy? So this outing did have an ulterior purpose. What on earth was going on that they had used a marquis’s daughter as bait?

The knight’s expression stiffened when he saw Simon. “Young Master Simon? Why are you here...?” “So you really didn’t tell them,” Bianca said.

At her words, the knight looked over our group. He saw Bianca’s blood-soaked clothes, then the blood on my sword. His expression shifted slightly at the sight of my blade, but he said nothing about it.

“It looks like you’ve already been attacked. With Young Master Simon here, we can’t proceed as planned.” “I know. The plan is canceled. Let’s get back quickly.” Simon’s face darkened again. He did not know what was going on, but he understood that his presence had ruined something. There was no time to comfort him.

The knight took a short metal rod from inside his clothes. He held it aloft and focused mana into the hand gripping it. The rod gradually turned red. Then—

POP! WHOOSH!

The end of the rod exploded, sending red smoke soaring into the sky. He had clearly used mana to ignite gunpowder and launch it upward. A signal device propelled by a gunpowder explosion? Wait, they had gunpowder here? What level of civilization was this world at, anyway?

“I’ve sent the signal, so reinforcements will come. Let’s hurry to the carriage.” At the knight’s urging, we ran down from the ruins.

* * *

At the same time, the duke was listening to a report from the knight commander in his study.

“We’ve stationed ten knights in the surrounding area and have a company of soldiers ready behind them. The mercenaries are also in position for the pursuit.” After hearing the report, the duke checked one last thing. “Under no circumstances is the marquis’s daughter to be hurt. You made that clear to everyone?” “Yes. I’ve gone over it with them several times.”

The duke nodded at the knight commander’s confident reply. “Then there should be no problem.”

The knight commander asked cautiously, “But are you sure about this? Even if she’ll be safe, we’re using Lady Adria as bait. And Young Master Alex is there too.” “Young Master Alex...” the duke repeated. The knight commander looked awkward.

“He’s diligent and skilled. I have no intention of dismissing his abilities just because I don’t like him.” The duke spoke without a trace of emotion. “That boy is insurance in case anything goes wrong. With skills like his at that age, it would be a waste to leave him idle.” The knight commander gave a bitter smile at the duke’s cold words.

“And even if it means using Adria as bait, we must put an end to this now. If House Hierro and House Gresia are to join forces, they must be able to weather a crisis of this magnitude.”

The knight commander clicked his tongue inwardly. The kingdom’s political situation was even more troubled than the rumors suggested. One faction was trying to prevent the marriage of two powerful houses by killing the bride, while the duke and the marquis intended to use her as bait to catch them. Such a thing would never have happened in peaceful times. But those complicated affairs were not his to worry about.

“Then I’ll go to my position.” The knight commander was about to leave the study when—

“I have a report.” A soldier hurried inside. The duke stopped the knight commander before he could leave.

“We’ve just received word from Tenerife, the neighboring territory. Two mercenary companies set out toward our territory over the past week. The second left four days ago.” The duke frowned. “Two? Has either of them entered our territory?” “No new mercenary companies have entered in the past week.”

“And only one mercenary company came from Lanzarote, correct?” “Yes.” “So three mercenary companies disappeared along the way?” The plan had been prepared on the assumption that the enemy would number one mercenary company, or two at most.

The duke took up his sword and rose. “Can the forces we have deployed stop three mercenary companies?” The knight commander shook his head. “If they’re ordinary mercenaries, perhaps. But if they’re disguised as mercenaries, it will be difficult.”

That much was obvious. Three mercenary companies to kill a single girl in her teens? “Are they planning to start a war?” the knight commander asked. As he said, it was hardly something they would do unless they intended to wage war between territories. The duke could not understand it.

“With that many people, whether they succeed or fail, there’s bound to be trouble...” The perpetrators would certainly be exposed, and their side would suffer a devastating political blow. “Unless they don’t care if they’re found out?” The thought made the duke’s expression harden.

He immediately gave the knight commander his orders. “All our forces are on standby, correct?” “Yes!” “Cancel the plan. Have the nearby forces join them at once, and send reinforcements!” “Yes!” “Raise the alert to the highest level and send a messenger to inform the marquis!” “Understood!”

The duke continued issuing orders as he left the room. “I’m going too. Have a horse prepared.” “Yes!” The soldier who had delivered the report ran for the stables.

Just then, an elderly man approached at a brisk pace from the opposite direction. It was the head butler. “There’s a problem.” The duke stopped walking.

The old man could not have failed to notice the urgency around him. He would not have spoken up over anything ordinary. “What is it?” “Young Master Simon hasn’t been seen since this morning.” “Simon?”

It did not seem like a reason to stop him, but there was something ominous in the head butler’s words. “I looked into it. It seems he secretly boarded Lady Adria’s carriage.” The duke’s eyebrow twitched. His expression did not otherwise change, but mana surged from his body.

Just as the nearby servants turned pale, the knight commander cried, “Ah! A signal flare!” He was pointing out a south-facing window. In the distance, plumes of red smoke were rising one after another.