"I have simply decided to try reacting to attacks rather than being the first to take action." Althea replied, inwardly rolling her eyes at her familiar's stubborn nature. “I am a noble. I am, by the nature of my position, the last line of defense, not the first.”

"Reacting is not a battle style." the plant insisted.

"Waiting has also served me well in the past." she said, pointing to the unconscious form of Vanessa.

Perhaps it had served her a bit too well. The better she was at this, the worse she felt. The Steward was too powerful, she struggled to even put up a defense. And her 'equals' were too weak. Just standing there and countering them was enough for her to utterly destroy them. That prevented her from improving, at all.

Forget assessing her weaknesses, she could scarcely assess her strengths. To the point that she had forgotten to even read the Journeyman part of the manual. Oh, she remembered it from time to time, but it just didn’t seem important. The attacks she invented had served her better than the ones in the manual.

The tactics she used were more elementary than she wanted them to be. Just simply using her superior talent and brains to counter them. But for now, it worked.

The day she met someone that was more talented than her, she would die. The utter lack of enemies would kill her. Learning the Druid arts would not change that. Perhaps the tournament could solve the enemy issue. But she had little hope. There seemed to be no one that could compete with her.

----------------------------------------

Ter

Ter was a simple girl. A simple girl that was entertaining a King in a suite he had given her in his palace. When the Countess had told her she would be going to the Merlen kingdom to extend her interests, this was not what she had expected.

Sneaking around trying to get as much treasure as they could while being attacked by enemies, perhaps. Or just sneaking around. Not walking into the city with a small army by her side. A very small army, but it had a Master among them.

"How may I help you, your majesty?" Ter asked, keeping a smile on her face. A smile was a girl's best weapon, her mother had told her. The king seemed to follow her mother's advice too for some reason.

"Do I have to need something to come meet my guest?" There was that smile again. Ter had no idea how to deal with it. The king was too kind. A king was supposed to be scary. A glower and frown frozen on their face. Not kind old men that drank tea with her.

"Of course not, your majesty." she replied. "But there are probably better things for you to be doing."

The King glanced back at the door. Ter was sure there was a line of advisors wanting him to do something just beyond it. There always seemed to be.

"I am sure you are right, my dear." the King replied, drinking his tea. "But I am conversing with an important diplomat from our main food source. The new mattress can wait."

Ter raised an eyebrow. "The one in the throne room? I was wondering what happened to it."

That was another strange thing. A foreign citizen was usually not given an honored position in the King's court. And asked for opinions on things.

"An assassin burnt it." the King laughed. "The Confederacy seems to be taking their anger out on decorations now."

Ter frowned.

"I am sure that they were aiming for you, your majesty." she warned against her own judgment. The Countess had warned her several times that she was supposed to be neutral. The Confederacy wasn’t a joke, the county could not afford to offend them. Not yet.

But it was hard. So hard when she was so blatantly favored by the King.

"Oh?" the King raised an eyebrow. "That is quite a miss. I wasn't even in the room."

Ter did roll her eyes this time.

"I seem to remember there being an emergency meeting last night. A meeting that was promptly canceled."

"Yes, I wonder what happened." the King said. "Perhaps someone mistook the shrubs outside the wall for an invading army. Or maybe the waves looked like a navy."

"That would call for a call to arms. Not an emergency meeting." Ter replied dryly.

"Why, Lady Ter, you seem to be quite familiar with our defensive procedures? I might have to consider you a spy."

"After seeing them deployed a dozen times this month alone? Even that crow is familiar." Ter pointed to a crow preening itself outside the window. "I saw it following them yesterday morning when a navy tried to take the port by force."

"That didn't go so well." the King grinned. Ter rolled her eyes. Had the Confederacy not tried to burn Diery ships, they wouldn't have fought back. Ter had written several warnings about it. And hung a banner on the ships.

Just because the ships were conveniently parked on the port's weakness did not mean that it was a weak spot overall. There was another Master on those ships. And some very powerful weapons that tended to put holes in other ships.

"I feel like I should remind your majesty that I represent a foreign force. A spy, as you said." Ter mentioned. "I am not sure if it is safe for you, or me, to have such a close relationship."

A pained expression appeared on the King's face.

"I thought you were a Merlen noble."

Ter just looked at him. Perhaps the Countess would like her to take advantage of the King's benevolence, but it would pain her to do so. Not after how kind he was to her.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"I was born in the Diery county, your majesty. I appreciate what you are doing, I do, really, but I am still loyal to my Countess."

The King scoffed. "The Countess should count herself lucky to have you. There are many that would betray their countries for my favor."

"And be burnt by the next assassin with terrible aim? I think not." Ter said, trying to defuse the situation with humor. Had the king been offended by her statement?

"The next assassin will not be so easily fooled.” The King sighed, forcing Ter to catch up as he abruptly changed subjects. “ As much as I would like to deny it, my time is limited."

Ter gulped. This was not the reaction she had hoped for. Was it finally here? The advisors the Countess had sent predicted that the King was trying to manipulate her. To try to gain the Solerian Empire's support through her.

A part of her wished she could offer him the Empire's support. The King was a great ruler. A ruler worthy of support. But she was but a farmer's girl turned diplomat. Even the Countess would be hard-pressed to help the Merlen kingdom, let alone her.

Ter lowered her eyes in shame as the king looked at her, not able to meet his eyes.

"The Confederacy will loot the kingdom and its citizens will become prisoners of war." the King's lips upturned in distaste. Ter's guilt grew. The Confederacy had a history of using its 'prisoners of war' as cannon fodder in the army. Or as barely paid servants.

But she couldn't relent. There was no way for her to help them. The Countess would not listen to her.

"I know that you wanted to take some refugees from my kingdom." the King continued. "I was wondering if you had a limit on how many you could take?"

Ter felt like the world around her crashing. The Countess couldn't be too angry if she bought an entire kingdom's worth of people with her, right?

There simply did not be any way for her to refuse.

----------------------------------------

The plan was mad. The plan was idiotic. The plan was her idea.

Why had her advisors gone on along with her? Why had no one stopped her from trying this idiotic thing? And why, for the life of her, was there an entire fleet ready to follow her commands?

"Taking an entire kingdom's worth of people is bold." her bodyguard drawled, appearing beside her like the half-Elven assassin she was.

Ter turned to her in hope.

"There must be something in the Diery county's water. The Countess did the exact same thing with us a few months ago." she continued.

Ter suppressed a groan. Of course, the half-Elf approved of her taking in a huge amount of refugees.

"Not the whole kingdom." she said, more to herself than her companion. "There aren't that many people here."

"Just a few hundred thousand." the half-Elf agreed. "There are more half-Elves."

Yes, that was…encouraging. The half-Elves were mostly warriors and intellect instead of the farmers that populated her batch, but perhaps the Countess would not be too angry. The Merlen kingdom was tiny, really. The end of a very long line of tiny kingdoms that the Confederacy had conquered to take what they had wanted for a long, long time. A port.

A small kingdom with only one Adept was supposed to be easy to conquer. The Countess thought that. Ter's advised thought that. The kingdom's citizens and army thought that. King Narl Merlen just seemed to have a different opinion. And the power to utterly destroy any invading force the Confederacy had sent yet. Just that had left one of the most powerful forces on the continent helpless.

Just will and power.

"Are there enough ships?" she asked. Thirty ships might not be enough to transfer a hundred thousand people. Even these big ones.

"The King was kind enough to give us his entire fleet." the half-Elf said. "I thought you knew."

Ter paused. "Loan you mean."

The half-elf turned around, looking at the king battling for his life above the city. "I am not sure he expects them back."

Two flying figures fell down, cut by a glowing light that Ter could barely make out.

"Or perhaps he does." the half-elf added. "That makes twenty Confederacy Adepts, the king's killed. I kinda like him now."

"That could be a Master." Ter pointed out. Adepts weren't the only ones that could fly. But if it was Adepts, that would make them the twentieth Confederacy Adepts to fall to the King's hand. Or perhaps more. Ter wasn't sure what the count was now.

"I am a Master." The half-elf took another step away from the palace. "I assure you I can't fly there. Not without being cut down by the shear forces present there."

Ter looked at her bodyguard with narrowed eyes. "Aren't you supposed to protect me?"

"Oh sure." the half-elf scoffed. "I can fight any amount of Masters you want." The half-elf looked up. "Keep me out of that. I prefer to have at least a kilometer between me and bloodthirsty Adepts."

"How's that working for you?" Ter asked.

The half-Elf looked at the fighting Adepts. "Not well. Do you think we should move closer to the port? Or perhaps onto one of the ships?"

The palace shuddered and collapsed onto the ground as dozens of figures appeared in the air. Ter felt the faint sense of mana stirring in the air even here. A teleportation spell? The people had to come from really far away to consume this much mana.

The two of them moved towards the port slowly, mostly because she insisted on looking at the fight every few minutes.

The king was not dead yet. In fact, he seemed to be faring well. A person who was emitting mana visibly stronger than the rest was trying to target the king, and failing miserably. That was good news.

An Adept fell from the sky after another as the battle devolved into chaos. Ter hoped it was according to the king's plan. The city suffered from a barrage of attacks as boulders and huge amounts of water fell down onto the ground. The amount of attacks going around in the sky were too many for her to keep track of, even with her new Journeyman cultivation.

"Come on, we gotta go." her bodyguard said, pulling her along as the boulder fell where she had previously been. "The city ain't safe anymore."

Ter gave one last look at the king, and then followed her bodyguard. Water swept through the city below her as she was lifted into the sky, pulled along by her bodyguard. Shadow mana cut away boulders, water, and other missed attacks that she could scarcely detect.

Ter was a Journeyman, a powerful one. Or so she thought. This battle had given her an entire new impression on power. The battle was so beyond her that she could only sense the attacks when they hit something.

This was just the attacks that missed. The king was facing a far greater amount of attacks, and they were even aimed at him. At least the city had been evacuated. The King would have liked that.

Ter landed on a ship as the fleet left the port, avoiding the destruction that was raining on the previously bustling metropolis. The second her feet were on the deck, she turned around, gazing towards the battle.

Just in time to see a sword thrust into the king's body. A tear dropped from her eyes as she imagined herself meeting his eyes across the distance that stood between them. The few months she had spent here had been the best of her life.

For the first time in her life, she had felt like she truly belonged. At home. Wanted by someone. Even at the county she was just 'one of the college students'. Not anyone special. Here, she was.

Silver light spilled from the king's body, taking five Adepts down with him. Just six figures of the dozens that had come stood in the sky now. Six figures that had turned towards her. Even she could sense the approaching mana spiraling around them as they headed towards the fleet with far too many people and just one Master to protect them.

Ter closed her eyes, letting the tears fall for a second before she wiped them away. And put a smile on her face.

This wasn't time to cry.

The King's killers wanted to talk to her.

And she couldn’t show weakness. That wasn’t what a Lady did. And a Lady was what she would be.