1

The eight empty oak barrels that had so far gone without use were now dragged out of the shed and loaded on a cart with two horses harnessed before it. Climbing up next to the driver, the vizier called out his orders.

“Twenty riders with me, the captain takes command. Colonel, you will stay here with the rest, put the camp together and get ready for the ride home. Our departure will be a speedy one.”

—“Wait! Take me with you!”

Surprised, everyone turned their attention to the woman approaching them across the yard.

Most around knew her only as that odd civilian they'd picked up at Varnam, who had been helping the cooks and apparently had a connection to the Langorian princess. A few had witnessed her sword skill during the dryad assault, and a rarer few knew she had slain the unicorn, but who exactly was she—no one could tell. Izumi had remained on the sidelines for most part of the journey, but now she forced her way through the crowd and approached the imperial vizier.

“Izumi...” Yuliana looked at her companion with unease.

She'd never seen such an anxious look on Izumi's face before.

“What?” Attiker frowned at her words.

“You've found the spring, right?” Izumi said. “You're going there now? Then take me along.”

“Why would I ever do that?”

“Of course, because I want to have some of that water.”

“Bah!” Attiker broke into laughter at her silly request. “I can't tell whether to call you courageous or mad. The answer is no. Every last drop of that spring belongs to His Imperial Majesty now. Not one soul will sample it without his explicit permission.” Ignoring Izumi, the man turned to Miragrave. “Colonel, should anyone attempt to follow us, friend or foe, man or beast, even if it be the princess herself, your orders are to kill. Do you understand? Now if ever is the time to prove you are worthy of your rank. To be honest, I am not impressed by what I have seen so far. Are we ready? Good! Go!”

The driver whipped the horses who darted out through the narrow back gate, the cart and twenty riders with them.

The earthling was left in the dust to look after them.

But Izumi wasn't going to give up that easily.

Making up her mind, she stepped to follow after them. She couldn't make it far, however. A group of knights quickly moved to block the way and drew their bows.

“You cannot go,” Miragrave told her.

“Try me!” Izumi said, reaching for the handle of the sword on her back.

“Stop!” the commander's sharp voice froze her. “I know you are no ordinary mercenary. I've had my eye on you since Varnam. But do you presume to be swifter than an arrow? Six dimeritium heads were salvaged from the battlefield, and were split between the archers. You cannot tell who has one. Each is deadly, as you should know. Whether you're a daemon or just plain mad, there is no saving you if you are so much as scraped by one. Let go your sword.”

“Mira-rin...” Izumi's expression darkened. “And here I was starting to think I might like you.”

“You fight for yourself,” Miragrave shook her head. “For your ego. For your greed. There is no way we could ever see eye to eye.”

“I'm such a devil?” the woman looked down. “No. You're right. It's true I have no noble goal to die for. I have no country, no people, no past, no ideals, nothing at all. I only just came to this world and don't understand half of it. But I'm scared. Yes, scared. Scared to death. I'm scared of the day Yule will leave me behind!”

“What…?”

“Now! Flashbang!”

No one else nearby could understand the meaning of that odd word, but Yuliana.

“Ah, eh...Yes!” Quickly recovering from her surprise, the princess held out her palm and spoke, “Iota.”

A faint little spark of light appeared hovering above Yuliana's hand, gently floating upward like an ember. Then, as everyone's confused gazes were drawn to that light, it brightened up without a warning, easily surpassing daylight in magnitude. Whether it was Aiwesh adding her own touches to the spell, or a result of Yule's internal turmoil, the intensity of that flash by far exceeded the earlier version. On top of the light, there was a deafening, low WHOOMP, which plugged everyone's ears. Blinded, their ears filled with a high-pitch noise, the knights recoiled and shook their heads.

But Izumi and Yuliana, who had already anticipated the effects, were the first to move, and sprinted past the dazed guard formation. Brian was among those left behind, as Yuliana had no opportunity to warn him, or the heart to drag him into their dangerous gamble.

It paid off, nevertheless.

By the time the knights regained their senses, the two women had already disappeared outside the palisade and ran into the scorched jungle.

“Shall we give pursuit?” a sergeant asked the commander.

Looking at the vacant doorway for a moment, Miragrave shortly answered,

“You have your orders. If we did, we'd have to fall on our own swords. Start packing the tents.”

2

As they ran through the woods, Yuliana and Izumi heard the footsteps of a horse coming from behind. Thinking they were pursued, they turned around, but saw that there was only one horse, with a more familiar rider. Predicting the earthling's train of thought, Riswelze had taken her horse out from the stable, while the others were occupied.

Quickly reaching them, she now reached out her hand to Izumi.

Izumi gave a glance to the princess, who nodded.

“Go, I'll catch up.”

Izumi jumped onto the horse behind the assassin, and the two rode off, following the narrow path leading through the woods. The hill had sheltered these parts from the fire, but all the trees and bushes had gained a grayish coating. The wilderness grew dense all around, but the squad before them had trampled a clear trail in the grass, following the ancient path. The pursuers were able to follow those tracks with ease.

As the cart with the barrels advanced at a more casual pace, the solitary horse was able to overcome the knights' lead soon enough.

“Sir, we're being followed!”

The vizier glanced over his shoulder and saw the brown gelding gallop towards them with her less than chivalric riders.

“How did someone so incompetent become a colonel? His majesty will hear of this.”

“What shall we do?”

“You're asking me? You have orders. Death to the enemies of the Empire and so on.”

“Yes, sir.” The knight didn't sound particularly enthusiastic about the task, but orders were orders.

Turning to the cart driver, Attiker commanded, “Put some speed into those animals!”

The knight whipped the reins and the cart surged through the woods with added swiftness. Meanwhile, two riders from the rear slowed down, drew their swords and turned around to meet the pursuit.

“Halt!”

“In the name of his majesty, halt or die!”

But Riswelze's horse had already caught up with them and slipped through before they could block the path. Swearing, the knights could only turn around and chase after the pair. Their expertise on horseback was nothing to laugh at, however. The imperial stallions caught up with the women soon enough.

“What shall we do?” Riswelze asked, glancing behind. “They'll flank us.”

“Don't stop,” Izumi told the assassin. “Keep 'er steady. Like that.”

Taking support on the girl's shoulder, Izumi stood up on the back of the horse, turned and drew the Amygla. The knights neared. Counting the steps in her mind, Izumi steadied her breathing and waited a few seconds longer. And then jumped.

In a reckless leap, she landed onto the horse of the foremost attacker to her left and stabbed down at the base of the neck beside the helmet. The sword pierced half a foot into the body, eliciting a shriek of pain. Not wasting a second, Izumi used the embedded weapon for support, and span around on tiptoe. She faced forward, pulled off the blade and jumped again. Using the rear of Riswelze's horse as a stepping stone, she repeated the feat on the right with the second rider, knocking him off the saddle with a sideways swing, before returning to her original position. The black beasts continued to ride on, deprived of their masters. One more rider coming to meet them, unable to believe what he had just seen, failed to act and was decapitated with a sideways cut while they passed him by.

“I saw nothing,” Riswelze said, shaking her head.

“What?” Izumi chirped. “Horses are so slow, it's easy enough for anyone. I saw Cirque de Solais do it on TV once. But try that stunt with motorbikes, like in Unchar***! That's a lot harder.”

“Nowhere as hard as trying to understand anything that comes out of your mouth!”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

The imperial vizier didn't have much praise for Izumi's acrobatics either, looking over his shoulder to see the pursuers catching up with the cart again.

“I'll be damned before I give that madwoman life eternal. Take her down,” he ordered the officer riding close by. “You have my permission to use the arrow.”

“Sir! Yes, sir!” the captain answered.

He signaled to his team with his fingers. At once, ten riders abandoned the cart and dispersed, half left, half right. Instead of meeting the followers directly, they rode off into the woods, vanishing quietly into the bushes.

“Hey, hey,” Riswelze muttered. “This is bad!”

“We have to go faster,” Izumi said. “Try to reach the old guy. If I can get on that cart—”

They didn't reach further. An arrow came whistling from somewhere between the trees and pierced the neck of their horse with astounding accuracy. The projectile was ordinary, but the fatally wounded animal tripped and fell anyhow, casting off its riders. The two jumped and broke their fall by rolling, and remained crouched in the cover of the undergrowth.

“What now?” Izumi asked. “They'll snipe us if we move from here.”

“And surround us if we sit still. I know.”

“Will you take the five on the right, and I'll take the five on the left?”

“I have a better idea,” Riswelze said. “Lie low and be a bait for me. Cloata Telema!”

Casting her spell, the girl's form turned partly see-through and slipped into the bushes. Left lying alone in the grass, death everywhere around, Izumi sighed.

“Have a safe trip?”

In a blink of an eye, Riswelze was an assassin again.

Her personal feelings, hopes, and fears disappeared and like clockwork, her mind was unemotionally assessing the dire situation.

The arrow had come from the west. They would expect the enemy to retaliate in that direction. Meanwhile, the east side team would advance and try to strike from behind. They wouldn't risk shooting their own, so there would be no more fire from the west to be expected for a while. Not until they would realize that no counterattack was coming. Then both teams would start closing in, completing the pincer move.

Therefore, the more urgent threat by the knights from the west had to be eliminated first.

Riswelze found a safe spot and laid down, her ear pressed against the soil, and waited. As unbearable as it was, she waited, controlling her breath, even her pulse. Though the fear that she had made a mistake and they would kill Izumi froze her intestines, she waited patiently like a snake, while ants and spiders crawled over her.

And she heard them.

They were knights, not assassins.

The bolts, buckles and leather straps squeaked as they moved. The corners of the plates scraped against one another. Their heavy footsteps could be felt from afar, the rustling of leaves, the groaning of bowstrings.

Confirming the distance and direction, Riswelze quickly pushed herself up and ran. Her light shoes made virtually no sound at all and she stepped like a cat, absorbing the impact. Reaching close enough, she climbed up a tree and looked down. Five knights, advancing in an angled line, where each one could fire forward. Each equipped with bows, clearly determined to avoid close combat.

They were coming her way, right under the tree.

Waiting until they were almost past, she dropped behind the last man.

Landing on the knight himself was a tempting idea, but she wouldn't have been able to deliver the killing blow that way and the noise would have alerted his companions. She couldn't let them notice her too soon, or all would be ruined.

Riswelze carefully unsheathed her dagger and moved.

She hadn't wasted the days sleeping. She had studied the imperials' gear, their armors, weapons, and supplies. She knew exactly how the plates overlapped, the position of every screw. As intimidating as the plate armor looked, it had the common vulnerabilities, the sides, under the arms and the backs of joints.

Not feeling anything in particular, as if plucking a weed, Riswelze stepped right behind the man and shoved the dagger in his left side, a bit upward.

“Hng!” Only a faint sound could be heard, muffled by the helmet, and the knight was dead, pierced through the heart. As his body fell forward, Riswelze quickly circled around in front of him, received the corpse on her back and laid him down, quickly but quietly, before moving onto the next.

It went better than expected.

There is no such a thing as a battle without mistakes, but she only messed up with the fourth one. The man had his bow ready and drawn tighter than expected. As he died, he released the arrow, which made a whistling sound and a thud as it sank into the soft soil. There was no way the last man didn't hear it.

Astonished, the remaining knight turned around, saw the girl and quickly took aim.

Reaching for her belt behind the back, Riswelze drew a smaller throwing dagger and cast it through the crack in the helmet visor, over the left eye. At the same time, he took the shot. The arrow scraped her right ear, enough to draw blood, but the damage was minor. Her throwing hand was more accurate. The little blade missed the eye but stabbed painfully at his brow.

“Gaah!” The knight arced his head backward in agony. Without wasting the opening, the assassin closed the distance and struck her dagger through the crack under the helmet's throat guard. The stream of blood that gushed out as she extracted the blade left no doubt regarding his fate.

Exhaling, the girl eased the tension on her shoulders, wiped the mishap off her mind and ran on.

Next, the west side.

Less than three hundred feet on the other side of the path, the land suddenly vanished and fell a solid forty feet. It appeared the secret pathway carried along the back of a small ridge, with the forest continuing at the base of the sudden rock wall. With the limited space available, Riswelze found her targets quickly enough. In fact, she nearly stumbled upon them. There were four knights. They restlessly observed the path in the distance from their hiding spot, awaiting a signal from the other team, ready to shoot if someone else came in sight.

On the bare rock, with the fall behind them, was no way to sneak up on the knights. Then again, with no reinforcements in the vicinity, there was no need to be discreet either.

Relying on her camouflage, Riswelze attacked the squad from the north. She bashed a crouched knight overhead with her left palm, to push him off balance, and then stabbed her dagger in his neck with the right. Wasting no time to extract it, she abandoned the weapon and drew another from the holster under her arm, moving onto the next one. The knight turned and drew his bow, but she was already too close. Cutting the bowstring from the top end, she slipped in front of him and forced her blade under the edge of the helmet, like opening an oyster. The third one had more time and managed to fire, but Riswelze saw him. Ducking and stepping right, the assassin evaded the shaft, slid down to her knees and stabbed him in the groin. As he started to fall over her, she leaned back on the ground, pulling him along, and kicked the knight over the edge of the cliff. Sitting back up again, she threw the knife through the visor of the last man, grateful for the unforgiving accuracy training she had been forced through in the past.

All four were dead.

Standing up, Riswelze put her knives away and headed back to Izumi.

Overconfidence had always been her weak point. It made her careless and she knew it, but there was simply no curing it. Each time she narrowly escaped death, her arrogance was only made worse. And it backfired on her yet again.

—“Got you now!”

One more imperial was left. He had gone to take a leak while they waited and had by chance spotted Riswelze as she approached the others. Hiding in the bushes, he had managed to sneak close enough as she fought and now caught her from behind as she passed by.

“Sneaky little pest!” The steel-coated arm tightened around her bare neck with crushing force. She had already put her weapons away. Even if she could draw the dagger, killing the armored man without seeing where to aim was difficult. She didn't have that time. Feeling her throat be crushed, panic overwhelmed her and Riswelze knew she was going to die.

“Grk—!”

But the chokehold was abruptly loosened.

Wrestling herself away from the knight, Riswelze gasped for air and turned around.

She saw the knight, his helmet forced backwards in his head, and Izumi standing behind him. There was no need to guess what had happened to the man's head inside. He limply sank to his knees and wouldn't move.

“Sorry, I got tired of waiting,” Izumi said. “Did I come at a bad time?”

“Damn it, that bastard,” the girl coughed and rubbed her hurting throat. “And here I thought I'd finally get to pay you back...”

“Pay me back?” The woman looked puzzled and tilted her head. “For what?”

“You forgot? I owe my life to you twice over, remember? At the bath, at the villa. Well, that's three times now, I guess.”

“Oh. You're still going on about that? Does it really matter?”

“It does. To me,” Riswelze stepped forward and said. “I can't consider us as equals until I've paid back my debt.”

“Ehh?” Izumi frowned. “Do people ever say you're kind of weird, Rise...”

“You're absolutely the last person in all of Ortho I want to hear that from.”

“Well, I don't think I could've managed all those knights by myself,” the woman shrugged. “I don't have the patience for sneaking around. So I think the third time's more than made up for. Rather, don't I owe you now? Any one of the archers could've shot me, so that's nine times you've saved me.”

“No. You may have a point, but if we're going to count like that, then I'd owe you for every soldier at Haywell. No, it's one crisis, one save. So I still owe you two times more.”

“This is too complicated for me. Why is it so important for us to be equals, anyway? I mean, in my own world, everybody's supposed to be equal from the get-go. Saving those who are in trouble is kinda expected of you and not something people owe you for.”

“What an ungrateful world!” Riswelze said. “But it's different where I come from. See, in my circles, by our rules—I'm not saying it's something everybody in the world follows, but I think it's a beautiful ideal anyhow. Like, somebody who's indebted to another can't...well, you know?”

“Know what?”

“Well...” the girl's face looked a bit flushed as she struggled for words. “Become spouses...with that person. Because...see, only equals can marry, and so on…Oh, Hel! What are you making me say, woman! I just...don't want to owe you...Izumi. Not by any means. Not if I can help it.”

“Rise...”

Izumi looked at the girl standing in front of her, in her deep green eyes, more vibrant than Felorn itself. She saw herself reflected in those bright eyes and was at a loss for words. A mysterious, ticklish warmth filled her chest, where her heartbeat suddenly picked up the pace. It had been a long, long time since she had last experienced that warmth. So long, that she had forgotten entirely how it felt like. It was the warmth of the flame of youth. The very flame she had been chasing all this way, that she had longed to feel again. And it was right there, within her arm's reach. Izumi no longer cared about anything but those eyes. The spring, the woods, her plans and intentions—all evaporated like tiny droplets of water on a heated stove.

It might be okay for me to not become a hero.

It might be okay for me to not see the whole world.

Everything that really mattered, in this world and all the rest, was contained in those loving eyes—she was sure of it.

Then, the spell was broken.

Looking up, Riswelze quickly stepped past the woman and shoved her to the side. At first, Izumi couldn't understand the meaning of that move. She was too dazed to think about anything.

Then, she saw the black arrow that had pierced through the girl's leather vest.

“That's once,” Riswelze exhaled.

The letter carved on the arrowhead glowed faintly and a blink of an eye later, the young girl's figure was veiled in an intense, explosive fire of vibrant green hue. Disregarding the danger, Izumi reached out her hand—to no avail. With her last strength, Riswelze stepped sideways and cast herself over the edge of the cliff, far down beyond reach.