“It’s the princess! Open the gate!”

They were much more open and friendly when I returned with Carmine behind me than previously. We had been seen walking down the path and the skeleton sentry immediately responded. By the time we entered the castle, the Skeleton commander I had met earlier ran down to meet us, an ecstatic look on his face.

“Drakus… you’ve done it! You’ve saved the princess!” He let out a laugh.

Carmine wore a weak smile and waved as the men all around her cheered. After all, she was a Paladin. Undead was her mortal enemy, and now she was being surrounded and worshipped by them. I hadn’t thought about it earlier, but I perhaps should have checked how she felt about them more before I dragged her into this situation.

“Drakus, you have prevented a war! For your accomplishments, you will be granted an increase in rank. I will make sure you become a part of the high nobility for sure!” The skeleton patted me on the back with an expression that I hoped was a smile.

“Yes… my lord, however, I’m not sure about preventing a war. The princess was captured by the demons. I had to kill one of their lords to free her.” I spoke honestly.

“Hmph! Do they think they can just bully us like that? Well, we have the upper hand now. We’ve been planning an attack against them for some time now. Perhaps, we should use this opportunity to begin our invasion. I’m afraid that our men just aren’t fired up enough for war.”

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I winced at those words. This battleground seemed to be at a standstill for a while. The humans and demons had been gathering their forces. However, when the Demon Prince took the princess, that had finally given the humans the courage needed to begin their assault. If the princess wasn’t taken, then we were back to this standstill. I didn’t know what to make of it.

“Yes, Commander, it was dreadful.” I suddenly found Carmine clinging to my arm. “We barely managed to make it out of there alive!”

Her voice was slightly different, and she was starting to exude the attitudes of the princess once again. She had been in a safe room all night, so the miasmic curse was kept at bay. It seemed like as soon as we left, her curse started to reinsert itself a bit. I nudged her, and Carmine blinked. She closed her eyes and put her hands together, muttering a spell. It was the purification spell. It’d keep her mind clear, but it looked like she wouldn’t be able to completely escape what the karmic curse was doing to her.

That was something I had already expected. What I needed to think about now was what to do to instigate the war. We still needed to attack the demon castle. It was the only way for us to escape this dungeon.

Just as I started considering our options, there was a loud horn that sounded from outside.

A man on the wall let out a shout. “An army! It’s the demons! They’re attacking!”

It looked like I didn’t need to consider anything at all. Bernard decided to act on his own and start the first attack.