"Aoi Sama, only two scouts returned."

The blue-robed princess waved the veteran gladiator's report off and wouldn't take her eyes off Elizabeth, except when I felt her hostile glances burning holes into my skin instead. Things didn't go as planned, but she was still more occupied with us than the mission.

"How are you, your Highness?" I asked the Princess who thrashed all night in our makeshift camp. It was hard to call it a camp in the first place, but difficult to say night as well, when the sun never set in this strange place. There was no sun at all, just the permanently purple sky.

"Tired, Cath." She answered simply, swimming in her sweat. "I had nightmares after nightmares when I could even sleep."

"It's hard to fall asleep when it never gets dark and the air is filled with strange creature's cries." I nodded, trying to comfort her, but I knew that her main issue was the goddess that occupied her mind.

The undersized uncomfortable sleeping bags probably didn't help either. All my joints hurt after a night on the cliff and I didn't feel rested. Like an old man, even though I got used to camp out with the other knights, or the Princess in the last months.

But it was different when I couldn't trust the penal squad with the guarding duties, or the blue-robed princess and her gladiators. Most of the time, we watched each other's backs instead of our surroundings.

Everyone seemed tense and tired. I don't know how the Sea People planned to integrate all the different races with force when nobody trusted their comrades, and I could have sworn, our numbers kept shrinking even without sustaining losses in a fight.

"Geddu wants me to trust her, but I can barely keep her in check. Do you think some kind of magic could help me with this?" The Princess asked, and no matter how bad I felt for her, the answer eluded me. Besides, the wizards didn’t return since yesterday. Only two scouts did, and the blue-robed royalty made the mistake of sending out her best troops.

Or at the very least, the most loyal ones. Only a few tired veterans from the arena remained, and a dozen foreigners were forced to serve in the penal squad. They also keep their eyes on the two princesses and me, rather than looking out for the dangers.

"I don't know how we could ask for help, your Highness." I shook my head, glancing at the people slowly packing up the camp.

I was sure they'd try to run away or even stab us in the back the first chance they would get, and given how things turned out so far, that chance was already here. Aoi was either completely blind to the situation or confident enough to ignore it and focus only on us.

But she was the last person that would aid Elizabeth. It was written all over her face. I doubted that she ever considered letting us go in the first place, but once it became clear that Gadurien attempted to possess my companion, she acted even more hostile towards her.

It's not like we begged her to send us into the dungeon, and she decided to join this team at the last second. But it seemed like she considered the Princess the biggest threat. Or rather, Gadurien who could wrestle control from Elizabeth at any moment and use her body to wipe us all out. Yes, this seemed likely, but I trusted the Last Princess to hold on to her body longer.

"All right, send out a pair of scouts this time, and make sure they avoid danger and cover each other's backs." The blue-robed leader gave her orders, turning towards the rest of us next. "We will set out in an hour whether they returned or not, and follow the wizard's tracks."

"Did you receive telepathic messages from them?" I asked curiously, hoping she had an actual plan, but she shook her head.

"Nothing since we set up camp, but I can still detect their mana," Aoi explained and pointed in a seemingly random direction. "They left that way after the fairies, and about five miles ahead I detected a strong concentration of mana. They probably went too far ahead and set up camp for the night instead of returning."

It sounded more like wishful thinking than a fact, but she was already hostile towards me, so I didn't want to question it. My only goal was to protect the Princess, and I couldn't tell, how long she would be there. I thought this mission was easy, but I failed time and time again.

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And if I couldn't protect her from every threat in the dungeon, what could I even hope to do against a goddess, who tried to possess her from the inside? As stunning as the landscape was with the lush vegetation and the purple skies, the heavier the atmosphere seemed, now that I suspected Gadurien's plans.

She didn't aid the Princess out of generosity, she knew we could end up where the pact wouldn't restrict her, and carrying the same royal blood she once did, Elizabeth was the perfect candidate to enable her return. What would I do then? I could tell that Aoi planned to kill us both before that happened, but she wasn't the only one plotting her moves.

"How about you girls turn over your valuables now, and let us go in peace?" One of the penal squadron members asked. The others lined up behind him, their sleeping bags neatly packed, holding weapons now.

While the Sea People brought them along as meat shields, they only lost one man so far, thanks to being deemed unfit for the riskier tasks. With the wizards gone, most of our firepower disappeared, and now that the scouts left, only three of the gladiators could face them.

They weren't from Saipole either and did not seem enthusiastic to jump in front of their Aoi Sama and protect her from this mutiny. The blue-robed princess didn't even react to their demands first.

But the situation suddenly changed.

Out of the blue, or rather, from the purple sky, winged creatures dove in on us, and ambushed the rebelling penal squad from behind. Before any of them could make a move, three fell to the ground, and two other was taken into the sky by the enemy. Things happened so fast that we were attacked a second time before I managed to get on my feet.

"Harpies!" One of the veterans yelled, grabbing his bow. His arrows missed by a large margin, and even if they didn't, we seemed to be outnumbered nearly two to one. This included the rebels too, who desperately tried to fight back, but without the backing of the wizards, let alone the blue-robed princess, stood little chance.

Did she know we would be attacked soon? Was it why she ignored the men, preparing to strike back against the dungeon dwellers instead?

She fired a magic missile against the ones that got too close to her, and the expression on her face remained calm, suggesting she knew what she was doing. I had a person to protect too, but these half bird half humanoid creatures seemed to avoid me for some reason.

They carried short swords in their hands, separate limbs from their feathered wings, their skin rough and pale, but their upper body reminded me of human females. Their lower was closer to a bird, with feathers on their legs that ended in large talons. They seemed deadly, especially when they struck from above, but my armor could protect me if it came to that.

They must have known, since they avoided the gladiators with similar gear, and went straight for the unarmored opponents, like the penal squad. They tried to snatch away Elizabeth too, but I scared them away.

Aoi on the other hand needed to use her magic to protect herself, these half-birds must have thought of her as both a dangerous enemy and someone easy to attack since nearly half of them circled over her head. And she took them down with lighting or fire bolts one by one until they all retreated. The entire battle lasted less than a minute, and I was still under their influence when they were long gone.

"W-what the hell was that?" The Princess asked, still lying on the ground. Indeed, if someone were to blink a bit longer than usual, they might have missed the entire strike. "Cath, you all right?"

"I am, Lizzy, what about you?" I glanced around to see the devastation these creatures caused in that few moments. The blue-robed royalty was unscathed but out of breath, and one of the veterans seemed wounded.

The penal squad was not so lucky. Only one was still standing, pale and shaking, his shield shattered into pieces. Half of the men were dead or dying, and the other half were gone: the harpies took them away and banked below the cliff, and out of our sight.

"They didn't come near me." Elizabeth shook her head and jumped up from her sleeping bag. She woke up at last. "What kind of monsters were they? Will they come back?"

"They got what they wanted," Aoi claimed, strolling over to the fallen soldiers. I didn't notice the dagger in her hand until she started using it on the surviving man. I recognized he was the same that announced their rebellion mere moments ago, and now his throat was suddenly slit.

His blood sprayed all over the blue robes, his mouth hanging open, and it seemed like he didn't even realize at first how he got killed after surviving the harpy attack. His body fell over with a thud, then the princess, covered in the man's blood walked over to the rest of them, and finished the job, when needed. The veterans looked at her with the same shocked expression I felt on my face, but none of us moved.

"There, now it has been taken care of." She said it in the end, then hid the dagger under her robes, before casting a convenient spell to get rid of all the blood on her clothes. She looked directly into my eyes. "Do I have to say more, or do you understand, how I handle mutinies?"

"Did you know the harpies will attack?" Elizabeth asked her, looking upset. Yet for a fleeting moment, a satisfied grin spread across her face, before returning to a shocked expression. Her entire body was shaking, her fists clenched. "Did you let them take the lives of your men on purpose?"

"Well, this man demanded to let them go in peace. If the harpies don’t come, I would have just dealt with them myself." Aoi answered cold-livered, kicking the last man's corpse on the ground. "Or do you have any objection against it? I offer the same treatment for everyone."

She looked at the remaining three veterans, and they vehemently shook their heads. The Princess couldn't say anything either.

"Good. Then let's move out, and keep this in mind."