“Now, explode!”

Ritzy took a stance and pointed toward the skull with a mage-like gesture. His words and actions caused everyone in the square to react. Explosions could be dangerous, after all.

The people closest to the stage hurried to try turning around and fleeing. But a solid mass of other people blocked their way, so they could only cover their heads with their arms and crouch down. So, most people did that or screamed as loudly as they could.

The guards, whose mission was to protect Michmond, naturally did just that. They hurried to create a wall of armor between their protective target and the possible source of the explosion before they started shuttling away the noble, who still hadn’t figured out what was going on.

Michmond was about to question the guards about what they were doing since them acting so roughly and grabbing him like that was almost painful. But he realized what it was Ritzy had shouted and got a frightful expression on his face, and he began dragging on the guards and pulling them behind him in an attempt to get away faster.

Michmond’s actions were mostly useless, of course, but that didn’t make the guards feel any better, especially not the two guards who had been the furthest away and ended up in the back of the protective convoy. That also meant that they were the closest to the skull that Ritzy told to explode.

But they couldn’t give up on their mission when they had both sworn an oath and gotten paid, so all the knights did their best to make sure that Michmond would survive unscathed.

Most of the guards were so focused on getting Michmond away from the explosion that they didn’t quite notice how many seconds they had gotten to accomplish their mission. Only the two guards who had been tasked with holding down Gerhart and executing him and who had ended up a little distracted due to their dissatisfaction with their employer’s son noticed that the skull didn’t even show any signs of exploding.

One of them looked backward at the spot where Ritzy stood and noticed that he was no longer there.

“It’s a trick! He’s going-”

Before the guard could say any more, a white mass entered his vision out of the corner of his eye. Just as quickly, his vision turned completely black as the bone club slammed into his helmet and knocked the dented visor down.

The guard reflexively raised his hand to try and fix the visor so that he could defend himself against Talia. But before he could do that, the club came down on his head and knocked him unconscious.

By now, the other guards had heard the first guards shout and noticed Talia smacking him twice with an ominous bone club. They split up into two groups, one to defend Michmond and the other to subdue Talia.

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“I want her head!”

When he realized that he had been tricked, bamboozled, and spooked, Michmond’s fear turned into indignation and anger. And since Talia showed up out of nowhere and attacked his guards, she became a target for that anger.

“Was there something wrong with the one Ritzy gave you?”

“Shut up! Die!”

Michmond, despite shouting threats, wasn’t very threatening as he cowered behind his guards after facing Talia’s glare.

Unfortunately, Talia didn’t have the leeway to continue taunting Michmond due to the guards cornering her until she couldn’t step back any longer due to the stage being in the way.

“How’s it going, Ritzy?!”

Talia didn’t even dare to throw a glance up at the stage to see how Ritzy was doing in case one of the guards decided to charge.

“Uh, this stupid axe is too heavy! I don’t think we can take it with us.”

“Don’t go for the axe, you stupid idiot! Grab a knife and cut these ropes, Rit!”

“Wow, you’re quite lively for being on the chopping block, Gerry.”

Ritzy, totally not because of Gerhart’s words, gave up on the axe and grabbed a knife from his bag.

“Hey! That’s my knife!”

Ritzy stopped unsheathing the knife and looked toward Talia.

“Talia, I think we were too late. Gerry’s already dead, unfortunately.”

“Fuck you, Rit. Fine, it’s your knife, now cut me loose. Talia has to get out of there.”

“Nevermind, Talia. It’s all good. We’re almost done here.”

Ritzy skipped over to Gerhart and began cutting the ropes tying his arms, legs, and head.

Talia couldn’t even answer since she was busy defending against the knight’s swords.

Since the knights had the absolute advantage, despite Talia’s bone club being effective against their armor, they charged toward her. She had been the one to knock out one of their own, so even if Ritzy was saving Gerhart, the person they had arrested, Talia was still the primary target. She was also blocking their path toward the stage.

The knights could go around her and climb up the stage to get to Ritzy, but since Talia could apparently defend against the knights and their swords all on her own, they didn’t want to lose necessary manpower and number advantage.

Besides, even if Talia was surprisingly skilled at combat, and the bone club didn’t break, even under the siege of a handful of sword strikes from trained knights, there was no way a young woman, borderline girl, could endure the knights’ assault for much longer.

Fortunately for Talia, she didn’t have to do it alone for much longer. Ritzy and Gerhart were coming to help her any moment now.

Talia flinched as a sword nicked her arm and drew blood the first time it happened. But she quickly got used to it since it happened again. Her legs grew a little unsteady after they also began taking damage. Thankfully, she had the stage to lean on. But she couldn’t help but get a little worried.

She had let herself get cornered since she was sure that Ritzy and Gerhart would help her out after Ritzy saved Gerhart. But since they hadn’t come yet, despite Ritzy’s claim that things were going well-

“Fuck.”

Talia realized that it was Ritzy who had said things were ‘all good.’