With a light whisper, the sword blades tore through the air and collided with each other. The clang of the collision quickly spread and vanished in the empty arena, and a new round of confrontation immediately began.

Tiran swung his sword horizontally and forced Aya back. Immediately after, he used an unimaginable sword technique to lift his sword, hitting precisely on a weak point in Aya's grip, successfully disarming her.

"Wow... do you have to be so powerful?" Aya rubbed her slightly numb wrist and stuck out her tongue.

Tomorrow they were supposed to set off for the Dark Marsh, and Aya didn't have much to do for the remaining day. So she decided to accompany Tiran in the restorative training - this was the conclusion reached by Li after a preliminary diagnosis. Although the content involved Chi, they would have to wait for Aya to bring back the funds. But regular exercise to maintain combat intuition and hand feel could never be a bad thing.

In terms of swordsmanship alone, Aya still couldn't compare to Tiran. Although Dragon also had some sword techniques used when transformed into a humanoid form, the opportunities for Dragon to use them were really few and far between, so Aya didn't bother learning them seriously.

Thus, it was evident that her overall combat power now surpassed Tiran's by who knows how much, yet she was still disarmed within minutes.

As she went to pick up her sword, Aya was ready to listen to Princess's bragging and perhaps some taunts. However, unusually, this time Tiran didn't say a word, not even a mocking look. Instead, she quietly collected the sword.

Aya quickly washed off the sweat from her body in her room and went to the corridor to see Angel and Chirp. However, she happened to find Tiran standing on the terrace, swinging the sword in her hand up and down.

"What are you doing?" Aya curiously walked over. Although Tiran's usual behavior gave off a rough and non-girl-like feeling, at least in terms of liking cleanliness, she was just like an ordinary girl. It was extremely rare for her to not immediately take a shower after training and be covered in sweat.

"It's nothing!" Hearing Aya's presence, Tiran hurriedly turned around, almost blatantly shaking her head and involuntarily making various small movements, as if afraid that others would detect something wrong.

"What's really going on? You seem a bit off today." Aya approached, rubbing her chin in doubt.

"I told you, there's no problem! Idiot!" Tiran pushed away Aya's approaching face and felt an inexplicable anger. Seriously, how could this guy be so dull!

"Suddenly so impatient?" Aya was somewhat bewildered by the situation.

...

At the same time, in the castle dungeon.

"Lord Justice, how should we handle this?" A squad of guards brought two spies they had just captured into the dungeon and, with a hint of worry and helplessness, asked, "At this rate, the cells won't be able to hold them all by tomorrow."

Justice, still dressed as a steward, also looked slightly troubled as he gazed at the row of nearly exhausted cells beside him. Seriously, although it was a good thing to clear out these rats hidden around the castle, there were just too many of them!

The dungeon of Gilliast Castle was not originally a large-scale prison; it was more like a "standard facility," so to speak. After all, it was not common to have dozens or hundreds of prisoners in the dungeon of a royal castle.

But those two groups outside seemed to have plans to turn Gilliast Castle into a spy concentration camp...

The most troublesome thing is that I can't stop them myself.

It's really annoying. Justice, as the castle steward, feels slightly restless in his heart.

"First, talk to those two teams and ask them to slow down their actions. Then, find someone to notify Lord Alex at the beacon and ask him to send people to transfer the prisoners here to the beacon's prison."

"Yes!"

...

As time passed, the sun gradually moved to the overhead position, and Snow Wolf and the Dark Knights on the outskirts, who were frantically searching for enemies, finally calmed down.

"Hey, wanted criminal, how was your morning's harvest? It looks like you've been beaten up by someone else with that disheveled appearance, right?" Under a momentary oak tree by the road, the female knight Shuma caught a glimpse of Beinrich and his two subordinates walking towards her with a large sword and squinted her eyes provocatively.

Indeed, it was quite disheveled. The other two Snow Wolf mercenaries were fine, but Beinrich, the strongest one, was covered in pitch black from his face to his shoulders. Although he didn't seem to be injured, it was definitely accurate to say he looked dirtied and disheveled.

"Tsk, why did I have to run into this guy?" Beinrich was also a bit annoyed. He casually took the large sword off his shoulder and threw it on the ground, then vigorously slapped off the black dirt on his face.

His luck today was terribly bad. He couldn't find any of the hidden observers in the morning, and when he finally encountered one ten minutes ago, the guy had several flame grenades made by Sainz in his hand. Although Beinrich managed to take him down, he got hit in the face.

Although he wasn't injured thanks to Chi protection, his current appearance was really stupid!

"This reaction... does it mean I guessed right?" Seeing this guy's annoyed expression, the expression on the female knight's face turned into a "v" shape. She took two steps to the side and teasingly asked.

"Boss, your image, your image...," the Dark Knight who was in the same group as Shuma felt that the boss's image within the team was crumbling. No, he definitely couldn't mention this scene.

"Enough nonsense, we caught twenty-seven. How about you? If you have more, just say it!"

"Tw..." Shuma was retorted by a sentence. Okay, the number on their side was about half of the other side. After all, there were only about ten Dark Knights, although their overall strength was stronger than Snow Wolf, but for scouting tasks like this, pure strength didn't matter much.

"Oh, little knight girl, looks like you can't beat us, huh?" Beinrich noticed Shuma's reaction and a smile appeared on his blackened face from the explosion. He started to retaliate.

"Enough... enough nonsense!" Shuma stared fiercely, but she was helpless too. Mentioning the number of people at this moment would only make this guy think she was making excuses.

"So, there's no need to compare numbers like this, it just makes everyone unhappy."

Beinrich spread his hands, moved slightly towards the shadows of the trees, and comfortably leaned against a sturdy tree trunk. He took out a clean cloth bag from his pocket and, when he opened it, there were several pieces of jerky neatly wrapped in a bun. He took a bite forcefully and shook it towards Shuma, "It's already noon, want to take a break and eat something? If you don't have food, I can share some with you."

Shuma stared at him for a while, snorted, and sat down under the shade of the tree with her subordinate knights. She directly took out a picnic basket from the magitech storage device hanging from her belt, like performing magic, and brought out various fresh foods that were still emitting steam.

— After all, they were elite knights enjoying national treatment. The treatment of the Dark Knights was higher, not lower, compared to the Cross Knights on the surface. It was not a big deal to have a storage magitech device.

However, the gap between the two can be said to be quite huge, and Beinrich suddenly felt his pride hurt. Damn, what are you so proud of! At least I made a lot of money from Sainz's competition! I'll give some to my subordinates when I go back...

Well, maybe I can't afford to give each of them one, even the lowest quality space storage equipment costs at least five digits, which is enough for a bounty on an A-level mission.

"Wipe your saliva off, don't embarrass yourself."

Beinrich wordlessly slapped a mercenary, he really had no self-control, staring at food and drooling. If he was staring at a beauty, I might have watched with him...

"Hey, boss, it's not my fault, the difference in food is too big on both sides, right?"

"If your boss is willing to admit defeat, I don't mind sharing some with you, Mimi has done a lot anyway." Shuma leisurely bit into a sandwich, gently licking off a bit of sauce on his lips.

"You...!" Beinrich was speechless towards the knight girl. How much do you want to win... No, it's better to say that she simply doesn't like me, she's so childish.

"Captain..."

"Shut up, if you can't handle it, just leave the group."

- It's as if you can handle it yourself.

"A woman who can't even cook for herself won't find a good husband in the future."

Beinrich rolled his eyes and suddenly felt a gaze full of killing intent.

"You... bastard! Let's duel!" The knight girl's eyes were enough to kill, and with a swish, the sword was unsheathed, swirling wind around the blade.

...

Boom...

Listening to the explosions echoing outside the castle in the wilderness, Mimi put down the cloth she was using to wipe the glass and looked into the distance.

"Here we go again... How many times is it in the past two days?"

"The sixteenth time," came the annoying voice from behind.

"Why are you here again?" Mimi's expression instantly turned cloudy, huh, she didn't even need to turn her head to know it was that Angel again.

These past few days, she didn't know if the girl was acting strange or what, but she kept finding excuses to be near her. If she was sweeping the floor, the Angel would sweep the floor too. If she was cleaning the attic, the Angel would also clean the attic... Not only did she not help, she caused a lot of trouble and doubled Mimi's workload.

Setting aside the grudge between Demon and Angel, Mimi felt that she would dislike her even more because of this.

"...What's it to you, demon."

"You, do you still want to fight?" Even though Tiran had repeatedly warned her, Mimi felt that she might still lose control.

"...No, I'm leaving." Angel turned decisively, leaving Mimi a bit confused.

Damn it, if it wasn't for Aya-senpai promising to take her to a better restaurant when she comes back, as long as she gets on good terms with the demon before she returns... Angel's heart was full of resentment.