If there was a chance to turn the tide, Katyusha would definitely fight to the bitter end;

That also explained why the Grand Duchess hadn’t chosen to retreat as soon as her army fell apart.

But now, with one hand broken, Katyusha clearly understood:

She couldn’t win!

Her opponent seemed capable of killing both her and Ledux with just one hand!

There was no point in continuing a battle they were bound to lose. This wasn’t the time to worry about any other losses.

Katyusha made the wisest decision she’d made since the war began:

Get out of there as fast as she could, before she and Ledux lost their lives.

She took out the precious teleportation scroll and activated this one-of-a-kind treasure. A teleportation gate to the Duchy of Mesé appeared before her.

“Go!”

There was no time for Katyusha to urge him a second time.

Ledux caught the look she gave him. With his one remaining arm, he clenched his fist; the words I’m not giving up seemed etched across his face.

As the one being kept, he’d actually lost nothing but the arm just now.

That was because Ledux had already lost everything that belonged to him on the day he lost to Wang Xiaole.

The contrast between losing everything and having it all made him want revenge more than once.

He’d stayed in the Duchy of Mesé for so long and appeared on the battlefield as “the Grand Duchess’s lover” so he could use another country’s power to clear the obstacles in his way.

He’d thought today would be the day his efforts paid off. He’d never imagined that after a single battle, he’d lose even more than he’d had before.

He was still bitter, but he hadn’t completely lost his reason.

Even though he disliked the Grand Duchess, he understood that her decision was absolutely right at that moment.

After all, he could only accomplish anything as long as he was alive.

“Let’s go...”

A long sigh became a single word, and Ledux followed behind Katyusha.

“Hmm. Romance, huh?”

Charley picked up on something between her two opponents.

Perhaps because something hadn’t gone the way she wanted, she now felt even worse just looking at the two across from her, though she hadn’t disliked that word before.

She hadn’t planned to waste any more time on the weak.

But when someone annoyed her, wasting time on them could be necessary.

She could leave the humans aside for now. Charley’s killing intent was focused on the demon who irritated her so much.

Life and death were decided in an instant.

After Katyusha stepped into the teleportation gate, Ledux followed close behind. Just as he was about to enter, a whip came lashing toward him from the side.

He reacted quickly, raising a mana barrier in front of himself in the blink of an eye.

But...

His offense and defense meant nothing to his opponent. Breaking through them with a weapon was easy.

The whip, like a serpent’s jaws, coiled forward and struck. Its venomous fangs seemed to bite down in an instant, tearing away a chunk of Ledux’s flesh.

The whip pierced his body, leaving another bloody hole. A thin stream of blood ran from it to the ground.

After that blow, Ledux staggered.

But he endured the pain threatening to knock him unconscious, darted forward, and threw himself into the gate as soon as he reached the entrance.

The moment the teleportation gate closed, the whip shattered the fading light. Charley felt a little disappointed.

A penetrating wound was likely to kill a human.

But demons had astonishing vitality, just like their ability to heal. So there was better than a forty-percent chance Ledux wouldn’t die.

Even if he survived by sheer luck, the wound would keep him out of trouble for a long time!

Besides, even if Ledux didn’t die, he couldn’t pose a threat to Charley.

Not just him—the Grand Duchess and the duchy’s soldiers were all far too weak.

Charley hadn’t even lost a single hair. Even by the strictest standards, she was “completely unscathed.”

Not long after she ended the war in one astonishingly swift stroke, a thunderous cheer erupted from the army in the rear.

The Duchy of Murin had been saved. The enemy had driven them deep into the royal city, and they hadn’t exactly put on a good show today, but a win was a win.

Sometimes, the only thing it took to earn the honors of a victor was to step forward and stand on the front lines, knowing you might die.

These soldiers, though not strong fighters, hadn’t turned their backs on the enemy and fled. They hadn’t hidden away to save themselves.

Because they’d stood their ground, they could now feel genuine joy.

Even if they were no more than nameless extras—not even side characters—they’d surely be recorded as heroes in the duchy’s histories from now on.

Victory belonged to Charley, to Qiuyan, and to all of them—the soldiers of Murin!

There was only one person who had no right to stand here.

That person arrived just then and headed straight for Charley the moment he showed up.

When his life was on the line, the king could make sure no one saw him.

But as soon as things took a turn for the better, he’d suddenly appear like a gust of wind, without anyone having to call for him.

“Mighty young lady, which country are you from? If you don’t mind, please tell me. I’ll repay you for saving my life someday.”

As the king said this, he was thinking something entirely different.

He was only making polite conversation. There was no way he’d hand out his own share of the royal treasury to anyone.

If Charley actually asked for a reward, the king wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

For example, it might go something like this:

“A reward? Sure! Hand over half your wealth!”

The king had only been making polite conversation with Charley. He hadn’t expected her to show him the slightest courtesy in return.

Half his wealth was no small amount.

Murin might only be a duchy, but its king was a greedy man.

After ascending the throne, he’d spent decades amassing a vast fortune.

He was now even wealthier than some kings.

But the richer he was, the more there was to lose—and it certainly wouldn’t be a small sum.

“Miss, isn’t half a little too much? The country needs to be rebuilt after the war, and many of the people need financial support.”

The king tried to get Charley to lower her demands. He offered a reasonable excuse, even dragging ordinary people into it.

He thought that after saying all that, especially in front of so many soldiers, she’d be too embarrassed to make another outrageous demand.

He’d underestimated Charley. She simply said:

“Three-fifths.”

“What?”

The king had heard her clearly. He just couldn’t quite make sense of it.

Charley then delivered the bad news:

“From this moment on, every time you say another word, I’ll take an even bigger share of your wealth!”

“H-How can you do this? It’s not getting smaller—it keeps getting bigger!”

“Four-fifths!”

“Wait, wait! Can’t we negotiate? At least stop raising the price...”

“Four and a half fifths!”

“Stop, stop! I’ll pay! I’ll give you every bit of the money you asked for—please, just stop making my assets shrink!”

The king was just short of dropping to his knees and begging. He seemed to give up and stopped resisting, letting Charley take the solid-gold key to the treasury.

He didn’t dare refuse. Otherwise, the fallen soldiers of the Duchy of Mesé would be a grim preview of what would happen to him next.

He’d finally figured it out:

The girl in front of him wasn’t a good person. She was far worse than those invaders!

It was easy to understand why he’d come to that conclusion.

The king had suffered a crushing loss. What began as losing fifty percent of his wealth had become a miserable outcome in which the other woman had taken ninety percent of everything he owned.

The soldiers were delighted by the king’s misfortune.

Most of the king’s wealth had come from squeezing the people dry. No one felt sorry to see him lose it.

Of course, that wasn’t the most important reason.

The main reason the soldiers could watch without getting involved was that...

they weren’t the ones who’d just gotten unlucky.

There was nothing more comfortable than watching the show!

Leaving the amused soldiers and distressed king aside, Charley soon fixed her gaze on Qiuyan.

“Take this.”

The moment Qiuyan realized what was happening, Charley was standing right in front of her.

Charley grabbed one of Qiuyan’s hands, pried it open, and placed the golden key in her palm.

“I don’t need it...”

For a maid, the only person she should ever have too much contact with was her current master.

If it was a former master, accepting their kindness was awkward.

But Qiuyan had misunderstood. Charley meant well, but it had nothing to do with herself.

To keep the maid from spending the money recklessly, Charley decided to make things clear from the start:

“Get this straight: it’s not for you! If Xiaole ever needs money while he’s out somewhere, for whatever reason, open the treasury and take some for him.”

Charley didn’t want Qiuyan to tell the person in question about this.

She thought it might change the relationship between the two of them in a bad way.

“I’ll do that. He’s my contracted master, and he won’t go around blabbing about it.”

That was exactly what Charley wanted to hear.

After that, she lost all interest in staying in the royal capital. She turned around at once and walked toward the city gate without looking back.

Qiuyan was curious about where she was going, so she asked:

“Where’s my former master going?”

“None of your business!”

Charley tossed back an answer and disappeared from Qiuyan’s sight. She was still as headstrong as ever.

Before Qiuyan and the others even noticed, the tide of war had shifted.

The royal city was the first place where the battle turned around. From here on, the Inran side would steadily collapse.

Next was the location of Dibiles’s main force......