Talos Continent, Year 995, August 31, 7:07 a.m. After a night-long clash, the outskirts of Xurenxus City lay like broken bones, a wasteland of toppled stone. Corpses lined the outer road like a grim river, while white-robed Prophets and the Queen stitched earth and shattered wards like mending torn silk.

“Your servant kneels, Your Majesty.” Blood-soaked, Milia fell to her knees before Queen Laxis. Laxis paused her healing, turned like a moon over still water. “Rise. Report our losses.”

Milia stood, words caught like thorns in her throat, then sealed her lips. “Speak plain. Don’t guard my feelings,” Laxis said, reading her heart like wind through reeds.

“Yes.” Milia’s eyes dimmed, like lamps under frost. “The outer city suffered worst—this was the Mountain Bandits’ main field. Under Captain Medith’s command they couldn’t break deep. We have D‑rank Sprites dead: 1,387; C‑rank: 567; B‑rank: 57... this is only a provisional tally. The truth may be far heavier.”

“I know. Stand down and rest. You all earned great merit. Wait for the summons and reward.” Queen Laxis turned back to her weave, her hands like needles over wounded land.

Milia answered softly, then followed Melia and the others out of the outer gates, footsteps like scattered leaves.

The Prophets saw the tears on Laxis’s face like rain on jade, and sighed deep, a tide pulled by grief.

“Captain... we counted the Mountain Bandit corpses. Of the two thousand who fled, 1,956 lie here. The rest charged through the forest fire and vanished into their old caves. Should we...”

“No.” Medith crouched by the river, washing her face like cooling iron. “I warned them. Let them run and carry word. Let every bandit on the continent know what happened today.”

“Yes...” The Sprite remembered the scene before dawn, a wound still warm. “Get lost! If any of you manage to run, tell the whole continent this: green‑clad Sprites are not pets!”

Medith gripped a severed dog head like a demon out of hell, eyes red as coals, facing the path ahead already aflame—a narrow forest track turned pyre by Tinifen’s and Koya’s bodies. The bandits heard Medith’s voice and looked back, fear like ice in their marrow.

They saw her blood-smeared face, those blood-red eyes, the dog head swinging like a curse. Panic cracked them. They threw themselves into the fire like moths into a star, willing to cross a sea of flame rather than meet Medith’s gaze, or the green Sprites, even once more.

Dawn finally broke. Through that night, Medith and her people held like a cliff against waves. What greeted them wasn’t endless dark, but warm, gentling sun. Medith watched that familiar rim lift over the land—and the world went black, her mind dropping like a stone into deep water.

“You lost!”

“No! I haven’t lost! As long as I’ve got breath, I haven’t!”

“Why... why!”

[Because everything was decided long ago.]

“Ah...” A splitting ache dragged Medith up from the void, pain like an axe cleaving skull. “Why... do these things keep appearing lately?” She pressed her temples, eyes unfocused, chasing the shreds of the vision.

A black Reaper stood there, the shape a twin to the one who killed her, the same line falling like frost: “You lost.” The will behind it felt winter-cold, iron-cruel.

But it wasn’t her dying now. It was a girl and a boy. The girl closed her eyes as if she’d read the script, and the long spear pushed through her tender body like a nail through silk. The boy’s despair mirrored hers perfectly, two faces in one broken mirror.

Ever since Nessos’s corpse sent up that white pillar of light, Medith felt hounded by omens and voices, as if the sky kept whispering. “Am I me, or am I Medith...” She stared at those familiar yet strange jade hands, lost in the echo.

“Ah!” Melia came in with warm water and a towel. Seeing Medith awake, she dropped the basin, water splashing her legs like quick rain, and didn’t even blink.

“Medith—” Melia rushed in and buried Medith in her chest like a smothering cloud. “You finally woke! I thought... I thought...” Her voice broke, tears like beads sliding off a string.

“Mmff—” Medith, smothered by soft doom, couldn’t breathe. She shoved at Melia’s chest with both hands like pushing a boulder. “Yah—” Melia jolted back, hands over her chest. “What are you doing? Sneak attack?”

“Hah... hah...” Medith sucked air greedily, lungs like bellows. “You! Do you know those two lumps almost killed me!”

“What do you mean two lumps? You’ve got some too.”

“Alright, enough. Not gonna bicker.” Medith glanced at the calendar on the wall, its pages like fallen leaves. Someone had flipped it; the ‘6’ was circled like a red sun. “How long was I out?”

“As you see, a full week.” Melia’s tone was relieved, like doors opening. “Postwar cleanup just wrapped. I bet the Queen summons us for reward tomorrow.”

“Reward...” The word fell dull, like a coin on cold stone. Medith couldn’t feel joy. “How many did we lose?”

Melia’s eyes dimmed, silence settling like ash. Before she spoke, Milia and the others rushed in, arms like nets, hugging Medith and flooding her with questions.

Medith calmed them with a hand like steady wind, then brought them back. “About what I asked—how many died in the Mountain Bandits’ siege?”

“Uh... numbers finalized yesterday...” Milia took the role, voice steady as a ledger. “Deaths this event: D‑rank Sprites, 5,387; C‑rank, 1,349; B‑rank, 235; A‑rank, 15.

Total, 6,986 Sprites. Those are combat deaths. Non‑combat Sprites withdrew in time, and you blocked their push to the maximum. Otherwise...”

The air went heavy at once, grief like a wet cloak. “Those D‑ranks had it worst,” Lina said, shaking her head like a willow in wind. “They could barely hold a sword, let alone stop those desperados.”

They sighed as one, one breath carrying ten thousand words, all their feelings poured into a single exhale, like tea bitter and warm on the tongue. No one knew better than them what it would look like if everyone had trained under Medith.

“Besides that...” Medith’s eyes narrowed, curiosity like a blade’s light. “What did we gain? This war left far too many riddles.”

“We did! And the haul’s huge!” Iling’s eyes lit like twin stars. A shallow scar sat over her left eye like a crescent; she’d taken her share of hits. “We seized their weapons. Stuff straight from the compendium—[Silver Crossbow], [Siege Ladder], [Gate‑Bane]—plus all kinds of gear. The elders praised the craftsmanship, said it’s sharp as winter.

Most crucial, we found an anti‑magic substance called [Regido]. The Mountain Bandits dared storm our walls because of it.”