"Commander, why do I feel like you and Sister Sais are hiding something from us?" Phiby asked, eyes clear as a mountain spring.
Milia and Iling didn’t bat an eye; they’d seen it coming like clouds before rain. They knew the Queen’s style best: what she fancies meets two ends—claimed or crushed. Medith thought she’d kept it hidden; truth was, the hall was wide awake, and she alone was drunk on wishful thinking.
"Your Sister Sais is noble and deadly; what can I do? I’m the weak one here," Medith forced a smile, like frost painted on lips.
Phiby tilted her head, puzzled like a fawn in mist, but Medith’s head‑pat disarmed her doubts with the gentleness of a falling leaf.
"Commander, do you remember what you told us yesterday, words like marks on a blade?" Milia asked, eyes on the Dike Guard already arrayed ahead like spears in a rack.
"You four, stick to my shadow. Melia and the Lita Sisters hold the city, just in case." Medith didn’t really remember, but the shape of it drifted back like a half‑seen moon.
"No. I muscled my way in," Sais cut her off, sharp as a north wind. "With your two‑bit skills, one fierce foe and you’re face‑down in a heartbeat."
Medith had no comeback; her mana was labeled A+, but the edge of it stayed fogged. She didn’t even know her floor, like stepping in fog. Worse, the swordplay she once drove with muscle now dragged like chains, since every cut demanded mana. It was like asking a swordsman to fight with a kitchen knife. The motions matched, yet the spirit and bite had bled away like color in rain.
"Damn it. Is there a way to burn mana off and turn it into raw strength?" Medith muttered, voice low as wind through needles. Mana didn’t fit her bones. A shifting limit on a battlefield was a cliff edge in fog. She had no time to test margins or tame that tide.
Damn that author—must’ve had his brains kicked by a stray dog—shoved in some half‑baked mechanics that make me want to flip the table.
"Commander Medith, are you ready to depart?" Haidra was already astride, steel glinting like winter sun. Medith spotted several white chargers waiting, their breath like pale clouds, clearly set aside for them.
Medith looked back, like a swallow turning on the wing. Melia and Linalita had brought the crowd to see them off, a river of faces at the gate. Even the Queen hurried out, skirts trailing like a midnight tide. They swung into the saddles, traded farewells like tossed petals, and rode onto the kingdom’s road.
As she left, Medith caught the Queen’s lingering gaze, soft as dusk hanging on a window eave.
...
In the center of black‑clad iron riders, several women sprites on white horses shone like moonlight on coal. Along the road, Medith passed ruts and scorched groves, each scar tugging loose a skein of memories.
"That day, I spread a net across heaven and earth here," Medith said, voice carrying a grit of self‑blame. "But we ignored a path we’d marked as a dead end, and the choice went wrong. If not for that, we might’ve kept them penned inside the Glimmering Green Forest..." She should’ve thought further, like tracing a river to its source. This was the lesson: guard even against the unlikely, or the one time it happens, the cut goes to the bone.
Haidra stared at the foothills, where groves lay like sheets of charcoal, then at the main road etched with blade and spear. She hadn’t fought that war, yet the scene sketched itself in blood and smoke. A faint iron tang still hung in places. Even a veteran like her felt the ground shiver under memory.
"That day... you really hunted thousands of Mountain Bandits alone?" Haidra let the question fly like an arrow loosed on instinct.
"Not alone, strictly," Medith answered, light as if naming the weather. "I led over a thousand in the chase. I did most of the killing, yes. A few dozen slipped the noose. At the end they rushed the wildfire like moths to a flame, and somehow a few dozen punched through."
The riders around her let out a low breath, like wind easing past pine. Medith made it sound simple, but they knew how hard killing was, as hard as cutting bone. Even now, few could claim they’d strike without a blink, like a stone falling true.
From her words, she felt like a hell‑god on a storm throne. Those men knew the fire meant death, yet they crossed it. They’d rather be ash than meet Medith’s eyes again.
Haidra’s mouth fell open, a small gate in a stone wall. In the saddle, she recalled a poem that had been drifting through campfires lately:
Moonlit night, blossoms fall; the world holds its breath.
A devil slips into the woods, blade leveled at Sacred Spirit Peak.
In the Holy City they meet the Green Sprite; blood spatters the Spirit’s river.
Better to cross a sea of fire than behold one green leaf.
Back then, she’d thought the last line was wild talk—rather dash into fire than glance at the Green Sprites. She’d blamed it on Wind Sprites puffing the tale.
Today, riding through that forest, she learned it was all true. The poem was reportage in rhyme, carved in bark, not a scrap of exaggeration.
"You... what kind of devil are you..." The words slipped from Haidra like water from a cracked jug. She caught herself, like a hand snatching a falling cup. "Forgive me, Commander. I didn’t mean—"
"It’s fine," Medith said, her tone flat as a still lake. "You’re right. I am a devil. I’ve always believed this: humans are the demons, and to beat demons, aside from gods, only devils will do. If I must, I’ll become that devil, and cut away every tender thread of being human. Only then can I hold the roof over my home against the storm."
Haidra and Kailon stared, mouths silenced by wind. Sais, too, watched Medith in disbelief, and something like reverence rose in her chest like a lantern lighting. She saw the sorrow in Medith’s face, its autumn hue, and felt a sharp tug at her heartstrings. Medith was the most wretched of them, a candle burning at both ends. For their sake she had smothered her humanity, smothered her woman’s nature, almost smothered her very name.
"Medith... why didn’t you ever tell me this?" Sais bit her red lip, anger and hurt braided like rain and thunder.
From the saddle, Medith looked toward the foothills, as if weighing a distant roll of thunder. "Because... devils don’t deserve a sprite’s forgiveness."
