“Medith… are you truly the sprite maidens rumor paints?” Gulo breathed out like frost easing at dawn, then slid his sword into its scabbard.

“The genuine article, sir.” Medith lowered her blade like a setting lamp and greeted them.

After some talk, Medith pieced it together like stars joining a constellation.

Gulo belonged to a mercenary order on the continent, a small branch of the Radiant Knights, a silver bough on a larger tree.

He had stumbled upon a lost girl named Nicola, a stray candle in storm-dark streets.

She was the daughter of Tobyers, duke of the Northern Kingdom; he meant to escort her home, a caravan threading winter fields.

Midway, they met the Southern Kingdom’s vassal Liberty Army, banners rising like a red tide against stone.

Their leader, Gaulde, recognized Nicola, and that’s why this pageant of steel and dust unfolded.

Medith’s mood clouded, her face a still pond with ripples; she had no fondness for such factions, carrion crows circling a battlefield.

They felt like fortune-hunters feeding off wildfire and ruin, yet this group didn’t smell of ash and greed; even Medith, iron-steady, couldn’t judge right or wrong in the moment.

“General, I know you hold a bias against us,” Gulo said, reverence bright as a beacon, “but I joined from inspiration and scars, not coin alone.”

“We may be a war-mercenary outfit, yet we keep lines we won’t cross, oaths hammered like iron; else the world wouldn’t call us ‘Knights’.”

“When a mercenary band is hailed as Knights, that’s a rare purity, like snow that doesn’t take soot.”

“Then why still call yourselves a war-mercenary group?” Lina asked, doubt a cold wind threading tall grass.

“That’s the old name,” Gulo answered, voice steady as a drum. “Back then, the war years were fire and hail, and soldiers were always scarce.”

“Mercenary bands rose like seedlings in burned fields, chasing coin, taking any war-call, fame climbing while their name rotted.”

“When the wars ended, peace stretched long like a quiet river under moonlight.”

“Under the press of kingdoms and the turning of times, mercenary bands waned, splitting into two schools—us, and them—two roads in one forest.”

“It’s tangled, more briar than path; I can’t clear it fast. We’ve a duty burning now. So long as the child stays lost, the duke sleeps on thorns.”

Medith watched the timid girl tucked behind Gulo’s backplate, a fawn under a pine’s shadow, and felt respect rise like warm breeze. “Then let us travel together. We’ve no set destination, only open sky.”

“Thank you, General,” Gulo replied, kindness like clean water, “but the ties here are knotted. We act free, with little to lose.”

“Better you stay clear of our thickets. And even aimless travelers carry a star to follow, don’t they?”

Melia eyed the men in silver-white armor, a moonlit line of shields, and smiled; perhaps humans weren’t all storm and thorn.

“Yes… I—I want to find the Divine Stone,” Medith said, desire flaring like a north star bright in winter glass.

Gulo and his men didn’t startle; they only nodded, as if hearing an old bell. The Divine Stone was rarer than diamond, a mountain heart with uses bright as dawn.

The four largest slept inside the four kingdoms, true, yet even the lesser fragments were priceless, sparks all hands craved.

Every nation quietly hunted them like fishermen before dawn; wars had bloomed from that chase like black flowers.

No wonder mercenary orders spread fast across a century, branches and outposts sprouting across the whole continent.

“General, we owe you,” Gulo said, gratitude a steady flame. “We pried a map from the mouths of Mountain Bandits, marks scratched like wolf-signs.”

“Those marks point to treasure or Divine Stone sites, rivers to gold or to prayer.”

“We aren’t them; treasure weighs light to us. The Divine Stone tempts like a siren, but you need it more.”

“Please take it.” He offered a parchment map like a shed snakeskin, careful as if handing a newborn flame.

“Them?” Sais caught the word like a hawk snagging a ribbon, eyes narrowing with a hunter’s focus.

“How could we… that’s too generous!” Iling said, yet her eyes shone like polished amber under sun.

Rita pinched Iling, a quick flick like a sparrow’s peck, signaling restraint with a sister’s glare.

“This… this is truly what I need,” Medith said, joy rising like spring thaw; refusing kindness would be foolish as kicking away a rope on a cliff. “I’ll accept it.”

“Mm…” Nicola peeked from behind Gulo’s broad backplate, a half-moon of face and gold eyes locked on Medith’s headpiece, curious as a cat at a pendulum.

Medith noticed and touched her golden headpiece, a sun-disc catching late light. “Sorry, Nicola. Not stingy—this is tactical gear, a tool, not a trinket.”

“Eh?! Mm…” Nicola saw Medith’s gaze and ducked back like a fish beneath lily pads, hiding herself fully behind iron.

“Hahaha…” Laughter rose among them like sparrows bursting from a cedar, gentle and bright.

“Well then, we’ll take our leave.” Gulo and his men shouldered their gear, a line of steel moving like a river.

Medith and her companions mounted up, nodding like reeds that bend but don’t break.

“Oh, right.” Medith remembered and flicked a black-iron badge of the Crimson Sun to Gulo; he caught it instinctively, eyes weighing it like a stone from a sacred stream.

“Don’t stare too hard—it’s iron, won’t buy you much,” Medith joked, voice warm as ember. “But flash it at the right faces, and doors open like dawn petals.”

“Thank you, General. May our roads meet again.” Gulo stowed the badge, led spare horses heavy with food and water, set Nicola on a saddle, and headed north like geese flying true.

“Let’s see… mm… we’ll go this way. Sass City as our first layover,” Medith decided, sharp as thunder, “and we’ll check those marked sites along the way.”

They followed the map northeast, laughter and bickering rippling like sun across water, stops and starts like gusts on a trail, until a valley opened, green as a bowl of jade.

They took the side path to the mark, a secret stitched into rock and moss, and found a waterfall vast as a curtain dropped from the sky.

It fell a hundred meters or more, a white dragon roaring down; water slammed the ground with sharp slaps, echoing like drumbeats.

“Wahaha—” The Lita Sisters were quicksilver, boots kicked off, clothes peeled like leaves, and they dove in gleaming as fish.

“Yaaah—it’s freezing—hahaha—” The shout rang like bells splashed in mountain snow.

“Ya-ho-ho-ho!” Rita waded in; the water rose to her chest, swallowing her curves like fog taking hills, and she flung sheets of spray at her sister.

They tussled and swam, play blooming like wildflowers, tugging Melia’s heart into mischief; she laughed and leapt in with them, a comet into the pool.

Iling giggled bright as chimes and joined the “bathing” brigade, steam and joy lifting like morning mist.

“You all—though it’s dusk, you—ya… ya—” Medith began to scold, but Sais shoved her with a grin like a fox at the henhouse, plunging her into cold silver.

Sais stripped with a wicked smile, moonlight on bare skin, and pressed Medith beneath the water, bubbles storming like shaken pearls.

Medith thrashed once, then flipped the grip, her hand a steel hook, and pinned Sais down into the splash and froth.

She flung off her soaked uniform, fabric clinging like seaweed, and Sais slid behind her, arms wrapping warm as a blanket, pushing for rough play.

Young Sais laughed, bright and careless as a summer swallow, never feeling the shadow pooling behind the falls, the seriousness gathering like thunder beyond the ridge.