“Medith, this—” Sais sat cross-legged in her nightgown at the inn, and fear spiked like ice when Medith walked in with a face of blood.

“Yah—” Peggy yelped, and the basin for her foot soak tipped, water shattering across the floor like a fallen moon.

Medith said nothing. She drew a basin and rinsed the gore from her face, steady as rain washing iron.

...

“What kind of guild is that? They act like a cult…” The Lita Sisters hugged themselves, shivering like reeds in a night wind, horrified by what they’d seen.

“Not clear,” Medith said, voice flat as a covered blade. “Their creed’s a world apart from ours. Best to walk as if on thin ice.”

Melia’s willow-curved brows drew tight, a shadow across still water. “How strong are they, in your eyes now?”

Medith gestured at Sais’s ponytail. “There’s a blonde with a long ponytail, Cecilia. Her control over Regido is hair-fine. She can choose how far to transform, and what to gain.”

“A man called Jade. Unknown type. He wears a fanged demon mask. In combat sense, he’s only a step below me.”

“There’s also a two-meter-tall giant. In raw strength, he may not be beneath me.”

“The other two aren’t weaker than Sais.”

“Their Vice Guildmaster Gus has little schemes, likely the strategist to their Guildmaster Gill.”

“Whether they’ve got more forces hidden, unknown.” Her words fell like pebbles into a deep well.

The women drew in a cold breath, a winter draft through thin paper. Each of those people, in one aspect of power, nearly matched Medith—and even without invoking Magic Breaker, she stands among the continent’s best.

If those few swarmed together, they’d beat on her like waves on a lone cliff.

“But for now, we have a truce,” Medith said, calm as dusk settling. “Call it resolved. This place isn’t safe to linger. We leave for the city in two days.”

They nodded, blew out the candle, and darkness pooled like ink. They slept, pressed together like sparrows seeking warmth.

....

February 13, somewhere in the Southern Kingdom…

“Lord Andrew, Baron Gauld’s team has returned, only…”

“Speak.” A stern man in his thirties stood atop a high tower, gaze on the far grassland like a hawk riding wind.

“Near the Free Dominion—Sass City—Baron Gauld encountered the Northern Kingdom duke, the Golden Knight Tobyers’ daughter, Nicola. He meant to deliver her to you.”

“But he ran into the entire top brass of the Dusk Legion, lost the fight, and was crushed.”

“The Dusk Legion? That Medith who startled even the Emperor?” Andrew turned back, eyes like pale ice on the scout.

“Yes. Her pride is sky-high. She trampled our faith into mud, and bragged she’d plant the Dusk banner atop the Emperor’s Divine Temple,” the scout said, anger burning like dry straw.

“Heh?” Andrew’s bearded face twisted into a strange smile, and disdain flickered in his pale-blue eyes like frost. “Such arrogance. Not even that one in the Northern Kingdom dares say that… Which way did they head?”

“My lord, to the Sanctuary of Freedom.”

“The Sanctuary of Freedom? That so-called neutral rabble?” He paused, then chuckled low, a knife under velvet. “Oh… I see. You set up a guild in the Free Dominion, and you want the Sanctuary’s approval to upgrade it, right?”

“My lord, shouldn’t we send troops to give her a lesson?” the scout tested, voice like a pebble tossed into a river.

“No. She’s tied to Eunomia, and her own strength is a fog. That mushroom cloud over Sia City didn’t lie. She’s not someone we can provoke,” Andrew said, shaking his head like a tree refusing a storm.

“So we just let it go? She—”

Andrew clapped his shoulder, easy as a cat sheathing claws. “Sometimes, you don’t need to move to reach your goal—sometimes you reach a better one.”

Understanding dawned like sunrise on the scout’s face. “My lord, you mean…”

Andrew pointed at a line of special prisoners nearby, their racial marks glaring like brands in firelight.

“When it’s about time, send them to the main road back to Sass City. That Kuso Guild keeps running people through there. Borrow a knife to kill—no need for me to spell it out.”

The scout blinked, then caught on, delight sparking like flint. “Brilliant, my lord!”

“Bring Kenil. He knows the Kuso Guild folk. Tell him to pick off the high-ups, the higher the better—ideally their Guildmaster.” Andrew’s smile turned fox-slick, and the caged pigeons fluttered in unease like leaves in a sudden gust.

A butterfly beat its wings on a nameless hill, and on the far side of the sea, mountains might crumble and waters rear.

The tragedy was about to begin....