Fulin froze for a heartbeat, then her calm fell like cool dew. The sky wasn’t collapsing yet; she let her thoughts sift like sand through fingers and began to analyze.

Set aside whether Golden Bay City would truly break like a cliff face; the ruin wasn’t a fact but a forecast, a shadow on water. Were Count George’s failure and Golden Bay’s unrest even linked?

Her worry pricked like thorns, then she steadied like a stone. What that mercenary said—was it real? Jeremy wasn’t out to deceive, yet rumor travels like wind through reeds. How would a mere merc know about two great nobles declaring war in private?

Playing Lance, she asked, voice cool as a lake at dawn, “Jeremy, how can you be sure Count Karl secretly declared war on Count George?”

Jeremy laughed, a dry sound like gravel skittering, knowing the answer wouldn’t please. “Some of Count Karl’s mercs think so, but I know that won’t satisfy you.” He lifted his hand like pointing to a map. “There’s a broad, shallow marsh on the border between their lands. Lately it’s been sealed off. Count Karl keeps driving off folk who want to pick and hunt near it, citing the flood season, like a shepherd waving people back from a river.”

At that, a chill slid through Fulin, then clarity rose like sunrise. She skimmed Lance’s memory of local weather and saw the pattern as if on a tide chart.

“Right,” Lance said, words neat as stacked tiles. “It’s May, flood season on the calendar. But real floods don’t come now; they break in early July or even mid-August like swollen rivers. You mean Count Karl’s unilaterally drawing a battlefield line?”

“Exactly, that’s what I mean.” Jeremy nodded like a bobbing buoy.

Fulin felt she’d underestimated him; the merc’s shifty eyes were a mask, while his nose caught the scent of war like smoke before a spark. That wasn’t easy. Yet how did a mere merc know a high mage and the Rose Knight were aiding Karl?

“Everyone in Karl City knows it,” Jeremy said, life there laid out like streets on a plan. “Count Karl paid heavy coin to hire a high mage from Golden Bay City’s Mage Association.”

“As for the Rose Knight,” he went on, voice low as campfire talk, “I heard it from a fellow merc. He saw a young lady in a knight’s kit roaming Karl’s lands, light as a sparrow. He thought she was some noble miss chasing thrills, teamed up with a few street rats to rob her, and got thrashed like wheat under hail. Only then did he learn she was Maple City’s famed Rose Knight.”

So that was it. Relief and caution braided in Fulin’s chest like river and root; Jeremy’s warning wasn’t idle gossip, but a reliable conclusion built from sights and facts, logic laid like stones in a path.

“Count George doesn’t know any of this?” Lance asked, words hard as flint. “Forget the high mage for a moment. You said his chief knight isn’t sick. As a fellow Charge Knight, why fear a Rose Knight of the same rank?”

Jeremy wore a helpless look, a sigh like wind through empty rafters. “Because the Rose is too strong among Charge Knights. They say she awakened her Battle Aura at twelve, and a year ago she could ignite eight Battle Aura stones. Give her a few years, and by sheer power she’ll reach Earth Knight.”

Fulin listened, then Layne’s words returned like a taught string: ten stones lit to become an Earth Knight.

Before leaving home, both Lance and Lawrence had lit two stones. The Rose had eight a year ago, a phoenix perched above all charge riders. Even compared to genius Lance, that phoenix soared higher, and Lance couldn’t beat her beneath the same sky. The Rose was the true prodigy.

That fact brushed Fulin’s heart with a wry breeze, a quiet sigh like the hush before rain.

Only one question remained. Lance’s curiosity flicked like a lantern: “If Count George loses, then what? I’m not local. I don’t see why that brings chaos to Golden Bay City.”

“That…” Jeremy’s tongue stalled, like a cart stuck in mud. He grimaced, bitter as herbal tea. “Scholars in the city think about that all day. I’m just a merc. Lord Flame of Chaos, please don’t press a small man.”

“Since this harms all of Golden Bay City,” Lance said, and Fulin already had the answer coiled like a snake, “why doesn’t the Vanilla Duke stop the infighting?”

Lance murmured, half to himself, the thought cool as moonlight on tax ledgers. “To cut the Heavenly Spirit Empire’s taxes?”

Jeremy’s praise came quick, bright as thrown coin. “Lord Flame of Chaos sees through it at a glance. Whether Golden Bay City’s rich or not doesn’t feed us. As long as the Doran Canal flows like a silver vein, the Vanilla Duke and his city will eat well.”

It was such a medieval cut, Fulin thought, a wind off old stone. She had to admit Golden Bay City was dangerous; the quiet life hadn’t even landed, and already it felt like a sandcastle under a rising tide.

But she wouldn’t sit and wait for war like a duck on a frozen pond. In her last life she was an office grinder; anyone hardened by the 996 schedule moves by one creed: solutions outnumber problems, like stars outnumber clouds.

She wouldn’t wait to die.

Lance rose from the bench, decision sharp as a drawn blade. “I’m going to George City. You coming?”

“Lord Flame, you’re mad!” Jeremy flinched like a startled hare. “That’s marching to your death—count me out.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “I’m a merc! If the great lords don’t fight, how do I eat, like a wolf without a herd?”

Fair point, yet Fulin wasn’t a merc. She needed a local guide with ears like nets, and Jeremy was the best choice at hand.

“You don’t plan to do more than eat, do you?” Lance tipped his chin, disdain dry as dust.

“What else? Become a great knight like you?” Jeremy squatted on his heels, eyes up like a dog watching the gate.

Fulin recalled client-handling tricks, smoothing her tone like silk. Lance offered a bait sweet as honey. “No need to be great. Money and status can drop into your palm. Up for a job?”

“You mean…” Jeremy’s eyes lit like fireflies, but caution stayed like a bridle. He knew nobles loved pretty words, and feared the boy-knight was the same.

“A quarter, four gold coins,” Lance said, numbers crisp as pebbles. “Two for me, two for you. For that price, you and your people work for me on this.”

Jeremy jerked like a trout at the hook, sprang up, and after triple-checking, he agreed. Then hesitation wrinkled his brow like ripples. “What about the high mage? What about the Rose Knight? I’d love to charge with you, but… do you have a real chance?”

“Who do you think I am?” Lance’s voice flared like a torch. “I’m Lance Morrison, Mubay City’s famed Flame of Chaos! My strength is the chance, as sure as iron.”

That night, Jeremy gathered his squad like birds to a roost, pitched the offer, and Lance tested their steel as if tapping blades. Of twenty, only two were fit; the rest stayed in Horseback Town to wait like seeds in soil. They packed quick, and next day was market day, when small towns caravan to the castles like ants in file.

They slipped into the traveling crowd at dawn, riding the flow like leaves in a stream.

“Hey! That makes us your retainers,” Jeremy crowed, spirits high as kites.

Fulin kept her mood level, a stone under water. Lance warned them, voice firm as a gate bar. “Don’t throw your lives away. But if you’re disloyal, or useless on the road, I’ll fire any one of you like snapping a twig.”

“You hear that? Answer!” Jeremy barked it to the other two. They dropped to one knee like saplings bent by wind, no slack in them. Big Cat, never addressed, blinked round eyes and flopped down like a boulder.

The sudden pause—four humans and one beast—stood out in the caravan like a dark reed amid golden stalks. Porters stared at them for a while, curiosity hanging like smoke.

The road from Karl’s lands to George’s wound through dense woods, a crooked path like a river vein. The train wove all morning under green eaves, ants threading roots, before they finally broke out.

Beyond the trees, the world opened like a spilled map. The narrow lane cut through endless wheat, each wave of gold smoothing the heart like wind across a lake.

Jeremy pointed toward the horizon, where a castle rose like a cliff of stone—Count George’s seat. He asked with a grin bright as brass, “Lord Lance, does Mubay City have a castle as grand as George Castle?”

“Mubay City’s countryside has no need for castles,” Lance answered, plain as a ledger line.

“Eh?” Jeremy’s surprise popped like a seed pod.

His reaction didn’t surprise Fulin; Golden Bay was more medieval than Mubay, like comparing old bastions to open plains. It was like asking why ancient Summer Country built forts but not castles.

The Iron Duke commands two legions of ten thousand, armies swelling like tides. Against a host that size, a castle is a reef before a storm; it can’t hold. With enough hands, even solid walls get stripped brick by brick like barnacles scraped. And the Iron Duke fields Charge Knights who can spear into a castle like lightning. To Fulin, Golden Bay’s many castles meant scattered might, mercs everywhere, and common infighting, like brambles choking a field—hard to explain cleanly to Jeremy.

“Mubay City has too much wood; you can’t build castles on it,” Lance lied, straight-faced, like throwing a cloak over a mirror.

Jeremy bought it like bread hot from an oven. “So that’s it! No wonder they say the Iron Duke has castles at sea, so the Shadowspirit Legion brutes can’t invade from the water.”

Fulin had to smile; in her last world, that thing was called an aircraft carrier, steel floating like a mountain.

By noon, the four hopped a public carriage at a nearby town, Big Cat loped behind like a silent panther. By two in the afternoon, four humans and one beast reached George City’s walls.

As expected, George City checked all entries. They queued before a modest stone gate like a snake coiling, four humans and one beast at the tail. The large four-legged mount drew stares, and as the line edged forward, curiosity came like birds to seed.

A jeweler waddled over, rings glittering on all five fingers of his left hand like stars on a night river. With each step, his beer belly jiggled like jelly.

His eye for beasts was keen as a hawk’s. “This pack animal looks savage, but it’s gentle and sweet, like a big cat in sun. Lean frame means it won’t carry much, but it’s nimble. If I’m not wrong, it runs faster than Golden Bay’s finest horses. Where’s it trained?”

“Demon Realm Forest,” Lance said, a blade-clean answer.

“Oh! So that ranch is called ‘Demon Realm Forest,’ is it?” the jeweler exclaimed, mind bubbling like a spring.

It wasn’t strange to Fulin; she tilted her head, asking lightly as rain, “Where do you do business, sir?”

“I shuttle between Maple City and Golden Bay City, and I keep clock shops in Golden Bay,” he said, pride polished like a watch case.

Not jewels? Fulin caught herself; assumptions fell like leaves.

“Got pocket watches?” Lance asked, interest bright as a coin.

“Want to buy?” He snapped his fingers. “Colen!”

A burly man named Colen answered like a drumbeat and came from the carriage park with a few men, carrying a box like a chest of treasures.

A worker, looking every inch a clocksmith, took one out and offered it to Lance. The jeweler asked, smile neat as gears, “How’s this?”

“Why does this one have only an hour hand?” Lance frowned, confusion like mist.

The jeweler suddenly went stiff-backed, pride bristling like a peacock. “Sir, a pocket watch with a minute hand is a luxury. Can you afford it?”

“How much?”

He pulled a scrap of paper, silent as a closed shop, and deliberately took out a steel pen, squeezing ink like showing off a blade’s sheen. He wrote a number: twelve silver coins.

The peacocking made little sense to Fulin, but the price was fine, like rain within reach. “No problem,” Lance said.

He dug out the money, but the jeweler hadn’t expected an on-the-spot buy. He took the coins and, full of apology like a bow, said, “Honored customer, I didn’t bring that kind of watch out. I doubted anyone here would buy one. Take this hour-piece for now, or pair it with this minute-dial and make do. I’ll prepare your order right away.”

Fulin couldn’t help it—a laugh warmed in her chest. The uncle really knew how to do business, hawking like a river trader with sails full of wind.

Lance nodded his assent. The clockmaker slid over a slip, ink shining like a wet feather. "This is the order. Good—you can read.

"When you reach Golden Bay City, ask for 'Modolo Clockworks.' I’ll be doing business there for the next half year.

"By then, return the hour‑watch and the minute‑watch to me, and I’ll give you the hour‑minute watch I’ve prepared."

The open-air deal wound down, dust drifting like pale smoke. Only then did Fulin notice that over half the people in line were watching Lance with a mix of envy and spite. So this was what it meant to flash your coin?

Then again, most were grain traders, many tenant farmers at heart. For them, twelve silver coins was a season’s harvest, maybe half a year.

Fulin, wearing Lance’s face, handed two pocket watches to Jeremy. "Take them."

He gaped, breath catching like a fish. "These are—?!"

He remembered his station at once; his back straightened like a drawn bow. "Master, I’ll pull my weight."

People in the long queue pricked up their ears. A mercenary calling a noble brat "master" sent whispers skimming like wind through reeds, and eyes turned strange. Fulin had no time to care.

Now it was Lance’s party—four people and one beast—at the gate inspection.

"State your business." The inspector spoke from a cramped booth tucked into the city wall like a tiny shrine.

Lance produced a handbill he’d picked up in the small town by Count George’s castle. "Enlisting as a knight. They’re my retainers."

The inspector’s eyes paused for a beat, then slid over Lance, then over Jeremy and the rest, and finally the big cat. Confusion rippled first, then a smile spread like oil on water, and then his gaze on Lance curdled into scorn. "Boy, among the liars and spies I’ve seen these days, you look least like a knight, you whelp. Guards! Surround them for me!"