Clearly, Carl Margrave meant to snatch Fulin from Reina’s side.

Reina bristled first, then spoke. “No, Sir Carl. There’s nothing to discuss. And Fulin isn’t Count George’s youngest. She’s a child taken in by distant kin.”

“Fulin, is it? Fine name,” Carl Margrave said, barely hearing the Rose Knight. He pressed on, calm as a blade under silk. “Since you say she’s not the count’s daughter, then for certain reasons—I know everyone in House Lindber. Could you have her step down, so I can take a look?”

A look was harmless. Reina didn’t overthink it. She signaled the maids to bring Fulin down from the carriage.

The girl stepped off and shrank behind Reina at once, peeking out with half a timid little head.

A small motion, a lotus stirring on still water. That single peek stunned almost every man present.

They’d never seen a girl so lovely. Spring-warm and water-soft, yet willowy and fine-boned. A beauty not of the mortal world, like a whispered goddess out of myth. For men who’d drifted through life like fog over a marsh, they could swear it—Fulin was the most beautiful maiden they had ever seen.

“Th—this… this!” Carl Margrave was bewitched as well.

Reina caught the change in their eyes. Alarm beat first, then she shielded Fulin behind her. “Now you’ve seen enough, haven’t you, Sir Carl?”

“Th—this… this—” He’d planned to invent a reason and seize her. But her beauty shackled him. In his gaze, Fulin bloomed with a hundred charms. Every detail became a lock, dragging his sight, occupying his mind, binding his will, ending his thoughts. Carl Margrave had a silver tongue. Now, he couldn’t string a sentence together.

Sense flickered back. He shot a desperate, helpless look at the high-tier mage beside him. The mage understood.

The mage stepped forward. He seemed untouched by Fulin’s radiance, voice even and smooth. “Lady Reina Grandi, I am Angus, a high-tier mage of the Doran Kingdom’s Golden Bay City Mage Association branch. An honor to meet you. But the situation is special. I must ask you to hand the girl named Fulin to Sir Carl.”

Angus was somewhat aged, but for a high-tier mage that meant young.

He did not sigh because of age. He sighed because he was a high-tier mage.

High-tier mages aren’t just mages of higher spells. Their mana is vast. For a mage, strength in mana equals strength in mind and will. Because the spirit stands tall, even if Fulin looked crystalline and pure to his eyes, Angus did not sway.

Reina disliked the mana-light burning in his gaze. She looked away, then steadied her tone. “No. Precisely because it’s special, I have to get her back at once.”

“Why?”

“Because your intent is crooked.” Righteous anger first, then the charge. “I know what you plan… pry her mouth open with spells, or hold her hostage to threaten the other side? I won’t allow it.”

Angus thought her foolish, but kept to courtesy. “Is there a problem with that? Sir Carl told me Count George has assembled almost no decent force these years. That knight named Lance is a surprise, yes. But with such lopsided numbers, isn’t forcing a direct surrender—and making them hand over Crescent Pass—the better choice?”

“You’re twisting words, mage!” Reina’s voice rang like steel on ice. “Sir Carl has no just grounds here at all. Everyone knows this is a raid for plunder. If it’s plunder, then use force if you must. But tricks on top of it? Do you have no honor?”

“Honor, is it…”

Angus’s tone scoffed, like mocking a slow child. He wanted to cast Silence and shut this stiff-necked knight up. He could not.

Even a high-tier mage shouldn’t lightly provoke a genius knight. And she had solid nobles in Maple City behind her. Besides, the region of Maple City in the Doran Kingdom was a sanctum of spellcraft. The Kingdom Mage Association’s headquarters and the Royal Magic Academy sat there. They preached mage–knight cooperation and kept tight reins on mages’ conduct.

If Angus did anything harmful to the Rose Knight, what waited for him could be a pack of battle mages on his heels.

So Angus swallowed his contempt. He changed his tack, and his tone. “The ‘Rose’ is true to her name. Then I, as a high-tier mage, will guarantee this: I, Angus, won’t do anything to Miss Fulin. I will also restrain Sir Carl and do my utmost to ensure Miss Fulin’s safety during this period.”

“This…” Reina hesitated.

Angus pressed while the iron was warm. “On the other hand, if Count George’s side is bound to lose, how will you protect her if you send her back?”

That was a hard knot.

If the front broke, a lord who couldn’t hold the city often fled. The city fell into chaos once its ruler left. Reina pictured a girl like Fulin with no shelter in war. By the time she returned, mobs might bully her—or worse. The worst possibilities cut her heart like a blade.

Angus saw her waver. His words had landed. He turned, just in time, and addressed Fulin. “Miss Fulin, what do you think?”

He wasn’t just speaking. As a high-tier mage, he stirred a faint ripple of mana centered on himself. Angus was casting in secret.

He used a level-4 Illusion, Mental Suggestion. It made the target unconsciously follow the caster’s lead and act to expectation. As for power, Mental Suggestion was a refined form of hypnosis. Because the casting was difficult and effects complex, it worked only on the weak of spirit.

Meaning: if Fulin truly was a thirteen-year-old girl, she’d fall under it. Angus would steer her.

But the truth?

Fulin carried memories from a previous life in an office. She still thought like a thirty-year-old male office worker. That alone meant she wouldn’t be swayed by suggestion.

She also held a Dawn Legend player’s power. Of her level 320, 110 were Arcane Mage. As a max-level Arcane Mage, she had the passive skill Mental Interference Immunity. It nullified all mental status inflicted by attacks. Angus’s spell could not work on her.

Fulin flicked the spell aside in secret. She played the clingy sweetheart, eyes bright and firm. “Bad big brothers won’t win. I want Sister Reina to take me home~!”

Angus hadn’t expected failure. When a bestowed-type spell failed, mana backlash followed. To keep the turbulence from hurting himself, he purged that mana outward. A surge of power rippled. Pale blue light glazed the air. His secret casting was exposed.

Reina’s eyes flashed in shock. She hadn’t thought he’d dare cast before her. She drew her sword with a hiss. “What did you do to Fulin!”

Angus ignored her question. The unexpected failure pinged his professional nerves. He shouted, “The girl is suspicious! Seize her!”

“Suspicious?” Carl Margrave didn’t understand. The mercenaries, at least, heard the order.

They closed in with hard faces, ready to snatch Fulin by force. Reina did not flinch. Her warning cracked like frost. “Six meters! Cross it, and I’ll take it as an insult to the Golden Flower Family. I’ll cut you down on the spot.”

The Rose Knight’s voice struck like a clear gale. Many mercenaries knew her background. Fear cooled their blood.

Some still lacked sense. Shallow men, they had no idea what the ‘Rose’ name meant. They took her for a noble lady who’d learned some sword and liked to dress as a princess-knight.

They brushed off the warning and rushed in, stepping into the six-meter dead line. A pressure wind burst. After the keen gust passed, those fools lay scattered along the roadside.

It had to be a battle art. But it was too fast. They never saw a thing.

After that, the mercenaries who’d seen the Rose Knight’s strength didn’t dare move.

Reina saw them halt. She leveled her sword at Carl Margrave. “I, Reina Grandi, am the Golden Flower Marquis’s third daughter from Maple City. Carl, your sister married my brother. Because we are distant kin, and because I happen to have business in Golden Bay City, I came here to rely on you for a short while.”

“But for this affront—” Her words cut like thorns. “You had a high-tier mage cast an unknown spell on my friend right in front of me. Even if we’re distant kin, if you keep pressing me, I can justly cut you or your mage down here and now.”

Angus’s face soured. His patience snapped. “A mere knight.”

He raised the staff in his hand, slow and deliberate. Mana rose around him in swells. A high-tier mage’s spells are either fine and lethal, or sky-rending. Angus was not a specialist battle mage. If he truly crossed the ‘Rose’, he might lose—stabbed through the heart before the casting finished.

Carl Margrave stepped between them at once. His voice pleaded, tight with urgency. “Both of you, please calm down!”

He gestured for the mercenaries to break the ring and clear the road. He soothed Angus with one hand, and bowed to Reina with the other. “Since you insist on sending her back, I won’t stop you. Travel safe. Go, and return quickly.”

Only when they made way and stopped blocking her did Reina lower her blade. She took Fulin into the carriage. The ‘Rose’ and her party left Wheatfield Town.

The sky, clear a moment ago, clothed itself in gray. A fine rain began to fall.

Carl Margrave watched the carriage vanish into the wet distance. He sighed with regret. His intent toward the young lady named Fulin wasn’t as tangled as Reina claimed. It wasn’t much better—offer her to the Vanilla Duke, a man fond of women.

The aim was to curry favor, so the duke would legitimize Carl Margrave’s plunder war. Since Reina insisted, Carl could only find another way.

Angus, unlike Carl, would not let it go. The high-tier mage was fixated, angry, and bitter with regret. “You let a suspicious element go!”

Carl Margrave wasn’t a mage. Angus’s claim was hard to fathom. He recalled Angus saying “suspicious” earlier, but what suspicion could cling to a spotless noble girl?

So he asked, “Were you joking, Master Mage? A girl that pure—aside from being shockingly beautiful, I saw nothing wrong.”

Angus’s judgment had nothing to do with sentiment. “I’m a high-tier mage. An elemental mage. Enchantment isn’t my main field, but I’ve used the level-4 Mental Suggestion a hundred times.”

“A hundred times?” Carl’s eyes went wide. His hand flew to the anti-magic stone pendant on his chest.

Angus understood how the untrained put a black veil over certain spells. He clarified. “Don’t overthink it. All official commissions from the Mage Association. To confuse a rampaging beast, to soothe a child in hysterics, and to treat those rich, drug-addled nobles in Golden Bay who can pay.”

“I see.” Carl let out a breath.

Angus returned to his point. “In over a hundred castings, I’ve never slipped. Not once. But I failed on that girl—who had no mana ripple, who was clearly no mage. Carl Margrave, I know it’s hard to grasp, but only two possibilities make sense.”

“Say them.” Carl swallowed hard.

“First, the slim chance: the girl named Fulin carries power not born of men, like moonlight poured into a vessel,” Angus said, voice steady as rain on slate.

“It ranges from priests of the Church of Light to Night Disciples of the Dark Spirit Empire, or Celestial Spirit and Dark Spirit in human masks, faces like painted porcelain.”

He stepped past that option like a boot over a shallow puddle. “Or, like you, she wears an expensive arcane artifact, a glint of steel under silk.”

Carl Margrave stiffened, like a stag hearing a twig snap in dusk.

He remembered artifacts that block mind magic cost a fortune, heavy as ingots in Golden Bay City.

Only local nobles with deep coffers wear them, coats stitched with coins that shine like small suns.

A thought leapt in him, a spark in dry straw. “Could she be truly highborn, a crest hidden under lace?”

Angus took a small sip of high-grade mana potion, bitter as iron rain, then shook his head.

“Artifacts that ward off glamor aren’t only for princes. They fit wealthy knights or special assassins, blades kept in velvet.”

“If the girl Fulin were noble, her beauty would ride the wind like perfume across the Doran Kingdom—no, the whole Nordland Continent.”

“Yet in the marketplace of names, almost no one knows her, like a lantern with no flame.”

Carl truly didn’t know Fulin, a kin who rose like mist without a past.

Confusion pooled in his chest like cold water. “Mage, what do you mean, under this low sky?”

“My guess: a maid-assassin raised in secret, a blade hidden in a bouquet,” Angus said, tone light as passing drizzle.

“Golden Bay City’s Black Street likes to keep such killers, garden snakes among roses.”

“They plant angel-faced women beside great houses and fat merchants, doves perched on a gallows.”

“When the Black Street boss speaks, those maids kill their own masters without blinking, rain cutting straw.”

“Maybe, Carl, you were meant to be that girl’s first target, an apple set on a fence.”

“Thinking that way, the Rose Knight’s stubborn streak has its good side, a rock in a flood.”

“I spotted the oddity by sheer accident, a fish flashing in muddy water.”

“Otherwise you’d be in trouble—you know I’m no professional bodyguard, a broom against a storm.”

Fear tightened first in Carl’s mind, a knot under frost.

The memory of Fulin’s pitiful posture now felt like bait, honey on a hook set at twilight.

“Mage, by your telling, I never provoked Golden Bay City’s Black Street,” he said, breath fogging like a window.

“Yet a maid-assassin came like a night moth to a candle.”

“That points to Count George’s hand, a glove behind the curtain.”

“But he’s simple and plodding, a cow that shuns thorn hedges—why would he use such means?”

“You knew he’s a dull, peace-leaning noble, yet you struck anyway?” Angus’s laugh was a cold arrow.

“As expected, you velvet-wrapped wolves shoot from the shade, hunters behind reeds.”

Carl had no words; his mouth was a dry well in a desert wind.

He felt he’d done nothing, hands empty as winter branches.

Angus stepped past the scolding like a boot over wet stone and pressed on, voice flat as slate.

“If your story holds, then yes, Count George wouldn’t play that card.”

“Only one figure stands as an exception, a lone shadow on the wall.”

“Who, under this heavy cloud?”

Angus spoke each syllable like beads on a rosary. “Lance, the Flame of Chaos Knight.”

A crack of thunder split the sky like a white blade.

The fine rain swelled, the grey veil becoming sheets that hammered the earth.

Mercenaries rushed under the trees, huddled like sheep under a dark hill.

The two of them climbed into the carriage, wood smelling of damp bark and old sap.

Carl asked in a low, heavy voice, a stone in his throat. “Mage, you know him too?”

Angus watched the window cloud, reading the storm like files. “Lance Morrison, fifteen and just of age, a spark barely out of tinder.”

“Born in Mubay City.”

“His father commands the Golden Eagle Legion under the Iron Duke, iron wings in a brass sky.”

“People long called him a wastrel, a bad name blown like dust on roads.”

“A month ago, at the disaster banquet in Mubay Fort, he showed a Charge Knight’s power, a ram breaking a gate.”

“He was then granted the title ‘Flame of Chaos’ without trial, a brand cut in hot iron.”

“Later, when the Shadowspirit Legion invaded the hall, he personally defeated his elder brother Duncan, fallen as a Night Disciple, a candle snuffed by his own hand.”

“This…” Carl’s worry rose first, a tide in his chest. “Mage, what you say is far more than what I heard in Horseback Town, smoke becoming fire.”

“These are facts the envoys of the Vanilla Duke saw with their own eyes, ice-clear and sharp.”

“I know,” Carl said, words small as pebbles dropped in a bucket.

Silence in the carriage gave way to the roof’s hard dripping, a drum of rain beating time.

Angus let out a cold laugh, thin as a knife. “Fifteen and already at Charge Knight level—like the Rose Knight, he’s a prodigy, a hawk hatched with steel talons.”

“Before the banquet he wore the mask of a punk, yet at the feast he shed it, a snake changing skin.”

“He’s good at building false fronts, curtains and painted moonlight.”

“He could stab a brother turned Night Disciple without hesitation, frost running in his veins.”

“No doubt, someone like that sends a maid-assassin as a test and a warning, a ripple before the wave.”

“We must be careful, feet light on wet stones.”

In Carl’s mind, a venomous snake uncoiled, slick and strong, hiding in brush.

It waited for prey to slacken; he felt like a rabbit caught in moonlight, heartbeat drumming like rain on tin.

Outside, the rain thickened, and day darkened like ink poured into water.

Carl realized his victory, once firm as a banner pole, had begun to wobble because of Lance, wind cutting the cloth.

“Why is it like this?!” Fury flared first, a fire under wet straw. “Because of that damned war, bad things bud one after another, blight on wheat.”

“My lands feel cursed, a bell that only tolls for losses.”

“Population falls year after year like leaves after frost; fields go barren, soil forgetting bread.”

“My family’s glory has lasted seven generations, sunrise after sunrise on this soil.”

“Will it end in my hands, because of a foolish, endless war? I won’t allow it.”

“For this, I prepared two long years, a winter and a summer eaten by plans.”

“I scraped together ten thousand soldiers, a sea of spears shimmering like reeds.”

“I invited the genius knight, the Rose Knight, petals tempered into blades.”

“And the other side only has the Flame of Chaos, one bright coal in a brazier.”

“How can I, Carl, fail here, with the wind at my back?”

In the carriage, after a storm of hysteria, Carl calmed, breath settling like dust after rain.

He looked at Angus with a steady gaze, confidence laid like stone in a riverbed.

“More important, I still have you, Angus.”

“The Eroded Plains’ marsh is a battlefield tailored to you, mud and wind cut to your measure.”

“They call you the Raging Tempest, a high-tier mage, thunder in a cloak.”

“When the time comes, it’ll be your stage, a storm’s theater on black water.”

“If you perform, I’ll keep my promise.”

“After George City, I’ll spread war across the fields of Golden Bay City, sparks in dry grass.”

“I’ll seed chaos everywhere, so those Celestial Spirit have no reason to conscript from your Golden Bay City Mage Association, no chains on your guild.”

That was Angus’s true reason for lowering himself, a hawk folding its wings for meat.

He hid his intent behind calm, a dagger under silk and rain. “Everything will be as you wish, sir.”