The Woodpecker members exchanged bewildered looks as they watched Itefeil and the others.

Pons looked at them with disdain.

“You’re worse than women.”

Then he swung down from his mount and took up a defensive stance alongside them. Itefeil glared at him, furious.

“Have you lost your mind? Get your team out of the battlefield, now!”

“Which one of us has lost their mind? How long do you think you can hold them off? Don’t underestimate the power of the Woodpeckers!”

The other Woodpecker members could only follow Pons’s lead and take up defensive positions. They lined their heavy mounts up at the front to withstand the oncoming charge. Each of them unleashed their own special abilities, and the land began to change around them. Vines crept down from the trees, while the ground ahead grew rough and uneven.

As the moon climbed higher, Itefeil suddenly remembered that she hadn’t fed her cat since noon.

That little thing was probably clever enough to find food on its own, right? But then she remembered that all the food was in the wall-mounted cupboard, out of reach for an ordinary cat. If she made it back, she’d buy a whole pile of treats to make it up to the cat.

Before long, the pursuers behind them drew closer. The thunder of their hooves made even the nearby woods tremble.

“They’re here!”

A horse leaped out of the pitch-black grass, but in an instant, horse and rider were cut down together.

Pons—Shadow

He wielded an extremely long, slender blade. Each time he swung it, the blade seemed to vanish into the night, its path impossible to follow. This ability should’ve been paired with a light, agile sword style built around catching enemies off guard. But Pons did the opposite: every swing brought the blade’s keen edge and immense force to bear, tearing his targets in half.

The others showed off their abilities too, leaping into the fray and battling the enemy. The pursuers were no weaklings, either. Their weapons, wreathed in black mist, could drain blood. Unfortunately for them, they’d run into the Empire’s most elite unit: the Woodpecker Cavalry Regiment.

After fighting for a while, Itefeil’s side began to sense that something was wrong. There were fewer and fewer people around them, and no reinforcements came. When the Woodpeckers cut down the last enemy, the forest fell utterly silent.

The bloody battle they’d imagined never came.

“That’s it?”

Looking at the bodies scattered across the ground—fewer than fifty in total—Pons felt anger rush to his head. He grabbed Gadir, lifted him up, and slammed him hard against a tree.

“This is the ‘large force’ you were talking about?!”

Gadir was too frightened to speak. The other Woodpecker members exchanged uneasy looks, but no one dared step forward to plead for him. Pons was a powder keg on the verge of exploding; anyone who got too close would get caught in the blast. And they all understood why he was so angry.

If one team hadn’t been unable to escape and chosen to stand and fight—or if they’d abandoned that team and fled on their own—they might have been chased all over the place by these mere fifty stragglers and branded as people who’d abandoned their comrades. Even if no one ever found out, it would still become the greatest stain on their own consciences.

Pons suppressed the urge to beat Gadir to a pulp, sat down, and calmly analyzed the enemy’s intentions. The reason the other members had panicked and been chased around was that the enemy had first taken out the team’s eyes. They must have had a powerful Mage. When they spotted Asuka scouting, they’d wounded him by force, cutting off the team’s source of information. Then they’d sent in a cavalry unit to make a huge racket and drive the rest of the team around.

But what was the point? The enemy clearly had enough strength to wipe out their entire force, yet they hadn’t done so. Instead, they’d chosen the most time-consuming way to drive them off.

That was it—they were buying time!

“Gadir! Take the two fastest mounts in the team and check the camp we scouted earlier! Move!”

“Yes, sir!”

Gadir, who’d been slumped moments ago, immediately straightened up and hurried back to the earlier camp with the other team members. Then Pons turned to Itefeil and her companions, who were standing nearby in a daze, and gave them an order.

“You and these members will escort Asuka back to the main city.”

“Yes, sir!”

Several Woodpecker cavalry members took Asuka’s mount by the reins and helped secure him in the saddle. Then they slowly made their way back with Itefeil and the others. Before leaving, Itefeil turned around, about to ask Pons what he planned to do next. But the figure before her was no longer the silent, melancholy prince on a white horse she’d seen before. Now he looked like an emperor, commanding humanity and ruling over an entire domain, radiating power and authority.

Itefeil quietly turned away. He wasn’t someone she should be worrying about.

……………………………………

“Mrrrow…”

La Luna stared out at the sky, now completely dark, with dead-fish eyes. In the city, a bright “star” had begun to rise, glowing white enough to light up the night sky.

It closed the half-read book, and the book floated back to its original place.

Hungry.

La Luna was starting to worry. That little Itefeil girl seemed to have one of those dangerous jobs. She’d gone out around noon, and it was already night with no sign of her. Something must have happened to her out there. After staring blankly at the doorway for a while, La Luna shook its head.

“Meow, meow…”

(No, it’s just that you start worrying about everything once you get old. Maybe the girl’s just working late.)

La Luna gave up on its wild imaginings and turned toward the kitchen to look for food. It remembered taking the sausage from the wall-mounted cupboard yesterday. It definitely couldn’t reach it on its own—not with all those plates and dishes stacked underneath, either.

But magic could do it!

In just half a day, La Luna had read half of Basic Magic I and learned four spells. It didn’t know if cats simply had good memories or if its own comprehension was exceptional, but La Luna felt like it had developed a powerful ability to remember everything it saw.

With a spring in its step, it went over to the cupboard. Using movement magic and levitation magic, it opened the door and took out the sausage. Then it closed the cupboard, picked a plate up from the table, and set the sausage on it. Two knives floated out of the sideboard and sliced the sausage into pieces, which were then carried over to La Luna.

(Ah, praise be to magic!)

La Luna elegantly reached out a paw, hooked a slice of ham, and popped it into its mouth. The people of this world certainly knew how to make cured foods. At least, this ham tasted much better than the Huajin ham it had eaten in its previous life. It was just too salty!

La Luna knew cats weren’t supposed to eat salt, but it felt like salty food wasn’t a problem for its current body. It just made its mouth dry. With a thought, a cup floated over beneath the faucet to fill with water, then carried itself over to La Luna.

(I was right to choose to live with humans!)