By Lodun’s traditions, taverns on rainy nights were always rowdy. In those cramped spaces, far from the rain, a few central figures would gather a crowd around them and loudly brag beneath the brightest lights. They’d clink their slightly musty wooden mugs together, then gulp down beer in the stuffy heat.

But this tavern seemed a little different...

“So... how much longer can our funds keep us afloat?”

People had indeed crowded around the wooden table, but apart from the Young Master-looking fellow in the middle, no one seemed brave enough to speak.

Pace surveyed the people around the table. Most of them looked like street thugs, and only a handful knew how to dress like civilized folk. He let out a deeply troubled sigh. With underlings like these, his family really did seem doomed...

“It’s fine. Go ahead and tell me... I can take it...”

Pace waved a hand dejectedly, bracing himself for the harsh truth.

Beside the table, the girl with the ledger was tallying the figures. Only after Pace insisted that she give her report did she timidly begin:

“Young Head... because of the search warrants in Dibithe, the number of completed orders at the tavern over the past three days has fallen to single digits...”

Pace’s face turned a little purple. He coughed twice and took a drink.

“Any other bad news?”

“There’s... because of the Charon Special District Rebellion a while back, most merchant caravans from the I-Telan Kingdom have had their trips delayed...”

The old steward in charge of trade lowered his head and coughed softly, his aged face full of embarrassment.

“The raw materials and customers are all stuck at the border... If we wait for them to arrive, it’ll be at least another two months...”

T-Two months...? Could people really go hungry for two months without dying??

“How long can what we have on hand last?” Pace turned to the girl in charge of the accounts.

“A-about a month, Young Head.”

Pace sighed deeply. Well... to be honest, things really weren’t looking good. The search warrants in Dibithe had led most of Lodun’s residents to stay home at night, while the aftershocks of the Charon District Rebellion had left the booze-loving merchants stranded outside Lodun. What were the odds of this kind of coincidence—one that could drive a tavern out of business? About the same as getting struck by lightning...?

But as the head of the Monak Family, the oldest family in Dibithe, Pace wasn’t about to give up so easily!!

“Ahem. Looks like we’ll have to start offering delivery,” Pace said, getting to his feet, his face a little purple. “Looks like we... need to go door to door and sell it?”

“Young Head! The Monak Family is an ancient noble family of Dibithe! How can we stoop to doing something like that?” The old steward rose in a surge of emotion, as if he’d been insulted. “Our ancestors said... our liquor is top quality... If we can’t sell it, then we’ll drink it ourselves...”

“Drinking won’t keep this many people going for another half a month, old man. Bread will.” Pace cut the old steward off without mercy. He’d made up his mind. He slapped both hands on the table. “My decision is final. Do it.”

“Y-Yes...” “All right...” “Understood...”

The old steward sat back down, trembling, muttering things like, “Our honor...” and “What would our ancestors think...” The others began assigning tasks, preparing to carry out the Young Head’s order.

Amid the hubbub, Pace slumped over the table, dispirited. He thought back to the days when his family still lived in their manor on the Mountain of Myriad Blades. If he could sit by that fireplace and warm himself one more time, he’d pay any price.

A light rain pattered against the window. Pace looked outside. Through the raindrops drawing streaks of water down the glass, he could see the Mountain of Myriad Blades looming over most of Lodun’s sky. He’d never liked that mountain. Even though the people of Dibithe worshipped it like some kind of deity, he honestly found it irritating—a mass of countless irregular, needle-like cliffs.

In a daze, Pace remembered his childhood on the mountain: the little girl chasing after him across the snow-covered frozen lake...

“Big Brother... when are you coming back...?”

An echo from the past crossed the dimensions of time and reached Pace’s ears.

Huh? Wait... Pace suddenly snapped out of it. He remembered that he was a big brother. Why hadn’t his good-for-nothing little brother come back yet??

“Everyone, have you seen Vance?” Pace stood up in a panic. “Is the patrol still out?”

“I-It finished a while ago... Almost everyone’s back...” A patrolman at a table near the entrance leaned out. His hair was still wet with rain.

Crap... He’d actually forgotten his own little brother. He really was hopeless. Pace pressed one hand to his forehead as he thought through what to do. On the surface, Dibithe’s search warrants were meant to stop outsiders from the Charon Special District slipping into Lodun amid the chaos. In reality, they were also aimed at the Monak Family. If Dibithe’s people had taken his brother while he was out on patrol, things probably wouldn’t end well...

He had to send someone to look for him before Dibithe’s search officers got there. Pace reached a decision, glanced around the tavern, and prepared to speak:

“We...”

“Bang!”

The tavern door was smashed open. The next second, Jack and Vance were thrown inside, collapsing to the floor unconscious.

“Vance!!” Pace cried out and rushed forward to help him, but the old steward grabbed him from the side—

“There’s someone else!”

The rain grew heavier. Lightning flashed across the sky now and then, lending the dark city an even more sinister air. A bolt suddenly lit up the girl as she slowly entered the tavern.

Huh? Why had Vance brought a little girl back with him?

“A little girl? What are you doing here?” Pace looked at the girl in the doorway. Her blood-red eyes seemed to glow faintly in the rainy night, though a thin haze visibly clouded them.

“Big bro, is your brain broken? She’s the one who threw me in here!” Vance slowly got to his feet, glanced at the girl, then quickly hid behind his brother. “She’s a monster...”

“A monster...? Sure, I guess...”

Pollyce gently brushed the rain from her bangs, stepped into the tavern, and approached the others.

“I’m here to find someone. Who’s in charge?”

Pace stopped the old steward from stepping forward to speak. He took two steps toward her, secretly reaching for the weapon behind his back.

The little girl in front of him clearly wasn’t from Lodun. Pace had never seen such a beautiful girl in town, much less one with the strange features of white hair and red eyes.

Could she be a princess from some country, looking like that? A strange thought popped into Pace’s head.

“Little Princess, our ideas about basic courtesy might not be exactly the same, but beating up my people in the middle of the night and barging into my tavern doesn’t exactly seem like the right way to ask for a favor.”

Pace tilted his head. His hand had already found the handle of the axe behind him.

“So, are you in charge here?”

Pollyce’s blood-red eyes swept over Pace. Her expression remained utterly calm, as though she hadn’t heard a word he’d just said.

Pollyce’s dismissive attitude irritated Pace. This girl looked barely sixteen, yet she was acting so arrogantly. It was practically an insult to the Monak Family’s honor...

Wait... He’d just made a decision that went against his ancestors, so maybe he had no right to feel that way...

Pace coughed awkwardly twice, then answered:

“Yes. I am Pace Monak, the last head of the Monak Family, heir to the legacy of the Ice Peak, rightful successor to Monak Manor, the central pillar of Lodun’s liquor trade, wielder of the axe...”

“...All right, all right. I get it, you’re impressive, you weird Young Master...” Pollyce cut Pace off impatiently. “I’m looking for someone. Someone said he was in Lodun. Do you know Yi...”

Now!

Pace suddenly pulled the axe glowing blue from behind his back and swung it at Pollyce. In his great mercy, Lord Pace used the back of the axe so he could spare the little girl’s life. At most, it would knock her out, punishing her for showing such disrespect to the Monak Family.

You break into my tavern, beat up my little brother, and then expect me to answer your questions? What do you take me, Pace Monak, for...?

“Clang—”

The Butterfly Knife in Pollyce’s hand precisely blocked the back of Pace’s axe. She didn’t even blink.

W-What...? When...? Pace stared in shock as Pollyce held the back of the axe he’d swung with both hands suspended in midair, stopping it effortlessly with one hand. This was the Monak Family’s heirloom axe, passed down for a hundred years...

“Why does no one ever like to talk things out...?”

Pollyce sighed, then snapped her red eyes wide open—

“Clang, clang, clang—”

In a flash, light and shadow clashed. By the time Pace came to his senses, the axe had been knocked from his hands and fallen to the floor. The blade in the girl’s hand was pointed at his throat. One slight thrust would pierce it.

“Young Head!”

The people behind Pace tried to rush forward and help, but he raised a hand to stop them—

“So? Can you talk properly now?” Pollyce looked at Pace with a lazy air, her hazy blood-red eyes fixed on him.

“Hey... Little Princess... you’re the one who hasn’t been talking properly...” Pace lowered his head, wary of the knife pointed at his throat. The girl was a head shorter than him, but right now, he felt more like the short one...

“...You swung your axe at me first!” Pollyce argued, completely unreasonably.

“You threw my brother in here first!” Pace shot back just as fiercely.

“That’s because he was following me!”

“You were following her??” Pace turned to his little brother, Vance, who was awkwardly scratching his head. “Wait, that still doesn’t mean you can hit people!”

“I...”

“Wait, wait! Someone else is coming!”

The old steward shouted, and everyone turned toward the entrance again.

The sound of heavy armor stomping across the stone pavement reached everyone’s ears. In an instant, the tavern fell silent. Pollyce could clearly hear the mechanical gears turning beneath the downpour, as well as the rain splashing off steel.

“What’s that sound?” Pollyce moved the knife away from Pace’s throat and watched the entrance warily. “Are they friends of yours?”

“No. That’s a Might Armor...” Pace said quietly. He picked up his axe from the floor and moved it behind his back. “A Dibithe search officer.”

......