Chapter 73

Third Person’s POV

“Please have mercy!”

The woman’s voice cracked as she dropped to her knees, one arm wrapped tightly around her child, the other reaching helplessly toward the two figures standing over them.

The little girl buried her face into her mother’s shoulder, her small body shaking so violently that even her muffled sobs came in broken, uneven breaths.

Both cloaked men remained still.

Each of them held a handgun loosely, as if the weapons were nothing more than extensions of their hands. Rainlight filtered through the broken canopy above, glinting faintly off metal and damp cloth.

“I-I’ll give you anything you want!” the mother pleaded, tears spilling freely now. “Just please… not my child. Take me instead. I don’t care what you do to me—just don’t take her!”

For a moment, there was silence.

Then one of the men tilted his head slightly.

“…Hey,” he said lightly, almost amused. “She said she’ll give us anything.”

The other let out a low chuckle. “Anything, huh? What exactly do you think people like this even have left to give?”

Their laughter echoed faintly through the ruined street.

The mother tightened her grip on her daughter instinctively, as if she could physically shield her from the sound alone.

“Sorry, lady,” the first cloaked man said, sighing as though inconvenienced rather than malicious. “But we’re not here to pillage.”

Slowly, he reached to his side.

A blade slid free.

A short sword, already stained with drying blood along its edge.

“We’re here to kill.”

The words landed flat and absolute.

The second man grinned wider. “And you’ve got your precious ‘lady’ to thank for it.”

The sword rose.

The mother shut her eyes immediately, pulling her daughter closer, turning her body into a shield without hesitation.

If this was the end, then at least—

Let it be me.

Let her live.

Time stretched painfully thin.

But the strike never came.

SLAM.

A heavy impact shattered the moment.

The sound of metal colliding with something solid rang out sharply through the street, followed by the startled grunt of a man forced backward.

The mother didn’t understand. For a second, she thought she had died already.

“…Ma’am.”

A voice cut through the ringing silence.

“Ma’am, are you alright?”

Slowly—hesitantly—she opened her eyes.

Tears blurred her vision at first, spilling down her cheeks before she could even make sense of what she was seeing.

A man stood between them and death.

Loki.

He held a pitchfork in both hands, its wooden shaft trembling slightly from the force of the strike he had just delivered. Behind him, more figures emerged from the broken streets—farmers, townsfolk, ordinary people clutching whatever they could turn into weapons.

Shovels. Sickles. Wooden poles.

Nothing elegant.

Nothing trained.

But enough.

The cloaked men had been pushed back.

The mother let out a broken gasp. “Y-you… you saved us…”

Loki didn’t look away from the attackers as he helped her and her daughter to their feet with one hand still gripping his weapon.

“You’re safe now,” he said simply.

“B-but how…?” her voice shook.

He exhaled once, as if steadying himself, then finally glanced back at her.

“Everything changed a short while ago. The Lady has been giving orders. We started organizing in small groups,” Loki continued. “Ambushing them wherever we could. Cutting them off before they could reach the civilians.”

The mother stared at him, still shaking.

“The Lady?” she echoed weakly.

At that, something shifted in Loki’s expression.

Not fear.

Not hesitation.

Admiration.

“Yes,” he said, almost like it was obvious now. “Her Majesty is leading it all.”

He tightened his grip on the pitchfork.

“She’s not just protecting this city.”

A faint, breathless laugh escaped him—half disbelief, half awe.

“She’s tearing through them.”

Another clash echoed down the street, followed by a distant shout that dissolved into chaos.

Loki’s eyes lit with something fierce as he spoke again.

“There isn’t a hero in any land who can compare to Lady Miu right now.”

A beat of silence.

“She’s like a goddess of war!”

—

One block away from the chaos, the air itself felt different.

Not quieter—just controlled, as if violence had narrowed itself into a single point.

A bandit staggered back with a choked groan, clutching his wrist.

“UGH—!”

His sword cut through the air again in blind frustration, heavier this time, more desperate than precise. It was the kind of swing born from panic rather than skill.

Miu didn’t even flinch.

Her body shifted just enough to let the blade pass harmlessly beside her, the movement almost lazy in its efficiency. Her breathing remained steady, measured—like she had decided long ago that panic was not an option she was allowed to have.

She had already disarmed him once.

The gun had left his hand earlier, torn away with a flick of her whip and a crack that still echoed faintly in the bandit’s memory. He hadn’t expected that. None of them ever did.

Miu exhaled slowly through her nose, stepping back into space as if the battlefield itself belonged to her rhythm. Her whip tightened in her grip, then snapped forward again.

The leather moved like it had a mind of its own.

It coiled around the bandit’s sword mid-swing.

For a fraction of a second, everything held—steel caught in tension, man versus technique, force versus control.

Then Miu twisted her wrist.

The sword ripped free from his hand and spun upward into the air.

Time stretched just long enough for her to track it.

She stepped forward, calm as breath.

Her fingers closed around the falling hilt without hesitation.

Perfect catch.

No wasted motion.

No thought required.

The bandit froze for half a heartbeat, disbelief flashing across his face as he registered what had just happened. His weapon was gone. His control was gone.

And she was still standing exactly where she had been.

But in Miu’s mind, there was no noise.

Only memory.

“Always remember, Matthew. You are as skilled as any palace in the palace, maybe even better. However, you cannot best them with force. That is simply out of your hands.”

Those were her mother’s words the day she first placed a whip into her hands.

Her mother’s grip had been steady then—unwavering as she guided the weapon into her palms, as though she was not just teaching combat, but shaping how she would survive the world itself.

“That is why you must learn to wield that whip as if it is a part of your own body. Learn to push and pull it. Take advantage of the strength of those trying to defeat you with force alone.”

Miu’s grip tightened slightly on the sword.

The bandit’s face twisted.

“Fuck! How dare you—!”

The spell broke.

He reached into his coat and pulled a small knife, rushing forward in a burst of rage rather than strategy.

“JUST COME QUIETLY, YOU FOOLISH WOMAN!!”

He lunged.

Miu moved forward instead of away.

A civilian voice cracked somewhere behind her—

“LADY MIU—!”

The knife tore through fabric.

A sharp rip echoed through the narrow space as it sliced her dress.

But she wasn’t there anymore.

She had already stepped inside his guard.

Close enough to feel his breath.

Close enough to end it.

Her arm moved.

The hilt of the stolen sword collided with his face in a single, brutal strike.

The sound was dull and final.

Blood sprayed in a short arc.

The bandit’s body snapped backward before collapsing into the dirt, momentum carrying him just far enough to settle into stillness.

Silence followed—not peace, but shock.

Miu stood over him, sword still in hand, whip trailing loosely at her side.

—

Miu’s POV

“Lady Miu! Are you alright?!” One of the civilians rushed toward me in panic, eyes immediately locking onto the torn fabric of my dress.

I couldn’t help the scoff that slipped from my mouth, the sound light but edged with something sharper underneath. 

A bandit.

Just one.

How long has it been since something like this even came close to touching me during a duel?

Rusty.

That was the word that settled in my mind.

“Haa… he managed to tear my dress a bit,” I muttered under my breath, more to myself than anyone else. The fact that a single bandit had managed even that much felt less like injury and more like an insult I hadn’t noticed until now.

The civilian hesitated, still staring at me in what seems like awe.

I turned to him and caught that expression—fear mixed with disbelief, as if he still hadn’t decided whether I was something to protect or something impossible.

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said, calmer now, almost casual. I held out my whip. “Can you hold this for a moment?”

“Huh? Y-yes, my lady!”

He took it quickly, almost too quickly, like refusing would be more dangerous than obeying.

I didn’t waste another second. I grabbed the torn edge of my dress and pulled.

The fabric resisted at first, then gave way with a sharp, satisfying rip. I didn’t stop. Again. Again. The sound of tearing cloth cut cleanly through the tension around me, each motion deliberate, controlled, until the length finally reached something usable.

When I was done, I exhaled and let the excess fabric fall without looking at it.

“Now this is perfect,” I said quietly. “It was too heavy anyway.”

I adjusted my stance slightly, already feeling the difference. Lighter. Freer. No hesitation in movement. Good.

Behind me, the civilians were already at work.

They were dragging the unconscious bandit away, tying him with the others against the line of trees. Some were still groaning. Others were completely still. The ones who could walk were being separated, controlled, contained.

Efficient.

It was working.

The emergency route Father Gaston had mentioned had given us an advantage. We weren’t running blindly anymore. We were cutting into them in pieces, isolating groups before they could become an army.

A slow dismantling.

Still…

My eyes drifted over the prisoners.

Something about them sat wrong in my chest.

During the fight, I had seen them clearly. Not just the weapons they carried, but what carried them. Some were missing eyes. Others arms. One could barely stand without shaking so violently it looked like his bones didn’t belong to him anymore.

These weren’t trained soldiers.

Not knights.

Not even proper mercenaries.

They were people who had already been discarded once.

Prisoners.

Broken men.

The kind of people who don’t fight because they believe in anything—but because someone convinced them they had nothing left to lose.

My jaw tightened slightly.

That’s the Ducaine’s method.

Not strength.

Not honor.

Just… accumulation of desperation.

Turn suffering into numbers and call it an army.

My gaze narrowed as I looked further across the field.

If this is what they sent here, then the real force must still be elsewhere—holding back our knights, keeping them occupied, preventing reinforcement. Stalling us at every edge so the city collapses from inside instead of outside.

A slow suffocation.

My fingers curled faintly at my side.

Then I won’t give them that time.

One group at a time.

One section of the city at a time.

We take them down.

We take them apart.

And we take back every civilian still trapped inside this chaos.

Only then—

My gaze lifted toward the direction where distant gunfire still echoed beyond the broken horizon of the city.

—I will go to the palace knights.

And I will not arrive late.