Star of the Empress, Part II
The ground was, quite literally, a portrait of hell.
Flies swarmed over corpses bristling with arrows, and the filthy rags bound around festering wounds reeked of putrid blood and pus.
Rebels and royal soldiers clashed in a chaotic tangle, thrusting spears and swords at one another.
It was impossible to tell friend from foe.
When mercenaries disguised in royal uniforms stabbed a shouting decurion in the back, another soldier would drive a blade into the mercenary's neck just to steal his insignia.
Amidst the carnage, a particular scream caught my attention.
A soldier, unable to put up any real resistance despite holding a sword.
Having survived countless skirmishes, his chipped, notched blade was now wedged deep inside an enemy's throat, refusing to budge.
“Ugh...”
Bran quickly stepped in front of Aria, shielding her eyes.
Unfortunately, the horrific sight seemed already burned into her mind, refusing to fade.
She dry-heaved, but her empty stomach yielded nothing.
“Bran, take Aria and fall back.”
With it virtually certain that the Prophet was in the pleasure quarter, we had no choice but to press deeper.
But with our guide in this state, she was far more likely to drag us down than offer any help.
At this rate, she would be nothing but a liability.
Just what kind of person is she to be in a place like this...?
Gyahl had said the Prophet hadn't returned because she found something far more interesting than her duties at the royal castle.
From what I'd heard, she was incredibly powerful.
I couldn't help but wonder what someone of her stature—someone so highly ranked that even the king of a nation accommodated her—was doing holed up in a place like this.
It would have been easier if this were simply enemy territory where I could cut down everyone in my path.
But because I couldn't distinguish who to save and who to kill, I couldn't afford to run wild.
All I could do was deflect the flying steel and force my way deeper inside.
Just then, Aria shoved Bran aside and bolted.
We watched in sheer horror as she charged straight into the thick of the battlefield before anyone could stop her.
“Damn it! How could you let a frail, injured girl slip right past you?”
“How was I supposed to know? She was literally throwing up from watching people die! I thought she'd run away, not charge straight into the meat grinder...!”
“Enough! We're going after her.”
I immediately gave chase.
The moment I crossed into the fray, stray blades lunged at me from all directions.
Dodging the unexpected thrusts, I kept my eyes locked on Aria's back as she ran, clutching her tattered, rag-like clothes.
She was heading toward what must have once been the most magnificent center of the pleasure quarter.
The central fountain—once a place where young, impoverished men and women gathered to flirt and size each other up—was now choked with blood and corpses.
Dozens of soldiers swarmed around it, locked in a chaotic, screaming melee.
“What the hell is she thinking, running around like she's invincible?!”
A flurry of blades flew toward a snarling Luke.
There was no telling whether they belonged to the royal army or the rebels.
We pried decent swords from the stiffening grips of fallen soldiers, parrying and deflecting the onslaught while struggling not to lose sight of her for even a second.
Whether by sheer luck or some strange design, the soldiers, consumed by their mutual slaughter, ignored the young girl darting through the chaos.
Perhaps in the heat of battle, neutralizing an active threat was far more urgent than stopping a child.
Before long, Aria slipped past the heart of the skirmish and vanished into a deserted alleyway.
She definitely knows something.
It was the only logical conclusion.
I had never shown her any hostility.
If anything, I was her savior.
Under the circumstances, she had no reason to risk her life crossing a battlefield just to get away from us.
If I had to guess her motive, it had to be...
“...Because I said we were looking for the Prophet.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Luke asked, slamming a screaming rebel to the ground.
Bran didn't seem to have the mental capacity to join the conversation, but he was somehow managing to keep pace behind us.
“It's the only thing that makes sense.”
Exactly as I said.
No matter how I looked at it, Aria's sudden flight was an attempt to distance herself from us.
It felt as though she was desperately trying to hide something we weren't supposed to find out.
And our only goal here was to locate the Prophet.
I wanted to explain it to them in detail until they understood, but catching Aria had to come first.
Fortunately, Luke seemed to accept this without further question.
Rebels and mercenaries, blinded by greed for bounties, threw themselves at the royal soldiers with reckless abandon.
Unfortunately, Luke and Bran belonged to the 5th Defense Unit under the Royal Army.
Dressed in pristine royal uniforms, they were prime targets, making it incredibly difficult to slip through the fray unnoticed.
“This is a pain. Should we just strip these uniforms off?”
“If you want to get stabbed from both sides, be my guest.”
“Oh, come on. I've got connections everywhere. Look, there's a familiar face over there. Hey, Timmy!”
He still had the leeway to joke around.
They swung their weapons and shields, parrying and countering the endless waves of hostile soldiers.
At the very least, they didn't seem like the types to die in a place like this.
In that case, I had only one task.
“I'll clear a path! Watch your step, avoid injuries, and follow me!”
The tide of battle was turning against the royal army.
A massive number of mercenaries had already defected, and the rebels were hunting down decurions and centurions like rabid dogs.
With the line between ally and enemy completely blurred, the chain of command had collapsed, leaving everyone fighting half-blind.
“This is strange,” Luke muttered, scanning the area as he subdued another soldier. “Even with the betrayal, our guys shouldn't be getting pushed back this easily.”
By "our guys," he meant the royal army.
Now that he mentioned it, he was right.
A kingdom that had endured for so long shouldn't have been driven into such a corner by a mere mercenary revolt.
And their opponents were humans, not beasts.
No matter how well-trained the rebels were, they shouldn't have been able to overwhelm a military specifically organized to defend the kingdom so effortlessly.
But I had to put those doubts aside for now.
Surviving and breaking through this mess was the priority.
—To think you would struggle against such mere gnats. How utterly pathetic.
Shut up.
My sword was never forged to harm humans; it was honed solely to slay beasts.
Ignoring Tirmisia's mocking snort, I began searching for a way forward.
Even in the heart of a chaotic battlefield, pockets of empty space always open up.
Fortunately, that rule of thumb held true even in a clash between humans.
“This way!”
I seized the opening before the soldiers could swarm it.
I deflected incoming blades and shattered spear shafts, securing our path.
After repeating this a few times, we finally reached the outer edge of the rebel-dense zone.
No more attacks came our way.
Instead, we were met with stunned, gaping stares.
Perhaps they realized we had no intention of fighting or killing them, but were merely passing through.
Of course, that didn't mean this newly ignited war was anywhere near over.
They had simply made a tactical assessment, choosing to ignore us as a non-threat while they went back to their slaughter.
“I've never experienced anything like that before!” Bran shook his head in disbelief, his face flushed with adrenaline as he looked back at the battlefield.
It wasn't as if I had experienced it either.
But right now, I was far more concerned with Aria's whereabouts than how we had survived that madness.
I looked down at the longsword in my hand.
Weapons were meant to cleave through flesh.
The blade I had used to deflect spears and swords was now heavily chipped, looking as if it might snap at any moment.
Not that it mattered.
The ground was littered with corpses and discarded weapons.
I found a sword in decent condition, gave it a few test swings, and set off toward the alley where Aria had vanished.
The quick-witted Luke leaped ahead, scanning the rooftops.
“She took a right here. Should I look from above?”
We immediately ran down the alley, but too much time had passed. Even for a young girl, she would have gained a significant lead.
If she had slipped into one of the abandoned buildings, finding her would become ten times harder.
“How do you plan on signaling us?”
“I'll shout. I've got a pretty loud voice, after all.”
“Fine. If you still can't find her, start searching the nearby buildings.”
I nodded, and Luke immediately scaled the side of a building.
The way he nimbly used the architecture to climb suggested this was far from his first time doing so.
Bran and I continued our search on the ground.
A few rebels jumped us here and there, but they weren't difficult to handle.
More than anything, being out of the public eye meant we didn't have to hold back, allowing us to move much faster.
The layout of the pleasure quarter was simpler than expected.
Once you cleared the narrow alleys, they opened up into main streets wide enough for a carriage.
Even when the path split, the branches inevitably converged at the next intersection.
No obstacle delayed us for more than a single breath.
We ran forward, slashing, thrusting, and shoving aside anyone in our way.
We traversed so much ground that I began to wonder if we might actually stumble upon the Prophet wandering the streets by sheer luck.
“Please... wait up!”
As we sprinted through the pleasure quarter as if possessed, I suddenly heard ragged gasping from behind.
I stopped and looked back at Bran, who was completely out of breath, and scanned our surroundings.
“...!!”
A faint scream echoed from up ahead.
It was a high-pitched shriek, definitely not a man's.
I instinctively turned to Bran.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yes. It came from this way.”
Bran whispered, adjusting his grip on his sword as he stepped forward.
The sound of muffled, sobbing whimpers drifted to us in irregular intervals.
Bran peeked around the corner of the wall, quickly assessing the situation, and opened his mouth to whisper to me.
Or rather, he tried to.
Something... was wrong.
His pale face was trembling slightly.
As if he had just witnessed something that should never be seen.
Then, an eerie voice echoed in my ears.
“Shh. It's alright now, so do not worry.”
A woman's voice, so clear it felt as if she were whispering right next to my ear.
I walked toward the sound, utterly spellbound.
“For no one shall ever harm you again.”
On this pitch-black night without a single star, flames writhed and surged toward the heavens as if trying to illuminate the sky.
And cradled in the arms of a woman whose hair was so vividly red it seemed to have captured the entire blazing landscape,
Aria simply stared, taking in the entire scene.