Yo Mama, That's Who!
"Yo mama, that is what it is."
The second-floor window stood a good five meters up, yet my body touched the ground as lightly as if gravity itself had simply decided to look the other way.
"Wh-what the—?!"
"She just jumped from the second floor in full armor!"
The four soldiers below startled and thrust their swords at me, but to be honest, it all looked like slow motion. Not threatening in the slightest.
"Interrogation can wait, I suppo—hah!"
Before they could react, I was already moving. My first punch sank into one man's stomach; the blade another swung down at me I caught flat on my shield. After that, it was simply a matter of using the shield to knock them down, one by one.
"Ugh!"
"Keh!"
"Gwah!"
"Ack!"
A thirty-kilogram steel shield, paired with the fist of a young lady who could knock out a two-ton bison cold. The soldiers collapsed where they stood, uttering short, final cries. My sincere apologies to them, but functionally speaking, they might as well have been hit by a runaway carriage. I had at least moderated my strength, though—so despite my rather dramatic phrasing, they shouldn't be dead.
Probably. People are surprisingly hard to kill, after all.
"All done down here! Jump!"
At my shout, Hildegard leapt from the window without a moment's hesitation.
"Ngh—!"
She landed quite nimbly, all things considered, but a five-meter drop is a five-meter drop. Jumping it while wearing lamellar armor and carrying a woldo, there was no way she'd come out of it untouched. Nothing seemed broken, thankfully, but her grimace and the way she favored her left leg suggested she'd twisted her ankle on the landing.
"Bielka, quickly! Hurry!"
Only Bielka remained on the second floor now. But instead of jumping, she just stared down at me, her face frozen with fright.
"My lady! It's—it's too high!"
"Jump! I'll catch you!"
"Eeeeeeek!"
Squeezing her eyes shut and letting out a shriek, Bielka flung herself from the window. Her aim was a little off, but I launched myself nearly off the ground to meet her and caught her with ease.
The moment I set her down—she was still clinging to me in something like a hug—a splintering crash of a door breaking came from Hildegard's room at the inn. Through the doorway I could see armed soldiers pouring inside.
"We need to shake them off first. They'll be after us any moment. If those men put their minds to it, they can muster a hundred times that number."
Bielka and I exchanged a silent nod with Hildegard and started running down the narrow alleyway.
As she ran, Hildegard glanced over at me. Gratitude and astonishment were written plainly in her eyes.
"If the young lady had not been there, I would have died on that floor—or been dragged off to the executioner's block."
"You really ought to value yourself more, you know. Fleeing is wiser than dying, it truly is."
Hildegard gave a bitter smile.
"You're right. Thank you—at least for today, you've let me live."
We pressed on through the narrow alleys. From the direction of the inn came shouts and the clash of metal on metal.
"Three suspicious ones over here! They must be the ones who jumped from the second floor!"
Ugh.
Every fiber of my being wanted to leave Bielka with Hildegard, charge in, and flatten every last one of them. But if I did that, my identity might come out, and that was a risk I didn't care to take.
Mama is a frightening thing, she is... so very frightening.
No—the best course, as ever, was to avoid physical collisions wherever possible. I ran in the opposite direction from the pursuers' voices, Hildegard and Bielka at my side.
Even at a run, Hildegard limped slightly on her left ankle. Bielka watched her with worried eyes.
"Are you all right? You're hurt quite badly."
Hildegard shook her head, fighting to keep her pace.
"I'm fine. I only turned it a little on the landing."
But the slight grimace on her face told me it was worse than she let on. Proper treatment would fix it soon enough, but if a fight broke out—and with our luck, one might—it was a considerable nuisance. I worried for her inwardly, but right now, throwing off the pursuit and getting out of this district came before everything else.
"Bielka, where would be best to go, pray tell?"
At my question, Bielka pointed to the right.
"That way leads to the market. It'll be packed with people, so if we blend into the crowd, we can lose them easily."
I shot the suggestion down immediately.
"Bielka, do think for a moment about what I am wearing, won't you?"
I was clad head to toe in Empire-style full plate armor. A magnificent thing, gleaming silver in the sunlight—but how, precisely, was I supposed to hide in a market dressed like this?
"Ah... right."
"And if we go to the market, civilians could get hurt. The market is out."
"Then let us make for the citadel."
"The citadel?"
Hildegard asked, eyes wide with surprise.
"Have no fear. I am the daughter of the Grand Duchy of Eisenmark. If I extend my protection, some minor imperial legal officer will simply have to back down, will he not?"
For an instant, relief flashed across Hildegard's face—then her expression tightened once more.
We were cutting through a cramped, crooked alley when we rounded a corner and froze mid-stride. A dozen or more armed soldiers stood packed solid at the alley's mouth, blocking it entirely.
Worse, they had raised long pikes—evidently to counter Hildegard's woldo—forming an unbroken wall of spearheads.
"By order of the Imperial Special Legal Officer, Hildegard Pechter is under arrest! Resist, and you will be summarily executed!"
The officer at their head bellowed, brandishing the seal hanging from his belt.
There was no retreat. Behind us, footsteps and shouts were drawing closer by the second.
Hildegard drew her woldo, limping on her left leg. But the expression that crossed her face already read like a premonition of defeat.
Meanwhile, I was clenching and unclenching my fists, struggling desperately to keep my composure.
These bastards, taking us for granted. On my own land, they dare draw weapons and talk of summary execution?
No matter how I tried to master myself, the rage kept surging up. I could feel Katerina's blood boiling within me.
"Bielka, step back."
I eased Bielka aside and thrust my shield forward. At the sight of it, the legal officer let out a sneer.
"You would defy the order of an imperial legal officer? I see your life means little to you."
My heart pounded. I wanted nothing more than to scream, 'This is the Grand Duchy of Eisenmark, you fool!'—but I had to hold it in. I bit my lip hard inside my helmet. But—
"Yo mama, that is what it is!"
The curse burst out of me before I could stop it.
"Wh—what?!"
It felt satisfying, at least. So before the stunned officer, still reeling from a profoundly vulgar insult, could gather his wits, I raised my shield and advanced on the wall of pikes.
The soldiers, bless them, reacted to the actual threat faster than their officer did.
In unison, they thrust their pikes forward. A hedgehog's bristle of layered spearpoints all aimed at me, and on their faces hung the smug certainty that this wall they'd built in such perfect order could not be broken.
But they didn't know. They didn't know who I was, or how hard this shield and armor were.
I tucked myself as far behind the shield as I could and dropped low. The strength overflowing from my body surged up from my toes and flooded through me—and the next instant, my body shot forward as if I had a rocket strapped to my back.
"Uryaaaaaah!"
The shield met the first pike. The moment it struck the magically reinforced steel, the shaft snapped. The second, the third, the fourth—pike after pike splintered and buckled like so many broken toothpicks.
CRACK! THUNK! THUNK!
Shrieks of metal and splintering wood mingled with the soldiers' screams. The body of a young lady weighing over thirty kilograms of shield and armor alone plowed through everything like a tank.
Looked at one way, all I'd done was charge a wall of pikes behind my shield—and their formation had collapsed in the blink of an eye.
"Wh-what the hell?!"
"Impossible..."
"She broke every single pike?!"
A smile crept across my lips beneath the helmet's face guard. The difference between me and those soldiers was greater than the difference between a grown man and an infant in swaddling clothes. That was no exaggeration—not by a single inch.
The pikes broke, and the soldiers went flying. Some rolled on the ground moaning where my shield had swept through; a few had been slammed into the walls and lay utterly still.
"Did you truly think a wall of toy spears could stop m—could stop me?"
The legal officer backed away, his face drained white. The seal in his hand trembled violently.
"What... what in the world are you...?"
I looked at him—the same man who, mere moments ago, had been spouting words like "summary execution."
"Yo mama, that is what it is."
He deserved nothing more. The officer fled as if his backside were on fire.
When I turned back toward Hildegard and Bielka, the first thing I saw was Bielka, her eyes shining like stars.
"Wow...! I knew it, Kater—oopsie, I mean, Lady Lina!"
Hildegard, for her part, still held her woldo at the ready, still favoring her leg slightly. Evidently she'd been keeping watch for any surprises.
"Truly... remarkable. How can a person have such strength...?"
The soldiers I'd flattened still showed no intention of moving, but from somewhere in the distance came another wave of running footsteps. More armed soldiers, it seemed, were rushing toward us.
"This way! Quickly!"
I shouted to Bielka and Hildegard, pointing across the alley.
Bielka took the lead, darting into the narrow passage. Hildegard followed so fast that no one would ever have guessed one of her legs was injured. I brought up the rear, covering them both.