TVIQ 12

Chapter: 12

“They’re shooting arrows!”

“I know! You don’t have to tell me!”

Aine bit her lip. Taking a quick look behind her, she saw that there were roughly more than fifty pursuers.

‘Are they not even thinking of taking us alive?’

It seemed they had no intention of capturing them as prisoners, as they were already drawing their bows while riding on horseback. Since they were not wearing armor either, even a single arrow would cause a fatal injury.

It seemed their goal was to kill all of them right here.

“Commander. I’ll be the decoy. So at least you should make it safely into the Empire.”

Thinking of all those who had sacrificed themselves for Aine, Mane felt that it was now her turn.

Although she did not understand Aine’s intentions, that did not matter. She was willing to give her life without hesitation for the sake of Aine, the woman she served and followed.

That was why she intended to volunteer as the decoy.

“They won’t let you live.”

“I know. But what other choice do we have? If we keep going like this, we’ll be hit by those arrows.”

Aine hated the thought of sacrificing one of her subordinates and was about to refuse.

But Mane was right. There was no way for them to shake off the pursuers now.

Above all, the pursuers seemed determined to chase them to the very end until every one of them was dead.

Following Mane’s plan was the most rational choice. At least, there would be a greater chance that one side would survive.

But Aine could not accept the proposal.

No matter the circumstances, she refused to sacrifice one of her subordinates.

“Commander, you really are a strange person.”

Watching Aine hesitate to make the obvious choice, Mane smiled sadly.

“Most commanders think of their subordinates as tools. Like pieces on a chessboard that exist only to move according to their commands.”

“Mane!”

“But you were completely different from them, Commander. You always thought of your subordinates first. And I was the same.”

There was a simple reason why her subordinates trusted and followed Aine.

It was because she never abandoned them, no matter what the circumstances were. More than that, she always took their hardships into consideration.

The place where Mane had lived was near the border with the Empire, so many orphans were created at the beginning of the war. The influential people were busy with the war, while everyone else was too occupied with securing their own survival to pay attention to those children.

The powerless and fragile children had no way to survive and were on the verge of dying.

But there was one person who did not turn her back on them.

“I couldn’t do anything, but you saved those children, Commander.”

Aine established an orphanage and created a place where the children could live.

Thanks to that, Mane was even able to reunite with her younger sibling, whom she had been separated from at the beginning of the war.

From that moment on, Mane had been prepared to die for Aine.

“It’s unfortunate, but this means we’ll have to say goodbye for a while, Commander.”

At the word goodbye, Aine closed her eyes and prayed to Raysi, who had already departed this world.

‘Raysi, please.’

Praying to God was meaningless.

No matter how desperately she begged for Raysi to be killed or for herself to return to her original world, none of her prayers had been answered.

But whenever she prayed to Raysi rather than to God, things were different.

‘If you can hear my voice, please help me.’

Whenever she prayed to Raysi in moments of mortal crisis, miraculous things happened.

So she pleaded with Raysi.

For the sake of her child who was slowly dying, and for her own sake, she begged her to please help.

“Ugh!”

“I hit her with an arrow!”

“Mane!”

Just as she finished praying, a stray arrow struck Mane’s horse, causing it to collapse.

Mane was thrown from the horse and fell to the ground, unable to get back up.

Seeing Mane groaning in the midst of a life-or-death crisis, Aine hurriedly stopped and hesitated.

Should she surrender here for the sake of her subordinate?

Or should she continue forward to the very end for Wilhelm?

“Get down!”

A voice suddenly rang out just as she had to make her decision.

The moment they dismounted, they were practically giving themselves up to be captured, but Aine climbed down from her horse together with Wilhelm.

And perhaps because her prayer had been answered, a truly miraculous situation unfolded.

“Gah!”

“P-please, save me!”

“Damn it!”

The pursuers who had been charging after them at terrifying speed suddenly collapsed after being struck by arrows that had flown from somewhere.

“Why are Imperial soldiers here?!”

Aine hurriedly turned her head to check the direction from which the arrows had come.

There, as if by a miracle, Imperial soldiers had appeared.

And they had brought with them the Schweizer Unit, regarded as the Empire’s final elite force.

Recognizing the Schweizer Unit from their black armor, Aine turned her gaze away.

‘They said the Schweizer Unit only follows the orders of one person.’

The Schweizer Unit was known to obey only one person, to the point that they would not even follow the Emperor’s orders.

And that one person was precisely the man Aine had wanted to meet.

The Governor-General of the Imperial Army, and the man who had driven Aine into crisis time and time again.

Cled Hartz.

“Their opponents are just an incompetent Imperial army anyway. They’ve dismounted, so hurry up and kill them!”

Oden, the leader of the pursuing force, believing the Imperial army to be incompetent, ordered his men to charge and kill Aine and Wilhelm.

“C-Captain. Those are the S-Schweizer Unit!”

Unlike Oden, the subordinates who recognized who they were facing could not bring themselves to move recklessly.

“So what?!”

“H-Haven’t you heard of them?! The Schweizer Unit is a force of one hundred men capable of fighting as one thousand! W-We have to run!”

“W-We’re all going to die here!”

They were already exhausted from chasing Aine.

Even though their families had been taken hostage, they had no intention of throwing their lives away in a battle they were certain to lose.

“You cowards! And you call yourselves the Royal Guard, the greatest army in the kingdom?!”

“Captain!”

“Follow me!”

Oden, on the other hand, shouted at his subordinates and marched forward.

At the very least, he thought that if he took the lead, his men would follow him as well.

But the situation did not unfold as he wanted.

“Captain!”

Watching Oden charge forward without considering the situation around him, Cled let out a self-deprecating laugh and signaled to the archers.

“To think he would run forward and willingly make himself a target. What an idiot. If the entire enemy army had been made up of fools like him, we would have won this war long ago.”

Dozens of arrows pierced various parts of Oden’s body as he charged.

He collapsed without even managing to scream.

“Fall back.”

“Are you sure that’s all right?”

“We can’t fight them. And now that they’ve been captured by the Empire, those people won’t survive either.”

Judging the situation hopeless, the pursuing force retreated without even bothering to retrieve Oden’s corpse.

“Mane. Are you hurt?”

“Fortunately, I only slightly twisted my ankle. But, Commander…”

“Yes. We haven’t completely survived yet.”

Although they had survived the pursuers, they could not completely let their guard down yet.

Aine turned her gaze toward a man slowly walking toward them.

A man with platinum-blond hair that shone brilliantly like the sun and blue eyes.

Cled Hartz.

He approached until he was standing directly in front of Aine, holding a sharply honed sword.

“I’m curious. What brings the hero of the Kingdom of Orion all the way here?”

Aine had intended to introduce herself first, but Cled already knew her identity.

There was nothing strange about that. After all, Aine had also recognized him the moment she saw him.

Aine studied Cled’s face.

There was none of the mockery she had seen earlier.

Instead, his eyes were filled with something closer to genuine curiosity.

He seemed curious about why she had been pursued, and even more so about why she was here in the first place.

‘Even I wouldn’t believe it if I were in his position. If an enemy commander came looking for me like this.’

With a bitter smile, Aine picked up a white flag that happened to be lying nearby and spoke.

“If I told you that I came here to surrender, would you believe me?”

The First Army Commander of the Kingdom of Orion, Aine Kleine, had come to surrender to the Verona Empire.

“What should we do?”

“If we return like this, there’s no doubt our families won’t be safe.”

The faces of the pursuers returning to the royal palace were grim.

They were afraid of what would happen to their families, as well as themselves, if they returned empty-handed.

“But we can’t fight the Schweizer Unit.”

“That’s true, but…”

“This couldn’t be helped.”

Yes, there was nothing they could do.

If they explained the situation, Linus would undoubtedly understand as well.

The unit commander, who believed that surviving had to come first, wanted to return to the royal palace as quickly as possible.

They were currently near the Brontfort Fortress.

That also meant that the main force led by Aine was somewhere nearby.

‘We have to hurry and escape before they realize.’

Since they had failed to take Aine hostage, they needed to flee as quickly as possible.

“What should we do, Deputy Commander? Should we capture them?”

“They shot arrows at the Commander, didn’t they? We need to make sure they learn exactly who they dared to attack.”

But by the time they had set foot in this place, it was already too late.

“Kill them all. I’ll explain to the royal palace that it was an incident caused by mistaking them for the enemy.”