“Ha……”

Diblin pressed her forehead.

“I thought so. There’s no way Winterhold would challenge me to cross swords.”

Spica observed her tensely.

‘What if she says she’s going back after I provoked her this much?’

She had lashed out because it seemed like she kept finding fault and trying to quit, but she didn’t know if it worked.

But there was no need to worry. Diblin needed someone to vent her anger on. And above all, she intended to make this insignificant thing taste complete frustration so it could never crawl up again.

“Yes, junior. I’ll become your wall.”

Just like Alkaid is to me.

‘If I tear her companion’s arm to shreds, that Winterhold will have no choice but to wail too.’

Imagining a thrilling future, Diblin leaped toward Spica.

* * *

Royal Guard Commander Sobek glanced at his watch.

“By now…… it must have started.”

“It must have.”

Unlike Commander Sobek who seemed impatient, the person sitting across from him only quietly lifted his teacup. Commander Sobek also belatedly pretended to be calm and lifted his cup.

The teacups held in the thick, large hands of the two men looked like toys that would go in a dollhouse.

However, Commander Sobek didn’t mind and drank his tea in one gulp. It was against etiquette and burned his mouth, but he didn’t even have the leisure to be conscious of that. Because what the other side had proposed was too tremendous, and he was disgusted with himself for eventually accepting it.

“Why go this far?”

“Because I have to.”

The person sitting in front of Commander Sobek put down the teacup he hadn’t touched.

The sun, which had been covered by clouds for days, finally showed itself, and his hair began to sparkle dazzlingly. If Spica had seen it, she would have sparkled her eyes just as much trying to capture that beauty, but Commander Sobek subtly turned his eyes away to prevent their gazes from meeting.

‘He goes around wearing a helmet…… why doesn’t he wear it in front of me.’

Alkaid swept back his somewhat disheveled hair and looked around the Royal Guard Commander’s office.

Why go this far?

In fact, he could have crushed both Diblin and Lepus to death before even asking Spica’s opinion. Alkaid had more than enough justification.

However, Spica was someone who carved out her own life wielding a sword. He was satisfied just making her decisions into reality.

The wolf who had come to deeply love his fated companion chose such a path.

“For you, it’s like blowing your nose without using your hands. Both the security captain who was bribing the Sobek family and the slum disappearance case are being taken away by your sister. Isn’t that good?”

“Still, she’s a sister who shares at least half my blood……”

“Didn’t that sister threaten your position by taking children’s life force through dark magic?”

What Diblin was aiming for wasn’t me but you.

Even while thinking that, Commander Sobek obediently closed his mouth.

‘There are no secrets in the world.’

Even if everything else was false, one most powerful fact — the moment what Diblin did leaked out, the Sobek family would be finished. The imperial family’s wrath and the empire’s citizens’ condemnation, and above all, the dark mage guild that had emerged from underground only decades ago would lead the charge to burn them.

“……Even if others don’t, Mother won’t stay still.”

“Won’t stay still? Yes, if I or my people are attacked by dark magic, narrowing the investigation net would become very troublesome.”

Alkaid added sarcastically.

“I know the duchess isn’t your birth mother. Your filial piety runs very deep.”

“She raised me, so I’m just fulfilling my duty.”

“Stopping that person well is the way to fulfill your duty as a son. Unless you want a territorial war that splits the country in half because you’re swayed by your mother.”

“That’s enough. I understand. I’ll bury it quietly.”

It was a voice that tried to sound firm but lacked confidence even to himself. Alkaid raised one corner of his mouth.

‘I wonder if you really can.’

Commander Sobek’s birth mother had died a violent death. Though he had been young at the time and his father Duke Sobek had controlled him so he knew nothing of those suspicions, there were still many who remembered that time.

Memories, and clues.

He had scattered those among Commander Sobek’s trusted subordinates, so hostility would grow on top of that quickly. Diblin’s mother would make a bad move while cornered and resentful about her daughter’s situation.

The Sobek family suffering internal strife was practically a foregone conclusion.

Alkaid, who had foreseen everything to the end, got up and dusted himself off.

“Then I’ll be going. I have to go before things are completely finished.”

“……Yes. I wish you good luck in battle.”

Good luck in battle.

“You too.”

Only a reply that was unclear whether it was mockery or sincerity remained in the place where Alkaid had hurriedly disappeared.

* * *

“Urgh.”

Spica groaned between the ceaseless clashing of metal. The force of each strike was tremendous, shaking from her shoulder to her clenched jaw.

She was being overwhelmingly pushed back by Diblin. Diblin snorted seeing her continuously stepping backward and desperately focused only on defense.

“You should know your place!”

“Ugh……!”

“What? Did Winterhold whisper sweet nothings about imprinting?”

“……”

Spica kept her mouth tightly shut and concentrated only on deflecting Diblin’s sword. She seemed to have no other leisure at all.

But if you looked closely, Spica only had minor scratches and no fatal wounds. However, it was also true that blocking each exchange was burdensome.

Diblin was gradually getting tired of just driving her opponent who was forcibly enduring. That’s why she started opening her mouth to provoke her. Someone driven to the edge of a cliff would fall with just a push.

“Is it real? Do you believe those words?”

“……I, I believe it.”

“Ha! An inferior human who can’t even feel what imprinting is!”

That moment, Spica’s sword wavered.

This is the chance! Diblin swung her sword toward the prey that had fallen into the trap. With the strongest force she had used so far.

Clang!

With a tearing sound, Spica’s sword slipped from her grip. Before she could even reach for the sword spinning in the air, Diblin’s sword had already turned direction and was heading for her neck.

Finally, it was the moment Spica had been waiting for.

Her sky-blue eyes sparkled.

‘Now!’

Spica bent her waist back fluidly like flowing water. While Diblin’s sword pierced the air by a hair’s breadth, she bounced her body up and caught her own sword.

Diblin couldn’t think of her next response to the movement she hadn’t expected Spica to show. What deeply cut her arm was the sword in Spica’s right hand.

Diblin’s sword fell and rolled on the ground with blood dripping on it, but she couldn’t take any measures. Her face looked like she had seen a ghost.

“You, you this…… that arm……”

“What about my arm? Did you think I could only use left-handed swordsmanship for life?”

Spica smiled deeply.

In fact, when Alkaid told her to go out as his champion, she thought it was nonsense.

〈Senior Sobek practiced only one type of swordsmanship unlike me. If I go out, far from revenge, I’ll only dirty your name.〉

〈I’m speaking coldly as a knight. Sobek has weaknesses, and your talent won’t miss that gap.〉

Diblin had almost no real combat experience. When she should have been gaining practical experience through subjugations, she avoided them, claiming she needed to focus on building mana and improving her swordsmanship.

That meant she was inexperienced in dealing with surprising situations.

‘Alkaid was right.’

Spica’s smile was sincere.

The taste of revenge was thrillingly refreshing. How thrilling? The feeling of being thrown into the air with crumbling ground, exactly that much.

“……Huh. I thought you’d live as a one-armed person for life.”

But only Diblin’s mental strength exceeded Alkaid’s prediction. Spica was surprised to see her lifting her sword with her deeply wounded arm.

“What are you doing? The outcome has already been decided……”

“Shut up. Do you think I’ll live having lost to something that’s not even a beast-human?”

“……”

“One of us has to die.”

Spica’s expression also turned coldly grim.

She glanced at the Crown Prince but he didn’t seem to have any intention of intervening. He too didn’t seem to think Diblin had been subdued to this extent.

“Fine. I’ll show you how ridiculous your arrogance is. For the sake of other people who were sacrificed to you!”

This time Spica swung her sword first. Diblin snorted and parried it.

‘Even if it’s her right hand, how long can she last with a side she couldn’t use for years.’

But it didn’t take long for her laughter to fade.

Spica was completely different from earlier when she had been half-intentionally hesitating. Both her strength and speed.

Of course, it wasn’t that Spica had suddenly become strong like her seal had been released and crushed Diblin.

The only thing Spica was better at compared to Diblin was speed. She was behind in both strength and technique.

However, Spica knew her weaknesses inside and out.

〈Before making big attacks, her waist will be exposed for a moment, and every time she aims for the opponent’s right side, her left wrist will twist.〉

Alkaid’s words that she had memorized blindly became familiar through real combat. She became accustomed to them through clashing swords.

Added to that was the injury she had inflicted taking advantage of Diblin’s carelessness, and the two finally became evenly matched.

Diblin couldn’t stand even that. She was a special person who surpassed the limits of ordinary people and handled aura. Such a person being pushed back by something that just swung metal around ordinarily?

The sense of crisis she had felt long ago burst out covered in anger.

“I’ll kill you!”