“I possessed the corpse of someone who died fighting Roderick, and that child thought I was undead. Thanks to that, I couldn’t speak for a moment after being hit by the cold air.”

Seeing Grandma laugh heartily as if she found it amusing, it seemed the thing Erica had been worried about hadn’t happened.

“Everyone is safe.”

“Hah…… thank goodness.”

Still, she finally felt relieved only after hearing it directly.

“More than that, Roderick was only worried about you. When I told him you were safe too, he tearfully poured out thanks to me, and I received gratitude without having done anything. Anyway, seeing half his face like that, my heart felt so heavy……”

“Oh my, you know. Even though he’s as big as a bear, he’s really tender-hearted.”

For Erica, who seemed like a rock on the outside but was actually tender-hearted, to say such things. Greta, who remembered Erica sighing while looking at the sky whenever she had a chance when Roderick was on the battlefield, smiled quietly.

“Anyway, the children are being cared for in Duke Pendrel’s territory.”

Duke Pendrel’s territory was safe, but the land of the elves was not. More than half, including the royal palace, had fallen into the hands of the dwarves. Seeing the dwarves relentlessly pushing to get the other half into their hands without rest, it seemed they intended to occupy the land of the elves quickly and lend their strength to the capital siege that would soon take place.

“That won’t do……”

Wasn’t it like being destined for annihilation, caught between the fortified capital and the dwarves in the rear? Erica, who had been lost in thought, smiled slyly.

“Then we’ll have to sweep away the dwarves first before starting the siege in earnest.”

That fake brother sometimes helped Erica’s life.

Thanks to that guy doing stupid things as Erica predicted, the marquis had recently become such a fanatic that he would believe it even if Erica said she made soybean paste out of red beans.

‘Capturing the marquis is finished. Contact with Roderick has been made. Now it’s time to launch the final operation.’

Erica, who had conversed with the command outside the capital through Grandma, pretended to take a short nap, lay down for a moment, then got up and headed straight to the marquis.

“I finally saw in a dream how you capture the princess!”

It was the moment when the wrinkles that had increased even more lately on the marquis’s face, upon hearing the news he had been waiting for, smoothed out completely.

“What did you see? Everything, in detail, without omission, tell me immediately.”

So Erica reported. The lie she had concocted together with the command of the princess faction’s army.

“The princess is hiding in Eberstadt.”

“Is that so?”

The marquis, who had only been hearing frustrating reports from Magnus that he still hadn’t found the princess’s whereabouts, felt like his insides were clearing up.

“I don’t know how you found that out, but you succeeded in capturing it and taking the princess hiding in the castle as a prisoner.”

“You’re saying this time I’ll succeed in capturing Eberstadt?”

“Yes!”

“Hmm……”

Hope welled up in the marquis’s chest, but doubts also raised their heads. Hadn’t they already tried hard to bring down Eberstadt? It wasn’t an easy place. Of course, there was also the fact that they had underestimated the opponent at that time.

‘I never imagined there would be so many wyverns.’

The wyverns would be gathered around the capital now. Witness accounts had been coming in that the princess faction’s army that crossed the mountains was using wyverns to attack territories around the capital.

‘With wyverns, it would be half a day from here to Eberstadt.’

Maybe it would take even less time. Eberstadt was within range where wyverns from the capital could fly to provide support in a few hours.

‘But you’re saying the capture of Eberstadt will succeed?’

At this point, doubts grew larger than hope. The marquis ordered Hilda to describe everything she saw in order to find out the secret to capturing Eberstadt.

“First, there were an enormous number of dwarves. Really like an ant swarm! I also saw undead, but not as many compared to the dwarves. Oh, I also saw Sir Magnus’s face.”

The marquis’s conclusion from putting those words together converged on one thing. It meant they would also move the dwarf army in the land of the elves and attack Eberstadt.

“Hmm……”

He had been planning to bring them to the capital side soon anyway. But the reason he hesitated was because the occupation of the land of the elves wasn’t finished yet.

‘Just waiting a little longer would do……’

Convincing the dwarves, who were obsessed with that precious land, to temporarily leave it and cross the mountain range wasn’t the only problem.

‘Is this really okay?’

Originally, he had planned to deploy the army dispersed around the capital.

‘But you’re telling me to concentrate all of that in one place, Eberstadt?’

No matter how miraculous the prophetic dream was, a tactical change he had never thought of couldn’t immediately feel welcome.

“Did you perhaps not see the situation in the capital?”

Hilda, who had been shaking her head with a dark face, suddenly opened her eyes wide and clapped her hands.

“Ah! I think I heard Sir Magnus saying something like this. That it had to be finished while the fighting in the capital stopped.”

“What? The fighting stopped?”

Fighting stopping in the capital in the near future. When enemy forces were currently fighting fiercely and advancing right to their doorstep. What kind of nonsense was this?

The marquis frowned and asked.

“Why did the fighting stop? Didn’t Magnus mention the reason?”

“No. Um, wait a moment…… Could it be related to the dream I had yesterday……?”

Hilda confessed, saying she hadn’t mentioned it because she thought it was a prophetic dream completely unrelated to the marquis.

“It rained for a whole month. It was good that the winter drought was resolved, but I couldn’t go outside, so it was a dream where I was bored inside the palace.”

“Really?”

Rain made fighting difficult in many ways. Moreover, wasn’t it winter now? Fighting while getting rained on in cold weather was like suicidal behavior equivalent to freezing to death.

“So that’s why the fighting stops.”

Actually, the marquis couldn’t believe Hilda’s prophetic dreams literally. No matter how perfectly the prophetic dreams had matched so far, did it make sense for the army rushing toward the capital to suddenly stop fighting when there was nothing visible?

“This really doesn’t make sense…… Go back for now.”

But really, starting the next day, it began raining and didn’t stop for a whole week. Rain falling for so long in winter, not even snow, was unprecedented in records.

Moreover, as Hilda had said, when the rain began falling for the long term, the enemy army stopped advancing. They occupied villages and castles around the capital and didn’t come out from there.

As expected, Hilda’s prophecy was never wrong. The marquis shook off his hesitation and ordered the entire army.

“Assemble the dwarf corps immediately! To Eberstadt! We must finish while the fighting in the capital has stopped.”

The marquis recited exactly what Magnus had said in Hilda’s dream and laughed. Now doubts disappeared and only hope welled up.

“The war will end soon. With my victory.”

* * *

“So the princess is hiding there.”

Magnus squinted his eyes hard. Only then could the outline of the castle in the distant horizon enter his vision, even if faintly. This was the plain with Eberstadt in sight. After the marquis’s order was given, it took exactly two weeks to assemble the army in front of the target.

A corner of his heart felt uneasy looking at the target. That was probably because he still hadn’t completely shaken off his suspicions about Hilda. The marquis was worshipping Hilda like a god, saying she had foreseen that the king would stab him in the back and accurately prophesied that the rain around the capital wouldn’t stop, but well……

The former seemed like something that had been foreseen from the way the marquis had been treating the king and especially from when he recently tried to pull the king down from the throne and put someone else there. Moreover, the latter was something that could sufficiently be done by human power. Of course, it wasn’t something ordinary people could do since rain spirits would be needed.

After suspecting Hilda this far, Magnus always ended up shaking his head at his own absurd delusions.

‘Doesn’t she have no means to contact the enemy? So is it even possible for her to conspire with the enemy?’

The possibility that spies from the Princess faction were hiding among the guards or people working in the palace couldn’t be ruled out, but the number of people who could approach Hilda was limited. Moreover, the suspicious marquis didn’t keep people in one place but continuously rotated them to various locations.

So Magnus’s suspicion that Hilda was exchanging communications with the enemy through spies was probably a delusion. The reason Magnus was particularly wary of that woman was probably because that suspicious marquis had never turned his claws of suspicion on the fortune teller alone.

However, on the other hand, making them bring down Eberstadt wouldn’t benefit the Princess faction, so Hilda being an enemy spy didn’t make logical sense either.

‘With this much military force, Eberstadt will fall before the sun sets today……’

Setting aside suspicions of her being a spy didn’t mean he believed like the marquis that Hilda really had prophetic powers.

‘I still feel uneasy.’

Well, even if this really turned out to be a trap, he could just use teleport in a dangerous moment. Then he could go straight to the royal palace and reveal that Hilda was a spy.

‘Since I was deceived because the marquis was deceived, it’s not my fault.’

It seemed Magnus wasn’t the only one suspicious that this might be a trap. The commanders set up camp in a position where they could clearly see Eberstadt castle without squinting and had all the surrounding forests and hills scouted.

However, there were no ambushing enemies. According to what Magnus saw with his clairvoyance, Eberstadt had locked its gates and wasn’t coming out, perhaps realizing that enemies had come right to their doorstep.

‘With such a large difference in military scale, they wouldn’t attempt a surprise attack first.’

They were definitely crouching inside the castle waiting for wyvern reinforcements like last time. The commanders urged the engineers in charge of assembling catapults, saying they would capture the castle before the enemies gathered in the capital heard the news and sent their wyvern corps here.

“All assembly completed.”

Ten catapults, scraped together from the few remaining allied territories excluding the capital which was practically under siege, stood tall on the plain. Behind them, human and dwarf corps lined up in black formation was truly a spectacular sight.

“Advance toward the castle!”

As soon as the commander’s advance order was given, thunderous shouts and vibrations shook the frozen plain. The army believed they were bringing death to Eberstadt, but the one actually bringing death was above their heads.

“They’ve started advancing.”

The elf who had sent spirits down below the thick clouds said.

“Then let’s start our operation too.”

When Roderick’s permission was given, the wyvern unit began moving according to the pre-planned tactics.

Whoosh!

Five wyverns carrying holy knights descended below the clouds first. Soldiers who looked up at the sky, startled by the sudden sound of wind cutting, screamed in shock.

“Wyverns!”

“Enemy surprise attack!”

The five wyverns began circling widely around the enemy corps.

“Aim! Fire!”

“Prepare the catapults!”

On the ground, while soldiers were becoming terrified, commanders urged archers and catapult operators.

Whoosh!

Those who were distracted by the wyverns flying threateningly overhead didn’t notice that the holy knights sitting on the wyverns were scattering something toward the ground. While the holy knights scattered sacred objects resembling iron beads around the enemy’s perimeter and planted them in the ground, the elves riding the same wyverns concentrated on their roles.

Thud! Bang!

A stone fired from a catapult that had finally finished aiming and operated suddenly couldn’t overcome a sudden gust of wind and missed its target. The stone they had thrown with great effort was embedded in the middle of some random field instead of hitting the wyvern.