Kurone had noticed them a couple of weeks ago, and I believe now is the perfect time for an attack. Seleria pushed me sharply in the chest, and I leaped back, dodging three arrows that buried themselves in the sand. The princess herself rolled to the side, avoiding the shots. She swiftly got to her feet and engulfed the bushes, where the attack had originated, in flames.
"Are they here to kill us?" she asked.
"Perhaps, but it's not the first time assassins have been sent after me, so I've almost grown accustomed to it," I replied.
"I wouldn't want to get used to such things," Seleria remarked as the bushes blazed brightly, leaving no one unscathed in their cover.
Yet, I was mistaken; the flames started to die down rapidly as snowflakes began to extinguish them.
"This weather is rather unusual," Seleria said, gathering two more fireballs and hurling them toward the hiding spot, but her spells missed their mark. A few meters away from the target, the flames collided with some sort of barrier and scattered into tiny snowflakes.
"It seems like they were prepared," Seleria said, abandoning the idea of using offensive spells and picking up a dagger from the ground. "But I'm not just skilled in magic. Show yourselves already."
Figures of ten individuals, wrapped in dark cloaks, emerged from the thickets near the shore. Though these mantles barely concealed the attackers, they still obscured part of their faces.
"Krito, remember that they are ready for a confrontation with magic. I hope you've learned something from me," Seleria warned.
Meanwhile, Katrina wandered uncertainly through the city, her eyes still struggling to perceive reality. She quickly dismissed the idea of rinsing her eyes with seawater, but she also didn't want to go all the way to the miller's house.
"Hmm... looks like a barrel," she muttered in the marketplace as she stumbled upon an open barrel. "Maybe it's for collecting rainwater."
Something inside the barrel was definitely splashing, but she wasn't sure if it was water.
"Would you like to buy my fish? Freshly caught, just now," a voice called out. "Choose any, and I'll give a beautiful girl like you a discount."
"Oh, it's fish," Katrina sighed with relief, glad she didn't attempt to taste the water. "No, thank you. I need something else right now."
Ding
Suddenly, the princess turned around to see an arbalest bolt embedded in the wall just in front of her. The bolt had been shot from behind by a hooded figure sneaking up on her. In his hand gleamed the blade of a dagger.
"Kat, watch out!" Aileen's voice echoed from the alley leading from the shore. "It's an assassin!"
Without hesitation, the girl ran toward her friend. She had seen the dagger in the bandit's hand and managed to deflect his attack with a precise shot. However, she couldn't make it in time to help Katrina, as the assassin readied his dagger for a second strike.
"Don't think it will be that easy!" Aileen exclaimed, opening fire with both hands. Arrows pierced through the wall in front of the assassin, forcing him to retreat.
"You won't get away!" Katrina finally regained her composure. She couldn't see her opponent clearly, but it didn't matter that much to her.
Gathering lightning in her hands, the princess began firing indiscriminately in the direction of the assassin. However, the haphazard shots had little effect as the bandit easily dodged them, taking cover behind scattered crates in the passageway.
Having made futile attempts, Katrina rushed after her target. The adversary was swift, but with the aid of her lightning magic, the princess could match his speed.
"Stop!" Aileen tried to halt her, but it was already too late. The girl had walked into an obvious trap.
Several turns later, the criminal managed to disappear into the labyrinth of port alleys.
"Where did he go?" With her impaired vision, it was even more challenging to track her target. Katrina slowed down, peering into the dark alleys. "Who could it be?"
The princess slowly navigated the alleys until she finally spotted her quarry. He stood at the end of an alley, near the entrance to the market square. If she didn't act quickly, the criminal would vanish into the crowd.
"Got you!" The girl forcefully brought down the assailant, but he gave in too easily.
The cloak was empty, or almost empty. Something inside the decoy exploded, and a wave of water surged out of nowhere, drenching the girl from head to toe.
"What in the world?" In an instant, Katrina was soaked to the bone, but it helped to cool her reddened eyes. "Why did they hide a water bomb in the decoy?"
She had no time for pondering. From above, the sound of a drawn bowstring echoed, and a hail of arrows rained down from the roofs of neighboring houses. Katrina smirked and tried to create a shield of lightning, but the water soaked into her clothes hindered her ability to release the lightning. With these hindrances, she could only create a shield a few centimeters away from her body.
"Sneaky trick," even if a couple of arrows hit her, she could still heal those wounds. The princess attempted to jump away from the barrage, but an explosion above her head protected her beforehand.
"Saving you for the second time today," a panting Aileen finally caught up with Katrina. "That was too obvious of a trap. You should have waited for me."
"Well, sorry," Katrina lowered her head apologetically.
"Alright, let's deal with immediate problems first," Aileen took out two small bombs and tossed them upward. Once they reached the roofs, the girl detonated them with her crossbows, causing the ledges to crumble.
Having taken out her grappling hook, the engineer tossed the rope onto the roof and swiftly climbed up.
"They fled pretty quickly," at the top, the girl was greeted only by the sight of a few figures jumping off the roofs a couple of blocks away from the ambush.
"We need to catch them!" Katrina exclaimed.
"You already caught one, but it didn't end well," Aileen remarked.
"Ugh."
"Better ask Kurone for help; I hope she can track them down."
"Hmm, hired assassins... again," Seleria sighed wearily, waving her hands. "This will be the sixteenth attempt on my life that I can recall."
"Wow, you have quite the experience."
"And did you think why assassins swear allegiance to the king? To protect us in situations like this. Though, they've tried to kidnap me more often than to kill me."
"Do you think they are after that here?"
"Unlikely. They clearly prepared for a battle with me, so they came for my head. They have weapons to block my fire magic, so I'm counting on your help."
"What kind of weapons were those?"
"Simple trick with explosive balls, or as Aileen calls them, bombs. Ours don't have the same destructive power as the empire's bombs. But the Leran assassins noticed that even a small explosion can be enhanced with magic. If you crush a magic crystal into powder and add it to the charge, the accumulated magic will be released upon detonation. Their bombs probably contain ice powder, which can freeze my magic before it reaches them."
"Guess we'll have to deal with them the old-fashioned way."
The enemies stood before us in a semicircle, pushing us toward the shore. We faced five assassins each, but something told me that most of them would aim for Seleria.
They had their bombs to counter fire magic, but I hoped they didn't expect other types of magic.
I gathered the mana of lightning in my hands and evenly distributed it throughout my body. As long as the paralysis didn't bother me too much, I could fight a few opponents on equal terms for at least ten minutes. Seleria, on the other hand, maintained a relaxed and carefree expression.
I focused on one of the assassins and made a sudden leap forward. The opponents didn't expect such agility from me, and I managed to send the first mercenary flying with a blow to the jaw. However, they quickly regained their composure and attacked me from three sides. Evading three attacks at once was challenging, but at least that allowed me to engage four of them, leaving the rest to the princess.
"Come on, don't hold back," Seleria taunted, twirling a dagger in her hands. The assassins exchanged skeptical glances; the girl seemed too calm for someone facing six opponents. "Are you afraid?"
The princess lunged toward the nearest assassin and dug her feet into the ground a meter before reaching her target. Sand flew into the air, and the assassin had to close his eyes. In the same moment, a sharp strike to the stomach made him bend over to the ground.
"Come on, don't disappoint me. Falling for such cheap tricks, ha-ha," Seleria smirked and attempted to finish off the hunched over opponent with a kick, but his comrades rushed to his aid. A blade from the right aimed at the princess's throat, but she deftly parried it with the back of her hand. Another blade from the left targeted her side, but she skillfully blocked it with her own blade, pushing it away.
While Seleria's hands were occupied, one assassin approached from behind and attempted to thrust a dagger into her back. The girl executed a half-turn clockwise, and the blade passed a centimeter away from her chest. Freeing her hands from the attackers' blades, Seleria completed her rotation and struck the attacking mercenary in the chest with her palm. The blow wasn't overly powerful, but the opponent was thrown back five meters. The girl's hand glowed with a faint flame.
"What was that?" The assassins quickly stepped back, but the hit from the thrown opponent allowed him to stand properly. He touched the hit area, and I heard a slight crunch; it seemed the blow was much stronger than it appeared. Coughing up blood, the assassin fell to the ground motionless. "What kind of power is this?"
"Ah, this?" Seleria smiled. A thin layer of flame ran over her body, and veins under her skin glowed with a dim light. "I can't use fire magic against you, but no one forbids me from using it on myself."
Seleria lifted her leg and stomped forcefully on the sand, creating a wave of dust that spread across the beach, reducing visibility.
As far as I remembered, while the lightning gathered in her body enhanced her reaction and speed, fire magic significantly increased her strength. But just like lightning caused paralysis, fire thickened the blood, inducing suffocation after prolonged use. I understood why Seleria didn't use this ability, but in such an unfavorable situation, there wasn't much choice.
"What's the matter? Scared already?" A sweet face adorned with a sinister smile, one she had never shown before. "I really hate those who interrupt my rest. Now I'll show you what it means to mess with Seleria Eileran!"
The princess leaped toward the enemies so swiftly that a wave of sand covered everyone standing behind her.
"Chopping firewood, training, a little snack, and then, tum-tum, again," Hilda peacefully whistled as she ascended the eastern slope. Her adamantine axe could withstand even ironwood bark, but she still considered using a combat axe for such a primitive task an insult. "Alright, I'll consider this a workout. I'll stretch a bit at the top so the trip here won't be in vain."
The girl slung the axe over her shoulder and took a deep breath. Little snowflakes began to swirl around her, covering the green grass with a thin layer.
"Haaa!!" With a warrior's roar, Hilda balanced on one leg and spun in place. Using the axe as a counterweight, she twirled like a top. A normal person would have collapsed from dizziness, but Hilda had trained her body to ignore such distractions during battle. With each rotation, waves of icy magic were released from the frosty blade, forming a barricade of sharp icicles around her at the center. After a dozen spins, the princess stopped and irritably scratched her nose. "Phew, not bad, but I won't be able to do more rotations."
Hilda carefully walked past the field scattered with melting ice. The barrier she created was formidable, making it impossible for anyone to approach the sorceress closer than three meters. Though such a simple trick would work only on stupid animals; a human would easily evade the attack due to its predictability.
"But it could be useful against a crowd of enemies, huh?" Hilda approached the edge of the cliff. The rock rose almost twenty meters above the steep shore, but it provided a good view. "A ship..."