"Isn't it a bit too risky for you to do this?"
"Sorry..."
Faced with Grevia's questioning, Edith could only bow her head and admit her mistake.
After Edith used her divine art to make the leading horned beast pierce through its own chest, the battle situation became completely one-sided. The inferior horned beasts fled in a panic towards the forest. Those that ran slowly were killed on the spot.
It wasn't until Grevia's team heading north back to Cole Town appeared that she and the attendant guards led by the Templar Knights put an end to this already completely lopsided battle.
In total, two town guards died on the spot from the attacks of the horned beasts, three were seriously injured, and the rest suffered only minor injuries.
Apart from a bit of a concussion, Apton didn't have any major accidents. His armor had saved his life.
Judging solely from the outcome of the battle, it could be regarded as a great victory.
The strength of a horned beast is dozens of times that of an ordinary adult man. With just one such beast, the defense forces of a village like Oliver Village would probably be wiped out.
In an unexpected encounter battle, only two guards were sacrificed to kill a horned beast. Such a result was enough to astonish the Emperor of the Empire and merit a personal reception.
The surviving members of the merchant caravan were sent back to the town in advance, and the rest stayed where they were to clean up the battlefield. The first thing Grevia did when she found Edith was to criticize her mercilessly.
Heidi shook the frost and dew off her fur and rubbed her head against Edith's back from behind. Edith couldn't steady herself and fell into Grevia's arms.
Grevia reached out and caught Edith.
She looked down at this sister of hers who had no blood relationship with her. Edith's fair and delicate face was smeared with blood that had gotten on it while treating the wounds, and her bright, soft golden curly hair was stuck together because of the congealed blood clots. The words that had reached her throat were swallowed back.
Grevia wiped the blood from Edith's forehead and cheeks with her gloves. "Fortunately, nothing serious happened. Otherwise, I really wouldn't know how to explain it to our godfather."
"Still, some people died. I came here to save people after all." Edith looked very upset. She glanced at thefuzzy persona (blurred human figure) covered by a white cloth beside her. "They trusted me and followed me here, but in the end..."
"They are soldiers. Guarding the townspeople is their duty. The sacrifice of soldiers is an honor." Apton was sitting cross-legged by the roadside. There was a piece of gauze wrapped around his head, and blood had stained the area on his forehead. The dark-skinned man lit a cigarette and blew a puff of smoke towards the ice-blue sky of Northshire. "Miss Edith, do you understand the meaning of the word 'guard'? Fighting against these monsters on the edge of the territory is the duty of the guards. They are serving the Empire, not you—please forgive my rudeness, but I hope you understand what I mean."
All that was said in a roundabout way was actually meant to comfort Edith and tell her that it wasn't her fault. Of course, Edith couldn't fail to understand.
"I understand. Thank you, Mr. Apton." Edith sniffled.
"At least the result is good." Grevia took off her gloves and stroked Edith's head. "Go back and have a good rest. Everyone will understand."
The sound of a horse panting came from behind. Edith and Grevia both turned their heads to look. A silver-gray Northshire snowfield warhorse was rubbing its head against Heidi's chin. Heidi didn't resist and just played along with it.
This silver-gray warhorse was Grevia's mount, and it was also a mare. Grevia had named her Emma.
Emma and Heidi had always had a very good relationship, so good that it was a bit abnormal. But since they were both fillies, no matter how affectionate they were, they couldn't give birth to foals.
The fellow knights always joked about this. Grevia and Edith themselves didn't care, though. They were quite happy to see Heidi and Emma getting along friendly.
The familiar relaxed atmosphere finally made Edith feel relieved. She let out a long sigh.
Although sometimes she was so jealous of Grevia that her teeth itched, at times like this, the sense of security that Grevia brought when she was around was truly incomparable.
Grevia walked away from Edith. She came to the horned beast that was covered with frost all over its body and looked it up and down from head to toe as she examined this corpse with a strange appearance of death.
She had already roughly inspected the scene before and could probably guess what had happened at that time—
Matthew's merchant caravan was besieged to the point of desperation. Edith led the guards to break through the encirclement. However, there were a large number of inferior horned beasts. They kept shrinking the encirclement and compressing the distance between the guards' defense lines.
Then came the decisive charge of the horned beast.
This beast was almost successful. It tore through the defense line and rushed right up to Edith. But at the last moment before it could succeed, Edith counterattacked.
It was clearly a trap. They surrounded a group of people, deliberately let one escape to attract another group, and then caught them all in one go.
This beast decided to expose its existence and launch the charge because it judged that Edith was different from the others. It was indeed aiming at Edith this time.
But Grevia knew that Edith had never learned ice-attribute magic.
So whose work was this frost?
While pondering with her head down, Grevia unexpectedly found a strand of dark red hair falling beside the beast's hoof. She crouched down, picked it up, and brought it close to her nose to smell it.
There was no stinking smell of a beastman. Instead, there was a faint fragrance of roses.
Such a familiar smell.
Instantly, Grevia's mind locked onto the only target, that half-blood girl who had once offended her. She could almost be certain that it was her.
Was it she who had secretly saved Edith?
Grevia couldn't figure out the motive, but actually, that didn't matter much. As long as she caught that half-blood girl again, she would personally torture her to get the rest of the answers.
Her heart was beating.
Grevia could feel that her dormant soul was becoming restless. She was looking forward to that moment extremely.
"Sister, what's the matter?" Edith noticed that Grevia had a strange expression on her face.
"Those inferior horned beasts went into the forest to the west, right?" Grevia pointed to the depths of the dark pine forest and asked.
Edith nodded subconsciously. "Yes, they all ran in that direction." But soon, the sharp-eyed Edith realized that she seemed to have made a mistake as she saw the strand of dark red hair that Grevia was holding in her palm.
That was Daphne's hair.
"Since that's the case, then I'll go and take a look by myself. You guys go back first later. There's no need to wait for me." Grevia blew a whistle, and Emma immediately left Heidi's side following her master's call and came to Grevia's hand. "There are some things that I'm very interested in. I have to see them with my own eyes to be at ease."
Interested? Grevia?
Edith could hardly believe her ears. She had never thought that her sister, who always had a expressionless face, could be interested in something. But the faint smile that unconsciously appeared on Grevia's lips made Edith have to believe it.
This was probably the first time in six years that Edith had seen Grevia's genuine smile.
Grevia adjusted her cloak, stepped on the stirrup, and mounted the horse. She greeted the Templar Knight who was accompanying her and then, together with Emma, rushed into the depths of the pine forest like a silver-gray sword.
Edith was still standing there in a daze, and countless possibilities popped into her mind—Could it be that Grevia had met Daphne before? Was the thing that she was interested in actually Daphne?
Suddenly, as a sister, she had a strange sense of crisis.