Chapter 168: Chilling Smiles

Nisha really admired Knife Leader Tanya’s ability with the wooden sword. Despite inflicting countless blows when Nisha’s form was off-balance or her movement was a step slow, the officer had not even created a single rip in the dragon’s garments.

As a drill sergeant, the pretty officer was definitely top class in the Empire army.

Every single time the dragon’s arms were out of position or had the wrong angle, the training weapon held by Tanya was there to strike down like a whip and teach a lesson through pain.

Only pure stubbornness prevented the elf from crying out from the twinge whenever she got struck, which as a beginner, was pretty much every time she lifted the sword.

This in turn, oddly enough, seemed to spur on the Knife Leader even more as the love taps became progressively more painful over time, the officer carefully testing out her tolerance limit.

Seeing her twisted smile and ragged breathing, Nisha wondered if Knife Leader Tanya had a grudge against her that she was not aware of, or some other reason to show such a form.

The tedious ordeal only ended when a tired looking and sighing Lance Corporal Hale entered the field to check on their progress, which quickly resulted in her catching and restraining the heavily breathing Knife Leader.

A legionare was called and asked to lead the elf outside of the premises. Nisha herself did not mind, as at least her clothes were still in one piece and she was allowed to come back in the future for more sword fighting lessons. Since she was no longer a complete beginner with the [Imperial Swordplay], it was also no longer necessary to have a one on one teaching session with an officer, so the dragon could join any group practicing on the field during her next visit.

Hence, Nisha had quite a good mood going and hummed a song while the uniformed man that escorted her glanced at the elf with a curious gaze.

Almost all the professional soldiers noticed how intense Knife Leader Tanya became when she was toying around with the little girl; seeing her shrug off those hits like nothing and not even let out a single sound throughout it incensed an intense curiosity in the spectators.

When the duo reached the wooden gates in front of the [Navis Terram], the statue like guards that had announced her entry in the morning were nowhere to be seen now.

Instead, they lingered around the main road, where an endless stream of carriages came throughout the open plains east of the capital.

The legionare accompanying the elf apparently also thought some was wrong as he walked faster to arrive at the base of the gates ahead of their guest and greeted the two on watch.

It seemed like they were quite close to each other and, after a casual greeting, the man asked the question on each of their minds.

“What’s going on? Why are there so many wagons coming through?”

Besides the Terus empire base, various merchants and passersby also had to vacate the main road due to the never-ending stream coming through.

Strangely enough, no one complained about the inconvenience or went up to the drivers to complain.

In the scorching summer sun, the solemn atmosphere spread a blanket of silence over the procession.

At most, some groups gathered in small groups and discussed among themselves in hushed voices.

Terus empire soldiers did not share that concern and the guard who first answered to Nisha’s guide swept his eyes towards the horizon where the carriages came from and gave his reply in a somewhat loud tone compared to everyone else.

“Looks like you did not hear any rumors yet.

“A large incident happened, not all that far from the capital. Dozens of messengers entered and left the city during the late morning and about a candle ago, the wagon train started to come in.

“The guards tried to keep it confidential, at least when the messengers were coming through, but when the coaches began showing up, snippets of information surfaced.”

He rested both of his arms on top of his large rectangular shield and leisurely shared his half-baked knowledge with a self important tone.

“Don’t act so high and mighty, Alex. Just because you are on guard duty and inspect all notes that pass through the gates does not mean you are more important than the rest of us.

“Spill the story already.”

The guide rolled his eyes and urged his friend to hurry up, which likely was not the first time either.

Shoving the man to the side, the loudmouth humphed and turned away, yet he continued with the story.

“What do you know, even if you can read all the info, it does not mean you can get the full picture either. If it was you, then we’d only learn of the rumors after the whole thing died down.

“Anyway, get this. Some of the local nobles likely felt threatened by the Empire moving and our legion being stationed outside of the capital, hence they planned a show of their military might.

“From all cardinal directions, about one or two thousand fighters from each family met up and wanted to march towards Thurgau together.”

Fiddling with the straps on his uniform, the gossiper snickered at the prospect of a kingdom moving some forces to measure the length of their swords against each other.

As a stout believer of the Terus empire, he was not afraid of that at all.

Nisha, on the other hand, had no trouble at all to believe that the Blackburn, Whitehall and Silverwood Dukedoms put aside their usual petty squabbles to deal with outside forces before resuming their competition.

For all the fighting and arguing at court, when all sorts of kingdoms and the empire sent their political courtiers and military forces towards Leandar due to the messenger of the Dragon King residing there at the moment, they had the foresight to form a consolidated front.

Ironically, Luthais had thanked all those foreigners for making his job as the Marshal easier. If the uncooperative old families spurred at his commands, governing the city defense and military matters became much more manageable.

“Then something must have happened? If it was just that, it wouldn’t be some wagons coming through, but a military parade returning to the capital right now.”

Unable to stand his pompous manner, the guide kicked the other man’s heels and held him in contempt with his expression.

“Ow, stop hitting me already. Leave me some face in front of the girl at least.

“No wonder everyone calls you a violent bastard behind your back.”

“Hey, what did you say! Who calls me a …”

“Anyway, you did get something right for once, there was an incident.

“When the troops met and sorted into a unified force, these amateurs barreled through the Wilderness and did whatever they could to make them seem more imposing. Most likely, that backfired in an outrageous manner. From the reports so far, the combined army suffered casualties and that’s about it.”

Looking like a proud peacock, the guard smirked and bashed his tower shield against the gate twice to demand the applause for his report.

The other two soldiers did indeed look at him with unwilling respect and nodded to show their acknowledgment.

At that time, however, a sweet and female voice shattered all of his swelling satisfaction.

“If they suffered casualties, wouldn’t they at most carry their deceased with them and still come to the capital according to their schedule?

“Why is there a wagon train running to the horizon then?”

Nisha originally intended to let the gate guardian to have his moment of triumph, but the puzzling situation bugged her.

Even as a beast, having some wear and tear when moving through the wilderness was common sense.

It did not matter too much if these losses were in an acceptable range, yet the current circumstances clearly deviated far too much.

The three adult soldiers were indeed stumped by that observation and were unable to answer the innocent question.

Seeing the red rise on their faces out of shame, they lamented their loss of face and the shame that resulted from their boasting.

Indeed, as gate guards and runners, the amount of information they had to access to at their ranks was not much and making up stuff out of the snippets they got from passing messages along helped to ease the boredom.

Fidgeting out of helplessness, Nisha bid the three farewell. It was not her intent to embarrass them or criticize them for gossiping.

Her curiosity had gotten the better of her again.

The main road clogged considerably, as one carriage after the other hurried along through the city gate and head for the various private barracks the noble families provided for their own forces.

General citizens whispered their own thoughts upon seeing that, yet the solemn mood caught their voices as well and an originally bustling and lively city scene dimmed considerably.

After passing the boundary to the noble living region, the elf spotted fewer wagons coming here. Nonetheless, one or two still hurried to the compounds either associated with the different Duke houses or their affiliated subsidiary families.

This meant that not only common soldiers had perished. Most likely, the commanders for the joint force had the Silverwood, Blackburn, or Whitehall name themselves or they married off into well off Count houses to advance their own influence and eventually found a main branch under the Duke himself.

When the girl returned to the Dharnas compound, she was glad to see that no new vehicle parked on their estate. She was aware that the Dharnas family also fostered counts and barons under their name, building a solid foundation to contend with the other old families.

Yet their family history simply had been too short so far, so the campaign to gather combined forces probably had no reason to ask the Marshall to contribute some of his meager military forces too.

Now this became a blessing in disguise, as none of their men fell in action when the campaign encountered a devastating loss on the way to the capital.

Nisha bypassed the heavily decorated main door and entered her home through the side door meant for servants.

Within a short while, she located the butler in charge of the household, Galan.

“Young mistress, what can I do for you.”

Performing a perfunctory bow, he looked like an accomplished head servant as always. Not one hair was out of place on his head and his suit had not a single thread sticking out.

“Uncle Galan, you already know about the commotion in Thurgau, right?”

Trying to outsmart the white-haired man was an exercise in futility. Despite his upright demeanor and polite speech, he still spent countless turns in company of Grandfather Eldrin, who was an oddball even among Court Wizards. His wiles and irregular ideas meant that everyone that lived through his antics had to acquire a certain amount of trickiness too.

More than once, the elf had tried to get an advantage out of the old butler, but more often than not it backfired on her.

“If the young mistress is speaking about the disaster in the Wilderness, I might have heard one or two rumors. It is unbecoming of a servant to speak about unconfirmed hearsay, though.”

With his nonchalant attitude, he had almost confirmed that there was some background information passed into his hands.

The dragon withstood the urge to snort her nose, sure to cause her to endure a long lecture about ‘lady-like behaviour’ from the target of her derision, and instead urged the butler again.

“Come on, Uncle Galan, just tell me your theory on the current situation. As an upstanding young female of a major house, I need to keep an active eye on the overall situation in the capital, right? Word of mouth might be unreliable at times, but there’s a seed of truth in everything.

“What happened in the Wilderness? I heard there were losses?”

This time, the white-haired elder did snort in derision at the thought of Nisha being a demure young lady of good upbringing.

No matter how much he preached, that wild child only put up a facade as long as she could be bothered. Whenever she grew annoyed, it rapidly evaporated.

Galan was aware that the elf tried to do her best in studies and social situations and did pick up a lot from him, but when the walking disaster grew tired of social situations or decided she had had enough for the time being, then he had to pray to the Gods to help him.

“Well, I reckon that is a good enough reason.

“Right, as you might have heard already, there was a unified action taken by different families to field an army as a show of military might. However, they did not take losses in a minor way as the rumors are currently stating.

“The entire army got eradicated by a single creature.”