8 Chapter 8 Fear?

The next morning, Princess Karin woke up from the bed and washed her face with the water prepared beside her bed. Looking at the reflection of herself on the water, Princess Karin slapped her cheeks with both hands. "Today I will learn magic to help Natasha and others, I will not let someone die again." The memory of that night surfaced and Princess Karin feels sad.

She shook her head to clean her mind out of bad memories and walked out of her room after she changed her clothes.

"Good morning Princess Karin. Are you by chance going to Lord Mary room?" a gentle voice startled Princess Karin. When she looked behind, a maid sweeping the floor smiled at her.

"Yes, good morning Odelle. Is she still in her room?" The Princess ask with a smile.

After the maid nodded with a smile, Princess Karin thanked her and bid farewell. Walked around the corridor, Princess Karin saw Berthold and Paul on the training ground talking about something, Natasha was alone inspecting the soldiers training as an instructor. Princess Karin eyes light up. "I will also do my best!"

Before long, she appeared in front of Mary room and knocked on the door. "Coming!" she can hear Mary voice beyond the door and stepped backward. The door opened and Mary appeared with the face of surprise. "Ah, Princess you have come early? Let's us take a breakfast first, is it all right?"

Princess Karin blushed because she was too excited to learn magic and make her forget to have a breakfast, so she agrees with Mary proposal. They walked to the kitchen and have a light breakfast. After finishing it, they decide to rest for a moment and Princess Karin takes this chance to ask.

"Mary, are you already send a letter to your people on your domain about our situation?" Princess Karin asks with worry.

Mary smiled. "Yes. When I heard about how powerful the enemy was, I already wrote and sent it last night. I also believe we should gather our forces and strike with everything we had. I have a bad feeling if we drag this problem for too long, the chance of our winning would disappear." her expression turned grim.

Seeing her expression, Princess Karin question stuck in her tongue and she doesn't know what to say. Mary smiled at Princess Karin, "Oh right, let's start our magic training, shall we?" Princess Karin replied with a smile and both of them walked back to Mary room for the Magic training begun.

Mary is one of three Magic Knight of the Kavalon Kingdom, except she is actually a pure wizard. Thanks to her talent of combat tactic because of her family training she was promoted to be one of the Kingdom knights to lead soldiers. It's actually quite funny as she was the only wizard within knight bloodline. But her strength proved that her title is not for a joke.

Meanwhile, in the training ground, Berthold talked with Paul about the condition of their troops. In this domain, along with the soldiers brought by them from the Capital City and Mary can be roughly counted around 780 soldiers. Each vassal with land only permitted to have four hundred trained soldiers. And around 40 people of Ironheart soldiers dead last night.

Paul said that the composition of the soldiers is 32% foot soldiers, 30% archers, 30% cavalries, and 8% magician. It seems that Mary has brought all her magician troops with her. Mary teacher is one of the Archmage who focused on Healing and Barrier magic, and as her pupils, Mary who is a magic genius isn't someone to takes lightly. So their existence could bring a change to their conflict.

However Berthold still cannot help but feel something strange about yesterday meeting, he remembered that Paul looked so distressed about something and Natasha timely answer is as if she wants to evade the topic that Paul mentioned. He looked around then whispered to Paul. "Hey, Paul. Can you continue your story about the enemy in yesterday meeting?"

"Hm?" Paul tilted his head in confusion because he didn't know which story that he needs to remember.

Seeing Paul clueless expression, Berthold sighed 'I forget about how brainless this person is… Do I need to ask Natasha alone?' he turned toward Natasha who is standing in front of army training and furrowed his brows.

"Do you really want to know?" This sudden question was taken by surprise by Berthold as he snapped his head to the side. Paul looking far with serious expression with his folded hand, his towering posture was full of hidden emotion and Berthold noticed that he give out the confident feeling that rarely appears on Paul.

Seeing that Berthold is not saying anything, Paul glanced at him, "That night, we saw something that like a nightmare. I am afraid to tell the Princess because it could traumatize her or even worse. It's my mistake to accidentally telling about that last night. " He shook his head.

Berthold expression turned serious. "What do you mean?" His attention is focused on the topic as he forgets his momentary doubt about Paul sudden change in personality.

Paul takes a moment of silence as if to prepare his heart "That night, the enemy army attacked us till the castle gate. We are taken by surprise not only because of enemy number, but their action rendered us panic, resulting in many casualties when we are retreating. But that is not all of their massacres."

Berthold paled. "You mean…"

With gritted teeth, Paul nodded. "The enemy also slaughtered all civilians in the district area which they passed, many soldiers are killed because they trying to protect the innocent. That was a madness."

Berthold shouted. "That's Madness!! The capital has so many civilians in one district area!" Berthold body trembled, he remembers that the capital was consist of three residential districts with more than ten thousand people and even one industrial district has its own population. With the castle sitting in the middle if what Paul telling is the truth the enemy was ransacking one district while moving forward.

Paul gripped Berthold shoulder to calm him while looking around. "Keep your voice down, we don't want the Princess to ask us!"

However his attempt was too late as the soldiers who in the middle of training stopped what they doing and stared at both of them, even Natasha also staring at them with a glare. She then turned around. "All soldiers rest for 20 minutes!! We will continue our training later!"

She then walked forward toward the two knights with a cramped smile. But Paul knows that her vein popped around her forehead as if to suppress her anger. "Both of you, can you follow me?" Paul shifted his eyes when he notices a glare that Natasha gave.