Meera stood tall, the point of her gleaming saber glowing in the night as she stared down at Lucida. A pleased smile played across her lips.

It was no accident she was here. Ulrich had summoned her personally, promising a private meeting and, more importantly, a hefty sum of gold.

When Meera first received the unexpected missive from the Count, a full month after a silence from the very man who had taken her maidenhood, she had been much delighted.

She assumed she would finally see Ulrich again, invited directly by him, with a generous pouch of coin as a bonus.

However, upon her arrival, he hadn’t even permitted her inside the grand estate. Instead, he met her in secrecy in the heart of his city.

She had half-expected him to steal her away into a quiet room for a passionate second encounter, but his intentions were as expected as others.

He told her that he would be absent for a few days. He then hired her to watch over the perimeter of his estate, adding, almost dismissively, that she should keep an eye out for potential witches attacks.

He ordered her simply to stay hidden and observe.

Naturally, Meera and her rugged crew despised playing the role of glorified, invisible sentries. But she had accepted the job without complaint, mostly because Ulrich had fronted the promised gold, though her crew would say Meera simply fell once again for Ulrich’s pretty features.

The first night had dragged by without incident. But on the second night, Meera spotted the small, terribly stealthy group of witches and Blooded Sons scurrying through the woods. Watching them painstakingly weave a stealth spell right in front of her hidden crew, Meera quickly realized that Ulrich had, on some level, anticipated this exact scenario.

When she witnessed the brilliant trap of his double-layered Domain snap shut, she fully understood the depth of his foresight.

She doubted Ulrich had been hundred percent certain a group of witches would attack his estate during his absence, but he had clearly considered the possibility and prepared accordingly. And he had been right.

This group of novice witches and Blooded Sons had walked directly into his snare.

It was almost laughable. The intruders looked to be around Ulrich’s age, if not slightly older, yet it was glaringly obvious they possessed zero real-world combat experience.

Attempting to breach a ruling Count’s fortified estate without a single seasoned superior to guide them was an arrogant mistake.

And looking at Lucida’s wide, horrified eyes, it was clear the young witch was finally realizing it, too.

The stern warnings of Agatha and the elder witches echoed brutally in Lucida’s mind. Whenever she and the younger generation had complained about being kept off the battlefield, the elders had always told them to be patient. They had warned them, time and time again, that the outside world was a different place.

Now, she found herself surrounded. And the people closing in on her didn’t look like any noble’s guards she had ever heard of. They looked exactly like bloodthirsty pirates.

Setting aside Meera, whose breathtaking beauty barely masked the dangerous intimidation rolling off her, the men fanning out behind her were even worse. They advanced with gap-toothed grins, and salty skins, their hands resting lazily on the hilts of jagged weapons.

"Captain, you’re scarin’ the poor girl, hehe," one of them chuckled, spinning a dagger in his hand.

"Look at your own ugly mug, Grover," another spat back.

"Wanna fight about it, you punk?!"

Lucida swept her panicked gaze around the clearing.

There were perhaps ten of them in total. Every single one was armed, and none wore the armors of the Rubenhart guards.

Was this Ulrich’s doing?

She couldn’t process what was happening.

Lucida finally grasped just how precarious their situation had become.

"Damn it!" Dan roared, pushing himself off the ground and stepping protectively in front of them, his sword raised high.

"D—Dan..." Lucida muttered, her voice trembling.

"You guys run away!" Dan shouted over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off the approaching pirates.

Theos had already taken a brutal hit, and Shana’s witch veins were paralyzed. Dan’s only thought was to buy enough time for Creon to grab Lucida and drag the wounded away to safety.

Creon hesitated, his face twisting with a complicated mix of guilt and fear. "Dan..."

"Don’t just sit there, idiot! Run!" Dan screamed.

Gritting his teeth, Creon finally moved. He scooped Shana into his arms, spinning around to make a break for the forest.

But instead of an open escape route, he immediately found himself face-to-face with a massive, unmoving wall of muscle.

He stumbled to a halt, slowly raising his gaze to meet the cold eyes of a towering man. It was Meera’s scarred second, Edmar.

Creon instinctively took a step back.

What were these people?

From their ragged, mismatched clothes, they looked like third-rate bandits. But their movements betrayed something far more dangerous. They moved like veterans who had spent their entire lives fighting and killing.

They were a seasoned pseudo-pirate crew, forged in the lawless seas where cutthroats and sea monsters were a daily threat.

"Damn it! Fuck off!" Creon shouted in panic, wildly raising his free hand to cast a spell.

But before he could even form a single rune, his hand was sent flying, severed cleanly at the wrist.

Creon blinked stupidly. He watched his own hand tumble onto the blood-spattered grass in a daze. A heartbeat later, the excruciating pain hit.

He let out a blood-curdling scream, collapsing onto his knees alongside Shana.

"C—Creon..." Shana stammered. Her body was still unresponsive, but panicked tears instantly welled up in her eyes as her companion bled out beside her.

"I am sorry, but you really shouldn’t have come here," Edmar said, his tone almost apologetic, as he casually flicked the blood from his dagger.

Ulrich had paid them handsomely to protect his estate in his absence. These intruders were actively attempting to breach a ruling Count’s home; they were hardly innocent victims. Yet, perhaps because of their inexperience, they felt more like foolish children playing a deadly game.

But the rest of the crew, particularly their captain, couldn’t have cared less.

"Ahhh!"

Dan’s furious war cry echoed through the night as he charged blindly toward Meera, his sword swinging in an arc.

"Hm?" Meera raised a single, delicate brow. A delighted smile spread across her face just as she casually swung her saber.

Dan didn’t even see the movement.

It was nothing more than a silver flash in the moonlight.

Then, blood sprayed into the air. His own blood.

Dan stared in shock as his steel broadsword was sheared cleanly in half, sliced through as if it were made of warm butter. A moment later, his legs gave out. He collapsed hard onto the dirt, a deep gash opened across his chest.

"Geez, Captain, the Count asked us to keep them alive, didn’t he?" One of her crewmen sighed, scratching the back of his neck.

"He is alive! I didn’t kill him!" Meera shot back defensively.

"He is dying soon," Edmar corrected her dryly, glancing down at the expanding pool of blood.

"W—Well, we will simply tell Ulrich we only found four of them! Bury his body somewhere else!" Meera ordered, waving her hand dismissively.

"The Captain is scary."

"Look at your own ugly mug, idiot!" She snapped back.

While the pirates casually bickered over Dan’s dying body, Lucida remained frozen on her knees, going through a mental breakdown.

"Dan!!"

Theos, having somewhat recovered his breath despite several shattered ribs, rushed to Dan. He lay trembling on his back, his face completely drained of color as the life bled out of his chest.

Theos gripped his shoulder tightly, but Dan didn’t even have the strength left to speak. Seconds later, his breath rattled in his throat, and he went completely still.

"Well, tie up the rest of these idiots," Meera ordered, instantly losing interest in the corpse.

She had honestly expected a much more thrilling fight from real witches and Blooded Sons, but fear had easily overtaken them all.

"You!!"

Fueled by a sudden, blinding surge of grief and rage, Theos snatched a small vial of liquid from his belt and downed it in one gulp.

Instantly, his mana flared to life with greater intensity.

He leveled his broken sword at the pirates. At the very tip of the shattered blade, a burning red magical circle materialized, glowing with a complex array of twenty rapidly shifting runes. It was a Rank 2 spell.

Bright sparks crackled in the air before a massive, roaring torrent of fire exploded directly from the tip of his sword, hurtling straight toward Meera and her crew.

A deafening explosion rocked the clearing, expanding outward.

But almost immediately, the roar of the flames was swallowed by a strange, unnatural hissing sound, instantly turning the fire into boiling vapor.

"W—What...?" Theos muttered, dumbfounded.

The white vapor was swept away by the night wind almost immediately. In its wake, a strange, translucent barrier of aqua-blue ripples shimmered in the air, having completely absorbed the explosion of fire.

There was not a single rune visible within the shield’s structure, defying everything Theos knew about magic. Yet, a bizarre aura pulsed outward from the rippling water-like wall.

Meera stood casually behind it, one hand raised in a relaxed, open-palm gesture while the other rested against her hip.

Not a single member of her crew had even been singed.

Theos remained frozen, his mind unable to process what had happened.

Seeing her last remaining protector stunned into silence, Lucida finally snapped out of her paralyzed horror. She threw her arm forward, attempting to weave a spell.

But a second whistle cut through the air.

A dart struck her squarely in the side of the neck.

"N—No..." She gasped, tears finally streaming down her cheeks. She swatted at her neck, pulling the wooden dart from her skin, but it was already far too late. An icy numbness spread instantly through her bloodstream, forcefully hindering her veins and leaving her body completely unresponsive.

She slumped to the ground, helpless.

"W—What are you going to do to us?" Creon forced out. He was biting his lip so hard that blood dripped down his chin, trying to suppress his pain while Shana tearfully wrapped a torn strip of cloth around the bloody stump of his wrist.

Meera slowly lowered her hand, letting the watery shield dissipate into the air. She glanced down at the ruined, defeated group with mild boredom.

"I am not going to do anything to you," she replied, nonchalantly. "But you will, of course, have to answer directly to the Count for your little intrusion."

Every single one of them stiffened. Pure fear washed over their faces at the mere mention of their fate left to Ulrich’s judgment.

"Hm?"

Meera suddenly paused, one brow arching in curiosity. Her aqua-blue eyes shifted away from the prisoners, peering directly through the wrought-iron fence and into the front yard of the estate.

Standing completely still on the manicured lawn was a young, silver-haired girl.

It was Hermione.

She was watching them in total silence.

However, the moment Hermione realized Meera had locked eyes with her, she spun on her heel and sprinted fast back toward the shadowed safety of the grand estate.