Kingdom and Harem

From the exit gate of the shopping district, Brita and Reina estimated the distance between the suspicious men and them. A well built man with a sword on his back was trailing the other 3 men as if they were total strangers. However, as they had been communicating regularly, they probably were in this together. Brita who could see clearly from distance narrated what she saw.

On the other side, Reina who possessed top notch instinct attribute, had a hunch.

Reina suggested, "I have a bad feeling about the warrior guy. We should separate them."

Brita looked at each of the men and furrowed her eyebrows,

"But what to do? That man looked like above average warrior. He is far beyond us."

After a while, Reina proposed, "Let me handle him. You go after the girl."

"Are you mad? How..." Brita whispered in a high pitched voice but Reina interrupted.

"Trust me. I have a good plan. You know what my abilities are, right?"

Brita sighed, "But remember, don't fight him directly."

"Yes. Yes. I know that." Reina smiled.

Then, both girls dashed along both side of the path, between the trees. 

Both girls could run extremely fast, far quicker than any other in Adine's group.

They overtook the warrior in no time. After overtaking the warrior, Reina stopped and hid behind a large tree. She signaled Brita to go with her head and eyes. 

Brita continued her dash, overtaking the 3 other men and found the girl.

The girl had cyan hair that so short that didn't even reach her nape. As usual, she wore cheap, snappy but loose cloth which hid her good figure. 

The girl entered the residential district that was full of shabby wooden houses. Rather than housing area, this place was more like a town for poorer citizens. 

There were peddlers selling things and people strolling, chit-chatting.

This place resembled Athen city centre. The only difference were shabby, unorganized wooden building and poor looking people. It was like another busy town within Athena.

Having stayed here for weeks, Brita only arrived at here now for the first time. 

Soon, she saw a crowd of people jamming up the road in front of her.

The sound coming from them was either vicious cursing or mocking laughter, accompanied by the sound of something striking something else. Cries along the lines of “Someone’s going to die” and “Better get the guards” rose up from them.

The crowd blocked her line of sight, but she was certain that some kind of violence was in progress.

She saw the girl blend into the crowd. Brita didn't want to loose sight of her, so she thought that perhaps she should change her path and take another path. She hesitated for a moment — and then she continued straight onwards.

Her path took her into the center of the crowd.

"Sorry... Excuse me....."

Brita wove through the onlookers with those words and reached the center of the crowd.

The sight of a cute but muscular girl moving with a quick, fluid movement shocked and unnerved the onlookers, and the people who saw Brita passing before them were stunned with surprise.

There seemed to be someone else trying to get to the heart of the crowd other than Brita. Said person went, “Excuse me”, but she could not advance through the throng of humanity and was stuck, unable to advance or retreat.

Brita stepped into the center of the congregation with slight difficulty, and there she saw what was going on with her own eyes.

Several unkempt-looking men were kicking and stomping on something.

"Hey! What you guys are doing?" Brita yelled and stride, stopping only when she was within arms’ reach of the men.

"Mind your own business, little girl!" One of the men snarled at her. They gave the same vibe as the 3 thugs who were tailing the girl.

The men ran over to surround Brita. As they left their original positions, they revealed the object they had been kicking around all this time. It looked like a young man. He was curled up on the ground and bleeding from his face. It was unclear if the blood came from his mouth or his nose.

Apparently the young man had passed out after being brutalized for so long, but he still looked like he was breathing. His hand was still holding some papers. In fact, there papers scattering around him. Many of people in the crowd were holding the same papers. 

One of the man showed Brita the paper, it was actually a flyer, stating "Government of people is a farce. It is a deception by the rich to rob us..." 

She stared at them.

"So you beat him only because he distributed some papers?" 

Another man tore a paper and said,

"These are not just some papers. They were inciting people to change the rulers."

She sighed, "Aren't the citizens of Athen free to choose whoever they like to be rulers?"

“Still… public safety in this government chosen by people is quite bad.” 

Brita spoke as though she had just confirmed something she had observed from afar. The men thought she had looked down on them and made noises of displeasure.

"We are the peacekeepers under Friedman family. We cannot let you go after saying that." 

"Friedman family?" She asked innocently.

The men were increasingly annoyed.

"They are one of the warlords sponsor candidates to be rulers in this country!"

"So this country is being run by thugs?" She declared nonchalantly.

A man looked the oldest clenched his fist and threw a punch at her.

What Brita had done was simple enough. She had simply drew her scabbard upward and struck a blow at the man’s chin, albeit at her full strength, which gave the man a brain concussion. He collapsed limply to the ground. Sounds of shock came from all around them, including the two remaining men. 

"Do you still wish to fight?” She threw a provocation in a shrill voice.

Her conviction and strength cut through the men’s arrogance. They backed several steps off. The men grabbed their unconscious colleague and fled. No. They actually met the three thugs who were tailing the girl. They were discussing behind a wooden building while glancing at Brita.

"Kalecki !!" A female voice called from the crowd.

Brita was relieved to see the cyan haired girl was safe. The crowd cleared a path for the girl to walk. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on her back, such was the allure of the girl’s presence.

The girl hurried over to the fallen young man and had poured on him some medicine. The medicine in this world had some immediate effect healing injury, depending on how expensive the medicine is. That's why mercenaries and soldiers used medicine to recover themselves during battle.

The young man's skin seemed to absorb the liquid as it disappeared into his body, and the colour returned to the his face.

"Joan, let us handle Michal!" A man who had been standing among the crowd came to them and held him.

"Thanks, Piero Sraffa." She thanked him. These people knew each other.

The crowd came to help while talking to each other.

"Michal Kalecki was beaten by Friedman for distributing flyers."

"How horrible. As expected of the tyrant Friedman family."

From the brief exchanges surrounding her, she knew the cyan haired girl who often delivered oration was called Joan. The beaten man was Michal Kalecki and the man who looked like a leader among the crowd was Piero Sraffa.

After handing the cleanup to her friends, Joan concluded that there was nothing left for her to do here. She walked quickly further into the town.

Brita sneakily followed after Joan.

She only slowed down when she reached the corner which Joan had taken.

After that, she began trailing Joan.

Soon, she saw Joan walking along the street.

Joan turned a corner and headed into a darker region. Brita followed. She was walking behind the Joan, yet she did not speak up and address her.

Was she not stalking Joan?

Brita began to feel annoyed by what she was doing. Even if she did not know how to approach the Joan, she could not keep following her like this. In an effort to change the situation, Brita continued following in silence.

Once they had entered an empty back alley, Brita took several deep breaths, as though she was a boy psyching himself up to confess his love to a girl. Then she summoned her courage and said:

“—Excuse me.”

Joan turned around after hearing someone call out to her.

Joan hair was cyan and short. She even had an air of nobility about her despite not wearing expensive cloth.

"Is something the matter?”

Joan's voice sounded somewhat young, but it overflowed with an undeniable maturity. 

Brita felt an attraction rolling out towards her and she gulped. 

“Ah, ah—”

Brita could not speak, overwhelmed as she was by her charisma. As she saw this, Joan appeared to relax and let the tension escape from her body.

“And who might you be?”

Her tone was gentle. Released from the immense embarrassment, Brita’s throat regained its ability to function.

"My name is Brita. My comrades and I attended your daily oration at city centre. We were convinced by what you spoke." Brita said bashfully.

She suddenly remembered her purpose and explained.

"Since the gathering in the city this evening, four suspicious men had been stalking you. A strong one was being delayed by my friend. The other three trailed you to this town. I believed they were from Friedman family as they joined the thugs just now to follow you "

Brita looked off to one side. 

"They were still following us. I had intended to call them over — ah, they are here. It would seem they took a while to prepare themselves for fight.”

Joan took a bit longer to look in the same direction.

Five men slowly revealed themselves. 

Joan was visibly shocked as she saw them, and she said in shocking voice.

"No way. They even go this low."

Brita stepped to the front of trembling Joan.

They were holding ropes, net, and wooden sticks. They were planning to capture the girls.

"They’ve appeared in front of us but they’re not making a move yet. Are they waiting for the other two people to circle around behind us? Since this is a rare opportunity, why don’t we break through them from the front?”

Brita deliberately raised his voice loud enough for them to hear, and the men’s movements froze. They had clearly been shaken by the exposure of their encirclement plan.

The other two men had circled around and appeared behind them.

The sound of a sword clearing his sheath came from beside Brita, and a moment later, Brita drew her own sword.

Ambushes only worked when they were unexpected. If someone had seen through it beforehand, then they would only be splitting up their forces. The enemy must have judged that it would be better to attack all at once now that they had been exposed.