Under Attack!

Nina rushed back outside to the streets of the city after seeing that Kies wasn't in his room. Nina prayed that he was at the fountain waiting for her and did go after her. She didn't know what was going on but Sir Siegfried had made it very clear to her that something dangerous was happening in the city right now.

*Huff Huff*

The fountain was just around the corner. Nina was desperately catching her breath after running all this way. She was exhausted and switched to walking for the remaining distance. As she was walking, she felt something in her hands. It was the leather necklace that she wanted to give Kies. She had been in a panic and didn't notice that she was holding it the entire time. Nina put the necklace on to make sure that she wouldn't accidentally lose it. There was no clasp for the necklace. The leather string was long enough for someone to put it on directly over their heads.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a strong wind blew into her. Nina closed her eyes and held onto her dress. It only lasted for a moment and went away as quickly as it came.

'What was that?' Nina wondered. It wasn't windy today at all and it was pretty strange for a random gust of wind as strong as that to appear so suddenly. Nina looked in the direction the wind had come from and saw nothing.

As bizarre as the wind was, Nina didn't have the time to investigate it. She quickly hurried over to the fountain and as she got closer, she heard shouting and the sound of metal clashing. Nina sped up her pace and turned the corner to see a fight going on next to the fountain.

Worried that Kies might have been caught up in it, Nina quickly scanned the crowd for him. It was a fierce battle between the knights and the demi-humans. It looked like the slaves were rebelling and the knights were trying to suppress them.

Nina was both relieved and even more worried at the same time to see that Kies wasn't in the crowd. Since Kies wasn't here, it meant that the only place left that he could possibly be at is where the explosion happened. But before going after Kies, Nina wanted to stop the fight first. Nina takes a deep breath and shouts at them to stop the battle. "Pleas-" But before she could even finish saying her first word, she was interrupted by a knight.

"Take cover!" he tells Nina. But it was a little too late. A stray fireball flew at her and she didn't have time to dodge.

"Aaaah!"

Nina closed her eyes and heard a whoosh go by her ear and slowly opened them again. Luckily, the fireball flew past her right shoulder and only burnt the tip of her hair. Nina yelped and in a panic, cast magic to pour water on herself to douse the flames. She accidentally created too much water and she ended up splashing water all over her face with some of it going up to her nose as well. Nina coughed as she tried to get the water out of her nostrils.

"What are you doing here!? Go home now!" The same knight who gave Nina the heads-up was waving at her to go away.

Nina disregarded the knight's warning and finished what she was trying to say before. "Please stop fighting!" she yelled.

But no one listened. Everyone ignored her and continued to fight. The knight who was talking to her before looked at her like she was insane and said, "What the h*ll are- AH!" The knight let out a cry of pain as something hit him in the head. Nina looked at the object that fell onto the ground and saw that it was a wrench.

"D*mned dwarves! And you!" The knight pointed at Nina. She could hear the anger in his voice. "Leave, now!" The knight went back into the fray, not bothering to check if Nina had really left or not.

Nina, realizing that they wouldn't listen to her, quickly left. Her heart was racing from the fireball. If it had been aimed a little bit more to the left then it would have hit her right in the face and killed her. She was very fortunate to have lost a few strands of hair.

Now Nina had even more of a reason to find Kies. She headed in the direction of the explosion which was also where the wind had come from. Nina had suspicions that the wind was likely caused by another fight breaking out in the city.

'Please let Kies be safe!'

***

Phew. Siegfried wiped the sweat off his forehead. He was drenched from head to toe and felt miserable. He looked around. All the enemies were dead and there were no casualties on their side other than the initial two.

The knights were now taking a break to catch their breaths. Most of them were sitting on the ground and the rest were leaning on their swords.

"Whatever that wind was, it was a godsend!" one of the knights exclaimed.

"Yes it was, but how did it happen?" another knight asked. They didn't know what caused the wind but because of it, they were able to wipe out the enemy entirely before they were able to reorganize themselves.

"Five minutes!" Siegfried shouted. "After that, we will set off. The rest of the city is under attack as well. That wind that saved us, is probably from a fight down there." Siegfried pointed down the road.

It was hard to see down the road now since the sun was setting and it was blinding their view. Whatever caused the wind was further down there and they would find their answer soon. In the meanwhile, the knights hypothesized what it may have been.

"It is probably the same thing or person that caused the explosion, which means that it's likely that it's an enemy," one of the knights suggested.

"What makes you say that? It could be an ally. I mean, I really hope it is an ally" another one said. The thought of fighting against something that was able to create such powerful winds terrified the knights.

"I don't think we have anyone who can do something like that." the knight explained. "Furthermore, we saw traces of dark magic which means that there are demons in the city, and dark magic is capable of creating the explosion from before and the shockwave we just experienced."

The knights shivered at the sound of the word demons, and they had a good reason to be fearful of them. Each demon had the strength of around ten humans, and unlike humans, their magic was not limited to just five different kinds. They could use every single type of magic other than light and they specialized in dark magic. Dark magic was vile and powerful and was easily much stronger than any magic they could use.

"Hey, I found something," said one of the knights. While everyone else was having a conversation, she was going around and checking all the bodies to see if she could find any useful information. She held up a piece of folded paper. "It's coded."

Siegfried walked up to the knight and took the note from her. He looked at it and raised his eyebrows. "Sh*t. This is bad."

"Sir, you can read that?" she asked.

"It's not that hard. The letters are scrambled for each word, you just need to order them right." Siegfried explained. He then read out the contents of the paper to the knights. According to what was written, the Otanian soldiers were ordered to free the slaves and have them start a rebellion. While the knights would be busy holding back the rebellion, the soldiers would then make their way to the Silver Halls and kill off the king and nobles, breaking off their chain of command.

After Siegfried finished reading the note, he glanced around and saw that all the knights were concerned. He knew what everyone was thinking but it wasn't possible right now and told them, "I know you all want to head to the palace right now but we can't do that. We need to focus on our own situation right now and find out what is going on further down the road. We have to hope that the knights at the palace will be able to handle it."

"Yes, we need to figure out where all the people have gone," another knight agreed. "We still don't know where they disappeared off to or if they are even still alive."

"And we need to figure out how the enemy got in," someone else added in. There was a thirty feet wall surrounding the city and the entrance was always guarded, so there would be no way they could get in normally. It was likely that the explosion earlier had blown a hole in the wall and they entered through there, but they still needed to confirm if that was the case.

"Wait..." one of the knights noticed something strange. "Why would there be traces of dark magic if we're being attacked by the Otanians?" the knight pointed out. The dark magic didn't fit in anywhere. Demons were the only race that was able to use dark magic and they despised humans so it wouldn't make sense for them to team up with the Otanians. What's more, is that the Otanian soldiers they encountered were heading in the direction of the Silver Halls. This meant that there was another group of soldiers before them and they had already made it past them. "There was another group of soldiers that made it past us! They probably captured a demon and used its magic."

The other knights seem to have thought the same thing.

"That probably isn't the case," Siegfried says as he gets up and all eyes turn to him. "We would have seen them since we were coming in the direction of the Silver Halls." Siegfried points towards the sunset. "Time's up, let's get going. The answer lies just down this road."

"Wait, there's someone behind us," one of the knights keeping a lookout alerted. The knights all turned around and were ready to draw their swords. As the figure got closer, they all recognized who it was.

"Why are you back here!?" Siegfried asked in bewilderment.

Nina took a moment to catch her breath and then said, "Kies is up ahead, we need to hurry!"

---

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