A day later he caught up with the Wari siblings when they instructed half a dozen knights about where to find the wagons.

  Ioha came up to Derina just as the knights rode south.

  “Your horses?”

  “Bought them in the first village,” Derina said.

  “And Almina’s guests?”

  “Carriage, six-span.” He grimaced. We couldn’t keep up.

  Ioha looked at Almina. She was in rather bad condition. Apparently, mageblades didn’t train for stamina. Still, they had moved much faster than he expected.

  “Sir Questingtank, are you able to follow us? I mean without any sleep.”

  He looked at Derina. “You never told her?”

  “Told me what?”

  “Look, I’m in a hurry to find your guests. Derina, can your sister match your pace?”

  She glared at him. “I asked you a question.”

  “No, you made an assumption. I got a full night of sleep.” Ioha made a mental calculation. “Derina, you said you lost them. Any idea where they are going?”

  “They’re already there.” Derina glanced at Almina. “She doesn’t need to match my pace. There’s only one lord hereabouts who would dare to attack one of our houses.”

  “Lord?” Ah, the carriage. “Are six-spans expensive?”

  Derina shrugged. “I guess. They’re for long distance on good roads. With six horses they are fast, but it’s hard on the carriage.”

  It made sense. Their own carriages were drawn by two horses each, but they had to match pace with a crawling wagon train. “But the ambushers weren’t soldiers.”

  “She likely bought every idle second and third son around here.” He gave Ioha a worried look. “How are things back there?”

  “Harvali sent me ahead.”

  “I… I see. I’ll inform his family.”

  Huh? Eh… “Harvali should be fine, just so you know.” Ioha met Derina’s eyes. “There was a second ambush from behind. I used the same tactics as in Remerrin.”

  Derina gave him the same sad look Harvali had done the day before. “Ioha, I’m sorry. This is not how…”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Almina, it was his first battle with humans. Ioha, the survivors, did you see where they ran?”

  Ioha kept his silence and looked down.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry! Then Lord Terendala has to pay the closest villages a visit. So he sent you ahead instead.”

  “Brother, that doesn’t make any sense. Harvali could just execute the prisoners.”

  “Almina, please. You owe Sir Questingtank an apology. If Lord Terendala needs to mete out justice in the villages you know exactly why.”

  She stared at Ioha. “You’re just a first year cat. You couldn’t…”

  “I’m not a cat and I spent half a year in a border zone.” How to express this without gagging? “Miss Wari, E-rank monsters are torn to shreds almost immediately if they get within a sword’s length from me.” That held true as long as he shrunk the radii enough for other frontliners to support him. Last time he didn’t have to consider friendly soldiers and allowed his inferno its maximum range. Only a pikeman could reach him from a safe distance.

  “But there were no monsters… oh… oh gods! But who would willingly go inside that kind of magic?”

  “Willingly? When I call them in combat, almost all.” When he fought monsters there was a sense of pride for how he could protect those around him, but this time... “Miss Wari, there were thirty or forty of them. I don’t even know how many, and I’d rather not talk about it.”

  She put her hands to her lower face. “Derina, he can’t really…”

  “Sister, I’ve seen it. First time at school and then in the zone. He had grown a lot by then.” Derina gave Ioha a questioning glance.

  Ioha nodded. “Not by much but I’m stronger now.” Bile rose in him. He even gained some extra points yesterday, probably because killing humans was new to him. “Look, could we please not talk about it any more?”

  Derina gave him an awkward look. “How about we go get the kidnapper?”

  “How far?”

  “Brother, I don’t understand how…”

  “Almina, drop it!” Derina cut her short and his voice had an edge to it Ioha hadn’t heard before. “An hour on horse.” He smiled. “Eight of my classmates were outworlders. Two joined my party. You’ve met them.” The smile vanished. “Over ten of yours were as well. They just didn’t tell anyone.”

  “I didn’t know we were so many.”

  Derina shrugged and made his horse ready. “Over half of the mercs usually are. Your year was an exception. That class is for producing adventurers, well, I guess that’s true for cats as well, but you either have the affinity or you don’t.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Ioha grimaced but decided to smile in the end. “So, one hour.”

  “They have a garrison.”

  The absurdity of their situation made laughter bubble up in him. “Three of us. We’ll surround them.”

  “Oh, I’ll ask Almina to stay out of it. It would be unfair otherwise.”

  She turned from where she was making her horse ready as well. “Stop cracking stupid jokes!"

  They rode in relative silence. Ioha learned that the castle was built before there were any cats, and was poorly prepared for stopping them from scaling the walls. Derina could run up the walls and jump the last half of them. Ioha, well, he could just make stairs all the way to the crenellations and carry Almina. With magic still being scarce in the southern part of the continent the three of them represented a nightmare for any defenders.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Ioha asked about the scarcity, and Almina told him how mixing any clergy into the governance of a nation came with unwanted side effects. Her voice was so dry when she referred to the horrors of a theocracy that Ioha couldn’t stop laughing for minutes.

  In short the local kingdoms behaved just as he would have expected from any of the religiously inclined states back on Earth. People without the backbone to change their own lives always depended on tall tales of voices they heard in their heads to decide how someone else should live. Belief was not wrong unto itself – it just broke disgustingly when people decided they had the right to force someone else to change their beliefs.

  From time to time, Ioha dismounted and ran beside his horses. His bulk was punishing for his riding horse, and as long as they didn’t move faster than at a trot, he had no problems keeping the pace on foot.

  “How large a garrison?” he asked when the gravity of their situation had sunk in.

  “About forty,” came the answer. It was less than he had expected but that peacetime garrisons were small made sense. When he compared it to the Isekai judicial military of two hundred it made a lot of sense.

  Out of curiosity Ioha asked for the Wari and Terendala numbers respectively after he made an apology should his question be improper. Almina laughed and answered that garrison numbers were usually well known and hardly a secret. Then her eyes glinted before she suggested that the real numbers might be a secret. Derina just scoffed, but he smiled as well.

  “Depends on estate,” he said. In the capital, less than ten. It literally depended on if a patrol unit were visiting and waiting for orders. The Wari domain employed a hundred knights spread over several estates. Another thousand part-time soldiers, mostly militia, added to that number. Large standing armies were simply not economically feasible.

  “Terendala?” Ioha asked and received a guffaw in return.

  “The Terendala house is an aberration,” Almina explained. “They protect the federation and the other houses pay, us included. Five thousand full-time soldiers. A thousand knights included.” She shook her head. “It’s a nightmare to keep up. I don’t understand why they do it. Family honour, I guess.”

  Ioha had a vision of a fantasy castle with lines of soldiers manning the walls.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Derina laughed. “Their garrisons are maybe two hundred in total, and even that is a large number. Most of their soldiers are on patrol or guarding the cities.”

  “No militia?”

  Derina shrugged. “Their domain is about our size. A thousand, same as us.” He leaned down from his horse. “Even if they work part-time, all that equipment and lodging still costs a lot of money.”

  And there it was, the reason Wergaist long since lost any chance of conquering Isekai. They could use the same magic but Wergaist, together with the rest of the federation, was preindustrial. Isekai might lack heavy machinery, but they took a postindustrial society for granted. They read history books for knowledge about industrialism and applied magic accordingly.

  “We’re here.”

  Ioha looked up and tightened his grip on the reins. The road left the forest, and fields spread out ahead of them. A few kilometres away forbidding walls dominated a small hill. It looked older than the world he had gotten used to. Ah, no gunpowder cannons. The defences were built for a world where magic was just as dangerous as now but much more scarce. It looked nothing like the federation fortifications he had seen since he left Isekai the last time.

  “You know, the town walls around your cities?” he asked for confirmation.

  Almina grinned. “Old town, old walls. Why tear them down if they’re there?” She pointed at the castle walls. “That thing is old as well. Just as old as their way of thinking.”

  “You’re raiding Remerrin and Haldenvale. Why not this?”

  “We’re raiding Remerrin. We’re trying to conquer Haldenvale,” Derina corrected him. “Not that we’re doing a good job of it. Look Ioha, both Remerrin and Haldenvale work like the federation.” He rubbed his chin with his left hand. “Remerrin is a thorn in the side of Wergaist but it’s really too far away from the federation. Haldenvale would give us a foothold on the other side of the western mountains.”

  “And this?”

  “This is, how do you call it, eh… ah... medieval, yes medieval. If we take these kingdoms, we have to pay for having them the coming fifty years or longer.” He grimaced. “We could, but the house in charge would go bankrupt.”

  Ioha felt a bitter laugh climbing up his throat. The southern kingdoms were safe because they were simply too dirt poor. As long as the population starved properly on a regular basis no one wanted to attack. “You don’t mind if Isekai creates a foothold here?”

  Almina smirked. “I have nothing against you personally. But. If you succeed we’ll invade. I’m sorry.”

  “What about Isekai itself?”

  “Too far away and too costly,” Derina answered. “You’re more worth to us as you are now.”

  Ioha accepted that there were things he needed to talk about later. Now was not the time. “Should we go get the girls?”

  “Give us a moment.”

  The siblings dismounted. “War armour would have been good right now,” Almina complained and sighed.

  “We won’t need it,” Derina said and looked at Ioha.

  “They have any casters?” Ioha asked and pointed at the castle.

  Derina looked across the fields. “Don’t think so.”

  You think? Isn’t that a bit dangerous? “No casters, no armour needed.” He grinned at Derina. “If you’re wrong, it could become a bit dangerous. I haven’t tried my shields against magic.”

  “Shields?”

  Both boys looked at Almina. “My magic is a bit different,” Ioha said. “I’m a… hmm… defensive frontliner,” he settled for. “My speciality is protective magic.”

  “Protective magic…”

  There was that. “If things get bad, don’t stay too close to me.”

  “I’ll trust you,” Almina said to Ioha. “Brother, sneak in or attack?”

  Derina looked at Ioha. “Sneaking is impossible. We attack.”

  “It’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. Are you certain?”

  “Ioha, can you sneak in?”

  Ioha shook his head.

  “Are you fine with a frontal attack. I mean…”

  “I know what you mean. These guys aren’t starving peasants. They kidnapped her guests.” Ioha nodded at Almina. “Frontal attack.”

  “See that orchard?”

  Ioha looked at rows of trees that looked planted maybe two thirds of the distance to the castle. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “We tie our horses there and attack.”

  They left the treeline behind them. Three riders on a road didn’t attract any attention, and they quickly arrived at planted apple trees. By now, soldiers on the walls must know they were approaching. The road led straight through the forest to the river crossing, and the only ones to come out of the forest now would be a villager from the few settlements they had passed or someone from the ambushed caravan. They were properly armed, unlike any villager.

  A few minutes later, they walked the road to the castle. The gates opened, and a small detachment of armoured riders came charging.

  “Ioha, would you mind?”

  The polite question from Derina felt so misplaced, Ioha was still laughing after he set a single grid up. Thank you man, I needed that. Ioha added a series of shields, just in case the soldiers turned out more resilient to his taunts than expected.

  To his left, Almina took up a defensive stance, and Ioha cast a set of shields to protect her left flank. He let out a roar of challenge, all three punitive taunts, and sent each of the riders a single target taunt each. As far as he knew, they should all be locked in aggressive frenzy now.

  One second, Derina stood to his right. The next he jumped. He turned midair and landed on top of one rider, with rapier and parrying sword leading his landing. The rider was ripped off his horse, and Derina impossibly turned again and took control of it. A moment later, he ran through a second rider and dismounted.

  No way a rapier should punch through metal like that. Ioha still stared at Derina when the two riders closest to them rammed his shields. Almina ran out in the corridor Ioha had prepared for her and finished them both with her sabre, spewing enough aura around it for Ioha to feel her sword without even activating the abilities he had for detecting magic effects. That left two riders, but before he even had a chance to activate his inferno, both Derina and Almina were upon them. One tried to defend himself and immediately haemorrhaged with bones shattering before Derina relieved him of his pain. Almina killed the other by setting him aflame with her sword.

  Ioha didn’t puke this time. He just walked up to the siblings and pointed at the caste wall. “Do we finish the job now?” Going forward was easier than thinking about what had happened.

  Derina followed his finger. “Yes, now it’s our turn.”