The vanguard attacking Krieg's headquarters was neither Garen, the knight leading the charge, nor the armed laborers in revolt. It was, instead, the rank-and-file pirates of the Krieg Pirates.
The fleeing crowd had grown from several hundred people at the docks into over a thousand as it swept through the town.
By the time they reached the front of Krieg's estate, the desperate mob had swelled to more than two thousand people.
Such a chaotic force was powerful and terrifying. If not for the elite First Combat Division stationed outside Krieg's estate as the final line of defense, Krieg's beloved "palace" would have long since been trampled into dust by these refugees.
The captain of the First Combat Division, Krieg's loyal hound, Gin—known as the "Demon Man"—had reacted early and was now desperately trying to stop the surging crowd.
But the situation had already spiraled completely out of control, and Gin's efforts achieved very little.
Those at the front wanted to stop, but the unaware pirates in the rear kept desperately shoving forward, pushing the tide of people ever closer to Krieg's estate.
If anyone so much as slowed their steps, they could be trampled to death by their frantic comrades.
Countless others in the crowd were spreading panic with their shouts.
The contents of those shouts had long since changed—
What had begun as the clear call of "Go back and ask Lord Krieg for help" had become the horrifying rumor that "Lord Krieg has been slain by the Knight of Justice."
Such rumors rose and fell throughout the crowd, shaking even the morale of the First Combat Division members blocking the mob before the estate.
A mutiny on this scale would have been an unstoppable, irresistible catastrophe in Earth's age of cold weapons. Once it happened, it essentially