Queen Catherine and her party had hurried back as fast as they could. They had even issued unnecessary extra orders and missions several times just to buy more time, but in the end, they still returned a little too late.
By the time she and her so-called "capable" generals and nobles had abandoned their respective missions and rushed back to the city of Kallia, then hurried toward Erathia's capital, Steadwick, with the still-pathetically small army they had managed to gather, ready to take part in the crucial battle, everything in Steadwick had already been settled.
A little witch and her army, which lived off the spoils of war, had launched an unprecedented lightning campaign across the continent of Erathia. The forces of Eeofol, having suffered grievous losses, had been so thoroughly demoralized that they had no choice but to abandon their allies and retreat early... And Nighon, which had been caught off guard and beaten black and blue before it could even figure out what was happening, had been so terrified by the fearsome Erathian army's pillaging and destruction of its underground passageways that it slunk back to its subterranean kingdom to lick its wounds.
Then, with Nighon's crushing defeat, Eeofol's retreat, and the recapture of the capital, the Kingdom of Erathia soon returned to peace. In a sense, had the Kingdom of Erathia, now once again entirely under the command and rule of the Griffin banner, already been almost completely liberated?
So when Queen Catherine and the others arrived in Steadwick, they were astonished to discover that, somehow, they had won without lifting a finger...
She had come from the Kingdom of Iron Fist to attend a funeral in Erathia. From beginning to end, she had done nothing at all. She had merely hired a little girl at great