Annan took a deep breath. He had only wanted to find out what lay in the Far North that the Stuen Ratfolk and demons cared about so much, and who the Ice-Sealed Woman was... How had this gotten so big?
Still, his eldest sister was right. The Kings of the North were scattered, but if he called for a campaign to reclaim the Northern Frontier, some of them would come back to wash away their humiliation.
At the very least, the Laurencet Family and Diatra Family at the Northern Mountain Pass of the Dimon Kingdom were willing to help.
"I understand, Eldest Sister. Sorry for the trouble, but could you contact the other Kings of the North for me?"
"Of course."
At the Northern Mountain Pass, the fighting had died down, and the pass had returned to its old tranquility—if you ignored the clanging of repairs.
Grand Marshal Garkin had led the kingdom's soldiers a hundred miles beyond it. It looked like the counteroffensive had begun, but in truth, the main force of the chaos allied forces was over on the empire's side.
They had been forgotten.
But after three years of fighting, no one in the Dimon Kingdom had any objections left. Everyone's eyes were bloodshot, and they were ready to throw themselves at the enemy and tear off a chunk of flesh.
As reinforcements, Joan and her unit had no part in the counteroffensive. With nothing else to do, she spent her days training in camp, occasionally taking a walk along the city wall.
The bloody fighting, when death could come at any moment, felt like a nightmare. Yet as it grew more distant, she found herself missing it.
Though Joan was a Squad Leader in name, most days she watched over her dozen-odd soldiers as they