“Fake, it has to be fake!”
The sheriff’s gloomy face twisted through several expressions, but then, as if remembering something, he suddenly relaxed, the wariness and tension vanishing without a trace.
“Almost got fooled by you lot, a bunch of attention-seeking frauds.”
Perhaps to save face for his earlier outburst, the sheriff, now calm, immediately spoke with decisive judgment.
Tsk, who are you trying to scare?
Looks like they really went to great lengths to disguise themselves this time.
The sheriff, still shaken, glanced at the prisoner inside the cage—a motionless, listless “captive”—and felt a chill of fear slip through his heart.
But thankfully, it’s fake.
“Fake?”
Seeing the sheriff stubbornly refuse to admit anything, Green asked lazily and unhurriedly, “May I ask, Sheriff, how did you conclude that the hard-won victory and spoils our soldiers fought for are fake?”
Green patted the prison cage and pointed to a captive inside, whose totems were several times more than the others—a glance was enough to tell he was a chieftain or Warchief, a high-ranking barbarian. Green spoke gently.
He remained completely at ease, not the least bit angry at the sheriff’s outburst.
“Huff…” The sheriff saw how calm Green was and felt a sliver of doubt rise in his heart. Could it be… could it be that they didn’t fake it, and these people really were barbarian captives?
Although he’d never truly fought barbarians on the battlefield, over the years, the sheriff and his subordinate merchant guilds had secretly engaged in massive smuggling with the other side.
From basic daily goods—fuel, grain, oil, salt—to legally restricted magitek tools, and even to the strictly regulated Magitek Weapons, the sheriff had never let anything stand in the way of amassing wealth.
After all, what could those barbarians possibly do?
The goods he sold were but a drop in the ocean compared to the Empire’s vastness. At most, send a single Central Elite Legion squad and they could sweep the borderlands with ease.
So, even though he considered himself “patriotic,” the sheriff never hesitated when huge profits beckoned.
With such close ties, of course the sheriff could see that the “forgery” was exquisitely done—even with all his years of middleman experience, he couldn’t spot a single flaw in these supposed barbarian captives.
But… these useless fools, they remembered to make the prisoners look real, yet forgot the most basic problem.
Numbers.
The sheriff counted the captives in the cage with confidence.
At least several hundred.
Heh.
Found the flaw!
“Hmph, fine then, let me make you die with understanding!”
The sheriff got to his real work—handling all kinds of cases in the town.
“Princess Teresa.”
He looked at the commander, who rode a tall horse and had returned from death’s door, only to be falsely accused, making the sheriff’s heart ache for her loyal subordinates.
“May I ask, how many troops did your side send on this expedition?” The sheriff took on a level of professional focus many times greater than he used for ordinary cases.
“This mission was arduous, so I brought only about eight hundred elite soldiers.”
Eight hundred?
The sheriff almost burst out laughing.
“Then from your side’s battle report, you captured several hundred prisoners. May I ask how many barbarians invaded this time?”
With every step, the sheriff laid invisible traps with his expert interrogation skills, just waiting for the answerer to step into them.
“Over ten thousand.”
Without suspecting any trickery, Teresa answered immediately and truthfully.
“Pft, pfft, hahahaha!”
The sheriff laughed, his grin blindingly bright.
“So, I’m sorry, Your Highness.” The sheriff bowed respectfully.
“It seems you’ve overlooked something? Eight hundred defeating over ten thousand?”
The sheriff could barely contain his laughter.
Unbelievable. They’d managed to pull off such a perfect disguise—even someone like him, with years of dealing with barbarians, couldn’t see through it—yet they’d forgotten the most basic point.
“My apologies, Your Highness,” the sheriff said, struggling to suppress his mockery and maintain calm, “but real battlefields aren’t like the legends sung by bards.”
As he mentioned “bards,” the sheriff gave Green a pointed look, eyes full of hatred.
It was this man, who’d spun a trivial story that led to his heir’s death.
Yes, his son had colluded with the quartermaster and skimmed some goods.
But so what?
The whole fortress, the entire Empire top to bottom, didn’t everyone do the same?
Laws, justice, honor—just empty words!
As sheriff, who better than him knew that Imperial law was nothing but a scrap of paper?
Son, I will avenge you!
So he raised his voice and declared, “Eight hundred defeat over ten thousand? Even if the founding Emperor himself returned, he couldn’t achieve such a miracle!”
Shhh!
At his words, the townsfolk, who had been a little uncertain, now recovered their hostile glares. Their anger grew even greater.
“What? I almost believed our useless border army finally did something, but turns out it was fake?”
“Fake? Not surprising. If it were real, that’d be strange. They extort our towns for ‘sponsorships,’ but when do they ever do their duty? At the first sign of trouble, they run faster than anyone!”
“Exactly! Who knows where they found all these actors—their disguises are so convincing, we almost fell for it!”
“Thank goodness for the sheriff’s sharp eyes, or we’d have been ruined by these soldiers. When the barbarians come killing, we wouldn’t even know if the enemy existed or not!”
Once again, the townsfolk hurled attacks at Teresa and her troops. Like unending waves on the sea, the accusations crashed against the soldiers’ hearts, wearing down their last defenses.
Seeing the crowd accept his words, the sheriff sneered and waved to the militiamen behind him.
“So, Your Highness, please forgive my rudeness!”
Clang!
The sheriff drew the sword at his waist and pulled out a communication crystal.
Beeep—
The crystal flashed with a blinding light.
A young man, somewhat resembling Teresa but with a sickly face and gloomier features, appeared in fine robes. His high forehead and thin frame made him look more like a diligent office clerk than an ambitious claimant to the throne.
Thus, the Empire’s second prince entered everyone’s field of view.
“Brother,” Teresa said, her expression complicated as she looked at the second prince. Like the Grand Prince, he looked down on her “low birth,” though he favored her somewhat since she happened to share the Emperor’s eye color.
“The sheriff has told me everything.”
The second prince shook his head in feigned disappointment, striking the pose of a stern elder as he ordered, “Falsifying military reports, trusting traitors, disgracing the royal family…”
“I, Andrei de Pantiate, Second Prince of the Empire and Undersecretary of the Army Department, hereby grant the militia the right to enforce military law on the spot!”
Szzzt.
The communication ended.
The sheriff, certain of victory, looked coldly at the “murderers” of his heir and said without emotion, “You all heard the Second Prince’s orders, didn’t you?”
“Arrest these murderers and corrupt vermin immediately!”
At the sheriff’s order, the so-called militia—made up of family thugs, mercenaries, and ex-Imperial soldiers who’d been discharged for lack of pay—charged toward Teresa’s group, howling.
Their eyes glittered with greed, spirits soaring.
“The sheriff said, whoever captures that Rain gets a thousand gold coins!”
“Ha, just a bunch of losers!”
Facing these seemingly fierce, but actually disorganized and ill-prepared enemies—who couldn’t even form a basic formation—Green yawned, utterly bored.
“Truly, some people won’t give up till they see their own coffin.”
Green gently plucked a string on his harp.
Zheng—
In that instant, the militia—supposedly the sheriff’s trump card, the force in whom even the Second Prince had placed hope—suddenly stopped, frozen in place.
It was as if they had been weighed down by heavy stones; not only could they not advance, they could barely stand upright.
“They say people can’t imagine worlds beyond their own experience. That’s what a frog in a well is, after all.”
Breaking the silence, Green walked slowly up to the sheriff.
“Weren’t you just doubting how eight hundred could defeat ten thousand?”
There was not a trace of pride on Green’s face; as if he were describing the most ordinary thing, he said, “The truth is, as a bard, I know a bit about fighting. So, when that stupid barbarian king boldly challenged me in the midst of his army, he just died right there in the middle of thousands.”
Thump.
A severed head appeared in Green’s hand and was tossed in a gentle arc. That ferocious, unseeing face slid to a halt next to the sheriff’s terrified visage.
The barbarian high king?
The sheriff blinked, hardly able to believe what he saw.
Could it be… they hadn’t lied?
They really defeated a barbarian army of over ten thousand, and even killed the king?!
Then I, I…
BOOM!!!
Green’s aura shattered the sheriff’s thoughts.
“L-Legendary?!”
The sheriff’s instructor, a former veteran mercenary who’d sensed things were going wrong, let out a blood-curdling scream.
Why?
Why would an exiled princess have a Legendary powerhouse under her command?
No one could answer the instructor’s deep, desperate question.
“No, no, this can’t be…”
The sheriff stared in disbelief at his militia, now effortlessly suppressed by a mysterious bard. His mind collapsed, and he kept muttering to himself.
“Citizens!” Seeing the outcome decided, Teresa seized the moment and proclaimed, “As commander of the fortress, I apologize to you all for our Imperial soldiers’ past failings!”
“But the true betrayers of the law…”
She cast a look of disgust at the sheriff, thinking of how it was the quartermaster, the cavalry lieutenant, those corrupt vermin, who’d slowly eaten away the army’s foundations, rendering the border fortress useless and leaving the innocent townsfolk at the mercy of the barbarians. Teresa’s tone was uncharacteristically tinged with killing intent.
“…are certain bigwigs in this town.”
A slaughter was about to begin.
Gulp.
Everyone present swallowed hard.
No one was stupid—they all understood what this “ornamental, abandoned” princess intended to do.
“Sheriff, you and your backers truly are clever.”
Green leaned in close, grinning, and whispered in the sheriff’s ear, “But I believe you won’t mind if we copy your tactics—say, turning the border into our own base?”
Mmmph! Mmmph!
The sheriff struggled desperately, only to discover in horror that he couldn’t make a sound at all.
Just as, for so many years, none of the town’s victims under his tyrannical power had ever been able to make a sound.