I Refuse to Be Your Enemy! Volume 3 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Color Illustrations

  Chapter 1: The Battle of Cassia Castle

  Chapter 2: The Siege of Sorwen

  Interlude: Destiny’s Turning Point

  Chapter 3: A Midsummer Cake and the Beginnings of Autumn

  Interlude: The Fall of the Royal Capital

  Chapter 4: Battle on the Delphion Border

  Chapter 5: Welcome to Delphion

  Interlude: The Farzian Spellcaster

  Chapter 6: The Fort Inion Rescue Mission

  Side Story: The Spellcaster’s Side Hustle

  Afterword

  Bonus Chapter: Reginald and Gina

  Bonus Textless Cover

  About J-Novel Club

  Copyright

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  Chapter 1: The Battle of Cassia Castle

  Rays of summer sunshine beat down upon the gray stone of Cassia Castle’s walls. The sky beyond the spire was clear and blue, completely detached from the turmoil unfolding below.

  As I stared up at it, I was struck with the strange sensation that I was seeing a live-action rendition of an RPG cutscene I’d watched long before I was born.

  But this was reality.

  I was born into this world with the name Kiara. It took me until I was fourteen to realize it, but one day, I had the epiphany that I was living in a world nearly identical to an RPG I’d played in my past life. That game was called Farzia: Kingdom at War.

  The protagonist was the heir to the Margraviate of Évrard, Alan. If his life had proceeded according to the RPG, he would have lost his father in the prologue along with his best friend and my guardian, Prince Reginald of Farzia—also known as Reggie.

  In order to change their fates, I’d been fighting as a spellcaster.

  That said, I certainly didn’t have the power to lead an entire country. The best I could do was defend Alan’s hometown, Évrard. In the meantime, we were invaded by the kingdom of Llewyne, whose forces were closing in on the royal capital.

  Fortunately, forewarned is forearmed, so I’d gotten us off to a more advantageous start than in the game.

  And yet... why had he cast me aside, deliberately keeping me away from the front lines?

  My mouth drawn in a thin line, I listened alongside Alan and Cain as Lord Reinstar’s uncle, General Edam, recounted everything that had happened thus far—and how Reggie had stormed the castle standing before us.

  ◇◇◇

  Cassia Castle was occupied by the Llewynian viscount Lord Weber. There were about 3,000 soldiers inside.

  Edam postulated that the scant numbers were due to Fort Clonfert’s unexpectedly swift fall. The soldiers who abandoned the fort were supposed to join up with the forces here, hence why there were so few men stationed around the castle town; the majority had been assigned to Clonfert.

  Unfortunately for them, Farzian forces had arrived at the castle faster than they’d anticipated.

  Panicked as he was, Lord Weber still had a chance of holding out through a siege... or he would have, if not for two things. First, the castle was part of the kingdom of Farzia. Second, his opponent wasn’t the straightforward, orthodox Alan; it was Reggie.

  By the time Reggie sent out his scouts, he had already set his plan into motion. He had about ten men dress up in Llewynian military uniforms and make a show of escaping back to the castle. Once they had infiltrated the grounds, they spread a message among the residents of the castle town: The forces of Évrard will be here to liberate you shortly. When they arrive, open the gates and fight alongside them.

  The downtrodden victims of Llewyne’s sudden invasion jumped at Reggie’s proposal, and when they flung open the gates, Évrard soldiers came flooding through.

  Lord Weber scrambled. Word didn’t reach him until after the gates had been broken down. All he could do was fortify the castle’s defenses and call for the heads of the prince and any other nobles of interest. But Reggie, the man of the hour, kept out of sight as he extended his reach into the castle.

  The plan had been for Reggie and his knights to infiltrate the castle, take the viscount’s head, and bring the battle to an end as quickly as possible.

  Edam had initially objected to the prince himself leading a group into the castle. However, Reggie had already taken measures of his own to put the Llewynians out of commission: the soldiers he’d sent in earlier had poisoned the food provided by the merchants of the castle town. When Edam learned of this, he surrendered his argument.

  The attack was to be launched in the afternoon so there would be enough time for the poison to kick in.

  The Cassian knight Aubrey directed Reggie to the baron’s emergency escape route. He had learned of the hidden passageway when he was helping the baron’s son, Charles, escape the castle.

  Edam didn’t know what had happened to Reggie after he snuck into the castle. He and his men had managed to bring the surrounding area under control, as they were ordered, so they were just about to head in after him.

  I wanted to join them, but first, I had to talk Cain into letting me go.

  “His Highness ordered us to wait outside. Stay here with Lord Alan,” he insisted.

  Alan tried to stop me, too. “Don’t worry. Reggie won’t be taken down so easily—even if there are defective spellcasters in there.”

  “But there’s always a chance he could be caught off-guard! What is he supposed to do if he runs into someone who can shoot flames? If I were there, I could protect him!”

  A protest died on the tip of my tongue: You don’t need to go so far to protect me! I became a spellcaster so I could fight. If you won’t let me do anything, why am I even here? Of course, I couldn’t say any of that—not when they were just concerned for me.

  “I’ll bring you along.” Surprisingly, Edam was the one to cut in. He placed a hand on my shoulder.

  Both men (particularly Cain) were thrown for a loop. Edam explained himself in no uncertain terms. “This young lady is a spellcaster. And that aside, I can’t say I approve of treating a young woman like a helpless child.”

  “Without her magic, she’s nothing more than an ordinary girl. She can’t cast her magic without proper warning, which means she can’t adequately protect herself.” Cain’s assessment stung.

  “This is something she’s chosen for herself,” Edam asserted. “If she’s hurt badly enough to crumple, she’ll accept the responsibility for it. It’s up to her what she takes away from the experience. Regardless, I’ll keep some of my men by her side, and they’ll be sure to make an opening for her to use her magic. Just wait here and have faith.”

  Cain hung his head. As a mere knight of Évrard, he couldn’t disobey the general. Alan held a higher rank, but he seemed to have taken Edam’s speech to heart; he gave up on arguing.

  Master Horace, who had been quiet for a while now, started to chuckle deviously. “Sometimes you have to let the kids run wild. Making mistakes and learning from disgrace is just another part of life. Besides, you won’t see a girl Kiara’s age changing her mind any time soon!”

  “Precisely,” Edam agreed. Perhaps the two old men had more in common than it seemed. Something about Master Horace’s comment didn’t sit well with me, but with that, I was allowed to go after Reggie.

  “Thank you, General Edam.”

  “You chose to hold the power to sit at our war council, so I figured you ought to have the power to carry out your will; that’s all it was. But as your knight says, I saw for myself in our last fight how vulnerable you are. Keep in mind that people are going to worry about you.” His gentle lecture made him sound like a schoolteacher. I dipped
my head in a bow.

  Edam and I set off toward the castle. Cain watched me go with an unusually nervous expression. I’d always had someone to act as my personal bodyguard in the past, so perhaps he wanted another knight to accompany me, if nothing else.

  Having picked up on that, Gina stepped forward. “My frostfoxes and I will go with you, Kiara. Animals have sharper instincts than humans, after all. Why don’t you take a break, Sir Cain? Let me go earn my pay.”

  Gina clapped Cain’s shoulder with a smile, and he stumbled forward, taken by surprise.

  “How about you and I have a nice, long chat?” Girsch sidled up to Cain, who went pale and retreated to where Alan was standing. It looked like Cain was fully preoccupied with guarding himself from the mercenary now. Of course, it probably helped that he knew I had other people looking out for me, too.

  A little relieved to see that, I pushed onward. Then, I turned to Gina beside me and asked, “By the way, is Girsch attracted to men?”

  “Yeah. Unfortunately, it’ll never come to anything. Girsch only falls for men who are into women.” Gina heaved a sigh.

  If the target of Girsch’s affections was someone with the same preferences, the two could walk hand in hand. Sadly, the mercenary’s tastes sounded like the equivalent of screaming alone into a barren wasteland. How tragic.

  “I guess people can’t change what they like...”

  “The first person Girsch ever loved was a married man. Those feelings faded eventually, but the type stuck. The poor thing’s always complaining about it.”

  “No one can make themselves fall out of love, no matter how hard they may try. Nor can you force anyone else to change how they feel about you for the very same reason.” Edam cut in with a few words of wisdom.

  We all set foot inside the castle together. I could hear the distant clashing of swords. Still, thanks to Reggie’s poisoning tactics, the fighting wasn’t as fierce as it could have been. The sounds of conflict weren’t all that frequent, and things were just about settling down.

  A knight of Edam’s, who had joined up with us along the way, told us the current state of affairs.

  A few of Lord Weber’s men had caught on to the poison. Consequently, the viscount and a small portion of his soldiers had managed to escape. There weren’t many survivors, however, and the group had fled to the main tower in the face of Reggie’s assault. Reggie had immediately given chase.

  We followed him into the main tower.

  ◇◇◇

  The Llewynian soldiers in the main tower had been taken out.

  After bounding up the stairs two or three steps at a time, we finally arrived outside a door. From the inside, we heard a voice shout, “Drop your weapons or we’ll kill this girl!”

  Edam’s men busted open the door and rushed inside, and I followed behind. Inside were the corpses of over a dozen knights and soldiers along with a pool of blood oozing over the floor. Right in the center of the tiny chamber were Reggie and his accompanying knights.

  In the back of the room, there was a girl about my age—mostly likely the baron’s daughter, Flora— with the look of someone who had given up on everything, the life drained from her face and a man grabbing her from behind, holding the blade of his sword to her neck. I had to assume he was Lord Weber.

  The pair was flanked by five Llewynian knights.

  Flora was wearing a thin, simple dress torn at the chest. There were rope marks around her wrists, which hung limply beside her, as well as around her neck, which was currently held at swordpoint. Her long, brown hair, so similar to Charles’, was a tangled mess.

  It had been days upon days since she was captured, and her clothes weren’t dirty; from that, I could guess what had happened to her. Being a girl of the same age, my heart broke for her all the more. I only wished there was something I could do to help her.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t. One wrong move and she would be killed.

  Reggie, meanwhile, was callous. “Go right ahead. I don’t intend to throw away my life or the lives of my soldiers for that girl.”

  His back was turned to me, so I couldn’t tell what sort of face he was making as he said that. However, his voice had a more cold-hearted edge to it than usual.

  Lord Weber clearly hadn’t seen Reggie’s blunt refusal coming. After glancing around the room in dismay, he bit down on his lip as he steeled his resolve. He took something out of his jacket, and the next moment, blades of ice erupted from Flora’s body, putting an end to Lord Weber’s life.

  “Lady Flora!” Aubrey sprang forward from behind Reggie, cutting down a Llewynian knight who came swinging his sword in desperation.

  One of the remaining knights fell victim to Flora’s icy blades while the other three lost their will to fight and fell to their knees. As the blades of ice snapped off and shattered, Lord Weber’s body peeled away and fell to the ground behind her.

  After that, the ice began to spread, encrusting the length of her arm. The slow process of freezing over had to be painful. Flora let out a scream. Aubrey rushed over to her, only for the girl to turn him away.

  “No! NO!”

  Flora fled to the window behind her. There, she seemed to regain a bit of composure. She turned to Aubrey, who was standing by helplessly, and said, “Aubrey. Look after Charles for me.”

  Trails of white ice formed along her cheeks as her tears frosted over. I saw Reggie move his arm, only to hold himself back, clenching his right hand into a fist.

  When Flora opened the window with a look of anguish, her frozen arms fell from her body, shattering on the floor and turning to sand.

  Finally, she threw herself out the window, almost like she had stumbled and fallen forward. I heard the dull, heavy thud of something hitting the ground.

  I had watched the scene unfold from beginning to end, completely paralyzed. Suddenly, someone pulled me into an embrace, covering my eyes in the process. Judging by the sweet, flowery aroma, it was Gina.

  “You’re alright. Just calm down, Kiara,” Gina repeated over and over. Why was she so desperate to console me? At first, I didn’t understand. However, Gina’s warmth made me realize just how cold I was, and I came to realize that I was trembling.

  As she held me in her arms, Gina moved us elsewhere.

  The small room she took me to looked like it might be for guests. There was a bed inside, along with a sofa and some other furnishings. I stared at my surroundings in a daze, and in time, the trembling subsided. The chill, however, stayed with me.

  Reynard snuggled up against my leg, but it wasn’t helping me feel any warmer.

  Gina said to me, “I didn’t think this would all come as such a shock to you. I wish we’d brought Girsch along. I’m nowhere near as good at comforting people.”

  “I mean, sure... I am shocked. But I’m just as upset with myself for failing Miss Flora.”

  I’d come along because I thought I could do something to help, but it hadn’t amounted to anything.

  What had Reggie been doing? He hadn’t been utterly paralyzed like me. No... he’d been watching Flora closely, gripping his sword so he could bring her down at a moment’s notice. I hadn’t even thought to do that much.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Kiara! Even if you’d managed to save Miss Flora before things escalated, there’s no telling if she would have survived or not. And after what happened, there was nothing left to do but kill her.”

  Gina insisted that Flora was a kind, noble person—that she chose to die to keep from hurting anyone else, so we had to praise her for what she had done. Still, I found it difficult to just agree with that.

  “Sir Horace?” Disheartened, Gina turned to Master Horace for help.

  “That’s just how she is. She’s soft AND stubborn, which makes her extra hard to handle. Heehee!”

  “This is no time to be laughing!” Gina protested.

  Just then, someone opened the door. Reynard got up from where he was laying at my feet, lowering himself into a defensive postur
e.

  “There you are, Kiara.”

  It was Reggie, who was gazing at me with a hopeless smile. Surely he had known things would turn out this way. I hung my head, unable to look him in the eyes.

  “Are you one of the mercenaries we hired in Maynard?”

  Gina likely identified the prince by his silver hair. She peeled herself away from me and made a show of reverence, falling to one knee. “Yes, Your Grace. I am Gina, a mercenary under the employ of Lord Alan Évrard. These are the frostfoxes under my care.”

  “I see. Well, I’ll take over from here. Could you step outside for a moment?”

  Reggie swiftly dismissed her. As a hired professional, she had no choice but to do as he said. “Certainly, Your Grace.”

  She shot me an uneasy look as she got to her feet.

  Reggie approached me, untied Master Horace’s strap, and handed him over to Gina. “Take this, too. You can leave him with Wentworth.”

  Gina looked unsure what to do with Master Horace thrust upon her, but he just gleefully chuckled and said, “Heehee! Must be good to be young,” so she assumed there wasn’t an issue. Holding the clay figurine in her arms, she took her frostfoxes and left.

  Reggie switched places with Gina, taking a seat next to me. He let out a soft sigh, and I could tell he was tired. After all, he’d been on the move since the morning, working nonstop to infiltrate the baron’s castle.

  Now that Reggie was here, I caught a whiff of blood in the room.

  “I was hoping to finish things before you showed up.” Reggie tousled my hair, mussing it up a little more than usual, then quickly pulled his hand away. “I asked Wentworth and Alan to buy as much time as they could... but things took a little longer than expected on my end. It was my own fault that you caught up to us.” He peered into my face. “Are you mad that I didn’t tell you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It was your call to make as our leader. I have no choice but to listen. Besides, I already knew that you like to take care of things quietly, when no one else is looking.”

  I was angry. I knew I had no right to be when I hadn’t managed to do anything, so I couldn’t blame Reggie. Still, I couldn’t help sulking as I answered his question.