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Eleora brushed her black hair—swept by the night breeze—from her face and nodded slightly.

“It seems it went well.”

Borsche saluted.

“All personnel in the Magiarms Battalion are accounted for. It appears there are no casualties among the mercenaries either.”

Eleora asked her aide.

“Do you think the Knights are actually just standing there as decoys?”
“Since they’ll receive a medal just for taking up their positions, I don’t think they have any reason not to obey… but I can’t say for sure.”

In Rolmund, depending on the type of medal, a lifetime pension is paid by the Rolmund government.
Unlike Miraldia, where they only pay a one-time reward, they can’t hand out medals too freely—but in this situation, she couldn’t afford to be so picky.

“Because of my misstep, morale among the Miraldian Knights is low. It’ll be enough if they keep the enemy pinned down in the city. It’ll also give us a justifiable reason to award the medals.”

Borsche furrows his brow.

“But isn’t the Rolmund Templar Order a bit excessive? It’ll be a hassle if the recipients back home find out.”

It is one of the highest-ranking medals that Princess Eleora can award at her own discretion.
But Princess Eleora offers a wry smile.

“It’s an investment in the future. Besides, if they don’t fulfill their mission, the southern campaign will fail. Their contributions to this operation are significant. I won’t let anyone complain.”

Princess Eleora clenched the Magiarms Book tightly and flashed a defiant smile.

“At first glance, the Southern Federation appears to be a monolithic entity, but look closely and you’ll see it’s actually a monolith divided into two distinct layers: humans and demons. It’s Lord Black Wolf who holds them together.”
“Do you believe that if they lose him, cracks will form within the Federation?”

In response to her aide’s question, Eleora nodded.

“It’s bound to happen eventually. The Southern Federation’s unity is based on the bonds between people. Losing even a single leader would cause it to waver significantly. If that leader is Lord Black Wolf, they’ll no longer be able to maintain their unity.”
“But the enemy is well aware of that. The defenses of the Demon Capital must be formidable.”

At her aide’s words, Princess Eleora shook her head with a smile.

“Just think about it—do you really believe humans would risk their lives to protect demons?”
“……It’s true; neither in Rolmund nor in Miraldia has such a thing ever happened in history.”
“The demons of Miraldia protect humans. I felt both astonishment and respect for that. But humans have never once protected the demons.”

Even during the preliminary investigation for the invasion of Miraldia, no instances of humans fighting to protect demons had been confirmed.

Just as Eleora said this, Squad Leader Renkov came running up to her.

“We’re ready to storm the target. I handed my communicator to Saban, so I’m reporting on foot.”
“Good work. It must be inconvenient without it, right?”
“Absolutely. Well then.”

Despite being in the midst of a dangerous mission, Squad Leader Renkov smiled, saluted, and ran off.

Princess Eleora touched her earring and issued an order.

“Saban, can you hear me? It’s me.”
*“Yes, ma’am! Loud and clear.”*
“How are the camouflage cloth and night vision goggles holding up?”
*“No problems.”*

Her subordinate’s voice was calm.

Princess Eleora felt a slight sense of relief, but she cautioned her subordinate.

“The camouflage cloth merely mimics the surrounding scenery; it doesn’t make you invisible. Besides, you can’t fool the ears and noses of werewolves or dogfolk. Don’t get overconfident.”
*“Yes, ma’am. I’ll approach with caution.”*
“Good.”

Nodding at her subordinate’s reassuring voice, Princess Eleora continued.

“Also, the magiarm staff was designed with ample safety margins, so it won’t misfire up to twice its maximum capacity. You know that, right?”
*“Yes.”*
“To reiterate, as long as you don’t intend to fire it, it won’t misfire even at three times the capacity. However, you must absolutely keep it level. If you tilt it, the magical runes inside the barrel will come into contact with the mana-massing steel.”
*“I’ll keep that in mind.”*

Since I’d already explained all of this once during our preliminary briefing, I felt it was a bit repetitive, even to myself.
But I couldn’t risk losing an important subordinate to an accident over something like this.

Borsche, who had been listening to the exchange, let out a wry smile.

“I never would have thought that Your Highness—the designer of magical weapons and founder of the Magiarms Corps—would plan to blow up the castle gates with a misfired magical weapon.”

Princess Eleora sighed.

“That’s how cornered we are. Don’t include this in the report. I don’t want future historians to find out.”
“Understood.”

Princess Eleora looked down from a small hill at the lights of the city of Lüenheit.
Touching the earring that doubled as a communicator, she issued the following order.

“Issue a directive to the entire army. The target of this operation is of a demon race—specifically, Lord Veit, the Black Wolf, a high-ranking officer in the Demon Lord’s Army. Avoid harming humans as much as possible.”

In all her military career, she had never encountered an operation quite so reckless and gamble-like.
Still, she had no choice but to proceed.

“There are no changes to the operational plan. Commence the operation.”

On the city walls near the West Gate of Lüenheit, dogfolk soldiers were conducting their nightly patrol.

“I’m hungry.”

As the soldier who resembled a Shiba Inu muttered this, the soldier who looked like a Beagle took off his cap. It was a long, cylindrical hat called a shako.
It was popular among the petite dogfolk because it made them look taller.

“Just a sec.”

He rummaged around inside his hat and pulled out a long, thin slice of dried sweet potato.

“Want some?”

The Shiba Inu-like soldier looked exasperated at his colleague, who was already munching away as he spoke.

“Where do you keep your food?”
“In my hat.”
“I can see that.”

The Shiba Inu-like soldier sighed.
The Beagle-like soldier, still munching away, suddenly tilted his head.

“Don’t you like dried sweet potatoes?”
“I don’t hate them, but don’t use your service cap as a food container. Lord Veit will get mad at you.”
“Eh? But if Lord Veit saw this, he’d be really…”

Just as he was about to finish that sentence, the beagle-like soldier put the half-eaten dried sweet potato back into his cap.

The Shiba Inu-like soldier tilted his head.

“What’s wrong?”

The beagle-like soldier then sniffed the air and replied,

“There’s a weird smell. A bird?”
“Hm? Now that you mention it… It’s a smell I don’t recognize.”

The Shiba Inu-like soldier looked around.
Like dogs and wolves, they have excellent night vision. While their color vision is weaker as a result, this level of darkness isn’t much different from daytime for dogfolk.

However, even with their eyes, they couldn’t spot anything out of the ordinary.
But for a split second, the Shiba-like soldier noticed something strange flickering just outside the castle walls.
It looked as if the scenery was distorted in that spot alone.

“Hey, wasn’t there something over there?”
“What do you mean, ‘something’?”
“Like, something just flashed by… no, maybe it squirmed?”

But now they couldn’t see anything.

The two exchanged glances and tilted their heads.

“Something’s off?”
“Something’s off!”

Agreeing on this, they both nodded.

“Report this to everyone!”
“Yeah!”

Just as the Shiba Inu-like soldier was about to blow the dog whistle hanging from his neck…

A massive explosion rocked the castle gate.
The deafening roar and tremors shook the castle walls, and the startled dog-people soldiers crouched down, clutching their heads.

“Whoa!?”
“What!? What just happened!?”
“A-anyway, the whistle! Let’s blow the whistle!”

The two immediately blew their dog whistles with all their might.
Then they shouted.

“The West Gate is under attack!”
“Enemy attack!”

The area around the West Gate immediately became chaotic, and the Belrüsa Land Forces and the dogfolk security squad rushed out.
At that moment, a dull thud—the sound of an explosion—echoed from the East Gate far in the distance.

“Over there too!?”

At the same time, at the Lüenheit Werewolf Corps barracks.

“I heard dog whistles from the west and east! I also heard two explosions!”

Fern, who was in the duty room, shouted, and the dragon-human technician sitting with him nodded.

“Understood. I’ll fire the emergency signal.”

A signal flare was launched, and the sound of the explosion and a flash of light pierced the dark night.
When Baltze, commander of the Azure Scale Knights, rushed outside with his dual swords in hand, he grasped the situation in an instant.

“Emergency muster for the entire army! Secure the inner gate and protect Lady Aylia and Lord Veit! The Azure Scale Knights will rush to the eastern outer gate!”

White flashes gleamed repeatedly in the distance. It appeared to be the new weapon of the Rolmund Army that had been the subject of rumors.

At that moment, Griz of the Belrusa Land Forces rushed over. Even in the dark, his appearance was menacing, and he was shouldering a massive spiked mace.

“Hey there, Boss Baltze! Looks like the eastern and western outer gates have been breached!”
“It seems so. I’ll need your help in repelling them.”
“Yep, my men are already engaged at the western outer gate. But it looks like the enemy has already infiltrated the New Town.”

Baltze saddled his dragon and kicked off the ground to mount it.

“Since they managed to conceal their approach completely, I suspect there are only a few enemies inside the city. Let’s push them back with sheer numbers.”
“Alright, leave it to me! You better not die, either!”
“Good luck to you too, Sir Griz!”

The two commanders hurriedly saluted and ran off to lead their respective troops.
Under the night sky of Lüenheit, white flashes flickered intermittently.