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–––Freya’s viewpoint

A report came of a small-scale rebellion in a province, so a group of knights was dispatched to deal with it. We assumed that meant just a group of people who had no combat experience attempting to take authority, but that assumption turned out to be foolish, and our expectations were betrayed in the worst way imaginable.

Everything began when a knight raised his hand against one of the villagers. The commander of the knights and a representative of the village were discussing things in private, which made the villagers feel like their demands were being belittled and thrown out, even though the knight commander was patiently listening to them. But while that was going on, the villagers constantly taunted and jeered at the knights watching over the dialogue.

The knights remained still while the villagers simply insulted them, but the villagers took that as them being weak, so they escalated things and began throwing stones. That was too much for the knights, so they went to restrain the villagers who started that. In response, the villagers took weapons and prepared to fight back.

The villagers had underestimated the gap between knights who trained for battle and common people who were holding a weapon for the first time. The villagers were easily detained one after another, somehow stopping them from becoming more violent while the dialogue continued. But then a child tried to rescue one of the restrained villagers, swinging a large stone against the head of a knight from behind. The knight felt the surprise attack as a stream of blood fell over his eyes, so he instinctively swung his sword back to stop any following attacks.

The villagers had clearly been at fault there, plenty of witnesses had seen that, but the fact remained that the knights had killed a child. That was the breaking point.

All villagers were filled with a dark desire for vengeance, reaching for even more weapons and attacking the knights with everything they had. The knights were forced to fight back, and soon there were more casualties. After a drawn out fight, the violence was finally contained there. But the people from the surrounding villages and cities thought differently.

‘They’ll kill you if you oppose the government.’

That idea spread like wildfire, seeding terror in the people. Maybe they were safe now, but what about the next day? Or the day after that? Who was to say when a group of knights would be dispatched to kill anyone who said anything against the government? So in response, they decided it was better to kill before they were killed, and revolts sprang out everywhere.

That all started far away from the capital, but it spread like a wave that started to close in on the capital. Even if they were complete novices when fighting, they had a staggering advantage in numbers. They went from hundreds to thousands, and shortly enough they had surpassed ten thousand members.

“So it just keeps getting worse…”
“Pope…”

The pope had ordered me to stay put, even if he was deeply affected by the whole situation. There were still some citizens that believed in the church, but keeping them safe would involve harming other citizens who had been deceived. That put the pope in a really awkward position where he had to make a contradictory decision.

“Pope, let me-”
“Don’t, Freya. That’s the one thing you shouldn’t do.”

With my strength we could put an end to the conflict without having to sacrifice most of our knights. But that would not solve the root issue, and instead push the country over the edge. Even if we managed to kill all the rebels, the reputation of the church and me, the hero, would plummet irreparably, and the country would fall apart. That much could easily be guessed.

On top of that, we had no proof of it but I knew there had to be demons watching things unfold. Lumielle was the heart of Lumiere’s church, a large thorn in the side of the demons, so this gave them the perfect opportunity to erase us from the map.

If I was a demon I would do the same, utilize the chaos to take over.

“The knights will deal with our internal issues. But we’ll need your help if the demons make a move. Most of the holy knights are stationed on the west border, but I don’t know if they’ll be alright on their own…”

On top of that, Meria had not shown herself yet. We did not know when she or her group of oppressed people would come out, but I needed to be ready for them as well.

“Y-your holiness! I have an emergency message from the west border!”

A messenger drenched in sweat and breathing heavily barged into the room. The pope and I were oddly calm. We had almost been waiting for him to arrive, so this was hardly a surprise.

There were demons at the west border. The time had finally come.