What?

  Alexa watched as Alfred nearly cut Wilhelm in half—only to be stopped by Wilhelm’s men.

  What?

  Then, she was running with Alfred, Phoebe, and Adele.

  What?

  Then, there were these strange creatures, with black shadows surrounding them, eating people.

  What?

  Students, teachers, professors...even academy guards and knights—she watched them being killed or eaten.

  What?

  It didn’t make sense. None of it did. The book, Iron Saintess…it didn’t say that today would be the day. She wasn’t prepared. She only received her internal magic. She hadn’t even fully completed the quest yet!

  What?

  Blood. Guts. Gore. Fires. She could only stare at them blankly, and she was being moved around, like a motionless doll. How could she move? How could she—?

  “Wake up!” A slap finally returned her to her senses. “Princess! I need you to run now. Those demons are getting to us. I need to help the academy guards delay the rest of them from breaching the Great Dungeon’s entrance. Do you hear me?!”

  “S-sir Alfred,” Alexa tried to smile. “W-what are you peasants up to? I just finished my formation ritual. Shouldn’t we celebrate with cake? What’s with all this?”

  A slap again.

  “I said wake up!”

  “Sir Alfred, you don’t need to—” Phoebe tried to speak.

  “Wake up, damn it!” Alexa felt herself being shaken violently. “I know you’re the softest girl I know out there, but I realize, this isn’t the time for that anymore! Princess—Wilhelm told me that you and Phoebe need to link up with the members of the Fuchs Brigade, no matter the cost, or we’re all doomed.”

  “Why?” Alexa asked.

  “I don’t understand any of his ramblings,” Alfred’s eyes trembled. “But even I knew during that ritual that you weren’t just forming your internal magic circles. You’ve awakened something important, and if I have to die to ensure that you live long enough to make use of that, then damn it I will! But I need you to choose to live first. So I ask you now, will you choose to live?”

  “O-of course!” Alexa answered, enraged. “Damned peasant, why wouldn’t I want to live? I’m the most important person here. Why have I not been evacuated yet?! You failed at your job!”

  “Damn right I did! I suspected from the start that Wilhelm was using you or Phoebe as bait for whatever ridiculous schemes he had, but I didn’t stop him in time. Now I have no choice but to work with him. I failed. Your very own knight failed! So stand on your feet and run like the spoiled coward you are!”

  Alexa stood up, as suddenly, another demon, which resembled that of a massive wolf, emerged from the entrance of the General Building of the academy. The demon charged into a Royal Guard knight, his sword cutting it in half—before another one lunged at him, bit his neck, and tackled him to the ground.

  Alexa, Adele, Phoebe, and Alfred could only watch as the knight was brutally eaten, chunks of his flesh torn off and devoured by the dark, wolf-like creature.

  Demons…they really consider us people as nothing but food.

  To Alexa, they were horrors that were out of place in a romance novel. Alexa cursed the author of the novel—to create something like this, just for the entertainment of girls like her, why?

  Why?!

  “Get off him!” Phoebe cried out, as she aimed her staff at the demon. “And please die, you monster!”

  A flash of golden light pierced the demon, bluish blood flying in all directions, before it collapsed on the ground.

  Groups of panicked noble students rushed out of the General Building, some of them with dirtied clothes, some sporting awful injuries. Many flew away with the last embers of their mana using flight magic. Others ran as best as they could behind the knights and guards battling demons.

  “You three need to move!” Alfred said, pulling Phoebe and Adele, and pushing them close to Alexa. “Run and don’t look back if you don’t want to die just yet!”

  Finally, Alexa found herself running with her terrified friends. They went to the gate of the academy, then to the road outside. Phoebe was crying, Adele seemed to be pale, and Alexa…she couldn’t believe this had all happened.

  Was this what the reality of this world was?

  This must be how it truly felt, not just to be anxious about a future where she could die. No…she was staring at death itself now.

  She stopped, turning around.

  “Princess!” Adele called out. “Why did you stop running?!”

  “They all have magic, don’t they? Those professors…mages, knights, why are they all running?”

  “Your Highness, this is not the time to entertain such silly questions. There are demons pouring out of the Great Dungeon!”

  “No…”

  She watched as soldiers from the Imperial Army abandoned civilians—women and children even! They rushed to their dragon-drawn carriages, then, they pulled out at high speed.

  Some of the land dragons even trampled the panicked crowd!

  Powerful mages and witches flew up high, all of them leaving young students behind, no different than the soldiers who fled. They didn’t even care if their students were the sons and daughters of nobles.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  These people, who swore to protect them, were running away.

  Like her.

  Unbelievable.

  Shame, disbelief, and disgust filled her core. Was this what the Empire really was? The same people she would lead? The fact that she embodied them, that she was no different than them, was unbelievable.

  It’s no wonder my head was cut. I’m…truly deplorable.

  “Adele,” Alexa faced her lady-in-waiting. “I can’t. We can’t do this. We have to do something!”

  “Royal Guard knights are waiting for us near the southern wall of Perlenstadt. If we can reach that place, we will be able to flee at once—!”

  “No. Adele, in which direction is the Fuchs Brigade at? Alfred told me that we need to link up with them, so that’s what we’ll do.”

  “That’s what Mr. von Eisen said, not Sir Alfred! We don’t have to listen to that!”

  “They’re entering on the eastern wall of Perlenstadt,” Phoebe said, still shaking. “But if we go there, we wouldn’t be able to catch up to the security force that’ll get us out. Their mission is to reinforce Wilhelm and his men…”

  “Then that’s where I’ll go. Will you two follow me there?”

  Adele and Phoebe seemed like they couldn’t believe Alexa.

  But then…

  “Alright. I’m the saintess, so I have to do this anyway!” Phoebe said. “I’ll follow you, Lady Alexa!”

  “...Fine. I suppose there’s a good point in going to them instead,” Adele said. “The Royal Guard won’t be able to protect us fully if things go wrong. Only the Fuchs Brigade has the capabilities here to combat demons well. But once we reach them, we have to convince them to escort you out of this region.”

  “We’ll decide once we reach them,” Alexa declared. “For now, that will be our only goal. Let’s do our best!”

  +++

  “As of now, the following provisions of the Continental Wartime Decree are in effect in the Schengen Region! Section 3A, ‘Upon confirmed presence of demonic entities in any geographic region, all human military and law enforcement units shall be placed under the temporary command of the Ministry of Defense until the region is evacuated and a Defense District is established—’,” the veteran officer’s words were interrupted when one of the Imperial Army soldiers threw a stone at him.

  But it didn’t faze him. Instead, groups of crossbowmen from the Defense Forces beat up the mutinous soldier with the stock of their crossbows, while the officer continued his speech.

  “Due to your crime of attempted desertion, you will be organized under the 478th Penal Battalion, which will be placed under my command. For now, you will be rearmed to participate in the defense of the Imperial Capital. Should you perform with great bravery, your punishment after this battle shall be lessened.

  “The Defense Ministry has also issued a ‘No Step Back’ order to all units in the Schengen Region due to the severity of this crisis. Therefore, any attempt at unauthorized retreat or desertion will be punished by immediate execution!”

  “Damned frontists,” one of the soldiers muttered to his friend, as they received their weapons again one by one. “I can’t believe they’d make us fight those demons. Do they have a brain? The only option now is to run away.”

  “We have no choice. They easily disarmed us, they even killed some of us. If we fight, we’re dead. If we run, we’re still dead!”

  “If you cowards want to flee, be my guest,” one of the veteran northern front soldiers grinned as he handed the Imperial Army soldier his crossbow back. “We have enough arrows and mana to mow you all down as you run.”

  “You don’t even look human, you monster!” the Imperial Army soldier shouted, but the veteran merely laughed as he walked away.

  It was a tense situation. While the initial attack was now largely blunted by the early arrival of the first elements of the infamous 101st Rapid Reaction Brigade ‘Fuchs’, there were still at least two hundred thousand civilians behind the walls of the Imperial Capital, all of them desperately fleeing the carnage.

  Within hours, after the Fuchs Brigade finished mopping up the first demons that appeared, retreating members of the Imperial Army and the Royal Guard were quickly placed under the command of the officers from the Fuchs Brigade. Most complied, but some, like this unit, mutinied and continued to attempt retreat.

  Thus, they had been arrested—and were now being forced to fight.

  The Imperial Army soldiers of course couldn’t accept such humiliation easily. Unfortunately, they couldn’t do much. The average soldier from the Fuchs Brigade was powerful, their physical stats, skills, and magic so high due to the experience they had fighting in the Northern Front.

  If they could stop the tide of lesser demons that overwhelmed the Royal Guard and the Imperial Army, they could also easily place the people under both organizations under their command, or punish them if they refused.

  So far, they used it to prevent a complete rout of human forces and rally them all back into a coherent defense line.

  Regardless, it wasn’t looking good. The officer who gave the speech knew that as he looked at the demoralized soldiers of the Imperial Army on the side of the streets.

  This attack across the city and the academy was just the first wave after all. There was a portal underneath them that would spew demons out endlessly until this place was swallowed by the demon horde, and a new front was opened.

  He could only pray to the heavens that Major von Eisen’s secret plan would work. If it didn’t, this could very well spell the doom of humanity. That was why retreat was not an option, and why he looked down on these cowards.

  They were fools who would be demon food soon.

  +++

  “Fireball!”

  Alexa shouted those words from the top of her lungs. It was lucky that she had studied this spell since she woke up as Alexa Theresa. Now that she had her internal magic circle, she could cast these spells quite easily.

  The fireball however that struck one of the demonic wolves ahead of them on the streets only briefly wailed as it burned, before it stood up again, staring at her with incredible bloodlust.

  “P-phoebe!” Alexa called out. “Take this one out for me please!”

  “Stay back, Lady Alexa!” Phoebe said as she stood in front of Alexa, aiming her staff at the beast. Then, she fired a beam of light again at it, killing it instantly.

  “We have to keep moving,” Adele said from behind, slightly out of breath. “It’s been three hours already. If we lag behind any further, we’ll be left behind by the mass evacuation.”

  Alexa nodded, tired and out of breath. Even her legs felt sore, but…she was in a fight now. A true fight. If she didn’t put her all in her first battle in this life, she knew she’d be dead meat.

  So she ran as best as she could through the ruined streets of Perlenstadt.

  Famous landmarks, buildings, cultural structures, and more, many of them were turned into rubble. Earlier, fireball artillery spells from afar began raining down on the city, striking the powerful demons scattered in the city.

  While it was efficient, it left great scars in the city. Alexa also knew at the back of her mind that many of the civilian corpses she refused to look at around them must have been killed by these attacks.

  Certainly, the tactics of the Defense Forces were vicious. She’d learned that firsthand last week when she read a history book about them. But to see it in action…she could almost understand why people generally didn’t like them.

  Their only mandate was to defend mankind from demons. The decree of the Emperor who created them didn’t tell them that they should do it cleanly, thus…the carnage in front of her.

  No. Don’t think about that for now. You can change all of that as the Empress later. For now, your objective is to survive and figure out how to stop those demons.

  Alexa briefly looked at Phoebe.

  I just need to help Wilhelm complete whatever plans he has for her. Then…then we’ll win. I’m sure of it!

  As they rounded the corner of the street they were running through, suddenly, they saw a group of nervous soldiers hiding behind wooden barricades in front of them.

  The soldiers behind the barricade held either crossbows or combat staves, aimed straight at the trio’s direction.

  “Get out of our line of fire!” one of the soldiers shouted. “There are demons behind you!”