Chapter 145
Although this time they had attacked with an ambush rather than an all-out battle as in the past, when Lea saw that they were lion tribe werebeasts, she had a hunch.
She guessed it was probably the Third Prince of Leonis, who was infamous for his brutality and aggressiveness.
“To think you dare call us despicable when you’re the ones launching a night raid.”
At that moment, Calix stepped forward and sneered at them. He deliberately acted like someone inexperienced in war. Just as they didn’t know much about their enemies, he figured they wouldn’t know much about him either.
They might know that the Imperial Crown Prince had come to the front, but they would have no idea what kind of person he was. After all, even in the palace, he rarely showed himself.
That was why he had purposely given them the chance to launch an ambush. Thanks to their nighttime raid, his soldiers would now stay on alert at night, and he also planned to use the direction from which the enemy had come to pinpoint their base.
And lastly, he wasn’t pleased that Lea was the only one doing the guiding. Even if he told her to only use her fingers to guide, she wouldn’t listen, so he planned to take the job away from her—by using Guides from Leonis, something Cantabria didn’t have.
“Find their Guides and keep them separately confined.”
“Yes!”
At his order, Derek gestured to the soldiers, and they pulled the Guides out of the enemy ranks. The remaining enemy Espers seemed momentarily confused at seeing their Guides taken away.
At that moment, the lion tribe werebeast from earlier shouted,
“No matter if it’s war, to capture powerless Guides separately? What a heartless commander you are. Cantabrians really are despicable, just as I thought—”
But just as he said ‘despicable’ again, the lion tribe warrior’s mouth snapped shut like a clam. It wasn’t of his own will.
Calix, who had been blocking their nonsense all along, now gestured for Derek to come closer.
Derek hurried over to relay the information he’d gathered to Calix, but before he could, Lea slipped in between the two and whispered in a very small voice,
“Um, Your Highness.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Werebeasts generally have much better vision, hearing, and sense of smell than humans. Of course, not every tribe is like that, but in war, most of the tribes involved have excellent senses, so wouldn’t it be better to talk elsewhere?”
Calix gave Lea a faint, ambiguous smile at her advice. She seemed unaware that this applied not only to werebeasts but to all Espers as well.
This was something that Calix always found curious about her. She acted as though she knew more about Espers than anyone, but she didn’t know the most basic and common things.
Still, rather than showing it, he gently stroked her head and praised her. Lately, this was how he had been ‘taming’ Lea, pouring into it his wish that she would become accustomed to his praise, since she was especially weak to it.
“My Lea really is clever.”
It was a small bit of advice, but he gave her excessive praise. Unconsciously, Lea’s neck turned red all the way to the nape as she bowed her head.
Calix ran his gaze slowly down the apple-red nape of her neck and stroked the crown of her head. He wanted to bite into that enticingly red nape, but he held himself back.
Instead, he pressed his thumb firmly to the side of her neck, then gave the order to the soldiers,
“Put the restraints on and lock up the prisoners!”
The special restraints for Espers made it impossible for them to use their abilities. The soldiers answered in loud voices and moved swiftly. Their voices were full of pride and morale.
Lea was impressed by Calix’s tactics. She had trusted him, but seeing how differently he acted from the past made her earlier anxiety seem pointless.
“All of you, gather at the command tent. Lea, you go inside and get some rest.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Back alone in her own tent, only then did the tension she’d felt in a long time catch up to her, and she collapsed onto her cot. Although she was a werebeast too, carnivorous ones like the lion tribe instinctively provoked fear in her.
She threw off her robe and burrowed under the covers, trying to soothe her trembling body with warmth.
“It’s finally begun.”
By her reckoning, the war had now started for the second time.
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