Chapter 179: The Witch Behind the Mask 6

There is always a lower depth beneath the bottom.

For the holy knights Nune and Tine, this adage encapsulated the downward spiral their lives had embarked upon these past few years.

The catalyst for their misfortunes – Santana’s defection.

From that inflection point onward, their struggles only seemed to plunge them into ever-deeper abysses despite their increasingly frantic flailings.

In the aftermath of Santana’s betrayal, the knights rapidly found their financial situations deteriorating.

Fearing outright starvation if they remained, Nune and Tine attempted fleeing – only for their intended destination, Bohemia, to have become the epicenter of the heretical realm they opposed.

Ultimately, the disgraced knights narrowly escaped death before retreating to their Holy Milanese order’s headquarters.

Gradually withering amidst their failed desertion and unresolved destitution, the Emperor’s decree initiating the crusade against heresy arrived like a lifeline for Nune and Tine.

Barely sustaining themselves, they were conscripted into the military, their knightly rank affording a modicum of respect and provisions.

Moreover, having contributed to the victory over Mansfeld’s infamous heretical brigands only further elevated their status and treatment among the victorious crusaders.

However, their promising circumstances rapidly unraveled with the onset of the catastrophic famine.

What had seemed a bare survivability quickly devolved into outright privation worse than their prior impoverishment, as their meager rations and resources dwindled to borderline starvation levels.

If such was the plight of officers like themselves, the common soldiers’ state defied description.

Yet such widespread suffering scarcely registered for Nune and Tine, ever fixated upon their own hardships alone.

Once more reduced to rock bottom existences, they instinctively turned their vitriol upon Santana – the genesis of their tribulations which had now become an unbroken chain of misery.

Had it not been for Santana’s meddling, their circumstances in Milan would have never deteriorated to such dire straits.

As they would later discover, had Santana not risen to become a central heretical figure, the war would have already concluded in a decisive imperial – their – victory, sparing them this wretched campaigning.

Not that the origins truly mattered – stemming from their superior Bishop Maxim’s reprehensible acts.

Yet deflecting culpability onto others came naturally to Nune and Tine, rationalizing their hatred as they had always done, finding psychological and physical solace in such scapegoating.

And so, on this day too, they drowned their meager wages in liquor while cursing Santana’s name.

However, their habitual lamentations would precipitate consequences beyond their wildest imaginings – plunging their already rock-bottom existence into unprecedented depths of despair.

“Ughh… My head…”

“Dammit… I drank too much… My body…”

Piercing hangovers assailed Nune and Tine as they regained consciousness, initially attributing their immobility to sheer inebriation.

Yet as lucidity gradually returned, the disquieting realization of being firmly bound dawned upon them.

“!…What…is this?”

“What’s going on…?”

Only then recognizing their restraints did a woman, accompanied by what seemed subordinates, manifest before the bewildered captives.

“Finally awake? You two were sleeping so soundly, I nearly had to rough you up to rouse you,” sneered the imposing, beast-like woman, her muscular frame trembling with palpable rage as she clenched her fists.

“W-Wait, what is the meaning of this?”

“Who are you people? Why have you taken us like this?”

Their frantic queries prompted a savage grin from the brutish female – none other than Baiken Andreas, second daughter of Bohemia’s sovereign.

“Who am I? The sister of the very man you were gleefully cursing yesterday.”

“S-Sister…?”

“Then… Could you be…?”

As realization dawned upon the captive knights, instinctively envisioning the vilified Santana, Baiken proclaimed with resounding conviction:

“Indeed, I am Lady Baiken Andreas herself. While conducting my reconnaissance mission, I chanced upon you wenches disrespecting my brother, so I took you into custody. From your attire, you appear to be holy knights of some standing. Since you find yourselves in this predicament, you may as well furnish us with pertinent intelligence.”

Baiken’s arrogant timbre betrayed her indignation. Already rendered hypersensitive by her sister’s plight, she now relished the prospect of ruthlessly extracting every scrap of information from these insolent wretches who had threatened her family’s extermination.

A degree of torture would undoubtedly enhance their compliance and candor.

As Baiken began channeling her magic into her gauntlets, prepared to viciously interrogate the restrained knights…an unexpected ripple of laughter emanated from her captives.

“…Kukuk…Kuhahaha…”

“Ahahahaha…”

“…Hm?”

Caught off-guard by their seemingly deranged mirth, Baiken eyed them quizzically.

“What’s so funny, you curs? Don’t lose your minds before divulging everything, or else this will become exceedingly unpleasant.”

“Haha, to think fortune would favor us with such an opportunity…”

“…What?”

Baffled by their incomprehensible, chuckling utterances, consternation gripped Baiken as Nune and Tine continued in chilling tones:

“You’re a mage, aren’t you? Of course – the Bohemian sovereign’s lineage is renowned for its magic.”

“So what if I am? Your current bind renders such discourtesy ill-advised…”

-Thud Thud!-

“…!?”

Before Baiken could complete her retort, the knights effortlessly snapped their bonds through sheer brute force.

As they nonchalantly rose, Baiken recognized this situation’s divergence from her assumptions.

‘What in the…? These women are…’

Formerly presenting as merely inebriated, slovenly wretches, their casual display of extraordinary physical power left Baiken temporarily stupefied.

“People seem to have forgotten one crucial fact amidst mages’ recent prominence – a fact often overshadowed.”

“A tale you’ve surely heard before: a mage’s bane is the holy knight.”

Accompanied by those ominous words, Nune and Tine exuded radiant auras from their very beings.

In response, Baiken and her soldiers hastily marshaled their own magic reserves.

“What gall these tadpoles possess, to revel before a serpent…”

“This turns out rather fortuitous. We had been lacking decent quarry as of late. Capturing a Bohemian sovereign’s daughter should surely delight General Tilly – whatever her relation to that heretic.”

“You wenches…”

Gripped by profound trepidation at this unforeseeable reversal, Baiken shifted into a combat stance, infusing her gauntlets with magical energies.

Mercifully, the imperial encampment remained a full night’s march from their current position.

Even if battle erupted, detection remained improbable.

Yet the menacing power emanating from these holy knights proved utterly unnerving.

As wispy auras coalesced around Nune and Tine, gradually solidifying into distinct phantasmal forms, Baiken’s eyes narrowed in grim realization.

‘Dammit…this situation just became excessively vexing.’