Prelate Dolus took on a stance of stubborn indignation as he inhaled, preparing himself to unleash what I could only imagine was a scathing counterargument. However, as he opened his mouth, his aura flickered before extinguishing entirely. His eyes widened as his face took on a sickly gray cast, yet his staff continued to radiate with an unwavering, defiant brilliance. He raised it high into the air as if to call upon its power and leveled it at me, but nothing happened. Sweating for a moment, his gaze darted wildly between Aleph and Tetora, still prone behind me. He shook the staff a few times, but again, it seemed as if it wasn’t obeying his most recent unspoken commands.

Whatever just happened seemed to be more than mere performance anxiety, but at least he most likely can’t cast any more spells right now.

Cornered and without any other recourse, Dolus barked an order to his loyal lackeys in long-skirted gambeson, commanding them to attack me even as he withdrew behind them. Everyone else in the courtyard had enough sense to scatter to the eight winds.

Three men in the courtyard’s center formed a protective half-moon a few feet before the Prelate. The remaining two fighters, positioned on either side, initiated a daring diagonal approach. The leftmost figure ignored the short sword strapped to his waist, opting to brandish a longer spear instead. Still partially in shadow, the fighter on the right held a thick wooden club. They kept their relative distance from me at first, taking measured steps while the other skirted sideways, trying to divide my attention.

“Look, whatever he’s paying you for this, it’s not enough!” I snapped loudly. None of these people were superpowered demons or amity-assisted holy knights. They weren’t even experimentally enhanced hybrids. While I didn’t exactly understand their motivations, I was troubled by the nagging thought that they were obligated to obey orders and were little more than disposable pawns. Unfortunately, they decided not to heed any of my warnings and continued their advance. I was going to try my best not to inflict any fatal wounds, focusing instead on disarming and incapacitating them.

Sir Spear’s first move from the left was a deceptively simple thrust, lulling me into a false sense of security. But this was just a feint I unfortunately fell for. Within the blink of an eye, he disengaged from my shield block, leaving me to rely on my amity-infused chest plate to take the brunt of a potentially lethal strike. The bruising impact reverberated through my body, forcing me to stifle a groan as I reminded myself not to underestimate anyone, even pitiful NPCs. No more foolishness! It was time to focus on defense and quick takedowns as priorities.

I jumped back to put more distance between us, but Sir Spear continued his advance relentlessly, showering a flurry of stabs at me. The control of his weapon was noteworthy, but I felt he was moving in slow motion. As annoyed as I was about this stupid fight by proxy, I carefully observed his techniques, identifying several to exploit later. Amity was probably helping me cheat here, but I didn’t feel very guilty about it.

He must have fallen for my face at one point since he shifted tactics to try and skewer it mercilessly. This was why I needed a helmet! Not a fancy circlet or shiny tiara!

His repeated attempts to maim momentarily distracted me from his companion, who closed the distance between us swiftly. However, a loud grunt caught my attention at the last second. I opened some distance by stepping back and turning to face my opponents. The one who grunted had a brightly gleaming silver knife poking through the gambeson covering his shoulder, answering why he halted—it was Vernie! She must have returned and kept them in check from the shadows. Maybe she never really left at all?

Sir Spear came forward with a series of rapid thrusts, but he overextended himself, and I seized the opportunity by sidestepping and striking his straightened forearm with my sword. Although his gambeson remained intact, he yelped in pain as his right hand lost its grip on his spear, dangling limply.

From the shadows, the wielder of the club launched another quick assault, his weapon gleaming ominously as it arched forward.

“Watch out!” Nora called from behind. “That Goedendag has a vicious point!”

I skittered to the side to distance myself from the club wielder. “What the hell is a guten… tag…?”

“Spiked club!” she clarified quickly.

“Then just say that first!” Fancy foreign words are too hard for me right now!

“But that doesn’t accurately describe all the deadly nuances of the G–”

“We can talk about this later!” The spiked club wielder paused and jumped back as another knife flew across the field.

Meanwhile, Sir Spear recollected himself and renewed his sinister, single-handed assault, albeit with diminished strength and accuracy. Before he could pull back from his latest spear flurry, I grabbed his weapon with my left hand, just behind the metal tip.

I don’t think he expected that, but that was just one significant benefit of the targe. You could keep your fingers free, and your opponents might not know about it until it was too late—Thanks, Aleph!

With a forceful tug, I yanked the spear out of his hand and kicked him solidly in the gut with my right foot. He doubled over and collapsed to the ground, gasping for air.

I took a moment to twirl the spear in my fingers before aiming in the general direction of the spiked club wielder. I wasn’t trying to skewer him as much as to frighten him off. With a swift motion, I hurled the spear; it whizzed past his left side, embedding itself in a nearby tree. Instead of thinking twice, the spiked club wielder seemed to take the toss personally, surging forward with a clear intent to cut me off from further advancing on the incapacitated Sir Spear.

“Graaaaaagggh!” His battle cry belied his intelligence as he furiously swung his gigantic club again, forcing me to give up ground. I drew a deep breath to bolster my confidence and went on the offensive. I lashed out with a barrage of my own attacks, which may have put him on his back foot, but he was too good at evading my onslaught, countering and sidestepping my rapid, measured strikes with almost effortless grace.

I had to admit it: trying to subdue the brute with the flat of my sword was proving futile. I needed to change my strategy. With all the strength and amity I could muster, I slammed my longsword purposely into his club, deflecting it just long enough to pivot and bash him in the face with the edge of my shield. He stumbled back, then toppled over, hitting the ground with a sickening thud.

“It… was just the rim?” I muttered, tensing with anxiety as I looked over his unconscious form, complete with blood trickling out of his nose. I had been so worried about seriously stabbing someone that I had again forgotten the perils of blunt-force trauma. Suppressing a small wave of nausea, I returned my attention to Sir Spear with my guard still raised.

He had gotten to his feet and was now pulling out his short sword as his last option. He started retreating some, glancing back at the three who had yet to make their move. Something seemed to pass between them, and he suddenly broke off from the fight, making a mad dash back into town.

Oh good, the coward’s probably just… oh no. Going for trained reinforcements! Vernie’s blades marked him twice, but he still kept going.

I almost gave Nora the signal that I screwed up, so give him everything you got. Except this was my fight, and I was the one who was adamant about her not using magic unless necessary. Instead, I sprinted after Sir Spear and jumped into the air.

It wasn’t skilled weapon handling or a martial artist’s secret technique; it was an act of desperation. When I landed on him, we bounced, tumbled, and skidded in the dirt together, tangling even as we kicked up a cloud of dust. My fingers instinctively grabbed a fistful of his hair as I prepared to knock some sense into or out of him, but his eyes had already rolled back into his head.

I stood up, ignoring the throbbing ache in my chest as I turned back towards the three defenders and Dolus, leaving Sir Spear to his slumbering devices. The one in the center motioned for the others to stand their ground, but the man on the right began to tremble nervously.

“Are you having second thoughts?” I fixed my gaze on Mr. Trembles, taking a single step menacingly towards him as I made a show of bringing my sword back into a long point position before me. “Now would be the exact last moment to surrender.”

“Forgive me, Holy Captain!” he wailed in lament as he sprinted and stumbled forward. I didn’t trust him, so I pulled my targe defensively across my front and pulled back into a plow stance.

“I knew this was all wrong!” he confessed loudly as he threw himself on his knees. “I should have never paid Councilman Procul to look the other way!”

Procul…? That sounds…

Before I could demand more information, Dolus swore loudly and reached into his robes with his right hand. In one quick motion, he withdrew a bullwhip and lashed it forward, striking the blubbering footpad square in the face.

What kind of priest carries something like that?!

Nora and I weren’t the only ones to gasp in surprise. More people must have been hiding in the nighttime background than I had thought. The whipped man’s screams were wet and thick with blood, and it was all I could do to tear my eyes away from his stripped face. For one moment, I cursed my ability to glow with holy light that illuminated too much of the battlefield.

During my sudden shock, another mercenary from the group had shortened the distance between us while wielding another short spear of his own. Didn’t he even care about his comrade who just lost several layers of flesh?

He assessed my legs with an unmistakable intent to strike. No way are you messing with my best features! He lunged forward with his spear, but at the very last moment, he veered down and zeroed in on my right foot. Reacting on reflex, I swiftly raised my leg to evade before decisively driving my foot downwards, shattering the spear shaft and throwing him off balance. He scrambled to regain his footing, but I felt obliged to take him out with a mighty but merciful kick from my other foot straight into his head before he could stand erect.

With just one defender left, Prelate Dolus loomed anxiously behind him, clearly looking for an escape route. However, Vernie’s knives appeared around Dolus’s feet at routine intervals, so he hadn’t found one yet.

“What are you waiting for? Kill that imposter!” the Prelate screamed at his final henchman, who had relaxed his defensive stance.

In a sudden twist, the remaining hired hand abruptly turned on the Prelate and tackled him to the ground with a shriek before he could snap the whip again. “That was my brother you hit, you disgusting pig!” The angry man continued his assault even as I considered how or even if I wanted to intervene. He swung his dagger with wild abandon as he desperately tried to re-sheathe it in the Prelate’s face.

“Wait!” I yelped in concern as I finally dashed forward. “If you kill him, we can’t have him heal your brother!”

“His powers are gone!” the man bellowed in rage. “He has no value to anyone now!”

“No… he just lost his confidence…” I faltered, realizing that my words might have had a greater, more permanent effect than I realized. Order of operations matters! I should have done that after I had him heal Tetora, not before! I screwed up again!

As I started to swear sulphurously under my breath, at least a dozen citizens surged forward from the shadows to pry the two men apart. Miraculously, most of them pinned Dolus himself, though a few switched over to hold the angry brother back with visible reluctance. Within moments, the group manifested several lengths of rope to tie Dolus in place. One particularly stout fellow, who I would have sworn wasn’t in the mob previously, wrested the staff from Dolus’s hands, cutting him off from his last focus of power.

“Ah… Captain Lightbringer…” the man started nervously, his hands tightening around the still-glowing staff. “Certainly… you’d explain to your friends on the ground that we meant no real harm, right? If we had known they were with you from the beginning…”

“That’s not the point!” I held out my hand expectantly. “No one should be treated like that without reason!”

“Oh, yes, of course, my thoughts exactly!” he agreed with a nervous, high-pitched laugh as he handed me the staff, clearly playing the mediating suck-up.

How was I supposed to turn off this damnable thing? I fumbled with it for a moment.

“Ah, Dear Captain, if you just twist–”

“This orb, right?” With my gauntletted right hand, I squeezed at the glassy sphere until it cracked and then some, rendering a good portion of it into a fine crystalline powder. It was nice to have something inanimate to vent my frustrations upon.

I dropped the staff with a purposeful clatter and brushed off my fingers, even as Tetora and Aleph slowly rose from behind me. “Now tell me,” I sniped suspiciously at the new man before me. “What is it that you want from me?”