The captain cursed under his breath. "The seventh breach this month."
Elara's playful personality vanished, immediately becoming cold.
"Unknown. Just got word now."
The captain stepped forward, his armour clanking. "Princess, we need to escort you back to the castle, where you are safe."
Instead of nodding like any sensible royal would, Elara's eyes lit up with the unmistakable gleam of someone about to make a terrible decision.
She turned to Noah, grabbing his arm with strength that he couldn't struggle against.
"Come with me," she commanded, already dragging him in the opposite direction of safety.
Noah's feet skidded on the cobblestones. "Wait, what?"
"To the eastern wall," she called to the guards, who exchanged looks of pure suffering.
"No, no, no." Noah tried to extract his arm from her grip. It was like trying to escape an elegant vise. "Why are we going to the eastern wall?"
This girl is actively trying to kill me. She thinks I'm some mysterious hero who's pretending to be weak. I'M ACTUALLY WEAK!
He mentally screamed while his physical face cycled through at least seven different expressions of panic.
"Don't worry," Elara said, her smile far too confident for someone heading toward a demon invasion. "I won't make you fight them. I can already tell you're not a mage."
"I want to show you what a mage can do." Her smirk should have come with a warning label.
The captain of the guard, a man who had clearly contemplated career changes multiple times that day, sighed. He knew arguing was pointless. He signalled to the other guards, who formed a protective diamond around the princess and her unwilling companion.
"Your Highness," the captain tried one last time, "protocol states..."
"Protocol also states I have authority during emergencies." Elara didn't even slow down.
huh? Noah's brain struggled to process the words. Wait...is she taking me on a field trip to see demons?
People scattered as their group rushed through the streets. Noah stumbled along, wondering how his life had turned from selling bread to witnessing demonic invasion in under an hour.
System, he whispered desperately, what are my chances of survival if we actually reach the eastern wall?
The system ignored him, making him curse under his breath.
The sounds reached them before the sights, roars unlike anything from Earth, and the distinct crackle of what could only be spells.
Elara sounded practically giddy.
"That's what I'm afraid of," Noah muttered.
They rounded a corner, and Noah's heart attempted to escape through his throat.
The eastern wall stood about fifty feet high, massive stone. Parts of it were currently on fire. Other parts appeared to be... melting?
And scaling the wall, pouring through a breach near the base, were things that defied description.
The closest analogy Noah's terrified brain could conjure was "if spiders were the size of bears, and looked very, very angry. Whilst also having a weird look to them,"
There were also many kinds of demons with different looks and different powers.
Soldiers fought desperately at the breach point.
But among the defenders stood figures in robes similar to those Noah had seen in the market.
They hurled spells, actual magic that tore through the demons with varying effectiveness.
"There," Elara pointed, eyes gleaming. "That's what you could learn at the Academy."
A mage near the front line raised her staff, and a wall of ice appeared, temporarily stopping the demon advance. Another conjured chains of iron that bound a creature long enough for soldiers to hack at it with enchanted weapons.
"This is supposed to convince me?" Noah squeaked. "Seeing people nearly die fighting these demons?"
The captain growled, "Your Highness, we're too exposed here."
As if to emphasise his point, one of the larger demons spotted their group. Its eyeless face seemed to focus directly on them.