Brita blocked a thrust of knife with her buckler and kicked the attacker's stomach.

"Oi..oi.. are you trying to kill her. Did we agree to have fun with both of them?"

"Yes. What a waste. That red haired girl had a nice butt and boobs."

The kicked man shouted at his two partners in crime,

"Is lust the only thing in your heads? Look how strong the girl is, we can't capture her alive!"

Brita looked around. A trickle of cold sweat flowed down her back. It had almost hit her chest. 

Fighting five men while protecting a helpless girl was a lot more difficult than she thought.

Brita stabbed forward, measuring the distance between the two of them. She noted that her foe was slowly backing off, and she did not want to let the man get away.

Her left fist gripped the central handle behind the round buckler while her right hand held an arming sword.

Brita's usual fighting style was to defend with the small shield and simultaneously attack with the arming sword. 

Being forced to fight while covering Joan was a tortuous experience. The other four thugs were always ready to jump at her. The net also made her very nervous. 

She calmed her breathing, which had been thrown into disarray by his mental fatigue.

She noticed her foes had been smirking. The men used their number to make a mockery of the girls, which was a truly thug-like way of fighting. 

Thus, seizure any of her limbs would make her lose the advantage and upset the balance of fighting power.

On her opposite side, the men only thought about undressing and raping the girls. No matter what, they refused to injure the girls although Brita could kill them in one hit with her sharp weapon.

The battle would be decided in one hit.

This was the source of both parties’ tension. Granted, all evenly-matched battles were like that, but it was that much more obvious in this fight.

With a sharp expulsion of breath, Brita swung at her foe. The swing moved slowly and she did not put much force into it. That was because she would leave herself wide open if she went for a full swing and her opponent dodged.

A man's arms reached her shoulder but she thrusted her sword into his stomach and kicked him away to draw her sword from his body. One down.

"I told you.. We should aim for killing!" The man with the knife shouted.

The other 3 men were just smirking. They seemed to not care about one or two death of their partners in crime. as long as they got to enjoy the girls' bodies.

The man with a knife reached into his breast pocket. Brita observed the upcoming attack and kept an eye on his hand.

A dagger flew forth and Brita cut it out of the air with her one handed sword.

She had been lucky. She had managed to deflect it since she was paying attention.

However she could not breathe easy just yet. The thug had already lowered his stance and slid into attack range.

He could not block the follow-up hit. He had swung too hard when deflecting the thrown dagger out of dread. Her sword was now hanging out of position in mid-air, and it was too late for her to turn it back to intercept her foe. 

She propelled her buckler to his hand and stabbed his neck with sword. Two down.

Not caring about their accomplice's death, the men seized her arms from both side and tried to subdue her. 

Their raw strength were stronger than hers. 

Joan punched the face of the thug who held Brita's hand with sword. 

"Arggg!" 

Feeling hurt, he freed her hand. Brita took that chance to slash her neck. Another one was killed.

But the the one who seized her buckler holding hand, overpowered her to the ground. She fell down but stabbed the neck of that man. 

The last man threw a net over her. Her movement was confined under net. Her every swing hit the net. The stronger man pulled her onto the ground. Joan pushed him but her weak hand didn't move him. Brita put down her buckler band sword. She throttled him with hands under the net but he was stronger. Joan took a knife from a dead thug and stabbed his left hand. He pushed her away while wriggling in pain. As his attention was diverted, she throttled even stronger.

The strangling fight lasted for a while before he was choked to death.

Joan helped to remove the net from Brita's body.

"Thank you." Joan smiled gently and Brita blushed.

Joan offered her right hand and they shook hand.

"My name is Joan. Joan Maynard Keynes." 

"Youuuu !" Unexpectedly, a man bellowed from behind them. 

The man who fainted after being hit with her scabbard stood with a blade. 

Brita expelled a long breath, and then silently brought her sword up into a ready stance.

He stepped forward, without saying a word, of course, and closed the distance in a single move.

After verifying the man was within her attack range, Brita brought her sword down in a scything chop. At that moment, the man leapt back. It would seem the other man had gotten the measure of Brita’s swings and had used herself as bait to make a feint at Brita. He obviously had a lot of fighting experience.

Perhaps he might have grasped the speed of Brita’s. However, he did not know this move. She had the utmost confidence in this downward strike of her. It was faster than all her other moves, and more forceful.

The chop at the shoulder was stopped by the chain shirt and so it did not cleave the man bodily in two. However, it easily broke his clavicle and crushed his flesh along with his shoulder blade.

The man collapsed heavily to the ground. He was drooling from the intense pain and howling in agony. She pierced his chest with her arming sword.

***

We buried all the corpses killed today by the end of the night.

It was a simple wooden house with two rooms. Its dining hall was spacious and dining table could accommodate up to twenty persons. It even had a bathroom. However, the interior lacked furniture. Immediately after entering, there was this broad dining table with 20 chairs.

"I often used my house as a gathering place " Joan, the cyan haired girl said calmly. Of she really my real face inside this helmet, she definitely would be freaked out.

All the girls were here with me including the dark elves.

I looked to inside of the rooms. There were many books. Many books was an understatement. The two rooms were flooded with books. In other words, this girl slept on books.

"Thank you for saving me. Thank you also for turning up for my public speech. You are from other countries?" Joan asked friendly.

We nod simultaneously. 

"We were just traveling mercenaries who fell in love with your speech." Hearing my answer, Joan slightly reddened.

 They were prepared to discuss the situation, but before they could open their mouths, the extremely rusty-looking roll-up door behind them let out a teeth-aching, metallic screech as it opened bit by bit.

A musty smell assaulted their senses. 

Everyone couldn’t help turning to look.

Behind the roll-up door was a man with white beard, moustache and hair. 

Brita pointed at him while trying to remember,

"Mr Piero Sraffa!" She called him in a squeaky voice.

"I am honoured to be able to be surrounded with many beautiful ladies." 

Sraffa, the white-haired over 50 years old gentleman, was a person who could mesmerize others on sight. He was good-looking, but the way he carried himself was even more striking. 

He sat in one of the chair and started conversation.

"The head of Friedman family is Mielton Friedman. He is just a merchant but he sponsored many candidates for rulers not only in Athena but other territories in this country. To think, they are targeting you, Joan. Things are looking dangerous." His expression turned sour.

"Aren't there public guards who keep peace?" Melissa queried. She remembered clearly how the peace in Treia capital was guarded by public troops hired by the kingdom, which was paid by tax collected from citizens.

"Athen practically had no public guards. The guards and troops were vigilantes paid directly by private parties. The ones you killed were hired by Friedman family." He explained while his eyes gestured at Brita.

"Will Joan ever be brought to judgement, like for committing crimes?" I queried.

He shook his head elegantly and responded.

"We do have court and judge here but there was no criminal court or public offence. The court was to mediate between two arguing parties. You can call it commercial or private court."

He resumed,

"If you steal something, you are required to return or repay it. If you kill a person, you need to pay in something. There is no capital punishment whatsoever."

Reina squawked, "Then, this is a lawless country!"

"Yes. That's one way to describe it." He replied.

Joan who was just listening, spoke,

"Each territory can elect a ruler in a public election. For example, Athena city  is divided into 4 territories. The border, size and population for each territory is adjusted just to maintain their power. Our 'Red' town has the largest population in the whole Athena but the did gerrymandering so that population in other dense area in some former nobles' demesne is included in our voting population. So, our popular candidate from 'Red' town can never win majority vote in our territory. Well, red town like many places are full with independent and average citizens."

Hearing Joan's story, I felt ironic as this was happening in the politics of my previous life.

I uttered, "What's your plan?"

Sraffa gave a cue at Joan. She spoke,

"We just worked hard to spread this message so more people became aware. If we became influential enough, we can gather the mass towards changes." 

Well, what she said was laughable as there was no way the corrupted families would remain indifferent. Today's event was just a starting point.

However, listening and watching her certitude, I felt like helping her.

"We help you for free."

"What do you mean?" Joan was stupefied while Sraffa was rubbing his beard.

"We guard you. We follow you everywhere in this nation. We provide you with money."

Joan was becoming even more dumbfounded and asked,

"Why are going this far? What's in it for you?"

I stared her pretty face blankly.

"What can you give me in return?" I posed a question to her.

"I have nothing. I don't if we will succeed or not." She suddenly became timid.

"How far are you willing to go for your ideals?"

"How far are you willing to sacrifice yourself to achieve your dream?"

She was flabbergasted as I bombarded her with provocation.

I stood up and stride to to outside.

"Let's go back girls."

"Joan, make your decision. We will protect you at tomorrow's gathering at city centre."

The girls and I went out, leaving her staring at the table while the old man was nonchalantly brushing his beard.