The men that Lord Tibult had selected had made many incursions into the Ost Republic. It could also be said that they knew what fort his brother was being held at. That’s because there were only two forts anywhere within range. Fort Detrimix was a bit east of Nyphal, and the place where Otto had officially been stationed. He had been tasked with keeping the fort going while his family were out on excursions.

On the Ost Republic side was a place called Fort Pride. This was being held by an unknown general. They were supposedly someone of great renown, but Otto didn’t know his name. I wanted to reprimand him about knowing your enemy or something, but I hadn’t bothered to do my research either, so I guess we were in the same boat.

Either way, the men knew paths to enter the Ost Republic in secret, and our troops moved cautiously out from our starting point. Once we entered the area where soldiers patrolled, we had to dodge our own men as much as theirs. If we had informed our own what we were doing, we might as well announce it to the enemy. This is why we kept it as a small group of only 18.

Otto expressed confusion as to why I was bringing the girls along. He knew them to be good fighters, but in his mind, this was a stealth mission, and they’d be a risk. Surprisingly, it wasn’t an attempt to ridicule women, but rather he wanted them to be safe.

“Huh? I thought you hated women?” I asked in shock.

He rolled his eyes. “I have a sister, you know. Just because I’m not attracted to women, doesn’t mean I want to see them hurt.”

I narrowed my eyes. “That didn’t stop you from abandoning Lydia in a dungeon!”

I felt a little angry at that. Lydia grabbed my sleeve but didn’t meet Otto’s eyes. Up until then, she had been avoiding looking at her former Master. I had almost sent her as Faeyna’s guard specifically because I didn’t want to get into this.

A guilty expression formed on Otto’s face. “People change… after experiencing death myself…”

That didn’t satisfy me completely. He still had the mentality that women were useless. He evolved a bit. They weren’t garbage to be tossed away, but they didn’t have his respect quite like men either.

“…”

He looked over at Lydia and bowed his head. “I’m sorry for how I treated you back then. At that time, I didn’t hold any value for any life but my own. I can only say I’m glad that you found the Master you were looking for.”

“Ah…” Lydia looked away even more, but I could tell by a slight purring sound from under her throat that she was pleased by this.

“Now is not the time.” I hit him in the head softly, and he blinked. “We’re reaching the enemy side of the skirmish zone. If we were caught by our side, it’d be embarrassing, but you’d be able to talk us out of it. On that side, it’s do or die.”

His face went white, but he nodded in affirmation.

As we continued forward into the Ost Republic side of the skirmish zone, I had Miki hide our spirits from detection, Shao used shadow magic to obscure us in shadows, and Celeste used her wind to hide our smell and sound. By the third time Lydia’s Scout ability caught a patrol and kept us from being seen, even ahead of the soldier who was designated as the scout, the soldiers nor Tibult saw any issue with having women on the team.