NOVPUBTo the lords of the Birka Kingdom, the Knights of Sarnos were nothing short of enviable.
“Haah, if only I had a knight order like that... no, even just one knight like them!”
“Damn it, I won’t even ask for a full knight—just give me a single trainee and I’d be grateful...!”
When speaking of the value of a fourth-tier knight, people often used the phrase “worth a hundred men.”
It meant that a single knight of that level was equivalent to commanding a hundred soldiers.
Of course, that didn’t mean one knight could literally face a hundred men head-on and win. But with hit-and-run tactics or psychological warfare to crush morale, the phrase wasn’t all that far-fetched.
In that sense, the Sarnos family—who boasted more than a hundred fourth-tier knights—possessed a military force so overwhelming that it was a symbol of terror to most lords.
Imagine the Count of Sarnos sent a hundred knights against a noble he disliked.
To resist, that noble would need to gather ten thousand troops. Since most couldn’t muster more than a few dozen standing soldiers, they’d have to conscript peasants and commoners.
And that act of conscription was already a loss.
It meant pulling productive workers—those who toiled and paid taxes—away from the fields to do something that produced no economic value.
Worse still, you’d have to feed and house those conscripts. Maybe even arm them.
Sure, some cruel lords cut corners by withholding food or making soldiers procure their own gear—but that just ensured their troops were useless and shortened the lord’s lifespan in the process.
Even without battle, just gathering and sustaining an army like that was a massive financial strain.
Now compare that to a knight order.
The main force consisted of a hundred regular knights. Including trainees, squires, and staff, the total only reached a few hundred.
Even if knights lived better and ate finer than conscripts, their upkeep was nowhere near as burdensome.
And even if you managed to gather ten thousand troops, it still didn’t mean they could fight evenly against knights.
Conscripts had little reason to fight—and the moment the tide turned against them, they’d flee or surrender. It took constant commands and discipline from officers and enforcers to keep them in line.
But if knights just targeted those officers first, the entire army would crumble regardless of its size.
To prevent that, one had to gather even more troops—just to keep the knights from charging in—which only further strained logistics.
In short, using common soldiers to counter a knight order was outrageously inefficient. The best option was to train knights of your own.
And when it came to the treatment of knights, the Sarnos family was unmatched in the entire kingdom.
They possessed an ancient mana cultivation method, paid vast sums in compensation, and carried the prestigious title of “strongest in the kingdom.” Every young talent with the right background and ability flocked to join them. Even those who failed to become full knights were content to remain as trainees—none would bother pledging themselves to another lord.
To avoid being crushed by the knight order, the other nobles had no choice but to bow before the Count of Sarnos. This gave the Sarnos family enormous political power.
Of course, it came at a cost.
The Sarnos territories were taxed harshly. The wealth extracted wasn’t reinvested into the region but funneled directly into strengthening the military.
Up until now, that was acceptable.
Because the gains from the knight order were enormous.
But not anymore.
“Sarnos Knight Order lost? What? Where? Don’t tell me the Redvell house got involved or something? ...What? They went to capture a thief and got wiped out instead? What kind of bullshit is that?”
“Most of the deployed knights are dead or crippled? The captain himself will never wield a sword again? And it was the Lebruk guards who did this? You’re calling this a report? Go investigate again!”
“The knight order caused repeated disgrace while chasing a thief, then tried to blame it on others, and when exposed, they tried to massacre the citizens? ...Why? How? What even led to that?!”
When the events of Lebruk first began to circulate, most dismissed them as nonsense.
It just sounded too absurd.
But Lebruk was one of the kingdom’s largest cities. There were too many witnesses to write it off as rumor.
As confirmation came of the knight order’s defeat—and the scale of their disgrace—people laughed in disbelief.
It wasn’t just a scandal. It was historic humiliation.
“Y-you worthless trash! Do something! Mobilize the troops immediately!!”
The Count of Sarnos, now a laughingstock across the kingdom, flew into a rage and ordered an immediate march on Lebruk.
But his retainers desperately tried to stop him.
“N-no, my lord!”
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
“These are the ones who utterly crushed the knight order! Even if we gather fresh troops, there’s no guarantee we’ll win!”
“If we lose again, the consequences will be catastrophic!!”
“Lose? Are you saying I, the Count of Sarnos, would lose to a single city!?”
The Count roared, his face flushing red. But his retainers—who would normally shrink from his wrath—did not flinch this time.
And then, the Count realized—
‘Th-these bastards... they think I’m a toothless tiger!’
Just because the knight order lost in Lebruk didn’t mean the Sarnos family had lost all power.
There were still guards scattered across the land. House troops. Even if the knight order had lost half its members, the rest remained.
In terms of military strength, he was still one of the kingdom’s powerhouses.
But that no longer mattered.
The knight order’s name—the strongest in the kingdom—was defeated. Its reputation destroyed.
What the family lost wasn’t just military might—it was their symbolic dominance.
To put it bluntly, in modern terms:
—Who would be afraid of a gang thug who just got beaten half to death by an apartment security guard?
The Sarnos family, who ruled solely through violence and fear, was doomed the moment they lost that violence.
“Enough! Ready the army at once!!”
The Count roared even louder.
He couldn’t back down now.
Even if it meant burning all his remaining forces to ash—he had to annihilate the rebels of Lebruk.
If he didn’t prove his strength now, he’d become nothing more than a joke—left to rot in obscurity.
And to his credit, the Count wasn’t wrong about that, at least in terms of power dynamics.
If he were the kingdom’s sole ruler.
Or if he had no outside threats to worry about.
Then maybe that would’ve been enough.
True, he had no way to deal with Dahlia, who had crushed his captain. But Dahlia couldn’t stop the entire army if it came down to it.
But he wasn’t the kingdom’s supreme ruler.
And his enemies weren’t gentlemanly enough to ignore a wide-open weakness.
“M-my lord! The Redvell Marquess is moving! Troops are mobilizing near the border!”
“What? On what grounds!?”
“T-they claim it’s to eliminate monster forces growing along the border! They've even requested our cooperation!”
“Utter nonsense! We’ll petition the Crown immediately—”
“B-but... the Crown has issued a recommendation supporting their actions....”
“...That snake. That reeking, scheming snake! This is the Redvell Marquess’s doing!!”
The Count trembled violently.
He wasn’t afraid of a Redvell invasion.
That wasn’t that man’s style.
No—the Redvell Marquess would simply tie his hands with excuses and delays.
And by the time he could act, it would be too late.
The Sarnos family would collapse on its own, starved of influence and respect.
The Count knew it.
He could recognize the tactic.
He just had no way to stop it.
And so, he slumped to the floor, face pale, as though the world itself had gone dark.
***
This shift in the Count’s position was soon relayed back to Lebruk.
Those who had tried to bluff on trembling legs with hollow bravado found themselves unconsciously sighing in relief. Others who had been on edge slowly began returning to their daily lives when it became clear that nothing drastic was happening after all.
Some among the commoners argued that they should go so far as to execute every noble and elite who lived in the upper district. But such voices were few.
Dauphin’s relentless string of crimes had already vented much of the public’s fury, and Dahlia, too, had made her opposition to indiscriminate slaughter very clear.
From Lebruk’s perspective, this was a fortunate development.
If the commoners had risen up and started beheading nobles and aristocrats, the powers of other territories would have launched a full-on suppression campaign without hesitation. But because that hadn’t happened, there was room for negotiation.
They had only resisted because the knight order attempted a massacre. They had no intention of overthrowing the kingdom itself.
Among the upper-class residents, those with the most severe offenses had already fled the city along with the remnants of the knight order. The rest began acting with caution and slowly integrated with the commoners.
There were still disgruntled voices. Many problems remained unresolved. But the immediate fire had been extinguished.
And so, Dahlia had gained just enough breathing room to sneak out of her quarters late at night and take some time for herself.
“...Planning to leave?”
“Oho, is this a covert investigation?”
Dauphin shook his head dramatically, as if he’d been caught red-handed.
He moved with surprising lightness for someone trying to sneak out a window in the middle of the night—especially after getting caught by a guard.
Then again, maybe that’s just how he’d always been.
Dahlia looked at him.
Below his right shoulder, there was nothing—only a dangling, empty sleeve fluttering softly in the breeze.
Noticing her gaze, Dauphin gave an exaggerated shrug with his remaining shoulder.
“No need to worry. For me, this is just a minor injury.”
“If losing an arm is minor, then what counts as serious?”
“Well, obviously, that’d be the neck, wouldn’t it? In that sense, stopping the citizens from going into a frenzy was the right call. Revolutionary flames burn [N O V E L I G H T] bright, but sometimes they end up devouring the revolutionaries themselves. I’d rather stay a phantom thief than become a martyr.”
“So you leave the city in ruins and just run off? Who’s supposed to clean up the mess?”
“A thief challenges order, topples it. It wouldn’t be right to help rebuild it afterward.”
She’d heard that before.
Whether it had been him or Dauphin who said it was unclear—and maybe that distinction didn’t even matter anymore.
“Then you do it. Build the thing you always dreamed of. The thing you could never act on because reality held you back—bring it to life.”
There it was.
He wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore.
Dahlia pouted.
“So you approached me with that intention from the start?”
“It began as coincidence. But I won’t deny I nudged things a little along the way.”
“You’re a terrible man. Playing with someone’s feelings like that—that’s truly the worst.”
“Isn’t that what a phantom thief is supposed to be? A kind, upright, earnest man could never be a thief to begin with.”
She should have been angry.
Her head knew that.
But for some reason... Dahlia felt laughter bubbling up from deep within.
Maybe it was Dauphin’s ever-cheerful presence.
Maybe it was the full moon above, casting its magic.
“You’re right. You’re a bad man—irresponsible, chaotic, always chasing disorder. Truly fitting for a thief.”
And yet, it was exactly that man who had resolved the contradictions this city had buried for so long.
He’d torn open wounds that the law could never touch.
He’d done what Dahlia herself couldn’t—and in the end, he even changed her.
“You told me to build order. To fix what I thought was wrong. But I’m not perfect, and I’m not that smart.”
She would make many mistakes.
It was possible that the laws and rules she believed were just would end up causing even more pain to others.
“I’m scared of myself. I’m scared of my own strength... scared that what I believe is right will come off as arrogant. I’m scared I’ll become the very ‘monster’ that my father—and I—tried so hard to deny.”
The order that once held her back—and at the same time showed her the path forward—was gone now.
When the day came that she strayed from that path... if someone called her out on it... would she be able to admit it?
Would she ignore them? Insist that she was right and stubbornly push forward?
“─Don’t worry. If you go astray, I’ll come punish you myself. And if you don’t, well... then maybe I’ll leave you a parting blessing instead.”
Not a single hint of hesitation in his voice.
The honesty in Dauphin’s words made Dahlia widen her eyes... then quietly lower her head.
Without her usual visor to cover her face, it was the only way to hide her expression.
I’m a guard. You’re a thief.
I’m stifled and rigid. You’re wild and free.
You’re everything I’m not—and that’s why I’ve envied you, resented you... and loved you.
I want to hold onto you, to never let go. But I know I mustn’t.
If I take away your freedom, you won’t be you anymore.
Holding back the surge of emotion in her chest and the trembling in her voice, Dahlia raised her head.
And with a proud face, she looked him in the eye.
The thief said,
“Until next time, Officer Dahlia.”
And the guard replied,
“We’ll meet again someday, Phantom Thief Dauphin.”
