Chapter 955: Our Saviour Has Arrived!

The warriors, still buzzing with righteous fury, immediately fell silent."What? What is it?!"

"Is there another grievance we should know about!?"

"Tell us who wronged her! We’ll ask Commander Ragnora to deal with them personally!"

But Cassius shook his head.

"It’s nothing like that." He paused, letting the anticipation build to a fever pitch.

"Do you know why the Sinful Sorceress has finally emerged from her long solitude and traveled all the way to these remote mountains?"

The squad went completely quiet, leaning in with wide, expectant eyes.

Cassius extended his arm, pointing dramatically at the surrounded squad.

"She came...to save all of you."

A collective gasp echoed through the clearing.

"Save...us?" A Beastkin whispered. "Didn’t she already save us from the wolves?"

"Wait—" A mage’s eyes went impossibly wide. "Don’t tell me...did she predict the future somehow?"

"Did she use some kind of divination spell and know that we were going to be in danger?!"

Another mage gasped. "No way. That’s...that’s impossible! The level of foresight required to predict a random wolf attack...Is it really true?!"

They looked at Isabelle with expressions of awe that bordered on religious fervor.

But Cassius shook his head.

"No, no, no. Not to save you from this specific situation."

His voice dropped, becoming more serious.

"She’s here to save every single one of you. Your entire brigade. And even the commander who rules over you all."

The warriors exchanged alarmed glances.

"W-What do you mean? What exactly is going on!?"

"Has something happened to Commander Ragnora?!"

"Is there a greater threat we don’t know about?!"

Cassius spread his hands.

"Have you forgotten? The monsters are wreaking havoc at unprecedented levels. You’re stretched thin. Exhausted. Barely holding on. You desperately need reinforcements."

"It’s true." One warrior admitted, weariness creeping into her voice. "We’ve been suffering."

"These pesky monsters have been rampant recently. I can’t even sleep or train properly."

"It’s been endless. Wave after wave. No breaks."

A mage spoke up, her voice carrying a note of hope.

"But it won’t last much longer. I heard Commander Ragnora summoned someone to help us deal with this crisis. Someone powerful. They should be arriving soon—"

She stopped mid-sentence.

Her eyes slowly, slowly, slowly drifted toward Isabelle.

"No way." She whispered.

The others followed her gaze. One by one, realization dawned across their faces.

"It can’t be—"

"It’s her..."

"It’s actually her!"

"She’s the one the Commander summoned!"

"Oh my god!"

"I can’t believe it!"

Cassius captured the moment perfectly. He stepped forward, placed his hand on Isabelle’s back, and gently pushed her forward—presenting her to the crowd like a prize to be admired.

"Warriors of the Blood and Iron Brigade!"

He announced, his voice ringing with theatrical grandeur.

"Allow me to properly introduce you to the one and only Isabelle Sinclair!"

"The Forbidden Mage!"

"The Sinful Sorceress!"

"The Witch of Pleasure."

Isabelle shot him a mortified look at the new title,

"A mage on the precipice of the Supreme rank. And the woman who has come to save every single one of you!"

The moment he finished his grand introduction—the clearing erupted.

"WE’RE SAVED!"

"THE MONSTERS ARE FINISHED!"

"THE ENCHANTRESS OF SIN IS ON OUR SIDE!"

"COMMANDER RAGNORA REALLY KNEW WHAT SHE WAS DOING!"

"I CAN’T BELIEVE WE GET TO FIGHT BESIDE HER!"

The scarred ogre slammed her fist into her palm with a grin that threatened to split her face.

"Come on, monsters! Come out already! We’ve got something special for you now!"

"We’re going to crush every last one of you!" Another ogre roared, raising her weapon to the sky.

"Nothing’s going to happen to us anymore!" The wolf-kin was practically bouncing. "We finally have someone strong enough to protect everyone!"

The spectacled mage looked toward Isabelle, and for the first time since the battle began, the exhaustion in her face was replaced by something else entirely.

Hope.

"I was so worried about what kind of reinforcement they were going to send." She admitted quietly. "But if it’s Isabelle Sinclair..." She smiled. "Then there’s absolutely nothing to worry about."

"We’re winning this." The older mage agreed.

"Not just winning." A beastkin corrected, her grin sharpening into something feral. "We’re going to destroy those monsters! Every last one!"

The celebration that followed was like nothing Isabelle had ever witnessed.

They hugged each other. They cheered. Some of them actually had tears in their eyes.

The acted as if they had already won the war.

But it made sense.

The truth was, the situation at the mines had been grinding them down for weeks.

It wasn’t catastrophic—there had been no fatal casualties yet, and the defenses were holding—but it was exhausting.

The monsters emerged constantly, without warning, without pattern.

The warriors were interrupted during meals, woken from their sleep, pulled away from training.

They never got a proper break. The constant vigilance, the endless fighting, the slow drain on their energy and morale—it had been wearing them down day by day.

And now they believed their savior had arrived.

A future Supreme Mage who would soon join the ranks of the most powerful beings on the continent.

Of course they were celebrating. They thought their nightmare was finally over.

And in the midst of all this jubilation, Isabelle grabbed Cassius’s arm and yanked him down to her level.

"My love—!" She hissed, her voice barely containing her anguish. "What are you doing?!"

Cassius looked down at her with an expression of perfect innocence. "Whatever do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean!" She gestured frantically at the celebrating warriors. "The Sinful Sorceress?! Supreme Mage?! An Archmage abandoned by the academies?!"

"You’re piling title after title on me like—like—like I’m some kind of legendary Hero! I’m not any of those things! I’m just—I’m just your wife! I came along for the ride!"

"You’re the one who’s supposed to save them, not me!"

She was breathing hard now, her chest heaving with the force of her distress.

"Why are you doing this? W-Why are you making me out to be something I’m not?"

Cassius’s expression softened. He reached out and gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"The plans have changed." He said quietly.

"Changed? Changed how?"

"I’ve decided to go even deeper undercover than before." He glanced toward the celebrating warriors, his voice dropping to a murmur.

"If I’m the one fighting the monsters, everyone will be watching me. Constantly. It’ll be impossible to move freely. And if people start paying too close attention..."

He shrugged. "They might notice things they shouldn’t."

Isabelle stared at him in realisation.

"Besides." He added, and now a distinctly sneaky look crept into his eyes. "I want some private time with the Commander. Just the two of us. And that’s much easier to arrange if nobody is paying attention to me."

"Private—" Isabelle’s jaw dropped. "You’re telling me you’re making me the main character of this entire charade just so you can sneak around behind everyone’s backs?!"

"Essentially, yes."

"My love!"

"It’ll work perfectly." He assured her, utterly unrepentant. "Trust me. You get to enjoy all the attention and I get to operate in the shadows."

"Everyone wins!"

"Everyone except my conscience!" Isabelle pressed both hands to her face.

"Do you have any idea how guilty I feel right now? These warriors—they’re looking at me like I’m some kind of savior! They’re ready to follow me into battle!"

"And it’s all built on lies!"

"It’s not lies." Cassius said gently. "It’s...an enhanced truth. You did save them. Those wolves would have overwhelmed them eventually."

"The fact that I lent you my power doesn’t change the fact that you were the one who chose to step onto that battlefield."

"But—"

"Do you trust me?"

The repeat question stopped her cold. She looked up at this impossible, infuriating, wonderful man who had turned her entire world upside down and felt the fight drain out of her.

"...You know I do."

"Then trust me now."

He cupped her face in both hands, his thumbs brushing gently across her cheekbones.

"I know what I’m doing. The plan will work. And when it’s all over, you’ll have a story to tell that’s at least partly true."

Isabelle wanted to argue. She wanted to point out all the ways this could go wrong.

But she trusted him. Against all reason, against all common sense, she trusted him completely.

"Fine." She whispered and pouted. "But if this falls apart, I’m telling everyone it was your idea!"

"I wouldn’t have it any other way."

And then Cassius did something that made her heart lurch.

He raised both hands high above his head and began to chant.

"Isabelle! Isabelle! Isabelle!"

The warriors, still caught up in their celebration, seized on the rhythm immediately.

"ISABELLE! ISABELLE! ISABELLE!"

Within seconds, the entire clearing was filled with the sound of her name being shouted to the heavens.

Isabelle looked out at the sea of faces and felt her heart crack.

’I’m sorry.’ She thought. ’I’m so, so sorry. I’m not who you think I am.’

But she forced her smile to stay in place, and she raised her hand in acknowledgment, and she let them believe.

Because Cassius had asked her to.

And that, in the end, was reason enough.