Chapter 21 : Chapter 21
Volume 1
Chapter 21 : The Shadows in the Depths
“It seems you’ve run into some trouble.”
The maid suddenly felt cold.
A cold that sank into her very bones.
Stiffly, she raised her head and looked forward.
Selicia was holding the unconscious Muen in her arms, while howling wind and snow swirled around her.
Her killing intent poured endlessly from her like a dam that had burst.
“Do you need me to help you deal with your trouble?”
Selicia raised a hand, her gaze as cold and hard as iron.
“I’ll deal with you—your trouble.”
The maid’s eyes flew wide open.
Without the flames of the King of Withering, that terrifying chill instantly invaded her body.
Pure white frost spread from the dagger, creeping toward the rest of her body.
Within only a few breaths, her entire arm had already been frozen solid.
“Damn it.”
A savage look suddenly twisted the maid’s face.
She now understood that, because of Muen Campbell’s desperate intervention, her assassination mission had already failed.
The sudden disappearance of those flames did trouble her, but now was not the time to think about that.
She could not stay here any longer!
Gritting her teeth, she used her only movable left hand to crush her own frozen right arm to pieces.
At the same time, a small sphere the size of an egg dropped by her feet, then burst apart in an instant.
White smoke that could obscure both sight and perception immediately filled the room.
Selicia’s eyes narrowed.
The raging wind and snow quickly blew the smoke away, but the maid had already vanished from the room.
“She escaped?”
Selicia looked toward the shattered window, and a trace of mockery suddenly flashed through her eyes.
“No, she won’t escape.”
“Do you think this is someone else’s territory?”
…
“Damn that Muen Campbell!”
The maid… no, the assassin codenamed Number Eight, clutched her severed arm with one hand as she fled miserably along the shadows cast by the manor walls.
“I was only one step away…”
“If I had known, I should have killed him first, even if he wasn’t the target!”
Her heart was full of resentment.
An almost perfect operation had been ruined at the last moment by an insignificant little insect. Anyone would have been furious.
But fortunately… it was not over yet.
Number Eight lowered her eyes, listening to the sound of blood dripping onto the ground and feeling the agony brought by her maimed body.
Yet at this moment, she felt a faint trace of relief.
That was right—relief.
“Ever since Number Nine died, have I started to fear death too?”
Number Eight let out a self-mocking laugh.
But she quickly suppressed those emotions she should not have had, forcing her attention back onto the flight that still was not over.
…
…
“I think I just heard someone talking about what she was going to do to my precious son?”
Number Eight’s fleeing steps came to a sudden halt.
She had no choice but to stop, because someone was standing directly in front of her.
A man with the majesty of a lion.
“[Lion King], Lorne Campbell?”
Number Eight’s face turned deathly pale in an instant.
“Oh? I didn’t expect a guest like you to remember such an insignificant title of mine.”
Lorne Campbell reeked of strong wine. He had only just returned from that “battlefield” surrounded by greedy hyenas, and he still held an exquisite goblet in his hand.
Yet even dressed in the refined splendor of noble attire, he could not conceal the terrifying viciousness radiating from him.
That was the vicious aura that could only be forged by walking out from mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
“But, my guest, if I remember correctly, the Campbell family never invited you. So why have you come here unbidden?”
Lorne Campbell still wore a gentle smile, yet his gaze was abnormally cold, as though he were looking at a corpse.
“Tell me properly. Especially the part about what you wanted to do to my precious son.
I will most certainly… listen very, very carefully.”
…
On the other side of the ducal estate, another figure dressed as a maid was also fleeing at top speed.
She was the other assassin, Number Six, the one who had sensed something was wrong and slipped away ahead of time.
“So this is the [Lion King]? How terrifying. Good thing I chose a different direction.”
Glancing at the dreadful aura erupting in the distance, a trace of lingering fear could not help but appear in her eyes.
“My apologies, Number Eight. I can only have you serve as bait for now. I still cannot die.”
“Under the gaze of the great King of Withering, may your soul return forever to the red earth.”
After offering a brief prayer for Number Eight in her heart, Number Six endured the sense of depletion in her body and continued racing toward the outside of the ducal estate as fast as she could.
…
“How strange. As a professional assassin, after a mission fails, shouldn’t you kill yourself and atone?”
Number Six’s pupils contracted violently.
Her fleeing steps halted at once, then her body twisted abruptly through the air like a fish darting through water, narrowly evading the sharp cold flash that had struck from an absurdly tricky angle.
“Who’s there?”
Ignoring the burning pain left across her cheek by that icy strike, Number Six stared fixedly at the shadows not far away.
“Who am I? Heh, merely an insignificant, ordinary maid.”
A young woman dressed in a black-and-white maid outfit stepped out from the shadows.
A sudden bolt of lightning tore across the sky outside the window, illuminating Ann’s dignified profile.
“A maid?”
Wearing the same maid outfit herself, Number Six gave a mocking laugh. “I’ve never seen such a terrifying maid.”
Number Six lightly brushed a finger across her cheek, then put it into her mouth and sucked on it. Soon, the thick metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.
Even though she had reacted in time to that strike, her head had still nearly been cut off.
The other woman was absolutely no weakling.
And yet the strange thing was… she could not sense any aura from her at all.
It was as if she were a completely ordinary person.
“There are many people in this world you’ve never seen, just as I’ve never seen assassins as useless as you.” Ann’s voice was filled with deep regret.
“I released such important information, and yet the ones who came were trash like you.”
“What… Do you mean by that?”
A chill rose uncontrollably in Number Six’s heart.
“What do I mean?”
Ann suddenly widened her beautiful eyes.
That dignified face now looked strangely, frighteningly twisted.
“You don’t know what I mean? Don’t you realize how worthless you are?”
“What does that have to do with you? Aren’t you a maid of the ducal estate?”
“Heh, a maid? Of course I’m a maid. But you—truly, truly—you’ve disappointed me beyond measure.”
Ann suddenly wrapped her arms around herself and lowered her head, letting out pained groans, as though she were enduring some violent torment.
“It was only a little more. Just a little more, and that bitch Selicia, who kept getting close to Young Master Muen, could have left this world forever.”
Under Number Six’s horrified gaze, Ann gradually shed that face of eternal poise. Her breathing grew ragged, and then she smiled—a smile both twisted and bewitching.
“And yet you failed?”
“Failing would have been one thing, but you even injured Young Master Muen.”
“How could you… how could you hurt him? In this world, the only one allowed to hurt him—is me!”
BOOM!
Thunder crashed down, drowning out Ann’s horrifying roar.
“Ah, no. This won’t do.”
Ann raised both hands to her face and slowly drew them downward.
Little by little, that twisted, bewitching expression was smoothed away.
Once again, she became dignified and elegant.
“As Young Master Muen’s personal maid, how could I behave with such impropriety?”
Ann lowered her hands again and folded them neatly over her lower abdomen, then bowed respectfully to the trembling Number Six before her.
“Then allow me to send you on your way, honored guest.”
Behind Ann, countless exquisite knives as thin as cicada wings slowly rose into the air, each blade point aimed at Number Six, every one of them gleaming with a chilling light.