Chapter 93 : Chapter 93
Volume 2
Chapter 17 : Sudden Incident!
Knock, knock.
A sudden rap came from outside the room.
Selicia did not get to finish saying farewell.
Her jade-like hands, which had been gradually tightening, stopped at once.
She turned toward the door, and clear displeasure flickered in her eyes.
“Tell whoever is outside to leave,” Selicia said coldly to Muen.
“I cannot.”
Muen shook his head vigorously.
“This room is soundproof. Other than the knocking, no sound from outside can get in, and naturally, no sound from inside can get out either.”
“...”
Selicia frowned slightly and stared at Muen, as though weighing something in her mind.
But in the end, she still withdrew the hands that could have taken Muen’s life at any moment and slowly rose to her feet.
“I will spare your life for now.”
“Th-thank you?”
“Get dressed and answer the door.”
“All... all right.”
Having narrowly escaped death several times in a row, Muen felt as though he had been granted a pardon.
He hurriedly got up and grabbed the clothes at his side, throwing them onto himself as fast as he could.
That specially tailored formalwear, which weighed a full twenty kilograms, was exceedingly difficult to put on.
If Muen had not watched the maids dress him from start to finish earlier, he would probably have been so lost that he would not even know how to put it on.
Even so, in his panic and haste, he nearly put the lining on backwards several times.
It wasted a great deal of time.
While dressing, however, he heard the soft rustling of fabric behind him once more.
That inevitably made him think again of the wonderful things that had just happened...
“If you dare turn around, then even with others present, I will kill you on the spot.”
Selicia’s icy voice rang out from behind him.
“...”
Muen shuddered and lowered his head, devoting himself wholly to his battle with the formalwear.
...
After he had finished dressing, the sounds behind him vanished completely.
At last, Muen could not help turning around for a glance.
Selicia was now seated properly on the sofa, using a casually condensed sheet of ice in her hand as a mirror while she arranged her silvery-white hair.
That simple yet noble white dress clung perfectly to the graceful lines of her body, revealing a heart-stirring beauty without the slightest trace of disorder.
Had Muen’s legs not still felt a little weak when he walked, he might almost have believed that everything that had just happened was nothing more than a beautiful dream.
“Wait.”
Just as Muen was about to open the door, Selicia suddenly stopped him.
She casually produced an exquisitely crafted bottle of perfume and sprayed it several times into the air.
She sniffed again and, only after confirming that the strange scent in the room had completely disappeared, nodded and said,
“Go.”
...
Muen walked over to the door.
Only now, after everything that had just happened and after facing death more than once, had his heart calmed a little.
But there was no joy of having survived a disaster.
Because the plot had completely veered off the route of the original novel and was now charging wildly down the path of self-destruction.
The only roads left before Muen now were to be killed by Selicia with her own hands, to be hanged by the enraged king, or to be carved to death by some unknown person just like in the prophetic dream.
Every single one of them was a dead end.
“So, protagonist, oh protagonist, even if you only show up now, what use is there in that?”
Muen opened the door.
He had thought the person outside would be Ariel, the protagonist who had finally come looking for them.
But it was not.
Standing outside was a maid carrying pastries and black tea.
Only, the maid’s face was hidden in the shadow cast by the doorway, making it difficult to see clearly.
“Young Master Muen, Madam noticed that you and Her Highness the Princess had been talking for quite some time, and thought the two of you might be hungry, so she specially had me bring some pastries.”
“Oh, I see.”
So it was Mother. She saw me invite Selicia away to be alone too?
As expected of Mother, her timing was impeccable.
Muen did not think too much of it and stepped aside.
“Put it on the table over there.”
“Yes.”
The maid nodded respectfully, carrying the tray into the room.
At the moment she passed by Muen, her face was illuminated by the room’s gentle light.
“Wait.”
Muen suddenly realized something was wrong.
“Why have I never seen you before?”
The maids of the Duke’s estate were all subjected to rigorous selection and training, and most of them had been raised within the estate from childhood under specialized maid instruction.
The whole purpose was to prevent ill-intentioned people from slipping in among them.
So even though Muen had only transmigrated yesterday, the memories belonging to the original owner should still have left him with an impression of every maid in the Duke’s estate.
At most, he might not remember their names.
But when he saw the face of the maid before him, the only thing that surfaced in his mind was one word:
Stranger.
“Of course Young Master Muen does not know me.”
The maid did not stop walking.
“Because I was only selected into the Duke’s estate last night.”
“Last night...”
Muen reacted at once. “One of the extra helpers for the banquet?”
“That is right. I am here to help.”
The maid walked to the tea table in the middle of the room and set down the tray holding the cakes and teacups.
“I simply happen to have another task as well.”
“Another... task?”
Muen was still processing the meaning behind the maid’s words when he suddenly saw her draw a dagger flashing with cold light from beneath the tray.
The motion was so natural that Muen froze for an instant before his mind caught up.
His heart and pupils contracted at the same time, and a flood of blood rushed to his head.
In that brief instant, Muen’s thoughts spun at lightning speed.
—Her target is not me, because when she entered just now, she clearly had the perfect chance.
That means...
“Selicia!”
Muen shouted a warning without thinking.
The maid’s figure abruptly vanished.
Like a fragile phantom beneath the sunlight.
And when she appeared again, she was already directly in front of Selicia.
“So fast!”
Muen could not help crying out.
The rooms in the Duke’s estate were all quite large.
And since the tea table had only just been knocked over and set upright again, there were several full meters between it and the sofa.
But that distance seemed not to exist at all for the maid.
In the blink of an eye, the sharp dagger in her hand had already slashed straight toward Selicia’s pale, fragile throat.
Death had raised its scythe.
...
Clang.
The scene of blood splattering that Muen had imagined did not occur.
Selicia’s expression remained as cold as ever.
Faced with the maid’s sneak attack, there was not the slightest trace of panic in her cool eyes.
At some point, she had already raised her hand.
The ice mirror in it had condensed into an ice-blue slender sword, which blocked the dagger with flawless precision.
Centered on the point where the ice-blue slender sword and the dagger met, invisible ripples spread outward, shredding the tea table and the sofa and leaving sharp cuts across the surrounding walls!
“Let me guess.”
Staring at the maid, Selicia asked in a frosty voice,
“Did my foolish dear brother send you?”
“My apologies, Your Highness, but my employer’s information is top secret.”
The maid suddenly withdrew and leaped back, but there was no intention of retreat in her eyes. She merely wanted to widen the distance and prepare for another attack.
But how could Selicia possibly give her that chance?
With a light tap of her toe, a thin layer of frost rapidly spread toward the maid.
Borrowing the slight moisture on the floor, it spread even more fiercely.
While dodging, the maid could not help frowning and saying, “Where did all this water come from?”
“...”
A flush of embarrassed anger suddenly entered Selicia’s eyes, which were usually as unchanged as an eternal glacier, and even her cheeks turned slightly red.
She stamped down hard, and the frost instantly formed countless razor-sharp ice spikes, viciously stabbing upward at the maid, who had nowhere to evade in midair.