Chapter 94 : Chapter 94
Volume 2
Chapter 18 : Thoughts from a Different Angle
“Damn it, when gods fight, mortals suffer?”
Muen was currently huddled in the corner, looking humble, weak, helpless, and pitiful.
Lowering his head to look at the cut mark only a few centimeters away from him, he could not help but shudder violently.
No, I cannot stay here. Otherwise, I will not even know how I will die.
While the two of them fought fiercely, Muen pressed himself against the wall and slowly edged toward the door.
Fortunately, the maid assassin’s target was not him, nor did she have the spare attention to deal with a weakling like him.
So Muen quickly made it to the door. As long as he opened it, he could escape easily.
“Hm?”
Muen twisted the doorknob hard, but it did not budge in the slightest.
“Huh? Huh?!”
Muen’s face instantly turned deathly pale.
Sure enough, that maid assassin had come fully prepared.
No wonder she dared to assassinate the Empire’s Third Princess in the heavily guarded Duke’s estate!
“But this is so strange. There was never a scene like this in the original novel at all!”
Clutching his head in pain, Muen slowly crouched back down as his mind raced frantically.
But no matter how he searched through his memories, he could only arrive at one definite answer—
This scene absolutely did not exist in the original novel!
“Why did an assassin suddenly appear? Where did things go wrong?”
“This is the Duke’s estate! How could an assassin infiltrate so easily without triggering any warning at all?”
“Could it be...”
Recalling what the assassin had said earlier, Muen suddenly had a thought so awful that it made his whole body feel bad.
“Was it because of the order I gave that these assassins found an opening to exploit?”
In the original novel, the sick maid Noelle had not been given a chance to rest.
And the original Muen had never issued an order to recruit extra hands from outside to ensure the banquet went smoothly!
But in this timeline, because of one tiny act of kindness from Muen, everything had changed.
The extra people the head maid had recruited overnight from outside had become the only flaw in the tightly guarded Duke’s estate today!
“But this is way too absurd. The recruitment only happened last night!”
Surely the head maid understood the issues of security and trust as well, so the moment she received Muen’s order, she must have acted on it immediately!
The whole point had been to leave no time for ill-intentioned outsiders to react.
And yet even so, an assassin had still managed to slip in among those people.
“Could it be that someone has been watching the Duke’s estate twenty-four hours a day?”
After wracking his brains, that was the conclusion Muen considered most likely.
But no matter what he guessed, none of it offered any real help to his present situation!
He was still standing on the brink of a deadly ending, all because of his own actions!
“At this point, all I can do is pray that Selicia defeats the assassin. A weakling like me can do nothing.”
“Hm? Wait? For me, would Selicia win... really be the good ending?”
“The assassin’s target is clearly only Selicia!”
Muen’s eyes suddenly widened, because in this desperate situation, he had unexpectedly thought of a way to live.
That was right.
As long as Selicia died here, then the things that happened between us...
would no longer be known by anyone, would they?
...
While Muen was caught in his inner conflict, the battle in the room suddenly changed as well.
The maid once again displayed the speed she had shown at the very beginning, turning into an afterimage as she dodged the countless blade-like ice spikes Selicia had formed.
The ice spikes covered every foothold beneath the maid’s feet.
Even if she avoided the first wave of attacks, she should have had nowhere left to run, like prey trapped in a pit full of spikes.
But when she appeared again, she seemed to have lost all weight.
She drifted lightly down from the air, her toe resting upon the very tip of an ice spike that would have pierced straight through her with the slightest added force.
Standing there alone, she was as elegant as a dancer balanced upon a blade’s edge.
“A movement technique that allows short bursts of speed, and... gravity magic.”
Selicia’s gaze darkened.
The more clearly she saw through the maid’s methods, the graver her thoughts became.
“There were no signs of the magic being cast. Is it attached to some kind of item?”
“As expected of Your Highness Selicia.”
A strange purple gleam flashed through the maid’s right eye.
“You saw through my technique at a glance.”
“No, it is because you people underestimate me too much.”
Selicia narrowed her eyes and sneered.
“You dared attack me head-on like this. Did you really think I was some soft target?”
“No, we have given Your Highness Selicia more than enough regard.”
The maid’s gaze flicked discreetly across Selicia’s lower body, and an inscrutable smile suddenly appeared at the corner of her lips.
“And despite holding a certain advantage, Your Highness Selicia has not taken the initiative to press the attack. Does that not prove that this moment is indeed the right opportunity? After all—Your Highness Selicia is also a woman. As long as she is a woman, after experiencing that sort of thing for the first time, and under such intense circumstances, it is only natural that her stamina... or certain other abilities... would be somewhat affected.”
“You—”
For the first time, Selicia was so enraged that she nearly lost her composure.
“Are you asking for me to tear apart that filthy, stinking mouth of yours later?”
“Heh, heh. As an assassin, I really should not be talking this much.
But...”
The maid suddenly dropped her smile, and her gaze turned as cold as iron.
“Sometimes, an assassin needs to stall for time as well, does she not?”
The moment her words fell, a harsh buzzing sound rang out.
Then the entire room began to tremble violently, as though it were suffering through a major earthquake.
The walls, floor, and ceiling of the room suddenly began to show lines of golden runes, as if they were being squeezed out from inside the walls themselves, writhing without end.
Holy golden light blossomed from the runes and enveloped everyone.
“Hurry up, I cannot hold on for much longer.”
Even though the room was completely soundproof, a weak voice somehow came from outside.
“Do not worry. It will be over soon.”
The maid suddenly raised her left hand.
In it was a container filled with bright red liquid.
【Prayer】
The world suddenly fell completely silent, leaving only the maid’s solemn recitation.
A flash of shock passed through Selicia’s eyes.
In the next instant, furious, she formed countless ice spikes and sent them surging toward the maid again, only to be suppressed for the moment by those golden runes.
【With the heart’s blood of one hundred young children, I here offer a sacrifice to the God of the Molten World, the Lord of the Crimson Sun, and the great King of Withering】
The maid crushed the container, and the heart’s blood from a hundred children slowly flowed out.
Yet strangely, it was unaffected by gravity, slithering and coiling like a serpent.
【I ask】
【that You grant us】
【the mighty power to suppress the wind and snow】
Crack.
Crack, crack.
A vortex like a black hole slowly emerged out of the void.
An indescribably horrifying aura leaked out from it, making it hard for everyone present to breathe.
A withered hand suddenly stretched out from the vortex, its five fingers spread open, as though asking for something.
The maid respectfully offered up the blood.
The hand withdrew with the blood.
Then a delighted yet spine-chilling sucking sound came from within the vortex.
A moment later, the withered hand appeared again.
This time, an eerie crimson flame burned upon its palm.