Becoming an Eminence in Shadow in the New World (DxD / StrikeTheBlood)

Eta felt that her luck had been terrible lately. If the luckiest thing in her entire life was meeting Master, then everything that happened afterward, as long as it had nothing to do with Master, had been nothing but tragedy.

Back when she still lived in the Elf Kingdom, her parents had been research fanatics. When her Demon Possession manifested, her own parents treated her as research material. Later, after their experiments went horribly wrong, Shadow saved her.

Eta had originally thought she could remain in Shadow Garden, diligently absorb Master’s Wisdom, and develop at a steady pace. Instead, when she was around fourteen, Alpha dragged her outside and made her strike out on her own.

That was the beginning of Eta’s life as a corporate slave.

She designed the headquarters’ defenses. She created the training equipment and magical puppets. She personally used slime to construct, upgrade, and replace the facilities. Whenever some idiotic client came up with a bizarre weapon concept without the slightest concern for whether it was remotely practical, she was the contractor forced to build it. Gamma also came to her whenever she wanted Eta to research all sorts of Shadow Wisdom products…

It wasn’t as though all that work had been useless. After all, each project was an expression of Wisdom and helped Eta expand upon and verify the theories in her mind.

But anything became boring once it turned into work, no matter how much you originally enjoyed it.

After their technology had progressed beyond what was needed for ordinary civilian life and military equipment, the remaining fields were no longer things Gamma or Alpha actually needed.

In Gamma’s words, those technologies were too grand and impractical, developed far too early for their time. Rather than pouring vast sums of money into technology that would show no visible benefit anytime soon and would only become useful after more than a decade of developing every related field alongside it, that money could instead be invested in weapons research and immediately strengthen Shadow Garden.

Eta had to admit that Gamma made a lot of sense.

Once technological research reached a certain level, they needed to produce enough practical results to support further development. There was no point trying to invent nuclear fusion in a primitive tribal age when no one would even be capable of using it. If anything, doing so might create a monster they could no longer control. Coal and steam power would already be more than enough.

That was what happened when someone managed the finances.

Eta, who was responsible for research, only needed to obediently follow Gamma’s instructions and develop technology. Gamma, on the other hand, had far more to consider. How to stop the wicked Eta from wasting the budget on bizarre technologies, how to make Eta obediently develop profitable products, and how to continuously upgrade medical and combat technology all required careful thought.

But Gamma’s concerns had nothing to do with Eta.

Eta had no interest in civilian welfare or military affairs. She only wanted more knowledge.

To gain knowledge, she needed research.

To conduct research, she needed funding.

But Gamma controlled the funding.

And if Eta wanted money from Gamma, she had to obey her and waste precious time developing things that merely repurposed existing technologies.

How could she possibly waste her precious time on that?

With that thought in mind, Eta, who could no longer tolerate her miserable life as a corporate slave, chose to walk away with nothing and establish herself independently.

Then she was thoroughly screwed over by her useless teammate Sherry.

A whole pile of secret projects Eta had snatched from elsewhere were ruined. Beta, that idiot with no eye for value, even destroyed a stockpile of rare, irreplaceable materials.

Those materials were valuable enough to buy an entire country!

After being grilled until her resolve was almost shattered, Eta finally confirmed the bitter truth. Unless she invented a time-acceleration machine, restarting those destroyed projects would require years of repeating all the work she had already done just to return to where she had been before, and that was assuming she somehow got lucky enough to gather some of those irreplaceable materials again.

So Eta surrendered.

At least that allowed her to preserve what little remained.

But as the saying went, blessings never came in pairs, while misfortunes always arrived together. When your luck was bad enough, even drinking water could somehow get something stuck between your teeth.

After returning to Alexandria, Shadow Garden’s headquarters, Eta had temporarily decided to turn over a new leaf. All she wanted was to hug No. 712, the sole surviving result of her projects.

Instead, while visiting No. 712, Eta was struck by the “Eta-Specific Attack Unit.” Every one of the wonderful gadgets she carried was rendered useless, after which No. 712 hit her with a full combo and brought her to her knees on the spot.

Eta remained completely incapacitated for several days before finally waking up.

She would have been better off staying unconscious.

By the time she opened her eyes, No. 712 had already escaped with another experimental project, No. 711.

Beta, that useless Elf who had nothing going for her besides her big breasts, had failed to stop No. 712. She had also been beaten to her knees and had only regained consciousness slightly earlier than Eta.

The secret passage Eta had left hidden inside Shadow Garden headquarters’ defense system had been uncovered.

The storage room containing her wonderful gadgets had been completely looted by No. 712.

And her experimental equipment had been blown to pieces.

Standing amid the wreckage of her laboratory, Eta nearly passed out on the spot.

Instead, driven by overwhelming fury, she spent several hours raging helplessly at everything around her.

Then, finally feeling relieved, she fainted again.

After waking up for the second time, Eta began searching for clues about the escaped No. 711 and No. 712 with a heart filled with grief and indignation.

Eventually, she reconstructed the deleted messages from the traces of magical power left on her private communicator.

And Eta finally learned the truth.

“Damn you, Laugus!!!”

“I’m so stupid. Really.”

Looking utterly devastated, Eta raised her cloudy, lifeless eyes. Her lips trembled as a weak voice escaped them.

“I only knew everyone in that group was made up of lunatics who cared more about experiments than their own lives and would jump straight into another project as soon as they finished one. I never knew those heartless bastards would actually steal someone else’s project! Even I only freeloaded off their materials and labor. I never even thought about stealing each other’s projects! Do they have no conscience at all?!”

Eta had clearly been the person in the group who followed the rules most faithfully and cared the most about equivalent exchange.

Sure, she still looked down on their shortsighted brains, but she had at least grudgingly acknowledged them as gorillas worthy of basic interaction.

And yet the shameless, despicable Laugus had backstabbed and deceived her.

Even her experimental subject had grown legs and run away on its own.

The moment Eta thought about this unbearable humiliation, the cloudiness vanished from her eyes.

She sprang upright in a single motion.

“Master, this is an emergency! Let’s kill every member of the Cult of Diablos right now!”

Eta stared intensely at Cid, who was sitting across from her drinking tea. Her gaze held a level of determination never seen before.

At this moment, her desire to kill the Cult of Diablos surpassed everyone else in Shadow Garden.

Someone who obstructed her path to knowledge was an enemy beyond reconciliation.

“I finally understand. An evil organization whose members only care about fighting for power and personal gain has no right to exist! Technology should transcend race and national borders. If everyone simply worked together, any form of knowledge could be conquered and obtained with ease, yet they chose to deceive my experimental subject and lure her away!”

Flames of fury burned in Eta’s eyes.

She had never regarded the people in that group as good people. She had always been extremely cautious when trading with them, and even when they collaborated on research, everyone remained anonymous and only exchanged data for comparison.

Still, Eta had always treated the group as something like a black market or an improvised research team.

She had never thought about backstabbing the others.

She had assumed that would be enough for her to take advantage of the group chat.

But instead…

“Shadow Garden may be somewhat behind the Cult of Diablos technologically, but if it’s you, Master, then even without technology at their level, you can definitely overcome whatever stands in the way and locate the Cult of Diablos’s true headquarters! Let’s wipe out the entire Cult of Diablos right now and seize all their treasures and experimental projects!”

After this ordeal, Eta had finally realized something.

The world’s resources were limited.

Rare materials were precious precisely because choices had to be made over who got to use them.

No. 712 was an experimental subject unlike any human from any of the three worlds, and the unique seed within her was something even the wealthy Cult of Diablos would try to seize from Eta.

Even Laugus, whom Eta considered the most intelligent person in the entire Cult of Diablos, had been willing to backstab her for the peerless treasure that was No. 712.

Eta didn’t even dare imagine what sort of vicious struggle for power and profit took place inside the Cult itself.

As expected, Master was the only one she could rely on.

Eta looked tearfully at Cid.

Only Master, the wisest being in the world, a God born already possessing Wisdom, would never compete with her over something so unnecessary.

Everyone else would eventually betray others for their own desires and selfish interests when the stakes were high enough.

Only before Master, the fairest, most just, and most impartial God, could everyone open their hearts, cooperate freely, and explore the truths of the world together.

With that thought in mind, Eta felt motivated for the first time to wipe out someone’s entire family.

She needed to recover her resources and projects.

She also needed to make sure she could conduct research in peace from now on.

Anyone who pursued science not from a desire to explore Wisdom and satisfy their thirst for knowledge, but for selfish worldly ambitions, had to be driven out!

“Mm… Ah, right… Eta, your goal and ambition are admirable. Keep working hard. I’m sure you can do it.”

Cid froze under Eta’s burning gaze, then set down his teacup and encouraged her with a brilliant smile.

Eta’s explanation had been so chaotic that he wasn’t entirely sure what she was actually talking about.

Still, judging by the fact that she was in enough of a mood to joke around, it probably wasn’t anything serious.

Of course, Cid had managed to grasp the general idea.

Basically, Gamma the capitalist had been mercilessly exploiting Eta according to the principle of “if she isn’t dead, keep working her to death,” until Eta finally couldn’t take it anymore and tried to quit.

However, because she had signed some kind of confidentiality agreement, Eta had been dragged back.

After she returned, one of her employees had taken something extremely important to her and defected to a rival company with it.

But apparently, whatever had been stolen wasn’t particularly important to Gamma’s company. At the very least, it wasn’t urgent enough to require immediate action, so Eta had been ordered to recover it herself.

If she failed to get it back, some sort of terrible punishment would probably await her.

It sounded pretty miserable.

And if any part of that interpretation was wrong, then it was simply because Cid hadn’t been listening closely enough.

It was just like before.

Eta was always bringing things to him that looked incredibly impressive at first glance, and she would also stare greedily at the worthless mysterious magical items he happened to pick up.

Since Cid never knew what any of those things were for, he would generously give them to Eta every time.

In return, Eta would shower him with praise.

Hehehe…

“Huh? Master, aren’t we going to attack the evil Cult of Diablos right now and absorb them into our organization?!”

“Well… heh!”

Cid couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

If this had happened a few days earlier, he might have casually gone along with Eta, wiped out the other side’s entire family, and robbed them blind.

But now…

“Why get so worked up? This world has always been one where people devour one another. Do you remember what I once told all of you? My feud with the Cult of Diablos has nothing to do with you anymore. They are my game alone, while all of you are free to live beneath the sunlight.”

An Eminence in Shadow who murdered someone over a minor business dispute and a little money somehow felt incredibly lame.

Besides, an organization had been causing him trouble recently, so he was busy grinding achievements by wiping out other people’s entire families.

He didn’t have time to help.

“B-but, Master, they took my precious otherworldly material.”

“Mm, I know. But the Cult of Diablos has nothing to do with any of you. I’ll deal with them myself. So I’ll compensate you for the otherworldly material. What do you want?”

Cid couldn’t be bothered worrying about Eta pestering him over something so minor.

He would just let her name a price and buy her an identical replacement.

Spending some money to avoid trouble and save time was an incredible bargain.

It wasn’t as though that thing could possibly be worth enough to buy the entire Mitsugoshi Company, right?

“No. 712 isn’t a question of whether she’s valuable. She’s unique. She’s priceless.”

“Mm, I understand. Then you don’t need to worry about it. Or, Eta, you can figure out a solution yourself.”

I see.

If she refuses to give me a specific value, that means its worth depends entirely on how badly someone personally wants it.

At least you have enough conscience not to use this chance to scam a huge amount of money out of me.

I’ll help you whenever I have time.

“…You’re right. Only this way can Master be said to treat absolutely everyone with perfect fairness, justice, and equality. I understand now, Master.”

Eta watched Cid finish his tea and leave.

The moment he disappeared, her listless, expressionless face collapsed.

She slammed her fist onto the table and sighed in profound admiration.

“As expected of Master!”

Because Master possessed absolute Wisdom, he had no interest whatsoever in the methods a fool like Eta used to pursue Wisdom.

He viewed everything equally.

Even No. 712, a unique material found nowhere else in the entire world and worth more in pure value than the whole Mitsugoshi Company, was nothing more than an ordinary research material in the eyes of a God.

There was no difference at all.

“So, Eta, what are you going to do now? Shadow-sama doesn’t seem to want us getting involved in this…”

Beta, who had chosen to stay behind rather than follow Cid, looked at Eta helplessly.

Eta’s answer was simple.

“Obviously, I’m going to kill every last Laugus. I can’t find the evil Cult of Diablos itself, but as for the Cult members currently in Midgar, I’m going to wipe out them!”

How Master chose to treat the Cult of Diablos equally was Master’s business.

Eta’s business was making the Cult of Diablos pay.

“But first, I need to assemble the Anti-Eta Special Attack Unit. Otherwise, No. 712 is invincible.”

The Eta-Specific Attack Unit, whose full name was the “Eta Product Series Special Attack Unit,” operated by exploiting the backdoors Eta had secretly built into the blueprints of every Eta-series item.

Once activated, it could disable every piece of Eta-series equipment, allowing someone with functioning equipment to completely overwhelm an opponent whose equipment had been rendered useless.

Unless they found a way to ban that thing, excluding Master, it wouldn’t matter how many people Shadow Garden sent after No. 712.

They would all just be feeding her free kills.

“Oh, I see!”

Beta nodded as she listened to Eta’s explanation and examined the blueprint in her hands for the device meant to disable those hidden backdoors.

Then she placed both hands on either side of Eta’s head.

“But Eta, before that, could you explain the backdoors you secretly put in equipment without telling any of us? And while you’re at it, could you also explain what you just told Shadow-sama about who was blind and who was nothing but big breasts with no brains?!”

“Uh… uh…”

“Click!”

The sound of a camera shutter echoed through the luxurious house. A flash went off, and the gruesome deaths of Earl Azukay and Baron Stergang were captured in photographs that appeared in Christina’s hand.

“I still don’t really understand why you insisted on coming here to take the photos yourself. If you didn’t want to get them from Knight Commander Gray, I could’ve sent you copies after my sister and I finished examining the scene.”

Alexia had accompanied Christina while she took all the photos. Now that Christina was finally done, she couldn’t hold back her curiosity any longer.

Christina had been acting strangely since yesterday. As the daughter of an Earl, she could have obtained photos of the Nightsword’s death scene from the Island Guard whenever she wanted, yet she had specifically asked Alexia for them. Today, she had even refused Alexia’s help and insisted on taking the pictures herself.

“Probably because I’ve seen certain things more clearly now. Someone I thought I could trust turned out to be a parasite, so I don’t feel comfortable letting her handle things anymore.”

“Huh?”

Alexia stared at Christina in confusion after hearing such a matter-of-fact answer. She had no idea what Christina was talking about.

“Forget it. I can’t be bothered figuring you out. Come somewhere with me today.”

Don’t waste time thinking about things you can’t figure out. Pochi had once said something like that, and Alexia thought it made a lot of sense.

“Where?”

Christina blinked and carefully put the photographs away. Then she looked at Alexia, the Kingdom’s Second Princess who had been spouting outrageous things in front of her not long ago. The only reason Christina hadn’t immediately turned against her, fled, or withdrawn from their alliance was that Alexia seemed to have merely been running her mouth. For now, Christina intended to wait and see.

“The Mitsugoshi Café. I’m taking you to meet someone. An annoying silver-haired elf. She… barely qualifies as our ally.”

Alexia spoke with obvious resignation. She had always maintained a degree of wariness toward that silver-haired elf, someone she could never quite see through. She wasn’t even sure whether letting Christina meet her was the right decision.

“An ally? Then let’s go right now!”

Christina sprang to her feet, eager to meet this “ally” Alexia had mentioned. She still had some doubts about the claim Alexia had made when first recruiting her as a friend, that they would “spread justice throughout the Kingdom of Midgar.” Still, if this person had been drawn in by the same slogan, Christina was confident the two of them would have plenty to talk about.

“Uh… all right. She should be there around now anyway. But there’s one more thing I need to do afterward.”

Seeing Christina’s eager expression, Alexia froze for a moment before nodding. She didn’t pay much attention to Christina’s odd behavior. She simply stood up and moved ahead to lead the way.

“What is it?”

“I need to find my pet. That little Cid actually dared to ignore me and run away. He’s been getting disobedient lately, so I’m going to catch him and put a collar on him.”

Alexia complained in an irritated tone while speaking with the kind of confidence that openly declared ownership. Of course, she genuinely meant it. Heaven only knew how she had felt when, after finishing her briefing with Christina and going to settle things with Cid, she discovered he had already slipped away.

“…Princess Alexia, you really know how to joke. Cid is a person. You can’t put a collar on someone and turn him into a pet.”

“Does Pochi even deserve to be treated like a person? That two-faced, ungrateful bastard forgets his old master the moment he finds a new sponsor, and he’ll throw away his dignity for a few gold coins. He has no human rights! It’s time for me to exercise my supreme authority as Princess of the Kingdom of Midgar!”

“…I have to ask. Does Cid suffer from some kind of psychological problem? There probably aren’t many people in this world who would willingly give up their human rights.”

“He doesn’t. But listen carefully, Christina. I am Pochi’s absolute superior. That is simply the natural order of things. A pet betraying his master and throwing gold coins off the ground into my face is something that should never happen. And even if it does, sooner or later he’ll come crawling back to me on his knees, begging me to forgive his foolishness. Then I, as his master, will generously forgive him with a heart as vast as the ocean, in the name of my status as the Second Princess of the Kingdom of Midgar…”

Thinking back to meeting Cid on the ship and all the infuriating things that had happened since returning home, Alexia grew angrier the more she talked. Then she suddenly shuddered.

“Strange. The weather’s perfectly clear, so what was that? Is someone plotting against me?”

Alexia glanced around suspiciously, but no matter how she looked, she couldn’t find any danger nearby. In the end, she simply blamed it on not feeling well.

“Wait, Pochi!”

Just as she was about to look away, her gaze happened to sweep across Cid, who was strolling idly down the street. Judging by the direction he was walking, he had probably just come from the Mitsugoshi Café, but that wasn’t important.

“Christina, wait here for a moment. I’m going to catch my pet and teach him what happens when he defies his master.”

Completely oblivious to Christina’s darkened expression as she stared at her without a trace of emotion, Alexia announced her intentions and hurried toward Cid without looking back.

“Get over here!”

Cid had only just parted ways with Eta and Beta when he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard a familiar voice beside his ear. Before he could even react, his vision lurched, and he was dragged into an alley.

“Seriously, how do I keep running into you everywhere I go?!”

After regaining his balance, Cid stared at Alexia, who had dragged him into the alley. For the first time, he regretted returning to the Kingdom of Midgar. This damned walking disaster kept dragging him into the spotlight regardless of the situation. At this rate, he was going to become a background character permanently tied to Alexia, doomed to appear whenever she did.

“You should be asking yourself that question. I’m starting to lose patience with you, stupid Pochi.”

The woman, seemingly in the middle of a Chuunibyou episode, glared at him and spoke in a gloomy voice.

“Are you crazy?”

“Shut up. When you went off looking for someone else to be your master, I was willing to assume you’d lost your mind for a moment and gotten tricked by someone. But now you need to explain why you’re living at Christina’s house, and how you dared to defy my orders. Instead of leaving like I told you, you actually stayed!”

Alexia slammed her fist into the wall beside Cid’s head with a tremendous bang.

Cid glanced at the small crater her punch had left in the wall, thought for a moment, then hesitantly spoke.

“Well… the reason is a little hard to explain, but basically, I wanted to save people. Quite a few of the missing people come from my family’s territory, after all. I can’t just ignore them because…”

“Do you really think I’ll believe that?”

Trouble.

Cid stared at Alexia with lifeless eyes while his brain raced at full speed, desperately searching for a way out. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of a single one.

Everyone in this world lived behind a mask. Even those who claimed to be completely true to themselves were still wearing one. The only difference was whether it was their last layer.

And Alexia… she simply knew Cid too well. She would see through any righteous, noble-sounding excuse immediately. There was no chance of fooling her the way he had fooled that obsessive lunatic Christina. Alexia was far too sharp when it came to things like this.

“Alexia, I don’t care whether you believe me. I believe myself, and as long as everyone else believes me too, that’s good enough.”

If a mistake couldn’t be corrected, then the solution was to ignore it. Just brush it aside. Besides, what did his choices have to do with Alexia? He could do whatever he wanted!

Stand your ground, Cid. You have money now. You don’t need to curry favor with this useless Second Princess who has nothing going for her except money. Cut yourself off from that shameful chapter of your past once and for all!

The moment he decided to cut ties, the whole world suddenly seemed brighter.

“…I haven’t seen you for a few days, and your skin has gotten considerably thicker, Pochi. No, ‘heartless and ungrateful’ would be more accurate. Do you think I told you to leave because I wanted to hurt you? I was doing it for your own good! I’ll tell my sister. Now get out of the royal capital immediately! This place has become a vortex that someone at your level has no business getting involved in. Your sister Claire might be able to handle it, but you can’t!”

Cid’s words had angered Alexia so much that she laughed. Seeing him stubbornly refuse to budge, she suddenly lost all interest in pursuing the matter of him disobeying her orders by remaining in the royal capital, or even moving into Christina’s house. It was probably another private matter involving someone he couldn’t talk about.

Cid clearly had no idea what kind of powder keg the royal capital had become. This was no joke. People could genuinely die.

Right now, Alexia only wanted to drive Cid out of the royal capital and keep her only friend alive. This was not the time to mess around.

“Stop treating me like I belong to you. Whether I stay here is my decision, and I know exactly what risks I’m taking. My business has nothing to do with you. Besides, our gold-picking relationship is already over. You don’t have the right to put yourself above me and order me around.”

How did you deal with an unreasonable person? Cid’s answer was simple. Be even more unreasonable.

Since Alexia had already given up on listening to his excuses and was openly trying to force him around, he might as well stop pretending too. He had money now. Acting like a dog for money when he was broke was one thing. If he still acted like a dog after getting rich, then what had all that earlier humiliation been for?

“You… What did you just say, Pochi? Someone may have gotten into your head, so you’re probably not thinking clearly right now. I suggest you think very carefully before you keep talking to me.”

“You’re the one who needs to think carefully! You’re the one who can’t recognize your own attitude. You’re arrogant, unreasonable, and convinced that being powerful gives you the right to trample on other people’s dignity whenever you please! But I respect the human rights of every person in this world. If I want to stay here, then I’ll stay here. I have absolutely no reason to obey you!”

Arguing felt amazing!

Seeing Alexia left speechless by his rebuttal, lowering her head and grinding her teeth in frustration, Cid couldn’t help feeling immensely satisfied.

A true powerhouse shouldn’t merely be capable of winning effortlessly on the battlefield. He also needed to be skilled enough at verbal combat to argue his opponent into complete silence. Otherwise, who knew when some enemy might suddenly start yelling about friendship, bonds, and the future before rushing him and somehow killing him in one hit?

Of course, Cid wasn’t about to get arrogant or lower his guard just because he had defeated a mere Alexia in an argument. Beating the Second Princess, who had spent her whole life under her older sister’s thumb and couldn’t even express herself honestly, didn’t even qualify as a warm-up.

It had been effortless. Nothing more than crushing a weak opponent.

“Ah… Pochi, you’re absolutely right.”

Alexia let out a long sigh and tilted her head toward the sky, her long gray-white hair obscuring her expression.

Cid froze.

He hadn’t expected Alexia to actually agree with him. Could he really be some kind of genius? Had he argued Alexia into such a profound epiphany that she had finally seen the truth, achieved enlightenment, and decided to completely change her ways?

“Those in power can trample on other people’s dignity however they please. I was only talking before, but now it looks like it’s finally time to exercise my unlimited authority as Princess of the Kingdom of Midgar!”

Good news. She had achieved enlightenment.

Bad news. She had achieved the exact opposite kind of enlightenment.

Cid met Alexia’s darkened gaze and forced out an awkward smile.

“Pochi shouldn’t have human rights in the first place. I’m putting a dog collar on you and locking you up!”

Alexia spoke viciously, brimming with determination as she stepped toward Cid.

If she caught him now, she really might put a collar on him.

Of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, fleeing was best.

The situation had completely gone off the rails, so he needed to run. Once Alexia calmed down, she would naturally realize he had only been joking. The important thing now was not to let her actually catch him. Otherwise, once she came to her senses, she might realize she had already crossed the point of no return and decide she had no choice but to see it through to the bitter end.

Then Cid might be forced to go on a killing spree to silence everyone involved.

He really would do it.

Heh…

“Princess Iris, you saw that! Save me!”

“Onee-sama! Listen to me…”

Alexia reflexively spun around, already opening her mouth to explain what she had just said to her sister.

But the alley entrance was completely empty except for Christina.

When Alexia turned back again, all she saw was Cid’s rapidly retreating figure.

“Heh heh… Pochi, I’m definitely going to catch you and lock you in a doghouse!”

With two deranged chuckles, Alexia immediately pushed off the ground and shot after Cid without the slightest hesitation.

Thus began a chase through the streets.

“Ah… Alexia, I’m utterly disappointed in you. So everything you told me back then was a lie. You’ve truly disappointed me…”

Behind them, Christina had watched the entire confrontation from a distance. She had seen their argument intensify until Cid finally fled with Alexia chasing after him. Although Christina hadn’t deliberately eavesdropped, Alexia had made no effort to lower her voice, and the fragments she heard had been enough for her to piece together what had happened.

Convinced she had now found a mountain of evidence, Christina started after them as well.

No matter what else happened, she had to protect Cid first. He was a man driven by conviction, someone who genuinely cared about this country. She could not allow a noble man who carried the burden of others to be reduced to a humiliating pet by a heartless princess willing to trample on another person’s human rights for the sake of her own desires.

With that thought in mind, Christina circulated her Magical Power and accelerated, intending to strike first and knock some sense into Alexia before she committed an unforgivable mistake.

Three figures streaked down the street at astonishing speed, each chasing another. Pedestrians hurriedly scattered out of their path to avoid being caught in a collision.

At the roadside, another figure noticed one of the people involved in the chase.

Her brows furrowed.

Then she stopped.