Tessen (2)

“Just borrowing this for a moment.”

Alicia charged forward on horseback toward the escort knights.

Kakan, momentarily thrown off after being struck by several spears, spotted Alicia racing straight at it and leapt again.

Its massive form, which had gouged the ground as it stumbled through the air, rose into the sky.

Alicia’s horse soared over the escort knights’ horses at full gallop.

At the peak of the leap, Alicia lifted herself from the saddle and grabbed Kakan’s neck with her arm as it lunged at her.

Leaping from her saddle to Kakan’s back, Alicia drove the spear down between the crown of its head and the nape of its neck.

Squelch!

Kakan had a massive body and a hardened exterior.

Its otherworldly flesh rendered swords, spears, and axes nearly useless.

Its simple attack pattern combined with incredible speed and weight made it a nightmare to deal with.

Yet this monstrous black stone beast, which had taken many lives with each appearance, fell to a single strike from the Grand Duke’s fragile fiancée.

As the back of its neck was pierced, it crumbled, spilling chunks of stone from its head.

“The Lady saw nothing…”

“You must flee… The Lady is just frail and hallucinating…”

The knights, who had been spouting nonsense with serious faces, trailed off.

“……”

“……”

Alicia stepped lightly away from the crumbling Kakan.

She landed and gracefully brushed the stone dust from her skirts.

While gently stroking her returning horse’s neck, the hand holding the spear moved forcefully toward the ground.

Thud! Crack! Snap!

Each time the spear moved, chunks of Kakan’s body shattered with loud cracks.

They had said the Lady was young and delicate.

A noble daughter born to the Rain family after two hundred years.

A demure seventeen-year-old girl, seemingly in one-sided love with the aloof Grand Duke.

A gentle-looking face accented by violet eyes, said to double her innocent charm.

She didn’t speak much, but when she did, her voice was said to be heavenly.

And from that innocent face came a noble command.

“Collect all these black stones.”

Roderick, ever resilient, had already dismounted and was standing beside Alicia.

“The stones… my lady?”

“They’re very useful.”

As she spoke, Alicia shattered the valuable black stones into pieces of manageable size.

Her strikes were powerful.

Everyone pretended not to know those stones had been a creature’s flesh moments earlier.

Once she had broken every last piece, Alicia began picking through the remains by hand.

Her hands moved confidently and skillfully through the rubble.

Among the crushed black stones, she sought out and gathered dull stones of a different texture.

When Alicia had finished collecting all the raw magic stones, the sound of hooves echoed in the distance.

Reichardt was galloping toward them, unarmored.

In his hand was a massive axe that looked capable of crushing a bear’s skull in one blow.

“Alicia.”

Bathed in backlight as he rode, Reichardt looked every bit the part of his nickname: “Demon with an Axe.”

To enemies on the battlefield, the Grand Duke of Tessen wielding an axe appeared nothing short of a demon.

He didn’t even properly stop his horse before dismounting with a grim face.

“Your Grace.”

Alicia’s earlier surprise at his weapon vanished instantly.

Her violet eyes sparkled brightly as she looked up at him.

They didn’t twinkle like stars in the night sky—

They blazed intensely, like torches hung to light up the dark.

“Are you alright…?”

Reichardt faltered slightly at the overwhelming brightness of her eyes.

“Yes, I’m fine. Are there more of these here?”

Alicia answered firmly with a nod.

Her shining eyes glimmered even more as she asked, full of curiosity.

Not just one torch’s worth of light—more like five.

In front of that gentle, inquisitive face lay the shredded flesh of a magical beast.

She gestured toward the scattered fragments of stone, her hands full of eager anticipation.

Her sparkling violet eyes brimmed with excitement.

Tessen’s Lilizet Villa was surrounded by countless rumors.

The most famous was that it contained a room of gold.

Next was the rumor that the outer wall was encrusted with gemstones as large as a fist.

Some even claimed the garden paths were lined with gold and jewels.

Yet, for a long time, Lilizet Villa had no resident.

The Grand Duke of Tessen usually stayed at the main estate.

When he was away, he was typically on the battlefield.

But now, the much-rumored Lilizet Villa had a new mistress.

And this new mistress carried even more rumors than the villa itself.

Perhaps for that reason, no one questioned her about the fabled residence.

It had already been a month since Alicia began residing at the villa.

Despite the swirl of gossip, her mornings were entirely ordinary.

The new mistress of the villa, the subject of countless stories, Alicia’s mornings were—if anything—simple.

She was cared for by three ladies-in-waiting and four maids.

After becoming independent from her family, Alicia had taken more interest in her household staff.

Since her earliest memories, she had almost exclusively been cared for by Daisy.

After moving to Luderne, Alicia told Daisy to take a day off.

The next day, she told Annie to rest. The day after, it was Liz’s turn.

She gave not only her ladies-in-waiting but also the maids scheduled time off.

At first, the staff suspected they were being dismissed.

But they soon gratefully accepted the rest.

In addition to giving each a day off every three days, Alicia allowed them an outside errand run once every fortnight.

Daisy, who had served Alicia the longest, expressed concern about these breaks and outings.

She was particularly uneasy about taking her own time off.

Alicia somewhat agreed with Daisy’s worries.

Daisy had received noble education from tutors from a young age.

One of her parents had been of knightly class.

Compared to Daisy, Annie and Liz lacked refinement.

They were a bit rough in etiquette and slightly clumsy in delicate tasks.

Though both Annie and Liz worked attentively, they couldn’t match Daisy’s formal training.

“Daisy. You need to marry someday, too. You can’t spend your whole life running after me. Maids often marry late, but if you wait too long, all the good men will be taken.”

Alicia spoke like a concerned mother to Daisy, who had offered sincere advice.

“……”

For a moment, Daisy was at a loss for words and couldn’t respond.

“Even if you want to live alone, don’t you think a little compromise is necessary? That’s just how the world still is. And Daisy deserves a break sometimes too. She’s not perfect, sure, but people grow through experiences, even the messy ones. Above all, as long as it’s not some bum, a married man, or a priest—I’ll support any kind of romance you pursue.”

The words she added at the end were harsher than anything gossiping noblewomen in the social circles would dare say.

“I apologize.”

Daisy withdrew politely from Alicia’s overwhelming support.

Her days off continued to rotate regularly.

Today was one of those off days Daisy had worried about.

A typical morning began at Lilizet Villa.

Now that winter had set in fully, visitors arriving to pay respects to the villa’s famous mistress increased noticeably.

Guards of Tessen’s army now stood watch at the villa’s gates.

“Visitors from the House of Baron Greitz. Luther and four others. Let them through.”

At the gate captain’s call, the visitors hastily bowed and entered.

Compared to the tight security at the gate, the inside of the villa was relatively relaxed.

“This way to the receiving room.”

Annie guided the guests with her characteristic bright smile.

As she led them, the man walking at the front exchanged a glance with another man in the middle of the group.

The moment they entered the building—

The one in the middle who had made eye contact with the lead suddenly vanished, as if swallowed into the ground.

“This way, please.”

Annie opened the door to the receiving room and looked back at the guests.

“Thank you. Will Lady Alicia be seeing us shortly? Is ‘Lady’ the correct title, or does she prefer ‘Countess’?”

“Lady Alicia will be with you soon. As long as the address is within formal bounds, it will suffice. Please wait just a moment.”

Annie left the guests in the care of a maid and a page and headed to the main building.

‘Did I see wrong? I thought there were five of them at the gate. Or was it four?’

As she looked back to see one of the guests sitting on the sofa before exiting, Annie hesitated with suspicion—but quickly turned away.

Outside the gate, a line of visitors still waited for their audience.

There was no time to second-guess.

The Grigen Clan, based in the desert, was publicly known as a simple herbal trading company.

They did, in fact, deal in rare herbs.

They had many herb collectors stationed throughout the desert and the rocky outcrops.

But the true income source of the Grigen Clan was assassination.

A shadow lurking in the dark crept quietly along the wall.

For Bique, a top-tier assassin of the Grigen Clan, the current mission was relatively simple.

Give the “friend” a deep sleep.

If that proved difficult, leave a gift in the friend’s room.

The reason a top-class assassin had been assigned was due to the challenge of the target’s residence.

Since the “friend” had never been in serious danger before, the clan assumed that once Bique was inside, success was guaranteed.

As expected, entering the residence had been easy.

So much so that he found it suspicious—no obstacles, no resistance.

Bique moved swiftly, blending into the darkness like a shadow.

He searched for an ideal location: somewhere visited by outsiders, yet out of immediate view.

He selected several such spots and planted the cultist markers he had prepared.

The terrace of the reception room.

A corner of the party room.

The preparation chamber of the grand dining hall.

Atop the display cabinet in a room likely used as the jewel vault.

Ideally, he would have left the final gift in the center of Lilizet Villa’s fabled golden room—but that room proved hard to locate.

The villa was vast, and the internal layout map the clan had acquired was incomplete.

Bique hid himself for half a day before heading toward the designated bedroom.

A noble’s bedroom would usually be next to a dressing room.

He intended to leave the final gift in one corner of that dressing room after lulling his “friend” into a deep sleep.

Climbing the stairs toward the bedroom, Bique chuckled inwardly.

Not that it was his place to say, but aside from its size, Lilizet Villa’s internal security was laughably lax.

If given a few more days, he could probably eliminate every soul within the villa.

Creak.

He opened the door to the room that maids had been bustling in and out of throughout the day.

Their movements had been as blatant and predictable as ants swarming sugar.

But the room beyond was not what he expected.

Instead of a cozy bedroom, it was an empty study.

With only a single desk placed inside, the space was entirely different from what he had anticipated.

Still, there was no time to hesitate.

Perhaps Lady Alicia’s and the villa’s security were not as careless as they had assumed.

He decided to quickly drop the final gift on the desk and retreat.

If this wasn’t the intended bedroom, then opening the door on the other side would only lead to more uncertainty.

With a gloved hand, Bique swiftly placed the cultist artifact in position.