20 - 20
Forgotten Juliet, Episode 20
Episode 20
The sudden downpour unexpectedly stopped.
"Wait."
At that moment, Lennox Carlisle, who was riding his horse towards the townhouse in the capital, suddenly stopped.
Turururu, the Duke's fine horse, which had been running ahead, neighed lightly.
"Lord?"
"What is it?"
It was only natural that the knights following behind stopped.
As the knights looked puzzled, the Duke looked back at them as if he were the one who was puzzled.
"Can't you hear it?"
"Yes?"
"What..."
Then, they really heard it. A faint but humming sound.
"I hear it!"
It was Jude Hayon, the youngest of the royal guard, who answered. Jude unsheathed his sword.
The faint sound was coming from the knights' swords, or more precisely, from the Magic Stone embedded in his sword.
"Resonance."
Hardin nodded.
"What is that?"
"It means that Magical Power is flowing out from somewhere near the capital."
"It's that way."
Duke Carlisle's magic sword cried out loudly, leading them to the outskirts of the capital.
By the time they approached the forest, which was their destination, it was deafening.
The destination indicated by the sword's resonance was an abandoned stone building on the outskirts of the capital. Originally, there were quite a few ancient temple ruins in the capital.
But what's here?
The moon hid behind the clouds, making it difficult to identify the surroundings.
"Huh?"
Jude was the first to spot a figure.
"There, there's someone!"
As Jude said, in the middle of the ruined stone building, which was as wide as a vacant lot, something that looked like a swarm of fireflies was floating around, and below it, there was a figure kneeling.
The slender silhouette looked like a human woman.
Jude, who was about to get off his horse and run through the bushes, hesitated.
The stone floor of the ruins, which at first seemed to be shadowed, was covered with something dark and sticky. It was as if someone had deliberately splattered a lot of oil paint all over it.
"Lord, you should be careful."
Hardin warned quietly.
"There are bodies over there."
Lennox was already seeing what Hardin had discovered.
Four bodies were lying in a corner, and the remains of a broken carriage.
The bodies of a well-dressed noble couple, who appeared to be husband and wife, and their servants and coachman. Four people in all.
'Then is that woman the couple's daughter?'
The sticky substance that covered the floor of the ruins after the rain had stopped was, of course, not paint.
Lennox got off his horse and approached the woman who was motionless in the middle of the ruins.
At that moment, the large full moon, which had been hidden behind the clouds, reappeared.
"...!"
It was a grotesque scene that even the knights, who had toughened up on the battlefield, reflexively grabbed their swords.
What had dried on the stone floor was a huge amount of blood, and what they had mistaken for fireflies were swarms of tiny butterflies that flew around scattering light.
And below them, there was a woman sitting powerlessly.
Lennox approached the woman, who could not support herself, and helped her up. Her arm, which he grabbed, was hot, as if her whole body was boiling with fever.
The light blue dress, which must have been beautiful, was stained with blood, and her long hair was disheveled, but he thought calmly.
'I had a feeling it would be like this.'
He could bet that she was the woman who had fled the banquet hall as if running away from him.
He was sure that he had never met her before, but he was strangely familiar with her, which was strange.
'Have I met her before?'
But where?
The woman, with a dazed expression, raised her blue eyes and looked at him.
'What is it?'
Juliet was delirious with fever.
When she came to her senses, Juliet was left alone here.
The thugs, who had been chuckling and saying vulgar things about selling her off, suddenly let out terrible death screams and disappeared.
She might not be alone. The small clusters of light fluttering around had been talking to her incessantly for a while now.
<Contract. Let's.>
<Our. Voice. Hear?>
Her whole body was boiling with fever, and it was so difficult to even twitch her hands as if her arms and legs were broken, so she was just standing there when suddenly a cool hand appeared and lifted her up.
'Cool.'
Juliet blankly raised her head to see who the owner of the large hand was.
Ah.
And she met the red eyes of a familiar man who was holding her staggering shoulders tightly.
"No...!"
The woman, who had desperately tried to get away from him at that moment, collapsed like a broken doll.
"Did you hear? About the Monad County."
The next morning, after taking the woman who had lost consciousness back to his mansion, Lennox slowed his pace as he left the audience hall of the Imperial Palace.
"Yes, they still haven't found them."
"The whole family has disappeared, right? The Count, his wife, and their only daughter."
The conversation flowed in from beyond the curtained balcony.
"It's a pity. What are the chances of them being alive?"
The whole capital was talking about the Count's family, who had disappeared last night, so in half a day, Lennox Carlisle naturally learned everything about the woman he had brought back yesterday and the Monad family.
The Count had a gentle personality and was not the type to make enemies, and the Countess, who was from the east, was also a gentle beauty.
And because the Monad couple, who had a good marriage, had a hard time having their only daughter, they had already set their sights on a son-in-law and betrothed her.
Bringing the woman back to the mansion was an impulsive decision, but Lennox learned everything about Juliet, from her name to her personal information, which she had never told him.
'Except for why she ran away from the banquet hall that day.'
But none of the rumors mentioned that the Monad family's heirloom was an artifact that sealed away an outrageous being.
"Your Grace?"
At the words of the servant who was guiding him out, Lennox left the Imperial Palace, leaving the gossiping people behind.
His visit to the capital had been a sudden decision to check the Spy's information, but on the surface, his reason for visiting was business, so he had to pretend to work.
He had just come up with the excuse of checking the Merchant Guild in the capital to deceive the Emperor, but his loyal aides had happily given him a lot of work to do in the capital.
But all the way from the palace to the clubhouse, in between skimming through the quarterly reports filled with numbers, he thought of the woman he had taken to his mansion last night.
Juliet Monad, who had awakened something outrageous.
'So, she was the Count's daughter.'
Beings subordinate to artifacts usually obey and lend their power to the user who summoned them.
The reason why artifact users are often called Spiritualist is because of this.
In that they summon harmless and human-friendly beings from other dimensions and borrow their power, they were no different from Spiritualist.
Some wealthy people collect artifacts to show off their wealth and power, and hire artifact users to keep them like clowns.
So it wasn't surprising that Juliet Monad was the owner of a talent she didn't even know about, or that she happened to awaken a being trapped in an artifact at a time when her life was in danger.
'The problem is that it's not an ordinary spirit.'
Lennox sighed and stroked his lips.
Most of the beings bound to artifacts are harmless and simple enough to be called 'spirits', but very rarely there are powerful beings who harbor malice towards humans.
Evil gods from other dimensions who were summoned in ancient times and trapped inside artifacts, and therefore harbor malice towards humans.
The item he had been looking for for over a decade was also a dangerous being like the one in the Monad family.
It was so dangerous that the very fact that its existence was known to the outside world would be a weakness for the Duke's family.
The older and more dangerous the artifact, the more often it emits strong Magical Power. Until now, the Duke's family had been tracking down the missing artifact using that as a signal.
This time, he had information about a tiara similar to a platinum-blonde woman, so he was hoping for the best.
The Magical Power detected near the capital turned out to be from the artifact owned by the Monad family.
Suddenly, he remembered the woman who had been covered in blood last night, staggering into his arms and collapsing.
It was only for a moment that he had caught her when she collapsed, but Juliet Monad's Magical Power was obviously terrible.
What Juliet Monad had awakened was an outrageously powerful and evil being.
If it had been another ordinary spirit, it wouldn't have been a problem, but the Magical Creature she had awakened would soon lose patience and reveal its true nature, swallowing her whole.
'This is going to be a headache.'
Lennox smiled indifferently. How long would she last if he just left her alone?
The hem of her blue dress, her white neck, and her light-colored hair briefly clouded his mind, but his eyes were cold.
Well, it's none of my business.
With that, Lennox completely erased the woman from his mind.
