19 - The Bride of the Great Lord is a Warrior from Hell
“I’ll borrow this for a moment.”
Annie spurred her horse, charging towards the guards.
Simultaneously, Kakan, momentarily losing its target after being struck by multiple spears, spotted Annie rushing straight at it and leaped once more.
The massive body of Kakan, staggering in mid-air and scraping the ground upon descent, soared through the air.
The horse carrying Annie also leaped over the guards' horses.
At the apex of the horse's jump, Annie rose from the saddle and seized Kakan's neck with her arms as it lunged at her.
Transferring from the horse's saddle to Kakan's back, Annie plunged her spear between the beast's crown and nape.
Crack!
Kakan possessed a massive body and a tough exterior.
The composition of its otherworldly body was resistant to swords, spears, and axes.
Its simple attack patterns were difficult to deal with due to their speed and weight.
The black Stone Beast, which had claimed numerous lives with each appearance, fell to the blow of the Grand Duke's frail fiancée.
As its nape was pierced, it crumbled, shedding stones from its head downwards.
“The Lady must have seen nothing…”
“She needs to escape… The Lady is too weak and hallucinating…”
The knights, who had been making nonsensical remarks with serious faces, trailed off.
“……”
“……”
Annie lightly dismounted from the collapsing Kakan.
Landing on the ground, she gracefully brushed off the stone fragments from her skirt.
While gently stroking the neck of the horse returning to her, Annie vigorously moved the hand holding the spear towards the ground.
Thwack! Crack! Shatter!
With each thrust of the spear, the large stones scattered from Kakan's body shattered with a thwacking sound.
They said the Lady had grown up sheltered and beautiful.
The noble young lady born into the Reine Marquisate after 200 years.
A delicate seventeen-year-old girl, rumored to be hopelessly in love with the oblivious and stiff Grand Duke.
Her elegant face, accentuated by violet eyes, amplified her innocence.
Though she didn't speak much, making it difficult to hear, she possessed a voice said to be heavenly.
An innocent face uttered a noble voice.
“Collect all the black stones here.”
The resilient Roderick had already dismounted and stood beside Annie.
“The stones, you say…”
“They are quite useful.”
So saying, Annie smashed the supposedly useful black stones into manageable sizes.
The hand wielding the spear was powerful.
Everyone pretended not to know that the black stones had been the flesh of some creature until recently.
After meticulously smashing even the last stone, Annie rummaged through the stones that had been the flesh of some creature.
Her hands, sifting through the stones, were decisive and skillful.
Her urgent hands searched for and gathered dull stones that looked different from the black stones.
Just as Annie had sorted out all the Magic Stone ore, the sound of hooves echoed from afar.
Reikart, without protective gear, was riding towards them.
In his hand was a massive axe that could crush even a bear's head in one blow.
“Annie.”
Reikart's figure, riding against the backlight, suited his nickname, "Satan with an Axe."
To the eyes of the enemy soldiers who had seen Grand Duke Tessen with an axe on the battlefield, he was demonic enough.
Reikart, dismounting without properly halting his horse, wore a grave expression.
“Your Highness.”
Annie quickly dispelled the dismay she had felt upon seeing Reikart's armament.
Annie's violet eyes, looking up at him, sparkled.
Rather than shining ethereally like stars in the night sky, they shone intensely like torches hung on a wall to illuminate the dark night.
“Are you alright…”
Reikart hesitated slightly at the excessively bright violet eyes.
“Yes, I’m fine. Are there more of these here?”
Annie nodded vigorously in response.
Her sparkling eyes shone even brighter as she asked about her curiosity.
It was not the brightness of a single torch, but the brightness of about five torches.
Before her innocent face, asking the question, lay scattered the finely fragmented remains of a magical beast.
Her gesture, pointing to what had become small stones, was filled with anticipation.
Her sparkling violet eyes were full of excitement.
Tessen, Lilliese Detached Palace, was surrounded by numerous rumors.
The most famous rumor was that there was a Golden Chamber there.
The next most famous was that fist-sized jewels were embedded in the palace walls.
The rumor that the walkways were adorned with gold and jewels was also frequently circulated.
In reality, Lilliese Detached Palace had spent a long time without an owner.
The Grand Duke of Tessen mainly resided in the main castle.
When away from the main castle, the Grand Duke mostly roamed the battlefields.
The rumor-filled Lilliese Palace had recently welcomed a new owner.
The new owner brought with her even more rumors than Lilliese Palace.
Perhaps because of this, no one asked the new owner of Lilliese Palace about the magnificent detached palace.
It had already been a month since Annie had stayed at the detached palace.
The morning at the detached palace, shrouded in countless rumors, was ordinary.
The morning of the detached palace's new owner, the subject of immense rumors, Annie, was also ordinary, if ordinary could be said.
Annie was attended to by three maids and four servants.
After becoming independent from her family, Annie paid more attention to her staff.
Since she could remember clearly, Annie had been almost exclusively cared for by Daisy.
To Daisy, her only closest aide, Annie said to take the next day off after moving to Ludern.
The next day, she told Annie to take off, and the day after that, Liz.
She gave holidays not only to the maids but also to the servants.
At first, the servants were puzzled, wondering if they were being treated coldly, but they soon accepted the holidays.
In addition to giving holidays every three days, she also asked them to run errands outside once every two weeks.
Daisy, who had been serving Annie for a long time, expressed concern about the maids' holidays and outings.
She was especially anxious about her own rest.
Annie somewhat agreed with Daisy's concerns.
Daisy had received noble education from a tutor since she was young.
One of her parents was also of knightly rank.
Compared to Daisy, Annie and Liz had shortcomings.
Their etiquette was lacking, and there were slight gaps in their attention to detail.
Annie and Liz also paid attention to their work, but they inevitably fell short of Daisy, who had received formal training.
‘Daisy, you should get married too. You can't just keep cleaning up after me forever. Maids often marry late, but if it gets too late, there won't be any good men.’
Annie said to Daisy, who was speaking seriously, like a worried mother.
‘…….’
Daisy was momentarily speechless and couldn't say anything.
‘Even if you want to live alone, shouldn't you compromise a little? Because that's still how the world is. And Daisy needs to rest sometimes too. It's not perfect, but we grow together by experiencing incidents and accidents. Above all, I support any relationship of yours as long as it's not a loafer, a married man, or a clergyman.’
The words she added at the end were more than those of a socialite with harsh gossip.
‘I apologize.’
Daisy quietly retreated from Annie's excessive support.
Holidays came regularly.
Today was her holiday that Daisy had been worried about.
An ordinary morning at Lilliese Palace began.
As winter deepened, the number of visitors coming to pay respects to the famous owner of the rumor-filled detached palace increased significantly.
The gates of the detached palace were guarded by Tessen soldiers.
“Guests from the Graitz Baron family. Luther and four others. Enter.”
At the call of the guard captain, the visitors hurriedly paid their respects and entered.
Compared to the strict security outside the gate, the inside of the detached palace was loosely managed.
“The reception room is this way.”
Annie showed the guests to the room, displaying her characteristic bright smile.
Following her, the man walking at the front and the man in the middle of the group exchanged glances.
The moment they entered the building.
The man who had exchanged glances with the leader disappeared as if sinking into the ground.
“Please come in.”
Annie, opening the door to the reception room, turned to the visitors.
“Thank you. When will we be able to see Lady Alisha? Is the title Lady acceptable, or do you prefer Baroness?”
“The Lady will be here soon. Any title is sufficient as long as it does not deviate from etiquette. Please wait a moment.”
Annie left the visitors to the maid and the page boy and headed to the main building.
‘Did I see wrong? I thought there were five at the gate. Or was it four?’
Before leaving the room, Annie felt a moment of doubt as she looked at the guests sitting on the sofa, but she soon turned away.
Visitors waiting for an audience were lined up outside the gate.
There was no time to hesitate.
The Grigen Clan, based in the desert, is outwardly known as an ordinary herb merchant group.
In reality, the Grigen Clan traded rare herbs.
They also dispatched numerous herb gatherers to the desert and desert rocks.
However, the main source of income for the Grigen Clan was assassination.
A shadow hidden in the darkness stealthily moved along the wall.
The mission given to Bick, a first-class assassin of the Grigen Clan, was relatively simple.
To give a friend a deep sleep.
If that is not possible, leave a gift in the friend's room.
The reason the Grigen Clan deployed a first-class assassin for this mission was because the 'friend's' residence was difficult to access.
Since there had been no major threats to the 'friend' so far, the clan believed that the mission would be successful as long as they could enter the residence.
As expected, everything was easy once they entered the residence.
It was so easy that it was almost bewildering.
Bick blended into the darkness and moved quickly.
He moved like a shadow without a trace and found a suitable place.
A suitable place where outsiders could come and go, but not immediately visible to people.
He chose a few places and set up the pagan symbols he had prepared in advance.
The terrace of the reception room. The corner of the party room.
The preparation room of the dining hall.
On top of the display case in the room presumed to be the jewelry room.
If possible, he wanted to leave the gift in the middle of Lilliese Palace's famous Golden Chamber, but it was difficult to find the room.
The detached palace was so large, and the internal layout map obtained from the clan was limited.
Bick, who had been hiding and familiarizing himself with the place for half a day, headed to the bedroom.
Next to the bedroom of a noble is a dressing room.
He planned to spread the last gift in one side of the dressing room and give the 'friend' a deep sleep.
Climbing the stairs leading to the bedroom, Bick chuckled inwardly.
He shouldn't be the one to say it, but the security inside Lilliese Detached Palace was extremely lax, except for its size.
If he had a few days to spare, he could take all the lives in the detached palace.
Creak.
Bick opened the door to the room where the maids had been constantly coming and going during the day.
Thinking about it again, their movements were so obvious, like ants swarming around candy.
However, the scene inside the room was different from what he had expected.
Instead of a cozy bedroom, a desolate study appeared.
The room with only a desk was completely different from what he had imagined, but there was no time to dawdle.
Contrary to his expectations, Lady Alisha and the security level of the detached palace were not entirely incompetent.
He decided not to hesitate any longer and leave the last gift on one side of the desk and retreat.
If this was not the bedroom he had expected, opening the door on the other side would only lead to a strange place.
The hand wearing the black glove quickly spread the pagan artifacts.
