20 - The Bride of the Great Lord is a Warrior from Hell
“What is all this?”
The soft voice held no hint of tension.
‘What is it, you ask? It’s a gift to turn the master of this house into a heretic.’
It was a gentle resonance that made one want to answer kindly without realizing it.
Bick was extremely sensitive because he had just mistakenly entered the wrong room.
Therefore, he was not deceived by the soft resonance that tricked his ears.
But he couldn’t do anything.
The moment he tried to catch the enemy who deceived people with weakness and ordinariness, thud! A powerful force was applied to his temple.
His vision blurred, and his sight tilted to the side.
As befitting a first-class assassin, Bick focused his eyes even as his consciousness faded.
In his collapsing vision, he saw a hand carelessly holding the heretical symbol he had meticulously laid out.
‘Oh, when……!’
With that, his thoughts completely stopped.
Thud!
The assassin’s body tilted and fell to the floor.
It didn’t make a loud noise.
Perhaps for the sake of concealment, the assassin had a lithe body.
Clad in black clothes and a mask, he looked like a dark mass of shadow in the darkness.
Clink, clink.
The noise came from Alisha’s side.
Alisha shook the bundle of heretical symbols in her hand like a toy.
If heretic believers saw it, it would be a sight too blasphemous to open their eyes and face.
If the Emperor's Heretic Inquisitors saw it, it was a sight that would immediately lead them to a religious trial.
Alisha swept up the last of the heretical symbols.
She snatched a black pouch from the assassin’s waist and carefully put the heretical symbols she was holding into it.
The bulging black pouch was tossed onto the fallen assassin.
A fair hand rummaged through the motionless assassin’s waist and pockets without hesitation.
A money pouch filled with gold and silver ingots.
Two daggers with impressive thin blades.
Three vials of unknown medicine.
The slender hand gathered the things that came out and put them on the desk.
Alisha approached the assassin who had collapsed unconscious and muttered.
“Something strange came into the house.”
After a moment of contemplation, Alisha grabbed the assassin’s shoulder in her bare feet and pajamas.
Even though he was lithe, the body, which would be the average of an adult man, was easily dragged like a scarecrow.
Following her light footsteps, the sound of the assassin’s clothes dragging on the floor and the clinking of the symbols in the thick pouch echoed.
Soon the door opened and closed, and the sound stopped.
Thud.
It was a dark night without even moonlight.
The Grigen Clan’s barracks were silent.
“Did Bick fail?”
The two men standing before the master could not raise their heads.
“It seems that way.”
“We searched around the fortress walls from midnight, but we couldn’t find any traces of anyone coming out. There’s no emergency signal either.”
It was not a matter in which the clan’s first-class assassin would fail.
Considering possible variables, two missions were presented.
“He couldn’t accomplish either one?”
Before the Grigen Clan’s master were three letters.
One was the paper on which the mission given to the assassin leaving for the mission was written.
The other two were letters to be sent to the client depending on the outcome of the mission.
He had written a letter to send in case of failure, just in case, but he thought he would never have to send this letter.
“That girl seems to have a long life.”
“There must have been countermeasures inside the detached palace that we didn’t detect.”
The two men reporting said mournfully.
“I don’t understand. You said there were no armed soldiers inside at all. Even if there were guards, is it so difficult to put a few toy-like symbols around the girl’s room and get out?”
At the master’s reproachful words, the two men lowered their heads again.
“The information about the detached palace was woefully insufficient……”
“Was it perhaps too much to try to carry out both instructions when there were only two, and that led to overdoing it?”
At the men’s words, the master frowned.
“You’re saying a first-class assassin couldn’t get rid of a nineteen-year-old girl who was asleep. Is that what a member of an assassination clan should say……!?”
As the master was raising his voice, the entrance to the barracks opened.
A man dressed as a herbalist who came inside approached the master and handed him a letter.
“It’s a message from the client. It seems they contacted us first because news of the success or failure was delayed.”
“It’s good that we don’t have to bother sending a letter saying we failed.”
The master said sarcastically as he unfolded the letter.
The hand that unfolded the letter froze as it was.
The three men carefully watched the master, who couldn’t take his eyes off the letter.
After a long silence, the clan master folded the letter and said grimly.
“Withdraw.”
The agents, noticing that the master was in a bad mood, didn’t say anything more.
“We obey your command.”
The man who brought the client’s letter was about to leave the barracks last.
The master met his eyes and silently held out the letter he was holding.
[Withdraw from the case from this moment on.]
The master and the man exchanged uncomfortable expressions for a moment.
The man organized the letter and said.
“Are we heading straight to the Imperial Palace?”
“We have to.”
“What about the agents who are still on duty?”
“You stay. Send the agents to the Imperial Palace as soon as they finish their work. Suspend all clan activities for the time being.”
“Should we check on our friend’s house?”
“Just keep an eye on it from the outside.”
After speaking, the master left the barracks dressed as a simple medicinal herb merchant.
The man also soon left the barracks and mingled with the group packing their bags.
It was full winter.
A fierce wind raged from the beginning to the end of the day.
Grand Duke Tessen’s reception room was quiet without a sound of wind.
The huge reception room was warm.
Silence lingered in the well-organized, comfortable space for a while.
Reikart stopped the hand he was taking to the handle of the teacup.
But the pause was only for a very brief moment.
The hand holding the teacup, which was spreading warm steam, approached his lips.
“What did you just say?”
The reception room where Reikart welcomed his guest had a structure like a party room.
There was a head seat, but there was no dais or throne, so the host and the guest were at the same eye level.
Both the host and the guest had their own tea tables on the right side of their chairs.
“Lady Alisha is detaining a person from Graitz. I sincerely hope that Grand Duke Tessen will resolve this matter.”
Luther, the butler of the Graitz baronial family, had a gloomy face.
He looked like someone whose family had suffered a major accident.
Luther, who had suddenly visited Tessen Estate last night, had a sad expression from the moment he arrived.
He requested an audience with the purpose of bringing a letter from the Graitz Baron.
There were surprisingly many people who requested an audience with Grand Duke Tessen, but Luther’s request was a bit special.
He wanted to see the Grand Duke, and at that time, he requested that the owner of Lilliese Detached Palace also be present.
The audience took place early in the morning.
But the owner of Lilliese Detached Palace, whom Luther had requested, did not enter the reception room.
“Luther, the representative of Lord Graitz.”
“Luther is enough.”
Luther said humbly, looking at Reikart with a gloomy face.
“Luther.”
“I, and the Baron as well, know that Your Highness is in a difficult position. But isn’t this a matter of life and death?”
“Life and death, you say.”
Reikart repeated the butler’s words and took a sip of tea.
“I still don’t understand. The day before yesterday, I and the Graitz family’s retainers visited Lady Alisha to pay our respects. I told her that my master wanted to continue his friendship with Lady Alisha, and Lady Alisha said she felt the same way. Lady Alisha told Bick, one of the errand boys who visited with us that day, to stay, and he hasn’t returned for two days since! Bick didn’t do anything particularly disrespectful, so I don’t know why Lady Alisha told him to stay…… I don’t know why she won’t send him back.”
Luther babbled sadly as if he had lost a friend of ten years.
“I understand the situation.”
Reikart put down the teacup he was holding.
“Your Highness. He’s just an errand boy, but…… he’s a person from Graitz. If Lilliese wants to claim innocence about Bick’s disappearance, it will be difficult to believe unless they show us the inside of the detached palace.”
Luther, who had been appealing with a tearful face for a long time, concluded his words with a firm attitude.
“I’ll look into it. I’ll contact Lord Graitz. You may leave.”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness. I will leave.”
At Reikart’s order to leave, Luther returned with a sad face again.
While the reception room door was opening and closing, Reikart did not take his eyes off the teacup.
After the door was completely closed, Reikart got up.
“Henrik.”
At his master’s call, Henrik pushed open the display cases that occupied one wall of the reception room.
A secret space was revealed beyond the wall that had seemed like a blocked space.
The inside of the secret space was also decorated like a reception room.
However, this side had a large oval table where several people could sit.
Alisha was at the head seat, and the servants of Tessen and Lilliese were around her.
The face of Alisha, who was drinking tea, was strange.
Pouring tea into her twisted lips, Alisha muttered inaudibly.
“Was that guy’s name Bick?”
Reikart, who was crossing over to the inner space, stopped walking.
His amber eyes stared intently at Alisha, who was drinking tea.
Alisha cast her gaze at Reikart.
With a face that didn’t know at all why he was looking at her, with a harmless face, she elegantly swallowed her tea.
The reception room was very large.
There was no way he could have heard her mutterings.
Alisha was confident because even Daisy, who was right next to her, didn’t hear it.
“Everyone, leave.”
The secret space was secretive and even sealed off.
“Your Highness.”
Daisy hurriedly stepped forward.
She was about to say that the slander the Grand Duke had just heard was not true, that Alisha was innocent, that everyone here was trustworthy, and that even though the Grand Duke was her fiancé, the two were not yet married.
Reikart didn’t even give Daisy, who was trying to step forward, a glance.
Alisha overlapped her hand on Daisy’s hand, which was trying to stop her.
“It’s okay.”
Daisy was happy with the change in her young lady, who had become much more outgoing.
But she thought it was absurd that Alisha would single out a family worker who had come to pay his respects and make him stay, or that she would oppress him.
The slander was a clear lie.
There was no way Alisha was involved in a crime.
The slander had to make sense, and it was absurd that the Graitz family was making presumptions against Alisha.
Daisy wanted to lash out at the Grand Duke, saying that there was no way our young lady would do that, but she held back for now.
A maid was like air.
Above all, Alisha said it was okay and wanted her to leave, so she lowered herself.
“I will leave.”
When Daisy stepped forward first, Roderick and Henrik also stepped back.
The display case that divided the secret space and the reception room returned to its place.
Only Reikart and Alisha remained in the luxurious fact.
Reikart sat at the opposite end of the table.
“Did you kill him?”
Dry words were thrown from that end to this end.
Alisha widened her eyes at the question that had crossed the table.
“Excuse me…?”
Alisha tried to make her voice, which was full of embarrassment, sound as if she had spat out absurd words.
