The Peaceful Life Of A Maid Who Hides Her Power And Enjoys It - Chapter 159

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 159

“Knight Riwein would have been better. Or at least someone else who isn’t suspicious or dangerous.”

“Is Raphael our mom?”

Raphael glared at me and pressed his thumb firmly against his furrowed brow.

“You… Hah. Damn it, fine. Just follow me.”

I was already following without being told.

We descended deeper underground.

However, we realized an unexpected problem along the way. The structure of the underground laboratory was much more complex and vast than we had anticipated.

Raphael and I began searching in all directions while maintaining an appropriate distance where we could still hear each other’s voices.

Then at some point.

—Kiiiiaaaak!

“…Raphael, did you hear that?”

There was no answer.

I carefully moved in the direction Raphael had gone ahead. In the nearby darkness, red glowing eyes turned to look at me.

A demon.

—Kiaaak!

Crack. I drew my pearl sword and quickly bisected the demon that lunged at me. The demon’s body immediately turned to black ash and disappeared the moment it was cut in half. As if I had slashed through formless mist.

‘…An illusion?’

Only then did I realize.

This is a mental trap.

‘Since when have I been trapped? What about Raphael?’

Standing in place and slowly turning my thoughts, I reached one conclusion.

This trap is somehow strange.

Usually with mental traps, the target could only distinguish between reality and illusion when they were aware of the trap’s existence.

But here it was the opposite. Didn’t I only recognize it was a trap after the demon I tried to cut scattered like an illusion? In other words, it meant this was an unstable trap.

“Raphael! Answer me if you can hear my voice!”

—Kiiiiaaaak!

“…Hmm, I wasn’t calling for you guys.”

In the darkness, closed red eyes opened one by one. One, two, three, four… Ten of them? Isn’t that too many?

Moreover, they were ‘real’ demons that I knew. Not the weak, incomplete demons I had faced at the hunting festival, but large, swift demons with high intelligence.

“Andert!”

I heard a familiar cry that made me freeze in my sword-extended position.

Beyond the scattering black ash, I could see a woman running frantically with a corpse-like appearance. Gaunt, protruding cheekbones and sunken eyes. Though her appearance was beyond words, she was someone I couldn’t help but recognize at a glance.

“Get a hold of yourself, Andert!”

“…Natasha.”

The moment I recognized her presence. Ash swirled violently like a downpour, obscuring my vision, and the surrounding scenery instantly changed.

We were standing in a ravine.

At my feet were the corpses of Allied Forces and demons, behind me was a blazing bonfire, and beside it in a temporary shelter, I could see refugee families huddled together, trembling.

What the refugees feared wasn’t the demons. What they feared was…

Me.

“Andert! Look at me. It’s Natasha. Not a demon, but Natasha, the next lord you should serve and your spouse! Focus your mind. You mustn’t become a Black Knight!”

Natasha, who had shouted until her voice was hoarse, approached slowly with calm steps.

‘Did I become a Black Knight?’

No, that’s not right. Isn’t the sword’s resonance quiet? Besides, I was no longer a body that could become a Black Knight.

“Shh… Yes, that’s it. Stay calm. Don’t hurt yourself.”

Even so, I couldn’t push away the hand reaching out with a voice as gentle as one would use with a child. When I felt the rough fingertips touching my skin, I couldn’t help but sigh with pity.

‘Even if it’s an illusion, this appearance is too much.’

Even during wartime, she hadn’t looked this pitiful.

“It’s okay.”

Natasha stroked my face with trembling hands. Then…

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll stay by your side and protect you, Andert.”

A sharp blade pierced precisely below my heart.

“…I’ll protect you. I have to protect you, Andert.”

Once more.

“So all of you disappear.”

Once more.

“Everything that torments Andert, everything that threatens him, disappear! All of it!”

Blood gushed out like a fountain from the round hole in my left chest.

The vision shattered. The ravine with its sandstorm vanished without a trace, melting into the shadows, and darkness engulfed the surroundings again.

But something was strange.

Why could I feel pain?

Why was I hurting?

How stupid. The reason I’m in pain is simple. This is real blood, not fake. You weren’t stabbed by an illusion. You were…

Stabbed by the real Natasha.

‘Ah, damn it.’

Those demons, that ravine, those refugees! They were all Natasha’s illusions, not mine.

The Natasha before my eyes wasn’t fake. She’s real. That’s why she looked like that.

“Na, tasha.”

So you were the one who destroyed this laboratory.

After a few steps backward, my body collapsed. Clang. The blade slipped from her withered grip. Her once-bright eyes lost focus and darkened.

“…No.”

“It’s okay.”

“I didn’t do that.”

I slowly maintained my breathing while reassuring Natasha.

“I know, Natasha. It’s okay. It’s fine, so go out and find Raphael…”

“No, no, no! This isn’t right! I didn’t do this! I, I…!”

Natasha crawled away on her knees and burst into tears while holding her head in her arms.

“Help me… Please help me, Andert.”

I can’t endure any longer.

Blood trickled through the gap in my chest. Ah, right. Blood could pour out like this too. As I stared blankly at the blood pooling on the floor, I felt a familiar energy that I shouldn’t be feeling.

—Come to me.

—Become part of the divine.

Instantly, my consciousness that was about to fade snapped awake like lightning had struck.

“Don’t tell me you ate Mephistopheles’ Heart…”

Did you?

Is that why I can feel Mephistopheles’ power in the wound you made?

Ugh, the gushing blood blocked my words.

“Daisy!”

From beyond the darkness, someone screamed my name. I know this voice. It’s not Natasha’s. It was my sibling Andert’s voice.

Was he also in this basement? When I fumblingly reached out my hand, a firm warmth grasped it.

Strangely, my heart felt at ease. At the same time, a face I wanted to see floated up in my darkening vision.

‘Lu. What should I do.’

He’ll be worried.

I can’t leave him behind.

My entire body sank into a swamp. I fell endlessly, endlessly into a deep, dark pit. I know this sensation.

That sensation I felt 4 years ago.

The sensation of death.

I closed my eyes as I was dying.

.

.

.

My soul was completely shattered. I was broken.

“By whose permission?”

.

.

.

Someone whispered to me.

“You test my limits until the very end, Daisy.”

.

.

.

It seemed like strength was returning to my cracked soul.

“Don’t drag me down to being a lowly existence swayed by mere humans.”

.

.

.

Am I dead?

“….”

.

.

.

Am I dead, Lu?

“No, give up. You are.”

.

.

.

I am….

.

.

.

“Because you cannot die without my permission.”

* * *

“Gasp!”

Cold air rushed in with the force to pierce through my lungs.

My body, which had risen as if having a seizure, trembled like an aspen tree in the chill. I instinctively widened my eyes, then closed them deeply again.

“Haa, haa.”

Where is this? As my closed senses opened, countless pieces of information poured into my head.

Among them, the clearest was memory.

The cold basement floor. Natasha’s face frozen in terror. Andert’s voice calling my name.

And me, dead.

‘…Am I alive? I’m sure my heart was pierced?’

My spine felt chilled. Surely this isn’t the afterlife?

But my senses were too vivid for me to be dead. Looking around in a daze, I soon realized I was lying in a very familiar bedroom and let out a sigh of relief.

‘I wasn’t dead. I’ve returned to Midwintry.’

This was Weatherwax Manor in Midwintry. How on earth did I get back here? Did Lu carry me and fly here?

I staggered up from the bed. Fortunately, there was no major dizziness. Only my movements felt a bit uncomfortable.

‘Somehow I feel like my vision has gotten higher.’

Standing with an endlessly awkward feeling, I walked toward the mirror. And as soon as I reached the mirror, I froze solid like a rock.

Beyond the mirror stood someone who shouldn’t exist.

“…This really is the afterlife, right? Right?”

Not Daisy Weatherwax Baroness, but Andert Pager, hero of the Mage War.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————