The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 127

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 127

Lindsey’s quarters were located right near Lillieta’s bedroom, just like her dedicated maid Hanna, thanks to her status as an amethyst.

‘I’ll knock out any conspicuous guards or night watchmen on the way, quietly wake Lindsey, then grab healing potions from my room.’

This was a choice she would never have made before.

Compared to the possibility of Lindsey making mistakes when facing a named magical beast for the first time, or the inefficiency of having to explain about Mimics while leading the inexperienced Lindsey, it would be much safer and more effective for her to endure the pain and push herself a bit harder.

‘But getting help would be the best option, right?’

She asked inwardly to her absent comrade.

She tore curtains from the ballroom to cover the unconscious Leonhardt, then began moving with limping steps.

Deliberately letting her energy leak out so she would feel more lively and appetizing to the Mimic.

The great manor at night was utterly silent. Moonlight and starlight divided by window lattices cast shadows over the purple-carpeted corridor and cream-colored wallpaper.

Everywhere not painted by the night sky was darkness. The shadows of vases, sculptures, and tapestries flowed gracefully between darkness and darkness like a single painting.

A nightmare roamed through those endless shadows. A mimic that devoured people and wore their shells.

That single fact transformed the peaceful sleeping landscape of Creme Dome into something eerie.

Here, that thing, exists.

The more clearly she recognized this fact, the more unstable her mind became. Every time she blinked, she alternately saw the carpeted corridor and ruins littered with incomplete corpses.

Sometimes those corpses changed into faces she knew. Students, maids, secretaries, friends, colleagues, family, comrades.

Rita struggled to steady her increasingly rapid breathing. She controlled the rising fear and the explosive sounds faintly echoing in her ears by biting her lips.

No matter how terrifying and maddening it was, if she lost her reason, the nightmares flickering before her eyes would become reality.

‘Endure. Just think about what needs to be done. Focus on the objective and the plan.’

Lillieta did what needed to be done.

She carefully moved her leg that was throbbing from running earlier. She knocked out a guard near the ballroom and laid him down, then additionally knocked out a servant on night duty patrolling the corridor.

After that, Lindsey’s room was right in front of her.

‘About 20 minutes so far. No digestive scent yet.’

About 10 minutes to stop Leonhardt’s bleeding, roughly 10 minutes to move from the ballroom to here. The nightmare hadn’t emerged yet and was still in the shadows.

Even though it was difficult to detect the Mimic itself, she could sense the reactions of people being attacked by it, just as she had sensed Leonhardt’s presence, so she probably hadn’t missed another victim.

She hoped not.

Rita quietly knocked on Lindsey’s locked door. The amethyst trained as the family’s secretary and guard immediately woke at the small knocking sound and quietly opened the door.

“…!”

Lindsey Dyce saw her master standing expressionlessly with tattered, blood-beaded lips. Her negligee was torn to shreds at the bottom, and she wore a blood-soaked gown over it.

Her dark eyes widened above her beauty mark.

“My lady? What on earth….”

“A named magical beast has infiltrated Creme Dome. Can you follow my instructions exactly from now on?”

At the voice flowing out without inflection, Lindsey, who was holding the door, hardened her expression and nodded.

“Of course, my lady.”

“First, do you know where Ethan’s room is? We need to wake him.”

“You mean Ethan from Beacon? The one disguised as our family’s footman… My pride as an amethyst has been hurt in many ways by not noticing his suspicious nature, so I know his location well.”

“Then guide me.”

Rita cut off her words abruptly, then suddenly pulled Lindsey toward her and aimed her pistol behind her. She immediately pulled the trigger.

The dull sound of the silent bullet was followed by a thud.

It was the sound made when the Mimic that had leaped out from the shadows of the half-open door dodged the bullet and jumped into the shadow of Lindsey’s bed, knocking over the bedside table with its giant-like body.

‘It saw the liver and immediately hid, damn thing.’

Rita ground her teeth.

Still, it was good news that it was hovering near her rather than somewhere random. It was worth leaking Oaths all over the place.

‘Or maybe it’s angry at me because it hurts after getting hit with a few bullets. Either way is fine.’

A porcelain cup that had been on the shaken bedside table fell and rolled across the floor with a clatter. Lindsey, who had nearly fallen toward Rita, straightened her body and caught the rolling cup with her foot. She inhaled roughly and whispered.

“My, my lady, just now that was….”

“Right, the magical beast hiding in this manor. Commonly called Mimic, its characteristics are―”

Just as she was about to explain the magical beast’s characteristics, she sensed a presence from below.

The vibration and noise just now were at a level that deeply sleeping people wouldn’t notice, but it was enough to wake a supreme knight who had trauma from his sister disappearing while he slept restlessly.

Within Rita’s detection range, which she had extended as widely as possible with heightened nerves, she could clearly feel Richard on the floor below rushing out of his bedroom and running toward the stairs.

‘No!’

Supreme knight or not, if he wasn’t an Oathbinder, his aura would just become corrupted and turn him into a new magical beast. She had to put him back to sleep.

She started to go there but hesitated and looked back at Lindsey.

“Lindsey, right now my leg is―”

“Where should we go?”

Her amethyst lifted her up before she could finish speaking.

Lillieta quickly pointed toward the stairs. Lindsey immediately ran. It was a speed that didn’t seem like she was carrying a person.

“Aren’t I heavy?”

“You feel lighter than when I used to use aura.”

Lindsey Dyce originally had the skills of about a mid-level knight who could handle aura but couldn’t manifest sword energy. She was more familiar with dagger techniques than swordsmanship, a talent specialized in close-range protection.

Knights who used aura generally awakened as enhancement types. But Lindsey, who had become an Oathbinder, wasn’t an enhancement type but a fabrication type, and she didn’t have the qualities to become a mage or the various fabrication talents needed for Mage Gunners.

“Well, you’re a lightning mage now….”

A case where one could only fabricate Oaths into a single type, but the speed and power of that fabrication were exceptional.

In the Ash-covered Era, such single-fabrication type Oathbinders were called ‘mages’. If you could only fabricate fire, you became a flame mage; if you could only fabricate lightning, you became a lightning mage.

And among lightning mages, there was a type that couldn’t implement large-scale lightning but was skilled at fabricating minute electrical currents, interfering with the body’s electrical signals to move more nimbly than even enhancement types.

Lindsey was exactly that type of lightning mage.

Even while carrying a person, she reached the stairs at a speed similar to Richard’s. The siblings’ gazes met from the top and bottom of the stairs.

“Li―”

“Shh.”

Rita held her finger in front of her lips to stop her brother from calling out to her. Richard reflexively closed his mouth. Lindsey carried her down the stairs and approached him.

Seeing Lillieta’s condition, his eyes widened.

“You…!”

For a brief moment, Rita had a new dilemma.

If she told Richard, who saw her wearing a blood-soaked gown over her torn negligee with injured lips, that nothing happened and to go back to sleep, would he obediently go to sleep?

‘Absolutely not.’

But to knock him out, there was the problem of the supreme knight’s fast reaction speed during his smooth rehabilitation.

The optimal method would be for her to personally shoot a paralysis bullet while making Richard let his guard down.

Compared to that, the best option was….

Lillieta instantly rearranged the three operational objectives and the people beside her in her mind.

Her judgment was quick, and her decision was even quicker. She tapped Lindsey’s arm and stepped down in front of her pale brother.

“Brother Richard.”

“You, what’s that blood? And why are your lips in that state―”

“Lower your voice. This is an extremely dangerous situation right now. This isn’t my blood, so don’t worry.”

“What? Then whose blood is it?”

“I don’t have time to explain in detail. You just need to trust me and follow along. Can you do that?”

Richard stared at her with a bewildered expression. Her pale expressionless face and clear eyes. Soon he nodded as if he had made up his mind.

“I don’t know what it is, but of course I have to trust you. What should I do?”

“Carry me around, brother. If I try to move with my current leg, I’ll have to accept that my injury will worsen.”

He lifted her without complaint. Rita, held in his arms, took out a hand mirror and held it out to Lindsey.

“Lindsey, you know what this is, right?”

“Yes. It’s a communicator, isn’t it? I learned how to use it from Commander Olivia.”

“Good. That magical beast we saw earlier moves through shadows, you see? So go to a place where shadows aren’t connected, the brightest place possible, and try to communicate with this.”

“Yes. What should I communicate?”

“Mimic appeared at Creme Dome. If you just send that, everyone will understand.”

“Understood.”

“You can’t communicate from places where shadows are even slightly connected. You’ll have to keep searching for places where it works. Near the garden streetlights would have the highest possibility, right? We’ll keep luring it, but the Mimic might still come for you, so be extremely careful near shadows.”

“Understood.”

“And stop by the servant’s quarters on the way to quietly wake Ethan. Can you do it?”

“Of course. These are just missions where I need to avoid shadows well, aren’t they? Don’t worry, my lady.”

“…Be careful. Never let your guard down.”

“Yes, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Lindsey bowed her head and leaped through the window while holding the hand mirror. Her black hair tied in a single strand disappeared into the Garden.

Rita forcibly suppressed the anxiety and worry that welled up toward her, who was still a novice as an Oathbinder.

‘If I’ve assigned her a mission, I need to trust her.’

She had entrusted Lindsey with the first objective of communicating with Beacon and the additional goal of rendezvous with Ethan.

Now she and Richard had to achieve the second and third objectives together. Knocking out all the people who were awake, turning on the Manor’s lights, and moving around actively to serve as bait.

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