The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 131

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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 131

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The Oath responded to her will.

Oaths surged within Hanna’s body. A vow to obey her master was carved into her flesh.

Immediately after, the blackened magic power writhed and was repelled from her body. It circled around Hanna’s body like a ghost, then looked toward Lillieta before disappearing with a whoosh.

Then Hanna collapsed to the ground with a thud.

Lillieta watched the scene blankly, then cautiously called out to her while maintaining her gun-pointing stance.

“Hanna?”

“Ah, Miss…”

“It is you, Hanna, right?”

As she asked this, she carefully reached out her hand to Hanna. She placed her hand on her shoulder and let Oaths flow into her.

“Yes, sob, yes… It’s, it’s me, I am, just now, did, did I succeed in making an oath? That, that mage…”

Inside the sobbing Hanna’s body, there was nothing but the freshly surged Oaths. She couldn’t sense any foreign magic power or traces of spells.

Lillieta realized more accurately than Hanna herself what had just happened.

‘Pascal… gave up on the possession.’

Because Hanna had become an Oathbinder.

Moreover, she had made the same oath as Ethan – to obey her master’s commands. Due to that restriction, there was no way left to properly control that body.

‘My goodness.’

She lowered her gun.

Why she hadn’t used the scales, when and how Pascal had made contact with her, how she had been able to resist Pascal’s possession, how she had ended up making the same oath as Ethan.

There were many things she wanted to ask, but now wasn’t the time for such questions.

Lillieta pulled the hand she had placed on her shoulder and embraced Hanna. She hugged the crying girl and said,

“Yes, your oath was successful. You’re an Oathbinder now, Hanna.”

“…!”

“That mage has disappeared too. Unlike ten years ago, this time you defeated him. You did really well.”

“Ah, Miss…!”

Hanna burst into tears and snot as she threw her arms around Lillieta. She held and comforted the maid who was clinging to her.

Richard, who had been freed from the chains when Pascal disappeared, belatedly approached them.

“Rita.”

“Oh, brother, what just happened was…”

“Your arm.”

Richard urgently grabbed Lillieta’s shoulder as she tried to explain.

He pushed back her cloak and confirmed that the arm inside was unharmed, then let out the breath he had been holding. Then he forced a weary smile.

“The cloak works well. See, I told you that you should wear it.”

“…”

Rita opened her mouth then closed it again.

The retort that if Richard had been wearing this cloak in the first place, she wouldn’t have needed to stick her arm into the Mimic’s mouth to block it almost came out but went back in.

Because his face clearly showed just how shocked and worried he had been.

She spoke to her brother, who was anxiously checking her condition, in as calm a voice as possible.

“I’m not hurt anywhere, I’m fine. Let’s talk while heading to the ballroom. We need to treat Leon first.”

She helped up Hanna, who was still clinging to her. Hanna sniffled and asked,

“Treatment? Don’t tell me the young duke was injured?”

“Yes. That’s why we need to hurry.”

She showed the healing potion and extended her arm to Richard. He silently picked her up and took the lead. Hanna followed with quick steps.

While moving to the ballroom, Rita briefly explained to Richard that Hanna had almost been controlled by a mage called ‘Pascal’, just like when she had been kidnapped ten years ago, and had cleverly thwarted that scheme using an oath.

She then informed Hanna about the demon beasts currently roaming in the shadows of this manor.

“I just burst one of its eyes, so it’ll be quiet for a while recovering, but it’ll appear again soon. Mimics recover incredibly fast when they enter shadows.”

“The bad mage disappeared, didn’t he? Then shouldn’t that demon beast disappear too? If, if it’s a monster summoned by the mage…”

Hanna asked hesitantly. Rita smiled bitterly while being held in Richard’s arms.

“That demon beast was indeed created and released into this manor by the archmage ‘Pascal’, but the demon beast won’t disappear just because Pascal left. Demon beasts aren’t like a mage’s summoned creatures – they’re separate entities… It’s even questionable whether Pascal could control them.”

Could a mage who uses magic power have a way to control demon beasts born from magic power contamination?

She had already discussed this issue with Olivia. The conclusion had been skeptical.

“I think it’s entirely possible for an archmage to create demon beasts. With that damn star and enough time, even I could do it. You just contaminate magic power and inject it into an object you want to turn into a demon beast, right? But controlling it is an entirely different matter.”

“Magic doesn’t work on demon beasts. Why do you think mages can’t use attack magic on demon beasts? Even contamination prevention magic only prevents spells from collapsing when in contact with demon beasts – it has no effect on the demon beasts themselves.”

“As long as he’s a mage, even Pascal can’t directly cast magic on demon beasts. That means there’s no way to command them. Of course, if he has power that goes beyond the standards of ‘magic’, that would be a different story…”

It would be impossible for a mage.

But since they didn’t know Pascal’s limits, if he had means other than magic, it might be possible for him to give commands to demon beasts.

‘I should keep the possibility open. But conventionally it’s impossible, and in reality, the demon beasts that have appeared so far have only rampaged according to instinct, except for the intelligent Doppelganger.’

The Mimic that appeared this time was the same.

If Pascal could directly control it, when he had bound Richard with chains earlier, the Mimic would have launched more lethal attacks instead of simply targeting his neck.

In that case, Pascal could have chanted spells in a much more advantageous state.

‘The Mimic didn’t show its true form then. So that wasn’t a coordinated attack following Pascal’s orders, but just it jumping out to take advantage of the opportunity when prey was caught.’

The bizarre giant form with reptilian skin isn’t the Mimic’s real appearance. That too is just a kind of human mimicry and hunting shell.

When it truly wants to fight, it sheds all shells and reveals its true form. This was also something she learned when subjugating Mimics with Beacon at age 17.

‘Right now the Mimic is just focused on hunting. It might be angry that its eyeball burst, but it’ll recover quickly anyway, so it won’t feel any sense of crisis about possibly dying.’

In other words, the Mimic remaining in Creme Dome would continue to move according to its innate habits.

‘At least that’s good news.’

They had reached the ballroom.

Richard’s face turned pale when he saw Leonhardt’s condition under the curtain. Rita handed him the healing potion and asked him to treat their eldest brother’s neck.

She then had Hanna bring all the candlesticks in the ballroom nearby. While the two moved busily, she kept her vision wide and monitored the shadows.

Fortunately, the Mimic didn’t appear, perhaps recovering its eye. If Pascal had been controlling it, he wouldn’t have given them time to prepare like this and would have continued attacking, so her guess seemed correct.

As Lillieta instructed, Hanna arranged candlesticks around them. The candles arranged in a large circle created a flickering boundary that cut through the shadows.

There were shadows inside the light line too, but since she had used the lined candles to cut them off from the outer shade, at least the Mimic wouldn’t jump out from within this area.

While creating this small safe zone, Richard roughly finished treating Leonhardt.

“I applied it mainly to the severely torn parts. If we use more potion, poisoning symptoms might appear, so we should stop here.”

“Okay. Good work, Richard. It’s safe inside here, so rest a bit.”

While Richard caught his breath wiping his blood-soaked hands, Rita called Hanna over to sit.

“Hanna.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Is your tongue okay? You bit it earlier.”

“Oh, it’s, it’s fine! The bleeding already stopped…”

“Still, apply some potion.”

Rita handed over the healing potion left from treating Leonhardt. Hanna looked down at the potion placed in her hands with a tearful face and nodded.

“Thank you, Miss…”

After watching her roughly apply the potion inside her mouth, Rita asked,

“Hanna, your oath… it’s exactly the same as Ethan’s, right? The one you recognize as master is…”

“Of course it’s you, Miss.”

“…I see.”

Even though she had expected it, a sigh escaped. Even when living as Ethan’s master, she had thought about it, but having someone become entirely her responsibility was a heavy matter.

She closed her eyes tightly and opened them to organize her complex feelings and the tension still circling throughout her body.

Focus on the immediate situation…

‘Wait, quite some time has passed but Lindsey still hasn’t returned. Did we miss each other? Or could it be…’

The nightmare she had tried to suppress crept up stealthily. Incomplete corpses appeared in her flickering vision.

Rita suppressed the urge to bite her lips by looking at the person she was responsible for in front of her and her brother who was glancing at her with concern.

Instead of biting her lips, she felt her nails digging into her palm in her tightly clenched fist. Along with the slight pain, her mind straightened. She focused on the immediate situation again.

‘…The Mimic wouldn’t suddenly go somewhere else after having its eyeball burst. Once it finishes recovering, it’ll probably target me first.’

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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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