The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 193
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 193
“Yes.”
A blue glowing bird flew down to Lillieta, who nodded her head. She extended her arm to let the bird perch, then whispered toward the Countess.
“Thank you, mother.”
“….”
As if she had heard the words she swallowed.
The Countess raised her hand to lift it, then stopped and quietly clenched it. Lillieta smiled faintly and turned around.
After briefly checking on Richard, who Leonhardt was frantically treating, she hurriedly took her steps.
* * *
Hanna was holding her breath while blocking the constantly flowing nosebleed with a handkerchief.
Inside a small warehouse in the corner of the Podonamu Estate’s garden.
Ethan, who had returned after looking outside, saw her pale complexion and frowned deeply.
“Damn it, that’s why you shouldn’t do unnecessary things—”
“Don’t, don’t swear….”
Ethan flinched and closed his mouth. Hanna adjusted her grip on the handkerchief and protested quietly.
“And, and, what I did… it helped. Right?”
“…Yeah, right. We would’ve been screwed without you.”
Ethan sat down next to Hanna while covering one side of his ribs with his hand. Hanna anxiously glanced at the blood flowing between his fingers.
“That, that wound of yours….”
“This much is nothing, so worry about your own nosebleed.”
He replied curtly and grabbed Hanna’s nose with his right arm that moved unnaturally, sewn with thread.
“Why won’t this stop? Damn it, I don’t know much about communication users so I can’t tell. Where the hell did you learn such a crazy technique anyway?”
“From Miss… Ow, Ethan.”
At Hanna’s weak mumbling, Ethan startled and pulled his hand away, then grumbled.
“Shit, you’re so damn weak.”
“Your strength is just too much.”
Hanna grumbled while pressing the handkerchief to her nose and lifting her head. Then she frowned at the feeling of the nosebleed flowing down her throat.
Ethan watched her quietly, then let out a sigh as if he would vomit his organs and leaned his back against the pile of cargo in the warehouse while clutching his ribs.
In that position, he removed his blood-soaked hand and pulled out white glowing thread to begin stitching his wound.
Hanna stared blankly at him sewing his own flesh without a single groan, recalling the battle that had just occurred—no, the death struggle.
* * *
The battle that began with his right arm blown off was extremely disadvantageous for Ethan. It was even more so because he had to fight while protecting the powerless Hanna.
The reason he had told Hanna to send communication first was because he knew well that the situation wasn’t good.
But when Hanna relayed Oli’s briefing, he immediately refused support.
“Over there is also a complete mess. They don’t have the luxury to listen to our whining. Besides, we don’t need to catch and kill all these bastards, we just need to escape from here.”
Having said that, Ethan carried Hanna on his back and brilliantly dodged the Joker to leap through a window.
After that, it was a continuous cycle of pursuit and escape. During that process, Hanna desperately realized.
‘If it weren’t for me, he would have escaped long ago….’
Ethan had stealth abilities. The Joker seemed to be able to track him to some extent, but the Card Soldiers scattered throughout the garden couldn’t detect his stealth at all.
If it weren’t for Hanna, he would have escaped leisurely without even being caught by the monsters. Unable to bear the guilt, she apologized.
“Sorry, Ethan. If it weren’t for me, you could have escaped easily, but because of me….”
“What bullshit are you talking about? I came here to protect you in the first place. If I abandon the objective, would that be a mission?”
“Wasn’t the mission objective to secure evidence? You could just take the evidence we found and get out.”
“Oh, yeah, if I leave you here and just take the evidence, Rita would be fucking delighted, right?”
“Ah, I see. Because of Miss—”
“…What do you mean ‘I see,’ you airhead! Where did my promise not to let you die go?”
Hanna couldn’t understand why Ethan was suddenly getting angry. She already knew well that she was nothing to him, so why was he suddenly getting upset out of nowhere.
“Okay, I won’t apologize. Thank you for not abandoning me and protecting me.”
“Wow, this is really….”
Even when she said thank you instead of apologizing, he still got angry, which was truly incomprehensible behavior, but she decided to just accept it.
Because honestly, she was truly grateful.
Because she didn’t know he would try to protect her so properly like this.
Because even though he still couldn’t escape due to the burden that was her, couldn’t fight properly, and was only accumulating wounds, Ethan didn’t get angry at her about that at all.
Hanna upgraded him from handsome trash to handsome scoundrel.
Up to that point, it was relatively peaceful.
As Olivia had said, Isaiah’s summoned creature flew over and provided aerial view transmission, so they were slowly but safely escaping through the Podonamu Estate’s garden filled with Card Soldiers while avoiding the Joker.
Then suddenly the Card Soldiers’ movements changed and the situation worsened.
The bastards that had been recklessly searching everywhere suddenly formed orderly ranks and began systematically searching the garden by dividing into sections.
Like an army.
They even shot down the blue bird that kept circling in the sky. It was human-like judgment to eliminate suspicious things first.
The Joker, which had been randomly rummaging here and there, also changed its movements. It checked places suitable for two people to hide with planned and efficient routes, then found them in an instant.
Having lost even the aerial view, they couldn’t avoid the Joker. When Ethan had no choice but to try fighting it, instead of attacking immediately, it retreated far back.
Then Card Soldiers quickly swarmed over and surrounded the area. The Joker hid among the soldiers and persistently ambushed Hanna, then when blocked by Ethan, it would go into stealth repeatedly.
It wasn’t the behavior of a mindless monster. Movements that seemed to thoroughly execute tactics formulated by analyzing weaknesses.
Ethan, who knew the only case where so many monsters acted in unison, spat out curses.
“Fuck, could it be a Commander? We’re screwed.”
Hanna didn’t know what a Commander was, but she definitely knew he was in crisis. And that she was becoming his weakness.
She trembled behind Ethan’s back while recalling a conversation she once had with Lillieta.
During the preparation process before becoming the Duke’s Daughter.
While asking various things about what techniques a transmission-type communication user could use, she suddenly became curious.
“They’re all communication-related abilities. Do communication users have no way to fight at all?”
“It’s not that there isn’t any.”
Lillieta, who answered that way, thought for a moment then told her about a technique of a communication user she had witnessed on the battlefield.
“I’m not a transmission-type either, and I wasn’t close to that communication user… I just saw the result and guessed this might be the principle. My guess could be wrong, so don’t try it carelessly.”
After that, she said she would ask Olivia and Isaiah to find out if this technique was effective. She told her never to practice it before then because she could get hurt.
Hanna had followed her words well.
She didn’t have the leisure for other things since she was already overwhelmed with communication technique practice, basic training that Ethan put her through, and crash course noble etiquette education.
So this was her first attempt.
The Joker popped out right in front of Hanna’s nose. Ethan, who had been surrounded by Card Soldiers, ignored the spear piercing his body and pulled Hanna toward him.
The Joker’s staff swung toward his head as he embraced her. Ethan, pierced by the spear, couldn’t avoid it.
At that moment, Hanna moved her Oaths the way Lillieta had speculated.
While screaming at the top of her lungs, she loaded that scream into her Oaths, amplified it, and ‘communicated’ it.
Not to people, but directly to the monsters’ ears.
She delivered it to the ears of all monsters around her except Ethan, who was holding her in his arms.
When the high, sharp scream was amplified and pierced directly into their eardrums, the Card Soldiers stiffened and either dropped their spears or covered their ears. Some even staggered and collapsed.
The Joker was no exception. It was startled and dropped the staff it was swinging, hunching its shoulders.
Ethan didn’t miss that opportunity.
He immediately swung his thread to cut the Joker’s neck, and before it could revive, he carried Hanna and escaped from that spot.
Then he hid in the Garden Storehouse in the corner.
While being carried by him, Hanna felt a sharp ringing in her ears along with a nosebleed starting to flow.
It was due to excessive contamination that flowed back while communicating with many monsters. It was also because her contamination resistance had dropped from consuming a large amount of Oaths in an instant.
Inside the warehouse, Ethan grabbed her as she was bleeding profusely from her nose and couldn’t regain her senses, then yelled at her.
“Hey! Draw up all your remaining Oaths and push them into the area where the contamination is spreading! That’s the only way you’ll survive!”
“Uh, uh… I, I don’t know where that is…”
“There’s got to be somewhere that feels wrong! You have to do it! Damn it, I don’t know how to inject Oaths safely like Gid does!”
Hanna listened to his shouting through the ringing in her ears and somehow managed to gather her remaining Oaths and move them. Continuously, to her ears where the ringing persisted.
As a result, she barely managed to push back the contamination and stabilize, but her nosebleed wouldn’t stop easily.
That was her current state.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————