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Chapter 65 – Adelle is in danger?!
The intruder looked up and saw a woman smiling at him, which made him think that she might have gone there to help him. However, when he looked into her eyes, he discovered an impregnable coldness which sent shivers down his spine.
It was in that exact moment that the intruder discovered the cruel reality, not only he would be unable to succeed in his mission, even going back alive would prove to be almost impossible for him. He suddenly regretted having accepted that mission, he had forgotten that the Hexenwunder academy was neutral ground and no one had ever returned after infiltrating it.
The woman moved her left hand and the intruder felt he had lost control of his own body. His body stood up from the floor against his own will and then kneeled before the woman. The intruder didn’t truly understand what had happened, but there was one thing he understood clearly, the woman in front of him could force him to commit suicide without even touching him… and that simple thought brought him endless despair.
Headmistress: “Speak. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
Intruder: “I don’t have a name, I’m a member of the Dushe Consortium and I came here to secure the daywalking vampire?”
*To secure the daywalking vampire?* muttered the headmistress, then she came to the realization of who he meant *Mina Nosferati!*
Headmistress: “How do you now of her existence? Not even her teachers have been informed of her race and condition!”
Intruder: “You certainly underestimate the reach of our Dushe Consortium’s information network! We learned of her existence after capturing a vampire from a fallen clan, he sold her out in exchange for his life. What a fool!”
Headmistress: “That still doesn’t explain how you knew she was here.”
Intruder: “Blame her beauty! She has such an outstanding body that nobody who sees her forgets her. That made tracking her movements far easier than usual.”
She understood the intruder had spoken the truth, the girl was difficult to miss due to her beauty, but it still wasn’t enough to explain why the consortium wanted to abduct her. The headmistress felt that something wasn’t right, yet she couldn’t put her finger on what that was.
Headmistress: “For what reason would the Dushe Consortium get that girl?”
Intruder: “There is a division inside our consortium which is entirely made of vampires. However, they are useless for missions during the daytime. The idea was to capture the girl and experiment on her to find a way to artificially give the daywalker trait to our members.”
*How cruel!* thought the headmistress.
The headmistress was furious, not only did they dare try to abduct one of her students, the consortium even tried to do so under her watch. In addition, their target was precisely her daughter! The headmistress only feared one person in the whole world, and that was her!
If her daughter was abducted under her watch due to her negligence… The headmistress shivered in fear, just imagining her reaction terrified her! She had originally planned to get rid of the intruder, but that would only make the consortium send more of them, instead she decided to use the intruder to give a message to his superiors.
The headmistress put her right hand on the intruder’s head and murmured a spell, soon after his eyes became lifeless and bowed his head toward her. She wore a satisfied smile on her face, but it was a smile which had traces of a badly hidden viciousness. Looking at the intruder in front of her, she spoke.
Headmistress: “Raise, my puppet.”
The intruder stood up and kept bowing his head toward her.
Headmistress: “Go back to your base and give this message to your superiors: ‘The daywalker girl is under my personal protection, any attempt against her is tantamount to attacking me, and the perpetrators will be dealt accordingly. The next time something like this happens, your Dushe Consortium will cease to exist!’ After delivering the message take your own life!”
Intruder: “Yes, mistress.”
The intruder quickly disappeared from sight and the headmistress went back to her office. As soon as she arrived, she dropped in a sofa and tried to get some rest. The spell she had used to turn the intruder into a living puppet had taken a serious toll on her.
That spell would take a great toll on a regular magus. She didn’t suffer much recoil from the spell, but it still was a forbidden art, and the headmistress wasn’t that young anymore. Those facts combined with the large amounts of magic she had previously used during the day, made her feel her age and forced her to stop for a while and rest.
Meanwhile, Mina, who was unaware of how close she had been to becoming the guinea pig of some unscrupulous men, was asleep in her bed, murmuring Merlin’s name. She wouldn’t admit it, but the 6-year-old little man had engraved his existence in her heart that day, and she couldn’t wait to see him again.
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The morning came and with it, a new day started for the people in the Pendragon household. As soon as Merlin woke up, Shin entered the room through the open window. Merlin had intended to go looking for him during the day, but Shin coming to him on his own saved him the trouble.
Shin: “Good morning, master.”
Merlin: “Good morning, Shin. I was going to look for you later during the day but now that you are here… Is there some problem I need to be aware of? You seem to have come looking for me too hastily!”
Shin: “Master, this is important! We have captured several men trying to infiltrate Ragnarök and Laklostia!”
Merlin: “WHAT?!”
Shin: “Please, keep your voice down, master!”
Merlin immediately created a soundproofing barrier before continuing talking with Shin. He had unknowingly shout when he learnt about those men. With how the city had been constructed and the many secrets it seemed to hide, the appearance of infiltrators was completely within expectations. However, precisely because it was within expectations, it was shocking that Shin would bring it up.
Merlin: “Is there some kind of special reason why you brought it up to me instead of dealing with them as usual?”
Shin: “Yes, master. They were trained professionals who died poisoned not long after their capture!”
Merlin: “Did your sister Sayori use them as guinea pigs for a new compound of hers? Next time, make sure that you can interrogate them before letting Sayori use her poisons on them. It is useless to capture them if we are unable to gain some intel from them!”
Shin: “I am well aware of that, master. However, They were the ones who caused their own deaths when they swallowed the poison pills they had on their bodies.”
This news made Merlin frown in worry. So far, the infiltrators had not shown such a strong desire of hiding their background and master, and after cracking them down, they had spilled the beans. But now, over a dozen infiltrators had taken their own lives without even giving the “Council of ten” the chance to interrogate them.
Not having any prior encounter with enemies who had such decisiveness in taking their own lives in case of capture, Merlin was at a loss of what to do. The lack of information was killing him, and without enough information, it was impossible for him to make a proper judgement.
Merlin: “Do we have any other information on those men? What was their mission? What contacts they might have in the city… Do we know anything that might give us a clue about their identity?”
Shin: “They had viper heads tattooed on their chests.”
Merlin: “…”
Turning pale after hearing Shin’s words, Merlin’s mind was in turmoil. He had made sure there were no traces left which could lead back to him, how had the Dushe Consortium tracked him down to the location of his family house? Merlin’s face made a hideous expression and asked Shin in a dark tone.
Merlin: “How did they track me down here?”
Shin: “Master, I don’t think that they were after you.”
Shin’s words surprised Merlin, as far as he knew, the only person of interest for the Dushe Consortium in his territory should be him. Was there someone else he wasn’t aware of? In addition, due to the modus operandi of the consortium, they shouldn’t be making any operation in his territory, not yet. It made him curious of who that person might be.
Merlin: “Who were they after then?”
Shin: “They didn’t say, but all of them had this portrait hidden in their clothes.”
Shin passed a piece of parchment to Merlin and he saw there the portrait of a 5 or 6-year-old girl. Merlin felt it looked familiar, but he was unable to know exactly why.
Merlin: “Who is the girl? Why do I feel that I have seen her before somewhere?”
Shin: “It’s an old portrait. Add 1 or 2 years to her face, imagine the face a little less chubby due to training in martial arts, and you will discover her identity, master.”
Merlin did as Shin had instructed, and he discovered, to his own astonishment, that the portrait belonged to Adelle. However, that portrait depicted the girl before she had met with him. With the exception of some common features, the girl in the portrait and the current Adelle looked completely different, so much so, that it was no wonder those men from the consortium had been unable to recognize her.
Merlin: “Do we know why they wanted to find Adelle?”
Shin: “We were unable to elicit such information from them before they killed themselves, but the items the have on they body are enough evidence to make an educated guess.”
Merlin: “And what would that guess be?”
Shin: “These men seemed to be an assassination squad, and it is highly likely that Adelle was their target.”
Merlin: “Who would send an assassination squad against a 7-year-old girl?”
Shin: “We don’t know, but Argenta pointed out several facts which could lead to the contractor. For example, the portrait. It shows an Adelle even younger than I have ever seen her, which means the person who wants her life hasn’t seen her for a very long time.”
Those words made Merlin think back to the day the King had forcibly given him Adelle as his fiancée, the day he had learned she had royal blood in her veins… and the reason why the King was entrusting his daughter to him. If Merlin was unable to see the connection, then he would do better going to plow a piece of land and becoming a farmer instead of continuing as an adventurer.
Merlin: “Do we have to expect more people coming after Adelle?”
Shin: “This is the first time those people have come looking for her, which means the contract on her life has been recently made. I would expect more people coming after her.”
Merlin: “I was afraid you would say that… If they come, deal with them like you did with the others. If after 3 months they still continue sending people, then it will be time to send a message to the closest base of the consortium.”
Shin: “What kind of message?”
Merlin: “The kind that works like a charm and makes people understand that offending our ‘Council of ten’ has heavy consequences!”
The rage contained in Merlin’s words made Shin shudder, he had heard about the events that had taken place in the capital of Klausna Kingdom prior to Merlin falling in a coma, but he had never seen Merlin so mad.
Shin took a mental note of never ever making Merlin mad at him, for he wasn’t sure he would be able to survive if he did. Actually, Merlin would never kill him just because he was angry with him, but the current Merlin was giving off such a murderous aura that Shin had stopped thinking clearly.
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A/N: Non-proofread version. Please do point out any mistake you might spot. Thank you!
is there any update?
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