When she saw Anderson, Ainola actually felt an inexplicable joy of reunion in her heart, but she couldn’t show it.
After all, her current identity was that of an ordinary, unarmed nun.
But the moment she remembered that her mission was to find something within the Temple Knights…
Ainola couldn’t help but curse twice in her mind about this persistent ghost.
“Ahem!”
However, Ainola maintained a calm demeanor and spoke in a crisp, pleasant voice completely different from before.
“This is a song I learned by hearsay. I don’t even know who the original composer was.”
“Is that so…”
Anderson, having combined the letter Ainola left behind and spent some time investigating, had also discovered her true identity—a princess who had lost her country and was now wandering adrift.
Her country was none other than the Ross Kingdom, destroyed by the Glory Empire ten years ago.
Thinking of this, Anderson couldn’t help but feel a sliver of sympathy for this nun.
Just like Ainola, she too must be a displaced person, right?
“Miss Nun, may I ask for your name?”
“Such a pick-up line is a bit outdated, don’t you think?”
Ainola… that is, Eleanor, refused Anderson’s question with a very innocent smile, then picked up her broom and prepared to go clean.
Anderson watched Eleanor’s retreating figure, feeling a lingering sense of dissatisfaction for a moment.
He missed Ainola.
Although Ainola had caused him a lot of trouble and, the scoundrel, had even poisoned him…
It was undeniable that from the moment he first saved her, Ainola had become the pure, idealized figure in his heart.
But now she was gone, whereabouts unknown, and he had no idea if she was safe or not, so Anderson couldn’t help but worry a little.
As for whether he hated Ainola… honestly, after learning about her past, Anderson felt she had shown him enough face by not giving him a fatal poison.
And for these past five months, Anderson had also been searching for the antidote, but he had found no leads despite traveling far and wide.
Just as Ainola had once said, if she died, then no one in this world would be able to produce the antidote.
So, whether out of a sense of guilt in his heart or for the sake of his own health, Anderson had to catch that runaway scoundrel of a princess.
Fortunately, intelligence from the Temple Knights indicated that the Red Sparrow seemed to have a target in their sights, right within Wording City.
Anderson felt a bit irritable.
After all, Temple Knights intelligence was never very reliable. If the intel was wrong, he’d just be wasting his effort again.
‘I hope this intel isn’t wrong.’
***
Time came to night.
Having rested all day and unable to figure out why Anderson was here, Ainola finally decided to just get this damn night shift over with first.
She returned to the Temple Knights’ cathedral, holding a Bible in her hand.
Eleanor’s work tonight was to maintain and service the magic crystal lamps in the cathedral hall.
“Tsk tsk…”
While inspecting the crystal lamps, Eleanor couldn’t help but mutter, “Using precious magic materials to decorate this meaningless room, what extravagance.”
Recalling her childhood, even the royal palace hadn’t used magic crystal lamps, showing just how precious these things were.
On the market, buying a single lamp probably started at several thousand gold coins, let alone the fact that there were many such lamps here.
Eleanor estimated the total cost must be in the hundreds of thousands.
Following the aisle, Eleanor moved forward, checking the condition of each crystal lamp.
The job was simple, so Eleanor had no other companions.
But when Eleanor reached the side hall, she discovered that all the magic crystal lamps in the entire corridor had gone out.
This plunged the area into deep darkness. If Eleanor didn’t have night vision, she truly wouldn’t be able to see her hand in front of her face.
‘What’s going on?’
Each magic crystal lamp was an independent unit; one going out wouldn’t affect the others.
So normally, there was absolutely no reason for an entire corridor’s worth of lamps to go out all at once.
Eleanor sensed something was wrong.
She prepared to pull the alarm to alert the patrolling Temple Knights guard to the anomaly here.
However, before Eleanor could retreat, she noticed that the lamps behind her were also going out, one after another.
Soon, the entire cathedral was plunged into darkness.
Eleanor now realized that the flow of magic within her body had become abnormally sluggish, as if blocked by something.
‘A Forbidden Magic Array?’
Drawing on the rich experience accumulated over her years as an assassin, Eleanor immediately understood what was at play.
A Forbidden Magic Array was a field that could render all spells and magical items within its range into useless scrap.
Even spells that had already been cast would be suppressed by the anti-magic field, stillborn and unable to be released.
But theoretically, this thing should have been lost to time. Why would it appear in a place like this?
While pondering, Eleanor quickly located the alarm and pressed it.
Just as she predicted, this magic-triggered alarm device had also been rendered useless.
‘It seems there are intruders.’
Eleanor was currently an unarmed nun. If she encountered intruders, the situation could become troublesome.
Escaping wasn’t difficult, but she might still leave some trace that could be detected by Anderson when he arrived.
As for engaging the intruders, that was the worst option of all.
So the only thing she could do was find a place to hide and lay low for a while.
Thinking this, Ainola decided to retreat the way she came.
She hadn’t gone far before she caught a faint scent of blood in the air, yet no sounds of fighting had erupted from anywhere around.
Eleanor concealed her form. She understood one thing now.
Without a doubt, the intruder… was an assassin.
‘Seems it’s a fellow professional.’
Before Eleanor could finish her thought, she suddenly felt a chilling, murderous intent from behind.
She knew she had been discovered by the intruder.
Therefore, Eleanor immediately pretended to be panicked, stumbling and dodging an arrow that came from behind.
The assassin hidden in the darkness, seeing he had missed his target, couldn’t help but feel annoyed.
“Tch… what kind of dumb luck?”
He naturally didn’t think Eleanor had dodged it by skill.
If she were really some strong individual, she wouldn’t be working as a nun, coming here in the middle of the night to clean magic lamps.
“Gray Wolf, what’s your situation?”
A male voice sounded in the assassin’s ear.
“Why haven’t you reached the designated location yet?”
Hearing his teammate’s urging, Gray Wolf replied impatiently.
“Ran into a nun. She ran. I’m going to finish her off first.”
With that, Gray Wolf drew his dagger and pursued in the direction Eleanor had fled.
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