“Dong-long, dong-long…”
Accompanied by an unnervingly steady rhythm of footsteps, a figure clad in the familiar black-and-white maid uniform entered, the apron she wore still marked with specks of blue-green herbal stains.
Her headscarf bore the emblem of the Laurel Leaf Herb—a symbol of “cleanliness” and “health.”
And… it was only her?
“Mina, what are you doing here?”
Lin Nuo, caught off guard by her sudden appearance, grabbed the blanket to cover himself.
“……”
Silence filled the air, broken only by the orange flames flickering in the fireplace, stirred by the breeze from the closing door.
Mina said nothing, quietly removing her shoes, then placing both hands behind her back and moving them a few times.
Her loosened apron fluttered to the carpet, followed by her outer blouse and dress, until even her corset was fully exposed before Lin Nuo’s eyes.
At a moment like this, with a hint of reluctant expression on her moist and delicate face, Princess Amidina—pressed helplessly against Lin Nuo’s chest—blinked several times and silently signaled to him:
‘—She came here for you?’
Lin Nuo said, “What are you doing? Having Her Highness the Princess is enough for me. You should go back. Even if you undress all the way, I won’t touch you…”
“Click.”
“……”
The corset buttons came undone one by one, and Mina’s last piece of covering fell to the floor.
Completely naked except for the headscarf, she strode straight toward the bed.
…Could she be some kind of—lover who enjoys a group?
Lin Nuo began to doubt .
At Claremont Manor, especially in the main castle, no weapons or offensive magic items are allowed inside without the owner’s permission.
They would be found during body searches by the Holy Paladin Guards.
Lin Nuo had only dared open the door and speak with the maid because he was confident that no ordinary person could smuggle a weapon inside.
Unless she hid it somewhere the Holy Knights couldn’t find…
But now Mina had stripped naked.
Wouldn’t that just prove she had no intention of harming anyone?
…Could she not be an assassin?
Just as Lin Nuo thought this, Mina was less than three meters from the bed when she suddenly lifted one foot high.
Under the stunned gazes of both Lin Nuo and Amidina, she reached down with one hand and pulled out a dagger about a finger-width wide from beneath her body.
“Holy crap, sister!”
Lin Nuo was immediately stunned by this “sudden dagger reveal”:
“You’re going all out? That’s not how you cut hemorrhoids! Doesn’t it hurt?”
There was no emotion in Mina’s eyes at all.
Contrary to Lin Nuo’s expectation, she clearly had no intention of testing whether Amidina was truly exhausted.
Her brown pupils didn’t even glance at the princess.
Instead, her gaze was cold and fearless, devoid of any life—as if she were a phantom.
The footsteps then came in large strides, her face utterly expressionless, her features like oil paint smeared thickly on parchment—eerily stiff.
Like… a puppet controlled by strings, incapable of showing any emotion.
“Frost Soul!”
Before Lin Nuo could speak, Amidina had already pulled back the covers.
With a cold-colored frost bow named “Frost Soul,” her slender hand raised to shoulder height, she drew the bowstring.
A magic arrow, condensed from pure energy, shot forth like a released gryphon.
“Whoosh—”
“Clang!”
Amidina’s preparation seemed to have taken the attacker by surprise, as the incoming dagger dropped to the floor after being struck by the arrow.
Lin Nuo was about to tell Amidina to keep the attacker alive for questioning, but to his shock, even without her weapon, the woman showed no sign of stopping.
Barehanded and with a murderous look, she charged straight at the second arrow, which was already aimed at the very top of her head.
That attack was suicidal…
Amidina’s pupils contracted, as if realizing something.
While pushing Lin Nuo to safety, she stepped forward and kicked Mina’s abdomen to gain momentum, springing into the air.
Her graceful figure curved like a crescent moon, and in midair, she redrew the bowstring and adjusted the arrow’s trajectory.
The second arrow, under her precise control, grazed Mina’s headscarf and lodged deep into a distant wall.
At the same moment, Lin Nuo caught sight of what the arrow’s wind had revealed when it lifted the headscarf— …slender, elongated ears, the same kind of ears as Amidina’s.
Elf ears!
“We can’t kill her. Let’s go!”
Amidina’s breathtakingly beautiful face wore an unusually grave expression as she grabbed Lin Nuo by the collar and crashed straight through the window.
“Chirp chirp!”
Fatty Bird, clinging to the railing, was startled and flapped its wings, ready to carry out its planned mission to alert the outside world.
It fluttered up slightly then settled back down, as if sensing something and pulling its neck close…
“What’s going on with this person?”
Lin Nuo felt the strange magic Amidina was emitting to completely protect him.
Even when she dragged him down from such a high floor into the fountain garden below, the only thing he noticed was a few scratches from the bushes grazing his legs upon landing.
“She’s not some ordinary riffraff,” Amidina said with difficulty explaining, “there’s something off about her.”
No kidding!
Who could remain expressionless while hiding a weapon in a place like that without something seriously wrong?
“It’s not the kind of problem you’re thinking of,” Amidina continued, drawing her bow and aiming at the shattered window, “You need to leave quickly. They’re not here for you.”
Lin Nuo understood the implication.
If they weren’t after him, they were after her.
And… they?
Knowing he wasn’t skilled enough to help, Lin Nuo didn’t pry further and quickly scanned the surroundings.
When he realized that except for the conversation between himself and Amidina, not a single insect chirped nor did the fountain’s water make its usual trickling sound, his heart skipped a beat.
‘A large-scale Sound-Sealing Magic?’
Though such magic could silence all sound within an area, blocking the flow of magical energy and preventing any detection from outside, in the Duke’s Mansion of the Claremont family, it should have been no problem for the high-level Holy Paladin Guards—bound by the Vigilant oath to loyalty—to discover and shatter such magic without needing Father’s intervention.
Yet, not a single guard had appeared until now.
Unless…