One moment Alia was like a gentle maid, and the next she turned into a blurry dark afterimage, rushing into the midst of Prinval’s group of five.
Then came the tooth-aching sound of impact, along with the crisp snaps of dislocated bones and joints.
Prinval didn’t even see how she moved; he only felt a blur before his eyes, his body tumbling backward uncontrollably as his vision spun.
Heavy thuds rang out one after another.
Burton was slammed straight into the snow like a log, and Mark was thrown forcefully, hanging from a nearby tree branch. The dagger in Cole’s hand somehow ended up with the maid; the hilt tapped lightly against the back of his neck, and he collapsed limply. Finn turned to run but was snagged around the ankle by a pale green rope condensed from magic and dragged back like a dead dog.
The entire process was quiet, efficient, and elegant, taking only a few breaths of time.
By the time Prinval barely regained consciousness from the severe pain and dizziness, he found himself and his four brothers tied tightly in a row and tossed onto the cold snow.
Meanwhile, the maid had already returned to a position half a step behind the silver-haired girl, as if everything that had just happened had nothing to do with her.
Ophelia stepped forward, looking down as she scrutinized Prinval’s face.
“Who sent you?” she said calmly. “What is your purpose?”
Prinval’s throat felt a bit dry… mentioning the boss was out of the question. Although these young people were terrifying, they didn’t seem like they were going to kill him immediately. Perhaps there was still room to maneuver.
He forced a flattering smile, though his expression was stiff with pain.
“A mistake, this is all a mistake… most noble and beautiful lady, we… we are just a band of blind bandits wandering around here. We were just hoping to get lucky and make some money… We really didn’t know you nobles were here. We were blind to offend you…”
Prinval babbled incoherently, and the others kept their heads down, groaning and echoing his words, not daring to look up.
“Bandits?” Ophelia repeated softly, the corners of her mouth curling slightly. “In the capital’s metropolitan area, right after the Holy Rite, when patrols are several times more frequent than usual, how is it such a coincidence that your band of bandits appeared here?”
The girl’s gaze swept over their complexions, which were far from being thin or sallow, before finally settling on Prinval’s eyes as he forced himself to stay calm.
“This place is usually deserted. You managed to ‘get lucky’ all the way out here? Do you take me for a three-year-old child?”
“How about… let me search them first.”
Loran walked over then, squatting down to search the five men’s belongings.
His movements were careful, but he only turned up some loose coins, a few pieces of hard black bread, a whetstone, tinder, low-quality tobacco… and a few bottles of the most common hemostatic ointment. There was nothing to prove their identities.
Suddenly, the youth’s fingertips paused.
High on Prinval’s chest, he saw an inconspicuous tattoo. The design was simple: a stonemason’s hammer pointing vertically downward, with a wreath of thorns wrapped around the junction of the head and the handle.
Loran’s pupils constricted for a moment.
He was not unfamiliar with this pattern, but it shouldn’t have appeared at this time.
—It was the emblem of the Zaid Brotherhood.
In the memories of his previous life, the Zaid Brotherhood was indeed established by a group of stonemasons’ guild members filled with resentment toward the nobility.
But that should have happened several years later… a radical organization that erupted after numerous craftsman families were driven to desperation. They were active in Valgard and the surrounding areas, putting pressure on the capital through creating panic, planning assassinations, controlling trade routes, and even launching direct attacks on nearby towns. They were an undercurrent of turmoil in the later stages of the capital’s history.
But now the Holy Rite had just ended. Although the issue of funds for the capital’s repairs had shown signs of emerging, it was far from the point of inciting such an organization into existence.
Where exactly did things go wrong?
Loran’s thoughts spun rapidly.
Was it because his intervention in this life caused certain events to be triggered early? Or did the prototype of the Zaid Brotherhood already exist in a more secretive form, and his past self simply hadn’t encountered the relevant information?
Changes in the plot often meant unknown risks, and the unknown was what he needed to be most wary of right now.
His gaze turned once more toward the shimmering ice lake.
Beneath the ancient ruins at the bottom of the lake lay a very precious magical tool. Logically, he should be the only one who knew this information—at least, at this point in time, there shouldn’t be a second party aware of it.
But the timing of this band of bandits with the Zaid Brotherhood tattoos was far too coincidental, as if they were also here for the lake, or rather, something inside it.
Had information about the ruins leaked?
If that were the case, then he had to hurry. No matter what, the items in the ruins could not easily fall into someone else’s hands; he had to get there before anyone else.
It seemed he definitely had to come back again tonight.
“Vivi, how do you plan to handle these people?”
Ophelia asked.
“I don’t care, just do as you see fit.” Klovie paused after speaking, then said with some annoyance, “After being disturbed by these people, I’m not in the mood to play anymore. Let’s go back.”
So Loran grabbed the end of the rope and dragged the stumbling Prinval and the others out of the forest, arriving at the small path outside.
Prinval still wanted to beg for mercy, but with a rag stuffed in his mouth, he could only make muffled “wuwu” sounds, watching helplessly as the seemingly most harmless pretty boy tied the other end of the rope to the crossbar behind the carriage.
Beside the carriage, Ophelia summoned a palm-sized golden sparrow woven from magic. She whispered a few words to the bird, the content being nothing more than encountering a bandit attack, having subdued them, and asking the family to contact the metropolitan sheriff to receive the prisoners at a certain road section.
Just as the bird was about to flap its wings and fly away, Loran finished tying the rope and walked over.
“Um… Miss Ophelia. Could you please call for an additional squad of reliable guards to meet us?”
Ophelia’s fingers paused, and her movement to release the messenger stopped. She looked at Loran with some confusion.
“Support? Is Mr. Loran worried that there are more ambushes on the way back?”
She glanced at Prinval and the four others tied behind the carriage.
In Ophelia’s view, the abilities of the five of them were enough to handle any emergency. Calling for more guards seemed a bit overly cautious, or even like making a mountain out of a molehill.
Loran didn’t know how to explain it to her. Ophelia stared into his eyes for a few seconds; the youth’s gaze was clear, and his reasoning seemed plausible…
“Fine.” She added a few more words to the magical messenger. The golden sparrow’s light flickered for a moment before turning into a streak of light and disappearing from view.