Chapter 25: The Vanishing Princess

It happened in the early morning.

The location was the underground library of the palace.

An ominous light came from the command stone hidden under the bookshelf, and a gate connecting the spaces was created.

Nine men wearing black robes turned over and walked leisurely out of there.

They covered their faces with loose robe hats and exchanged hand signals with each other, even their breathing was quiet, so that ‘no one would hear.

After finishing their communication, the men moved upstairs while hiding their appearances with the stealth magic ‘transparency’ and ‘sound blocking.’

Their destination was a room on the upper floor of the palace.

They were able to reach their destination without any major crisis, using high-level concealment magic.

The princess’s room.

The man standing in the center of the group took out a rolled-up scroll from his bosom.

When he spread it on the floor, an unknown magical power flowed through the air, forming a circular barrier.

The magic contained in the scroll was a top-level ‘barrier curtain’ that separated space from space.

That barrier became a barrier that separated the upper floor where the princess’s room was and the imperial palace.

When the formation of the barrier was finished, the men finally untied their robes and exhaled the breath they had been holding.

“The curtain is perfectly formed. Even that great demon would take time to break through it,” the man on one side said with a joyful tone.

Then the man with a pale expression glared at him with a cold gaze.

“Don’t act rashly. This is their base. You never know when or where they might interfere, so always be on guard around you.”

The man who had taken up the military discipline looked around once more, then placed his hand on the doorknob in front of him.

Then, just as he was about to turn the doorknob, someone came walking from across the hallway with a clanking sound of footsteps.

“Oh my~ You’re trying to enter a lady’s room at this late hour; you don’t know manners.”

The voice was half-joking.

Her hair was purple, and her eyes were the same.

Her skin was copper-colored, and she was wearing a black and white maid outfit.

Upon closer inspection, she was just a maid.

She approached him gently, step by step.

Without a hint of hostility, a hint of suspicion, a hint of caution, she had the gentle demeanor of a maid who treats guests.

“What brings you here? Oh! Should I bring you some tea? If there’s anything else you need….”

Before the woman could finish speaking, the man made a ‘kill’ gesture by slitting his throat with his thumb.

The subordinates nodded in unison and approached the woman, extending their hands.

Soon, a magic circle formed at her fingertips.

“Tch.”

The purple-haired woman clicked her tongue.

‘I wanted to buy as much time as possible.’

She, Rubia, was able to quickly grasp the situation since she was in the room next door.

A barrier had been created between the upper floors and the palace by some force.

That barrier would take time even for Arasia to break through.

Their target was Lucy, the daughter of Satan.

After assessing the situation for a short time, Rubia concluded, ‘We have to hold them back until Arasia breaks through the barrier.’

With that in mind, she spoke to them kindly, but all she got in return was magic that took away their lives.

She sighed lightly.

“I guess this is what I needed.”

As she said that, she took out eight sharp knives from her sleeve.

She held them between her fingers.

She immediately spread her arms and threw them all at once.

The knives flew at a rapid rate, precisely targeting the carotid arteries of each man.

The men who had not expected the maid to make a preemptive attack managed to dodge the attack, but two of them, who were slow to react, ended up getting stabbed in the arm and wrist.

The men who realized that the opponent was not a normal maid belatedly tried to distance themselves and use magic again.

However, the maid had already disappeared.

The hallway she had been in just a moment ago was empty.

There was no place to hide, no time to hide.

In other words, it was reasonable to assume that she had used some kind of magic to hide herself.

That was when the commotion began.

The two men who had been injured by the knives were lying there, motionless.

“Are they dead..?”

“It was just a thin wound.”

“Was the knife coated with poison?”

“…A maid who uses a stealth skill on poison? Satan has a strange taste.”

“What do we do, Mr. Douglas?”

The man had a pale face.

Douglas narrowed his brows.

Since the barrier had been opened, it was clear that the intrusion had been detected, so time was running out.

“You idiots, it’s obvious that you’re trying to buy time.”

“……Then.”

“We hold the cards anyway, so ignore that and continue with the operation.”

Then, the man opened the princess’s room with the words, “Prepare the teleportation gate right away.”

It was a spacious room that seemed to be at least 100 pyeong.

Among them, a small figure was seen covered with a blanket over the bedding.

“How long will it take to prepare the teleportation gate?”

“Given the distance, it will take three minutes at the lowest possible time.”

“In the meantime, we are guarding the princess’s room.”

“Yes!”

While Douglas was guarding the princess, two men were preparing to open the ‘teleportation gate’ outside the room, and the remaining four were guarding the room.

If we just kidnap the princess, everything will go smoothly.

It was just as he was thinking that.

Suddenly sensing something strange, Douglas yanked the blanket over.

What was sleeping under the blanket was not the princess, but a pillow that had been left in that position.

Douglas opened his eyes wide at the thought that he had been ‘tricked.’

“The princess is gone.”

“…!? Could it be that she had sensed our arrival?”

“No, the bed is still warm. It must have been the maid’s doing just now. Find her; since the curtain has been raised, it’ll be impossible to get out, so she must be somewhere around here.”

Just as the men were about to leave the room to search the surroundings, a maid jumped out from the shadows that had appeared on the floor and blocked their path.

“Shadow Hide, tell me where you hid the princess?”

The maid smiled in response to his question.

She placed both hands on the floor.

“Thank you for coming in so kindly; thanks to you, the trap was worth it.”

As soon as she finished speaking, a purple light pulsed from the ground.

The light focused on her.

Soon, her shadow, which had been illuminated by the light, transformed into dozens of snakes and began to surround the room.

“Where can I step!?”

“Attack!”

With nowhere to retreat, the four men desperately cast magic on the maid.

However, before they could finish chanting, a snake rose from the ground.

“Keuk…!”

“What the hell is this?”

“Douglas, what can I do..”

Dozens of snakes rose from the ground and wrapped around the men’s bodies, biting them all over.

Starting from the bite wounds, their bodies slowly began to turn to stone.

“AAAAAAAH!”

The men tried to use all kinds of magic to escape the situation, but their resistance was all useless.

Soon, the men’s bodies completely turned to stone, forming a total of five statues.

“Whew… Now the two left are the ones in front of the door.”

Rubia let out a heavy breath and headed out the door to deal with the remaining men.

At that moment, she had no choice but to turn back when she heard a crushing sound from behind her.

Crunch.

Among the men who had turned to stone, Douglas’s outer skin had crumbled, and the ‘Curse of Petrification’ had been lifted.

He brushed the dust off his clothes as if nothing had happened.

“If I hadn’t had the curse nullification item, things would have become a hassle.”

Rubia made a troubled expression.

Because she used the ‘Curse of Petrification,’ she lost 70% of her magical power.

‘I planned to take care of the captain at once…’

When her plan failed, she took out a poisoned knife from inside the hem of her skirt.

“A maid who makes food is poisonous, isn’t that contradictory?”

Douglas gestured to Rubia.

At that moment, Rubia instinctively threw her body to the left.

Then, a ‘whip-swinging sound’ came from the empty air.

At the same time, a cut appeared on Rubia’s cheek.

“Where did you hide the princess?”

When asked again where the princess was, Rubia tried to say ‘Are you going to tell me that?’, but her mouth said ‘She’s in the closet’ without permission.

She belatedly covered her own mouth and glared at Douglas.

‘Illusion, or is it shadow magic?’

Tsk.

After pinpointing the princess’s location, he glanced at the closet on one side of the room.

Rubia, who was becoming anxious, threw eight knives at him.

The throwers aimed at his vital points.

However, just before they reached him, they all bounced off the wall.

“!?”

At that moment, a silhouette of ‘something long’ wrapped around Douglas’s body was visible.

Even though she was hiding her appearance with invisibility, judging by the way she was wriggling, she was definitely a living creature.

“Summoning, invisibility, illusion, annoying.”

Rubia took a deep breath and held the knife she took out from the hem of her skirt tightly.

Douglas narrowed his eyes at her.

It had been three minutes since she had deployed the barrier.

The teleportation gate was almost complete, and time was running out.

‘There’s no more time to play around with her.’

Soon, he looked at the closet where the princess was and smiled faintly.

“You said she was in the closet, right?”

“!!”

Douglas gestured toward the closet.

Rubia ran to protect the princess.

She had predicted that she would act that way, not knowing whether the purpose of the intrusion was ‘kidnapping’ or ‘murder.’

She didn’t dodge the unknown attack that came flying at her even though she knew about it.

She thought that if she did, Lucy might die.

“Ugh..!”

She was attacked by something unseen and flew to one side.

Red blood spurted from her waist.

Rubia collapsed.

Douglas opened the closet, leaving her alone.

Inside was a girl with gray hair shivering.

“Just as I heard.”

“Gyaaaaaaah!”

Douglas forcibly dragged the princess away.

Rubia reached out to him, holding onto her injured area.

“Lucy-sama…!”

“The princess will take care of it, and this is a gift.”

Douglas snapped his fingers as he rode through the teleportation gate his subordinates had created.

Then, red heat radiated from the bodies of his subordinates, who had turned into statues, and soon a violent explosion occurred.

Boom!

He rode through the teleportation gate and disappeared.

A moment later, Rubia, who barely survived the explosion by using ‘shadow hiding,’ looked at the princess’s room that had become a mess and hit the floor.

Large drops of water were dripping from the corners of her eyes.

“No… No… No… Lady Lucy..”

It was truly a panic.

Lucy, who Satan had personally requested, was kidnapped right before her eyes.

She felt like committing suicide right then and there.

But that was impossible.

Because she was still the only one who knew the kidnappers’ faces and names.

Therefore, the least she could do was tell them the whole story before she could pay for her sins.

“Sigh… Lady Satan… I’m sorry.”

As she was blaming herself like that, someone wearing a cloak landed gently on the other side of the collapsed ceiling.

“Huh..?”

Rubia doubted her eyes.

Lucy, who had just been kidnapped, was right in front of her.