Chapter 26: Rescue in the Shadows

Lucy looked around the messy room.

The wooden furniture had been completely burnt to the ground by the explosion, and the ceiling had collapsed, merging the outside and inside.

In just a few hours, the once splendid bedroom had become a ruin.

Rubia, who was struggling to keep her body in the middle of it all, looked at Lucy with surprised eyes.

Blood was dripping from her waist.

The explosion.

Rubia was injured.

She could vaguely guess that there had been some kind of attack.

“Huh? Lady Lucy? No way, Lady Lucy is definitely…”

She was surprised as if she had seen a ghost.

Lucy cut it short and handed Rubia the healing potion she had been carrying.

Only then did her wounds start to sting, and she swallowed once before gulping down the potion.

A soft light emitted from the wounds, and soon the wounds were completely healed.

Rubia was surprised again and couldn’t close her mouth after seeing the wounds healed without a trace.

It seemed that ‘top-tier healing potion’ was quite rare even here.

This was the end of the healing of the injured.

The next thing that remained was to figure out what had happened here and the identity of ‘Perry’ who was impersonating her.

“What happened here? What happened to Perry?”

Those were the questions, but Rubia, who was at a loss, could only repeat, ‘Is it really you, Lady Lucy?’

Lucy had no choice but to briefly explain what had happened.

The fact that Perry had the power to clone himself and that he had been impersonating her with that power.

After hearing the explanation, Rubia covered her mouth with her hand, saying, ‘Then was Perry taken away?’

That one sentence was enough to explain the current situation.

Someone had broken into the palace, mistaken Perry for her, and kidnapped him.

“Who were they?”

“I was also good…”

“Where did they run away to?”

“They ran away through the teleportation gate and did it well…”

It was a bad situation where they didn’t even know who the kidnapper was or where they had gone.

However, fortunately, there was a way to pinpoint their location.

Before leaving the palace, Lucy had to use the communication ring that she had given Perry.

With that, she could contact Perry and even figure out his current location.

‘It was also called a windbreak item in the game, right?’

Putting that useless information aside, Lucy was about to use the item to check Perry’s life or death, and just as she was about to do so, she heard many footsteps coming from downstairs.

It was obvious that it was Arasia and the Knights.

What should I do here? Should I share the situation and cooperate?

No, there was too much to explain, and time was running out for that.

Besides, even if she told Arasia the situation, it didn’t seem like she would allow Lucy to go rescue Perry.

‘Not here.’

Lucy tapped Rubia’s forehead with her finger, saying ‘I’m sorry’ as she stared at her.

Then Rubia slowly fell into a deep sleep.

“Lucy-sama…”

She fell asleep just like that.

Leaving her alone, Lucy used teleportation to get out of the place.

Outside the city, Lucy, who had teleported to a splendid alley, immediately used her ring to send a message to Perry.

A red light flickered from the ring, and soon connected Perry and Lucy’s minds.

Judging from the fact that it worked safely, fortunately, Perry was not unconscious.

[Perry, can you hear me?]

[Lucy!?]

[Don’t show it and just answer in your mind. Are you okay?]

[Yes, but my hands and feet are tied, and I can’t see anything because I’m in a sack…]

Perry answered calmly.

His voice was timid, and his tone sounded a little frightened.

[Don’t worry, I’ll go rescue you right away.]

[Are you sure..?]

[But you must never release your transformation, because I don’t know what will happen to you if they find out that you’re not me.]

Perry, who had been somewhat frightened, felt a little relieved at the words, ‘I’m going to rescue you,’ emphasizing the words, “Never release the transformation.”

Finally, Lucy ended the transmission by saying, “All that’s left is location identification.”

Users wearing a pair of rings can share their locations.

However, since the field map was not working, the only thing they could use was the direction indicator function.

“Where is this…?”

As soon as she raised her arm high, a single red ray from the ring pointed to one side.

The location was beyond the north.

The distance was quite far.

“If it’s the north, it’s the direction where the northern forces fighting against Helatus are. Could this be related?”

Various questions came to mind for a moment.

Lucy, who put aside her distracting thoughts, immediately flapped her cloak and floated into the air.

In any case, it was 100% her fault that Perry was kidnapped.

In that case, she couldn’t just leave him to die.

She then flew with all her might toward the direction the ring was pointing.

After leaving the city, passing through the plains, over the mountains, and moving through the air for a long time after that, a cool wind blew from the air.

It was a cold and bitter chill that could only be felt on a midwinter night.

Every time she exhaled, pure white breath was scattered in all directions from her lips.

Since she was walking in the air, the temperature difference was even more apparent.

Maybe because she was close to the northern region, it was extremely cold.

Lucy wrapped herself in a cloak.

Unless you have cold resistance, there was no guarantee that you wouldn’t catch a cold.

She wasn’t that weak, but just in case, she adjusted her clothes tightly.

In the meantime, a huge river began to appear across the wide plain.

The river that divided the land like a boundary between the lands flowed north.

Its length was endless, and its width was as wide as a lake.

After landing on the water’s edge, Lucy calculated the remaining distance using the ring on her index finger.

The distance to the ferry indicated on the ring was… right in front of her.

The location was in the direction the river flowed.

Judging from this, the kidnappers were likely traveling by boat.

With the high ground in front of her, Lucy took out two bottles of magic recovery potions from her inventory and drank them in succession.

Even if she was level 100, if she continued the ‘flight skill’ that consumed a lot of magic for several hours, her magic would eventually run out.

Gulp. Gulp.

“That’s enough magic recovery. What’s left?”

She needed to be fully prepared since she didn’t know the size or number of the enemies.

First, she set a transfer point for escape.

Next, she equipped a resurrection item in case she died.

Then, she prepared an evasion item in case of traps…

As a result, she was fully armed with three rings, one necklace, one pair of earrings, one bracelet, and four transparent equipment.

One sickle (death scythe).

Lucy, who had covered herself with various mythical items, suddenly smiled bitterly.

‘I spent the price of a car to get these…’

She almost went bankrupt because of them, but whatever.

As long as the results were useful, that’s fine.

Holding a pitch-black scythe larger than her body, she flew towards the place the ring pointed to at high speed.

Soon, she discovered a huge ship crossing the river beyond the waterway.

A wooden ship.

At first glance, it looked like a merchant ship.

The ferry the ring pointed to was somewhere inside the merchant ship.

‘Found it.’

Lucy used her ‘Transparency’ skill and landed lightly on the ship.

There was a man holding the steering wheel and a man guarding the surroundings at the bow.

They were dressed in black robes… the same as the mysterious men she saw in the underground passage last time.

She didn’t know what the cause was, but one thing was certain: they were the kidnappers.

A total of two.

Judging from the fact that neither of them noticed the intruder, they were not skilled enough to warrant caution.

Lucy approached them stealthily, starting with the man holding the steering wheel first.

When she brainwashed him by whispering in his ear, “Drown!”, he suddenly jumped over the railing.

In the same way, the man on the bow also jumped into the river.

Splash.

Immediately after entering the water, the air bubbles that had risen to the surface soon subsided.

They faithfully carried out the brainwashing.

This was the end of the ship’s cleanup.

Lucy then went down the stairs leading to the ship.

The ‘transparency’ was still in place because there might still be remnants.

Inside the ship, the lights installed here and there were brightly illuminating the interior.

The square, wide open space was a large warehouse for loading cargo, but no items were loaded there.

All that was there were spider webs hanging all over the walls and a sack in the corner.

The gray sack that had been tied tightly with rope was moving faintly.

Swish—when she opened it, Perry (who looked like Lucy) was tied up with a gag.

She took the gag off.

“Uuuugh… Lucy… I was scared…”

Perry sobbed, wiping away tears and a runny nose.

If her hands and feet hadn’t been tied up, she would have burst into tears as if she were hugging him.

Lucy wanted to reassure Perry, saying, “It’s all over now,” but it was coincidentally too early.

As an illusionist, she was immune to illusions.

There was no way she would be fooled by a ridiculous trick like “invisibility.”

“Stop watching and come out, Mr. Kidnapper.”

Finally, the man who had been hiding his appearance distorted the space and appeared.

He was tall, thin, and had a pale face, giving him a snake-like appearance.

He looked down at Lucy with a dry expression.

“How embarrassing. I didn’t hear that the princess had twins.”

“You’re the mastermind behind the kidnapping.”

Lucy glared at him.

She was very upset right now.

No wonder, because she had to stay up all night again.