Chapter 78
Chapter 78
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 77
Chapter Title: Elusive
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Griffin Kingdom's capital, Graypond, was engulfed in unprecedented chaos.
Debates and discussions raged day and night without cease, no one escaped with a voice unstrained, and the streets were splattered with people's spit.
Yet the reason no violence broke out was thanks to Saintess Lucia's mediation, alongside the royal family's iron-fisted crackdown that had until then remained silent.
The knights guarding the palace stepped into the streets, eyes blazing, intervening to keep the citizens' arguments from boiling over.
If things looked poised to erupt into fisticuffs or a riot, they quashed it with swift precision—a sight to behold.
The knights could afford to patrol the streets like this because the royal palace interior had been cleared out faster than anywhere else.
Before Deus Verdi unleashed his holy power, the nobles opposing the royal family had all harbored grudges against its decisions.
King Orpheus, who had deliberately stayed silent to ferret out those dissatisfied with the crown, unsheathed his blade with the grand debate as his cue.
It wasn't a full purge, but exiles and corruption probes leading to asset seizures brought a fierce backlash.
The royal family's power was soaring to the heavens, leaving nobles and bishops to clamp their mouths shut, bow their heads, and hold their silence.
But that didn't mean the venom-laced daggers hidden at their waists were quiet, either.
If anything, they burned fiercer than ever.
“Kyaa!”
Pindenai, out on the streets, sensed the footsteps of her pursuing assassins and felt her brain buzz like a jolt of electricity.
If she had to put a name to it, it was like nails hammered into her skull with current surging through.
A day when memories of electric torture from her days in the republic flooded back fresh and vivid.
Hiding in the grand shadows of this quaint old city's streets for some back alley brawl.
It reminded her of fleeing through the republic's massive cities after terrorist acts.
Back then, she'd run till her feet blistered just to survive.
‘Now I'm running to kill.’
She ducked into an alley where some thugs were smoking.
“Huh? What's this?”
“Check out her outfit.”
They gaped at Pindenai's maid uniform, but she charged right at them without hesitation, snatched a cigarette pack like a pickpocket, and leaped off a trash bin in front of them.
“What the hell!”
“Crazy bitch!”
But their shouts didn't reach her. They could only stare dumbfounded as she used the bin as a springboard, scaled the wall, and vanished.
“See her panties?”
“Damn, laundry blocked the view.”
“Too bad.”
They grumbled about the clothesline in the way when suddenly people flooded into the alley.
They looked utterly ordinary—fruit vendor, local bum, proselytizing housewife, and the like.
But the cross-shaped daggers in their hands triggered the thugs' survival instincts; they plastered themselves flat against the wall.
The newcomers were the ones pursuing Pindenai, heading straight for the rooftop.
After running for a good while, Pindenai lounged on the rooftop, one of the thugs' cigarettes dangling from her lips.
“Sip. Kingdom smokes are so damn bland. The republic ones feel like they'd punch holes in your lungs after a year.”
Bored, she exhaled smoke toward the sky. Thick clouds blanketed it, blocking every ray of sun.
For a fleeting moment, she thought those clothes drying below might need reeling in quick.
“Deus Verdi's direct maid.”
“Hmm, and if I say no?”
Pindenai smirked, hand on hip, as the assassins leveled their cross daggers in answer.
“We already know everything.”
“Then why bother asking, you idiots.”
They'd already decided the answer for themselves, wasting her breath for nothing.
“Whew, let's burn this one first.”
“…….”
Surprisingly, they waited for her to finish.
Sip.
Exhale.
Sip.
Exhale.
As the cigarette burned down in rhythmic puffs, the assassins swallowed hard, tension mounting.
And so.
The cigarette reached its end.
Flick.
Pindenai lit another with a match.
“…….”
The assassins were left slack-jawed at how casually she'd gone for seconds.
“Hmm, weak, but oddly addictive. Mild and smooth, too.”
As she started critiquing the smoke, the assassins finally snapped and charged.
It was a rooftop, after all.
No escape, so they naturally encircled her, thrusting their daggers.
Kieeeeng!
The arm-thick club at Pindenai's waist extended with a sharp whir.
Click—the razor-sharp axe blade sprang out.
“You bastards.”
Sneering, she gripped the cigarette in one hand as her axe carved a brutal arc.
One strike sent the assassins tumbling back, rolling across the rooftop.
Their cross daggers shattered like glass shards, scattering across the floor.
“Sip.”
Pindenai popped the cigarette back in her mouth, slinging the axe over her shoulder.
“You waited for me, so I'll hear your last words.”
No intent to let them live, she shrugged and asked.
The assassins bit their lips but shouted without hesitation or fear.
“The feast of Goddess Hertia is upon us!”
“We await a life of dance and song with her!”
“We are martyrs! The goddess joins our beginning and end.”
Pindenai smirked at how boldly they declared their affiliation.
“Okay, not Hertia's crew, then.”
Nodding, she mentally crossed one goddess off her list and flashed a sly smile.
“But will she hear you if you call another god's name right before dying?”
She tilted her head curiously. The assassins knelt, hands clasped, murmuring prayers to their deity.
They gave up on life way too fast, as always.
Pindenai, who'd fought for freedom and rolled through the mud to survive, could only click her tongue.
This was why she hated gods.
Afterlife, my ass.
Wasn't a single precious life enough without that flimsy nonsense?
So she tossed out a cheeky question.
“Hey, assassins pop up every time I step out. Sometimes I even lure them on purpose.”
“…….”
“But they all fail. Acting under divine will, and they still lose to me.”
“…….”
“Doesn't that mean you should shop around for a new god? Yours suck.”
“You wench!”
The ones who'd just bowed in silence exploded at her cheap taunt and lunged.
She cleaved the first one's skull with her axe and tsked.
“Tch. You're done for now, so here's a secret.”
Turning to the rest, Pindenai grinned and spilled it.
“Truth is, my master's not in Graypond anymore. He left ages ago.”
“……!”
Deus Verdi had already left Graypond?
No intel could top that. Leaving the palace meant he was beyond high walls.
They had to report it fast—but the maid's oppressive presence and her blood-red eyes radiated killing intent that pinned them in place.
“I've chopped about forty assassins so far? Told them all the same thing.”
She stubbed out her fresh cigarette on the ground.
“You guys commune with your god, right? The dead ones must've told her my master’s gone from Graypond.”
“…….”
“And she'd pass it to you living believers. So you should've known.”
Cold sweat poured down.
Only now, with death breathing down their necks, did their faith start to waver.
“Too far away to arrive yet?”
But Pindenai's axe sliced their throats without a shred of mercy.
* * *
Elanoa Luden Griffin, top of Robern Academy's first-year midterms.
True to the saying that beauties need their beauty sleep, she had a habit of wolfing down lunch and crashing out.
People praised her for ditching princessly decorum to nap freely, calling her carefree and bold.
But the real reason Elanoa slept was simple.
Sometimes, she dreamed of him.
A being she could never see in reality: Kim Shin-woo, hidden inside Deus Verdi.
Was it because she'd met him in a dream back then?
The dreams lacked the sweet, fluffy romance she craved, but they came fairly often anyway.
“Yawn.”
Stretching as she woke, Elanoa twisted her body this way and that. Perfect season for rooftop naps.
She even carried a winter muffler to use as a blanket.
Her maids would call it unbecoming of a princess.
But right now, she was just Elanoa the student, not Griffin's princess.
Her wristwatch showed ten minutes left in lunch break.
Up earlier than usual, she strolled to the railing to catch the breeze.
Then, on pure instinct, she glanced down. No real thought behind it.
But there, astonishingly, was the man she'd chased even in dreams—Deus Verdi, escorted by Magic Inquisitors, stepping out of the academy.
“D-Deus?”
Stunned, Elanoa rubbed her eyes, wondering if she'd hallucinated.
It was really him.
She pinched her cheek, summoned mana, even spun in place grabbing her nose like an elephant trunk.
Her cheek stung bumpy.
Mana rose fluffy as ever.
Dizziness forced her to grip the railing.
Deus was really back!
“You could've said you were here!”
Huffing indignantly, she bolted for the stairs. Hopping down two at a time, she hit the first floor in seconds, ignoring stares from students and professors alike.
Rumble!
The ground and sky quaked.
A sensation Elanoa had felt a few times before.
“N-No way?”
Warp magic?
He'd left like that?
Came to the academy but skipped visiting the princess—me—and just warped out?
Unbelieving, Elanoa quickened her pace.
Where Deus and the Magic Inquisitors had stood moments ago, only warp backlash scorch marks scarred the ground.
“Ah.”
And from behind her, a sigh laced with the same regret and pathos.
Glancing back, she saw Deus's fiancée, Erika, wearing an expression of identical disappointment.