Deacon's Demise
Deacon's Demise
Under the guardian's dumbfounded eyes, the deacon's body and soul were both completely shredded into bits and pieces of raw flesh and energy, followed by the implosion of the illusory monk that sent all the initiates crashing into each other.
Perhaps until the last moment of his life, the deacon didn't understand just what had gone wrong.
With his face pale from both exhaustion and shock, the white-haired guardian quickly made his way over to the third princess to make sure she was alright.
Looking at the disturbingly satisfied smile on her face, though, the words of concern were suddenly stuck in his throat.
The purple-haired girl waved her hand to take back the defensive artifact that she had activated, and gave him a nod. "You did well handling him. As expected of one of our empire's best guardians."
Faced with her praise, the white-haired man didn't feel happy at all. "P-Princess, w-what do we do now?"
"Naturally, although the main suspect has been dealt with, the rest of them cannot be let go just because they suffered a little. Arrange for them to be taken back to the palace for interrogation."
The guardian, who had been worried about how to deal with the aftermath of having killed one of the Temple of Shinra's cronies suddenly paused before hesitating. "S-Shouldn't we… try to suppress the news?"
The purple-haired princess couldn't help but roll her eyes. "You're welcome to try if you can. Anyway, do we need to be so cautious about offending our enemies? Do you think they'll let us go if we don't 'offend them'? As a guardian of our royal family, handle yourself with more pride!"
The white-haired man suddenly stiffened in shock as he realized that this usually willful princess actually made some sense.
Wasn't it a good thing that the deacon died? If word got out that he attacked their princess and just sauntered away, wouldn't it have been a slap to the royal family's face? What was he worrying for?!
Feeling a lot more confident, he quickly waved the royal guards over to handle the unconscious initiates. "Take them away, we're heading back to the capital!"
The third princess had actually wanted to send him back first and take the opportunity to hand the broken array disk of the deacon to her queen, but she realized that it was unlikely for her to be able to pull it off now.
Not only would the guardian refuse to obey her since they couldn't be sure how the Temple would react and how long it would take them to discover what happened, but it might also make him suspect her.
After all, it was one thing for her to willfully head out on her own without letting him follow, but another thing entirely to insist on risking her life even after such a dangerous moment.
He would have to be a fool to not realize something was wrong, and the third princess didn't dare risk allowing her queen's plans to be exposed. It was better to be patient and cautious, and complete the tasks she had been assigned first.
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Evelyn hummed in satisfaction as she watched the royal entourage leave the border town swiftly. "She's done quite well… way better than I expected, in fact."
As long as she could be just as thoughtful and calculative while dealing with the matter of her family, it shouldn't be hard to get everything done in time.
Of course, it was a bit unfortunate that they had taken all the evidence with them while leaving, including the bead and the array disk used by the deacon, but Evelyn felt that it wasn't too much of a loss.
Even if she could extract some value from those broken things, they might not really help her much in the end. After all, they both seemed like inferior replicas of the actual product.
Compared to them, her harvest of the fragment from the thugs warehouse was far, far more fruitful, and the other things could barely affect her mood.
Of course, even though the Champion's Chariot was 'safe', Evelyn didn't dare to experiment here with her friends still inside. Now that the immediate matters were dealt with, it was better to leave this town quickly without attracting attention, first.
The pink-haired girl waited for a few moments for her little fox to return, and once Ruru had hopped in from the window and entered her pocket after turning into her 'thumbelina' form in mid-air, she quickly had the chariot move to the road.
Leaving the town was much easier than entering, especially with the security in shambles now that the city lord had been arrested and taken away, and the new one had yet to comprehend his 'promotion'.
Of course, her friends were all very curious about what had happened outside, though they didn't dare to interrupt Evelyn while she seemed to be concentrating.
After all, while they could somewhat hear the commotions, it was impossible to see what was going on out there while being stuck inside the chariot in an alley.
The pink-haired girl happily indulged them without a fuss, and even used her illusions from time to time while orally reiterating the events.
Of course, it was a pity that she couldn't just transfer what she observed using the eternal ripple to an imagery crystal, but Evelyn didn't feel that her illusions were too inferior.
In fact, once she leveled it up a little more, the pink-haired girl expected that it wouldn't be too difficult for her to show someone whatever scene she wanted with barely a thought.
Currently, though, her 'Dream Weaver' skill was still only at 20.36% proficiency of level one. But considering how she had been using it continuously on both the chariot and her friends, Evelyn didn't believe it would be too long before it could be promoted to level two.
Of course, her current level was more than enough to put on a show for her friends, who excitedly watched the 'battle' between the deacon and the guardian as their carriage headed out of the town, unaware of the watchful eyes following their carriage from a distance.
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