[Vol. 8] Chapter 252: The Beginning
The completely unexpected answer shocked the girl deeply. But before Vera could continue overthinking, the priestess took a deep breath and added more.
“Of course, when I say I did it, what I actually mean is that I just used a little trick to trigger a hidden issue that was already inside his body. First, it was to save him. Second, it gave a certain young lady a chance to get closer to him. And third, it served to shake the mountain and scare the tiger. In other words, to lure the true mastermind out into the open.”
“Because this kind of transformation is their biggest secret. It was supposed to act like a time bomb and be used at a crucial moment to change the whole situation. But then, for no clear reason, one of them exploded early. So think about it, who would seem most suspicious in that kind of situation?”
Miss Vera wasn’t stupid. After hearing Violet explain the cause and effect so clearly, she quickly understood and frowned slightly.
“So that night, the reason the manor was attacked by so many assassins was because they thought I was the one behind it?”
“Well~ I guess those people weren’t completely sure who did it. So they had to check one by one. Think of it as some kind of test.”
If that weren’t the case, then that night, the Vice Guild Leader Andre would have shown up himself, instead of hiding in the shadows and waiting for the right moment to strike.
Vera had always acted very carefully, operating from behind the scenes and never directly showing her involvement in the affairs of Saint Laos City. After Ricardo’s incident, she left the city immediately. Even the archbishop’s daughter only had a distant relationship with her. Otherwise, the real mastermind would’ve already made a move against her. Blue Butterfly and a few ordinary guards wouldn’t be enough to stop a true powerhouse.
It wasn’t clear whether the young lady was upset that Violet had used them as bait, or if she had thought of something else, but she furrowed her brows and fell silent for a long time. Then suddenly, like realizing something crucial, her pupils shrank slightly.
“Wait a minute. Some hidden danger was triggered early…? If even these incomplete changes are this dangerous and give no warning signs at all, then what will happen when they fully awaken naturally? Lady Violet, did you discover something? Please be honest with me, just how many more of these people are hiding in Saint Laos City!?”
As the blonde girl’s eyes grew more and more shocked, the priestess simply smiled mysteriously.
“Miss Vera, your view is still too narrow. People move around. And their planning time might be just as long as yours. So why would you think… this kind of thing would only happen in Saint Laos City? That young man named Ricardo is already the best example, isn’t he~”
………………………………………
“We’re here. This should be Saint Tyr City.”
Standing beneath the towering, majestic city walls, a man and a woman looked toward the wide-open city gates and the sparse line of people waiting to enter. After staring for a while without spotting anything strange, the young girl in leather armor, carrying a longbow on her back, finally spoke helplessly.
“It doesn’t look that special. Ricardo, are you sure your intel is correct?”
“There’s no mistake in the intel. Besides…”
The young man, dressed like a merchant but wearing a sword at his waist and a look of concern in his eyes, shook his head. In his eyes, vertical like a dragon’s, faint red light shimmered as he spoke in a low voice.
“I can clearly feel it. The presence of that being is getting closer to this world. And in this city, many of its kind are already hiding. A storm is coming. Miss Sasha, if you want your trading caravan to survive, you’d better get your people out of here as soon as possible.”
"After that, we’ll head east, outside the city. That’s where the main army of the Holy Empire is. We should be safe there for a while. The only problem is… I don’t know if we still have enough time."
“Haah… alright, alright. So are we going straight into the city now?”
Ricardo nodded without any hesitation and reminded again, "Yes. We must move quickly. If we’re too late, things could change for the worse."
These two were none other than Sasha, the leader of the Xavier Merchant Guild, and Ricardo, the mysterious and seriously injured young man they had picked up along the way.
As of today, it had already been more than a week since they first met.
Ever since Ricardo woke up and told them that Saint Tyr City wasn’t safe. Although doubtful, Sasha also understood something important.
If there really was a big problem in that city, then the reinforcements she had been hoping for might never arrive. In fact, the other members of the caravan who split off to enter the city and ask for help might now be facing some kind of terrible danger that no one could have expected.
It wasn’t actually that hard to confirm whether something had gone wrong. As the capital city of the Theo Province, and the largest city in this rather poor province, Saint Tyr had over a million permanent residents.
Even during wartime, with many soldiers already sent elsewhere, the city still had over five thousand Holy Knights stationed there. There were also tens of thousands of support troops. You could truly call it a well-defended and powerful stronghold.
So, as long as the caravan reached Saint Tyr City safely and the church and Holy Knights were still functioning normally, the Xavier Merchant Guild's reputation alone would be enough to guarantee they’d take action, whether they believed the story or not. In that case, the future developments would naturally show whether anything was wrong.
Unfortunately, the worst-case scenario was soon confirmed.
Just like Ricardo had warned, no help came on the second or third day either. Sasha and Ricardo stayed hidden in the cave for a long time, waiting and hoping for reinforcements to show up, but not even a shadow of them appeared. And including the time they had already spent escaping before this, they were now far past the longest amount of time they were supposed to wait.
It was clear now, the rest of the caravan had really run into trouble.
Even stranger, for some unknown reason, ever since the day Ricardo woke up, the assassins who had been searching for them everywhere, people who seemed determined to kill them no matter what, suddenly stopped appearing.
Their numbers dropped by more than half overnight. And as time went on, even fewer came.
It was as if the people pulling the strings behind the scenes had suddenly stopped caring whether Ricardo lived or died.
This was good news in a way, but it also gave off an unsettling feeling.
Ricardo had been trying to deliver an important message. That’s why he pushed himself to reach the eastern battlefield and find the Saintess of the Holy Empire. The people chasing him didn’t want this message to be delivered, so they kept coming after him. But now they had given up.
This could only mean one of two things, either the message no longer mattered…
Or the enemy’s plan was almost complete, and even if the message was revealed, it wouldn’t make a difference anymore.
According to Ricardo, some strange power was growing stronger and stronger. And the reason he suddenly woke up was because his connection to the world was getting more intense. That change made the mysterious power inside his body grow more active, which sped up the healing of his wounds.
"There's not much time left. It’s coming."
That was the sentence Ricardo kept repeating again and again in recent days. Even though his wounds were healing quickly, so quickly it was visible to the eye, his mind was clearly getting worse.
He looked anxious, restless, deeply worried in a way that couldn’t be hidden.
It felt like he was sure some great disaster was coming, like the end of the world was just around the corner.