Chapter 59

Story 34. The Maid of the Forbidden Place (2)

Chapter 59

Thankfully, none of the daggers hit me. I reached inside to grab a few of my own knives at them. I heard them being blocked, but without waiting to see what happened, I climbed down the ladder quickly. When I was halfway down, I looked and realized that the prince wasn’t there.

“Huh…?”

There were only the three women trembling in fear. I couldn’t go back up to look for the prince; all I could do was continue to go down. When I jumped, my landing didn’t go smoothly, and I sprained my ankle again.

I sat there in pain. Anxiously, I turned towards the women and asked, “Where is Prince Camille?”

As soon as I asked, I realized that they couldn’t speak our language. This was such a frustrating situation. From above, I heard the brothers looking down through the opening. I threw a few more daggers at them to distract them and turned towards the women. I said to them as I gestured, “Umm… First, open the door! We need to get out of here!”

I waved at them and pointed at the door, but it seemed that the odalisques didn’t understand me. They hesitated and glared at me as they surrounded the priestess protectively. One of the brothers was beginning to come down, so I threw another dagger, and it hit his leg.

“Arg…! F*ck!”

Blood splattered everywhere, and he fell to the floor. He seemed surprised at what happened and even more shocked when he spotted the priestess.

“V-Virtuous Priestess! Dammit! Guys! The Virtuous Priestess is here!”

The brothers that were still in the overhead storage yelled angrily, “What? The priestess is down there?!”

“We need to get down there right now! Hurry up! Argh… What are these stupid things on the floor?!”

I threw down everything I could find, which were odd sharp metal devices. I made sure it wouldn’t be easy for them to move around there. I heard people falling over themselves. I also heard distinct metal against metal sounds.

That’s right. The burning smell and the metallic sounds… More… I needed those metals to make a spark.

However, even before that, I needed to get the door opened here so the women and I could get out. To my frustration, the odalisques were fumbling to unlock the door.

Should I go and help them? Before I knew it, the door finally opened loudly, and the women ran out without me.

What about me?!

“Uhm, Odalisques! Hey!”

Then suddenly…

SLAM!

An incredibly loud bang hit my ears from above. I felt the shock, and I had to cover the Virtuous Priestess’ ears with my shirt.

Good… This is what I was waiting for… But… Something passed by me… what was it?

Red… It was red and burning everywhere. It became hotter, and the screams began to sound further and further away.

“GYAAA!!! B-blood!!!”

Through the fire, I saw the odalisque say words in our language. Then suddenly, I felt something warm come out from my nose and my ears. I quickly realized what it was.

And…

I fell on the floor after another blast.

***

Later, I found out that Prince Camille left through the backdoor, which I didn’t even know about, and ran to the Goddess’ warrior. Hakim Karid was the one who came here and resolved the situation, so it appeared that the prince made the right choice.

I was just glad he was okay.

My back was burnt badly, and one of my eardrums was damaged, but I was still alive. I kneeled in front of the prince in his bedroom and heard what happened. I was told that Eriez did as I asked and returned to the library to protect the place from further attack.

Most of the brothers who were about to reach the Virtuous Priestess died from the explosion. The fire destroyed a huge part of the building, but thankfully, it was out now. Any of the brothers who survived were captured along with those who tried to escape Minurd during this chaos. They were planned to be placed on a trial very soon with the warrior as the judge.

One thing that bothered me about this current situation was the fact that it was the odalisque who was explaining all these to me right now. She was wearing a thin veil around her face.

I asked, “Do you speak our language very well, huh?”

Perhaps this wasn’t important right now, but I needed to point it out. I suppose it wasn’t odd that she spoke our language, but still… It was so strange that they only spoke Hwenian in front of me until now.

The odalisque explained, “The priestess doesn’t like anyone speaking this language in front of her. That’s why we only speak Hwenian.”

“That strange woman…”

“Innocent One, you have no idea who the Virtuous Priestess is. You don’t know what she is like at all. You don’t know anything.”

Of course, I didn’t know. How could I? The odalisque was treating my burn by putting a cold cloth on it. She was very gentle, but for some reason, I felt very uncomfortable around this woman. She was such a young girl, yet the way she spoke was so confident and frank.

The odalisque continued, “But I still want to thank you. Like I said before, I thought all of the Innocent Ones were scary thugs, but obviously, I was wrong. There are some like you who are kind and sweet.”

“…”

“And I had no idea you would be wearing such hideous underwear. Hahaha…”

I didn’t know what to say. I was on the floor, and in pain, so I wanted to be as comfortable as possible. I took off anything that touched my skin, which included my pants, my underwear, and of course, the leather strip wrapped around my groin and my member.

The odalisque obviously saw the leather strip among my other clothes, and by the time I realized it, it was too late. She saw everything. I felt embarrassed, but what I was worried about the most was what I should tell the warrior about what happened to the strip.

Anyway, I needed to get going. I wanted to see how the clean up was going and what else was happening outside.

“You are already leaving, Innocent One? I don’t think you can put on your clothes. Your burn is pretty serious.”

“Then I will walk around without a shirt. It’s fine.”

I got up, and I could feel that my back was covered with something. Medicinal cream, probably. The woman came to me and studied my body. Annoyed, I said to her, “Stop it. It’s fine. I’ll be okay, so leave me alone. You should take your priestess and return to the harem. No one is going to be protecting you from now on here. You get that, right?”

She didn’t even blink as she replied, “We will soon, but for now, we can’t. Some scary-looking men in our harem are trying to find evidence.”

“Fine. What’s your name, by the way? If I need to find you in the harem for something, you better not ignore me or pretend you don’t know… Argh…”

I was about to go out, so I tried to put on the shirt, but when it touched my back, I flinched.

Oh yeah… That’s right. She said I shouldn’t put on my shirt…

The young girl pointed at me and laughed.

“Hahaha! What was that? And you are thinking about entering the harem? That sounds really erotic! You even had your top off too!”

“…”

“Fatima. My name is Fatima. It means the daughter of the prophet. Normally, the odalisques in the harem do not have individual names, but sometimes, we get one depending on our position.”

“… prophet?”