Chapter 144 - Meeting Martin!

After searching the entire page for a long time, Zion still found nothing that could help him break away from the magical spell in the form of those butterflies. His glance swept toward those things flying above Lia's sleeping face as he narrowed his eyes.

These things could have been acting like a mechanism that would probably trigger an alarm to notify the queen that someone had disturbed the dhampir princess's sleep. It was better not to go near them. Then to make sure that he wasn't making any mistake, Zion didn't even go out of his hiding place.

He kept sitting behind the pillar where no butterfly could sneak a glance. But even after this, he failed to find a way to sneak Lia out. At last, he closed the shopping tab of the system and sighed. It seemed that the elf queen had thought of every possible outcome before putting Lia to an eternal sleep here in this room. Even Zion found it difficult to get the dhampir princess out of there.

"Host, what do we do now?" The system could see a frown on the detective's forehead at this time and immediately decided to try and find a solution. "We should just shake her awake! What's the point of being so careful? There's no evidence that those butterflies could notify the elf queen, right? Why are you being so careful?"

"That's because it's the elf queen we are talking about. My intuition says that she's not a person I can deal with even with all the brains I have. So I should listen to my intuition and stay away for the sake of both me and Lia. Although I don't like her, I still don't want to see her in danger." ion sighed. "After all, she's my first martial arts teacher ever since I came into this world."

"Then, what are you going to do now?" The system tilted his head as his long hair fluttered as a gust of wind passed through him. That was when Zion noticed a new feature of a live wallpaper on the screen with trees filled with pink flowers, birds flying in the sky, and even an open space where 007 was standing in his ancient Chinese robes.

Zion directly ignored such a scene and closed his eyes as he leaned against the pillar. "I'll rest for a while."

***

Just like that, another day passed by. Zion purchased energy pills to keep his body up to date. The next morning, the elf queen came as usual at the same time as the day before and glanced over at Lia's sleeping face before turning around to leave. This puzzled Zion the most.

Why was this elf queen coming here every day to take a look at the dhampir princess? Could it be that she was here to keep an eye on Lia? But according to what he had deducted, those butterflies should be doing the duty of keeping an eye on Lia. So why was this elf queen coming here every single day to sneak a glance at the sleeping dhampir princess?

Could there be a way to hack into the magical spell to sneak Lia out? Zion's imagination went wild at this moment. He even imagined himself creating an illusory image on the bed while sneaking out with Lia, away from the elf kingdom.

But after thinking for a moment, he still couldn't find out what he should do. First, even if he were to create an illusory image, he would still need magic to hack into the spell. It wasn't any technological aspect where he could type in the code to hack into the system. So for now, all he could do is think about powering up and pray that the elf queen wouldn't do anything to Lia until then.

A deep sigh escaped his lips as he made his way out of this secret room. He walked far behind the elf queen so that the latter couldn't notice that there was a person following her. And he also wore the invisibility cloak on his head to make sure that he could stay hidden in front of this queen.

In the end, Odina still couldn't find out the existence of Zion inside the chamber.

After leaving the area, Zion made his way out of the palace. He also changed back into his original human form when he was at the border of the kingdom. It took him a few days, but he was able to cross the border easily without encountering any trouble.

Of course, changing back into his human form was risky enough, but Zion was still able to escape. He didn't want to purchase a new identity since all of his previous identities had become invalid because he already passed the case. Since he was still wearing the elf's identity until the end, it helped him escape the area where his human face was still popular.

When he came out of the elf kingdom and entered deeper into the forest, he sighed in relief.

Finally! He was out of that hellish place! And this time, he wouldn't even have to see Lia's face, and he could do whatever he wanted! He even had his system with him who hadn't gone to an upgrade!

Freedom was the best thing he got ever since he transmigrated in this world!

Just as he was thinking about what he should do with his newfound freedom, he heard a familiar voice that he hadn't heard for a long time.

"You're her highness' human slave, aren't you?"

Zion froze and turned back swiftly to find a man with half red and half green eyes mounted on his horse in the middle of the narrow path surrounded by trees.

It was Martin, a soldier, who was tasked himself by the dying dhampir king, Rhesus, to follow Lia Vanne to death.

Zion's eyebrows raised momentarily before he changed his expressions to a docile and frightened human servant. Then he let out a sob while covering half of his face with his palms. He acted so pitifully that even Martin, who was on the horse, frowned and paused for a moment as if he were giving Zion a chance to calm down.

After a while, Zion took a deep breath and said in a hoarse voice, "Her Highness….Her Highness is locked by that damned elf queen!"

Martin's eyes widened at that. Lia's hatred toward the elf queen was well-known in the dhampir kingdom. It wasn't like the dhampir princess had hated Odina all her life. It wasn't like that before, but for some reason, Lia started hating the elf queen and refused to give the woman a face. No one knew when Lia started hating the elf queen, but it had become a well-known fact within the matter of a few weeks!

And now that the elf queen locked Lia up, Martin could feel that there might be a hidden history between the two that had led the elf queen to act like this. Perhaps Lia ended up provoking Odina somehow in anger and the latter couldn't help but lock her up.

The more Martin thought about this, the more he felt like this was probably the case. Otherwise, who would tell him why the heck did that elf queen locked her highness in the cell?

At this time, Martin's lips pursed as he looked at the human servant. "Tell me everything."

Zion nodded and did tell him everything, minus the fact that he was the one who had changed into an elf child to capture the criminals. The only thing he told was the fact that how the dhampir princess and he both ended up becoming a part of a crime they didn't even commit, and later, they found out how it was all a conspiracy planned perfectly by the criminals Arnold and Carol together.

After finishing up with the entire story, Martin nodded and thought for a while, and then he looked back at the elf kingdom and said, "So according to all of the elves, her highness has already gotten her reward and escaped, right?"

Zion nodded as he wiped nonexistent tears from his face.

"Then, how did you figure out that her highness was still locked up?"

"I followed the queen." Zion sniffed and pretended to be naive and innocent. "I had doubts about her anyway since I couldn't find my master no matter what. I didn't want my hunch to be true, but after following the queen, I found my master in a deep sleep." Then more tears fell from his eyes as if he were very troubled by memory and said, "There were magical butterflies above the master's face! After seeing that, I didn't dare to even go near her highness and decided to find some help." Then he looked at Martin as he wiped his face. "Please, save my master!"

Martin's face paled when he heard the words 'butterflies' flying above Lia's face. "Are you sure they were butterflies?"

Zion nodded. He couldn't help but feel that Martin perhaps knew about these butterflies.

And he was right. The next few words that the man said proved the detective's hunch was correct.

"Those are created using an ancient spell by the elves! These butterflies shower sleeping powder over the person's face, and if disturbed, the spell caster would be notified. Damn that elf queen! I never thought she would be so vicious!"