Chapter 188: Mentor (5)

Chapter 188: Mentor (5)

『Translator: RainTL』

༺ Mentor (5) ༻

A blunder.

Her over-excitement ended up causing her to make a mistake.

The silver wolf, whom she had been chasing after for a long time, was finally discovered at the Chapel of Xeruem.

The reason for that was simple – he must have gone there to save his kindred, who were imprisoned in the lands of Xeruem, which they referred to as the deadlands.

For a long period of time, there had been a long strife between the Xeruem Order and these unidentified group of beastmen, who refused to share their headquarters despite the intense persecution and torture they had to endure.

It seemed that Estelle knew who they were but refused to tell her the truth.

However, that didn’t matter. Miriam was sure that at least one of them would eventually spill the truth so she continued chasing after them with her subordinates.

Each and every one of her subordinates that she took out on those ‘hunts’ were high-grade guardians and she also took hundreds of private soldiers with her.

She considered that to be enough and...

“They caught me off guard.”

She ended up falling into a trap.

Fairy Shift.

It was a skill that swapped locations of different people like the pranks of a fairy. They didn’t have the delicate control over dimensions that the Great Witch Josephine Clara had, but they were nonetheless successful in isolating Miruam to a mountain by herself.

-AWOOOOOOO—!!

The mountain range under the night sky echoed with the howling voices of wolves. It was evident that the werewolves looking for her were quite angry.

“Fuu... Quite irritated, aren’t you?”

She could feel their hatred and fury from all the way here. She vividly sensed their hatred with her skin, but that failed to affect her in any way.

It was because she hated them even more.

***

Miruam Elizabeth El Rath was born as the 2nd Princess of the El Rath Kingdom.

Just like Estelle, who was already showing signs of the Saintess, Miruam was at the center of expectant gazes of those hoping that she would be a great queen in the future.

Her nanny from a young age, the maids that had been looking after her ever since she was a baby, and the royal mage teaching her magic...

『Miru, my daughter!』

And more than anyone else, she had her mother who loved her the most.

-AWOOOOOOOO...!

-AWOOOOOOOO...!

That night was the same as today, in the sense that she could hear the howling wolves all around her.

Their destination that night was the mansion not so far from the Chapel of Xeruem to the west. Her mother was a devout believer of the Xeruem Order, and they were thus visiting the chapel for a religious festival.

She could still remember falling asleep from the long and exhausting carriage trip...

“Uun... Mommy?”

As well as how she woke up from the bed hearing the commotion outside.

“Your... Highness.”

“Nanny?”

Her nanny, who used to gently talk to her every time, looked powerless and dispirited.

-Flop!

“Nanny? I’m scared. Wake up...”

She rocked the powerless body of her nanny, but all she got in return was a feeble voice that resembled a weak ember on a matchstick in a storm.

“Your Highness... Run away...”

Her head dropped to the ground as the nanny stopped moving. Soon, something rusty started to create a puddle underneath her.

“Ahh...”

Miruam looked past the nanny, beyond the door of the carriage.

It was filled with blood no matter where she turned.

That was the day when she lost everything in the world.

.........

......

...

Despite being isolated in a mysterious mountain range, Miruam was able to hide from the eyes of the wolves for a lot longer than expected.

『Dogs rely heavily on their sense of smell to track down their prey. As long as you can do something about that, it shouldn’t be that difficult to escape from them.』

That piece of advice, which she rebuked for being worthless for her at the time, and her experience escaping from the Blood Dog leading Hounds were a lot more helpful than she initially thought.

She unleashed her serpents to the Hounds that were receiving commands from the werewolves, killed one of them, and covered herself with its blood and skin.

Although she wasn’t a diligent student, she was a genius at making use of what she knew, which had a great impact on her ability to escape from the werewolves.

‘It’s as if... he knew this would happen.’

He knew something – and it was apparent that he knew a lot more than she had initially assumed. She wanted to have him; with him by her side, it was certain that these wolves wouldn’t even be able to serve as a threat.

However, she met her limits before long.

Although she tried her best to hide her scent and remove her traces, werewolves were still masters of hunting and tracking.

The beastmen were greatly confused as they saw Josephine, the Dimensional Witch, appear alongside Korin Lork, the hero of the Kingdom.

“I thought it would be my soldiers, or me teleporting out.”

Miruam’s question was answered by Korin.

“Even though Lia Fail is overpowered, it still does follow the rules of cause and effect. Of course, if it really can’t make things ‘look natural’, then it does sometimes throw that rule down the drain.”

Korin added another sentence, saying that it wouldn’t be possible with her Mana Capacity.

“Lady Josephine, who can teleport, and me, who just ‘happened to be next to her’. That would make more sense than your soldiers appearing out of nowhere. Right?”

It felt weird to hear him say that so confidently as if it wasn’t his first time, but that was beside the point.

“I see. Well, whatever. Those guys have attempted to assassinate the princess. Kill them.”

“I’ll have to say no to that.”

“What do you mean?”

Without replying to the princess’s question, I approached Ku Shee and the beastmen.

“Your assassination has failed the moment we came here. Do you intend to fight me to death or run away?”

Neither was the best option, but Ku Shee was a wise leader.

“We’ll fall back.”

“Sir!?”

“We can deal with them!”

Ku Shee remained calm in the middle of the over-excited beastmen.

“We cannot fight two semi-Unique Grades with our current composition. The princess can still fight on top of that.”

Saying that, Ku Shee led his group back, but lamented one last time before leaving the mountain.

“In the end... there’s no other option than a frontal battle, huh?”

“No. You can still accept my offer.”

“...”

He didn’t respond.

He probably had a lot of things on his mind, including how he had to report to Mound about his arbitrary judgment to assassinate the princess and its failure.

“...”

The beastmen disappeared but Miruam continued glaring daggers at Korin. She was holding herself back quite a lot just by maintaining her calm on the outside.

“We should have killed them,” she said.

“Fighting dozens of beastmen while protecting the princess is easier said than done.”

“I can protect myself.”

“But what if you die? How will you take revenge or whatever when you’re dead?”

“Student Korin. That’s...”

Josephine tried to intervene and remind him about his attitude but Korin stopped her instead. He turned to Miruam and looked straight back into her eyes.

“That’s what revenge is,” said the princess. “It’s about putting everything on the line. My life is not even a part of the equation.”

“From where till where is the scope of your revenge?”

“Everything and everyone. Korin Lork. Isn’t it natural?”

“Don’t fool yourself, Princess. There’s no ‘end’ to ‘everything’, nor is it possible.”

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“Draw the line. Draw the end goal of your revenge. Achieve that goal and put an end to it.”

-Otherwise, there will be no end to your revenge.

***

The attempted assassination of Princess Miruam immediately after the kidnapping incident of the Saintess, was enough to send the Kingdom into another fit of chaos.

However, it was difficult for the Kingdom to respond to this incident, because it wasn’t certain ‘who’ the target was. They knew that Ku Shee was a werewolf, but they didn’t know where he was and which group he belonged to.

Who could possibly imagine that there was an underground city of demi-humans that has existed for centuries?

But that was when an unexpected testimony came from Xeruem.

『The people that attacked Her Highness Miruam are from a union of demi-humans, called Mound. They reside in the underground city of Dana Shee and—』

One of the bishops who escaped the New Faith from Estelle’s purge reported to the Kingdom about Mound and Dana Shee.

Now that the direction of the Kingdom’s sword had become clear—

『I, Miruam Elizabeth El Rath, will eradicate the demi-humans that tried to assassinate the princess.』

What followed was a natural course of events.

The Kingdom raised its army, and the Alliance gathered guardians to join the battle against Mound.

Xeruem Order dispatched Templar Knights as if they had been waiting for this moment and pressured Estelle and the Zeon Order, who could not voice out their protective stance for demi-humans due to the seriousness of the incident.

An army was being gathered to annihilate demi-humans and Dana Shee.

“It’s a bit earlier than expected, but it’s because of a mistake from your end. What are you going to do?”

I asked Ednar Illusan, the Queen of Cats, who came looking for me in a hurry.

“...Is the offer still valid?”

“Of course.”

It was time for the next phase.