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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“Huff, huff.”
“Haa, it’s hard.”
May and Lucia, who had barely escaped, sat on a nearby fountain to catch their breath.
As the tension began to unwind, their sweat glands also opened up as if a floodgate had been released, so they ended up buying two towels nearby to wipe themselves.
“Wi-will that person be okay?”
To Lucia, who was worried about Sen, May answered not to worry.
“She’s exceptionally strong. From what I saw earlier, it seemed like she could handle it.”
Moreover, judging from the fact that the assassin still wasn’t chasing them, it felt like the fight wasn’t over yet or Sen had won.
“How did you know?”
How did she know that she and Lucia were being chased?
May took off the jumper she was wearing and hung it on her arm, wiping her neck with the towel.
“Sen would have noticed right away if it was the Chokugen Faction.”
“Oh my, you startled me!”
May unconsciously threw the towel at Elise, who had peeked her face out.
The expression on Elise’s face, who had been smiling slightly, began to crack a little as the towel hit her face with a smack.
“You’re really asking for a beating, aren’t you? I immensely regretted helping you just now.”
“Sorry about that. No, but I did it reflexively because I was surprised.”
May apologized awkwardly as she received the towel back.
Elise wiped her face with a handkerchief and sighed.
“That person is a nun of Helios, right? A candidate for the saint this time.”
“Yeah, how do you know that too?”
At May’s amazed expression, Elise felt a bit smug but continued speaking calmly.
“First, we need to send her back to the cathedral. It’s very dangerous outside right now. There’s a very dangerous person targeting her.”
“Targeting me?”
“It must be another saint candidate.”
At May’s obvious remark, Elise hesitated for a moment, then sighed and nodded.
“A nun who serves the goddess Demeter. There’s a very powerful person backing her. I can’t say who it is, but keep that in mind.”
That much was enough for Lucia.
Another nun who served a different god was targeting her.
While feeling a creepy fear, it was a problem she couldn’t overlook as a fellow nun and saint candidate.
“Go back to the cathedral right away. This is all I can help you with.”
“Yes, thank you so much.”
“I’ll take you there.”
Leaving Elise’s help behind, Lucia and May headed back to the cathedral.
Since it wasn’t that far in terms of distance anyway, they would arrive soon if they moved at a slightly faster pace.
After the two left, Elise sighed and stretched.
She had tried her best to somehow stop the plan of her older brother and the 1st Prince, Oliver de Frisia, and had succeeded to some extent.
On the surface, she pretended to help Prince Oliver, but behind the scenes, she subtly obstructed his plans.
Since the prince was involved, she had asked Sen, who was in the same year, to check if the Chokugen Faction was present.
Thanks to Sen, who knew their habits very well, she was able to easily notice the enemy’s pursuit.
‘Sen would have taken them down sufficiently by now.’
Since she had also put her maid Bertia with her, there was no way Sen would have lost.
Elise headed towards the alley where Sen had fought with leisurely steps.
“Huh……?”
The profuse blood flowing in the alley continued to flow without stopping as if the ground had tilted.
Eventually, it reached the tip of Elise’s shoes at the end of the alley.
“You’ve come.”
There stood Priscilla with two bodies at her feet.
Sen and Bertia.
‘Priscilla defeated them?’
Priscilla, Prince Oliver’s servant, was certainly outstanding, but Bertia, the former leader of the secret forces, definitely had the upper hand in terms of skill.
“It wasn’t me. Another member of the Chokugen Faction took care of them, and I just came to clean up.”
“……!”
“The prince said you would definitely help your friends. Even if you pretend not to, you have a lot of affection.”
“Are you saying you were watching me?”
How dare she pry into the background of her, the 3rd Princess, and set up such a trap?
But Priscilla answered insensitively without any change in emotion.
“There’s no way Prince Oliver would have truly wanted something from the princess. He is perfectly complete on his own.”
“I had forgotten what kind of person he is because I met my older brother for the first time in a while.”
She thought she should have been a bit more cautious, but she had already judged it was too late.
It was a trap from the moment Prince Oliver called her to his hotel room.
He was just looking for a way to firmly entangle her while pretending to be on the same side.
It was similar to the fighting style of a swordsman who deliberately exposes a weakness and then counterattacks.
Even if Elise had noticed that, she had no choice but to act as she did now.
May or other students could have been in danger, and if that happened, Daniel would be sad.
“It wasn’t that the princess was incompetent. Rather, because you were wise, the prince deliberately mixed truth and lies cleverly. Since I told you about the nun of Demeter, you naturally had no choice but to be deceived.”
Prince Oliver had shown various evidences that he had been supporting the nun of Demeter for a very long time, so Elise had no choice but to believe it.
He sincerely intended to make the nun of Demeter the saint in this election.
“Let’s go together. The prince has specially bestowed mercy upon you. Mercy for a traitor, it’s truly an exception and only possible because you’re family with mixed blood.”
At Priscilla’s grating words, Elise bit her lip tightly and gripped the hem of her skirt strongly, but there was literally nothing else she could do.
‘Ah, I’m sorry, Daniel.’
This is as far as I go.
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“When you see that bitch of a nun of Demeter, start by punching her first.”
“Huh? But that’s a bit……”
At Lucia’s reaction, May tapped her chest in frustration.
“Hey, she’s the one who ordered to kill you, so she’s getting off easy with just that. If it were me, I would have gone straight with a bat and turned her into pulp.”
“I-I’ll try my best.”
As they said that, the two entered the beginning of the long bridge. Now, they just had to cross the bridge and they would reach the cathedral.
May thought for a moment and spoke with a smile.
“Still, it was fun.”
There was no way being chased by an assassin would have been really fun.
Lucia, who knew it was May’s consideration to not make her feel burdened, smiled faintly.
“May would surprisingly suit being a nun well.”
“Yuck, me?”
May made a vomiting gesture, saying she had never thought of that before, but she pondered deeply.
“Nun’s clothing is surprisingly sexy, isn’t it?”
“Oh, oh my! How can you say that in front of a nun!”
“Why? I’ve heard boys say that nun’s clothing is sexy. I think it’s because of the gap. A nun who’s supposed to be pure is actually sexy. Something like that.”
“M-May!”
“Kekeke, I wonder if Daniel likes nun’s clothing too?”
The moment she said she was willing to wear it if he liked it.
Her foot meaninglessly stepped on air.
It took a few seconds for the two girls, whose center of gravity shifted forward, to realize they had fallen off the bridge.
“Lucia!”
May hurriedly embraced Lucia and fell into the river that crossed the city of Batian with her back.
Along with the sound of the two girls falling into the water, the gazes of startled people gathered.
What was surprising here was that no one had noticed the two girls walking on the bridge falling.
“Ugh!”
“May!”
May, who hadn’t properly come to her senses from the impact of the fall, but this time, Lucia was able to embrace her and swim out to the waterside under the bridge.
“Cough, cough! May! Are you okay?”
“Cough!”
She was coughing up water, but she hadn’t lost consciousness, so Lucia hugged her tightly.
“Ah, Helios.”
Sincerely expressing her gratitude to Helios, Lucia checked May’s face.
Her face was pale, but her expression showed a faint smile telling her not to worry, so she sighed in relief.
“I was surprised, to think a nun could swim so well. You must have played a lot in the river when you were young?”
It was the first time she felt a sticky ominousness from a voice.
It felt like a spider was crawling on her neck and spinning a web.
Even though it was under the bridge, a woman who truly fit the word ‘madame’ was smiling down at the two, with a black parasol on her shoulder and wearing a black lace dress.
“Shit, Lucia run!”
Even though her body must not have been well, May hurriedly got up and grabbed Lucia’s hand, shouting.
“That woman passed by us right before we fell off the bridge!”
For a moment, Lucia felt goosebumps.
The woman who had performed a strange acrobatic feat that even they themselves, who were falling, couldn’t notice, had somehow come down under the bridge?
She wondered if she was a ghost, but the woman covered her mouth and let out a hoho laugh.
“Do you think you can run away?”
“……”
“I can slit your throats right now? Think a bit wisely. You should beg me for your lives or negotiate with me.”
At her words implying there was room for conversation, May and Lucia stopped in their tracks.
Indeed, the woman’s skill had a depth they couldn’t fathom.
If they ignored her and moved recklessly, their throats could be cut without even noticing, just like they fell off the bridge.
“Now then……”
The moment the madame was about to say something with a smile, a resounding male voice interrupted her.
“May Plov!”
You know what?
Although it’s a very old cliché, delinquents actually have a strong preference for the underside of bridges.
Especially in an unfamiliar city like this, finding their own sanctuary and secret base was the top priority.
Just like cockroaches naturally go under the bed.
“Senior Talois?”
The 5th-year Fist King Talois and his gang.
There were much more than when they encountered them in the city earlier, including not only 4th-years but even some 3rd-years she knew.
‘Were they being recruited?’
She thought they were trying to tell her to betray them, but it was actually an opportunity.
May grabbed Lucia’s hand and squeezed herself between the gang members.
“Whoa?”
The gang members were startled to see May suddenly squeeze between them, but May shouted with a smile.
“Seniors! It’s that bitch! That bitch pointed at us and called us idiots!”
“Oh my, how vulgar.”
The madame still didn’t erase her smug smile and naturally shifted her gaze towards the gang.
May had a reason for acting this way.
Both the assassin who threw daggers earlier and this madame.
They tried to create a place with as few people around as possible.
In other words, there was some reason why bystanders should not be involved.
‘They won’t be able to kill our students recklessly either.’
May’s prediction was spot on.
With the madame’s level of skill, she could have just torn through the human barrier and found May Plov and Lucia, but she didn’t and just smiled.
May, who had reached the end of the gang, smiled at Lucia, whose cheeks were squished by being sandwiched between people.
“Run straight to the cathedral now, okay?”
“M-May!”
“Hey, I have to stop that bitch. I’ll buy you time until you reach the cathedral.”
“But then!”
May hugged Lucia and said.
“She can’t kill me. You can tell she’s only targeting you.”
“May……”
“If you enter the cathedral, it’s our victory. Go and make sure to punch that Demeter nun.”
Lucia also hugged May tightly.
“I will definitely do that. Even though it was a short time, thank you so much. I hope we meet again, my delinquent friend.”
“Go quickly.”
Wiping her flowing tears, Lucia immediately ran towards the cathedral. She also knew. If she ran away, this whole thing would end.
That’s why she had to make the heart-wrenching choice of leaving her friend behind.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
Talois approached May with annoyance, about to punch her right away.
He raised his fist to beat May up right now, but she grinned and pointed behind Talois’s back.
“Do you think you have time for that now?”
“What?”
“The crazy bitch is coming.”
The madame, who said it was a rather entertaining melodrama and was clapping her hands softly, was slowly approaching them.
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“Lucia?”
Lucia, who had entered the cathedral, encountered the priest who was waiting for her, but she ignored him and walked further inside with long strides.
“Lu-Lucia! That’s the other nuns’ quarters! You can’t go there recklessly!”
There was a rule that the nuns should not know each other’s faces or names until the election began, so she shouldn’t have acted so recklessly.
But Lucia had already given up on becoming a saint long ago.
Fulfilling the wish of her delinquent friend was more important than becoming a saint.
‘Prepare yourself for a nosebleed at least.’
Lucia’s footsteps quickened at the voice of the priest chasing after her.
She tightly grasped the rosary around her neck and opened the door engraved with the symbol of the goddess Demeter.
“You!”
Lucia was about to confront her right away, but what greeted her was a fishy smell hitting her nostrils.
The profuse blood that made her eyes sting was drenching the neatly laid carpet and even the nun’s habit that should always be pure and clean.
“Huh?”
A rosary of the goddess Demeter around her neck.
An expression frozen in despair amidst boundless horror.
A dagger stuck between the breasts of the nun lying sprawled.
The nun of Demeter was already dead.
“What in the world is this……?”
The moment she turned her body to tell the priest who had followed her that something was strange.
“Oh my, you should have done it moderately.”
The priest of Helios who had come to Batian with her covered Lucia’s mouth with a handkerchief, and along with the scent of a stinging drug, Lucia fainted on the spot.
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