Chapter 45
The first to sense something amiss was Azel, who had been standing guard outside.
Azel, who had been guarding the banquet hall alongside House Sila's guards, could not help but be startled by the heavy aura that suddenly enveloped her.
‘What is this?! This heavy aura…’
Because of her blessing, Azel had never experienced a debuff attack such as a curse or status ailment before.
For the first time in her life, she felt herself enter a debuffed state within a barrier containing a curse powerful enough to overwhelm her blessing.
Her hands and feet felt heavy, and her chest felt tight, as though she were suffering from indigestion. The other knights and soldiers nearby seemed to be suffering similar debuffs.
“What is this…? My chest suddenly feels tight.”
“You too? I feel the same.”
As everyone felt that something unusual was happening,
a sound came from outside the estate.
“Monsters!”
“Those goblin bastards have invaded!!“
Clang-! Clang-! Clang-!
The soldiers on the castle walls were thrown into confusion.
Red-eyed goblins were suddenly streaming toward the castle from the forest as if they had gone mad.
Although monsters lived in the forest around Sila Castle, they had never swarmed in all at once like this before. The soldiers hurried up onto the castle walls and began firing arrows at the goblins in response.
Swish-! Swish-! Swish-!
“Fire!!! Don’t let those goblin bastards climb the walls!!”
Most of the soldiers stationed in the castle climbed onto the walls to respond to the goblin attack.
As Azel watched, she sensed something strange.
This horrible feeling—and it was only a goblin attack?
No matter how she thought about it, something felt terribly wrong.
“…No way!”
As she thought that, the worst possibility flashed through Azel’s mind.
What if those goblins were a trap meant to draw the soldiers’ attention away from inside the castle?
And what if the people behind this situation were after her lord?
“My lord!!”
Having reached that conclusion, Azel immediately ran toward the banquet hall.
As she ran along the path leading to the banquet hall…
Whoosh-! Whoosh-!
Clang-!!
“Guh! Who are you?!”
Daggers suddenly flew out of the darkness.
When Azel hurriedly drew her sword and knocked the daggers aside, more than ten attackers wearing black masks appeared from the darkness.
“You!”
Seeing their black masks, Azel remembered what Rana had told her about the Blood Kin assassins who had once tried to kill her lord.
Could those bastards be trying to assassinate her lord again?!
As an uneasy premonition flashed through her mind, ten assassins drew daggers before her.
Thinking this was an emergency, Azel decided to use her blessing immediately and break through them.
“Moonlight that guides me, goddess who leads me.”
As luck would have it, it was nighttime.
This was when her blessing was at its strongest, and she was about to use her blessing, <Moonlit Sword>.
But the moon’s power gathering around her sword scattered.
Bwoooong- Fweeeee…
“My blessing…isn’t activating!?”
While Azel was startled by the moonlight surrounding her sword dispersing, the black-masked figures began attacking her.
Swish-! Swish-! Clatter-!
“You bastards!!”
The black-masked figures attacked her from every direction.
They knew that she was powerful.
But seeing her flustered by her inability to use her blessing, they thought they could easily hurt her and attacked—only to realize that they had made a terrible mistake.
“Don’t underestimate the Golden Knights!”
Shing-! Shing-! Shk-!!
In this vast Empire, there were quite a few people with powerful blessings.
But among those ‘blessed ones,’ only those who were strong even without their blessings could enter the ‘Golden Knights.’
In an instant, Azel felled three black-masked figures with sword strokes as swift as the wind.
After their deaths, the remaining seven black-masked figures all drew their daggers and began taking up positions around her.
Although she had killed three of them, she still could not use her blessing. Her body was heavy, and her enemies were skilled.
Azel broke into a cold sweat for the first time in her life.
* * *
At that same moment, Rana and Ain, who were guarding the front of the banquet hall, also sensed the strange phenomenon.
Their bodies grew heavy. Then, after a commotion broke out outside, an eerie chill began to spread through the banquet hall.
“Rana…”
“Yes, Sister Ain…”
Pashat-!!
Before they could finish speaking, two black-masked figures sprang from the shadows and swung their daggers at them.
It was a perfect ambush carried out in an instant. But the two women had already vanished from where the daggers struck; only the maid skirts they had removed remained behind.
Clang-!
“…!”
When the black-masked figures looked up at the sound from above, Rana and Ain were there, having removed their maid skirts and transformed into battle mode.
Rana drew the dagger she had hidden against her thigh, and
Ain had combined the sections of the collapsible spear hidden beneath her skirt and was already holding a long spear.
Squelch-! Swish-! Thud-!
“Cough!”
“Graaagh!”
One of the two black-masked figures was impaled on Ain’s descending spear, while the other had its forehead pierced by the dagger Rana threw and died on the spot.
Although Rana and Ain had succeeded in killing two Blood Kin, they could not let their guard down.
Four black-masked figures had appeared before them.
“Sister.”
“Yes. Let’s deal with them quickly and go protect Master.”
Taking Ain’s words as their signal, the two women charged at the four black-masked figures.
Although they did not rely heavily on magic or blessings, the barrier’s debuff effect still made their bodies feel heavy.
They, too, began a difficult battle.
* * *
While I was frantically wondering how to deal with the situation in the banquet hall,
it came without warning.
I felt a sudden chill, heard bells ring outside, and saw an ominous shadow enter the banquet hall.
“Lord Jeras…”
“Yes… It seems some uncultured attacker with no appreciation for refinement has arrived.”
A black-masked figure emerged from the shadow as it entered the banquet hall.
That was unmistakably the mask of the Blood Kin assassin who had attacked me before.
Those crazy bastards sent them again?!
What have I ever done to them?!
No, had they sent them for Lord Jeras rather than me?
As I wondered this, Lord Jeras stepped forward and spoke.
”Lord Calix, please stay behind me. As head of the house, I will handle this.“
Lord Jeras, head of the house, struck a dashing pose.
Jeras was a mage only slightly below Sharen’s level.
Was I finally going to see what he was capable of this time?!
I stepped back, full of anticipation, and Jeras began his incantation.
“ Lamina Unda (Lamina Unda / Wave Blade spell)”
Magical power gathered at Jeras’s fingertips.
The magic became a blade of waves and flew toward the Blood Kin—only to dissolve into foam before it got anywhere.
Jeras panicked and chanted the spell once more.
“ La! Lamina Unda (Lamina Unda / Wave Blade spell)!!”
Jeras desperately tried to cast it.
But once again, the magic dissolved into foam and vanished.
“Wh…what? I can’t use magic?!”
Jeras genuinely began to panic, while the black-masked figure, its face hidden, clearly mocked him as it advanced step by step.
“W-Wait a moment!!”
“…!”
The black-masked figure drew its dagger.
If things continued like this, Jeras would become Je / ras.
What should I do!! How do I stop this?!
As I looked around in panic, I spotted a bow and arrows displayed on the banquet hall wall.
“…Die!”
“No!!”
At the moment the black-masked figure swung its dagger, Jeras resigned himself to his death this time.
At that moment, an arrow of salvation flew from behind him.
Twang-! Thwack-!
“Guh!!”
The arrow flew past Jeras’s head and pierced the black-masked figure’s neck.
When Jeras turned around, there I stood, holding the bow I had used to fire the arrows hanging in the banquet hall.
Jeras once again sincerely thanked me.
“Th-Thank you!! Lord Calix!”
“Save your thanks for later. Right now, securing everyone’s safety is more important!”
After saving Jeras, I immediately headed toward the room where Selenia and her maid had entered.
If the attackers were detecting magical power to locate their targets, then the most dangerous person in this castle was ‘Imperial Princess Selenia.’
When I hurried into the room, just as I had expected, a black-masked figure had already entered and was confronting Selenia.
“Lady Selenia, are you unharmed?!”
“Of course I am! Have you forgotten who I am?”
She was brimming with confidence.
And she had every reason to be.
In World Archive, she was an SSR mage. Among the lord characters who led factions, she possessed top-tier magical abilities and was the imperial family’s greatest mage.
But that was precisely why she was in danger now.
Like Jeras, she confidently began chanting.
“ Hasta Lucis (Hasta Lucis / Light Spear spell)”
White light gathered in her hand and took the shape of a spear.
But just as it was about to fire at the black-masked figure, it crumbled into dust and vanished, just as Jeras’s spell had.
“…Huh? What is this?”
When her magic failed to activate, she repeated the chant just as Jeras had.
“Hasta Lucis (Hasta Lucis)! Hasta Lucis (Hasta Lucis)!! Hasta Lucis (Hasta Lucis)!!!”
No matter how many times she repeated it, the magic would not activate. Her expression grew paler and paler as the black-masked figure approached her.
“…!”
“Lady Selenia! It’s dangerous!!”
The black-masked figure charged with its dagger raised to finish her off, and her maid, Lumiell, shouted as she ran to protect her.
But she was a little too late. If I did nothing, Her Highness would become an ex-Imperial Princess, just as Jeras had nearly become Je / ras, so I seized the bowstring once more.
Creeeak-! Twang-! Thwack-!
“Graaagh!!”
Unlike before, I hit the black-masked figure precisely in the temple with the arrow.
The black-masked figure appeared to have died instantly, and I approached Selenia.
She looked at me with a dazed expression and spoke.
I extended my hand to her as she lay on the floor.
“Th-Thank you, Calix…”
“You can thank me later. For now, let’s move somewhere safe, Lady Selenia.”
Thus, I moved with Jeras, Selenia, and Selenia’s attendant, Lumiell, in search of a safe place.
With two SSR-rank mages in the party, we should have felt incredibly reassured…but it felt as if we were dragging around two pieces of dead weight.