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Side Story Chapter 261

Of course, the Fox Master still had their guards with them even if the lake was close to the palace. The Fox Master couldn’t see them right now, but Fox Master could detect at least ten presences nearby. The guards were surely securing the place from top to bottom.

‘Why am I so nervous?’ Fox Master wondered.

They couldn’t be certain that the mission in Hubalt was going to succeed given how many variables were involved. Grand Duke Lucifer was always unpredictable, and the exact level of Kireua Sanders’s martial prowess was yet to be determined after his new awakening.

‘I wasn’t this nervous when the Flame Emperor was captured.’

In fact, the Fox Master had been absolutely confident that that mission was going to be successful.

‘But it’s different now.’

The Fox Master rubbed the goosebumps covering their arms before reaching up and taking off the fox mask, revealing their—no, her divine, perfectly curved figure. Most men wouldn’t be able to keep themselves together at the sight of her figure. Unfortunately for any such voyeurs, her face remained hidden by a white waterproof cloth under the mask.

The moment she got into the chilly lake, she felt her mind settle. Ever since she had been a child, she’d had good intuition. No, that was an understatement considering that her intuition had only been wrong exactly once.

Nevertheless, there were no measures she could take right now as she had no idea what this ominous feeling was. Was Lucifer going to betray her? Perhaps the Battle God or the Martial God was going to be the cause of another unexpected change. Or… although she didn’t want to imagine it, Kireuas Sanders might go through another awakening. The possibilities frustrated her a lot.

“…I’m going to go crazy.”

The Fox Master dived into the water. Bubbles disturbed the lake’s surface like her troubled mind.

‘Whatever it is, I’ll trust my intuition. That’s the only thing I can do right now…’

* * *

Meanwhile, the battle in the Black Monster Forest was nearing its end.

“Those of you in the second and third ranks, cease your attacks! And until they finish their retreat, those in the first rank will focus on fending off the enemy and then you guys withdraw too! We got what we had come for!” Swallow\'s leader yelled, as if he wanted the Avalon knights to hear him.

Cain flinched. “They got what they had come for…?”

A possibility crossed his mind and Cain swiftly turned his head to the forest where the knight had taken Kireua.

“Come to think of it, why did he take Kireua into the forest?” Cain mumbled.

Avalon’s knights were still in Hubalt, so Cain hadn’t given much thought to it until now. Choosing to take shelter in the forest was odd since it was the Black Monster Forest. The place was crawling with monsters and the knight would have to fight them alone. It was like taking shelter from a bear in a tiger’s den.[1] Why would the knight go in there alone?

“Hey, you over there!” Cain gestured at one of the Avalon knights.

“Ah, yes, Sir Cain.”

“Is one of our knights… Ah, fuck!”

Cain couldn’t afford to have this conversation while Swallow’s forces were retreating as they spoke. Care and caution were required to make an objective analysis of the situation, but the moment called for action, not deliberation.

“Go after them!” Cain yelled.

“Pardon?”

“Stop the battle and go after them! Come on!”

“Si-Sir Cain, what are you talking about…?” the knight stammered.

“His Highness has been kidnapped. The knight is their spy… Cough!”

Cain’s condition was still far from okay. Just getting worked up a bit made him cough up blood. His mana hall was in particularly serious condition—in fact, a lot of his mana hall would be irreversibly damaged unless treatment was undertaken right now.

“A-are you okay?” The knight helped Cain stand up straight.

“I’m fine. Go get His Highness…”

The knights regained their composure and organized themselves to pursue Swallow’s knights.

Someone watched everything from the shadows. Before long, they vanished into thin air.

* * *

That person was Isaac.

‘Although it took an unexpected turn… I think I should consider it Kireua Sanders’s victory,’ she thought as she zipped through the forest.

Before the battle started, Isaac had decided that the course of her future would be determined by the battle’s outcome. She had been rather impressed by Kireua’s unexpected success during the battle.

‘But… Swallow got what they came for in the end. It looked like that knight took Kireua Sanders.’

Nevertheless, Kireua had won the battle when he had cut off Lucifer’s head, although the ongoing war between the empires was a different story.

‘…Or maybe that’s just what I want to believe.’

The thought made Isaac freeze. She’d always wanted to break free from her past and present, but she never could. After spending a lifetime as a slave, she was incapable of doing anything on her own.

-Where do you think you are going?

The sudden telepathic message made Isaac instinctively snap her cross her arms in front of her protectively, eyes wide.

Not a moment too late, a powerful airburst struck Isaac. It was so strong that Isaac was thrown off of her feet and only stopped when her back smashed into a large tree.

When she recognized her assailant, Isaac knew that trouble had found her.

“…Anna bel Grace. How long have you been following me?”

“I never trusted you in the first place, so I’ve had my eye on you even during the battle.“

Isaac could see something translucent dragon above Anna—her elemental spirit. However, Anna seemed to be using more power than she could safely handle, based on the bulging veins in her eyes and tears of blood she shed.

Isaac sighed. “…Get out of my way.”

“Don’t tell me that you’re actually threatening me right now.”

“You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

“Crazy bitch,” Anna scoffed. “Give me back Kireua and I’ll get out of your way even if you try to keep me here.”

“…I highly doubt that you’ll believe me, but I’m not the one who took Kireua Sanders.”

Anna’s elemental spirit let out a roar, voicing the emotions it shared with its master..

“You’re right, I don’t trust crazy bitches, so I’m going to make you talk even if it means I’ll have to torture you. I’m going to start with your fingernails and toenails, and then, if you still won’t talk, I’ll tear your limbs off one after another. Then I’ll dig out your eyes, cut off your tongue, and gouge your ears out before I feed you to the dogs. You won’t be able to feel a thing until they start gnawing the flesh off your bones.

“Wait, maybe I’ll just destroy your mana hall and toss you over to those rowdy soldiers. You have quite a pretty face; they’ll love you,” Anna coldly threatened.

The way her hair was fluttering was awfully beautiful for someone making such a frightening threat.

Isaac let the end of her mouth curl upward. “You’re going to defeat me? Are you an idiot? You can’t remember what happened a few days ago?”

“…You’ve gotten real cocky after you caught me off guard one time.” Anna extended her arm. “... I’ll show you why I’m called the Witch of the North in Avalon.”

Isaac’s instincts screamed and she immediately sprang forward. A mighty gale ripped through the air right where she had been standing, leaving behind a wide, deep crevice and destroying everything in its path.

“Aren’t you nimble,” Anna scoffed.

Isaac frowned. She instinctively knew that the flying wind elemental spirit dragon would immediately attack her if she approached within a certain distance of Anna.

‘That elemental spirit is dangerous,’ Isaac thought.

The best way to deal with a mage or an elemental spirit mage was to slit their throat before they could use a spell or summon their elemental spirit. However, Isaac had already missed her window of opportunity. Now she was in trouble…

That was why Isaac decided to attack Anna from a distance. Close combat wasn’t Isaac’s only forte. Since she had already reached a considerable level as a martial artist, she could freely fire her aura and handily break a boulder in two with the aura strikes.

However, it didn’t work at all. The elemental spirit destroyed Isaac’s aura strikes before they got anywhere near Anna.

“What a nuisance.”

“Of course. It’s the best I’ve got.” Anna beamed through the bloody tears streaking her face. “Why don’t you die now?”

Anna extended both of her arms this time, and the elemental spirit dragon let out a roar far louder than before. Isaac had to cover her ears. It was obvious that Anna was about to use her ace in the hole, but Isaac was confident of her victory. She wasn’t dealing with the Martial God, and Anna was just an elemental spirit mage…

‘…I’ll crush her head right after I block this one,’ Isaac decided.

At that moment, Isaac and Anna both froze. They sensed an eerie mana nearby.

“This is…”

“Isn’t this Kireua…?”

Anna and Isaac immediately left the area. Something bad must have happened to Kireua. Otherwise, there was no way to explain the wave of mana so intense that it seemed to be capable of tearing down the entire forest.

1. The raw is 여우를 피하려 호랑이 굴에 들어가는 상황이 생길 수도 있었으니까. It’s the Korean idiom about how one runs away from danger and faces more serious danger instead. ☜