The tightly closed door opened and knights in uniform entered. A woman appeared among them and strode into the auction house.
She, like everyone else, was dressed in a uniform with a similar shape and was wearing a long sword around her waist.
But no one would think she was an ordinary knight. It was because an unusual atmosphere and a sense of intimidation emanated from her body, where she stood upright.
Everyone in the room thought it was as if they were facing a predator.
From head to toe, her gaze, the sound of her breathing, the slightest movement, not everything about her, but her very existence evokes the primal fear of people.
Perhaps because of that, the woman had a beautiful face that made her heart terrifying, but no one dared judge her beauty. both in your heart and out of your mouth.
“Lobelica Emers…?”
Someone unconsciously spit out a woman’s name. The faces of those around them turned white when they heard the small voice.
Lobelica Emers, who is she?
Isn’t she the Duke of Emers, who is called the incarnation of war? She was the object of the reverence of all the people of the country, who mercilessly defeated the enemy and turned all the roads she passed into a sea of blood.
“No one on this earth can enslave the people and buy or sell them.”
When that woman opened her mouth, everyone in the room held their breath.
“I will arrest everyone here for violating Article 45 of the Imperial Law. You will not be given the right to make excuses, nor will you be given the opportunity to seek a lawyer.”
The Duke looked around with an indifferent face. The eyes that pierce the auction house are colored as hot as fire, but they are sinking coldly.
“Catch them all.”
At her command, the knights moved in unison and began to capture people one by one.
People screamed and ran away.
Run frantically towards the exit. Meanwhile, some of them tripped over a seat or a desk placed next to it and were pushed by the crowd and bumped into a wall. The desk fell and the glasses on it shattered and crumbled.
The luxurious auction house, where soft classics flowed, suddenly turned into a dizzying sound of screams and shouts.
The employees hired for the purpose of security attacked the knights with weapons, but to no avail. To the knights who have been trained through hard training, their attacks felt like a child playing a game while wielding a sword. The staff collapsed before they even wielded their weapons. It was a mess.
There was only one quiet place in such a noisy auction house. It’s the box seat on the second floor. There was one box seat in a position where you could look down on the stage. The Duke of Emers looked up at the man sitting there and smiled. It was an alluring smile reminiscent of a gorgeous rose, but to Count Nigor, it just felt eerie.
“What is this, what is this… Ugh!”
The moment they met their gaze, Count Nigor fell backwards in surprise.
Thud! A loud sound rang out, and the heavy body was thrown to the floor.
The Count was in pain from the back of his head, and then got up in a hurry. The Count, crawling and headed to his balcony, looked out of him, kneeling on his knees and raising his torso.
“Why…?”
Rubbing his eyes and looking at her again doesn’t change. The Duke of Emers who appeared at the auction house with the knights was catching people. That Duke of Emers!
“Why is that woman here?!”
He shouted in disbelief.
“… Did she come here knowing my business? Nonsense. It was a lie. I can’t believe it! I’ve been hiding it so well!”
With the help of a servant and a self-proclaimed Duke Nikerman, the evidence was hidden where no one could find it, and anyone who could possibly be a witness was killed. The Count was sure that his business would never go unnoticed, and he thought everything was going perfectly. But today I realized that that thought was an illusion.
No matter how much you think about it, Duke Emers’ actions now seem like someone who knows everything.
‘Run away, run away. If I get caught, I’ll die…!’
Slavery was a system that the previous Emperor, who was considered a pacifist, abolished even using force. If he get caught, the minimum penalty is the death penalty. The Count sighed heavily as he remembered himself struggling over his death row with his neck hanging on a rope.
“Shit….”
The man stood up from his seat with his legs trembling in fear. The Count looked behind him to order his servants to prepare to escape. However, until just now, the servant who was standing there and pouring wine, Oberon was nowhere to be seen. That’s not all. The door to the escape route hidden in the box seat was wide open.
“This child…!”
Count Nigor’s face turned red with anger.
‘Do you dare to leave your master and run away? A rat-like guy… Do you betray without knowing the grace of giving you a job and growing your business to this extent? If it wasn’t for me, he would be stealing and living in a dirty garbage dump, Oberon! If I escape from here, I will kill you.’
The Count picked up a nearby desk and threw it against the wall. James Nigor was angry for a while, then recalled the dire situation and finally calmed his anger.
‘I must run away before the Duke Emers and the knights come to the second floor.’
He quickly kicked his foot towards the way out. There was a ladder leading down to the basement. The darkness over the exit was so thick that I couldn’t see where the end was.
The Count pressed down his fearful heart and went down cautiously.
Supporting the body weighing over 100 kg with flabby limbs without a single muscle was like death. The Count, sweating profusely, moved his body as if hanging from his ladder. The ladder, which had been fixed to the wall, trembled with a strange sound whenever the Count moved.
Eventually he reached a flat stone floor on which to set his feet. The Count walked out the narrow hallway, fumbling against the wall. When he went up the stairs at the end of the hallway and carefully opened the lid on the ceiling, he could see the grass. The man glanced around and as soon as he realized that no one was there, he ran outside.
The Count turned his back on the auction house and ran frantically to the forest in front of him.
‘There’s a carriage that came from inside the forest! I’ll just have to ride it out of here.’
Strangely enough, there were no people on the way out and in the woods.
Usually, when trying to catch criminals, it was a law that had knights keep a close eye on places where criminals might be or where they could escape. The forest was located quite far from the auction house, but it was not excluded from the search scope. But Count Nigor was too busy running away to notice anything strange.
It was after arriving at the place where the carriage was standing that he felt a strange sense of discomfort as the darkness of the night had hidden the scene of the brutal incident.
“Heh, heh heh…”
The Count bent down and tried to calm his heart as it was about to jump out. He’s been on a stretch for a long time, so his knees are creaking and his legs are shaking like crazy. He wiped the sweat from the rain with his sleeve and lifted his head. He had a carriage in front of him, the same as when he left. The Count sighed in relief and raised the corners of his lips slightly.
“Huh, huh… Maybe he…. that the bastard might have ridden and ran away…. Good luck, huh, good luck.”
The moment the man was about to walk towards the carriage, Crak! Suddenly, several huge, sharp earthen pillars came pouring out from where the carriage was standing. The impact completely shattered the carriage. Wood shards fall on the dirt floor, and the dust flies in the air. Count Nigor pounded his buttocks and blankly looked up at the smashed carriage.
“What is this…”
My carriage broke? Now, how am I supposed to run away? Where should I go? What should I do?
The Count trembled, his face contorted, and his gaze fixed on the object that had smashed his carriage.
‘No, more than that….’
Where did that appear? How did it come? Such a pillar could not have been created by human effort.
That such a thing is possible…
‘Magic…!’
Yes, only magic.
Thinking it was magic, there was a person who brushed on Count Nigor’s head. One of the Duke’s sons was a wizard. A genius who was chosen as one of the next heirs of magic tower because of his outstanding skills, but he gave up everything and returned to the mansion because he had to stay there for the rest of his life when he became the master of magic tower.
“Did you plan to run away with it?”
Arthur Emers.
The Count suddenly turned his head to the direction he heard the voice. Under his dark blue hood, he was dressed in a knight’s uniform as he walked by. His gait was so graceful that no one would not recognize him as a nobleman.
“It doesn’t work.”
He took off his hood and his blonde hair flew in the night breeze. His face, which gleamed softly in the moonlight, had a beauty that seemed far from reality. In him, who emits a white light, he feels a fleeting atmosphere that seems to disappear at any moment.
Count Nigor looked up blankly at Arthur’s face without realizing it, and felt his gaze on him like a livestock or something less than a bug, and suddenly woke up. He shuffled his legs and pulled back behind him.
‘You can’t be caught like this. It’s a little pricey, but I have to use it.’
He pulled out two magic scrolls from his arms and tore them together. Then, smoke rose from the torn scroll, covering the surroundings in white, and an icy arrow was created in the air and poured down towards the pursuer. Clang, there was a long silence after the sound of arrows being shot somewhere.
‘What happened? Are you dead?’
The Count frowned and looked at the smoke. However, the smoke was so thick that he couldn’t tell what had happened to the person inside. Seeing that there is no movement, at least he must have been incapacitated.
The Count, who had a foolishly hopeful imagination, got up in a hurry, wishing it would be this time.
As he ran without looking back, Arthur swung his hands lightly across the smoke. Then the wind blew, and the smoke that had surrounded him was completely gone. Just then, an arrow of ice shot by the Count appears. A total of twenty-four arrows were lodged in the transparent barrier around him. It was like a hedgehog.
“There’s nothing more stupid than using a scroll on a wizard.”
After all, even scrolls were made by wizards.
After those words, the arrow became vapor and disappeared.