*Thud*
\”What?!\” A man wearing a brown hood woke up when he heard something banging on the table in front of him.
\”Who is your leader?\” A man wearing black clothes asked the man in the brown hood, who was the only one at a table full of fresh beer mugs.
\”Who wants to know?\” The man was clearly drunk. He looked at the man in black clothes and asked, upset.
The black-clothed man, one of the King’s spies, wanted to hire some mercenaries to travel to Portgreen. He pointed to the bag of coins he threw on the table. \”Fifty silver coins. Let me talk to your leader.\”
The brown-hooded man checked the bag and really had a lot of silver coins… It wasn’t a high payment, but his group was almost leaving the city… He took the spy to the back of the tavern where there was a brothel.
The leader of the small mercenary group agreed to take some spies for more silver coins. They would travel to the nearest neighboring kingdom, so it would only be beneficial to them.
The spy returned to report the spymaster near the castle, and an hour later, he and the other three spies meet the mercenaries near one of the city exits.
Some mercenaries were clearly drunk, but the group had twenty men, and most were fine. With the four spies, they left the city through the northern exit.
The group passed through the gates without any problems and followed the north road. They, as well as the guards and anyone nearby, did not notice the three figures, which followed them from the shadows.
Lucien had listened to the spy talk about him and his partners traveling with a mercenary group. He reported everything to Rose, and the trio recognized the mercenary group quickly with Maggie’s abilities.
On the wall, a hundred meters from the gate, Maggie went down using a rope. Astrid has a feline agility and high endurance so that she could jump off the wall without any problems.
Rose could literally levitate to the ground. The group went down the wall and continued to follow the group of mercenaries, who started to ride horses shortly after leaving the city.
The Bluewind Kingdom area was open fields and not forests as close to Portgreen city, so using horses there was very popular even though attack by mystic beasts was common too.
Of course, that horses were not so incredible as to be a problem for the girls to follow. After all, they were already amazing women before drinking Lucien’s special milk, now Maggie and Rose have agility equivalent to the best A-rank adventurers. At the same time, Astrid could easily surpass some S-rank.
Under Astrid’s orders, the girls followed the mercenary group five miles away from the city. They started the attack only after passing a small hill to eliminate the targets with maximum discretion.
The mercenary group was traveling smoothly. They had already gone through this route several times, and apart from having to deal with some beast attacks, they never had any significant problems on that road.
*Tremble*
\”What the fuck is that?!\” The group’s leader was a Gold-rank mercenary and was startled when the earth began to shake. The horses were frightened by knocking over most of the men while stone thorns grew from the ground creating a kind of strange wall around the group.
The King’s spies were men trained in stealth and investigation techniques. Even so, they didn’t notice anything until the attack started… Then they heard a strange conversation, which left them very confused.
(Rose) \”Let’s do this fast. My husband must be waiting for me.\”
(Maggie) \”Stop calling him husband! You haven’t married yet.\”
(Rose) \”What do you have to do with it? I don’t need anyone to say that we’re married. We made a pact, and I will only be his for life. Isn’t that being married?\”
(Maggie) \”So if that’s the case, he’s also my husband!\”
(Rose and Astrid) \”You?\”
(Astrid) \”Don’t forget that you tried to hurt his Queen and Princess. Don’t think too much of yourself just because he doesn’t mistreat you.\”
(Rose) \”Let’s do it now. I can’t keep the ground shaking all the time.\”
Maggie had already started to channeling her big fire spell. Before meeting Lucien, she needed about a minute to do it, but after receiving his \”affection,\” she could feel the mana flowing faster, and about forty seconds would be enough to cast it now.
Rose kept the earth-shaking within the circle created by earth thorns. But as she had to focus her spell on a small area, it was not as intense as the earthquake spell in Portgreen. So, some mercenaries were managing to pass between the earth thorns…
Of course, the trio was working as a team, with the same goal of receiving loving rewards from Lucien. Then Astrid killed all the mercenaries who were making it through the earth thorns wall.
\”AARGGG!!\”
\”SHIIITT!!\”
\”DAMNNN!\”
\”WHO IS DOING THIS?!?!?\”
The mercenary group was panicking. The night was dark, and they could not understand anything as the earth shook, and the earth wall surrounded them.
The leader has superior resistance compared to the others, but he heard the agonized screams of a mate, who crossed the wall of thorns… So he waited before trying to escape…
\”NOOO PLEASEEEE- AAAAAA!!\”
The mercenary leader heard another agonized cry. Not only him, but the four King’s spies also realized that inside the circle of earth thorns and outside, they were under attack.
Nobody knew what to do. The earth thorns continued to grow, forming a dome while more people died trying to escape… Some mercenaries started to throw bombs or to use spells and abilities against the wall, which only made it worse because they were hurting themselves in the dark.
The nightmare lasted so for a few seconds before a red light illuminated the earth’s dome inside. Everyone looked at the ground, which looked like fire… When the temperature quickly increased, everyone thought they would die burned by some fire spell…
\”?!?!?!\”
\”…\”
Everyone started screaming when death was so close, but the red light went out faster than it appeared. The temperature stopped rising, and a top part of the earth dome broke, causing a rock to fall on the head of an unlucky mercenary…
Except for the mercenary who died from the fallen stone on his head, the others were relieved… But the nightmare continued as they were trapped inside the earth dome without knowing what to do.
\”Who’s out there? Why are you attacking us?\” After a few seconds of deadly silence, the leader of the group spoke in fear towards the hole in the ceiling. The mercenaries didn’t think to try anything as the attackers seemed much stronger than they are, so trying to talk was the safest option.
After a few more seconds, a female voice came from outside the dome.
(Astrid) \”Just stay there. If you try moving at all… You will regret it…\”
Everyone stood still. Most even held their breath… Still, the leader tried his most soft tone to speak respectfully. \”We will not try anything… But, please, my Lady, let us, insignificant mercenaries, know who we offended.\”
(Rose/Maggie/Astrid) \”Husband.\”
(Mercenaries) \”!?!?!?!?\”
The mercenary leader wanted to ask more, but he knew he couldn’t upset the Lady and her \”attacking group.\” Everyone inside the dome was silent so that they could hear, even low, the strange conversation coming from outside the dome.
(Astrid) \”Did he only say to stop the attack?\”
(Rose) \”Yes. He only told us to keep them alive until further orders.\”
(Maggie) \”I hope we still get the reward…\”
(Rose/Maggie/Astrid) \”Indeed!\”
\”I already miss that cock so much…\” Rose closed her eyes while remembering the scent she loved so much.
\”Humm… That delicious hot milk…\” Maggie licked her lips, thinking about Lucien’s taste…
\”Can’t wait…\” Astrid couldn’t contain her eagerness. She had high expectations for that night.
\”?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!?\” The mercenaries didn’t know if they were more confused or scared… Well, they could both.
——————
An hour ago.
Lucien was at the top of a castle tower, focusing all his vision and hearing on the spymaster, who was preparing his things to travel.
He listened to all the man’s conversations and knew what all the other spies looked like and would do next… Except for one. He saw the spymaster give a sealed letter to another spy. He took the letter to a room inside the castle, where Lucien could not see or hear anything from.
All Lucien heard was the spymaster saying, \”Take it to Lady, right now.\” Lucien checked the room, but it had no windows and appeared to have a powerful magic barrier, which only allowed the spy to pass the letter under the door quickly.
He thought about breaking the door down, but it seemed stupid just to see what Lady was on the other side… He had to do things logically, and that meant stay stealth and having information before acting.
Lucien watched the spymaster finish his affairs at the castle and head for the west gate. He would go to Portgreen while his spies went to the small neighboring kingdoms.
\”Huh?\” While following the spymaster after leaving the castle, Lucien heard a strange noise in the castle. He was very curious about the room with the magic barrier, so he was still focused there so that he could hear the sound of what looked like a stone door opening on the fourth floor, right below the mysterious room on the fifth floor of the castle.
He heard softer footsteps than the castle’s servants. Then he concluded that the mysterious person must have come from the mysterious room through some secret passage and was sneaking through the castle. Probably in response to the spymaster’s letter.
Even though he knew something suspicious and had such incredible senses, Lucien was just one person and had to follow the spymaster, who was a direct danger to his precious Cassidy. In contrast, the mysterious person in the castle still showed no threat to his women.
Lucien thought about trying to mentally communicate with Mia or Cassidy so that they could investigate the mysterious person… But he feared something would happen to them while he was away from the castle.
Cassidy was strong, but only Mia had stealth abilities to follow the mysterious figure, and Lucien didn’t want to put her at risk without support.
Then he ignored the mysterious person as he approached the gate, following the spymaster.
The spymaster did not use a horse and leave the city on foot. He was swift and ran like a shadow within the dark night.
Still, Lucien was much more agile than him and thought of killing the man two miles away from the gates… But he heard something…
Lucien heard the same soft footsteps from the mysterious person in the castle, passing through the city walls. As the person was passing through the walls and avoiding the gate, he was only more curious.
\”Good…\” He noticed that the spymaster was slowing down as he headed for a tree on the side of the road. At the same time, he was focused on the mysterious figure who was heading towards the spymaster.
Lucien stood five hundred meters from the spymaster, near a large rock as he watched the mysterious figure approach the tree.
\”My Lady.\” The spymaster bowed to the mysterious figure in a very respectful way. Lucien did not hear him spoke in a tone so courteous, even for the King.
\”Explain what you reported in the letter.\” Lucien heard the mysterious person speak, and was surprised by her soft voice. She seemed like a middle-aged woman.
To Lucien’s surprise, the spymaster started reporting everything about him and his women. Everything they knew, and even simple things like the fact that he shows great affection for Oya and Ko.
The spymaster’s report did not have much useful information and was simple things like the girls’ features, which were possible to see even through the hood, and things that could be concluded by their voices or the way they acted against the royal guards…
But the most complete part of the report was about him, the spymaster not only told a lot about Lucien to the mysterious woman but also a lot of hypotheses he had about the supposed new King of Portgreen.
The mysterious woman listened to everything the spymaster said. When he finished the report, she was silent for a few seconds before speaking words that surprised Lucien.
\”Is he the man that my Marie chose?\”
