Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Lucien was not much influenced by their denouncement, as this was totally within his expectation. Also, he knew that he was much more powerful than all of them.
With his great confidence, Lucien remained rather calm.
However, Sophia was so angry that her face had turned pale, “That’s nonsense! When the magic circle first started changing, Beaulac and I were finding the correct path! We had no time for that!”
“There is no witness. Only Your Highness and Beaulac!” Arthen put on a cold sneer. The rest of the nobles including Relph and Claire also fixed them with a distrustful glare.
Seeing the situation, Sophia got even more irritated and her whole body was shaking, “This is a legendary sorcerer’s underground palace. There’s no way that I could change the magic circles here!”
“Is that right? I remember that His Majesty once took this test as well, thus he knew the layout of this place very well. Now His Majesty has already reached the legendary level, and he’s capable enough of interfering with the magic circles here. Maybe…maybe somehow you got to the method by accident, Your Highness, and you believed that you could control the test and trap Sir Metatron. You have picked Beaulac, this useless piece of trash, to be your tool, so you can control the Gorse family! Or why a spoiled princess would want to come down here?!” Arthen’s words resonated in the hall.
Hearing what Arthen just said, now the nobles were staring at Sophia as if she was a beautiful but dangerous succubus. The way they looked at Sophia was full of alert and hatred, and they could rush forward together and kill the princess at any time!
To be honest, after hearing Arthen’s words, Lucien also became suspicious of Sophia’s purpose of coming down there. Although Arthen did not have any evidence, his explanation did make sense. Lucien also had many questions in his mind.
However, since when Arthen became this articulate? According to what Lucien got to know from Beaulac, giving speech was never Arthen’s strength. Was Arthen playing the role of a muscular but simple-minded knight all the time?
Also, Sophia never left Lucien’s side since they met in the underground palace, and thus she hardly had any chance to interfere with the magic circles. If she had set up all the tricks in advance, how did Sophia know where to find Beaulac in time? Also, there was no need for Sophia to hide her purpose from Beaulac, as there were so many excuses that she could find. If Beaulac had known that the princess was willing to spend this much effort supporting him, he would definitely pledge his allegiance to the princess and protect her safety with his own life. However, right now, once Beaulac heard the accusation from the others, it was very likely that he would feel suspicious.
Sophia stamped her feet out of frustration, and she turned to Lucien with tears in her eyes, “Do you trust me?”
“I trust you with my heart.” Lucien looked at Sophia to comfort her, but meanwhile, he was estimating how far the secret chamber was from the hall.
There was a charming smile on Sophia’s face, like a blooming tulip. “As long as you trust me, I am not afraid of their accusation at all.”
Seeing how close the princess and Beaulac were, many of the young nobles who had a secret crush on the princess were very pissed. Out of their great rage, they wanted to put them on the burning gallows right away.
Arthen knew that all of the young nobles had reached the climax of their irritation, thus he lifted the sword in his right hand and cried out loud, “Relph, Claire, do you want to die here? If you don’t, we shall stay together and kill them first!”
The look on Relph’s face was complicated, but finally, he answered aloud, “Arthen, I’ll follow you!”
He had trusted Arthen’s words.
“Good, what about you, Claire?” said Arthen. At the same time, he lifted the black shield covered with a layer of magic symbols, in case Sophia would cast magic at any time.
Maybe Sophia was too shocked by the situation, but there was no sign that she would launch her attack first before the other nobles gathering together, while Lucien had decided to wait and see how things would change. In the meantime, he was still working on figuring out where the secret chamber would be.
Claire was also wearing a tight chain mail like Jocelyn, which showed her curved figure perfectly. But Claire’s chain mail was black.
“Me?” Claire squinted her eyes slightly, and she smiled, “I’ll fight with Her Highness and Beaulac.”
“What?!”
The rest of the nobles could not believe their ears.
Arthen said calmly, “Are you one of them, Claire?”
“Stop your nonsense, Arthen,” Claire lifted her blond eyebrow. “I’m doing so because I think you are the one who did all of these! Facing this situation, we should stop fighting against each other and wait for uncle Ulrich to send the rescue in. Only the murderer would want to provoke such a big conflict so he could kill all the people he wished before others arrived! Arthen, confess! What do you want?!”
As she was questioning Arthen, Claire and the nobles who supported her were moving toward Sophia.
Sophia was very surprised, “Thank you, Claire! You deserve the name, ‘the Wisdom Gorse’!” At this time, she noticed that Beaulac was looking at the other direction, “What are you looking at, Beaulac?”
Lucien had remembered the layout of this place. He turned around and the corner of his mouth twitched, “I’m… Uh… I’m looking for a little boy named Conan, Edogawa Conan.”
The murder, the secret chamber, dead bodies… These were all the key elements in the Japanese cartoon Detective Conan.
“What… Conan? Never heard this weird name before. A little boy? How can he come down here? How do you know him?” Sophia was very confused.
“Sorry, I was just joking. He’s… uh… He’s just a little boy that I know. Every time I see him, bad things happen. I was… joking, really.” Lucien was a bit embarrassed. He had no idea where and why his sense of humor just came out in this situation.
Surprisingly, Sophia understood Lucien’s strange response and nodded to him. Then, she turned back to Claire and said sincerely, “I have to say that I did not like you much before, Claire, but now I must apologize because I did not discover your wisdom and beauty earlier. Please forgive me, Claire.”
“No worries, Your Highness,” Claire smiled. “Under your radiance, I’m not that eye-catching.”
When Claire turned around to face Arthen, she blinked at Lucien to remind him that their agreement still worked.
Arthen’s face was rather gloomy, “Claire, if we don’t unite, Beaulac and the princess will leave us no chance. Compromise and yielding will bring us no safety!”
“That’s right!” agreed Relph and the rest of nobles loud.
Lucien had also observed the reaction of the nobles, and with the psychology knowledge he learned, he saw their immediate consensus rather suspicious.
“Fight! Only fight brings safety! Only fight can get us out alive!” Arthen patted on his shield with his sword and shouted. As if Arthen’s vigor and posture had affected the nobles following him, the morale was extremely high.
Arthen’s body was covered with a layer of dazzling light and he took the lead rushing toward Lucien, Sophia, and Claire. The entire hall was slightly shaking from his heavy steps.
As the knight, Lucien held the sword Frost tight with both of his hands and ran toward Arthen. Claire followed him close.
In Arthen’s team, a black tornado was summoned. Several nobles were scooped up high by the wind force and in the next second thrown to the ground fiercely. They directly passed out.
No one could resist the power of a level-five blood power caster without the strength of a grand knight or the same level extraordinary magic or divine items. However, Sophia was clearly restraining herself as she had no plan on killing them, or it would bring her big troubles when she got out.
In the tornado, however, Arthen was as steady as a big rock. In a few seconds, he had come in front of Lucien and launched his attack!
Lucien also wielded his sword from the bottom to the top, and Frost directly hit Arthen’s level-five magic sword.
Bang!
To Lucien’s great surprise, he felt no strength in Arthen’s sword.
With a single hack, Arthen was blown backward as if there was some fierce wind, and as soon as he hit the ground, he kept moving back.
At this time, Lucien heard an exclamation from behind. In the next second, the soft female body ran straight into him. Then with several strong magic waves, four transparent walls had surrounded them!
“Claire… What are you doing!?” Sophia angrily asked Claire, who was standing outside of the walls. It was Sophia who ran into Lucien, and her shield of wind already had many cracks.
Claire smiled coldly, “Your Highness, I have always been on Arthen’s side.”
“Claire, you…!” Sophia was so pissed that she was speechless.
Lucien noticed that Relph was also in the wall trap when Relph questioned Claire furiously, “You are with the royal family, aren’t you? Why are you helping Arthen?”
Slightly frowning, Lucien stared at the transparent wall in front of them. To him, the way the power was flowing in the walls and how the magic symbols were changing were strange.
At this time, except for Arthen, Claire, and the several nobles who had passed out on the ground, the rest of them were all trapped.
They finally realized the truth. A young noble yelled, “You were the one who changed the magic circles. It was you!”
“Hahahaha…” laughed Arthen loud, “I’ll have nothing to worry when you all die! There is no way that Claire will want to fight against me because of the dukedom! Soon she will marry the prince!”
“Is that you, my brother?” Sophia finally understood everything, and she turned to look at the other direction with a smile.
“Sophia, you’re never my target. I was just wondering how our father managed to make the breakthrough and reach the legendary level. However, it is also not bad if I can take advantage of this and kill you, my sister. I know what you are doing, Sophia.” From the other entrance of the hall, prince Beyer walked in calmly.
Claire hurriedly walked to the prince, with an admiring look on her radiant face. Obviously, she had fallen in love.
Arthen said to the prince respectfully, “Your Highness, Sir Metatron only promised to give us five minutes. We have to do this now.”
“Turn on the anti-magic circles and let out the toxic gas and golems. Sophia is the only one you have to be careful with. Then, find Deniz and finish him,” said Beyer as if he was just dealing with something very unimportant.
Arthen took out a colorful stamper of the size of a fist and walked to Beyer. He was ready to end the nobles’ lives.
All of a sudden, a bright light flashed.
The look on Arthen’s face froze. In the next second, he was rolling back and forth on the ground. A pool of blood came out from underneath Arthen’s body.
All of them in the transparent wall trap saw the prince coldly pulling out his sword from Arthen’s chest.
“Why… Why?” Arthen did not die right away because of his power as a grand knight. However, if he did not receive treatment as soon as possible, his death was just a matter of time.
Beyer put on a triumphant smile. “It would be even better if my love was also the Duchess of the Gorse family.”
There was also a big smile on Claire’s face. She was looking at Beyer as if he was her idol.
Beyer took a step forward. He was about to behead Arthen to end his life.
Suddenly, a thick bolt of lightning dropped from the ceiling, and it hit the sword right before it hacked at Arthen’s neck!
“Deniz!” Claire was shocked. She had no idea how long Deniz had been hiding, and why he did not take action earlier.
The look on Beyer’s face suddenly changed when green wind ropes bound his wrists and ankles tight.
Smiling while holding her staff, Sophia walked out of the transparent walls without any effort.
Meanwhile, the light of a spell, Curing Wind, gently fell onto Arthen’s chest.
Some of Relph’s people were now keeping Lucien in control; some had surrounded Claire, and others were helping Deniz.
“You…?!” With all the constraints, as the man who was close to becoming a radiant knight, Beyer was still able to block Deniz’s attacks in succession.
Arthen coughed, “Your Highness, all of us are the knights of the princess.”
White wings spread out behind Sophia, covered with many green light spots as if the wind elves were flying around her.
…
Duda, hiding in the corner, was gasping hard with his lowered head. Suddenly, he saw a pair of brand new boots walking toward him.
