Evangeline slowly opened her eyes, only to find herself lying on the ground in a dark room filled with metal objects. Her hands were cuffed behind her back.
For a while, she was confused. But the recollection of how she had ended up here surfaced in her mind soon after.
The castle was no longer rumbling as it had been back then.
’Just what the hell is going on right now?’
Initially, she had thought that she had been teleported to one of the rooms in the castle where the girl had been sleeping.
But seeing as how the window had exploded as well as the walls, it looked as though the castle was under attack.
’But from whom? The city was completely empty from what we saw.’
Things weren’t making sense.
She glanced at her hands, which were still cuffed.
’Maybe I should deal with this first.’
Mustering up all of her Phase Three strength, she pulled her hands apart, trying to shatter the cuffs. The cuffs seemed to be on the verge of breaking, but...
"Ugh, I can’t do it."
The cuffs were just a little too thick for her to break.
Taking a deep breath, Evangeline channeled her mana into the bracelets on her wrists as well as the tiara on her head. Moments later, a crown made of water materialized on her head. Materializing water droplets in the air, she condensed them all into a single large droplet.
Then she pulled her hands apart with everything she had. As the chains of the cuff strained under pressure, she shot the water bullet at the middle part of the chains, finally snapping them.
Standing up, she dusted off her clothes and tried to open the door. But...
’It’s locked? Ugh, she even locked it from outside. Well, it’s not much of a problem. After all, it’s just a door.’
She kicked the door, and it easily shattered under the force of her Phase Three strength.
Walking out, she looked around, and the hallway was empty.
’Which way am I supposed to go?’
The hallway looked about as large as the one in the Ravenshade mansion. And since she wasn’t familiar with this one, she didn’t know which way led to the exit.
’Hm? I think I hear something.’
She could hear faint noises. As she focused, it sounded like... the murmurs of a crowd.
Evangeline furrowed her brow.
’A crowd?’
Where did a crowd suddenly come from?
At this point, things were getting weirder, and she could no longer make sense of things.
So instead of thinking too much, she tried to focus on the murmurs and walked in the direction they came from. After taking a turn and walking for a while, she arrived at a place where the walls of the castle had caved in, and the debris was somewhat blocking her path.
Shooting a few wind blasts, she cleared it away enough for her to pass through.
Since the walls were destroyed, she was finally able to get a look outside the castle. And what she saw...
"This... doesn’t make sense..."
The city outside was the same as what they had seen after arriving here. But at the same time, it was different.
It didn’t look abandoned like before. Instead, it looked very much alive. But the biggest difference was... people.
A massive crowd was gathered around the boundary walls. They all wore the kind of clothes she had never seen before.
And for some reason, the crowd looked angry.
The setting sun was casting its orange glow over them, painting them in its color.
Evangeline’s heartbeat quickened as she crossed over to the other side of the hallway. She was on the upper floor of the castle, so she had to take the stairs.
’...Huh?’
Suddenly, she saw bloodstains on the hallway floor. They looked somewhat dried, meaning they had been there for at least a few hours.
Evangeline clenched her fists.
It was obvious that something had happened here while she was unconscious. After all, she had been knocked unconscious not long after the girl woke up from her sleep. Meaning that it had most likely been morning back then.
And since the sun was now about to set, it seemed that she had been unconscious for the whole day.
Evangeline’s steps suddenly came to a pause.
A few steps ahead, someone was lying on the ground, with a puddle of blood forming around them.
She hurriedly walked up to them, thinking that they needed help quickly, but as she got a closer look, Evangeline froze.
The person’s gaze was hollow, and his chest was not rising and falling.
It was a corpse.
’W-What?!’
She hurriedly backed away as her heartbeat quickened further.
"H-Haah..."
Getting back on her feet, she started walking ahead.
After walking a bit further, she found another corpse. And then another. More and more corpses began appearing in the hallway as she continued walking. The ground beneath her feet was stained with their blood.
"Haah... H-Haah..."
Evangeline clutched her chest with one hand as her breath turned uneven. Walking amidst the corpses, she finally reached the stairs.
The stairs seemed to have been destroyed, so she had to jump down from there.
’Just what happened here?’
Broken walls, corpses, and blood splattered everywhere. It was as though a devastating battle had occurred here.
Walking towards the signs of destruction, Evangeline finally arrived in front of the castle’s main door. It was the same door through which she and her teammates had entered the castle.
It didn’t open on its own like back then. As she reached out her hand to pull it open, her hand was shaking.
As the door slowly opened, a chilling sight was revealed to her. A crowd of people was circling someone on the ground.
It was the same girl who had cuffed Evangeline and knocked her out.
But her state was completely different from before. One of her arms was missing, and her entire body was stabbed with different kinds of weapons, pinning her to the ground.
A large part of her black hair had been dyed crimson, and her turquoise eyes were slowly losing their light as she struggled weakly while muttering something.
"Never... It’s mine... you’re all... evil..."
The people surrounding her were looking at the girl with contempt.
The scene was so overwhelming that Evangeline’s mind malfunctioned.
Were the corpses in the mansion also part of these people? Was it the girl who had killed them? Were they responsible for the attacks this morning?
Just why... did they attack?
Someone from among the crowd finally noticed her and frowned.
He turned to the others.
"Hey, I think that girl just came out of the royal castle."
Hearing him, others began turning to her and noticing her one by one. Soon, the entire crowd was focused on her.
"Did she have some connection to this bitch?"
"Right, I don’t recognize her, so I doubt she is one of us."
"I don’t think I have heard anything about someone like her being in the castle. Maybe they kept her in hiding?"
The one standing in front narrowed his eyes.
"Whatever it is, I don’t want to take any chances."
Saying that, they suddenly lunged at her with their weapon raised.
Evangeline’s eyes widened in terror.
’N-No-!’
But just as the pointed end of the weapon was inches away from her face...
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
...Evangeline’s vision suddenly changed.
She found herself staring at the ceiling while lying on something soft.
She blinked absentmindedly.
’Just what...’
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