A Date with Emily

On the day that the Duke arrived, Alicia was in her room. She wanted to spend another day with Shui, but she had a received a report that he hadn't returned since last night. She didn't feel the need to worry about him, but she still wondered what he was doing. It was then that she remembered the scent that came off him when she went to fetch her brother.

'If I remember correctly it should be from...'

There was nothing strange about him visiting an area like that, and she couldn't honestly say that she could satisfy whatever desires he had, but it was still discouraging to know that he would rather be a customer there than be with her. She was actually quite proud of her figure and she was sure that there was nothing wrong with her appearance, but her intuition told her that he had a lot of experience with women as beautiful or possibly even more so than her. However, she didn't want to give up so easily.

"...Perhaps I should try again."

Bothered by her own frustration, Alicia made a decision. She took out a map of the city and placed a divination board on top of it. She then formed the hakini mudra with her hands and closed her eyes. The last time, she tried to pry into the fate of Shui but was one step away from suffering due to a severe backlash, so this time she tried to peek into the future of the city itself.

Meanwhile, Emily was on a stroll with a heavy heart and a lowered head. This morning, she woke up to the corpse of an assassin and screamed. The arrays around her bed were deactivated for some reason, so Adrian, who was in the room next to hers, heard her scream and rushed over. After he also witnessed the corpse, he tried his best to comfort Emily but she couldn't feel the slightest bit of relief. From the hole in the assassin's head, she could tell that her artifact had protected her while she was unaware of the danger, but she shuddered when she imagined what could have happened if it didn't protect her.

For now, she had suppressed her fear, but there were still many questions that she wanted answers to.

'How was he able to reach my room so easily?'

Sure, her room was only on the third floor, which was no height that would prove an obstacle to a cultivator, but the inn provided security for its guests that included guards outside the building as well as a protection array. However, neither of those security measures were alerted by the assassin.

'Why couldn't I tell that my arrays deactivated?'

Although she knew of the defences set up outside the building, Emily wanted to be extra sure that she would be safe so she drew a personal protection array among others. It was weaker than the inn's, but it served as a last line of defence. And yet, it also failed to intercept the assassin.

'Are there any more assassins in the city?'

She was lucky enough to make it out of this one alive, but her fear created phantoms of assassins watching her at all times. She thought that she had moved on, but she kept thinking back to what happened to her master.

'Emily, you have to hold yourself together. You have to avenge Master. Remember that incident.'

She tried to use her obligation to fight back against the dread, but this was a stopgap measure at best. Knowing this, she sighed and lifted her head.

"Shui?"

In response to her surprised voice, the young man she spotted in the crowd turned around to face her.

"Oh, Emily. What a coincidence."

"Yes it is. What are you doing here?" she asked in suspicion.

"Just looking to see if I can find something special."

Putting aside whether or not it was truly a coincidence, when Emily looked around she noticed that they were on a street lined with vendors selling strange items in carts or behind mats. This was something akin to a flea market for cultivators, so it certainly wouldn't be strange for someone to come here to test their luck.

For now, she decided to believe in fate and accepted this as a coincidence.

"I see."

"By the way, I'm glad that you like it."

At first she was confused, but when she followed his gaze down, she saw that he was looking at Dull Harmony which was in her embrace. She had done a surface refinement so even if she couldn't draw out its full power, she could command it with her mind. However, because of her unstable emotions she chose to do something impractical like hugging it feel safe.

As she squeezed the sword with a faint blush of embarrassment, Emily remembered an important question that she needed to ask Shui.

"Yes, I can honestly say that, I owe my life to this artifact. By the way, did you know of it having self-defence feature?"

"Well, of course. I can't give you a weapon that's too strong for you to use without ensuring that it can protect you."

"Huh?!" exclaimed Emily.

Shui said it like it was a given, but he was also aware that artifacts that could act on their own, even if it was just for simple commands, were on a completely different level as this was a requirement for royal-rank artifacts, so any lower-ranked artifact that could do the same thing would start wars if revealed.

Emily wasn't aware of how precious Dull Harmony was, but she knew it was worth far more than Shui was letting on. However, her life would be in danger if she let go of it, so she thickened her skin and tightened her embrace.

Shui smiled warmly at the sight, but he moved on to the follow-up topic.

"Since you know about that feature already, were you attacked?"

Shui already knew what happened, but he wanted to hear her experience so he made it easy for her to answer. Emily was reluctant to share even more of her troubles with Shui, but it was too late to hide the truth so she decided to come clean. Her explanations confirmed a few things as well as provided new information to Shui. With these new details, he was almost one hundred percent sure.

'This has to be an inside job.'

This made him even more certain as to who Emily's enemy was, but it still wasn't time to expose them.

"It's a good thing I gave you that gift. I knew you were being targeted, but for them to reach that close... By the way, do you know why assassins are chasing after you?" Shui asked.

It was a natural question, and she already told him so much already, so Emily quickly decided to tell him her story.