Chapter 46: A Nightmare

*****Warning: This is the tragic event that happened to our FL with her family. If it is too much for some readers, you may wish to skip until this particular arch is over. I will give a quick summary once this arch is over if you do not wish to read this. Thanks for your understanding.*****

After General Griffon had hung up, he immediately reported to the Queen. As he was in charge of the panic button for all the higher nobles, he started to wonder what had happened exactly as he knew, as everyone else in the circle knew, that the Blakeloch family had very close ties with the Royal Family. He was quickly put through to the Queen who had been in a meeting with the Royal Court.

"General Griffon, reporting, Your Majesty," saluted the General as soon as he saw the Queen's graceful figure.

"Speak. What do you have to report?" she asked through the CD.

"Your Majesty, we have been alerted that something terrible has happened to the Blakeloch family. It appears that many lives have been taken," said the General in a stoic manner, leaving the Queen to show a visible change to her face before calming down swiftly.

"Who has sent the alert?" asked the Queen as she inwardly held her breath.

"The young Lady Elizabella of the Blakeloch family has sent the distress signal. She did not seem to be in the right state of mind when we spoke. Also, we do not have much information other than the coordinates that came with the distress signal. I believe that we should act fast," said the General as he was able to detect how uncomfortable the Queen was through the CD.

"Send your men to see what is going on. Save those that can be saved and make sure to bring them back here. These are Our orders," said the Queen as her demeanor changed to that of a commanding leader.

"At once, Your Majesty," saluted General Griffon as the image disappeared.

After leaving the call, the Queen dismissed the Court and she retreated to her room, never noticing the schadenfreude look of some of the nobles while some showed a concerned expression and others showed an indifferent look to them after listening in to the conversation.

General Griffon quickly moved his men as well as ground forces. His men were mostly made of flying beastmen, with him as the leader. They would take to the skies since they would be quicker than the ground forces.

His men followed him as they transformed to take flight with their massive wings and their supplies. They swiftly flew over the clouds and flew to the horizon. They were not sure what they would find, but they continued to travel with determination to get to the bottom of this.

It took them roughly twenty minutes to travel by air, much faster than a flying vehicle would travel, as they were lighter than the massive machines. From up in the air, they could see the devastation of where once stood the well-known building. As they were beastmen, they too like Walliams, were able to smell the gunpowder.

"Was that a bomb? Who would target a higher noble's whole family?" asked the Lieutenant next to the General as he turned pale and was in disbelief.

"It looks like a form of genocide, but we should look at all the clues first, otherwise, we will not know what happened here today. Look for survivors," said the General as the others responded and dove down to try and locate anyone alive.

As Elizabella and Hatum continued to work over the rubble whenever Walliams would find a body, they felt shadows flying over them. Hatum, who was waiting for their arrival, looked up at the flying beastmen who quickly came down and landed next to them. Elizabella ignored their arrival and continued to dig under the debris where Walliams had located a body.

"Lady Elizabella Blakeloch, have you been able to find any survivors?" asked the General as he noticed the girl who was once dressed to impress, now in dirty rags in the cold.

"No one. But that does not mean that they are not still alive," said Elizabella as she continued to ignore them and went on digging until the body of her uncle was uncovered, making the others gasp as they recognized his face under the dirt. "It is my uncle. Quick! Help me get him out!"

Soon they began to help and locate the other bodies. Elizabella continued to look for her family until the ground troops arrived. A female Sergeant came up to her and tried to convince her to stop and rest out of the cold. Elizabella wanted to put up a resistance but both Hatum and Walliams helped to restrain her.

They had to physically remove her from the area and to a newly pitched tent to rest.

"Let me go! I need to find my parents! I still have not found my younger siblings! Let me search!" she screamed as she was dragged off to the tent.

Eventually, the doctor had to come and sedate her. They laid her to rest her body on a bed. This was when the General came in and saw the exhausted girl on the bed. He noticed her neatly manicured nails, ruined from all the digging she had done, making him sigh.

"What happened? How did everyone perish?" asked the General with his wings tucked neatly behind him.

"General Griffon, we have no clue what has happened here today. My Lady was running late to get here. On the way, she tried to call her parents and even the staff to tell them she was on her way. However, she was not able to contact anyone. So at that time, we sped up to get here and saw all of this. We immediately tried to see if we could help them and came up with a few bodies with the help of Walliams here," said Hatum with a somber expression, as he was the oldest in the surviving group to answer, while Walliams seemed lost as he stared at Elizabella sleeping.

"So you three did not witness anything here?" asked General Griffon as he took into consideration their facial expressions and believed them to be telling the truth.

"When we finally came here, the deed had already been done. Walliams was the one who had suggested foul play, as he smelled gunpowder," said Hatum as he suddenly felt exhausted himself and seemed like he wanted to start tearing up. "There were so many people who were in attendance today, not to mention all of the servants and staff. We have yet to find anyone alive, not even our Lord or Madam."

At this point, Hatum dried his eyes with his dirty sleeves, while Walliams lowered his head and silent tears came from his eyes.

"What will happen to our young Lady? She is still young and not of age. Yet, she lost her whole family today. What will she do?" asked Walliams in a quiet voice, but still loud enough that the two men heard and felt the heavy mood.

"We will look after her, Walliams. It is what our Lord and Madam would have wanted. We must remain strong for her and remind ourselves that we also live for her. She will become our new Madam after today," said Hatum as he had turned to Walliams who stood to his side while more tears came flooding down their face.

"Ahem. Please make yourselves comfortable here and clean up. You may rest for a while before we have someone escort you back home. The way back may still be dangerous. If the whole family is dead, then they may come after your Lady who was lucky to survive the catastrophe. We need to find out who the culprit is. In the meantime, please leave the searching to us and attend to your ward, she will need you when she wakes up."

The General gave his words of wisdom to the gloomy pair and left them in their grief to look after Elizabella.

When Elizabella finally woke up, she found herself in her bed with daylight pouring in her large windows. She sat up and fell into a daze as she looked at her ruined nails, not sure as to what she had just witnessed before passing out. Was that a dream? A nightmare? How should she react now that it has happened?

She felt more numb than anything at this point. She sat on her bed very emotionless for a while until a maid came in to check on her. Seeing her just staring at nothing brought tears to the maid's eyes.

By this time, everyone in the mansion already knew what had happened to the family. Most of the servants and staff had been serving the family since generations past so they were very devoted. Upon hearing the news of their death, they felt unbearable heartache for their masters that perished.

Now that it was just the eldest daughter alone, their loyalty was easily transferred to her. They all swore in their hearts that they would follow her until they could not anymore.

The maid that had entered the bedroom, dabbed her eyes and approached Elizabella who had been still for far too long on her bed.