Chapter 45 : The Revelation & The Ambush (Part 2)

On the next day, the preparation started kicking into gear. The information that Iris bought was handed to others who participated into the plan.

And now at that night, there's roughly 150 soldiers lining up before a man in the Training Ground.

The man was old but has bulky figure with his silver armor covering his body. He was [The Sword Saint]–Rowan Threston.

"Soldiers! I have something to announce you tonight." He started the speech and the soldiers' expression stiffened.

"Tonight will be the first night of your training to be proven worthy.

Ever since the Duke assigned me as your instructor, I have my doubts at first...will all of you be able to endure the training I was going to give you or not

But you listened to me and followed my training throughly without complaints despite you gritting your teeth in pain...and now the result was clear, you are all strong."

"You might be wondering why all of you are here this late at night, when everyone else was supposed to be sleeping."

Rowan looked at them with calm yet strict look, "Tonight, we have a mission!! And that is to attack a certain place."

The soldiers were suprised after hearing what their instructor said to them.

"If you want to ask, I'll allow 3 questions from you."

The soldiers looked hesitant to answer even after he gave them the chance but eventually, one of them raised their hand.

"Yes, you." Rowan nooded as he glanced at the man.

"Thank you sir, May I ask what's the purpose for this attack mission, sir? And do we have the permision from our lord?"

"Hmmmm...then let me ask you, what are you?"

"A-a soldier sir."

"Indeed, and who is the lord you serve?"

"Duke Welford sir."

"Good, what is the purpose for the soldiers of the Welford family?"

"To protect them from harm sir!"

"Then do you get it?"

"Huh??"

"The place we're going to attack...is the place where the danger of this family...lies within."

"A-a danger sir?"

"Indeed."

Then another one of them raised their hand again, "S-sir! What kind of danger do you mean?! A-and is it possible that this information is true?!"

Rowan smiled, "Good question, but unfortunately the information is all true...and this danger will threaten your life...including the lord you serve and everyone who's connected to him."

Commotion started to break among The soldiees as they asked to one another about "Who" and "What".

"Silence." Rowan ordered sternly and they quickly quieted down at his authoritative tone.

"I cannot say who is the one who causes it until we found the right evidence but their purpose is clear...to destroy the Welford's family and burn them to the ground to its root."

"The truth is I only choose you who trained under me...since the others are his soldier so I cannot take them as I please even if I was his former master."

"T-then...why do you choose us sir?" One of them asked again.

"It's quite simple, because I personally took a liking to you guys now." Rowan laughed and smiled.

The mood was lightened a bit, the soldier seemed to be pleased to hear it from him.

"But now it's not the time to be soft and right now...our young lady (Ojou-sama) Iris May Welford already participated in this raid."

"Huh?!" The soldier exclaimed in surprise.

"Along with Harson and others, she is now on her way to gather some evidence and destroy them completely."

Then one of them who stand right in front of Rowan, raised their hand.

"Sir, may I ask?"

"Hm. Allowed."

"May I ask why would Ojou-sama participate in this mission...? I-i mean we all know how talented she is because she trained with us this whole time....but still...she's still a child."

"Hmmmm...even I wondered about the same thing as well but according to Harson who stayed with her the most...he and my granddaughter asked why would she put herself in danger."

"She said...

[if it's meant to protect what's dear to me...I'm willing to dirty my hands, no matter what it takes].

A little girl who isn't even 10 yet spout out all this nonsense and I who share secret with Ojou-sama know how painful it is for her to bear the burden alone."

"If I just let her do it herself...I cannot call myself as a man and her teacher, so my soldier...are you gonna chickened out?! And let our young lady charge herself to attack!! Or you all gonna follow her to the end!!"

The soldier stiffened once more but their face didn't waver at what he said, but then they straightened their body.

"Sir!! We will follow you and Ojou-sama!!" They said in sync.

Rowan grinned in delight at that, "I will soon divide the team, there will be 7 location we're going to attack soon. So prepare your weapon! We shall show them just who they are trying to mess with!"

"Yeah!!"

Rowan sighed a bit as if he was relieved, then a voice came out.

'Did you finish persuading them?'

It was [The Witch, Matilda]'s voice. By using [Telepathy] skill she could slip her mind into the person she wanted to contact with and talked through their mind.

'I already did...you should have seen this skill of mine!'

'Well, you men always has simple mind.' Matilda giggled.

'Tsk...shut it, and how's on that side?'

'Hmmm? Aahh right now, we are on our way to that place.'

'Well just proceed with the plan, and if anything happen. You can always call me...Matilda.' Rowan emphasized that last part of his speech.

Meanwhile, it invited a faint smile to bloom across Matilda's face 'Silly old man...but I must confessed, it is quite reliable when I hear such a thing.'

'Hahaha! You know me!'

'Then I allow you to look out for my back Mr. Sword Saint.'

'That would be my pleasure, Ms. Witch~'

******

The telepathy got cut off then Matilda giggled.

"Is there something wrong Obaa-sama." Silvi asked.

"Nothing~ I'm just reminiscing about the past~"

"I see."

At that time, Matilda and Silvi was on their way to this one location that has been marked as they were flying in the sky using Matilda's magic.

The team was separated in two, Iris with Harson then Silvi with Matilda.

******

In the meantime, Iris and Harson were sneaking around in this town called Heidi, one of the many Baron Allura's territory.

Iris and Harson were wearing a black cloak which covered their entire body, hiding in between the shadows.

Right now they were inside of this territory and the very location that might be the main of it.

Soon after, they found a big house surrounded with wide and tall gate. There were some people who stand guard around the place.

"Woah...so big." Harson commented as they both hide in the shadows nearby the building, peeking on them.

"Indeed." Iris spoke as her eyes glowed a bit. "It seems it has been covered with magic too, we can get in if I can pass through that gate."

"But how are we supposed to do that?"

"Hmmmm..."

When Iris was thinking, she suddenly heard something.

*CLITAK* *CLITAK* *CLITAK*

A cart showed up in the middle of this town, with two horse pulling it and apparently headed to that place.

Iris smiled. "I have a plan."

******

As the carriage got even closer to the big house, it was stopped by the guards.

"Stop! What is your purpose to come here." The guard interrogated.

The driver of the cart suddenly turned nervous, "U-uh?! I'm just transporting this drink."

"A drink? Then let us do the procedure before we let you in." He nodded to his fellow guards and began looking around, inspecring the carriage and opened it.

What they found were a box filled with bottles upon bottles of liquor.

They looked around some more but didn't found anything suspicious.

"Clear." he said and opened the gate for him to come in.

The man nodded and moved the horse to start pulling the cart inside of the gate for him.

When he's finally in, the man brought the cart in some sort of warehouse. And when he's inside, he stopped the cart and got down from his driver's seat to open the cart.

*BUK*

Something hit the back of his neck when he's about to open it, rendering the man unconscious.

Harson appeared from the shadows, the one who hit the man with the hilt of his sword.

Iris showed up from the darkness too, since the warehouse was pretty dark, it was quite easy for them to sneak up there and hide.

"Phew, that was intense..." Harson sighed as he wiped a stray sweat from his forehead.

"It's a good thing you were trained properly at this kind of situation Harson, and you seems to be pretty good with seeing things in the dark." Iris praised.

"Well I was trained harshly by Master...but Ojou-sama is more weird to be this calm. How come Ojou-sama can see in the dark as well?"

Iris took off her hood and brushed her hair out from it. "Am I? Hahaha~ well I learned a few skills from both of my masters."

Harson beamed, "I see! As expected, Ojou-sama is a prodigy!"

The little girl giggled, 'Well I can't say that it was thanks to [The Villainess] skill that I can be this calm and I can't tell that I already adapted myself by training in the dark alone.'

Iris glanced around the room then. It was filled with boxes and many other things, such as weapons, clothes, armor, even food for rations.

"So now...where are we."

"It seems this is the warehouse Ojou-sama."

"The warehouse huh...indeed this man said that he is bringing some liquor inside that cart."

Iris moved to open the cart, lifting up the box to check something.

"Hmmm...there's nothing unusual in it, just bottles of liquor." Iris spoke while taking out one of the bottle then throw it to Harson.

"Woah! That's very dangerous, Ojou-sama!" Harson managed to catch the bottle in his hands and sighed. But then his eyes widened when he actually looked at it.

"Huh?!–"

"Is there something wrong?"

"This is...it can't be..."

Iris narrowed her brows a bit, "Do you know something, Harson?"

"Yes...there's no mistake...this a high quality liquor that has been banned by the Kingdom long time ago."

"A high quality liquor that has been banned? Why??"

"The name is [Valhalla]...with one sip, it can make your body light and a float...at the same time it also gave you this heavenly feeling.

"This liquor was found by a certain noble when they passed through the Demon realm. He found a certain plant there...a rare plant that can gave you hallucinations and ecstasy.

"It's like a good liquor that kills you nice and slowly...and because of this drink, many people died from overdose."

"I see..." Iris looked even more confused as she stared at the bottle

'This never happen in the game at all...a setting about this dangerous liquor and other kind of things, is it because of my interference after coming to this world?' Iris wondered for a moment but then she shook the thought away, 'Let just focus on what we can do now.'

"But if it kills you...why people still drinks it?"

"It's...because it had addictive effect of wanting to drink it more and more...they want to feel the heaven that close to their eyes through those hallucinations."

"That's crazy...hmm???" Iris realized something, "Wait, if this was banned long ago...how come you know about this stuff, Harson?"

A shadow fell on his face a bit, "It's actually not a pleasant story...but...I was once a part of a mission to destroy this thing....and...

my mother died because of this liquor."

Iris felt her eyes grew wide at that, this was her first time hearing that too, "Huh?!"

"Yes...it was a very long time ago...my mother used to be a maid...my father died from an accident so she is the only one who took care of me since I was a baby.

"She was a lovely person who worked hard to earn money for his son, who smiled before the problems we faced and overcame it with ease...she was my sun and everything."

"But...one day, she disappeared and didn't come back at all, she left some money for me to survive for a year.

"I didn't know what happened...and resented her for leaving me."

Iris listened to his story quietly, not once interrupting him.

"A few years later, I joined as a soldier under The Duke...your father, and we had a mission to destroy this liquor that had been causing an uproar in the city...and we found out a certain hide out of this liquor of this noble had been hiding."

"We raided that place...we fought and apprehended all the workers.

"When everything was cleared...we found one room that we haven't checked."

"And that room is...?" Iris asked, not liking where this story was going.

"It was a test subject room...we found multiple missing persons at those past few years.

"From elderly, old people, young people...they were tested for the liquor to be perfect...some of them died from it...and some of them have their mind broken and cannot think straight any longer...

"And among them...there was...

.

.

.

my mother."

Iris bit her lips as if she was trying her best not to let her tears fell.

Harson chuckled, "After a few years of leaving me...I never thought I would see her again in such a place...she was a mess...her body was nothing but bones and she lost her ability to think."

"We brought them to the medical facility to heal them...some of them were saved because they weren't exposed to that liquor for a long period of time.

"Then..."

"Yes...my mother couldn't be saved...her body was used for this thing for so long...and the doctor said there's not much time.

"I stayed with her...until her final moments...and before she took her last breath...she spoke to me...

[Harson...I'm sorry for being a bad mother]."

"I couldn't utter any words after that...she did left me but she's never been a bad mother to me..." He sighed, "In the next few days after we buried her...I found her letter."

"What's the letter said?" Iris asked.

He paused for a moment before continuing, "It said that...she was sorry for leaving me that day...she was threatened by this noble and to protect me, she sacrificed herself to be their test subject."

"I can't believe her...she's an idiot to let herself be like...that. But...I cannot hate that trait of her."

"I'm sorry...then what happen to the plant that need to be produced for Vahalla?"

"We burned them to the ground...with nothing to be left." Harson finished with such cold tone.

He clenched his jaws and looked down as his grip on the bottle tightened. His face was filled with regret but he stayed strong since he couldn't afford looking vulnerable towards his master now.

'How horrible...'

Iris couldn't imagine there was such a story in this game she played. She never knew...no she didn't want to know that this place that was filled with love and happiness were hiding such cold and dark truth.

"I'm sorry Ojou-sama...for telling you such a depressing story like mine, please don't worry about me." Harson showed her a rather strained smile when he's managed to calm down.

Iris looked at him as calmly as she could, "No...I should be thanking you Harson, for being honest with me. It gave me another push to prevent this from making others suffer, just like your mother."

*TAP*

Iris stood straight in front of him, "I promise you...with my name.

I, Iris May Welford will make sure to end this place from its roots."

Iris spoke with her fierce look that was filled with determination.

Harson widened his eyes a bit after hearing such words coming from his master and was brought to his knees, bowing his head towards her.

"Thank you...Ojou-sama...I, Harson Pierre...will follow you until the end...I will cut everything that stands in your path and protect you from any danger." Harson pledged.

In that moment...a new bond was created between the two of them.

In the future...Harson would be her sword and shield that would protect Iris from anything that meant her harm.

Iris clapped her hand, "Now then let's just focus on the current situation...we should tie this man up before he woke up and we will interrogate him for sure."

Harson smiled and bowed, "Yes, as your command, Ojou-sama."

Harson stood up straight and went to check on the man.

Iris sighed, 'This is gonna be hard for me...I never thought his backstory will be this heavy and just now he pledged to protect me...in the game, Iris never had a comrade other than Silvi who blindly followed her until the end.'

'But yeah...this is a good thing to have more comrades rather than being alone.' Iris smiled.

But then...

"Ojou-sama! Please come over here."

"Huh??" Iris quickly went to him when he called her, "What is it?"

"It seems...that man was right."

"What–"

Without missing a beat, Harson opened the man's collar shirt and showed her something.

Iris widened her eyes when she saw a tattoo marked on the man's neck.

A rose with thorns around his neck.

"This tattoo is..." Iris gulped as she couldn't believe her eyes.

Harson nodded.

"He's from certain group called [The Blood Rose] that belongs to one of the Underworld Kings...

.

.

.

[The Femme Fatale, Minerva]."

To be continue...