Rudi was the administrator of the secondary palace.
With Valenciaunos having left and given her full authority, there were few who could interfere with her actions there.
“I need to go out for a night walk tonight. Remember to unlock the back door for tomorrow morning when the food supplies arrive.”
She gave orders to the palace maids, attendants, and servants.
“If I haven’t returned in five days, inform Count Vinea at the main palace and the three knights of the Black Iron Order. The list is here.”
She prepared for any eventuality.
“Yes, Count Excellency.”
“We will do as you say.”
“Are you going somewhere dangerous?”
A young maid asked.
“I shouldn’t answer, and you shouldn’t inquire. Don’t ask about it. The truth is more gruesome than you think.”
Rudi avoided the question and went up to the second floor.
The gentle face of the maid Rudi disappeared, replaced by the determined face of the maid Rudi.
Next to Valenciaunos’s room was her costume room.
After obtaining the title of Count, she had received a mansion, but there, only tea parties and evening banquets were held.
‘It’s a splendid house beyond what I deserve, but my place is next to Valen.’
The costume room was filled not with splendid dresses but with expensive magic tools.
Rudi opened the wardrobe and took off the extravagant green dress she was wearing.
Thud, thud.
The sight of her shoulders, elbows, and wrists twisting behind her was both strange and beautiful.
Though it wasn’t easy to remove alone, her flexibility and strength allowed her to easily untie the ribbon and straps at her back.
Swish, swish.
She donned a sturdy silk blouse and trousers that could easily lose an arrow, over which she wore a solid fabric coat enchanted with the ‘Faintness’ spell, tightening a leather harness around her.
Rings of the Reverse, Blessing of the Wind, Vitality, Heat Resistance, and Electrical Resistance adorned each finger of her right hand.
Clink.
The Disappearing Spirit Dagger, the Sandworm Fang Dagger, and a Vitality were secured to her right hip, while on her left thigh, she strapped a six-shot magic rifle, Agate, and wound Agate and Kaspa’s magic arrow belt around her body.
Lastly, she grabbed a sound-dampening holy relic horn, the night vision glasses made by Marcus, the tooth-patterned spirit-form magic tool ‘Demon Mask,’ and the infiltrator detector created and improved by Sererassie, followed by the magic rifle Kaspa.
‘It’s quite heavy.’
She was ready for work.
On a sultry summer night, with the wind blowing and the evergreens swaying.
A pitch-black shadow soared above the roof of the secondary palace, where not even the moonlight shone.
Whoosh!
Inside the imperial palace, the magicians of the Huangli Magic Guild were thoroughly monitoring all magic tools and spells, but Sererassie’s improved ‘Faintness’ spell pierced through all those surveillance measures.
‘This is more effective than spirit form right now. Spirit form has its own filtering magic.’
Rudi evaded the guards’ sight and dashed outside the palace, heading toward the upper building she had visited during the day.
The rooftops of the stone buildings reaching five or six stories were her playground.
Thud, thud-.
Despite leaping distances of nearly 20 meters in one bound, her footsteps barely made a sound.
As she began to sweat, Rudi reached the upper building near the canal.
It was the same stout stone building she had seen during the day.
Rudi closed her eyes for a moment.
“……”
Even at maximum sensory alertness, she sensed no presence.
No seeping malice, no smell of thugs’ tobacco, nor the sweat of porters.
‘It seems there’s no night work by the canal today. I can’t see any carriage trains. That’s good.’
In the distance, the lights of noble estates were bright as ever, but the great city of Silentalouon lay still in slumber.
Only constables, capturing thieves, spies, arsonists, and other vagrants, roamed the streets in groups.
‘If it’s something that shouldn’t be seen under the desk, they wouldn’t keep it in the same building. But they wouldn’t send it very far, either.’
Rudi opened her eyes and surveyed the buildings around the upper one.
‘The underground waterway branches out like this…….’
The underground water was built to overlap as much as possible with the road for ground stability.
Even if normal buildings had basements, they did not connect with the underground waterway.
Thus, the only paths leading down to the underground waterway were maintenance entrances, and buildings that had illegally made passageways.
‘That’s the building.’
Rudi had memorized all such buildings in the capital.
The upper building also had an underground waterway entrance, and a slightly distant white building did too.
Rudi leapt onto the roof of the upper building, lowered her stance, and used the sound-dampening holy relic horn.
Three hours passed.
The vision glasses made by Marcus were equipped with automatic targeting, night vision, heat detection, and various other spells, allowing Rudi to view the white building as if it were daylight.
‘The weather is unkind.’
The problem lay with the weather.
Silentalouon was a city that sweltered in summer and froze everything solid in winter.
The road heated up during the day was hotter than a human body and still hadn’t cooled down at night.
Thus, when she wore the heat detection glasses, everything appeared in shades of red and yellow.
Her unique vision made it even more dizzying.
Rudi contemplated for a moment and then removed the glasses.
‘This is better.’
The colorful heat haze swirling in her vision vanished, leaving only the darkness of night and the white building in sight.
In that moment, something glittered from the white building.
‘Gotcha-!’
Whirring-!
Rudi reflexively ducked, and at that moment, an arrow whizzed past her ear.
Boom!
A powerful shockwave rattled her body, a few strands of hair fell, and blood trickled from her ear.
Screech-!
The quiet yet sharp arrowhead sound faded a moment later.
They had shot the arrow just as she removed the vision glasses.
A normal person would have felt despair and fear, but she was a well-known duelist in the capital.
‘As expected!’
Red light flashed in Rudi’s green eyes.
‘Infiltrators were hidden! They even knew I would come.’
She immediately pulled the trigger of the magic rifle Kaspa toward where the light had flickered.
Click!
Though the sound didn’t shake the sky, the dazzling red beam shot forth.
Bang!
The wall of the white building, hit by the magic arrow, cracked as if it had been struck by a catapult.
Boom!
Glass shattered and broken bricks collapsed in a rush.
However, rather than rising, Rudi rolled on the spot.
Screech!
Thud!
A thick arrow embedded itself where she had just been lying.
Whoosh!
The arrow glimmered in green-light and, after striking the roof, lost its glow shortly thereafter.
‘I couldn’t see it properly. Neither my opponent nor the arrows. The knights’ swords weren’t like this.’
Rudi gritted her teeth and widened her eyes.
A chill ran down her spine on this hot day.
Though she had experienced attacks she couldn’t dodge while seeing, she’d never faced one she couldn’t see.
She could at least read the premonitions of Tenitia’s sword or Valenciaunos’s flames, even Sererassie’s lightning.
But she couldn’t see the opponent shooting arrows from somewhere in that white building, nor could she see the arrows coming at her.
Rudi’s eyes slowly moved.
‘!’
In that instant, she spotted a flickering green light from the top right of the building.
Clunk, click!
Once again, it didn’t set off an alert, but the magic arrow shot forth, leaving a red tail behind.
Screech!
Before she could confirm the hit, Rudi reloaded and this time loaded both rounds with shot and immediately pulled the trigger.
Boom!
The metal shards scattered in a radius of seven meters, flying faster than sound.
Crash! Crash!
They hammered the exterior of the white building, shattering bricks, tiles, and glass.
‘Gotcha.’
Just as she thought so, a flicker of green light burst from below the building.
Bang!
A green light shot upwards.
Rudi ducked flat against the ground in a panic, and the arrow grazed her shoulder before flying into the night sky.
‘Even a large upper establishment would find it hard to hire adventurers or mercenaries with this level of power. I have doubts about what they could protect with such adventurers or mercenaries.’
‘This could be an infiltrator with powers related to ‘viewing.’ I’ve never considered that I would lose in ranged combat, but it seems I must.’
The upper building’s roof rose to a peak at the center, and Rudi ducked behind it, catching her breath.
“Hah, hah.”
Instead of Marcus’s vision glasses, she pulled out the first pair Valenciaunos had bought and took out Agate and the Disappearing Spirit Dagger instead of Kaspa.
‘I’ll take their life in close combat.’
Spark!
At that moment, the same green light glimmered.
‘Above?’
Rudi jolted and leaped, and the next moment, she beheld an unimaginable sight.
“?!”
The sharp green light split in mid-air into two, then four, and then eight.
‘120? No, 250? 1,000?’
Over a thousand green arrows descended from the black sky.
Thousand Arrow Rain.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh-!
The sight of the sky turning green was bizarre and mystical.
Peeep!
Peeep!
The blowing horn signals from the constables under the Black Iron Order echoed in alarm.
‘There’s no place to evade.’
Rudi trembled with her right hand gripping Vitality.
She inhaled deeply as she aimed Agate into the sky.
‘I have been given orders and must follow them.’
And she dashed toward the white building.
Thud!
Her body soared over the pointed roof.
Boom, boom! Foosh!
Green arrows plunged mercilessly into the roof behind her and onto the road below the building.
Bang, bang!
Once embedded, the arrows vanished with a small whirlwind.
Thud!
Rudi ran out faster than that whirlwind.
‘There are five buildings between us.’
Thud!
She jumped onto the roof of the first building and immediately leaped toward the second.
“!”
Perhaps startled, the opponent at the white building emitted an unusually bright green light.
Crack!
Screech!
The green arrow flew through the air with lethal intent.
Swish!
Rudi kicked forward in mid-air and somersaulted.
The arrow narrowly grazed her side.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Yet still, a thousand arrows continued to rain down above her, and even the brief evasive maneuver took time.
‘Have to use the Reverse Ring.’
She infused mana into the thick gemstone-studded ring, and in the next moment, a blue barrier flickered, deflecting several green arrows.
Thud!
Bang, bang, bang!
The wind created by the arrows bouncing back pushed her body, but against all odds, she landed on the roof of the second building.
Thud! Thud!
And without thinking of any concealment, she pulled the trigger of Agate.
Sparks flew in the darkness, and the magic arrow flew toward the unseen archer.
It was an attempt not aimed but to distract.
“There!”
“Call the knights!”
“That one’s using explosive magic!”
Voices from the constables echoed.
The green light of the white building flickered anxiously.
Rudi clenched her teeth and smashed into the roof.
Thud!
‘I am a favored maid of the elder brother, and I need not fear this world. Unlike you, an unnamed monster!’
She leapt over the third and fourth buildings.
Swish-!
The green light slid beneath the white building.
Rudi instinctively sensed that it wasn’t aiming to shoot an arrow but that the unknown entity was trying to escape.
‘Do you think I’ll let you get away?’
Rudi activated both the Vitality and the Blessing of the Wind rings simultaneously.
Zing!
Zing-.
Blue electricity surged, enhancing her muscles, while the blessing of the wind cloaked her in a faint green light.
She leapt as if she were a bird, quickly descending back to the ground like a cat.
Out of the narrow alley, she caught a glimpse of the green light fading away.
Thud-!
As she kicked off the ground and entered the alley, she finally lay eyes on her opponent, who had remained unseen until now.
Clad in a black robe and wielding a bow emanating magic energy, unusually, the arrows were of very cheap quality.
‘Tall, slender physique, wearing a robe. Considering they’re still in human form, the vital spots should be similar.’
She threw the Disappearing Spirit Dagger targeting the opponent’s spine.
Whoosh-!
The dagger shimmered in purple light in midair, materializing as it leaped through space.
However, the unknown archer seemed to know about the dagger and easily evaded it.
Swoosh!
Instead, they leapt into the air and fired an arrow.
Screech!
Rudi infused mana into the Reverse Ring once more and pulled the trigger of Agate.
Bang!
The impact of the arrow ricocheted, jerking Rudi’s body back, and a magic arrow shot forth.
‘Gotcha!’
She thought so, yet the archer moved impossibly fast again, dodging while shimmering in green light.
The swirling green light left a comet-like tail in the air.
Zing-!
“You!”
He appeared enraged upon seeing the magic rifle and shot arrows at an incredibly fast speed.
Screech!
Rudi twisted her body without the chance to throw up her barrier.
The arrow narrowly grazed her face, and the vision glasses were knocked off.
Crash!
Instinctively, she squeezed her eyes shut and heard the sound of Valenciaunos’s gift breaking.
‘Ah.’
Rudi felt her mind go white hot.
“Relying on that item to mimic a sharpshooter—how shameful. You should be ashamed. Stop pretending to be impressive.”
The archer spoke with a voice full of hatred and mockery.
“I bear no personal grudge against you. I’ll spare you if you turn back now.”
He gestured dismissively as if reprimanding a child, and Rudi let out an incongruous laugh.
“I just… developed a personal grudge against you.”
“!”
“I won’t let you escape anywhere!”
She leapt like lightning and pulled the trigger of Agate.
‘I’ll never forgive you!’
The red glow flashed in her green eyes.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The first shot struck the bow, breaking it.
Darkness blurred under the archer’s hood in shock.
The second shot shattered the quiver, and the third pierced into his side.
Instead of reloading, Rudi drew Vitality and kicked off the ground.
Crash!
The ice blade emitted an out-of-season chill.
