Theia's chest heaved with anger. She pointed at the item in Elvia's hand and began whispering furiously.
“I can't believe it! You! You actually want to do the exact same thing as those filthy playboys!”
“You want to... to Lin Gui... and you're even using such underhanded tricks!”
“You actually want to carry his child?! You... you... you shameless lioness!”
She was absolutely furious!
Just a little more! Just a tiny bit more!
And this woman would have beaten her to it!
She hadn't seen any sign of the princess harboring such feelings for Lin Gui along the way!
She had hidden it far too well!
After her initial panic at being caught, Elvia quickly calmed down.
She looked at Theia's flustered and angry face, which made her look like a child whose favorite toy had been snatched away.
Her eyes darted around. Instead of making excuses, she decided to turn the tables and drag Theia down with her.
“Shh! Keep your voice down!” Dragging Theia aside, she lowered her voice, her words sounding like the whisper of a devil.
“Theia, you like Lin Gui, don't you?”
Theia's face flushed, and she raised her chin. “N-None of your business!”
“I don't think your love has any chance at all,” Elvia said, dealing a merciless blow.
“Once we reach Avalon and Lin Gui completes his commission, do you think he'll stay for you? He won't.”
“His goal is to deliver letters and go all the way to the end. Avalon is just one stop on his journey.”
Theia's eyes dimmed. This was exactly what she feared most deep down.
Elvia struck while the iron was hot.
“It's true that you like him, but what about Lin Gui? Can you guarantee that he likes you back?”
“If you muster up the courage to confess and he rejects you, how will you face each other afterward?”
“Will you still be able to travel side-by-side like this? Think of how awkward that would be.”
“So, while we have this rare opportunity, we should seal the deal and make it official!”
“And right now is your chance to take him!” Elvia continued to coax.
“Once we leave the Royal Capital, the world is vast. The chances of finding another opportunity to drug this extremely vigilant guy will be practically zero!”
Elvia stared straight into Theia's eyes, her words piercing deep.
Every single sentence hit exactly where Theia was most sensitive and afraid.
Her uncertainty about the future, her guessing of Lin Gui's feelings...
And her fear of not even being able to remain friends if she were rejected...
“But... but... but...” Theia was severely shaken.
Reason told her this was wrong.
Yet her emotions and fears made her want to grab onto this dangerous straw.
“But... this isn't right. What about Lin Gui's own wishes?”
Elvia countered.
“Wishes? Do you think any man would reject the two of us throwing ourselves at him?”
“You and me—I won't say we're peerless, but we are definitely top-tier beauties, right?”
“To let a guy from a vagrant background get such a deal is the blessing of a lifetime for him!”
Theia opened her mouth, finding herself unable to refute.
From a male perspective... it did seem... virtually impossible to refuse?
Seeing the intense struggle in Theia's eyes and how visibly shaken she was,
Elvia played her final trump card.
Shaking the powder in her hand, she said in a low voice,
“I can let you be his first woman.”
“You go first.”
Theia's face instantly turned bright red, but her gaze suddenly grew solemn, as if she had made up her mind.
She snatched the powder and the blowpipe from Elvia's hands, her tone carrying a desperate, devil-may-care resolve.
“Fine! Deal! Give me some of your fertility pills too!”
“And I'll do the blowing!”
“I'm very familiar with Lin Gui's perception habits and breathing rhythm.”
“I can blow it in when he's most relaxed and his guard is at its lowest. He won't stand a chance!”
Holding the blowpipe and inserting it into the gap under the door, Theia hesitated.
Thinking she was wavering again, Elvia simply said,
“Oh, if you have a moral dilemma, let me do it.”
“No, it's not that. I just...”
The tips of Theia's ears were crimson. She fidgeted, and finally said to Elvia,
“U-Um... if both of us really end up becoming Lin Gui's women...”
“Then we'll be family. So... when the time comes, don't forget to call me Sister Theia.”
“...”
Elvia was utterly speechless.
Inside the room,
completely unaware that he had been targeted by his two teammates, Lin Gui was still fast asleep.
He slept incredibly deeply, his breathing steady.
It was as if all his exhaustion had finally caught up with him at this very moment.
However, if any keen-sensing expert had been present, they would have noticed something.
Even in his deep sleep,
an extremely thin, almost invisible wave of magic power still lingered around Lin Gui's body.
This was a defensive mechanism from his journey to the Magic City, where he had survived by the skin of his teeth.
Through countless near-death experiences,
he had forged an insanely sharp instinct for danger.
In the wilderness, any slip of vigilance could lead to eternal damnation.
He had once woken up in his sleep right before venomous insects burrowing from the ground could bite him.
He had also been in seemingly safe ruins,
rolling out of the way a split second before a stray arrow struck.
This sixth-sense-like intuition for crisis had long since integrated into his very bones,
becoming a life-saving charm more reliable than any early-warning magic.
Right now, this sharp intuition was triggered once again.
In his daze, Lin Gui didn't feel any immediate physical danger directed at him.
Yet, he could clearly “perceive” a sharp, scrutinizing aura of killing intent.
It was sweeping and lingering in the corridor outside the room.
He kept his eyes closed, his body relaxed.
He didn't make any unnecessary movements, and his breathing rhythm didn't even change.
He was waiting—waiting for that killing intent to pause or show a clear intent to attack.
Now!
The moment that killing intent seemed to confirm its target,
pausing for a split second, Lin Gui moved!
【Shroud of the Gloomy Night】 instantly covered his body.
He leaped silently from the soft bed,
landing precisely in the darkest corner of the room.
Almost the instant he landed,
the oak staff leaning in the corner flew lightly into his hand, as if drawn by an invisible force.
Lin Gui stood with his back against the wall, holding the staff horizontally in front of him.
His bloodshot eyes, strained from lack of sleep, were now as sharp as an eagle's.
He stared intently at the door and window, searching for the source of danger.
The expected breach of the door or window didn't happen.
Instead, a faint, oddly sweet pink smoke
began drifting in through the gap under the door in thin wisps, looking incredibly bizarre.
Lin Gui looked bewildered.
The killing intent was clearly coming from outside the window.
But what on earth was this bizarre mist?
Was it some new kind of coordinated attack? First release knockout gas, then perform a physical assassination?
The person outside the door seemed to notice the unusual silence in the room.
The pink smoke paused for a moment.
Then, the door was pushed open a tiny crack, slowly and cautiously.
A head with pointed ears and a slender blowpipe in its mouth
peeked in stealthily.
Emerald eyes, filled with the guilt of a thief, looked toward the bed in confusion.
Was that Theia?
While Lin Gui was dazed,
Click.
A faint sound of a window latch being slid came from outside.
Immediately after, the window was pushed open silently, leaving a gap.
A lithe figure clad in dark nightwear, with a veil covering their face,
flipped in lightly and swiftly, landing without a sound.
The air in the room seemed to freeze.
Theia, who had just poked her head in, and the masked assassin, who had just stabilized their footing,
locked eyes across the room.
Their gazes met dead-on in midair.
Theia still had the blowpipe in her mouth, blinking her eyes.
A clear flash of bewilderment also crossed the assassin's exposed eyes.
The atmosphere instantly became dead silent, filled with an indescribable awkwardness.
Theia froze for two seconds, then, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, she yanked her head back.
The next second,
Bang!
The door was kicked open violently by a foot clad in a short leather boot!
Theia dashed into the room, throwing away the blowpipe in one smooth motion.
She reached back to draw the “Azure Echo” longbow.
Her other hand already held an arrow, drawing the bowstring to its limit in an instant!
The arrow pointed directly at the masked assassin. She screamed with all her might:
“Assassin!!”
Before her voice even faded, the humming bowstring snapped.
The arrow shot straight at the assassin's face with a screeching whistle!
The masked assassin's reaction was also extremely fast.
They ducked and rolled the moment Theia kicked the door.
With a sharp thud, the arrow embedded itself deeply into the window frame behind them, its fletching vibrating violently.
The assassin's figure vanished.
“...”
Elvia, who had just rushed to the door behind Theia,
still clutching the packet of “aphrodisiac powder” in her hand,
was completely dumbfounded by the lightning-fast sequence of events unfolding in the room.
What the heck?
What on earth just happened?
I only lied to Lin Gui about potential assassins to lock the windows so we could drug him easily!
What kind of assassin from the Lower District could bypass layers of Defense Force patrols
and sneak into the most central hotel in the Upper District?!
Did I just speak this into existence?!
Rate on N.U.
