Book 1: Chapter 4: A Restless Night

Outside of Anola town, Archbishop Stanley was shocked by the revitalized town. In his memories of just a few months ago, this place had been rundown and in ruins; had he made a wrong turn on the way?

“We meet again, gramps!”

“Miss Pirate, you’ve lied to me from the start; you are no pirate but clearly a holy knight!”

“No one said that a holy knight can’t be a pirate gramps; anyways, I never really liked the boring title of holy knight in the first place.”

Stanley carefully examined Bella, he was surprised at the growth that she had shown in only a month. Bella was wearing a suit of silvery plate armour that did not carry the emblems of any country; and apart from the metal gloves and arming sword, this time she was also wearing a shield on her back. She now looked like a typical knight.

“Why do you not have a lance, little girl? Do you need me to bring one from the church for you?”

“Er, No thanks, I don’t use polearms; the luck of lancers… is kind of… I prefer the sword. You didn’t come here just to see me, right gramps?”

“Would you mind telling me your name? Your Highness, Octavio Felia”

“You knew my name? …This?”

Receiving a pamphlet that the archbishop handed to her, Bella saw the face of Octavio Felia along with her merit and achievements below it.

“Your father held a funeral for you, no one important went though; except for me, and I was one of the few to take a pamphlet. But don’t worry, I bribed the man in charge to get rid of the rest.”

“Why are you helping me to this extent, what are you planning, gramps?”

“Nothing, you just remind me of my late granddaughter. That’s it really.”

“Hey gramps, tell me your story, I’ll listen to it.”

It didn’t take long for Bella to start regretting her words. The archbishop was just like Mia in the fact that he was afflicted with the disease of verbal diarrhea; the two of them talked for several hours and Bella resisted her growing urge to cut short the archbishop who was talking endlessly about his memories. It was hard for an old man who had been living on his own for so long to find someone to confer and pour his thoughts to.

“Bella, won’t you seek asylum with the church? I can get you a new identity as a holy knight of the church so that you can return to the outside world, not cooped up in this barren place. Even if your father finds out, he can’t do anything about it.”

“It’s fine gramps, I’m fine here; anyways I don’t worship the god of light and I don’t plan on using my title of holy knight anyways.”

“I guess that’s fine as well; do you have any clues about Miss Roland and Princess Annie?”

“Them…nothing right now, but I think they should still be alive. I’ll tell you if I hear anything gramps.”

“I hope your words hold true; I still have a lot of stuff to attend to. You can come and find me at the church of the Trevikon county’s capital: Vekon. Remember this, child, the doors of the church shall always remain open to you.”

Bella let out the breath that she had been holding as she watched archbishop Stanley leave her sight. She had guessed that the female archer was a member of the Kristoff Empire’s royal family and Stanley just confirmed it for her. It seemed that Annie also had a fiance who was gathering men in the nearby county. If Bella released them, Annie will be forced into a political marriage. It didn’t leave a very pleasant feeling in Bella’s heart as she thought about it.

As she was preoccupied with thinking about how to deal with Annie’s fiance, Bella didn’t realize that a dark shadow in a nearby tree had witnessed her entire conversation and was about to stealthily leave; as they turned around, however, his head rolled to the ground. Beside his body stood a monster dressed in a black trench coat over formal attire.

“A petty human dares to eavesdrop on the great Bella-sama? I’ll crush every single bone in your body.”

“Wait, Adrian, don’t crush him just yet. This person seems to be something similar to an assassin; someone probably sent him to gather information, I’ll search his memories and then use his body to find more information so that we can report to the misses.”

“Ah, if it isn’t 【Thousand Faces】 Clement, you were always the smartest one of us. Don’t forget my share of the credit, I’ve been jealous of that fat bastard Maltz and his rewarding job. We can’t fall behind, you hurry up and I’ll report to that lousy housekeeper Mercedes.”

___

Roland and Annie’s current states definitely could not be shown to outsiders, or else Bella couldn’t clean herself from the responsibility even if she jumped into the Sacred River; the perverted bastard who had actually done it had probably been broken by Maltz already, and Bella would have to take responsibility for all this.

“Hmph, I’m not going to give away something that’s already in my hands. As for her fiance… they didn’t have any mutual feelings for each other. Maybe I should find a way and…”

Killing intent flickered through Bella’s heart as she walked down the path that led her back to the city of Nolarke. She had decided that she wasn’t going to return either of the girls, she wasn’t a hero or any person of the righteous side anyways. She was going to ask those two if they agreed to stay by her side, even if they tried shaking their heads Bella would manually make them nod.

Roland and Annie, who were still resting on the sides of the hot spring, felt a shiver down their spine; they wondered if that female devil Bella was thinking about bullying them again. Just as they were thinking about Bella, they saw her re-enter with a wicked smile on her face. Bella looked at the two of them more ferociously than before, similar to how a wolf looks at its prey; the two of them instinctively wanted to run but were reminded that they lacked the ability by the ropes that bound them.

“Dolores, where are Mia and Angel?”

Bella only saw Dolores within the hot spring and asked curiously.

“They were a bit tired and went to rest in the room. Bella sister, your face is scaring me, not to mention these two little sisters; look, they’re shaking right now.”

“I don’t see any sign of being scared on your face, Dolores…”

Bella was a little bit speechless as she looked at Dolores’ face that seemed to be rather excited to watch what happens next. Luckily Mia and Angel had gone to sleep, she didn’t want them to learn some unsuitable stuff. They weren’t here right now so Bella could do what she wanted.

Bella walked up to Roland and Annie, and not paying any heed to their resistance, picked them both up and carried them in her arms. It was the first time that the two panicking girls had seen such an alluring smile from a female.

“Dolores, I’m going to take them to my room to rest, do you want to come along?”

“No thanks Bella sister, I’m not tired yet. Rest well and I’ll find you when I’m tired. Oh, Mercedes came in earlier to report that she had already moved the new bed into your room.”

“I’ve got just the use for it right now. When Angel and Mia wake up later tell them that I’m busy and to find me in the morning.”

“Alright, I hope you have a wonderful night.”

Roland and Annie actually hoped that the purple haired girl came along. They instinctively felt that Bella was very dangerous right now, but the purple-haired girl just saw them out with a smile, not paying heed to their begging eyes.

“Roland, Annie, I’ve been thinking for quite some time now, but I’ve decided that I can’t let you two go; after all, demons and humans have been mortal enemies for as long as anyone can remember; I can’t have one of you accidentally let your mouths slip about me.”

Bella placed Roland and Annie on a large and luxurious bed, turned around and locked the door behind her. The girls didn’t know what Bella was going to do to them, apart from the fact that it wasn’t going to be anything good.

“Don’t be scared, I won’t kill you two. The two of you are my treasures and right now, I’m very fond of you girls, no way I’d be willing to kill you. After this ritual we’ll be one happy family, I’ll be very gentle; if you two don’t speak up, it means that you two agree to this! Stop shaking your heads, shaking your head is null at the moment. Well then, since you two didn’t voice your disagreements, let’s start!”

Bella ignored the two frantically shaking heads and crawled onto the bed, she lowered the bed’s pink drapes and it didn’t take long for her armour to be thrown out of the drapes in parts.

___

Count’s residence, Trevikon county; Stuart Sidney received the report from his assassin and was suspicious of archbishop Stanley’s actions. That old geezer was probably scheming something, secretly meeting with a holy knight and all.

“Dennis, what do you think we should do?”

“According to my humble opinion, this archbishop is definitely hiding something. Young master should personally bring men and apprehend that female knight, interrogate her and find out what that old fox is planning!”

“A brilliant plan Dennis, I didn’t think that assassins could be so smart. Servant! Bring this genius a bag of gold coins!”

Sidney did not realize that this assassin was no longer the henchman that he had sent previously, he only wanted to find something wrong with Stanley in order to bring the Church of Light down into the water as well and tie them to himself; this way when Randall Shawn came looking for trouble, the dragon knight would be wary of the Church as well and couldn’t directly harm Sidney.

“This servant is thankful for the young master’s graciousness, I’ve also overheard that miss Roland and Princess Annie are still alive, but were stripped and taken by zombies to the lower levels of the Adris resting place that young master had visited before. I believe that they will be killed by the zombies within the next few days.”

“What? There’s that kind of good…bad thing. That girl Annie, hehe, and that brat Roland too, I can take this chance and claim the two of their bodies. What a wonderful thing, it seems that the heavens themselves are helping me.”

“Your servant has already found the secret entrance to the basement, should we move immediately? The female knight will very likely try to rescue the ladies early in the morning tomorrow.”

“Dennis, you’re just to my taste, It’s a shame that I’ve never realized your talent before today. After the deed is done, I’ll get my dad to confer you a peerage.”

“Thank you, young master, your servant will devote his life to serving you. When I entered I heard that Count Harold and Archbishop Stanley were busy preparing to receive an emissary from the church, it’s the perfect timing for us to depart.”

“Very good Dennis, you go and get ready; I’ll go and prepare the men.”

“Your servant understands.”

Sidney was lost in his nefarious delusions and didn’t see the sinister smile on Dennis’ face as he left the room.

“Foolish human, those two girls are the property of Bella-sama; they’re not something that you can lay a finger on.”

Clement had previously overheard Mia and Angel discussing sending scouts to explore the basement of the resting place, he was going to let this stupid young master do that job for them.

On Bella’s balcony, her original body leaned against the railings; her body double Felia was lying on the large bed with the two girls on each of her arms. The two girls’ faces were flushed even in sleep as Bella had bullied them for three hours straight.

“You’ve come!”

Bella had been looking up at the twinkling stars in the sky; turning around to face Mia and Angel that had entered the room at some time.

“Sister, what ritual were you performing with the two doll sisters? Mia and I haven’t seen anything like it!”

“Er Angel…were you and Mia looking the whole time?”

“There’s no harm in looking, right? Although I don’t understand principles of the ritual; but I can sense that it makes both sides feel good. I kind of want to try…”

“I want to try as well, but does this ritual require us to dress in that special underwear like the two doll sisters?”

“Mia, Angel… Let’s discuss this topic…uh… later.”

Bella looked a little awkwardly at the two lolis in front of her; these two little sisters were definitely inviting her to commit a crime. Although, Bella couldn’t deny that she had been thinking about going through with the crime.

She wasn’t planning on taking down these two yet. Roland and Annie still hadn’t completely given themselves to her yet, and it would probably take the rest of the month to do so.

“Sister, we’ve discovered the location of the seal’s caster.”

“I don’t think we need to go, these two are pretty good like this anyways!”

Bella thought that the two girls asleep on the bed would be fine if they stayed like this forever; she didn’t want any more trouble.

“I think it’s better if we go and find the caster, I can confirm that they aren’t a god; they shouldn’t go against us.”

“I’ll listen to you two, we’ll go tomorrow. It’s still a while until daybreak, do you two want to rest too? The bed is large enough.”

“It’s fine, Mercedes just sent a message that she had something to report. I’ll go with Mia to see what’s going on. Sister, you should just rest.”

Bella didn’t know that a large group of scapegoats had already gone ahead and scouted the path for them. In the Adris resting ground, a large human army had entered the lower levels. As soon as all of them entered, the entrance closed behind them as only screams could be heard, the only one left outside the entrance was Dennis who currently had a face filled with shock; half his body had been cut off by a trap, and he would definitely be dead if he was a normal human.

“This place is definitely not a place for living beings, it was fortunate that I expected something like this. I have to report this to Bella-sama, this place is too dangerous.”

After he finished speaking to himself, Dennis’ decimated body dropped to the ground, a strange shadow crawled out of the corpse and ran off into the distance.