Chapter 103: The Walls Have Ears

Lucian and Shin returned to the mansion in silence, walking through shattered glass, broken wood, and burned silk. The garden, which hours earlier had been elegant and peaceful, now looked like the aftermath of a grotesque and bloody war.

Inside the mansion, Ebony and Daniel, still unconscious, were carried to the second floor by Shin, the two-and-a-half-meter-tall tree man, who held their bodies with a heavy calm, as if he were already used to gathering survivors.

On the second floor, Veronica was in Kanary’s room. She lay on the bed, breathing normally, though still asleep. The cat girl hadn’t moved from her spot and kept her gaze fixed between the bed and the door.

Lucian, exhausted and with his legs burned by the spiders’ acid, lay down on the floor as soon as he entered the room. He didn’t try to find a better position, he simply let his body fall where it no longer had to keep fighting.

“What the hell was all that?! The mansion is a complete mess! And what happened to Ebony and the kid?”

Veronica said worriedly, looking first at Lucian, then at Shin, and finally at the two injured they had just brought back.

“The assassins came for us… Each of us handled one, so don’t worry… I don’t know if there are more, but we’ll deal with it… Just let me close my eyes for a moment…”

Lucian replied as he closed his eyes, lacking even the strength to pretend he was still awake.

Amid Veronica’s shouting, the elf ended up falling asleep. It wasn’t an elegant or peaceful rest, but a complete shutdown of his body after too much pain, too much magic, and a night that didn’t seem to end.

.

.

After several hours, Ebony woke up. She did so suddenly, with a heavy head, a numb back, and that strange feeling of not fully understanding how much time had passed or why she was still lying on the floor.

“What the hell… What happened?… Huh?” the blonde said as she got up from the floor, and when she looked to her side, she found a horrifying scene: a living tree was inserting a root from its arm into Daniel’s mouth.

That being was Shin, and upon seeing Ebony wake up so quickly, he raised his oak hand in a silent greeting. The gesture was so strange and natural at the same time that the blonde took a second to react.

“Ah, you’re finally awake! I’m really glad, I thought you wouldn’t wake up until tomorrow, and spending the night alone with all this is dangerous,”

Veronica said excitedly, standing in front of the blonde with the clear expression of someone who was already tired of keeping watch alone.

“Umm…” Ebony looked at her friend and, with a confused expression, asked, “What the hell is that? And why is it sticking a branch into the kid’s mouth?” The scene was too ridiculous to accept without questioning it.

“Huh? Oh, you mean Shin? He’s Lucian’s summon, he won’t hurt you. That branch you see, or well, that root, is to release his sap, it’s healing and restores a bit of magic, so it’s useful to avoid mage exhaustion,”

Veronica replied, crossing her arms with a gentle tone.

At that moment, Ebony connected the pieces in her head and asked, “Yeah… So he also stuck that thing in my mouth?” The question came out with so much distrust and offense that Veronica almost looked like she wanted to laugh.

“Well, yeah, you had completely run out of magical energy, if I hadn’t done that you would’ve ended up sleeping for a whole day or even two,”

Veronica replied as her cat ears moved, as if the explanation were perfectly logical.

Ebony went blank for a moment. She didn’t shout, didn’t insult, and didn’t even make an immediate face, she just stood there silently processing that a tree had put a root in her mouth.

“Anyway, Ebony, please go check on Kanary… She seems better… But I still want to know if we can wake her up and get out of here. When dawn comes, I’m sure more assassins will arrive,”

Veronica seemed worried and far more tense than before.

“Huh? Nah, nah, nah, their leader ordered them to retreat, I think something changed in their plans, and besides, where the hell would we even go?”

Ebony replied as she stood up and stretched her shoulders a bit before approaching the bed.

Ebony got up and walked over to the bed where Kanary was. Despite still being annoyed, her body responded much better than before, and that was enough for her to move without stumbling too much.

The blonde took the blue-haired girl’s hand, who was still asleep, and using her Healer ability, she began to check her condition. She closed her eyes for a moment and examined internally, as if reading a silent map.

“I guess you’re right… But right now we’re alone, it’s just Shin, you, and me awake. If enough of them come, we could lose,”

Veronica said, scratching her head full of white hair, unable to pretend she was calm.

“Ah, so you’re scared, it’s fine, that’s understandable, but relax, I still have a card up my sleeve. For now, at least this girl is safe and sound, she’ll wake up later I guess. For now, you stay here, I’ll go get my things from the guest room.”

After saying that, Ebony left the room, walking through the mansion. The glass was shattered, and the moonlight streamed in through the windows. Every hallway looked different, colder, emptier, and far too damaged for a single night.

“(Damn… To think this place was intact just a few hours ago… Now it looks abandoned)” the blonde thought as she reached the guest room, looking at open doors, broken furniture, and dark stains that hadn’t been there before.

As she entered, she saw her large backpack with all the group’s belongings. Without wasting time, she slung it over her shoulder, noting with relief that her strength had returned and that her magic was slowly recovering as well.

“(Whatever that tree gave me would be worth studying… Maybe I can create serum in this magical world… With that, I’m sure I could save even more lives)

”

Ebony thought as she adjusted the backpack on her shoulder.

Ebony kept thinking as she returned to Kanary’s room, but along the way, a presence made her stop. Sharpening her gaze, she saw a mouse on the floor, small, gray, and far too still to be just a simple pest.

The blonde, curious, approached the mouse, until the moonlight revealed its form: it had a fleshy tumor on its back that pulsed, emitting magic. It wasn’t just any deformity, it was something placed there on purpose.

At that moment, the mouse slipped away quickly and silently through the broken glass, trying to hide from the girl’s sight, disappearing into a small hole as it burrowed into the mansion walls.

However, for Ebony, it was more than just seeing something; she could clearly feel its presence through wood and stone, tracking how the small creature moved away inside the walls.

“(Shit… A rat with a Blood Parasite spell… This spell is C-rank… If I kill it, the guy will realize we know we’re being watched, better to ignore it and pretend I didn’t see anything) I thought I heard something… Guess it was just a mouse,”

Ebony said, acting as if she hadn’t seen the parasitized rat. She kept walking without rushing, controlling every step and gesture, though internally she was already reorganizing the entire situation much more carefully.

Thus, the blonde returned to the room where her friends were, her expression worried. It was no longer just exhaustion or irritation, but that cold focus that surfaced when she finally understood the scale of the problem.

At that moment, Ebony, using her passive ability to sense life, managed to locate a mouse hidden within the walls. The creature couldn’t see anything in the room, but it could clearly hear everything they said.

“I’m back, I’ve got my healing potions and several things that will help us, don’t worry, everything will be fine,”

Ebony said, placing her finger over her lips, signaling them to stay silent without yet explaining why.

Then, Ebony approached Kanary’s desk. It had a quill and paper she used to write her letters; with this, Ebony began writing instructions, which she then showed to Veronica and Shin, pointing at each part patiently.

Thus, in silence, without revealing their plan, the three of them nodded. No one argued or asked questions out loud, understanding from Ebony’s expression that the enemy was still listening even without being present.

“They’re listening to us, now it’s our chance, now it’s our turn to trap them,” was written on the sheet of paper.

So the three of them gathered around Kanary’s desk and began writing on the paper. Each had a different plan, so after a few moments, they started arguing silently.

Between shoves and irritated gestures, the three of them began planning their next moves, while in the distance, in a city alley, a white-haired man whistled enthusiastically a delirious tune as he put on a white plague doctor mask.

“Smart girl… It’ll be fun to play with you,” the man said as he placed a large black undertaker’s hat on his head, covered in symbols drawn with fresh blood.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep