Book 4: Chapter 164: The Secret of Duke Brandon’s Mansion
Book 4: Chapter 164: The Secret of Duke Brandon’s Mansion
The Gabriel Empire’s southern border region, the original Norlander Duchy’s capital, Nolan City’s center area, Duke Brandon’s mansion.
Bella had never visited Norlander Duchy’s capital before. She had also never been to Duke Brandon’s grand mansion. Bella had originally thought that her own mansion was breaking regulations but it wasn’t until she had laid eyes on Duke Brandon’s mansion that she realized her own residence was rather normal.
In terms of area, Duke Brandon and Bella’s mansions were about the same, however the decadence of Duke Brandon’s mansion far surpassed Bella’s mansion. Bella’s mansion had been built by Blood Demon King Eleanor; although it was very large, the materials used to build it were ordinary stone and wood.
Bella strongly suspected that Brandon’s mansion had been modelled after the Emperor’s own palace. That magnificent architectural style, besides lacking the sign of the imperial palace, was practically identical.
There were many Wolfman guards patrolling the area, but this didn’t affect Bella and her companions’ ability to infiltrate the grounds. With their black witch robes, they practically had a free pass to go wherever they wanted. The Wolfman guards did not even dare to block their way as they entered the mansion.
Bella and her companions had seen that meteor shower in the distance; it should be the long range support that the Darkness Sacred Region was giving Sarn City. Either way Sarn City was secure; Bella wasn’t worried at all. After all, there was a genuine demon king holding down the fort. No matter how hard headed the Beastmen were, they wouldn’t be able to surpass Blood Demon King Eleanor.
Inside Duke Brandon’s mansion, there weren’t many Beastman guards. The security details within were handled by the Dark Humans. Presently, there were none here, as all of them had probably gone outside to deal with the crazed zombies.
Bella had planned to assassinate the Beastmen’s Third Army Group Commander, Wolf King Springhall. Springhall was the leader of the Wolfman race, and was one of the Eight Great Beast Kings of the Beastman race. He had long acted as the strategic commander behind the scenes of many Beastman invasions of the Gabriel Empire.
Wolf King Springhall’s greatest battle record was five years past; he had lead over 50,000 Wolfmen cavalry to completely rout Duke Brandon’s 110,000 strong Border Duchy’s Alliance Army. Duke Brandon’s strategic ability was not bad, but the troops of the Alliance Army were too crappy. Their battle prowess was untenable. This was added to the fact that several Dukes were extra skimpy with their budget which led to the poor quality of the soldiers’ basic equipment. Besides the officers, the soldiers were all wearing the cheapest armor and were completely unable to go head to head with the Beastmen’s savage assault.
Due to the enormous size of Duke Brandon’s mansion, Bella was in a rush; there was no way she’d be able to investigate the entirety of the mansion. If the black robed wizards returned, they would be forced into a reactionary position. Bella could only rely on Noreya and Elaine’s help.
Noreya didn’t refuse either. There was a major difference between her and regular human assassins, and that was her ability to capture a person’s heartbeat. This was an ability that belonged to assassins of legend. Upon reaching that realm of ability, an assassin would be able to discern the heartbeats in their surrounding area, thereby pinpointing their target’s position.
Of course, this heartbeat detection wasn’t a universal ability. One would only be able to detect surrounding heartbeats during the skill duration, and once the skill ended there would be a long cooldown time before it could be used again.
Noreya tightly closed her eyes, and listened in silence. Soon, she opened her eyes again with a strange expression on her face, as if she had made an important discovery. Elaine used a different method to scout the mansion. She released several puppet insects and ordered them to investigate the area.
Elaine’s method was a bit slower than Noreya’s technique. However, once her puppet insects had returned and reported their findings, she took on a strange expression as well. When the two girls pointed, they ended up pointing toward the same direction.
According to their findings, Kenneth wasn’t actually here. They weren’t sure if he had gone with his black robed underlings to go suppress the corpse burial area, but his room had been discovered by both Elaine and Noreya. As for the quarters of Wolf King Springhall, they didn’t appear to be within Brandon’s ducal mansion.
Bella was very angry that their target wasn’t there. They couldn’t just leave like this, otherwise they would have made this trip for nothing. They had to at least leave a souvenir of their visit. Under Bella’s orders, Noreya and Elaine led her toward Kenneth’s quarters.
There were two passages to Kenneth’s room; one of them was filled with traps as well as the corpses of a large number of black robed people. By the looks of their equipment, these people were likely human assassins that had infiltrated the mansion. Moreover, all of the dead were male assassins, there wasn’t a single female.
On the previous level, Bella had also only seen male assassins. She figured that no female assassins had accepted this mission.
There were many many traps in this passageway. There were hidden arrows, as well as pitfalls. Looking at that bloody hallway gave people a chilling sensation. The other passageway however, looked exceedingly ordinary. It was very peaceful and did not look dangerous at all.
Bella and her companions decided to test out both pathways. The person who designed all of these trap mechanisms would never have guessed that they would encounter a puppet master, the cheating master Elaine. She summoned forth zombie puppets that looked almost alive and used them to test both hallways for danger.
These zombie puppets had almost the same body temperature as normal humans. They even had an internal mechanism that mimicked a heartbeat. The traps in the passageway immediately identified the puppets as real humans and launched several volleys of arrows. The realistic puppets walking down the trapped hallway barely made it ten meters in before they collapsed to the ground, damaged so severely that they barely looked human anymore.
The ones walking down the ordinary looking path did not fare much better. Although at a glance, the hallway did not look to be trapped, Bella firmly believed that the most peaceful looking area would often be the source of danger.
This passageway also was trapped. Within ten meters, those zombie puppets were entangled by dozens of tentacle-like black strips. The black tentacles seemed to be some sort of demon; they felt as if they were alive as they constricted around the puppets.
“Such speed, these tentacles… They’re, forget it, either way my puppets aren’t ordinary cannon fodder.”
The puppet silk in Elaine’s hands trembled violently and her entangled puppets self destructed with a “peng”. Accompanying their explosions, a wave of cruel green liquid exploded from the puppets’ bodies, splattering over the black tentacles.
Those tentacles reacted as if they had been sprayed with sulfuric acid and dissolved in short order. That cruel green liquid was practically infectious. Soon, the entire passageway was dyed a sickly shade of green and the remains of that black tentacled demon were left everywhere.
“Elaine, you…”
“Bella, this is the strongest corpse water, and is specifically used to dissolve demons. It’s mine… or more accurately, she gave it to me.”
Elaine’s explanation seemed to be avoiding something, and Bella didn’t ask her to clarify which beauty Elaine was referring to with “her”. After all there were plenty of girls around Bella that could produce secret poisons, for example, Betty. It was only afterward that Bella found out that Elaine had been referring to Bella herself.
The Gabriel Empire’s southern border region, the original Norlander Duchy’s capital, Noland City’s corpse burial ground.
The black robed wizards were currently creating a magic array, and were desperately trying to hold back the crazed zombies charging their position.
Among the black robed wizards, the leader was a youth wearing a black sage’s outfit; his image was eye-catching. He was the Darkness Wizard God, Kenneth. This “Wizard God” title wasn’t claimed out of empty pride, it was because his power was nearing godly levels.
For example, the meditation staff in his hands was a genuine divine artifact. Ten thousand years ago, when the Gods had lost to the 12 Demon Kings in the God World, the inheritances of the divine seats of power had been thrown into chaos. In cases where an heir of the divine race could not be found, a human, or other lower beings, who had power nearing that of the divine would be selected as a replacement inheritor.
They could not be called true successors of a divine seat. At most, the were inheritors of divine power. Because they were not given a divine authority by the previous gods, they could never ascend to godhood.
Kenneth was one of those people. He had received a portion of power from some underworld god, but lacked any sort of divinity. Although he could reach a level of power nearing that of the underworld god, he would never become the new underworld god.
Seeing the never ending tide of frenzied zombies, even one as powerful as Kenneth had a headache. The strength of the mysterious person behind this zombie tide was a mystery to him; he couldn’t guess his opposition’s background at all.
His ever present witch assistants had also disappeared somewhere which resulted in Kenneth being unable to use several of his magical arrays. He had been less than half a day from breaking the wills of those pieces of “furniture”, and he would have been able to enjoy the beautiful scenery. Now, it looked as if he would have to wait a while longer.
On Kenneth’s right finger, a contract seal of one of his contracted demons suddenly faded, and soon after completely disappeared. He hadn’t even had a chance to react. There was only a burn mark left on his right hand, reminiscent of the magic seal that had originally been there.
“Demon Vine Babbit was actually destroyed, who did it! It was killed in an instant too.”
Kenneth’s expression suddenly twisted. Babbit was a demon vine that he had raised for several thousand years. He had poured in his blood, sweat, and tears to raising this anti-assassin specialist that was on the same level as SS+ ranked demon beasts.
Babbit’s innate vitality was extremely strong; not even a low level divine race being would be able to destroy it. Yet it had been destroyed in an instant by a mysterious person. This left Kenneth feeling extremely restless. Babbit was the last line of defense before his personal quarters. Now that it had been eliminated, this signified that the main camp had been infiltrated.
It looked like he had to move those big guys now! Kenneth was rather regretful; those pieces of “furniture” might be wasted. However, he really couldn’t leave his current location. The suppression of the frenzied zombies had reached a critical point, if he retreated now, all of his previous efforts would be wasted.
The Gabriel Empire’s southern border region, capital of the original Norlander Duchy, Noland City’s center, the original mansion of Duke Brandon, Darkness Wizard God Kenneth’s personal quarters.
This opulent bedroom was originally Duke Brandon’s personal bedroom. Kenneth hadn’t even had a chance to switch out the name plate over the entrance. At the door, Noreya used the innate skills of an assassin in order to easily pick the lock.
After picking the lock, Noreya did not lead the way inside. She and Elaine exchanged a glance, and both of their lips curled into a mysterious grin. Afterwards, they both stepped aside.
“Bella, go ahead. Elaine and I will hold the rear for you.”
“You two aren’t going in? There isn’t a trap is there!”
“Bella, just go inside and take a look. There aren’t any traps, and if there are, after we get back I’ll let you do anything you want to me. You can let loose your wildest fantasies!”
Since Elaine had put her own body on the line, Bella decided to trust her for now. After going inside, Elaine and Noreya gave each other a conspiratorial glance before shutting the door behind her.
This was the first time Bella had ever seen another duke’s private quarters. Duke Brandon’s bedroom was extremely opulent; the walls looked as if they had been brushed with gold paint. However, it was the “furniture” that really unsettled her. This was her first time seeing such unique “free use” furniture.
In this bedroom, there were over 20 beautiful girls imprisoned. They were all slim and delicate. Their clothes were also long gone. On their pure white skin, Bella found traces of tentacle marks. Clearly, they had been captured by the Babbit demon vine outside.
The girls’ hands and feet were restrained in red leather handcuffs, and they each had a red collar around their necks. The collars didn’t have a clasp, they were permanent collars that could never be removed. This was Bella’s first time seeing such a cruel instrument.
The beautiful girls had been tied up and secured into various embarrassing poses, in a lewd mimicry of furniture. There were “chairs”, and “lamp shelves”. Toward this manner of furniture art play, Bella fully admired such a gentlemanly sport.
The “Old Drivers” of this different world, each one was more wild the next. If Old Man Kenneth was behind this, then his “driving” skills were definitely far better than Two Headed Ogre Nelson. No wonder he was the leader of the “grand dirty wizards”.
Bella had only ever played such humiliating games with Demon World Princess Diaz. At that time it was only the two of them as well. Yet here, there were over twenty “participants”; it had far surpassed Bella’s games in terms of scale.
Most of the captured beauties were the cold and aloof type. They were rather similar to the Assassins Society President Ivy. Most of them had black hair, with a small number of blondes as well. If Bella wasn’t mistaken, then they were female assassins that had attempted to infiltrate and kill Wolf King Springhall. Unfortunately, they had been captured by the “grand dirty wizard”, Kenneth.
Bella had always been unafraid of meeting beautiful women, especially when her enemy had already done most of her “work”, and left the final step to her; this was her favorite. Like a “thief”, she snuck next to the beauties in order to take a closer look.
Each of their little mouths were stuffed a small red ball, but their eyes were uncovered. Their eyes were filled with humiliation, and their cheeks were flushed bright red. If it weren’t for their humiliated expressions, Bella would’ve suspected them to be drugged.
The red balls in their mouths had small holes in them that were connected to clear tubes. The other end of the tubes were connected to a large clear water bottle shaped like an hourglass. The water dripped into the tubes slowly, a drop at a time, and flowed into their mouths. The girls had been humiliated in this manner for a period of time already.
Seeing that Bella was a fellow female, they all gave her pleading glances, hoping that she wouldn’t treat them like that weirdo Kenneth. Even though Bella was currently dressed like a witch, they didn’t have anyone else to beg.
Bella found scraps of the girls’ clothes, and within found little books with their identity information. They were members of the Assassin Society and furthermore, were also students of Alexis Academy.
Alexis Academy was one of the twenty human academies. It was located in the western region, in the empire of archers and assassins, Kristoff Empire. The academy specialized in assassinations. One of Bella’s first maids, Princess Archer Annie, was a member of the Kristoff Empire’s royal family.
“I didn’t expect it to be more girls… Kenneth, this shipment of furniture is pretty good! Too bad that I will be bringing them back to my own mansion. Hey… why does this girl look so familiar… She is…”
Bella, who had been secretly giggling to herself, suddenly spotted a familiar face on the ID cards of the Alexis Academy students. She was a beautiful girl that looked very similar to Princess Annie.
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