Chapter 335: The Siege

—

On the streets of Portsinota Town, the three women surrounded Shuna, a tacit understanding forming between them.

“Stop—you wretched woman. You’re not going anywhere.”

A frigid wind, colder than the winter air, swept through the street as solid ice spread from where Eir’s shield was planted, racing towards Shuna.

Shuna reacted quickly. Realizing she was under attack in a supposedly peaceful town, she immediately switched the small box to her left hand and drew her dagger with her right. She tried to create distance, but…

Hard ice blocked her path of retreat.

“Hm? Such precision…”

Eir gripped her shield, watching Shuna from afar. The most likely escape route was now walled off by ice. Shuna would either have to expend more energy to go around, or… fight them.

She wouldn’t give Shuna a chance to retreat.

The next moment, without pause, Shuna looked up to see a Blazing Inferno descending upon her. From the glowing tip of a staff, it fell upon the ordinary street with the force of a natural disaster. It wasn’t the witch’s slow-casting, maximum-power ancient magic, but a fast, standard fire spell.

“Tch…”

Her path blocked, Shuna had no choice but to use a defensive spell to withstand the hit. After a barrage of magic, she managed to stand, her coat singed at the edges.

“The witch’s firepower is as annoying as ever…”

But…

Since these two were here, she instantly realized a third was present.

A blade flashed in the smoke.

While the other two relied on magic to attack from a distance, Treya had closed the gap with sheer speed. Using the smoke to obscure Shuna’s vision and the firepower to suppress her defensive magic… Treya was perfectly coordinated for a “one-hit kill.”

“Entark, Twenty-third Form.”

A swift, powerful black blade cut through the smoke. The sound of a weapon collision echoed through the street, but it wasn’t the sound of metal on metal. It was a sound Shuna had never heard before when her weapon clashed with another.

Shuna felt it—this swordswoman came with 300% killing intent—the extra 200% being the combined fury of her teammates.

Shuna’s shape-shifting shadow sword, now a long-handled blade, wouldn’t last long. And… she sensed it. This weapon, picked up from her dungeon, was an inferior choice against Treya.

With an upward flick, Treya’s demonic tendrils wrapped around Shuna’s weapon, causing it to lose its form.

“Damn it.”

Shuna tried to use her left hand and a standard ice armor enchantment to block, but then she remembered the important thing in her left hand.

The box she had just bought from a merchant who was preparing to leave!

Of course… the cheap box wasn’t important, but what was inside was.

To protect it, Shuna had to take the hit with her now-empty right hand.

Slash—

A cut appeared on her arm. It didn’t hurt much. She tried to use Treya’s momentum to throw her off balance. But Treya’s “battle IQ” was no longer inferior to hers. For instance, she wasn’t limited to just her “weapon.”

Shadows and tendrils shot out from under her feet, firmly grasping Shuna’s ankle. When Shuna tried to resist, she found her other foot frozen in place by Eir’s ice magic.

And… a second wave of Blazing Inferno rained down from the sky.

Boom.

With the explosion and even thicker smoke, Shuna, unable to dodge, lost her balance and fell.

“Cough… cough, cough…”

As the smoke cleared, she felt the heavy impact of her back hitting the ground. In her vision, she saw only her empty left hand, and at the end of her pointed fingers, the blue box lying there.

Terrible.

The box had slipped from her hand, rolled a few times, and opened.

“Where is Will?”

Treya’s sword was stabbed into the ground, just inches from her neck.

Huh?

Shuna was stunned. Then, she heard Leah and Eir’s footsteps. The other two stood beside her. A staff aimed at her eyes. A shield at her head. It looked like a scene straight out of a bullying manual.

“Right, where is Young Master!?”

“Will was last seen with you!”

Until just now, her reasoning had been that these three had tracked Will here, and upon seeing her, decided to team up and eliminate her out of personal grudges.

But… it seemed, just as Will had guessed, the three of them didn’t know where he had gone. It made sense; he had been extremely careful with his movements these past two weeks, especially in avoiding the royal family’s eyes.

Besides Carver, who had the dual intelligence of the dungeon and the Adventurer’s Guild, who else would know? In the end, Will had been so careful precisely so he could lure the person he wanted into his trap.

But if that was the case, why were these three… here?

Still, their arrival might be a good thing. The last task Will had “entrusted” to her could now be completed here, without having to go to the Adventurer’s Guild.

“You… you almost blew up this street, just… just to ask me this?”

“What else?”

Shuna supported herself with one hand, her other hand on her neck, pressed against the sword hilt to show her “compliance,” and slowly sat up. This surprise attack from the three of them was too much.

“It’s nothing. Rather than… where he went…”

She took a deep breath, looking at the scattered box, her eyes signaling the other three to look.

“That… is what he left for you.”

“Hmm?”

“Th-This is…”

Eir was the first to crouch down, her tail sweeping the dust on the ground. She seemed particularly careful, her eyes filled with disbelief, wanting to open the box, yet terrified to do so.

“W-Why… is the ring I gave him here?!”

But it was Leah who picked up the box and opened it first.

“This is… the collar Eir last gave him.”

“…The white earring.”

All three picked up the important items from the box. Shuna dusted herself off and stood up.

“Yes. This is what he left for you, and what he entrusted me to deliver before he left…”

Shuna spoke calmly.

But… to the three of them, this “calmness” was even more terrifying.

“Young Master… Young Master is dead, isn’t he?!”

“The incident just now, it was Will’s accident? We… we were a step too late…”

“You—why didn’t you save him!?”

“…Eh?”

Looking at their expressions—

Tears either already streaming down, or welling up in their eyes, or silently trickling from one eye.

All filled with “regret,” “reluctance,” “anger,” and… “pain.”

In short, it was “regret.”

–Will, is that what you mean?!

–You’re still trying to trick me in a place like this!?

Shuna finally understood why Will had acted like that when he gave her the box.