Chapter 116 - Layla, Schemes

'Huh? There's someone?'

When she was about to take a seat, she inadvertently glanced at the door leading to her balcony as she felt a presence coming from there, however the next moment it was gone.

Deciding to deal with that later, she sat down and picked up the cup of tea placed on the table by the maid who had her head bowed.

The moment she brought the tea up to her lips, she noticed something that made her snap.

**CRACK

She clenched her fist and ended up shattering the glasses in her hands but she didn't care for it.

The maid she called who just walked into the room was scared upon seeing this but Layla was too enraged to care.

'Just because I haven't been home in a while, some fools grew a bit too arrogant huh?'

She took a deep breath and dropped the teacup before calling out to the maid who poured her the tea.

"You. What do you know about me?"

"Pardon my impudence but I don't follow."

"I mean I terms of special abilities, what ability do you know I have?"

The maid who still had her head bowed, replied with a shaky voice.

"Y-you are known to possess paralyzing magic eyes."

Layla stared at the maid in silence before motioning to the other one.

"Go to my accessories room and get any pair of glasses from the 3rd cupboard on the left."

The maid nodded and moved to the accessories room immediately, after a few moments, she came back out with a glasses case in her hands and presented it to Layla.

Layla took the glasses out of the case and out them on, she looked at the two maids in front of her and sighed in exasperation.

'I think I know who was there now.'

She pulled off the glasses and started speaking.

"I really don't know how you got the audacity, neither do I know who sent you.

I also don't care either. 

But did you really think you could walk out alive after daring to poison me?"

The moment she finished speaking, the maid who poured the tea attempted to dash towards her, however-

"Ugh!"

-she was unable to move.

'Impossible! I didn't meet her eyes.'

The 'maid' realized she could not move because she was paralyzed but did not know why she was. 

Seeing this Layla sighed once again and stretched her hand out.

A gun appeared in her hand as she pointed it towards the shocked 'maid'.

"Ahh!"

The second maid screamed lightly upon seeing the weapon. Layla ignored this and spoke to the shocked 'maid'.

"Inferior stage grandmaster huh? It seems those fools still underestimate me."

Her anger increased upon thinking about the people who she believed were the ones responsible for sending the 'maid' in front of her to poison her.

"Are you still surprised you cannot move? I'm sure you thought my magic eyes required eye contact right?"

Layla's paralyzing magic eyes, as their name implied, gave the ability to put someone in a state of paralysis just by looking at them.

She didn't use them much but when she did, she always looked into her target's eyes.

This made people have the misconception that her magic eyes relied on eye contact to work.

However, that was false.

To begin with, her eyes were not 'magic' eyes but 'mystic' eyes. A type of eyes that were more powerful than mere 'magic' eyes.

In order to paralyze her opponent, eye contact was not required.

As far as they were in her field of vision, they could be subjected to her mystic eyes at any time.

No one knew this, not even Arthur, someone who could be considered her best friend besides Nicole. Not even the woman who gave birth to her, her mother, Iberis.

'Only 'he' knows.'

The 'maid' believed her eyes required eye contact as such she had her head bowed so she would not meet Layla's eyes.

However, that action was futile as Layla was still able to paralyze her.

"Although I can't last long against superior stage grandmasters, I'm very capable of defeating intermediate stages, much less an Inferior stage like you."

She stood up and walked up to the 'maid' who had roused her energy and was trying to resist the paralysis.

Pointing the gun at her forehead, Layla heaved a sigh of exasperation before pulling the trigger.

**BANG!

Flesh, bone and brain matter scattered everywhere, Layla was also covered in a lot of blood but she didn't care.

She wordlessly turned to the other maid who had dropped to the floor and soiled herself out of fear before speaking.

"The crime of stealing from a noble is punishable by death depending on what is stolen.

You took something that was a gift given by the grand duchess to her daughter, I feel the court might have you tortured a bit before killing you eventually.

You should be grateful."

"P-please ha-."

**BANG!

She ignored the pleas of the maid and pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into the maid's forehead.

"That was a bit too much but she was gonna get killed anyway."

Layla dropped the gun on the floor and walked up to the maid's corpse.

"You should have at least kept it elsewhere, that way I might have taken longer to find it."

She pulled the inter spatial ring from the maid's finger and searched it, upon finding her necklace, she pulled it out and dropped the ring on the ground.

The salary of a servant working in the grand duke's estate was quite large. Large enough that a mere low level maid would be able to afford an inter spatial ring after working there for less than 6 months.

However, her greed led her to steal Layla's necklace that she noticed when she was sent to clean her jewelry room.

What she believed was the most inconspicuous and most plain of the thousands of jewelries turned out to be one that Layla treasured deeply.

All of her jewelry were marked with a unique magic power seal and the glasses in her 3rd cupboard were created to enable one to view the seal.

Upon wearing them and using them to look at anything marked with her unique magic power seal, the item and a small area around it appeared green in the wearer's vision.

It did not matter of the item was in a subspace or not. Of course, it was possible to fool the glasses but the maid was obviously not capable of doing that.

That is how she was able to tell that the maid was responsible for the theft.

She walked back to her jewelry room and placed the necklace in its rightful place.

Upon walking back to the main room, she looked at the door that Led to the balcony before speaking.

"You can come out now."

As she spoke, the door opened up to reveal a black haired green eyed man.

He stared at the two corpses on the floor wordlessly before walking up to Layla and patting her on the head.

"Why did you let them run free?"

"I wanted to be sure my daughter hadn't gone soft."

"Did I impress you?"

"Yes you did."

The man, the only one who knew the true nature of her eyes, Grand Duke Conrad Eryrth, replied to Layla's question before snapping his fingers.

Magic generated water, manipulated with jaw dropping skill, washed over Layla's body, cleaning all the blood and brain matter on her.

A moment later, the air turned warm as the water was forced out of her clothes in the form of steam.

Turning to the two corpses on the ground, he snapped his fingers once more and levitated them into the air.

All the blood, brain matter, flesh and bone burst into flames alongside the rest of the corpses, burning until there was nothing left of them, not even ashes.

All these happened in less than 2 minutes.

After making sure the bodies had been disposed of, he picked up the gun from the ground and placed it back in her hands.

"You did well."

"Thank you father."

Layla collected the gun and put it back into her inter spatial ring. She then looked at her father and asked.

"Was it 'them' again?"

"Yes, I was barely able to restrain your mother from going over to start a household war over it."

The 'them', the duo spoke about, were none other than Layla's cousins, the sons of Conrad's younger brother.

They were the ones who sent the 'maid' who poisoned Layla's tea. 

The reason why Layla's mother added 12 new maids was so that the 'maid' could be placed at her side, this was due to a request from Conrad who wanted to see of Layla would be able to see through the scheme.

They both didn't expect the 'maid' to be impatient and take action on the first day though.

"Do they really think that killing me would somehow make them eligible to become the next grand Duke?"