CH 41

Riggs was trying to stop people from reaching towards the cage, but he eventually gave up and took a step back.

Watching the beast from some distance away, Isabelle felt that something was strange.

‘Its breathing pattern changed.’

While it was sleeping, its chest was moving regularly as it breathed, but now it was going up and down irregularly.

It was a change that she wouldn’t have spotted had she not seen it from a distance.

‘It’s outwardly still calm, but its breathing became erratic… Is it pretending to be asleep?’

The monstrous beasts she had encountered so far moved on instinct.

Because they relied on their impulses, even civilians could capture them as long as they were well prepared and had traps set up.

However, this beast was apparently breathing erratically.

“Wait! There’s something wro— AH!”

The moment Isabelle tried to get people out of the way, the beast lunged forward.

They tried to run away, but as the beast let out an exhale through its nose, everyone who breathed this in instantly fell unconscious.

BAM!

As the beast threw itself into the cage bars with all its strength, the bars were torn away easily as though they were made out of paper. The beast stepped down onto the ground and shook itself immediately.

“No, but, what’s that…!”

“Has it been hiding that?”

Spores were falling off of the beast’s fur and were quickly spreading everywhere.

It turned its face this side and that several times, as if it was looking for something.

Its gaze, which was wandering about, finally stopped right towards Isabelle.

“Grrrr…”

“……”

With a deafening roar, the beast rushed straight at Isabelle.

It was several times larger than her, so she wouldn’t be able to avoid it easily. Right then, Lizzie drew a magic circle for a defensive barrier.

“Close your eyes, Isabelle.”

With a low voice, Riggs said this as he appeared in front of her.

Isabelle stared at Riggs’ back and paused for a moment, dazed.

At that moment, he grasped a shadow and a sword appeared from it, looking as if it was entirely made from the shadow itself.

The blade was longer than how tall most adult men were.

Riggs lifted it easily with just one hand and cut through the air.

Even though the beast had been cut by the huge sword, it rushed even more ferociously at them as though it didn’t feel any pain.

Then, just as the beast’s fangs were about to reach Riggs and Isabelle,

Slash—

The beast’s body had been split in half.

With its momentum, its left and right sides continued running forward for a moment, but both sides soon fell to the ground. Seeing the halved body, Isabelle was shocked speechless.

“What just…”

How sharp was the cut of the sword that the beast kept running without realizing that it had been split in half?

At this very moment, Ephelix Cardiago seemed like a god to her that she even felt frightened.

“Isabelle?”

“……”

Not expecting this reaction from her, Riggs was about to run towards Isabelle, but then a frantic shout broke out from the other side of the training grounds.

“T-The carriages from the southern nobles are coming this way right now!”

“If the poison hasn’t been purified from them yet…”

The southern nobles’ carriages had been stationed near the teleportation gate up until now, but then the beasts started gathering.

Each of them looked like small animals that were in the middle of mutating.

Just as the wild boar beast did, this new hoard of beasts rushed towards Isabelle.

Isabelle realized that they were after her.

‘Why me?’

She had looked into one of the wild boar’s eyes just before it died.

Its eye, which was proportionally big just like the rest of its body, quivered for a moment before it soon closed.

At that second, she felt pity for it.

It originally lived its life as a wild animal, but as soon as it caught the poison, it died as a beast.

‘Is that why it started attacking people?’

She didn’t have the power to read an animal’s mind.

And here, even if there was a hoard of beasts rushing towards her blindly, she felt sorry for them.

Isabelle decided to do whatever she could to fix this.

* * *

“Shit, I didn’t think that there were so many.”

Ian Ryzelin nervously stomped on a beast and conjured his power of purification, reaching everyone around him who had inhaled the noxious vapor before.

“Please don’t overdo it, Lord Ian!”

Just as he had been warned, Ian’s purification was already at its limit.

If he were to use more of his power here, he would start feeling faint.

But he couldn’t just let the beasts that came from the Ryzelin domain wreak havoc here in Cardiago.

At the oncoming sense of helplessness, Ian gritted his teeth and once again wielded his purification power.

“This…?”

Butterflies started fluttering towards the people who had been exposed to the noxious vapor.

As if possessed, Ian looked around him.

“……!”

Right then, he saw countless blue butterflies flapping their wings softly.

Wherever the butterflies passed by, the air became surprisingly pure.

When butterflies that had as deep of a blue color as this appeared, that meant only one thing.

“Goddess Isis…?”

Ian took a few steps forward through the noxious vapor.

The butterflies were coming out from an enormous magic circle.

‘I’m sure of it, that’s divine power. How can divine power purify as well?’

Ian thought that Roiqan was the one who made this magic circle, but the moment he looked towards who it really was, he froze in place.

This was because the one who had drawn this transcendental magic circle with the power of purification was Duchess Cardiago.

‘That woman, no way…’

Then, Ian clearly saw that the pupils of her eyes contained Isis’ stigmata.

Isabelle Pilsburg.

She should now be known by this new name.

* * *

As Isabelle summoned such a tremendous power to purify the surroundings all at once, Ian couldn’t take his eyes off her.

The obvious stigmata in her eyes and the overflowing divine power coming from her was not something that could be explained as her just being blessed by Isis. Right now, she was like the goddess herself.

‘Many people inhaled the noxious vapor, so this is fortunate. If it wasn’t for her, there would have been huge trouble.’

Ian was also very well informed about the Pilsburgs’ obsession with their lineage. He heard that these days, Roiqan, the emperor himself and other forces under Pilsburg’s command were snooping around Cardiago.

‘So there was a significant reason behind it after all. But if I could take that woman, then the Ryzelin domain’s problems would all be solved.’

Right now, all Ian could think about was the possibility that the enormous magic circle could also purify the noxious vapor plaguing the Ryzelin domain. If it was like that, then the beasts could also turn back to becoming normal animals.

Isabelle looked up at him with unreadable eyes. She was so exceptional that his younger sister, Iris, wouldn’t have been able to compare.

For less than a week, Duchess Cardiago had been able to show just how remarkable she was.

It became known that she was a noblewoman who was interested in political affairs, but Ian didn’t know that this was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to her capabilities.

‘Now is admittedly the perfect time to reveal the truth that she was blessed by Isis and was a direct descendant of Pilsburg. It would have been worth much more if she’s a man who has the right to inherit the throne.’

There were not many nobles who remained conscious due to the noxious vapor that the beasts had exhaled. However, there were still some people who were awake to take this all in.

Roiqan had already fainted due to the vapor. Meanwhile, in a crucial situation like this, another person who was from the direct lineage cleansed the entire area using the power of the goddess. There’s no choice but to acknowledge this stark contrast.

‘If he had been a member of Pilsburg who was blessed by Isis, the vapor shouldn’t have affected him.’

There was a complete difference when it came to just knowing about this power compared to seeing it with your own two eyes. Everyone here would remember this very well—that Isabelle Pilsburg was far more superior compared to Roiqan, who was from the indirect line.

Revealing her identity like this in front of many people was a move that ensured her own protection. And, at the same time, this made people doubt Roiqan’s legitimacy.

Right now, if she were to suddenly disappear or be killed, everyone would look towards only one place, and that’s towards House Pilsburg, which was blind to everything but the preservation of their own lineage.

‘So the new Madam of House Cardiago is the last of Pilsburg’s direct lineage. Things are becoming more and more fun. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m certain that this woman is going to be the center of everything.’

As one corner of Ian’s lips rose obliquely, he recalled the woman he had locked in the Ryzelin Castle’s cellar.