Sofia’s guess was that she had to at least kill the guy that had betrayed Aurelia, and maybe the rat that had been crying at his side too. Going so far as to kill them might even be unnecessary, but she had limited time, so straightforward solutions were better. She had other ideas like sitting on the throne, opening the treasury with the seal, or even completing a last revolutionary painting. Since the princess really liked her paints and brushes.
She hoped that it wasn’t actually to make a dumb painting, or she’d never get the rewards.
Reaching the capital shouldn’t take long. She didn’t even try to be discreet, she was going too fast for anyone on her path to see her as anything but a gray blur flashing across the land. With the country’s stronger Hero dead, there was no one who could stop her anymore.
I wonder if the others survived.
Finding the capital took her more time than expected. It turned out she didn’t know the country as well as she thought, and her high speed did nothing to prevent her from getting lost.
[Trial completion : Survive the solstice (9 hours remain)]
It was her first time actually seeing the royal palace from outside. It was quite impressive, and so was the capital city beside it, though it didn’t come close to Drakron or Einsen. How did such a big city even disappear? I've never even heard of anything being here. This whole region should be a forest in the real world. There was apparently a lot to learn about the Skyreach Kingdom’s past. A trip to the forest would be in order once she got back. If I manage to return there without a boat…
“I need to find whatshisname and his girl… uh Jevvin and Ellen? Well, it doesn't matter," she reflexively said out loud.
She had been crouching on top of a small stone house’s roof, her sudden talking had alerted a passerby. The walking large-bellied noble in his forties had barely glanced at her, he didn’t have time to scream before the shock caused him to faint and fall face first on the pavement.
“Come on now, I don’t look THAT bad.”
Seeing her own reflection in the lake for the first time had been disturbing but she thought her appearance quite graceful. In comparison with the distorted thing she had killed in the tower’s basement, she was a peerless beauty. Having no face isn't that big of a deal... Instead she had a mouth with a set of sharp teeth and twelve eyes all spread all over her head, no nose, no ears, nor anything else. Or I got too used to seeing weird shit… Well.
She would hit the palace at night, and if she couldn’t find the targets, she would go straight for the church next. In the meantime. I’m hungry.
Later that night, somewhere in the royal palace.
“This one fainted too! What kind of guard are those! This is what protects the king and his family?”
She had been searching the palace for a little while, but it was too large, and she had no idea where the ‘king’ might be. Presumably in his bedchamber somewhere, but who knew where that was? The original Aurelia would have known. Sofia had tried to get the information out of the guards or palace maids, but as soon as anyone saw her, they would invariably faint, before she could even try to communicate. Orvod and the duke had been fine, were these people just too low level to look at her?
Left with no other choice, she kept looking around, checking every corridor on every floor.
She ended up in a place that looked familiar, this was the section of the palace where Aurelia’s room was, it was a whole part that was more luxurious. This has to be the living quarters of the whole royal family. If he’s anywhere it’ll be around here. There’s more guards too. Said guards also all fainted at the sight of her, but their mere presence in greater numbers said a lot.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the blaring of a horn. Alarm? Let’s speed up.
Since they knew there was an intruder, she had to go fast. She wasn’t worried about the guards catching her, but she didn’t want Jevvin to flee, if he was even here. She entered the closest room. It was empty. Taking a few steps back, she then ran into the wall. The polished stone walls couldn’t stop her. This had to be the fastest way to check all the rooms, and so she ran in a straight line, giving a quick glance at the content of each room. She would burst through each room, and ended up outside. She had broken through the outer wall. A quick activation of [Regret] later, she was rampaging in another direction.
This place had many rooms, but most of them were empty, truly a waste. More horns were resounding now, whatever that meant. No matter, she kept running through the many rooms of the palace.
‘You have murdered [Jevvin Grandcourt - King lv. 99]’
Wait what?
She stopped in her tracks and checked the message again. There was no doubt, she had killed the guy, somehow. She backtracked through the last few rooms, and found out what happened. She entered a room that had previously been empty, or so she had thought. There were three armored knights in here now, but they had all collapsed on the spot upon her entry.
‘You have murdered [Billy - Squire lv. 36]’
But I’m not even running anymore! Oh. The knights. Well…
The ‘King’ was likely alerted by the horns, he had been behind a folding screen, putting on clothes, presumably in a hurry. He was hit square in the head by a stray stone block projected by her breaking through the wall.
Guy wouldn’t have survived Orvod for a second. Was all she thought as she observed the half naked dead man bleeding out on the floor. Job’s done, now the girl.
She thought about searching him for the royal seals, but ultimately didn’t bother. She couldn’t bring anything out of here anyway, and there wasn't that much time left.
Sofia ran through all the rooms in this section of the palace without finding her target. She paid more attention to details now, trying to spot rooms that looked occupied, or persons hiding, like behind folding screens. Yet her search was in vain as she could not locate her.
The only people she found were more and more guards, all fainting at the sight of her, three more even dying on the spot.
The system prompts revealed that this was not enough to complete the bonus task.
[Trial completion : Survive the solstice (4 hours remain)]
[Additional rewards task : Avenge Aurelia (Pending)]
I’ve got four hours to complete this… I should be in a hurry but I can’t feel any pressure after that last fight. If I don’t get it then I don’t get it.
Well, it would be nice to get it though. Time to raid the church I guess, can’t see where else she could be that I could find in so little time. I’d ask around for her location if everyone wasn’t collapsing whenever I came near.
The church’s main building in town had a high spire, looking exactly like the one that had presumably housed the Oracle back in the Holy-See. Even if the girl wasn’t there, maybe the heroes would be, they weren’t a danger anymore, but they might not faint near her, giving her more opportunities to gather information.
She crossed the hundreds of meters between the palace garden and the Church in a single jump, landing with an acrobatic roll on the blue tiled roof of the Church’s main building. She walked to a tower’s window and tried opening it, it was the kind that doesn’t open. Her nails cut through the glass like a hot knife through butter. It wasn’t exactly silent, but it still made much less noise than any other way she had to get in quickly.
The Church’s interior was silent and austere, it had the same atmosphere that the Holy See had at night. She rushed up the tower first, not finding much besides an imposing belfry at the top. There were many more towers, it would be inefficient to check them all, so she descended to the main building instead. The Church was a large T-shaped building, each branch three floors high, from one point of the T to the opposite, it was probably five hundred meters long. Towers sprouted from all sides and the roof.
Entering the main building, she was instantly faced with a group of three patrolling paladins.
Two of them collapsed, like many that day, but surprisingly, the oldest of the bunch stood strong, she was a mature woman with a scarred face, her golden paladin armor boasted a long blue cloak draped over her shoulder and side, completely hiding her left arm.
Sofia’s guess was that she had to at least kill the guy that had betrayed Aurelia, and maybe the rat that had been crying at his side too. Going so far as to kill them might even be unnecessary, but she had limited time, so straightforward solutions were better. She had other ideas like sitting on the throne, opening the treasury with the seal, or even completing a last revolutionary painting. Since the princess really liked her paints and brushes.
She hoped that it wasn’t actually to make a dumb painting, or she’d never get the rewards.
Reaching the capital shouldn’t take long. She didn’t even try to be discreet, she was going too fast for anyone on her path to see her as anything but a gray blur flashing across the land. With the country’s stronger Hero dead, there was no one who could stop her anymore.
I wonder if the others survived.
Finding the capital took her more time than expected. It turned out she didn’t know the country as well as she thought, and her high speed did nothing to prevent her from getting lost.
[Trial completion : Survive the solstice (9 hours remain)]
It was her first time actually seeing the royal palace from outside. It was quite impressive, and so was the capital city beside it, though it didn’t come close to Drakron or Einsen. How did such a big city even disappear? I've never even heard of anything being here. This whole region should be a forest in the real world. There was apparently a lot to learn about the Skyreach Kingdom’s past. A trip to the forest would be in order once she got back. If I manage to return there without a boat…
“I need to find whatshisname and his girl… uh Jevvin and Ellen? Well, it doesn't matter," she reflexively said out loud.
She had been crouching on top of a small stone house’s roof, her sudden talking had alerted a passerby. The walking large-bellied noble in his forties had barely glanced at her, he didn’t have time to scream before the shock caused him to faint and fall face first on the pavement.
“Come on now, I don’t look THAT bad.”
Seeing her own reflection in the lake for the first time had been disturbing but she thought her appearance quite graceful. In comparison with the distorted thing she had killed in the tower’s basement, she was a peerless beauty. Having no face isn't that big of a deal... Instead she had a mouth with a set of sharp teeth and twelve eyes all spread all over her head, no nose, no ears, nor anything else. Or I got too used to seeing weird shit… Well.
She would hit the palace at night, and if she couldn’t find the targets, she would go straight for the church next. In the meantime. I’m hungry.
Later that night, somewhere in the royal palace.
“This one fainted too! What kind of guard are those! This is what protects the king and his family?”
She had been searching the palace for a little while, but it was too large, and she had no idea where the ‘king’ might be. Presumably in his bedchamber somewhere, but who knew where that was? The original Aurelia would have known. Sofia had tried to get the information out of the guards or palace maids, but as soon as anyone saw her, they would invariably faint, before she could even try to communicate. Orvod and the duke had been fine, were these people just too low level to look at her?
Left with no other choice, she kept looking around, checking every corridor on every floor.
She ended up in a place that looked familiar, this was the section of the palace where Aurelia’s room was, it was a whole part that was more luxurious. This has to be the living quarters of the whole royal family. If he’s anywhere it’ll be around here. There’s more guards too. Said guards also all fainted at the sight of her, but their mere presence in greater numbers said a lot.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the blaring of a horn. Alarm? Let’s speed up.
Since they knew there was an intruder, she had to go fast. She wasn’t worried about the guards catching her, but she didn’t want Jevvin to flee, if he was even here. She entered the closest room. It was empty. Taking a few steps back, she then ran into the wall. The polished stone walls couldn’t stop her. This had to be the fastest way to check all the rooms, and so she ran in a straight line, giving a quick glance at the content of each room. She would burst through each room, and ended up outside. She had broken through the outer wall. A quick activation of [Regret] later, she was rampaging in another direction.
This place had many rooms, but most of them were empty, truly a waste. More horns were resounding now, whatever that meant. No matter, she kept running through the many rooms of the palace.
‘You have murdered [Jevvin Grandcourt - King lv. 99]’
Wait what?
She stopped in her tracks and checked the message again. There was no doubt, she had killed the guy, somehow. She backtracked through the last few rooms, and found out what happened. She entered a room that had previously been empty, or so she had thought. There were three armored knights in here now, but they had all collapsed on the spot upon her entry.
‘You have murdered [Billy - Squire lv. 36]’
But I’m not even running anymore! Oh. The knights. Well…
The ‘King’ was likely alerted by the horns, he had been behind a folding screen, putting on clothes, presumably in a hurry. He was hit square in the head by a stray stone block projected by her breaking through the wall.
Guy wouldn’t have survived Orvod for a second. Was all she thought as she observed the half naked dead man bleeding out on the floor. Job’s done, now the girl.
She thought about searching him for the royal seals, but ultimately didn’t bother. She couldn’t bring anything out of here anyway, and there wasn't that much time left.
Sofia ran through all the rooms in this section of the palace without finding her target. She paid more attention to details now, trying to spot rooms that looked occupied, or persons hiding, like behind folding screens. Yet her search was in vain as she could not locate her.
The only people she found were more and more guards, all fainting at the sight of her, three more even dying on the spot.
The system prompts revealed that this was not enough to complete the bonus task.
[Trial completion : Survive the solstice (4 hours remain)]
[Additional rewards task : Avenge Aurelia (Pending)]
I’ve got four hours to complete this… I should be in a hurry but I can’t feel any pressure after that last fight. If I don’t get it then I don’t get it.
Well, it would be nice to get it though. Time to raid the church I guess, can’t see where else she could be that I could find in so little time. I’d ask around for her location if everyone wasn’t collapsing whenever I came near.
The church’s main building in town had a high spire, looking exactly like the one that had presumably housed the Oracle back in the Holy-See. Even if the girl wasn’t there, maybe the heroes would be, they weren’t a danger anymore, but they might not faint near her, giving her more opportunities to gather information.
She crossed the hundreds of meters between the palace garden and the Church in a single jump, landing with an acrobatic roll on the blue tiled roof of the Church’s main building. She walked to a tower’s window and tried opening it, it was the kind that doesn’t open. Her nails cut through the glass like a hot knife through butter. It wasn’t exactly silent, but it still made much less noise than any other way she had to get in quickly.
The Church’s interior was silent and austere, it had the same atmosphere that the Holy See had at night. She rushed up the tower first, not finding much besides an imposing belfry at the top. There were many more towers, it would be inefficient to check them all, so she descended to the main building instead. The Church was a large T-shaped building, each branch three floors high, from one point of the T to the opposite, it was probably five hundred meters long. Towers sprouted from all sides and the roof.
Entering the main building, she was instantly faced with a group of three patrolling paladins.
Two of them collapsed, like many that day, but surprisingly, the oldest of the bunch stood strong, she was a mature woman with a scarred face, her golden paladin armor boasted a long blue cloak draped over her shoulder and side, completely hiding her left arm.
