'Where is the Duke!?'

After looking around, Clara could see an over forty-year-old, fat, bald man, comfortably seated in on a chair, drinking wine, eating, and conversing with nobles from the Lumiére's political wing. However, the leader of that faction, the Duke himself, was nowhere to be seen.

'Oh, no! Where are his guards!?' To make matters worse, the two guards who had accompanied the Lumiére were also missing.

'This is bad! What a blunder, I was too careless...'

The Duke had already shown his interest in Rina. That was why Clara had sent her maid away from the party venue. That way, the Duke would have no chance to make contact with her maid. She had never thought that he would actually sneak away.

But in the end, he did. For Clara, this was the worst-case scenario.

Unfortunately, as the star of today's celebration, Clara couldn't just leave now to make sure the Duke wasn't following Rina. So all she could do was to hope that the current thoughts swirling in her head, were her pessimism playing a prank on her, and that the Duke had only stepped out with his guards to freshen up in the powder room.

***

“Rina...”

Hearing her name called out in a familiar voice, Rina opened her eyes. In a dark void in front of her stood a blonde girl with curly, hair, who was at least a head taller than her. That girl had a sad expression on her face and was on the verge of crying.

“Rina... I went out of my way to be kind to you. I picked you up off the streets, fed you, gave you clothing, and even educated and trained you!” The girl started to cry.

“*sob* I did so much for you. So why? Tell me, Rina, why?... WHHYYYY!?” The crying expression twisted into one of rage, leaving no trace of the girl's once beautiful face.

“SO TELL ME, YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT! YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME? DON'T SHIT ON ME! IT'S NOT LOVE! YOU WOULD HAVE NEVER DONE THAT IF YOU WERE TO REALLY LOVE ME!!” After shouting these words, the blonde girl, Clara, closed her eyes, seemingly trying to calm down.

When she opened them again, she stared at Rina with her cold eyes.

“You know what? I regret... saving you that day. I should have left you to your fate back then.”

Now, the girl's mouth formed a terrifying grin, that made Rina tremble with fear.

“No, that's not it... I wish I had killed you with my own hands back then. I wish...”

But before Rina could hear the end of the blonde's sentence, her mind was pulled away, and she opened her eyes, this time for real.

“Oya? You're awake?”

Hearing a male-sounding voice, Rina tried to assess her current situation. She was lying on her back on a couch in a room that seemed familiar to her. She tried to stand up, or at least sit up, but it was to no avail. Neither of her limbs wanted to obey her.

Therefore she tried to remember what had happened in the first place to get her into this situation. Fortunately, it didn't take her long to recall that she had been attacked on her way to Clara's bedroom.

'Was I kidnapped!?' This was the only conclusion she could come to.

“Have you finished assessing your condition?”

The male voice prompted Rina to turn her head in the direction it came from. What she saw was a dandy, old man, sitting comfortably on a sofa with his hands resting on his crossed legs. She recognised him. He was the current Prime Minister of the Valkyria Kingdom, Duke Thalas Lumiére.

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Behind him stood three men. Two of them were the guards that Rina had seen accompanying the Duke and his son at the entrance. But since one of the two guards had a blood-soaked bandage around his right thigh, Rina didn't have to be a genius to guess that he was the assailant from earlier.

However, the presence of the third man behind the Duke could prove to be very troublesome for her mistress's family in the future.

“Sir... Arland...”

At the words that the red-haired girl managed to stutter despite her condition, Arland averted his gaze.

Seeing this, and realising that staying here would not end well for her and the Dragonherz family, Rina gathered all her Mana and formed a large magic seal underneath her to immobilise everyone in the room... or at least she tried to.

“Oh, oh, oh, what an energetic young girl we have here... It's useless. My servant has injected you with a poison that has two effects. The first is to paralyse you and the second is to temporarily seal your Mana.”

This statement shocked Rina to the core, even more than the fact that she was practically being kidnapped or poisoned. After all, she had learned from Fran, an expert on everything concerning magic and its uses, that it was impossible to seal one's Mana away. If it were really possible, it would be a game-changer when it came to fighting beings made of Mana. And according to Fran, most demon races were such beings.

'No, it's not the time to think about this right now... I have to get out of her as soon as possible!' Rina thought to herself as if to try to convince herself, that it was possible.

Unfortunately, as on Earth, with age mostly came wisdom and the experience of reading the minds of others. As both a Duke and the Prime Minister of a great kingdom, Thalas Lumiére had, needless to say, much of both. Guessing the thoughts of a young girl, especially one as expressive as Rina, was a child's play for him.

“Calm, down, little girl. I'm not going to bite.”

“... No, you sending your men to attack me demonstrated otherwise...” Rina had to muster all her courage to refute the Duke's words.

Unexpectedly, instead of being offended by Rina's rudeness towards him, the head of a ducal family, Thalas laughed out loud in amusement. “Ahahaha, you're brave, little girl. I like it. Well then, in recognition of your courage in talking back to me, I shall explain my actions to you... well, except that there was not much to explain in the first place... Your little mistress was guarding you like a precious treasure. There was no way I could talk to you like this if I approached you normally. That's right, I just want to have a little chat with you”

His explanation sounded extremely absurd and fishy to Rina, but since there was nothing she could do to validate it, she remained silent for now.

“But before that...” The Duke turned to his uninjured guard. “Bring her in!”

Following Thalas' order, the knight left the room through a door behind them and returned a few seconds later. This time, however, the guard was not alone, as a girl entered the room with him.

Rina estimated her to be around eleven or twelve years old, as she appeared to be slightly shorter than Clara, who was very tall for her age. The newcomer had brown, straight hair that barely reached over her shoulder plates. Like Rina, the girl also wore a maid uniform. That uniform, however, was clearly of a much higher quality than Rina's. But that was to be expected from a maid of a ducal house.

Apart from the brunette's well-formed face and slender frame, which showed signs of malnutrition, her black eyes stood out to Rina. After all, those eyes resembled Rina's in her former life, filled with hopelessness and despair. Seeing that, Rina could more or less guess, what life that girl had led until now.

Unaware of Rina's thoughts, Thalas took out a small vial of light-blue, transparent liquid and gave it to the girl.

“Do it.”

The girl nodded weakly at the command and walked over to Rina, who was still lying on her back on the couch.

Unfortunately, since Rina was still paralysed, she could only watch helplessly as the girl approached.

When the girl was finally beside Rina, she crouched down, opened the lid of the vial, and to Rina's surprise, drank its content.

But the redhead had no time to be shocked as the brunette's face suddenly drew closer until Rina felt something soft against her lips.

“!?!?”

Seeing the girl's closed eyes only a few centimetres away from her, Rina didn't have to be a genius to realise, that the soft, wet feeling on her lips, was the brunette's lips.

Rina's mind already went blank at that. But the other girl was not done yet, as Rina soon felt another soft and slimy object trying to open up her lips. And with Rina in full confusion mode, it wasn't long before her upper and lower lips parted. Then she felt a liquid flow from the older girl into Rina's mouth and soon down her throat.

Only after what felt like an eternity did the girl's face pull away from Rina's again. Shocked, Rina immediately sat up and slid to the other end of the couch to get as far away from the girl as possible. She then unconsciously brought her fingers to her lips as if to try to relive the feeling from earlier on them, all while staring at the brunette's lips.

Needless to say, Rina's facial colour matched her hair and eye colour at this point.

Furthermore, her brain was in full-on overheating mode. As a result, she didn't even realise that she could move her body again and that the liquid the girl had just forced her to drink was an antidote to the paralysing poison.

Rina even completely forgot about the situation she was in, with Duke Lumière, someone who was supposedly hostile to her mistress, sitting across from her, watching her every move with judging eyes.

After all, never in her life had she dared to dream of ever receiving a kiss, let alone one on the lips.

Once again, Rina glanced at the brunette who was still standing at the other end of the sofa.

For some reason, that girl seemed to be ten times more beautiful and a hundred times cuter than before. There was no way that Rina's face wouldn't heat up and that her heart wouldn't speed up.

After all, Rina had just received something from this girl, that she had never experienced before.

“So this is what a kiss feels like.”