The people in the room looked at Natalia with a questioning expression, not sure about why she said that, since her voice wasn’t high enough to go out of the room and the man in question wasn’t anywhere close. The only people keeping the same stone cold expression were Gregoria and her hooded escorts.

“Oh, you’re doing that thing from before. How do you do that?” Eden asked, curiosity on her face as she looked from one side to the other around Natalia.

Natalia however didn’t answer, leaving Eden to look around her armor while everyone else kept starting. A couple of minutes later, Marcus showed up at the office, his walk completely uncaring while his facial expression carried some annoyance.

“What do you want?” he said with a dismissive tone, not even bothering to look over at the weird people standing in the office.

“What happened with you and Eden last night?” Natalia asked.

Marcus stopped, turning to glare over at Eden, who was trying to avoid his eyes as she looked to the side. He turned to look at the people inside the office, with the Count carrying an anxious expression and Gregoria looking curiously at him, waiting for him to answer.

“The fuck?” was all he said.

“Sir Knight clearly doesn’t know what we’re talking about, this Chaerian is lying!” the guard captain quickly followed up, looking over at both Gregoria and the Count. “We should execute her right away, not only for her previous crimes, but also for lying to the Lord and the Inquisitors!”

“Huh?!” Marcus responded, quickly turning to look at the guard captain, who couldn’t help but take a step back. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“Why did you sleep with Eden last night?” Natalia asked, her look turning to a glare.

“Oh…” Marcus responded, nodding in realization before turning to look at Eden—at her cat-like ears in particular. “You ever feed a stray cat and end up with the little shit meowing at your door for five days?”

The people in the room now looked at Marcus with confusion, with Gregoria even changing her cold expression as she raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that’s what it was. Edeny showed up by my door, begging her to let her in ‘cus some fuckers were going to kill her or whatever at the restroom, so to not end up with her banging at my door all night I decided to just let her in as long as she wasn’t a bother and I gotta say,” Marcus glared as Eden kept avoiding his eyes, “I was about to throw her out the window.”

“I-I was just taking advantage of the opportunity to get some answers!” Eden desperately said, turning her eyes suddenly to Marcus’ waist. “And I was hoping you could…”

Marcus scoffed, crossing his arms as he looked down at her. “There’s no chance in hell I’m giving you the bullets.”

Eden didn’t say anything else as she just pouted, looking at the side of the room with some dejection. Natalia sighed after hearing them speak, but still didn’t forget about why they had been called here as she pointed at the guards while looking at Marcus.

“So you didn’t kill the two guards that went missing?” she asked.

“The fuck you’re talking about?” Marcus answered, carrying a confused expression on his face. “If I’d killed anyone last night, I wouldn’t bother lying about it. The only cunt I was about to strangle was Kenty, but luckily for him, he bolted out of the place fast.”

Gregoria kept staring at Marcus for a moment. Her light gray eyes almost glinting white as her cold expression turned soft with a small smile floating on her lips, but it faded just as fast as it showed up when the guard captain took a step forward.

“This foreign Knight is clearly lying and covering for her! I shall deal with her right now!” saying that, the captain pulled out his sword and started quickly moving in Eden’s direction, who only looked back with wide eyes.

“Captain! You shouldn’t—”

A quick and hard pull from Marcus on the guard-captain's neck cut the Count off as Marcus lifted the man up from the floor, looking him in the eyes as he strangled him. “You didn’t just fucking call me a liar, did you?”

The man struggled on Marcus’ grip, but it was far too strong. The captain decided in his desperation to swing his sword at Marcus, but from that position, all the sword did was clink against the armor, only making himself sway from the neck with each swing.

The Count was taken aback by this sudden action and Natalia stormed over next to Marcus, placing a hand on his arm. “Marcus, put him down. We’re in no position to be killing other country’s officials.”

Marcus scoffed in response. “I’ve killed plenty of our country’s officials. I’m sure nobody would care about this one.”

His grip strengthened and the man’s eyes went wide, his face turning red. Natalia was about to force Marcus down, however, a laugh coming from Gregoria made Marcus loose the grip and drop him to the floor, making everyone turn to look at her as the man coughed on the floor.

“Well this is quite interesting,” she said, a smirk floating on her lips as she looked at Marcus, who only looked back at her with one eyebrow raised.

The guard-captain coughed on the floor for a moment, before turning his eyes up to Marcus with a glare. Marcus felt this glare and simply turned to smirk at the man laying on the floor. His face scrunched up in anger by being looked down like this, so he took his weapon once again and started rushing forward to Marcus, ignoring Eden and everyone else standing in the room.

Marcus was preparing himself to receive the man in the short amount of time that the guard-captain took to stand up, with Natalia also preparing herself in case things got out of hand, but right then, Gregoria lifted her hand in the direction of the rushing captain and clenched it into a fist.

Her hand glowed for a fraction of a second with intense white light, and her eyes started burning with an intense white glow. From the floor and ceiling, white chains of light suddenly sprung up, catching the guard-captain from his limbs and his neck, lifting him up in the air—his body spread like a starfish.

The guard-captain struggled for a moment before turning to look at Gregoria with fear. “W-why are you doing this, Your Eminence?!”

Gregoria looked at him with the same glowing eyes that she had when she pulled him up. The smile on her face from before was replaced by a cold look. “I will not allow a wrongful judgment to pass in front of me, and you, captain, have judged poorly.”

“Oh!” Marcus exclaimed as he watched the man hanging midair. “Are you going to tear him apart now?”

Hearing that, Natalia frowned and turned to look over at Gregoria, who simply scoffed. “No, but I think I’ll keep him there for now.”

Marcus clicked his tongue, and Natalia eased her expression at that answer, however, the guard-captain turned to look at the Count instead. “M-My lord!”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I…” the count responded without confidence before turning to look sideways at Gregoria. “Is it possible to let this one slide?”

She closed her eyes—hiding the white glow in them as she did—and shook her head. “I’m afraid that you haven’t trained your guards well, so he’ll stay up there until I’m done here.”

“I see…” responded the Count before throwing a regretful expression at the guard captain.

“Oh don’t be so disappointed. Under other circumstances your guard-captain would suffer a far worse fate,” Gregoria continued, opening her eyes to look back up at the guard-captain for a moment, and then at everyone else standing in front of her. “I have deemed that the person responsible for your missing guards is not in this room.”

The Count raised his eyebrows slightly at her declaration. “Is that so? Then what could’ve happened to them?”

A laugh escaped from Gregoria, shaking her head as she did. “You jumped to the conclusion that that girl over there was the one responsible without doing a proper investigation. Without even having to use the Gods’ Eyes I could tell that she wasn’t responsible, however…” she stopped for a moment to look at both Natalia and Marcus, “I’ve found something quite interesting in the middle of this issue.”

“Us?” Natalia asked when she felt the woman’s sight on her.

“And I must agree. Quite interesting,” Marcus responded with a nod and a smirk on his face as he looked back at Gregoria.

“Oh!” Eden suddenly exclaimed, cutting the silence of the room when everyone else was just staring at each other. “I know! We can ask Kent or Thomas about this! They also saw me go into Marcus’ room.”

“Kent and my son…” the Count responded with a frown as he turned to look at Eden. “I don’t think that—”

“Find them for me,” Gregoria interrupted the Count, releasing the guard-captain in the process. The captain fell to the floor with a loud thump and turned to look up at Gregoria, who walked closer to him, her eyes still glowing. “And don’t cause any trouble while you do so.”

The man’s eyes went wide as he looked back at her glowing eyes before quickly nodding and standing back up. “Right away, Your Eminence!”

He left the room as fast as he could, and once outside, he started shouting orders at other guards, desperately asking them to find both Kent and Thomas.

* * *

A few minutes later, the guard-captain was already back at the office, his face covered in sweat as he tried to regain his breath. Standing next to him were both Kent and Thomas, with Kent looking cautiously at the group of inquisitors in front of him while Thomas looked questioningly at his father.

Gregoria looked at Kent for a moment longer than Thomas, and Kent couldn’t help but frown when looked at by this powerful woman. “Is there a problem, Your Eminence?”

“Yes!” Eden responded from the side, making everyone turn to look at her. “They said that I killed a couple of guards last night near the restroom, but I was in Marcus’ room last night! You saw me!”

“Ah,” Kent said with a nod before he turned to look back at Gregoria. “Yes, that is the case indeed, I did see her plead with Sir Marcus to let her into his room.”

A sigh escaped from the Count as he looked disappointedly to the floor. “Then I guess that we have to—”

“And about your missing guards,” Kent interjected before the Count could finish his sentence, “I was assaulted randomly last night when I went to the restroom. I assumed they were thieves or intruders that somehow sneaked into the fort, so I disposed of them myself.”

“What?!” exclaimed the guard-captain as he quickly turned to look at Kent, “How can this be?! My guards would never do that!”

Kent simply shrugged. “It is what happened. I’m sorry that it came down to that.”

“B-but—” the guard tried to argue, but found himself without having anything else to say as he looked at the cold expression on Gregoria’s face.

There was a slight white glint in her eyes that didn’t escape Kent’s notice while she was staring at him, but he still kept the same composed expression on his face that he would usually carry.

“What do you think, Your Eminence?” asked the Count when she didn’t say anything.

She chuckled and shook her head. “Yes, there you have your culprit.”

Eden sighed with relief when she heard the answer, letting go of the tension she had been carrying while placing a hand on her chest. The guard-captain frowned and turned his eyes on Kent, who didn’t seem to be that worried about the whole situation. While as for Marcus, he simply turned to smirk at Kent.

“I’m starting to like you, Kenty boy,” he said, which forced a wry smile on Kent.

Eventually, the guard-captain turned to look again at the Count. “What should we do then, my lord?”

“Well… since this was two of our guards I think the punishment for killing them should be—”

“Nothing,” Gregoria interrupted, making him turn to look at her in surprise. “This man here was simply defending himself from a couple of poorly trained guards.”

“But, Your Eminence, these are my guards! Killed in my fort!” the Count insisted.

A cold look from Gregoria was directed back at the Count, who couldn’t help but take a step backwards. “I’m being very lenient here, Mathias.”

“Then I guess that…” he pondered for a moment, avoiding Gregoria’s look. “We’ll leave it as it is,” he turned to the guard captain. “Please inform the family members—if they had any—about what happened, and make sure to compensate them for their loss.”

“No compensation,” Gregoria continued, making both the Count and the guard captain turn to look at her again, “They were killed while performing a criminal act, and as such, they and their families do not deserve anything. Our mercy should be more than enough.”

The Count tightened his lips for a moment before nodding. “I understand… then... just inform them.”

The guard-captain clicked his tongue, but didn’t respond to anything else as he slammed his foot on the ground. “It shall be done,” he said before turning around and leaving the office with a couple of other guards in tow.

The face of disappointment lingered on the Count’s face for a moment before it turned to a sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.

Seeing that whatever issue had happened was now over, Thomas finally decided to step forward and approach his father. “What happened here?”

“A couple of guards were killed last night by Kent when they—apparently—assaulted him last night in the restroom,” the Count responded with a shake of his head.

“Is that why Her Eminence Gregoria is here as well?” Thomas asked, now looking at the woman.

“No, I’m here on another business. I just happened to catch this event by chance,” she responded before the Count could.

Remembering now why Gregoria had come to his office, the Count snapped out of his disappointment and turned to look back at her. “Right! The Skeletal Grand Demon skull!”

“Well?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

“It’s being kept somewhere safe at the moment. Thomas can take you to it, and you can have it,” the Count said, turning to look at Thomas, “If you would escort Her Eminence and the Inquisitors.”

“I thought we were going to dispose of it with Kent’s help?” Thomas asked as he turned to look questioningly at his father.

“The Inquisitors demand it, and so we shall hand it over,” he simply answered, “Go on then, don’t keep her waiting.”

The look of confusion on Thomas’ face didn’t fade, but he still turned around to lead the Inquisitor group of the room. However, as they were walking out, Gregoria stopped for a moment, turning to look at both Natalia and Marcus, a half-smile floating on her face.

“I know your true nature…” she said as her eyes drifted from one to the other, making Natalia frown slightly and Marcus raise an eyebrow before she continued, “And I can see why you’re here.”

Silence took the room after Gregoria said that, with Natalia keeping her frown and Marcus throwing a questioning look back at the woman. Everyone else who looked felt the tension between these people, since the stone-faced Inquisitors behind Gregoria had also stopped and turned to stand behind her.

“Um…” Eden quietly mumbled, cutting the silence of the room as people turned to look at her. She was shifting on her spot, her legs closed together and rubbing each other. “Can I go now?”

“Ah, yes, yes. I think we’re done here,” the Count responded, after which Eden quickly rushed out of the room, nimbly passing by the Inquisitors and disappearing into the halls as fast as the wind.

Marcus laughed when he saw that. “I guess Edeny was pissing herself in a more literal sense.”

“Ugh,” the Count responded from behind, “I’m sorry about all of this, I hope you can enjoy the rest of your stay without any other… incident.”

Gregoria and her Inquisitors didn’t linger longer as they all left behind Thomas, while Marcus leisurely walked out of the office as well, leaving only Kent and Natalia inside.

“I’m truly sorry about the guards. If you wish, I can use some of the resources His Highness left for me to replace the missing ones,” Kent said towards the Count.

The Count quickly waved his hand in the air as he shook his head with a worried expression. “No, no, that’s not necessary, I’ll deal with it.”

“Then I shall take my leave as well,” Kent responded with a slight bow towards the Count before turning to Natalia. “We’ve still got a road to travel.”

With a slight nod, Natalia agreed and turned around to leave the room, being followed shortly after by Kent.

Another sigh escaped from the Count as he turned around and plopped on his chair. A few seconds later, he opened a drawer from his desk, pulled a bottle, opened it and severed himself a glass of the drink. He quickly downed it before relaxing once again on the chair.

“Ah… It’s always one thing after another…” he said to himself, before pouring another glass and putting the bottle away, leaving room for the paperwork he now had to fill.