Duke's Daughter, Anny von Blohm, Russiva Imperial Year 782 Month 4, Day 22, Somewhere within the Unterwelt, Deutsche Empery

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During about the same time that Reichel was accusing Yuriko of cheating, a little girl had reached her own destination.

“So this is the place …” Anny said as she checked out the place.

The place had a fairly normal appearance, a single-floored house with normal features that made it have the distinct features of Deutsche architecture that one could see anywhere in Berilian.

What wasn’t normal though was the heavy duty steel door with more than 16 hinges, and a large ass lock underneath the doorknob which just screamed ‘screw intruders’.

To be frank, if it wasn’t for the fact that the outside was camoflagaued to look like wood, it would have looked like the door to some bank safe.

Which it kind of was, at least in terms of information because it also served both as the headquarters for a person who was planning to plunge the continent into war, as well as the workshop to the most influential, yet least known inventor alive.

Naturally, it was the house of Reichel Schwertspinne, genius extraordinaire, and your neighborhood friendly manslaughterer.

‘Deep breaths Anny, it’s not like she’d actually kill somebody for disturbing her … right?’

*bang*

*bang*

*bang*

No answer.

It was clear that there was nobody inside, and that the person that Anny was looking for was outside probably doing some errand.

‘A great opportunity …’

Anny put her hand on the cold steel doorknob, and then …

Chik!

“It’s locked …” Anny breathed a sigh.

Of course it was going to be locked, what kind of person spends so much to make such a hard door, and then forget to lock it when they leave?

‘Yup, Sister Reichel isn’t here, she must be doing something important like doing … normal hero things, let’s just go home then!’

“Is what a normal person would say …”

However!

“Ta-daaaaa!” Anny pulled a piece of metal out of her hair, and after looking around to make sure nobody was watching her, hastily jammed the little thing inside the lock, and turned it around, which unlocked the door.

Ka-chik!

‘Fufufufu,my my Sister Reichel, didn’t you perhaps not include the possibility that somebody might have forged a copy of your key just before your departure? Tsk tsk, you’re leaving yourself so open!’ Anny giggled as she put back the forged key underneath one of her hair ornaments.

It could have been much simpler if she used a hairpin, but Anny thought that using a hairpin was too uncouth, and instead spent days looking at Reichel’s key, memorizing all of its dimensions, before finally putting it on paper and then paying a local blacksmith to replicate it.

“Pardon the intrusion~~” Anny freely let herself in, as if she was the owner of the house.

It was clear that Anny had somewhat a communist way of thinking when it came to Reichel’s possessions, which was kind of understandable since her father mostly pays for everything both she and Reichel owns.

Sniffffff!

Anny smelt the atmosphere inside Reichel’s house, and oh boy, it smelt like …

‘Lemons? Well they provide a good fragrance so it’s understandable, I just don’t get what is it with Sister Reichel and her obsession with lemons …’ Anny thought, thinking that maybe her obsession with lemon-based products was going too far.

Anny then crept up to the nearest coffee table between two chairs, and then took another sniff at the two cups on it, which still had unfinished content.

‘This smells like lemon too …’ Anny stated.

Well, the yellow colour both the cups had inside them should have already made it obvious that it was in fact, lemonade inside both cups, but in fact she actually hoped it would be something else.

‘Like banana tea or something …’ Anny picked up one of the cups, and then drank a whole load of its contents, before throwing up the contents back to the cup in disgust.

‘Too sour! Isn’t this just pure lemon juice!?’ Anny said, looking disgusted as she put the cup of pure lemon extract, now combined with some of her saliva, back on top of the table.

*knock*

*knock*

*knock*

‘!?’

*shriiiiiiiiik* Anny walked over and opened the door near-instantly after hearing the knocking, thinking that Reichel had returned, somehow not taking into account that she was inside Reichel’s house, and that Reichel wouldn’t actually need to knock to enter her own property.

“Ah! Good evening!”

‘Who’s this weirdly dressed weirdo?’ Anny thought to herself as the more she looked at the man, the more she was weirded out by the almost-alien atmosphere he was giving out.

His eyes were slanted, his eyelids covered a bigger portion of his eyes compared to the local populace, and he wore clothes that clearly weren’t of the continent’s origin.

‘An oriental? What’s an oriental doing all the way here in Yuropa?’

It hasn’t actually been the first time that Anny had ever seen an oriental, since she was quite close with a child that belonged to the Sora family, a noble family line in Deutsche high society composed entirely of former oriental immigrants who journeyed from Kyuushu before ending up in the Deutsche Empery, deciding they would stay there, and integrate themselves in it’s military history.

Hell, even the former Grand Knight was an oriental from the Sora family.

But what was weird is that this oriental’s clothing seemed to be different from the type that the Sora family usually wore.

‘Must have been from another country, well, it doesn’t matter though.’

“Hello! Might I ask if this is the home of Reichel Schwertspinne?”

“Yeah it is, who’s asking?”

“Oh hahahaha, I’m just a neighbor from nearby, I just moved into the neighborhood yesterday, and I thought I’d just greet my new neig—”

“Yeah yeah, she’s not here at the moment, now what are you here for?” Anny decided she wasn’t going to listen to listen to any of the oriental man’s BS as she had more important things that required her utmost focus.

Namely, snooping around.

“Right right, of course, the Deutsche people are as efficient with their time as they say …” Han Xiao said as he half-heartedly laughed, obviously more surprised than annoyed at Anny’s surprising rudeness which was contradictory to her neat appearance.

“She’s not here, quite a shame, so could you give her this then?” Han Xiao said as he presented something that looked like a picnic basket with recently cooked goods inside, still fresh as seen from the steam that wafted through the cloth covering it’s top.

Which Anny suspiciously received, carefully inspecting each side.

She didn’t actually open it though, because she had outstanding respect for any gifts which were meant for Reichel.

Which was also kind of, in a way, very ironic, considering she had no problem committing a severe case of breaking-and-entering, sneakily invading Reichel’s home while she was away.

*sniff*

*sniff*

‘It smells like food, nothing wrong with food, right?’

‘It looks a bit iffy, but it’s just probably some exotic oriental food, Sister Reichel wouldn’t really mind it if it’s food right?’ Anny carefully weighed out whether the gift was going to be something Reichel would actually consider important or not.

‘Knowing her enormous appetite, she’d probably even eat raw goblin meat if she was probably too hungry, hahahaha …’ Anny joked with herself on that last bit, but there was somehow a part of her that actually believed what she thought, which unnerved her a bit.

“Alright, I’ll take this to her for you, auf wiedersehen!” Anny said as she turned around, basket in hand.

“And can you please tell her that I was sent by—”

BAM!

Anny shut the door on the weirdly dressed stranger’s face, without even giving a second look, left the basket on the table and then thought about how weird the man at the door earlier was.

‘Ah! I didn’t get his name!’ Anny snapped her fingers as she just remembered.

Anny then went back to the front door, to try and check if the stranger was still nearby, but that was until a little something hanging on a rack next to the door distracted her.

‘That’s …’ Anny instantly forgot about the stranger and shifted her focus to the interesting artifact she had laid her eyes on.

Except she couldn’t reach it.

So after getting a chair, she then jumped onto it and carefully observed it from up close.

‘This is … her field jacket? It doesn’t look like it’s been in much use though? No no, it makes sense!’

Though the military jacket that Reichel currently had didn’t have any visible deformities to it, it was only a normal decision that she had replaced her old uniform for another one, since the last one that she used was absolutely tore up at the shoulder area after a specific fight, and that the last one she had used had soaked in so much goblin blood that the smell actually started stick no matter how much she tried to clean it.

Anny herself understood that as well, though she may be somewhat of an idiot, she knows her things when it comes to Army things.

Which was understandable, since she had recently taken to skipping all the classes necessary for aristocracy in favour of more rough lessons.

‘Alright, that’s enough looking, it’s time for the real thing!’ Anny giggled excitedly as she put her hands on Reichel’s property, started lifting it, and then …

Bang!

Lost balance as she hit the floor, not expecting the ridiculous weight that the jacket possessed.

“That hurts …” Anny said as she comforted her bum, thankfully the catlike reflexes she had saved her from falling on her face, which again would have been quite disastrous.

‘That being said …’

‘Aren’t these too many knives!?’ Anny complained when she saw the sheer number of daggers, combat knives, and different variations of throwing knives from different origins spread throughout the floor as she dropped Reichel’s military jacket.

‘I should just be thankful that I wasn’t injured or anything …’ Anny breathed a sigh of relief as she miraculously saw zero cuts on her skin.

For a woman living in high society, there was nothing more nightmarish than receiving any sort of visible permanent wound, no matter where it was on the body.

It was also why Reichel didn’t make a lot of friends in higher places, despite her clear aesthetic beauty and grace, other than the constant debate of her actual position in the social hierarchy.

‘All because of some birth mark on her cheek …’

“Tch, the world can be so unfair to individuals sometimes …” Anny clicked her tongue, a clear implication on Reichel’s influence in her style of speech.

And although Anny was thinking about how the world was so unfair to her Sister Reichel, she also couldn’t help but think about how the world was so unfair to the rest of humanity.

‘Is it legal to even be that talented?’ Anny sighed when she thought about the ups that Reichel had.

She was pretty, smart, and talented.

Like, super talented.

If there was anything that she were missing, it was the fact that she had zero magic inside of her, and that she eats too much for a ‘proper’ lady.

“Sometimes I just wonder what actually seperates the aristocracy from the common people …” Anny said as she looked at a large vertically placed rectangular mirror.

‘How can I be like you?’ Anny looked and touched the mirror in front of her, trying to visualize her older self, just as great, if not even greater than the Reichel she admired so much.

“What would Sister Reichel say if she felt what I felt?”

‘She’d probably just work harder, right?’ Anny’s face lit up again out of nowhere.

“That’s right, I can’t let something like this hold me do—” Anny’s speech suddenly slurred at the end, when she noticed something off.

“Hmmm? What’s this?” Anny felt something in one of her inner breast pockets that hadn’t fallen when she initially dropped the jacket.

‘Let’s see what we have here …’

“Hmmm?”

An amulet which had all sorts of visually appealing details to it, along with mesmerizing mixes of colours from all sorts of rare materials interweaving and co-existing with each other to make a small centerpiece for a piece of jewelry that looked like it would be sold in the millions.

Threads of metal, stripes of gold, even gemstone chains which somehow made it look divine, also clearly meant that it was made by some sort of master-craftsman.

It was so aesthetically pleasing, along with the obsidian emblem of a spider on it’s center, that it even made Anny, who was influenced by Reichel’s attitude, think that it wasn’t just a waste of natural resources.

Anny would continue just admiring the unexpected piece she didn’t expect Reichel to have, if it wasn’t for one tiny problem.

‘Shit …’

The said amulet was broken.

In fact, it looked like it had exploded with multiple fragments of rare materials not even attached to it.

The fact that it had so much details and intricate patterns, as well as multiple materials smithed together in one piece made it so that it even had trouble holding itself.

It was clear that the amulet was going to break by itself someday anyways, considering that Reichel actually put it in her military jacket it actually meant that she planned to wear it into battle.

So it wasn’t Anny’s fault right? It just so happened by sheer coincidence that she managed to stumble upon it.

So in short, it really wasn’t Anny’s fault, right?

‘Wrong.’ Even Anny’s inner conscience answered that question by itself.

Anny hanged the military jacket back on the pole again, and one by one, picked up the several hidden weapons on the floor and hid them in the exact pockets where she saw them fall out, to the best of her short-term memory.

Though Reichel thought that Anny saw her as some sort of saint, she in fact knew that she was far from being reasonable especially if it was somebody who had actually provoked her.

‘Shit shit shit shit, I need to get out of here and find somebody to fix this!’ Anny emptied her coin puch and then put the fragments of the amulet inside it, in order to safeguard the pieces from getting lost.

Anny just knew how possessive Reichel was with her possessions.

There was even one time Reichel almost killed a maid by strangling her just because they thought some trash inside her guest room was actually trash.

Which was one of the reasons why Reichel moved out of the Blohm Estate, and ultimately one of the reasons why Anny should hurry up before her beloved Sister Reichel comes knocking through the door.

‘I need to hurry!’

But Anny’s fear was for the moment, unfounded, since there was no way that Reichel was actually going to come knocking at the door for the next few seconds.

Rather …

*BRANG!*

She crashed through it.

“Eeeek!” Anny let out a girlish shriek, as Reichel somehow came up with enough force to render the invicible-looking door’s durability completely useless, as shards of steel from the door lock flew everywhere.

And in just such a short span of time, Anny found herself staring confusedly at Reichel …

Who was also staring at her, with the same amount of confusion.